Pictures are via the Press Association

I wake up , yet again , to images of death and destruction.

But first moan - this is the second attempt to type this entry - and was nearly finished (a long-ish piece for me) and the system coughed and lost it. Boy am I "PIGGED OFF"

I am sat here watching the BBC news (I have watched the BBC for most of this crisis, I don't know why?. There are at least another 15 odd channels via Sky, but I end up watching good old "Auntie")

On the TV is, what they called a "live feed". There is a firefight, if that's the term, with US Marines trying to sort out a "Pocket of Resistance" in the port of Umm Qasr. Now, this frightens me. The fact that people are obviously fighting for their lives should be upsetting for anyone, but the more frightening thought to me is that these pictures are live. This is what is happening now. They have already said that several Iraqi troops have been killed. They have shown several Abrahams tanks moving around the field, Troops perched onto top of desert burns, looking down on the target buildings.

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It would appear that not all Iraqi troops have given up. A lot was made of how quickly Iraqi troops gave up last time. And, although some have surrendered, it is obvious that some are continuing the fight.

It seems that there are a lot of people missing and / or killed on the Allied side, and yet they have not been attacked by Iraqi troops. Several Helicopters have been downed, and now they are talking about an RAF aircraft that has failed to return to base, even though they know that it was on its way home.

I also find it strange that we seem to know, roughly, how many allied troops have been killed, but there is no mention , even approximately, of how many Iraqi's have been killed and wounded. From the pictures being shown live at the moment - I find it very hard not to believe that few Iraqi troops have been killed. The attacks this morning are, although sporadic, are very determined to remove these pockets of Iraqi resistance.

What do the Turkish think they are doing? What a bunch of idiots.

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The two sadness things that I have seen or heard so far (and this is, baring in mind, based on what we are allowed to know) are:

Listening to the story of a firefight in the "safe" port of Umm Gasr, knowing that there are ships,out in the Gulf, containing Humanitarian Aid that cannot get in.

and

Watching the pools of burning Oils surrounding Baghdad.

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Just a quick addition: The News has just reported that the missing RAF aircraft has actually been shot down by a US Patriot Missile. Although this is still a "possible" story - but here we go again. In The first Gulf War there was the incident where British Troops where killed by their own side, and it would appear it's happened again.

The point has already been made, the Patriot's are there as an air defense system, but the question raised is, why has this system responded when there are no reports of ANY Iraqi Aircraft in sky at all.