Plus: Michael Kelly remembered.

No Yoko: Kausfiles hears that, in the event, Yoko Ono did not turn up on the trip of N.Y. VIPs to Cuba (which has now taken place). ... Kausfiles gets results? Probably not. (I suspect it's more like 'Yoko has a brain.') But I will let you know more if I find out more. ... Update: I've now talked with Michael Holtzman of Brown Lloyd James, the outfit that put together what turned out to be a highly embarrassing "Executive Mission to Cuba." Holtzman says that Ono was "never on the trip" -- she was only extended a "notional invitation" by Cuba and wasn't ever a "confirmed participant" or even "scheduled to be" on the trip.  Hmmm. Then why did people who were on the trip expect her to be on the trip as late as the night beforethe trip? .... Holtzman also says there was "no meeting scheduled ever" with Fidel Castro because meeting with Castro "wasn't what this trip was about." Then why am I staring at an itinerary from Brown Lloyd James (complete with color photo of the Hotel Nacional) that has been circulated fairly widely in New York by the trip's participants -- and that has this as the final entry for April 11:

7pm: Dinner at a Plantation (President Castro invited)

Holtzman admits that you don't ever nail down a meeting with Cuba's maximum leader much more tightly than that -- Castro doesn't RSVP and confirm his planned attendance at such events. He's Castro! He just decides to meet or to not meet. (In a later version of the itinerary, I'm told, the dinner with Fidel was switched to a lunch.) .. Upshot: Was I born yesterday? My guess is that meeting with Castro was indeed "what this trip was about," but the anticipated meeting was scotched because somebody, on one side or the other, got embarrassed (or outraged). Kausfiles (and, more importantly, the WSJ) may have gotten some results after all. .... 5:20 P.M.

Loot, loot, loot for the home team: WaPo's Anthony Shadid describes how Shiite clerics are moving to fill the void left by U.S. forces' failure to establish order in the wake of their ouster of Saddam Hussein. Maybe this sponataneous governance is what Donald Rumsfeld has in mind when he talks about Iraqis deciding for themselves how they want to be governed -- and I'm not being snide. There's nothing inherent in government-by-imam that would necessarily produce terrorism or otherwise be horribly inimical to U.S. interests, and it has the virtue of being home-grown rather than imposed by us. But a) power in this situation goes at least in part to the men with the guns; b) remember the Taliban? c) wasn't there some fancy theory about how separation of church and state was the key to modernization? -- and d) the following comments by one of the warlord/clerics should at least temper any hawkish triumphalism that would have Americans being actively embraced by Iraq's oppressed Shiites:

"The Americans asked to talk to me, but I refused," [Sayyid Sadeq] Aalaq said, sitting in an office at the mosque. Overhead was a portrait of Ali, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law whom Shiites believe was his rightful heir. "If I met with them, my popularity would collapse."

P.S.: The most interesting thing I've heard about our failure to prevent a period of anarchy and looting after Saddam's fall was WaPo reporter Dana Priest's suggestion, on Washington Week in Review, that the failure wasn't simply the consequence of having too few troops in Iraq. Rather, Priest said, the failure was intentional-- that Washington anticipated and wanted a period of anarchy in which local Iraqis would kill Saddam loyalists without us having to take responsibility for it. But is that what happened? My impression is that the looting, especially of the National Museum of Antiquities, has badly (and rightly) damaged our reputation. But I haven't heard about lots of Baath party thugs being strung up. Maybe we're just not being told about it. Or maybe the post-Saddam anarchy was a screw-up after all -- just a different kind of screw-up. ...

P.P.S.: Yes, this is the first time in my adult life that I can remember actually hearing something suprising, interesting, and important on Washington Week. Note to WETA: See that this doesn't happen again. ...

Update:  In WaPo, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith denies vigilantism is "something we want to happen," but Bush defense adviser Richard Perle doesn't seem too unhappy about it. Jonathan Weisman's story reports:

Months before the invasion of Iraq, Pentagon war planners anticipated the fall of Saddam Hussein would usher in a period of chaos and lawlessness, but for military reasons, they chose to field a light, fleet invasion force that could not hope to quell such unrest when it emerged, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

In other words, If Rumsfeld is going to take credit for the military success of his decision to go in "light," he also has to take criticism for the civic downside of that decision -- the current period of semi-anarchy. Which might explain why he's been somewhat testy on the subject. ... 2:19 A.M.