The voyage was tough, but at the end, viewers were assured, “all but four” of the merchant ships got through. Well, that sounds all right; you imagine a convoy of 20 or 30 ships at least But the newsreel does not say how many set out. The answer was six.In war propaganda, context is all, and the deceptions, if any, are likely to depend not on what is said but on what is left out. Probably the best clues are words designed to make figures sound big or small “Only” and “as many as” and “up to” should ring alarm bells.

If, for instance, you are told that British forces have taken as many as 5,000 Iraqi prisoners, that is meant to sound quite a lot. But Britain has three front-line brigades in the Iraqi theatre, each comprising about 3,000 men. If one brigade has taken 5,000 prisoners in one day, that may be quite good going. If the entire British contingent has taken only 5,000 prisoners in a week that looks bad.The two crucial indices of allied success in this war are the number of Iraqi prisoners and the number of allied dead. Nobody doubts that the American and British forces will prevail. The only doubt is whether they will prevail quickly and cheaply enough for the voters.

Perhaps the allies will simply motor into Baghdad to the cheers of the crowd. But if there is fighting and it is going well you will see and hear a steady stream of reports – almost daily – of Iraqis surrendering in their tens of thousands and allied soldiers being killed in mere dozens. If you are not hearing that, then maybe the serious fighting has not started yet, or things are going awry and we are not yet being told.. There cannot be many places in the world today more surreal than Baghdad.