Without a hint of irony, Edith Lederer of The Associated Press reported June 3 that "U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq."

		Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).

We've been told repeatedly by those on the Left -- which includes most journalists -- that Bush Lied! when he gave the danger posed by Saddam's WMD programs as one of the reasons for going to war with Iraq. Did the United Nations lie, too? Is it lying now? When did Karl Rove go to work for Kofi Annan?

Two themes have dominated media coverage of the war in Iraq: that the casus belli was illegitimate (which is why we hear so much about WMD that hasn't been found and so little about mass graves that have been found), and that the cause is hopeless.

Journalists constantly compare the war in Iraq to the Vietnam War. This may be because Vietnam is the only war with which they are familiar, the study of military history not being foremost on the agenda of most scribes. More likely it's because it suits their ideological purposes to compare Iraq to the only war America has ever lost.

Those who have studied military history think a more apt historical parallel is with the battle of Okinawa, which concluded 60 years ago this month.

Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. More than 12,000 Americans were killed (along with 101,000 Japanese soldiers and about 100,000 Okinawan civilians), and 38,000 wounded in two and a half months of fighting.

The first parallel between Okinawa then and Iraq today is that it was clear when the battle of Okinawa began on April 1st, 1945, that the U.S. would win World War II. It has been clear since the elections in January that the insurgents would lose in Iraq.

The second parallel, the emergence of the suicide bomber, is a proof of the first.

Okinawa was as bloody as it was chiefly because of the kamikaze pilots. Nearly 5,000 of the 12,000 American dead were sailors killed in kamikaze attacks.

The kamikaze behind the wheel of a car or truck has become the weapon of choice in Iraq, and -- as our media constantly remind us -- has created much carnage in the last two months.

The suicide bomber is a weapon of fanatics. But it is also a weapon of desperation. The Japanese were fanatical from Pearl Harbor on. But the kamikaze didn't make an appearance until Oct. 19, 1944, near the end of the battle of Leyte Gulf, which marked the effective destruction of the Japanese navy. The Japanese didn't turn to suicide bombers until defeat was staring them in the face.

Perhaps the silliest of the many silly things journalists have written about the war in Iraq is that the wave of suicide bombings is happening despite Iraqi/American offensives such as Operation Lightning in Baghdad. It is more likely that the increasingly indiscriminate bombings are a desperate effort to fend off destruction as the terrorists are flushed from their hiding places.

"The Iraqi insurgency is running out of tricks, and like a cornered rat it is fighting back furiously," wrote Gary Anderson, a retired Marine officer who has advised the Defense Department on Iraq in The Washington Post June 2. "The recent spate of suicide bombings ... has many commentators wringing their hands and wondering what is going wrong. In reality, the question might be: What is going right?"

By going after ever softer targets, Iraq's kamikazes have racked up an impressive body count, but are failing in their strategic purpose.

Amir Taheri notes the terrorists began with targeted attacks on American troops. But this failed to dislodge the Americans, and resulted in many insurgent deaths.

Then the terrorists attacked the Iraqi police and army, but these failed to stem recruitment or slow deployment of new units.

So the terrorists began indiscriminate attacks on Shiite civilians. But these failed to provoke a civil war.

Now they are attacking Sunni Arabs, obliterating in the process their base of support.

"The insurgents know how to kill, but they no longer know who to kill," Taheri said.