Thursday, March 20th

Snippets from today's Radio 5 coverage of the war and its opponents:

"They should not be bombing Iraq, they should be bombing Israel" - 'Peace' protester in Bradford

Tearful mother of Gulf soldier - "He never really wanted to join ..."
Simon Mayo - "How long has he been in the army ?"
TMOGS - "Eight years"

"I'm protesting about the fact that I live in a dictatorship" - schoolboy - sorry, student protester in London

Meanwhile at Fairford it was reported that peace camp activists were heavily outnumbered by planespotters - by mid afternoon there were more than 500, some with young children, watching the B52s being bombed up. Outside the perimeter fence armed Gloucestershire police patrolled, while inside machine gun posts were guarding the aircraft.