Mission nearly accomplished ? Dubya bombs sand, again and again.

Yarmulke wearing President Bush visiting to Israel's Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, with Clintonesque tear laden eyes, told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that America should have bombed the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

"Twice, I saw tears well up in his eyes," said Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev.

In the memorial's visitors' book, the president wrote simply, "God bless Israel, George Bush."

Simultaneously he had unleashed U.S. warplanes in a massive air - strike on Sunni farmlands and citrus groves in Jabour, southeast of Baghdad. 40,000 pounds of High explosive JDAM explosives slammed suspected al-Qaida in Iraq safe havens in Sunni farmlands south of Baghdad in a thunderous 10-minute onslaught . Two 2 huge B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighters hit 40 targets in Arab Jabour in 10 strikes (no doubt "surgical" ones) starting at 8.00 am.

"Thirty-eight bombs were dropped within the first 10 minutes, with a total tonnage of 40,000 pounds," said a US spokesman , who evidently was counting ... but not the resultant dead. Bombing continued until Thursday evening.

Maj. Alayne Conway, a spokeswoman for troops in central Iraq jubilantly told the press that the ordnance dropped in 10 minutes nearly exceeded what had been used in that region in any month since last June and "was one of the largest airstrikes since the onset of the war" in March 2003.

After yesterday's thunderous air strikes on what are claimed to be important al-Qaida enclaves an Iraq officer said the soldiers discovered two houses used to torture kidnap victims and arrested at least 12 suspected insurgents.

The airstrikes began at 8 a.m. and set several orange groves ablaze and destroyed two houses used by gunmen. He said soldiers confiscated documents and weapons including AK-47s.

A military statement said two B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighters hit 40 targets in Arab Jabour in 10 strikes. Al-Qaida fighters are believed to control Arab Jabour, a Sunni district lined with citrus groves and dotted with small farms.

PS Alayne Conway has a small conterie of admirers - ...Spokeswoman Conway explained in August last year, to the Press that U.S.-led forces have not caught any of the Iranians, but she said military intelligence and recently discovered caches of weapons with Iranian markings on them indicate that the Iranians are there.

"Just because we're not finding them doesn't mean they're not there,"
Conway said.

Which (if memory serves) wasa line used previously about Saddam's notorious Weaposn of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney : Speech to VFW National ConventionAugust 26, 2002
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Ari Fleischer White House Press BriefingJanuary 9, 2003
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there. "

..and finally from the Commander in Chief

George W. Bush Address to the NationMarch 17, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. "

FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY AND THE PRESIDENT'S FIRST VISIT TO ISRAEL

Following his tearful visit to Yad Vashem, Bush visited two of Christianity's holiest sites. The first was Capernaum, where Jesus of Nazareth met five of his apostles after preaching , and the second was the Church of the Beatitudes near the Kinneret, on a hilltop where Jesus is believed to have given the Sermon on the Mount, outlining the basic tenets of the Christian faith.