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3,000 elite pundits thrust for Basra in search of speculation

A crack team of 3,000 elite pundits are poised to enter Iraq's second city of Basra under cover of nonsense, we can reveal.

The specially equipped witterers will each carry 200lbs of foreboding on their shoulders and have all been trained in counter-fact speculation.

Using the very latest technology — camera phones, mobile satellite equipment and paper — the regiment, made up of skilled US and UK professionals as well as regular snoops, will make a bee-line for hospitals and burnt-out buildings from where they will guide in television viewers for an all-out onslaught on reality.

The massive movement easily surpasses the previous Gulf War in 1991, when only 500 pundits made the treacherous journey.

Those there will have at hand only the information members of the public possess thousands of miles away in order to create elaborate and heart-rending tales of strength, struggle and heroism.

Each has sufficient rations of cliches to survive three days but observers warn that without raw facts or pictures of weeping mothers, they cannot be expected to survive long on air.

One screen-hardened pundit told us: "It's not an easy job but someone has to do it."

Many of them have been in training for months where they were taught to work with minimal facts and survive for up to 30 minutes through courageous guesswork and tough conjecture.

But despite such preparations, it is feared the casualty rate may be high, with as many as 50 per cent not expected to come back with an award. Nevertheless, these brave men and women are not afraid and will fearlessly report innuendo, propaganda and rumours in order to keep their careers alive.

"War is a terrible thing with terrible consequences," one pundit who wished to named told us. "But I'm ready to deal with it and with the new £100,000 contract that hopefully we will sign once this is all over."

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