Everything is always a "victory" for President Saddam Hussein. So for Baghdad newspapers, "the heroism displayed by the Iraqis, under Mr Saddam's leadership, in confronting the warplanes of the tyrants" was as glorious as the diplomatic triumph he scored when he narrowly averted the onslaught in November.
It is a fundamental part of Saddam's credo, frequently enunciated, that, despite the vast imbalance of forces involved, he is bound to emerge triumphant in the end, and that any blow that does not kill him actually strengthens him. By that criterion, he can lay claim to political, psychological and diplomatic gains. They are clear for all to see. But - less visibly - he has also paid a very heavy price in damage to his military and security apparatus.
The primary, official Anglo-American war aim was to "degrade" his weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but, from the outset, the targets went well beyond mere WMD production sites or hiding places to include those key institutions, such as the 80,000-strong Republican Guards, which are the sine qua non of Mr Saddam's survival.
According to Iraqi opposition sources, the US and Britain struck these institutions not merely to weaken the regime, but because they had word that a military putsch was in the making. This was to have been led by a force - the Third Division of the Second Armoured Corps - located at Jalawala, 120 km north of Bagdhad. That is why they struck so quickly and why, on the first night, they concentrated on military and secret police positions between there and Baghdad, in a bid to clear the way for the putschists' advance on the capital. But - as usual - Mr Saddam got wind of the attempt and it was foiled.
It was only after this failure that the attack was broadened to cover most of the country. Summing up the damage, an opposition expert said: "They actually did more real damage, to what really matters, in 70 hours than they did in the whole of the Gulf war". He attributed this to the kind of accurate information - accumulated from surveillance, defectors and the UN inspectors - which had been lacking in 1991.
The attacks focussed on armoured and mechanised forces of the Republican Guards, as well as the 16,000-strong Special Republic Guards, entrusted with the protection of Saddam and his family, and the Special Security Organisation (SSO). "They could not hide their tanks," said the expert, "and we reckon that anything up to 45 per cent of them have been destroyed."
The headquarters of various intelligence organisations, including all 12 buildings of the SSO, were hit. On the first night, many personnel were still in them. "Casualties should be reckoned in the thousands, not hundreds," the source says.
Having survived the blow, Mr Saddam will move as fast as he can to repair the damage. He will be helped in this, the opposition say, by the new political and diplomatic climate the military campaign has created, seen as more favourable to him than his enemies.
The opposition casts serious doubt on Western claims - such as that made by Mr Blair - that Mr Saddam's WMD programme has been set back "years". Not long ago, President Clinton himself conceded that the UN arms inspectors "did more to eliminate Iraq's WMD than 110,000 airstrikes during the Gulf war". Now there might be no UNSCOM at all.