From Scott Pelley’s 60 Minutes interview with with Bob Woodward about “The War Within,” Woodward’s fourth insider account from the Bush White House:

“This is very sensitive and very top secret, but there are secret operational capabilities that have been developed by the military to locate, target, and kill leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders. That is one of the true breakthroughs,” Woodward told Pelley.

“Do you mean to say that this special capability is such an advance in military technique and technology that it reminds you of the advent of the tank and the airplane?” Pelley asked.

“Yeah,” Woodward said. “If you were an al Qaeda leader or part of the insurgency in Iraq, or one of these renegade militias, and you knew about what they were able to do, you’d get your ass outta town.”

WTF. If this were anybody but Bob Woodward, I’d say yeah, right. If I had to guess I’d say it is some kind of quantum mechanical weapon. All you need is a photo of the target and the weapon punches through space/time and … zap! You read it first (unless you’re Bob Woodward)

Watched the first installment of the new HBO mini-series, Generation Kill last night. Had very high expectations for this series because it was written and produced by the same team that gave us The Wire. I was disappointed. I thought much of the dialogue was lame. And I was bothered by what felt like ham-handed anti-war propaganda. On a deeper level, I hope it was propaganda. Because the alternative is pretty scary. I think I have to watch the entire series before forming an opinion.

[Quick Google search]

From SeattlePI.com: Perhaps the acid test was last Wednesday night on the eve of HBO’s presentation to TV critics at the ongoing press tour.  The producers and cast screened part of the miniseries for several hundred Marines at the Southern California base of Camp Pendleton.

Technical adviser Eric Kocher, who served in the First Recon Battalion and appears on screen in the miniseries, said what he heard most often was that “the dialogue is excellent. It hits exactly the way Marines talk, and then the atmosphere is visually what you see, what you hear in the background. Everything is it. It hits Iraq.”

Well, there you go. I think maybe I expected some kind of Band of Brothers/The Wire mash-up. Different war, different time, different part of the world.

“In the history of filmmaking, there is only one movie that Marines like, and that’s the first 20 minutes of Full Metal Jacket,” Sgt. Eric Kocher says, slicing into a medium-rare steak in a midtown New York restaurant. “After that, it all goes to shit.”

A veteran of the Iraq invasion in 2003, Kocher is a muscular 28-year-old with an intense stare and the word psycho tattooed inside his lower lip. For the past year, he has served as the senior military adviser on Generation Kill, a seven-episode miniseries about the early days of the Iraq war that premieres on HBO July 13th at 9 p.m. Based on the book of the same name (which began as an award-winning series of articles by journalist Evan Wright in Rolling Stone), Kill follows the Marines of 1st Recon, who were at the vanguard of the American invasion in 2003, blitzing ahead of the U.S. forces in Humvees. A team leader on the real mission, Kocher was there to make sure the filmmakers stayed true to the story. “If Eric hadn’t been there, it would have been Generation Lame,” says Wright. “He forced an authentic point of view.” [Rolling Stone]

You know I loved The Wire. Probably best series ever. And Band of Brothers gets my vote for best mini-series of all time. We won’t be taking evening calls for those seven nights.