Some have complained about the BBC's coverage of the war (even me), though for the most part I've given them the benefit of the doubt.

But yesterday evening I was watching a report from an embedded BBC reporter talking about fights along one of the roads to Baghdad, and his interpretation of events was simply too ludicrous to ignore.

Unfortunately I don't remember the reporter's name or the unit he was embedded in, but they were driving up a road to Baghdad, and he said that he'd counted nearly 70 burned out Iraqi vehicles along the way.

At one point along the road, there was a video shot of about fifteen Iraqi civilians, sitting on their haunches by the side of the road, and most of them had one arm raised to the tank column, palm outward.

The reporter said something very close to:

And along the road to Baghdad, Iraqi civilians cowered in fear, arms raised in a show of supplication to the advancing forces.

Huh? It sure looked to me as if they were waving.

If they were frightened out of their minds, what the hell were they doing by the side of the road? Why didn't they run further inland? And if you were raising your arms in an apparent sign of surrender or disarmament, wouldn't you raise both arms, and not just one?

I honestly couldn't believe the mismatch between the actual images and the interpretation of the reporter.

Insane.