The human shields are suffering severe attrition in the Balkans and Turkey, from lack of funds, unity and leadership. Some choice bits, for those who don’t want to register for the Times of London:

The rows started almost as soon as the group left London a fortnight ago, with arguments over which routes to take. A black bus owned by Ken Nichols O?Keefe, 33, a tattooed former US marine and Gulf war veteran, and full of young firebrands, drove through Germany ? with a sightseeing stop-off at Dachau concentration camp ? to Italy even though the vehicle was too tall for the Alpine tunnels and scraped its roof.

Another bus, one of the lumbering Routemasters owned by Letts, drove through France and waited for Nichols O?Keefe in Milan.

The tension was compounded when a group of Italian peace campaigners in designer clothes joined the Britons, many of whom are elderly activists wearing hippie-style clothes and cooking lentils aboard the buses.

Lentils, eh? Hmmm…are they plotting a little gas warfare of their own?

Instead of heading towards their objective, the peaceniks took a detour to Rome last Sunday for sightseeing.

In addition to taking detours on the excellent adventure, some of the cadres are insufficiently worshipful of their supreme leader.

Most of them eventually caught a ferry to Greece, but Nichols O?Keefe and a handful of others stayed behind with a stricken bus before flying to join the others. He was promptly detained in Istanbul and deported back to Italy.

He has angered other peaceniks by planning to meet Saddam on his arrival in Baghdad. At least five have returned home rather than deal with him and a Welsh couple have set out to reach the Iraqi capital on their own.

?People have got so fed up with him that they have dropped out,? said Letts. Nichols O?Keefe was dubbed ?the messiah? and ?Gandhi? by his less-than- enthusiastic fellow travellers. He had warned them any breakdowns ?would be the work of the CIA?.

Ahhh…the psyops is working.

He is being held this weekend in an Italian jail and is facing deportation to the United States. His mother, Pat, who is continuing on the journey to Baghdad, said: ?That would be the very worst outcome. It would be a disaster for him.?

Yes, and a tragedy for the burgeoning peace movement as well.

Hilarious.

Many participants are concerned they will run short of money and are unhappy at the prospect of a compulsory HIV test on the Iraqi border, about which they were not warned until this weekend.

?We are buying our own hypodermic syringes?, said Williams. ?They could just as easily give you HIV with the needles in Iraq.?

Yes, American smart bombs are one thing, but they didn’t think they’d have to face those brutal Iraqi needles…