Like all my blogs, this is a work in progress. I have many many thousands of pages of writings, articles and archived material from the past ten years which currently reside on hard drives and in boxes. My intention is to get all of this onto this blog in some form or other over the next few years.
Any entires that start looking rather good will be promoted to my main blog, Just Say Noam, and Twittered to death.
Until that day - please watch this space. Or not....

2003: New Vietnam


“US planners surely do hope to bring peace, but so does everyone; even Hitler hoped to establish peace. The question always is: on what terms?” CHOMSKY

January 2003

White House Leak
“The Ashcroft Justice Department is handling the investigation into precisely who at the White House leaked an undercover CIA agent’s name to the press” – Independent 04/01/03
“Karl Rove, the president’s most influential advisor and architect of the ‘get out the God vote’ strategy for 2004” is “presumed by many to be at the eye of the storm”. He masterminded the 2000 presidential victory and was paid consultant on both of Ashcroft’s gubernatorial campaign in the 1980s and senate race in 2004. Ashcroft wanted to run the investigation but couldn’t as it would be seen as too much of a conflict of interests.

“The US department of energy announced [at the beginning of January 2003] that by 2025, US oil imports will account for perhaps 70% of total US domestic demand.” [it was 55% in 2001]
“As Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute put it bleakly this week, ‘US oil deposits are increasingly depleted, and other non-OPEC fields are beginning to run dry. The bulk of future supplies will have to come from Gulf region.”
No wonder the whole Bush energy policy is based on the increasing consumption of oil. Some 70% of the world’s proven oil reserves are in the Middle East. And this forthcoming war isn’t about oil? ” Robert Fisk.
Bush waived section 907 of the Freedom support Act in favour of Azaerbaijan. See worse than Watergate pp 45 – 47 – cheney’s friendship with Aliyev an

Jeremy Rifkin in “Hyrdogen Economy” looked at ratio of reserve oil to oil production. In the US over 60% of recoverable oil has already been produced. The ratio is just 10 years, as it is in Norway. In Canada it is 8:1. In Iran 53:1, S.Arabia 55:1, United Arab Emirates 75:1, Kuwait 116:1, Iraq 526:1. Robert Fisk, Indie

Attack Iraq –it is suffering from attacks and sanctions…
It was a time of enlightenment for many – for the first time becoming aware of the level of dishonesty, corruption, and support for violence, at the heart of Western Democracies. It was a privilege that the people of the United States, UK & Spain were able to share: being lied to repeatedly by their elected leaders.
 “Having survived the 1991 Gulf War, SH’s grip on Iraq has since been reinforced by one of the most ruthless blockades in modern times, policed by his former amours and arms suppliers in Washington and London.” PILGER
Iraq, “completely defenceless, having been reduced to the edge of survival by a decade of murderous sanctions…this followed brutal and destructive wars and horrendous internal terror, most of it with the backing of the US and Britain, including those now running Washington. By the time of the invasion Iraq was one of the weakest states of the region with military expenditure about 1/3 those of tiny Kuwait and far below US allies in the region.” CHOMSKY
Effectively, Iraq had been under siege – that mediaeval form of attack, designed to bring a city to its knees, this time applied to a whole country. There were platitudes about the suffering of poor Iraqis although fewacknowledged that most of that suffering was caused by the sanctions. Mohamed Heikal, Egyptian writer said “they are helping the regime…sanctions make people dependent on the regime for the distribution of food.”

January 6th – a “deadly poison” discovered in a London flat led to raids in Manchester – a policeman is killed 06/01/03.
Four people equipped with explosives blow themselves up and 33 others at Jewish, Spanish and Belgian sites in Casablanca. Check date

On January 16th the UN weapons inspectors found 12 war heads designed to carry chemical weapons and believed not accounted for in Iraq’s submission to the UN. Iraq was immediately accused of “not fully cooperating” – it was the sort of thing Bliar and Bush had been waiting for – while the public were reminded that Iraq was the “size of France” and inspectors were not in the business of playing “hide and seek”.
“the UN inspectors have found what might be the vital evidence to go to war: eleven empty chemical warheads that just may be twenty years old” Robert Fisk, 18th January 2003

There was an attempt to encourage Saddam out of Iraq - a Saudi plan. On January 18th an offer was made to allow Saddam a chance to go into exile and on the January 19th the US offered Saddam immunity from prosecution if his departure would avert war.

In his state of the union address Dubya claimed that Iraq was trying to procure uranium from Niger to produce fissionable material for nuclear weapon (never found). Senior officials admitted the intelligence was unsound, and it has subsequently emerged that US officials knew the claim was based on forged documents a year ealier, although British intelligence made the same claim on the basis of ‘independent’ intelligence to the fake documents, it has never explained what that as. Observer 1st Feb 2005
The same claim was also made in the September Dossier. 



February 2003
In an attempt to suitably scare the American public shitless Bush said during February 2003 that Iraq had developed unmanned drones capable of spraying biological or chemical weapons which could be launched at sea against the US – national intelligence estimate.
USAF intelligence said the drones were not intended for germ warfare but for reconnaissance, in a report published 6 months later.
Observer 1st Feb 2004.

February 1st at another press conference, Bliar said, “We know that these terrorist networks would use any means that they can to cause maximum death and they will do whatever they can to acquire the most deadly weapons they can, and that is why it is important to deal with these issues together.” Failing to explain exactly why this is relevant, and what it has to do with Iraq. However he was quite happy to leave it hanging as an implied threat, designed to produce terror amongst members of the public.
On February 3rd in the House of Commons, Bliar claimed that facilities formerly used for biological weapons have been rebuilt. That Saddam was trying to recover mobile biological weapons facilities. He claimed that present intelligence confirms that it now has such facilities.

February 5th Powell used satellite pictures and tapes of intercepted conversations and newly opened CIA files to make the US case against Iraq. And the whole thing was totally phoney.
Powell made the claim that Iraq possesses 100 to 500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents (never found); Iraq has hidden warheads containing ‘biological warfare agent…in large groves of palm trees (never found); Iraq possesses a hidden factory equipped with thousands of certificates (centrifuges?) to make fissionable material for nuclear weapons (never found).”
Iraq possesses at least 7 mobile laboratories for producing biological warfare agents (never found). Observer 1st February 2004.
White House continued trying to stitch together the “link” between Saddam and al Quaida. In the public mind at least. Powell addressed the UNSC on the 5th of February and claimed Zarquai was Ansar al-Islam and in North Iraq. Fisk thought that Zarqaui was involved in an attack on Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.
Phoney satellite pictures on Feb 5th.

Meanwhile the UN Inspector team was trying to do their job.

Blair was trying to reassure the public and MPs that war was not inevitable and that he desired a peaceful outcome. This was undermined not only by the preset plans that had been hatched in 2002, but also by the fact that the UK had already sent a naval task force to the Gulf with 3000 marines on January 11th, and 30,000 ground troops to the Gulf region on 20th January, and on February 6th, Hoon announced around 100 aircraft and 7000 RAF personnel to be deployed in Iraq. This made war all the more likely as it would be difficult and expensive to keep a force of that size in the region indefinitely – they were clearly intended to act fairly soon.
Blair on Newsnight that evening - “I have never said Iraq is about to launch an attack on Britain”, something Bliar had clearly implied, “but there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is a threat to his region” –.

On February 7th UK government admitted its dossier  was a load of bollox. Lifted from academic sources and compiled by mid-level officials in Campbell’s Downing Street Communications Department.
It wasn’t enough for Washington to tell lies, and to fix intelligent reports; it was necessary, for PR purposes, that independent experts also support the Washington view. The power of the state was brought to bear on these individuals to make sure they didn’t speak out of line.
Bliar promised Blix more time and said GB would accept his word on whether Iraq is fully co-operating with the inspections. Bliar said it would be for Blix to say if Iraq were cooperative, but for the SC as a whole to decide if this was a material breach. It was, of course, a complete lie.
Butler – brought in after the invasion to find the evidence for WMDs, in May, said that the US had “trashed the UNSC trying to get it to support war in Iraq and that under International Law that invasion is “plainly illegal”. This was someone brought in because he supported case against Saddam!

Bliar’s false promise of a second resolution helped distracted attention in the UK from the real issue, that an attack outside the UN would be illegal. On Newsnight, 7th February, he said,

“The only qualification we have added…is if you did have a breach, went back to the UN but someone put an unreasonable or unilateral block down on action, now in those circumstances we have said we can’t be in a position where we are confined in that way. If the inspectors do report that they can’t do their work properly because Iraq is not co-operating there’s no doubt that under the terms of the existing United Nations Resolution that that’s a breach of the Resolution. In those circumstances there should be a further Resolution. If, however, a country were to issue a veto…if a country unreasonably in those circumstances put down a veto then I would consider action outside of that…Firstly you can’t just do it with America, you have to get a majority in the security council…because the issue of a veto doesn’t even arise unless you get a majority in the security council.” 

A further source of tension will be – Turkey’s wish to improve relations with Iran – “a neutral trading partner”. – CHOMSKY

February 8th Blix and M el Baradei described key talks in Iraq as ‘very substantial’.

On February 9th, a Franco-German peace initiative was aired. They wanted to triple number of arms inspectors in Iraq and back them up with surveillance flights. US became angry at this attempt to derail plans for war.

February 10th France, Germany and Belgium vetoed US request for NATO to plan protection for Turkey if Saddam attacks to plan protection for Turkey if saddam attacks – major division in NATO. Deadlock was only broken after NATO agreed to send military hardware into Turkey for its defence in event of war. 
NATO crisis. France and Belgium vetoed protective measures for Turkey in event of war with Iraq. Germany too did agree to take command of the international security assistance force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Germany and NL, who were leading the ISAF at the time, made the request. The handover was to take place on 11th august.

February 12th UN inspectors discovered illegal missiles Samoud 2 rockets exceeded max range of 150 km set down in 1991. It was petty, but pro-war politicians were determined to make it a big issue.
But on the February 17th domestic opposition meant UK government delayed the vote in parliament on letting US troops into the country.

Palestine
Israel began building the “separation fence” in the West Bank, ignoring the official border, the Green Line, and effectively land-grabbed 210,000 acres of Palestinian territory. Even Condoleezza Rice said “it looks like an attempt to create a new de facto border”.
The main problem will be for the Palestinians living on land between Green Line and fence who now need permits to live in their homes. 400,000 cut off from farmland, jobs, universities, schools etc.
It put GW’s  bogus two-state solution in jeapordy. – independent 12/11/03
Ths prompted hearings in the Hague from 23rd Feb 2004 – looking into the legality of West Bank fence. Israel decided to boycott the hearings.
Sa’eb Erakat – Chief Palestinian negotiator. The US was expected to veto any resolution from the UN ordering sanctions. Daniel Bethlehem – of Cambridge University – headed Sharon’s legal advisors – maintained court had no jurisdiction in this issue. GB and US among countries challenging the court’s authority.
In October the USA wanted something called the “road map” – it came from the Quartet of Europe, Russia, UN and US. Palestinians have “to terminate all forms of resistance to the Israeli military occupation, but it is sufficiently vague in other respects so that the US – funded Israeli settlement and development programs in the occupied territories can proceed, guided only by Bush’s “vision”. The nature of these programs suggests an outcome that resembles the establishment of ‘homelands’ for the black population of the apartheid regime of South Africa 40 years ago…”

February 2003, Russian made Ilyushin-76 crashed in se Iran killing 275 – caused by US sanctions?
Attempted coup by Milosevic loyalists Feb ’03 led to Zoran Djindjic - ??

Opposition and the PR War – in the UK
What works in America will not work in Britain. In the US the innuendo that implied a relationship between Saddam and bin Laden, eventually led a large number of Americans into believing that Saddam was the perpetrator of 9-11. Images and recollectionsof 9-11 were all that were needed to shut most critics up and to keep the public behind the war. In Britain that was never going to work so a defferent tac was tried. But the difference between what was being said in Washington and the different sort of bullshit coming from Downing Street was to cause seruious problems for Blair.
While GW Bush and his merry men were desperately trying to stitch together the various elements required so they could carry out their long cherished dream of invading Iraq, The UN voted for cautious measures which USA chose to interpret as WAR. The so-called Western alliance was GB and Spain and a spattering of poor corrupt countries under the US jackboot. Germany was threatened, France was made the pariah of the world .
European leaders, hampered by their democratic constitutions, had to either adopt a stance of opposition, or do a strange unconvincing dance of half truths, unanswered questions and innuendo in order to keep everything from simmering over. Bliar, UK prime-minister, had media support, and pretty much unprecedented control over his party and parliament, but even then, on February 26th it looked like it was about to go a bit Pete Tong. 198 rebel mps voted for a “not yet” amendment, including 121 from the Labour Party. It was the biggest rebellion by members of a single party in over 100 years. One of Bliar’s little dances was the one of insisting on going the “UN route”, something that Washington would have happily dispensed with except that the risk of going into Iraq without international support would have been too great, both for their overstretched armed forces, and for domestic opinion. On Jan 27th 70% of people in Britain had opposed the war if the UN didn’t back it, making Bliar’s position difficult, and causing Washington to become “impatient” with his “UN route”. Bliar was pressing for UNSC endorsement of any military action to help save his political ass. His ministers promised two more parliamentary votes before any war could begin. Hans Blix with his International lawyer hat on went on record as saying that the war could only be legal if a resolution authorising action came from the UNSC, and not action by individual governments.
Even within the cabinet there were splits, with Straw opposing Bliar’s plans to use the historic royal prerogative right to declare war . Bliar was risking losing his own position if he continued to fly in the face of public and informed opinion in this way. But the power of Washington over London was such that Bliar could not risk voicing any dissent for Bush’s policies of imperial expansion.
The misinformation in the media was incredible. It seemed to be an attempt to whip the masses into some sort of paranoid hysteria. One report which appeared in the GB media told of mysterious deadly Iraqi “terror” ships. The reports vanished the next day and were never mentioned again.

Why Iraq?
We were told that Iraq had links to Al Qaeda, that Iraq had WMDs, that we had to remove a potential Hitler from power – a danger to western democracy, then because Saddam was oppressive to his own people (though those he persecuted were not “his own” people), the because we wanted to bring democracy to Iraq. Each excuse collapsed as it lost credibility, & another one was swiftly erected, eventually all the discredited excuses were hammered together to form a battered and shakey inducement to war which noone quite believed. But effort put in debating ludicrous hyperbole, untruths, made up reports, and heartfelt calls to patriotism (once “our boys” were in the field with a “job to do”) was effort not put into actually preventing a war, which went ahead anyway, despite unprecedented opposition, and no mandate whatsoever.
 “In the last few years the US has been positioning military bases nearer to” the Middle east oil-producing region…European military bases are being shifted from Central Europe to the East, to former Russian satellites.” The US wanted to “establish a powerful position right at the heart of the world’s major reserves of energy”. The State Department described the Gulf region at the end of WW2 as a “stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history,” said Chomsky, who explained that the US would find formal democracy in Iraq acceptable, even preferable, if only for PR purposes. Washington didn’t want to run the risk of a popular or Muslim government coming to power in Iraq. Saddam could have been overthrown in 1991, by supporting a Shia uprising in the south. That time, at best, lack of action, and at worst, actual support from the West, Saddam was able to put this insurrection down.” CHOMSKY
“Oil is “undoubtedly central” to the occupation of Iraq. “The Gulf region is the main energy-producing region of the world. It has been since the Second World War. It's expected to be at least for another generation. It's a huge source of strategic power, of material Wealth”. Iraq “has the second largest oil reserves. It's very easily accessible, cheap. To control Iraq is to be in a very strong position to determine the price and production levels… to probably undermine OPEC, and to swing your weight around throughout the world”. “ It has nothing in particular to do with access to the oil; the U.S. doesn't really intend to access it. But it does have to do with control.”
“[A]ccording to intelligence projections, the U.S. intends to rely on what they regard as more stable Atlantic Basin resources-Atlantic Basin means West Africa and the Western Hemisphere-which are more totally under U.S. control than the Middle East, which is a difficult region. So the projections are: control the Middle East, but maintain access to the Atlantic Basin...It does, therefore, follow that lack of conformity, disruption of one kind or another, in those areas is a significant threat, and there is very likely to be another episode like Iraq, if this one works the way the civilian planners at the Pentagon hope. If it's an easy victory, no fighting, establish a new regime which you will call democratic, and not too much catastrophe, if it works like that, they are going to be emboldened on to the next step.
“And the next step, you can think of several possibilities. One of them, indeed, is the Andean region. The U.S. has military bases all around it now. There are military forces right in there. Colombia and Venezuela are both, especially Venezuela, substantial oil producers, and there is more elsewhere, like Ecuador, and even Brazil. Yes, that's a possibility, that the next step in the campaign of preventive wars, once the so-called norm is established and accepted, would be to go on there. Another possibility is Iran.”
After Afghanistan and Iraq the US “will be able to establish reliable military bases right at the heart of the oil-producing region for the first time. The previously “closest reliable base was in the island of Diego Garcia, a British possession, from which the population was expelled” and prevented from returning “despite orders of the British courts…Iraqi bases will lessen Washington’s dependence on Turkish basing system.”  - CHOMSKY
Tariq Ali: – Iraq has the second largest reserves of cheap oil in the world. The decision in 2000 to invoice its exports in Euros rather than dollars risked imitation by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the Iranian mullahs. Privatisation of the Iraqi oil wells under US control would help weaken OPEC.Also the invasion would work as a show of strength to support a long-term goal of Israel.

US military build up at Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, its bases in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Afghanistan and its strategic lunge into former Soviet Central Asia appear just as worrying as when viewed from Baghdad. – Simon Tisdall 31/07/02
Add in fisk’s bit about why oil in Iraq was so important

False Terror alerts
A ring of tanks around Heathrow Airport – 14 - ? Threats concocted to terrorise the public always seemed to precede important meetings at UNSC or major anti-war marches. It was based on some convenient yet fictional intelligence.
Tanks ringed Heathrow just prior to the latest report by Hans Blix and the peace march. It  was said to be in response to increased terrorist ‘chatter’ warning intelligence services of an impending attack – media failed to pick up the fact that French and German intelligence services did not report this ‘increased chatter’. The US went to ‘orange’ state of alert.
After February 14th news reports regarding threats to UK airports dried up. February 15th marches against the war. Only C4’s Bremner, Bird and Fortune considered possibility that the end of the ‘crisis’ had more to do with the impact on the tourist industry than on the negation of such a threat. Unfortunately secrecy of UK state means we have no way of knowing for sure. – medialens

Worldwide Protests


picture: http://www.worldrevolution.org.uk

Jimmy Carter crawled out of the woodwork in 2003, “substantially unilateral attack on Iraq” is not a just war. “It is obvious that clear alternatives to war exist…despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the US seem determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilised nations…American efforts to tie Iraq to the 9-11 attacks have been unconvincing.”
Worldwide protests against the war occurred in cities around the world including London, Tokyo and San Francisco. The biggest were on February 15th, anti war march simultaneously in London and around the world – 2 million marched through the streets and rallied in Hyde Park to see the likes of Jesse Jackson speaking on an anti-war platform. This war was extremely unpopular. Even in the US, 57% believed that the UN, not GW, should decide whether to go to war. Biased media kicked in - when David Grossman, on BBC Newsnight, February 17th, said, “The people have spoken, or have they? What about the millions who didn’t march? Was going to the DIY shop or watching the football on Saturday a demonstration of support for the government?” The media and elite refused to see the 52% of UK population who were against war under any circumstances – or the 90% who opposed a war without appropriate second Resolution”. Blair knew the power of the Anti-War marchers, and what it represented. So he changed tack. He claimed to be ‘sincere’ in his belief, and that ‘peace is the desired aim’, ‘Iraq is a serious threat to the west’, and ‘had never co-operated with the inspectors’. He maintained that the threat of military force will compel peaceful disarmament and that ‘Iraq will be liberated into an oil-rich democracy’. ‘A second Resolution would legitimise war’,and other bollox.

In February, secret plans drawn up to privatise the country by selling off its assets – surfaced in the Wall Street Journal “for many conservatives Iraq is now the test case for whether the US can engender American-style free-market capitalism within the Arab world .”

Media Bias
Early in February Jeremy Paxman (Newsnight) asked anti-War Arthur Miller how he could oppose an attack given that Saddam had “driven 4 million people into exile” and “killed a million of his own citizens”. He meant the 1 million killed by western sanctions. Paxman also linked 9-11 with SH, this being an entirely fictional link.
After the largest demo in British history, a studio discussion was confined to interviews with Tory Lord Barker of Dorking; Tory MP John Redwood; Dr Martin Conway of Oxford University; Professor Rodney Barker of the LSE; Anthony Howard and the views of Jack Straw. There was not one member of the anti war movement on the programme. To paraphrase from an article posted on www.medialens.org: The media played a large role in building the case for war, oil hardly mentioned, Iraqi near-total compliance with inspections 1991 to 1998 was misrepresented, US/UK responsibility for genocide in Iraq under sanctions? Nothing. Long and bloody history of opposition to Third World independent nationalism? Not a sausage. Deep corruption of the Republican administration, its dependence on ‘military Keynesianism’, and its associated need to divert the public gaze? Zilch.
Nick Cohen in the Observer wrote, “The satisfaction of an anti-war movement which persuaded one million people to tell Iraqis they must continue to live under a tyranny…” (Cohen, ‘the left’s unholy alliance with religious bigotry’, The Observer, February 23, 2003).

Robert Fisk – “In the end, I think we are just tired of being lied to. Tired of being talked down to, of being bombarded with Second World War jingoism and scare stories and false information and student essays being dressed up as ‘intelligence’. We are sick of being insulted by little men, by Tony Blair and Jack Straw and the likes of George Bush and his cabal of neo-conservative henchmen who have plotted for years to change the map of the Middle East to their advantage.” “Tired of Being Lied to”, Indie, Feb 15 2003.

Washington condemned Old Europe and praised New Europe. Italy and Spain overrode large majorities against the war and “took their orders from Crawford Texas, and were therefore hailed for their courage and grand qualities. Meanwhile media and intellectuals were proclaiming their deep commitment to democracy and intentions of establishing it throughout the Middle East and elsewhere” -  in Orwellian terms – “democracy is fine, as long as you do what we say”. CHOMSKY
The US conducted an all out campaign to bully other states into joining their “coalition”. The bugging of officials, threatening to withdraw aide, etc, was expected. But was there something more sinister going on? There was a series of air crashes just prior to the war, and as we already know, the US terrorists are not beyond a little bit of airplane crashing. Two crashes in the Middle East first a plane load of scientists, and then one full of military types went down in Iran. There were a series of Russian air crashes too, with accompanying press articles to remind us of how rickety Soviet-made planes are.
But all the same, they had usually managed to stay in the air before, and since – get list and plot graph.
The US threatened economic sanctions against Germany for “failing to cooperate” – announced military withdrawal, in February. At first Turkey , too, was reluctant to cooperate, and France was probably the most disagreeable. The phrase “Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys” must be the most memorable term of abuse hurled across the Atlantic and Freedom Fries replaced French Fries in America.
Germany too responded to internal opposition by opposing the war. Schroder had owed his narrow re-election to a pledge not to support a war on Baghdad even if it were authorised by the UN.

Dan Rather interviewed Saddam on TV. CBS refused the right to reply unless it came from Bush in person. Saddam said he’d die before going into exile, denied links with OBL, and wouldn’t set fire to Iraqi oil fields in event of invasion. Feb 27th 2003.

February 18th – Bliar said: “The stance that the world takes now against Saddam is not just vital in its own right, it is a huge test of our seriousness in dealing with the twin threats of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism”. Blair knew then that he’d based the WMD threat on dodgy intelligence, and that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaida or international terrorism.
Bliar and bush – after insisting that UN inspections were crucial, then declared them to be futile.
On February 24th Turkish cabinet struck deal with US to allow US troops in – in exchange for billion dollar aid package subjsct to parliament voting for it.
February 24th Russia, France and Germany put forward a counter-proposal to the UK and US draft resolution: a step by step programme for Iraqi disarmament.
BBC and ITN reported the “chaos” at the UN and that it was “sad days” for international diplomacy. This was a skewed view of France and Germany standing up to a psychotic super-power.
February 24th Blix said “8 years of inspection, 4 years no inspectors, and then 11 weeks, and then call it a day? It’s a little short.” – Guardian on Feb 24th 2003.
Feb 25th Blair said in House of Commons: “they say the time is necessary to search out the weapons…to enter Iraq to find the weapons…That is emphatically not the inspectors’ job. They are not a detective agency. It is not a question of time. It is a question of will.” Except – it was the UN inspectors’ job, one they were doing, had been doing for weeks, and years before that. Blix clearly wanted to do the job too.
Blix’s interim report to the UN published on Feb 28th giving ‘mixed assessment’ of Iraqi cooperation but hailing SH’s commitment to comply with UN deadline for destruction of Iraq’s Samoud 2 missiles.

Second Resolution
US-UK second resolution made no mention of military action.

British citizen Derek Bond was held for 21 days in South Africa on FBI request. MP for Bristol West said, “the idea that the FBI can authorise any country to arrest and then leave a person for more than 24 hours, without any question of their identity, raises huge questions…”How a British citizen can be held by the FBI in that way I find incredible.” Grauniad Feb 26th 2003.
TWAT led to US allies – such as Britain – relaxing rules regarding extradition of terrorist suspects and political prisoners. Raids across the UK led to arrests but few convictions, and no actual terrorists. Manchester Utd scare?

Gulf War ceasefire agreement which on February 27th SH agreed ‘in principle’ to destroy. US and UK accused SH of game-playing.
“Hans Blix gives his latest report on Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441 to the UNSC, surprisingly the members with a more upbeat assessment of the pace of Iraq’s disarmament than had been expected. The report, which lists examples of Iraqi compliance with the inspectors, thus failing to provide any clear casus belli, throws into confusion British and American plans to draft a new resolution mandating military action. It severely embarrasses Colin Powell by questioning the US intelligence on Iraqi munitions that he presented to the council earlier in the month.
“A case for war? Yes, say US and Britain. No, say the majority.” – medialens, February 14th 2003.

The Hunt for WMDs
Blair’s case for war rested on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. He used MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq. MI6 passed on intelligence that Iraq was hiding its WMDs and rebuilding its arsenal. Bliar and Bush knew was that WMDs did not exist in Iraq. But they couldn’t let on they knew – so they acted on this faked or embellished evidence that “prove” the existence of WMDs, but later had to blame the intelligence services for the misleading information. The consistent policy of interference from UK and US politicians, not only against their own intelligence services, but also against the UN Weapons Inspectors, was largely whitewashed over.

“Early last year [2002], before Hans Blix…embarked on his mission, Wolfowitz ordered a report from the CIA to show that Blix had been soft on Iraq in the past and thus to undermine him before he even began his work. When the CIA reached an opposite conclusion, Wolfowitz was described by a former state department official in the Washington Post as having “hit the ceiling.” Then, according to former assistant secretary of state James Rubin, when Blix met with Cheney at the White House, the v-p told him what would happen if his efforts on WMDs did not support Bush policy: “We will not hesitate to discredit you.” Blix’s brush with Cheney was no different from the administration’s treatment of the CIA.“
“Having already decided upon its course in Iraq, the Bush administration demanded the fabrication of evidence to fit into an imminent threat. Then, fulfilling the driven logic of the Bush doctrine, preemptive action could be taken. Policy a priori dictated intelligence a la carte.”
 - Sidney Blumenthal, Guardian, 1st November, 2003.
Richard Butler: “UNSCOM was compromised in many ways” he says. There were lots of spies, “I had meetings with my senior staff knowing that there were people in my office writing down every word I said which later on would be given to their embassy.” 8th November 2002.

There Were No WMDs
General Hussein Kamel’s 1995 debriefing by officials from the IAEA and the UN Inspection team (UNSCOM) provided information considered reliable by Washington, except that they covered up the part that they didn’t want generally known. Inspectors were told “that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them” according to Newsweek’s John Barry, who has covered Iraq weapons inspections for over 10 years, and managed to obtain a copy of Kamel’s debriefing in February 2003.
Bush used Kamel’s defection to show:
1)             Iraq has not disarmed
2)             Inspections cannot disarm it
3)             Defectors are the most reliable source of information on Iraq’s weapons.
Certain parts of the transcript were cherry-picked to be broadcast to the public. The part that said Iraq had produced anthrax and other deadly biological agents (speech made by GW on October 7th 2002); that Iraq had produced nerve agent VX (Powell, Feb 5th, UN presentation); that the regime had cheated on its nuclear non-proliferation commitments (Stephen Hadley, 02/16/03, Chicago Tribune), were all proclaimed.
But the part that Bush didn’t want to be widely reported was where the transcript says “all weapons – biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed” They didn’t want to report that their reliable source also said that these weapons were destroyed in 1991.
“The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Barry reported, and “a military aide who defected with Kamel… backed Kamel’s assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks.” “But these statements were “hushed up by the UN inspectors” in order to “bluff Saddam into disclosing still more.”
 “CIA spokesman Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek report, “it is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue.” But on Wednesday (02/26/03), a complete copy of the Kamel transcript – an internal UNSCOM/ IAEA document stamped “sensitive” was obtained by Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who in early February (2003) revealed that Tony Blair’s “intelligence dossier” was plagiarised from a student thesis. Rangwala has posted the Kamel transcript on the web:
http://casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf
Kemmel was Saddam Hussein’s son in law. He left Iraq with crates of secret documents on Iraq’s past weapons programmes. He returned to Iraq in 1996, and was killed. On 25/01/99 UNSCOM reported that its entire 8 years of disarmament work ‘must be divided into 2 parts, separated by the events following the departure from Iraq of Lt Gen Hussein Kamel.
Source: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting – www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-weapons.html
“The Wall Street Journal reported [that] Iraq presents a ‘dilemma’, because ‘few targets remain’ – John Pilger, who quoted a US official as saying “we’re down to the last outhouse” mainly due to almost daily bombing which was not reported by mainstream media.”
“A UN Inspection team member in Iraq [Dec 31st 2002] admitted to finding “zilch” evidence of WMDs and says teams have been provided with little guidance from western intelligence.”
UNSOCM’s executive chairman Rolf Ekeus said in May 2000 that as a result of extensive Iraqi compliance [1991 – 98] “not much is unkown about Iraq’s retained and proscribed weapons capabilities” & “in all areas we have eliminated Iraq’s capabilities fundamentally”. [Glen Rangwala: “a threat to the world? The facts About Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction”, April 2000 www.arabmediawatch.com/iraq
Blix said on the 9th January that UN weapons inspectors have not found “smoking guns” but said that Iraq’s 12000 page weapons declaration was incomplete.
Tony Bliar made monthly telly briefings throughout the run up to war. On January 13th said WMDs will reach terrorists and UK could act against Iraq, with the US, without a second UN resolution. He also said regarding the existence of WMDs, “I don’t think the British intelligence services would be advising me this if they weren’t doing it honestly and properly” at the same time he and Downing St were working to present this ‘intelligence’ with an utterly dishonest spin.
Mohammed el-Baradei, head of the IAEA said UN inspectors would need a “few months” to finish their work in Iraq. But they weren’t going to get the time they needed.

March 2003
 Opposition Continued
Late February, early March, the UK and US stepped up air strikes on Iraq to ‘soften up’ the country’s defences ahead of a war. Both countries denied a change in policy however. Raids on Basra on March 2nd left 6 civilians dead and 15 wounded. On March 3rd Russian foreign minister Ivan Ivanov hinted on BBC radio that Russia may use their veto to block a resolution authorising war. On March 5th foreign ministers of France, Russia and Germany released a joint declaration stating that they will ‘not allow’ a resolution authorising military action to pass the UNSC. It was a hardening stance and increased pressure on US and UK to compromise on their draft UN resolution. On March 6th GW indicated that war was very close. On March 9th US and UK agreed to set out the precise costs of disarmament that Saddam would have to undertake by March 17th to avoid war. It was impossible for him to comply  -as it required him to hand over WMDs he didn’t have.

On March 1st United Arab Emirates at an Arab League summit became the first Arab nation to propose publicly that Saddam step down.
UK paper, The Observer, printed a leaked memo – dated Jan 31 - about US spying on UN Security Council delegations. “As part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq,” the Observer reported on

March 2nd, the US government developed an “aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception  of the home and office telephones and the e-mails of UN delegates.” The memo came from a top official at the National Security Agency – and was circulated to seniore agents and to a “foreign intelligence agency.”
“The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York – the so-called ‘Middle Six’ delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.”
The surveillance activities were for the purpose of seeking any information useful to push a war resolution thorugh the SC. Not a word of it was reported by the New York Times.

Eventually a link with Bin Laden became unimportant and the propaganda campaign concentrated on WMDs, and progress of the UN inspectors. Again, phoney news reports, dossiers and satellite pictures were the order of the day. Jonathan Steele, a journalist based in Damascus commented that the idea that the invasion would be over WMDs caused “hoots of derision all round…everyone here believes this is a war for oil.” Gordon Brown said on March 4th that despite the domestic opposition, he was prepared to ‘spend what it takes’ to disarm Iraq, and earmarked £1.75bn for it. But Claire Short caused problems for Bliar. She threatened to resign on March 9th as Int Dev Sec if the UN failed to pass a second resolution authorising war. Andy Reed, aide to Margaret Beckett, had resigned already. Short approached Cherie Blair with doubts about the legality of the war – and was assured “that Tony would not contemplate breaking international law”. Soon after she explained to Blair “Geneva convention duties on army. UN humanitarian engagement needs mandate for reconstruction. DfID are preparing for all eventualities but I won’t ask department to do illegal things.”
On our screens we only saw those Iraqis with (unmentioned) vested interests in the invasion, the exiled politicians, businessmen with promises of fat contracts, nostalgic Hashemite monarchists, while the soon-to-be bombed remained out of our sight. The only place to see this majority would be in Iraq, or on various anti-war marches across Europe and America.
Some of those trotted out were in exile, eg, Sama Hadad, deported from Iraq in 1992, Hussain al-Shami, who spent 4 years in Abu Ghuraib prison. But once the main body of Iraqis were asked such as Ahmed Musawi, Haifa Zangana, the opinions voiced were that the US had betrayed them in 1991 and that another war could crush a vulnerable society – Grauniad.
Leaders either side of the Atlantic failed to tell the same story – Bliar was harping on about WMDs at the same time Bush was emphasising “regime change”.  – www.medialens.org 


On March 4th the Washington Post ran story headlined, “Spying Report No Shock To UN”, and the LA times emphasized that US spy activities at the UN are “long-standing”. Er…that’s alright then. Observer, “Still, almost all the governments are extremely reluctant to speak up gainst the espionage. This further illustrates their vulnerability to the US government.
Norman Soloman, co-author of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t tell You”, context books.
www.contextbooks.com/newF.html

March 7th Hans Blix produced another ‘ambivalent’ report to the UNSC on Iraqi compliance. Jack Straw proposed that the UN set an ultimatum that Iraq will be invaded unless it demonstrates ‘full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation’ by March 17th. France threatened to veto such a resolution.
After the war – on April 22nd Blix spoke out against US and UK handling of the WMD hunt.

On March 7th US GB and Spain proposed ordering Saddam to give up banned weapons by March 17th or face war. France led opposition within the SC to any new resolution that would authorise military action.
France said they’d veto a second resolution anyway (so Bliar claimed) and without that government lawyers in the UK were reported to have declared it would be illegal for the UK to join the war. Bliar was risking bringing about a “two tier” Europe that could leave UK, Spain and Portugal locked out.
In mid March Matthew Parris asked the question: has Bliar gone bonkers? Bliar was arguing that he and Bush were in possession of special intelligence which supported their stand but which could not be divulged.

“Blair has stopped sounding like a career politician…and developed that fierce, quiet intensity which, from long experience of dealing with mad constituents, I know that the slightly cracked share with the genuinely convinced. He has lost his feel for whom to confront, or when and where, and puts himself into situations (like the slow handclapping by the anti-war women) which do not assist his case. Historians may point to Mr Blair’s private – but publicised – audience with the Pope as an early sign of a dawning unrealism about the perception of others.”
“The speeches the “old” Europeans are making – about giving Iraq more time, accepting gradual progress and not sticking to a literal interpretation of earlier demands – are exactly the speeches Mr Blair himself gives (persuasively) in defence of letting the IRA off the decommissioning hook.”
“His anger at the French (whose position has been consistent and identical to that which Blair held until a year ago) is inexplicable to those of us who are not doctors. He displays a demented capacity to convince himself that it is the other guy who is cheating.
“He keeps retreating into a hopeless, desperate optimism: another sign of lunacy. He seems to have promised the Americans he could deliver Europe, and told the Europeans he could tame America. There was scant ground for hope on the first score and none on the second. The belief that irreconcilables can be reconciled by one’s personal contacts and powers of persuasion is a familiar delusion among people who are not quite right in the head. While each futile promise is in the process of being demonstrated to be undeliverable, he goes into a sort of nose-tapping, “watch this space” denial. When finally the promise is abandones he turns insouciantly away – and makes a new promise.”
“This week he has been promising to sort out the Americans, and persuade them to let the UN supervise the post-conflict administration of Iraq. He is probably telling the Americans he can sort out the SC. He can do neither. Meanwhile, he has forgotten that his previous position was that the coalition partners invaded as agents of the UN anyway, so it isn’t up to Washington to give permission. Any bank manager use dto dealing with bankrupts with a pathological shopping habit who have severed contact with arithmetic will recognise the optimism.”

He repeated this threat to ignore ‘capricious’ or ‘unreasonable’ vetoes from SC members in the House of Commons. “No sane lawyer would have said what Blair said” according to commentator Matthew Parris.

Bliar took to appearing on non-political lightweight television programmes, such as MTV: “if we don’t act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then, of course, the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons. It’s unlikely at this very moment in time that Saddam is going to do anything; that’s true. What I’m saying is he certainly is a threat.”

Except that he knew Saddam had no realistic involvement with terrorist organisations and if he’d listened to the UN inspectors he’d have known that Saddam’s WMD programme was not only greatly depleted but probably defunct. Saddam had finally – in March 2003 – entirely capitulated to UN inspectors’ demands. On March 18th in House of Commons, Bliar said “we are now seriously asked to accept that in the last few years, contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence, he decided unilaterally to destroy the weapons. Such a claim is palpably absurd.” But it wasn’t contrary to all intelligence, nor was it absurd.

The previous war against the former Soviet empire was still going on:
Chechnya - Civilian death rate still very high in March 2003. It stems from assassinations by rebels and lawless Russian soldiers. Disappearances are clearly tied to Russian troops, in which armoured vehicles are used to break into homes and almost never solved.
Constitutional referendum in March “for peace and limited independence”. Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Moscow-backed administration was hoping to become president of Chechnya out of it. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens believed to have either died or fled, tens of thousands of Russian troops were stationed in region were given a vote. Few regarded the referendum as fair.

Georgia - From Independent on 11th November: “Western governments are keeping a close eye on events in Georgia. Earlier this year, construction began on a multibillion dollar pipeline to transport oil from the Caspian sea through Georgia to the Mediterranean. If Georgia descends in to civil war, as it did in the early 90s, the oil companies stand to lose their investment.”
http://www.lngplants.com/georgia.html
http://oilandglory.com/labels/Caspian.html
http://cns.miis.edu/cres/nuriyev.htm
https://www.indymedia.ie/article/40957
www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message480460/pg1
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Oil_watch/Geopolitics_Oil.html

Ian Stambolic’s corpse found in March 2003. He had disappeared from streets of Belgrade in August 2000. Milosevic’s wife was wanted in connection with the murder – Mira Markovic. She’d been an intimate friend of Markovic for 20 years. Stambolic was the mentor of Milosevic until his fall from power in 1987. By 2000 Stambolic was a threat to Milosevic’s power. Rade Markovic, former Sec Chief of Milosevic ordered an attempt on life of opposition leader, also ordered killing of Stambolic. Milosevic’s gangster son – Marko took over peace role in Balkans – 300 lightly armed peacekeeprers.
Makes little sense.

Palestine
The Iraqi war took everyone’s minds away from Palestine, according to Jonathan Freedland, Grauniad, “it’s still stealing lives and breaking hearts every day”, he wrote on March 12th, “in the last couple of months alone, Israel has killed more than 150 Palestinians – dozens in the last fortnight. Palestinians have made more than 100 attempts on Israeli civilian lives; all failed, until last week’s Haifa bus bombing, which killed 17. Take yesterday as a random, typical day in the life of the conflict. Israel killed three Palestinians in Gaza, discovering the bodies of two of them next to knapsacks containing pipe bombs. Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier was killed while on patrol in Hebron. Each side will find it easy to dismiss the deaths of the other: those two men were “terrorists”, that one was an occupier”. But they were all people and now they are all dead.”
“Israel has a new government…the heart of it is still Ariel Sharon, though with his Likud bloc now much expanded and joined by some new partners…for the first time in decades the ultra orthodox parties are not in agreement.” But “Sharon’s new government includes two hard right parties, ideologically set against any compromise with Palestinians.”
“Once Israel made only brief raids into Gaza – targeting a suspected terrorist here, bombing a Hamas building there – now they seem to be digging in.” He refers to an “entrenched push into Gaza”.
“Israel believes last year’s reoccupation of Palestinian cities in the west Bank worked…now they want to repeat the process in Gaza. The slight brake represented by Labour in the last ‘national unity’ government is absent now…The PLO is not the dominant force it once was…It’s Hamas that runs the streets now.”
Shaul Mofaz – Sharon’s hawkish defence minister
Bush has publicly commited himself to a viable Palestinian state – the first US president to do so. That’s especially true because the US is in no mood to hold Israel back. Washington needs Sharon to follow the policy of “restraint” exercised by his predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, during the last Gulf War: even when Iraq’s Scuds landed on Tel Aviv, shamir did not hit back. This time round Saddam might deploy the Samson option, deciding that if he’s going to die he might as well bring the whole temple down with him – by hurling a few chemical weapons at Israel. Even with that provocation, Bush wants Sharon to sit tight rather than weighing in to what would fast become a regional conflagration. European diplomats believe that such is the need to keep Sharon on side, that Washington will say nothing to rile him in advance of war.”

The Last Few Days
By mid March six SC members were undecided. The UK position remained important to the US if only to convince the US public that it was a multi lateral force invading Iraq, and as a military launch pad (Airstrip One) – more important possibly because of Turkey’s snub. “Cameroon, Guinea, Angola, Mexico, Chile and Pakistan demanded that the proposed US-UK ultimatum set for March 17th be extended” – which alarmed Washington.
Then it was Britain’s turn to feel the anger of Washington. “After talks with his British counterpart, Geoff Hoon, Mr. Rumsfeld said that the British role in an assault was now “unclear” and that Washington was well aware that the Bliar government’s freedom of action might be restrained by a rebellious parliament.” The US pressured the UK to override the normal democratic process.
Rumsfeld said “they have a government that deals with a parliament in their distinctive way,” which “provoked a mixture of panic and fury in Downing Street”. There followed “frantic telephone calls between Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Hoon.” Rumsfeld later clarified “I was simply pointing out that obtaining a second UNSC Resolution is important to the UK and that we are working to achieve it” – Grauniad on March 12th.
On March 14th Chirac confirmed to Blair that France waswilling to seek a compromise on disarming Saddam Hussein, but would not accept a UN Resolution that set an ultimatum.
March 16th Britain, the US and Spain at a summit in the Azores gave the UN a 24 hour ultimatum to enforce its own demands for immediate Iraqi disarmament, or face a US and UK led coalition that will go to war within days. China, France and Russia opposed the attack.
Bush, Blair and Aznar, gave the international community 24 hours to back a war or risk the co-sponsors of the resolution, who have around 300,000 troops massed in the Gulf, going it alone.
A poll reported in the Independent: “Is America On the Right Track? 60% said no, 39% said yes.
March 17th – the original deadline day - USA, GB and Spain declared time for diplomacy is over – withdraw proposed resolution. GW gave Saddam 48 hours to leave Iraq – actually US officials made clear that US troops would enter Iraq whether or not Saddam and his sons left Iraq – Michael R Gordon “allies will move in, even if Saddam Hussein moves out”, New York times March 18th 2003.

A last minute appeal from a coalition of US civic, religious and environmental groups – to not attack Iraq.
National Coalition of churches, NAACP, National Organisation of Women, the envmental lobby, including Sierra club. “Win Without War” Coalition. Recverend Bob Edgar – NCC’s General secretary.


Blair Forced UK into War
March 17th was the deadline for SH to give up his non-existent weapons. Robin Cook walked out after resigning in protest. There was a special cabinet with the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith. Peter Goldsmith sat in Robin Cook’s seat. He read a statement  - his advice was that the war was legal under 1441. But the cabinet didn’t want a discussion. Short’s diary entry, “I heard from two senior officials in DfID that it is rumoured that AG has said 1441 may not give authority for war and he would resign. Also military would not go if legal authority not clear.” She suspected that the A-G’s statement was prepared so late because Goldsmith had had doubts about the legality.
“One day we will know how the Attorney came to be persuaded that there was legal authority for war. One of the foreign office’s long standing legal advisors had said there was no authority for war and later resigned. A prestigious group of international lawyers had written to the Guardian on 7th March and said 1441 will not give authority for war.”
Short said “The process leading up to the Attorney’s opinion was fishy, but in the British system, for the civil service and military, it is the Attorney’s advice that is sancrosanct.”
“The military made it clear that, without the Attorney’s approval, they would not go. Then we got a short opinion saying there was no problem and no discussion. There has been pressure for his full opinion to be published but nothing longer was circulated in Whitehall. There has also been pressure for his instructions to be published. What were the assumptions about the likely use of WMD, for example?”

The initial opinion of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was that invasion would require a second UN resolution. This was an opinion that he only revisited when it became evident that there would be no second resolution. At this point Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned and subsequently protested that "the conflict in Iraq was contrary to international law". This week we learned that two other colleagues resigned along with her.
The attorney general himself still appeared unsure of his ground, but his dilemma was eased by the suggestion from Downing Street that he outsourced the drafting of his opinion to a law professor with a record of support for war. As a result the nation went to war against the advice of Whitehall's experts in international law and on the strength of an opinion from a professor at the LSE.
The government has resisted publishing the text that resulted, presumably because even it would reveal awkward reservations and legal quibbles, but a precis was produced as a parliamentary answer. What is striking is the centrality that disarmament plays in it as the justification for war. Thus Iraq is held to be in material breach of the ceasefire resolution because it had not fulfilled "its obligations to disarm". There is a logical, inescapable conclusion from this chain of reasoning. If Iraq had in reality fulfilled its disarmament obligation there was no legal authority for the invasion.
Tony Blair appeared conscious of this problem when he answered questions this week [15th October 2004]. He does not now rely on the need to disarm Iraq, but on other breaches by Saddam of UN resolutions. But the only breach that could have justified a war would have been failure to disarm. To be sure, Saddam was in breach of his obligation to keep proper paperwork on the destruction of his chemical and biological weapons, but that hardly justifies an intensive bombing campaign and a ground invasion by a quarter of a million troops. Any international court would be certain to rule by its first coffee break that such a response was not legitimate when weighed against the twin tests of proportionality and necessity. We are left with the unsettling conclusion that the legal case for the war collapses among the rubble of false intelligence in the same way as the political justification.”
Lord Goldsmith may have been just as “duped as parliament by the assurances from Downing Street that the evidence of the intelligence was much firmer than it has turned out to be. Maybe they also withheld from him the growing evidence from the UN inspections that our intelligence was simply wrong. If so, the attorney general owes it to himself, never mind the rest of us, to state what would have been his opinion on the legality of the war if he had been given the true facts. It may be prudent on his part to prepare a revised opinion, as now it can only be a matter of time before the legality of the war is challenged in the British or international courts.
Does the legality of the war still matter over a year after the event? The only responsible answer must be yes.
In the first place we are still struggling with the legacy of our decision to conquer Iraq and the incompetence of an occupation that has compounded the original misjudgment. Iraq may have been no threat to us at the time of the war, but we have certainly turned it into one as a base for international terrorism. Instead of delivering a modern Iraq as a model for the region, we have made Iraq a source of instability in a Middle East that looks much more precarious than two years ago.
But it also matters because the fabric of orderly relations between nations, the strength of human rights law and cooperation against terrorism are built on respect for international law. We cannot demand that respect from other nations if we ourselves do not give it a higher priority than we appear to have done in reaching our decision to go to war in Iraq.
ADD TO LEGALITY ROW IN OCTOBER 2004

“The later rumour was that he went shopping to find the one UK international lawyer who would say 1441 gave authority for war.”
UK government ministers John Denham and Lord Hunt resigned in protest with four government aides on the March 18th. Parliament held a debate over military action and the government’s motion endorsing an attack is passed by 412 to 149; the number of rebel Labour mps rose to 139, up from 122.

Blame France
The UK ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, blamed France for threatening to veto the US-UK draft resolution, which would have issued Iraq with an immediate deadline to disarm or face military action.
He said: "The co-sponsors reserve their right to take their own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq." The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said: "This matter cannot continue indefinitely ... it was our judgment that no further purpose would be served by pushing this resolution."
In the UNSC, France and Russia both clearly stated their opposition to a military option, while fellow veto-holder China also indicated that it was looking for a peaceful solution. Before the withdrawal of the resolution, France, Russia and Germany had delivered a defiant response to the ultimatum laid down by Britain, the US and Spain. France called in vain for an emergency UN ministerial meeting tomorrow to set a timetable for Iraq's peaceful disarmament, a move supported by Russia. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, today told a French radio station: "France cannot accept the resolution that sets an ultimatum and envisages an automatic use of force."
Breaking a long silence on Iraq, Putin dismissed last night's ultimatum. "We are for solving the problem exclusively by peaceful means. Any other development would be a mistake, fraught with the toughest consequences, leading to victims and destabilisation of the international situation as a whole," he said.

Last Minute Iraqi Peace Offer
On March 18th Bush gave SH 48 hours to leave Iraq. Several US newspapers repeated a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington on November 6th. March 18th, Iraq rejected GW’s ultimatum – actually on the “eve of war, Iraq publicly offered unlimited access for American and British weapons hunters”, David Rennie. “Saddam offered Bush a huge oil deal to avert war,” Daily Telegraph, November 7th, 2003. Privately Iraq offered to the US ‘direct US involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq”, oil concessions, the turn over of a wanted terrorist, co-operation on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and even internationally supervised elections within 2 years (James Risen, “Iraq said to have tried to reach last minute deal to avert war”, November 6th 2003. Rejected by the warmongers.
But on the 19th 170,000 coalition troops amassed on the Kuwaiti border. Coalition aircraft bombed military targets in Iraq to ‘soften up’ the country’s defences ahead of invasion.

On March 19th government aide David Kinley confirmed he had resigned – total casualties from the UK government now equalled 9.

War on Intelligence
How much did our leaders fiddle intelligence to get the reports they wanted to hear? From Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian, November 1st 2003:

“In advance of the war, Bush (to be precise, Dick Cheney, the de facto prime minister to the distant monarch) viewed the CIA, the state department and other intelligence agencies not simply as uncooperative, but even disloyal, as their analysts continued to sift through information to determine what exactly might be true. For them, this process is at the essence of their professionalism and mission. Yet the strict insistence on the empirical was a threat to the ideological, facts an imminent danger to the doctrine. So those facts had to be suppressed, and those creating contrary evidence had to be marginalised, intimidated or have their reputations tarnished.
Twice in the run up to war, Vice President Cheney veered his motorcade to the George HW Bush centre for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, where he personally tried to coerce CIA desk-level analysts to fit their work to specification.
If the CIA would not serve, it would be trampled. At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld formed the Office of Special Plans, a parallel counter-CIA under the direction of the neoconservative deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, to “stovepipe” its own version of intelligence for fear of corruption by scepticism. Instead, the Pentagon’s handpicked future leader of Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi  of the Iraqi National Congress, replaced the CIA as the reliable source of information, little of which turned out to be true – though his deceit was consistent with his record. Chalabi was regarded at the CIA as a mountebank after he had lured the agency to support his “invasion” of Iraq in 1995, a tragicomic episode, but one which hardly discouraged his neoconservative sponsors.

“The immense political pressures exerted upon SIS by the government of Tony Blair in the months leading up to the attack on Iraq in the spring of 2003 resulted not least in a number of unsatisfactory documents on both WMDs and Saddam’s security apparatus. These did little to enhance the reputation of the intelligence services, the JIC, or the government itself. “
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4463.htm
“The Mechanisms of an Oppresive State.”
UK intelligence and security report august 2003
Ed and comp by Richard M Bennett and Katie Bennett AFI Research.

The war began
So the US finally did what it always intended to do, something it had never tried before. It sent in a vast army in order to depose an Arab government. They must have been fairly sure of Iraq’s weakness by now, the culmination of 24 years of Middle East policies designed to pit the two most powerful Arab nations against each other, and finally starved into sickness. Even in Latin America the US had only carried out actions like this in small and weak nations, such as Panama, Grenada, Guatemala. Tiny Cuba was too much of a risk for mighty Uncle Sam.
The war began on March 20th. US forces opened war with military strike south of Baghdad – where Saddam and his sons were said to be. Saddam appeared on telly later in the day to say – you missed! On
Around 0230 GMT the US launched a series of air strikes on Baghdad. Bush says the US has begunattacks against ‘targets of military opportunity’. SH gives a televised address to the Iraqi people at around 0530 GMT, calling the attack a ‘shameful crime’ and vowing to win the war. China, France and Russia denounced the action. 1805 GMT heavy bombardment of military targets in central Baghdad – UK marines then invaded the Faur Peninsula in the south of the country.

Anti-War Opposition Collapsed
Chirac “rushed to explain that France would assure smooth passage of US bombers across its airspace (as it had not done under [Chirac’s] premiership, when Reagan attacked Libya)”.
“Germany’s foreign minister Joschka Fischer…sincerely hoped for the “rapid collapse” of resistance to the Anglo-American attack. Putin…explained…Russia only desires a decisive victory of the US in Iraq.” Tariq Ali in the Grauniad.

PR!
Lies were told through the war: The Iraqis were bombing themselves; broke the Geneva convention by putting a prisoner on TV (much like us); executed prisoners, apparently, according to the western media; Iraqis were celebrating the arrival of their enemy; Saddam was dead; then missing; then alive but in hiding; WMDs were always an ever present nearly – the promise of WMDs being discovered every day, until they weren’t.
GW almost entirely disappeared from view. The important statements came form Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz who had waited a long time for the day that the US would take Baghdad.
Saddam was deposed in April 2003.  In fact Rumsfeld’s role was compared to the micromanagement of McNamara during Vietnam. This was called Rumsfeld’s war.

Maybe the most appalling lies were those propagated against George Galloway, a British MP who had dissented from supporting the war and called the whole thing illegal – which it was. In April the Daily Telegraph (British intelligence organ) dredged up some phoney documents documents it claimed to have found in Baghdad that proved Galloway was in pay of Saddam. Galloway was thrown out of the Labour Party but no one admitted that the allegations were false and Galloway didn’t get an apology – it wrecked his career, and many people continued to believe he was a Saddam collaborator and PR representative. He had spoken against Saddam during the 80s and tried to get answers to questions about weapons being sold to Iraq. Hardly a friend of Saddam, more a friend of the Iraqi people.

Tariq Ali commented on David Aranovitch’s comments in the Observer. Aranovtch, a NeoCon supporter, said Iraqis were a “sick people” because there were no spontaneous welcomes, only fierce early resistance. George Mellon in wall Street Journal: “Iraq won’t easily recover from Saddam’s terror…Iraq is a very sick society.”

Dawn of the Dead
The deaths – thousands – but we just don’t know for sure how many – why not – who’s keeping the facts from us – why didn’t anyone count the bodies or the missing?
Iraq’s success in the propaganda war came from stray bombs obliterating civilian-packed market places and seriously skewed reporting.
28,000 bombs were dropped on Iraq during this war (CBS News “60 minutes” on April 27th, 2003 – via Executive Intelligence Review, May 30th, 2003: “Halliburton Looter” by Scott Thompson and Michele Steinberg).
May 17th 2003, from Counterpunch, it was reported that the US Armed Services Commission had just passed a motion supporting the development of what they’re calling mini nukes. Even Richard Butler said “it is absolutely shocking…its been clear now for about 2 years that GW and the people around him want to have nuclear weapons in the regular battlefield arsenal…we have just witnessed the US go to Iraq to remove Saddam’s WMDs, and it is now itself proposing to acquire new weapons of mass destruction.”
From www.counterpunch.org by David Lindorff:
Lindorff talked about the “Incredible carnage caused by the single bomb” that the US dropped on a convoy of Kurdish troops. “Obviously these ‘precision’ weapons don’t just cause ‘collateral damage’ when they miss. They make a big circle of destruction around whatever target they hit, too.” But what about when they miss, and they must miss quite often? 10% of ‘smart’ bombs hit designated targets in ’91. This time round, how much smarter are the bombs? In ten years, three times would be pushing it, but if we assume that this is so, there would  still be a 70% error rate.

Journo deaths- from aljazeera.net
“Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist” The Committee to Protect Journalists.
An alarming number of journalists died during the conflict. Gaby Rado “fell of” a hotel roof. The promised enquiry?
Arab based Al Jazera performed magnificently under much pressure and intimidation, providing a rare glimpse of truth in a stage managed war. Al Jazera was set up a group of journalists based on the journalistic values they had learned during their time with the BBC World Service.
But still we were told they were under Saddam’s control, and were pro Saddam propaganda.


Army of Darkness
In March, General Buford Blount boasted that he’d be using depleted uranium munitions during the war in an interview with Le Monde.
 “One of these days, Buford, someone who respected you will read this, and stop respecting you. Are you an "honorable man", Buford?
"This statement was made by General Buford Blount, the same 3rd Infantry Division commander who boasted that he'd be using depleted uranium munitions during the war in an interview with Le Monde in March, a month ago. And he then said that there had been sniper fire and after the round was fired by the American tank, the sniper fire had ceased. In other words, the clear implication was that the gunfire had come from the Reuters office, which was a most mendacious, vicious lie by General Blount. General Blount lied in order to cover up the death of journalists. It was interesting that when indeed the Americans actually arrived in central Baghdad within a day, no journalists were raising these issues with the Americans who'd just arrived. They should have done...I did actually. And in fact two days later, I was on the Jumeirah bridge, and climbed onto the second tank and asked the tank commander whether he fired at the journalists and he said "I don't know anything about that, sir. I'm new here." Which he may well have been. How do I know if he was there before or not? But that tank round was fired deliberately at the hotel and General Blount's counterfeit -- the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division -- was a lie. A total lie. And it was a grotesque lie against my colleagues. Samia Mahul had a piece of metal in her brain, A young woman who's most bravely reported the Lebanese civil war. And against the Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters and against the Spanish cameraman in the room upstairs. It was a most disgusting lie. And as a journalist, I have to say that. And General Blount has not apologized for it. So far he has gotten away with his lie. I'm sorry to say."--Robert Fisk [alternet.org].”

Absolutely Nothing
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/iraq/wardiary1.htm  Diary of the war
  http://map-of-iraq.com/militarymap.jpg
http://www.map-of-iraq.com/
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/daily/graphics/iraqMap_032703_4.gif
google search for maps of iraq

Bliar: March 20th: “Tonight, British servicemen and women are engaged from air, land and sea. Their mission: to remove Saddam from power, and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction – national address on the outbreak of war.

day one: 21st of March the US seized parts of Umm Qasr south of Basra. UK troops aid US soldiers to secure the numero uno priority – the oil fields – get map of Iraqi oil fields. 8 UK and US soldiers die in helicopter accident over Kuwait. 1 US marine died in battle for Umm Qatr. History does not record the number of Iraqi deaths. Bombs and missiles struck Baghdad for a third night. The US proclaimed “Shock and Awe”

day two: 22nd March Baghdad was bombed again. Two UK Sea Kings collided. The US were trying to take Nasiriya. A big war demo took place in London. Journalists were being killed from the outset.
Paul Moran, 22 March 2003, freelance Australian cameraman; killed when an apparent human bomber detonated a car at a military checkpoint in northeastern Iraq.
Terry Lloyd, 22 March 2003, ITV News correspondent; disappeared in southern Iraq and was declared dead a day later.

Day three: 23rd of March – US B52s continued heavy raids on Baghdad. Reports of 106 dead civilians – killed overnight. An RAF Tornado was shot down by the Americans, killing two. Fearce fighting in Umm Qasr continued. Five US soldiers were captured by Iraq near Nasiriya. Telly pictures showed five bodies of US soldiers broadcast by al Jazeera. The US claimed that this contravened the Geneva Convention, that the US refused to recognise as applying to them, although how  an independent tv station reporting accurate news and broadcasting pictures that reflected that accurate news actually qualified as an Iraqi breach of the Geneva convention, noone (sane) knew.
In contrast, when Britain’s ITN confirmed that Terry Lloyd  had been killed by the US “friendly fire” this was held up as justifiable manslaughter or a terrible accident, and not a breach of international law. No!

Day Four: March 24th Iraqi resistance “stronger than expected” – US apache shot down. Syrian passenger bus was hit by an American missile killing five.  Invasion forces now 50 miles from Baghdad and preparing for an assault on the city.

Day Five: March 25th – Fierce battle in Najafmay have killed as many as 700 Iraqi soldiers.
UK soldiers bombed Basra. Popular uprising and increasingly critical humanitarian situation.
Umm Qasr “secured” by British. 18 dead UK soldiers now, in total.
54% UK public now support the war – a tribute to the skilful propaganda spewing forth from the British media.
Bliar Lie: “Our aim remains as has been stated: to remove Saddam as the route to disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction”

Day Six March 26th Overnight, bombing continued in Baghdad, apparently aimed at Iraqi state television. Broadcasts were interrupted briefly but resumed with a weaker signal - presumably from a back-up transmitter. At least 14 Iraqis were killed yesterday and dozens injured in a crowded marketplace in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad hit by an American missile. Twenty dead Brits now, but only two killed by the alleged enemy.

Day Seven: March 27th – The US advanced on Baghdad. Held up at Samawah against 1,550 Iraqi paramilitaries guarding a bridge. 350 dead Iraqi civilians so far in air raids. US secure an airfield in northern Iraq.

Day Eight: March 28th – Sir Galahad arrived at Umm Qasr with 200 tonnes of food, medicine and blankets.  The UK claimed 200 civilians fleeing Basra were fired upon by Iraqi mortars. In Britain the sister iof soldier shown on tv (a corpse) accused the government of lying about how they died. Blair’s spokesman said he was executed but the sister had received a letter from the army saying he’d died in combat.

Day Nine: March 29th – four US troops kille by suicide bomber at Najaf check-point.
Iraqi VP Taha Yassin Ramadam, said that this tactic will become “routine military policy”. He said the bomber was an uncommissioned officer in Iraqi army. PM spkesman said the commander of Iraq air defense forces in Baghdad has been replaced after Iraqi missiles went astray and hit the capital - ?!?!?

Day Ten: March 30th – 600 commanders launched assault to secure south east suburb Basra – rumsfeld accused Syria of being engaged in ‘hostile acts’ by delivering military equipment to Iraq.
Rumour of splits between defence secretary and army chiefs over tactics.
Gaby Rado, 30 March 2003, correspondent for Channel 4; fell to his death from the roof of his hotel in town of Sulaymania in northern Iraq. FISHY

Day Eleven: March 31st – US military kill 7 women and children at checkpoint, southern Iraq and announced 2 investigations.

March 2003: Mr Rumsfeld says the US-led coalition has solid evidence that senior al-Qaida operatives had visited Baghdad in the past, and that Saddam had an "evolving" relationship with the terror network.

Wanted! Mansoor Rahman Saiful – local commander fought against Taliban, but joined radical Islamists against the US

April 2003

Day Twelve: April 1st – Saudi Arabia urged Saddam to quit. The second civilian shooting in 24 hours by US marines – one man killed, one injured after marines fired on a car approaching a road block – US targeted Iraq’s Olympic hq and air-force officers’ club.

Day Thirteen: April 2nd – US “rescued” private Jessica Lynch from where she was being treated in an Iraqi hospital. US surround and secure Kerbala. Iraqis firing from Ali Mosque in Najaf. US advanced on Baghdad – now 19 miles away . Media goes into hyper mode about SH using chemical weapons – the ones he didn’t have anymore. Will he? Won’t he? What do you think?
Kaveh Golestan, 2nd April 2003, Iranian freelance cameraman on an assignment for the BBC; killed after stepping on a landmine in northern Iraq.

Day Fourteen: April 3rd – US reach SH International Airport, 10 miles from Baghdad 720 Iraqi troops killed in the US advance and as many as 80 Iraqis – some civilian – killed at Furat, near airport, in rocket attack. “Blackout bomb” ?
UK troops deepest incursion into Basra – the MOD admitted using cluster shells around Basra and dropped from RAF Harrier jets.
Al Jazeera protested about a ban imposed on two of its reporters and refused to cover war inside government controlled iraq.
Two Iraqis held over “execution” of UK soldiers. Saddam’s palaces bombed. UK attacking Basra. US reinforce troops at Baghdad airport.
Michael Kelly, 3rd April 2003, US journalists and Washington Post columnist; killed while travelling with the US army’s 3rd infantry division.

April 4th the working group argued that it may be necessary to interrogate detainees “in a manner beyond that which may be applied to a prisoner of war who is subject to Geneva Conventions. “Report details defences for use of torture and legal technicalities that can be used to “create a good faith defense against prosecution.” “Taxi to the Dark Side” website

April 4th Saddam went on a walkabout – lots of media conjecture that it was one of Saddam’s paid look-alikes.
Early in the war, the Americans were running out of satellite guided bombs and Tomohawk Cruise missiles.
The media “with their embedded journalists and tales of military bravado they encourage America to imagine itself as more noble in battle than in peace.” Charles Glass, Indie, 15th Sep 2004.

Day sixteen: April 5th – US tanks now in Baghdad. UK claim to have hit home of Hassam al-Majiid.

Day Seventeen: April 6th – UK troops powered into Basra and destroyed it’s Ba’ath party hq. three uk soldiers killed in action. US troops close off major roads into city. John Simpson witnessed ‘friendly fire’ attack in which his translator and 17 Americans and Kurds were killed. US fight alongside Kurdish peshmergen (?). fighters in Ain Sifari.
Kamaran Abd al-Razaq Muhammad, 6th April 2003, translator working for BBC; killed in northern Iraq in a “friendly fire” incident.
David Bloom, 6th April 2003, NBC journalist; died due to illness.

Day 18 April 7th GW and TB met in Belfast on.
US bomb section of Mansoor district in Baghdad where Saddam and sons were said to be meeting. US captured palaces. Welcomed by locals. Rampant looting by Iraqis.
US police opened fire in Oakland, California, on April 7th, with “non-lethal” bullets at an anti-war protest. Rubber bullets and wooden pellets. Believed to be their first use against US protesters since Iraqi war began. Direct Action to Stop the War and International Longshore and Warehouse Union “They shot my guys. We’re not going to work today,” Trent Willis of the IL&WU, said. – Associated press, Google “Police attack California Anti-war protesters by Martha Mendoza.

Julio Anuita Parrado, 7th April 2003, NY correspondent for El Mundo daily Spanish newspaper; killed in missile attack accompanying the US army’s 3rd division south of Baghdad.
Christian Liebig, 7th april 2003, reporter of german weekly magazine, Focus; killed in missile attack accompanying the US army’s 3rd division south of Baghdad.

Day 19: April 8th Bliar-Bush joint statement to counter leaks, stressing that Iraq’s oil and other natural resources are “the patrimony of the people of Iraq which should be used only for their benefit.”
US targeting government buildings – three journos killed by coalition fire – shell hits main media hotel in Baghdad – not an accident.
Renewed fighting was reported from around the palace early today, though it was unclear whether the building had come under attack from Iraqi forces or whether the Americans were trying to extend their area of control.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, troops and some civilians have been removing the most visible symbols of Saddam's power. In Zawra Park, according to CNN, a 40ft statue of the Iraqi leader mounted on horseback crashed to the ground when American soldiers shot the legs off.
The information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who is now Iraq's most celebrated TV personality, gave another cheerful press conference from the roof of the Palestine Hotel yesterday, announcing that "Baghdad is safe" as smoke wafted across the sky behind him and Iraqi troops on the opposite bank of the river ran for cover.
Hospitals in Baghdad are being overwhelmed by new patients, are running out of medicine and are short of water and electricity. surgeons at al-Kindi hospital in north-eastern Baghdad "have been working round the clock for the past two days and most are exhausted. Conditions are terrible".

Journalists attacked by US military – get dates, times and other details
Three journalists killed by US troops in two separate incidents in Baghdad over 24 hours. Lindorff writing in
Tariq Ayoub, 8th April 2003, Aljazeera TV channel correspondent; killed in US air strike at Aljazeera office in Baghdad.
Taras Protsyuk, 8th April 2003, Reuters cameraman; killed when US tank opened fire on Palestine hotel.
Jose Couso, 8th April 2003, cameraman for Spain’s Telecinco TV; killed when US tank opened fire on Palestine Hotel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_journalists_possibly_hit_by_U.S._gunfire
Al-Jazeera television channel said that its Baghdad office had been hit by American bombing. One cameraman was injured and another member of the team is missing, the station said. hit by American "smart" bombs during the war in Afghanistan. Before the invasion of Iraq began, al-Jazeera said it would be supplying the geographical coordinates of its Baghdad office to the US military, so there would be no excuse this time for hitting it by mistake.
Al-Jazeera's English-language website shut down several times in the past fortnight by cyber attacks that some believe are officially organised.

Counterpunch, said, “either the US is targeting journalists to punish those who are reporting honestly about the horrors of the war (the bombing of the aljazeera office) and to send a message to others not to get too close to the conflict (the tank blast at the Palestine Hotel, home base for most of the foreign prsee corps), or else these were simply the kinds of mindless, accidental yet inevitable atrocities that are going on all over Iraq, and especially Baghdad.” See Grenada for incident involving journalists and military.
“Aljazeera has clearly frustrated and angered the US military and the White House by airing the scenes of death and destruction that the American media has submissively censored out of American living rooms.”
“If they really did hit these two clearly off-limits location and kill three journalists “by accident” in just one day’s fighting, just imagine how many innocents are being slaughtered “by accident” every day of this war whose locations don’t even register on all those war maps?” – unlike the location where journalists stay which are “clearly well-known to the Pentagon war planners”.
American forces launched two separate attacks on international media centres in Baghdad, killing three journalists. Amnesty International and the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists have both called for an investigation. In one attack, an American tank fired a shell at the 15th floor of the Palestine hotel, where most of the "non-embedded" journalists in the Iraqi capital are staying. Central command in Qatar initially said there had been "significant enemy fire" from the hotel and "consistent with the inherent right of self-defence, coalition forces returned fire". Numerous journalists on the spot dismissed centcom's claim as untrue and said there had been no firing from the hotel. Centcom spokesman Vincent Brooks also implied the hotel was a legitimate target by saying it was used for "other regime purposes" - an apparent reference to press conferences given in the hotel by the Iraqi information minister. Earlier in the day, two bombs hit the offices of al-Jazeera television during an American air raid. Abu Dhabi television nearby, whose identity is spelt out in large letters on the roof, also came under fire. Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi are the only international TV stations with a permanent presence in Iraq. Al-Jazeera had previously sent the georgaphical coordinates of its office to the Pentagon in the hope of avoiding an American attack similar to the one that destroyed its office in Kabul during the Afghan war - but apparently to no avail.
Centcom claimed that US forces had come under fire from al-Jazeera's building. Although media organisations do not claim special protection during wars, these well-publicised attacks highlight a more general concern about the invasion forces' attitude towards civilians, especially in Baghdad.
 “U.S. tanks opened fire on foreign TV and wire service offices that were already identified as "no fire" zones by the US Central Command. It did not matter. Tanks belonging to the US Army's Third Infantry Division destroyed the media offices and killed and injured a number of journalists.
The man who ordered his tanks to open fire on the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV, and Reuters is Major General General Buford "Buff" Blount III. Like his three bosses, General Tommy Franks, General Richard Myers, and George W. Bush, Blount is a native of Texas. After the war is over, Blount will return amid ruffles and flourishes to accolades from Bush administration officials and a doting media. It must never be forgotten what crimes Blount perpetrated on April 8 in Baghdad.
We should all know what kind of person Blount is. He is the top military officer in the Savannah, Georgia region. His command includes Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield. Blount is a 1971 graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, the Hattiesburg college that did not integrate its student body until 1965, three years before Blount enrolled as a student and three years after the University of Mississippi was forced to admit its first black student. Blount's wife, Anita Barr, is also a native Mississippian. Hailing from Collins, Mississippi, she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1970. "Buff" and Anita, who is a school teacher, have two children.
The Third Infantry Division commander comes from a politically-connected family. His father, Buford Blount II, is a former Air Force Colonel who was once the deputy commander of Keesler Air Force Base, and is now mayor of Bassfield, Mississippi. General Blount's sister, Lisa, told the Jackson Clarion Ledger that she was worried about the lives of her brother's troops, however, the story made no mention of any concern for the lives of the civilians which they encountered. General Blount's uncle was also an Army general. He was Major General Dr. Robert E. Blount, who after his Army career became Dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
Blount must have had a certain disdain for Al Jazeera, the independent Arab satellite news network that has been the bain of the Saudi Royal Family. Before assuming command of the Third Infantry Division, Blount was the Program Manager for the Saudi National Guard. Unlike the U.S. National Guard, the Saudi Guardsmen are the shock troops for the Saudi royals. They are every much as committed to the Saudi princes as Iraq's Republican Guards were committed to Saddam Hussein. Blount undoubtedly sympathized with his Saudi benefactors when they disparaged Al Jazeera and their Qatari financial backers. There have been a number of heated exchanges between Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Qatar's Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani over the coverage of the Saudis by Al Jazeera.
Blount probably did not have to think twice about teaching Al Jazeera a lesson on behalf of his Saudi friends. For at the the same time Blount lorded over the Saudi National Guard, he was also a top military adviser to Abdullah. Blount's connections to the Saudis and his disregard for the safety of Al Jazeera journalists may appear to be highly unprofessional. However, when considering that officers like Blount are merely modern-day mercenaries, acting on behalf of corrupt royal regimes, oil company interests, and neo-conservative political operatives, his actions in Baghdad are very understandable -- painfully so.
Wayne Madsen a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. 

US destroyed a house in Baghdad in an attempt to assassinate SH. A single B-1 warplane dropped four 2,000lb bombs on the house, in the middle-class Mansour district of the city, yesterday afternoon but the purpose of the mission was not revealed by the Pentagon until 12 hours later. It left a crater 30ft deep and 50ft wide in the road. Witnesses said two houses were flattened and four other buildings badly damaged. Various reports put the number of Iraqi dead at between eight and 16.
US officials say they believe Saddam Hussein and his sons, Qusay and Uday, were in the building at the time. They say the attack was the result of intelligence from three "credible" sources, including a listening device planted in the building. A voice similar to that of Saddam had allegedly been heard discussing routes out of the city.

In Basra, British troops were seen on television yesterday patrolling streets of the old city on foot - a sign that the security situation is improving. But there is also extensive looting of official buildings (including a further education college) for furniture, computers, electrical items and even floorboards. A BBC correspondent reported seeing a grand piano stolen from a hotel being wheeled along the street.
US forces said yesterday that they may have found stores of the nerve agent sarin and other biological and chemical weapons at a camp near Hindiyah in central Iraq.
Bush and Blair continuing their talks in northern Ireland.

Jay Garner, the former US general who is setting up the "transitional" Pentagon-controlled government of Iraq from his base in Kuwait, was due to give a press conference yesterday but it was cancelled at the last minute. No reason was given, though continued behind-the-scenes wrangling is the most likely explanation.
The Guardian reports today that Britain hopes to appoint Major General Tim Cross, a logistics expert, as Garner's deputy.

American propaganda broadcasting to Iraq, some comes from aircraft operating out of a small US base known as Camp Snoopy, at Doha airport in Qatar. Mika Makelainen, a Finnish radio enthusiast, published a full report on his website.

Day 20 April 9th Jubliant crowds greeted US troops in Baghdad. There were looting rampages and a 40 foot statue of Saddam was toppled. Like much about this war – the symbolic toppling of Saddam’s statue was faked, the Iraqis involved were paid and stage managed by American PR types for careful media manipulation.
Chaos and jubilation broke out in Baghdad this morning amid signs that Saddam Hussein's regime has lost control of the city.
Television showed scenes of citizens attacking images of the Iraqi leader, while others cheerfully made off with whatever they could grab from shops and other buildings.
Overnight, US marines fanned out through Saddam city, the Shia suburb, where they were greeted by smiling Iraqis.
Some feeble resistance was reported in the city centre, but the people of Baghdad had clearly decided Saddam cannot threaten them again.
Saddam toppled april 9th?

Chalabi, who wants to be prime minister, was flown to Nassiriya by the US military on Sunday, despite objections from the CIA and state department that he is not a credible leader. His spokesman, Francis Brooke, told Reuters yesterday: "We have been receiving delegation upon delegation [of local Iraqis]. We don't have time to meet them all. We are inundated."

But the US is reportedly annoyed by some freelance military activity from Abu Hatem Mohammed Ali, a guerilla leader associated with the INC. Abu Hatem, along with several thousand armed men, is said to have "captured" the headquarters of Amara governorate, 230 miles southeast of Baghdad, without American support. According to Reuters, he then left the building when the CIA threatened to have it bombed if he stayed.

Tony Blair & President Bush concluded their two-day meeting in northern Ireland yesterday.
The outcome was a joint statement that the UN has a "vital role" to play in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Day 21 April 10th – Kirkuk fell to the Kurds. Turkey sent in military advisors.
Someone produced a sledgehammer, and Iraqis took it in turns to hack at the base of the giant statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
They were making reasonable progress, and might well have toppled it after a few hours, but that would have been too late for primetime TV. The Americans were getting impatient, and their armoured vehicle lumbered up the podium steps... When it came to toppling Saddam's statue, the Iraqis were soon elbowed out of the way. This particular armoured vehicle had a device that seemed tailor-made for removing colossal statues of deposed presidents. A jib with a hook and chain on the end slowly extended up to Saddam's chest. A soldier climbed up the jib, hooked the chain around Saddam's neck, and produced a US flag, which he draped over the Iraqi leader's head.
There was some applause from the Iraqi crowd, but an Iraqi commentator on the BBC was aghast, and you could almost hear the shouts from Centcom's PR department in Qatar: "Get that flag down, now!"
This was exactly the sort of triumphalism that had caused so much trouble when troops hoisted the stars and stripes over Umm Qasr in the early days of the war: completely off-message. It's supposed to be a war of liberation, not of conquest. The US flag duly came down and an Iraqi flag appeared, miraculously, from the crowd. A soldier draped it, rather grudgingly, around Saddam's neck, and then that, too, was removed.
Finally, the crowd was ushered back, the armoured vehicle slowly reversed and the chain tightened. With more grace than he ever displayed in power, Saddam Hussein made his final bow.

Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial would-be prime minister, has been up to more mischief in Nassiriya, where the Pentagon hawks helped him to set up a base last weekend. Chalabi plans to convene a meeting of Iraqi opposition figures in Nassiriya on Saturday, viewed by the US state department as an attempt to organise his own "coronation". State department officials moved quickly to undermine Mr Chalabi's efforts by saying that a joint meeting of "liberated Iraqis" and opposition members from outside Iraq will be held soon, although the date and location have yet to be set. "It will be our meeting and our guest list, not Chalabi's," a Bush administration official said.

Britain has also pre-empted Chalabi (and perhaps the Pentagon, too) by appointing an unnamed tribal sheikh to run Basra province. Sketchy information about this was given by Colonel Chris Vernon, spokesman for the British forces, at a press briefing on Tuesday. One journalist at the briefing asked how the sheikh was chosen: was he simply the first Iraqi to volunteer? Yes, said Colonel Vernon, although the British had been aware of his name beforehand. The sheikh had been given the job after a two-hour interview with a divisional commander, and was "very pleased" with the arrangements proposed by the British. An Arab journalist then suggested that the sheikh, as a tribal leader, was likely to promote members of his own tribe to key posts. Colonel Vernon seemed surprised by this, and agreed that Britain would have to keep an eye on the situation.
Sheikh Muzahim Tamimi, the tribal leader appointed by Britain to take charge of Basra province. It has emerged that he is a former brigadier-general in Saddam Hussein's army and was once a member of the Ba'ath party. Several hundred protesters threw stones at his house earlier this week.
One theory circulating in London is that the sheikh was appointed accidentally because British intelligence confused him with his anti-Saddam brother (who turns out to have been shot dead by the secret police in 1994).

Fighting broke out in Baghdad again this morning. Some of it centred on a mosque, where Saddam was rumoured to be hiding. Loud blasts were also reported from the city's outskirts, although their cause was not known. In the north, B-52 bombers were reportedly pounding an Iraqi army division near Kirkuk.
The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, again threatened to escalate the Middle East conflict last night when he accused Iraq's neighbour, Syria, of helping senior members of the Baghdad regime to escape. The US was getting "scraps of evidence" to this effect, Mr Rumsfeld added.
He said there was also evidence that Syrians (referred to by the Pentagon as "jihadists") were moving into Iraq with approval from the Syrian government.

Day 22 April 11th -  Kurds and the US entered Mosul -  a pack of 55 playing cards appeared, with Iraqi suspects on each card.
Yesterday, a particularly bad sign was the killing, in Iraq's holiest Shia mosque, of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a US-backed cleric who had been living in exile in London until last week. It is unclear whether his death was the work of Saddam Hussein loyalists or a rival Shia group but, either way, the implications are alarming.
Mr al-Khoei was the son of Ayatollah Sayed al-Qasim al-Khoei, the leader of much of the Shia world until 1992 when he died, under house arrest, in Najaf.

There was also another suicide bombing last night, when a man wearing an explosives-packed vest attacked a US checkpoint in Saddam City, the Shia suburb of Baghdad. Conflicting reports of casualties ranged from four US marines wounded to several dead.
Overnight, Iraqi gunmen, apparently from Shia slums in eastern Baghdad, fought a fierce hour-long battle with Fedayeen paramilitaries loyal to Saddam, according to US military sources and a Reuters news agency report.
no serious effort to stop the looting in Baghdad. US officials expect it to fizzle out naturally when there is nothing left to loot, although reports that Iraqis have even been stripping electrical wiring from buildings suggest that it may continue for some time.
George Bush and Tony Blair both gave speeches (dubbed into Arabic) on the new Towards Freedom TV station yesterday although, with no electricity in most of Baghdad, it is doubtful whether many people could have watched it.
Mr Blair promised to see the war through to the end. Mr Bush said that the US would respect Iraq's "great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq's future".
In northern Iraq early today, US and Kurdish forces reportedly captured Mosul, Iraq's third city, without a fight. Kurdish paramilitaries have promised to hand over the important oil city of Kirkuk to US troops later today.
Kirkuk, the traditional capital of the Kurds, was taken by a mixture of Kurdish guerrillas and US special forces yesterday, but neighbouring Turkey, fearful of increased Kurdish power, has been insisting that the Kurds must not be allowed to keep it.
There is growing debate on the internet about the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad, and the extent to which it was stage-managed for the TV cameras. Numerous Guardian readers have pointed out an aerial photograph of the scene, showing how small the crowd was. However, it is not known at what point the photograph was taken. The picture is broadly consistent with remarks about the size of the crowd made by a BBC reporter who was on the spot at the time.

Day 23 April 12th – General Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi – the chief scientist - surrendered
Day 23 comes with a free handy map, originally from……


On one of the bleakest days since the invasion began, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday shrugged off turmoil and looting in Iraq as signs of the people's freedom.
"It's untidy, and freedom's untidy," he said, jabbing his hand in the air. "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things."
Mr Rumsfeld insisted that words such as anarchy and lawlessness were unrepresentative of the situation in Iraq and "absolutely" ill-chosen.
"I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it," he said. "I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny - 'The sky is falling'. I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot - one thing after another. It's just unbelievable ..."
In an extraordinary performance reminiscent of the Iraqi information minister who assured the world that all was well even as battles raged visibly around him, Mr Rumsfeld quipped:
"The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?' "
In what appeared to be a concerted effort to damp down media coverage of the chaos, the British government simultaneously laid into the BBC and its defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, accusing them of "trying to make the news" rather than reporting it.
A spokesman for prime minister Tony Blair claimed that "in the main the anarchy and disorder is being directed against symbols of the regime". Mr Gilligan hit back: "The reality is half the shopping district [in Baghdad] is now being looted. Downing Street may be saying it's only regime targets that are being attacked. I'm afraid it isn't."
In the absence of any authority, residents of Baghdad have been erecting barricades to keep out marauders and there is some evidence of shooting, either between looters and citizens who are trying to protect their own property, or between rival gangs of looters.
Hospitals and laboratories have been ransacked, with thieves often seizing vital equipment - heart monitors, incubators and microscopes - which is of no obvious use to them. A report today says only one hospital in the city still has a functioning operating theatre.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has reminded the US and Britain of their legal obligation under the Geneva Convention to protect civilians and essential services such as hospitals.
The US yesterday appealed for Baghdad's police - as well as fire and ambulance services - to resume work. It is doubtful that many will do so at present: the public is unlikely to welcome a return of the old regime's crime prevention apparatus, and the police themselves may be unwilling to put their lives at risk to help out the Americans.
In a move that further undermines the United Nations' role in Iraq, the US has secretly and unilaterally resumed weapons inspections, according to a report in the Guardian today.
This will also annoy the British government, which still officially supports the UN's Unmovic team.
The American inspection team, nicknamed "USmovic", which was set up in Kuwait a week before the war began, has already started work. It includes inspectors recruited from the previous Unscom team and is led by Charles Duelfer, former deputy head of Unscom.
The US has a pressing need to find evidence of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, since this was the pretext for the invasion in the first place. But the American-controlled inspection team has no international recognition and will also have to struggle to establish its credibility. The work of Unscom during the 1990s was partly discredited by allegations of espionage which were later, to some extent, admitted. Whatever "USmovic" finds, it is liable to be accused of planting evidence, even if that is not actually the case.
In northern Iraq, where the key cities of Mosul and Kirkuk were "liberated" by Kurdish forces with American support, the "liberation" of any available property has also begun.
Turkey is particularly worried about Kirkuk and has troops on the border ready to invade if Kurdish forces do withdraw from the city. Turkey's fear is that possession of Kirkuk and the surrounding oilfields would make a Kurdish state in the region economically viable. This could jeopardise the territorial integrity of Turkey, where there is a substantial Kurdish population.
This morning there are reports of some Kurdish forces leaving Kirkuk, but they are said to be holding back until more US troops arrive to take over from them and maintain order.
This is only part of the picture, however. At the same time, large numbers of armed Kurdish civilians have been reported entering the city. They are said to be former residents of Kirkuk who were displaced by Saddam Hussein's policy of Arabisation (ethnic "cleansing"). In the slightly longer term, these returnees are likely to strengthen Kurdish claims to possession of the city.

Day 25 - April 13, 2003: An Iraqi general who was in charge of liaison with United Nations weapons inspectors before the war gave himself up to American forces in Baghdad yesterday after discovering that he was on a list of the 55 "most wanted" officials.
General Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, who has a German wife, was accompanied by a German television crew whom he had invited to film the surrender, apparently to ensure his safety.
US secretary of state Colin Powell singled out General Saadi for criticism in his speech to the UN security council last February.
"It was General Saadi who last [autumn] publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperate unconditionally with inspectors," Mr Powell said. "Quite the contrary, Saadi's job is not to cooperate; it is to deceive, not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing."
In contrast, the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, described General Saadi as "extremely knowledgeable and businesslike", adding that unlike the Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, he did not constantly inject politics in discussions about the inspections. However, Mr Blix also said General Saadi's claim that Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons in the summer of 1991 "had no credibility".
General Saadi, a chemist who was trained in Britain and Germany, worked on Iraq’s chemical weapons programme in the 1980s and 1990s.
Whether he will now lead the US to the elusive "smoking gun" remains to be seen. Yesterday he told the German TV station, ZDF, that he had been honest in his dealings with weapons inspectors and felt in "no way guilty". He continued to insist that Iraq did not possess chemical or biological weapons.
Amid scenes of vigilantes beating up suspected looters and threatening them with guns, Iraqi demonstrators yesterday vented their wrath at the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad where the US Marines now have their headquarters. "Where is the law?" one of them complained. "This is democracy in Baghdad?"
Eyewitnesses say American troops have been standing aside as looters go about their plundering and in some cases have even waved booty-laden cars through checkpoints.
Three Malaysian journalists were ambushed and kidnapped by unidentified gunmen shortly after leaving the Sheraton hotel yesterday. An Iraqi interpreter accompanying them was shot dead. They were among a group of 28 journalists sent to Baghdad last week at the expense of the Malaysian government which had complained of biased reporting by western news media in Iraq.
Efforts to reinstate Saddam Hussein’s police force have so far met with limited success. About 80 officers have reported for duty and last night a token police car with three officers inside was said to be patrolling the city.
This morning the US began its first air patrols over Baghdad in an effort to improve security.
The state department last week awarded a multi-million dollar contract for private police work in Iraq to DynCorp, a security firm which has donated more than £100,000 to the Republican party.
A report in today’s Observer says the company, which has branch offices in the British military town of Aldershot, has already begun recruiting in Britain with offers of one-year employment contracts at a salary of £51,000 plus "hazard bonuses".
The paper reveals that DynCorp was recently ordered by a British employment tribunal to pay £110,000 to a UN police officer in Bosnia who was unfairly sacked for blowing the whistle on colleagues involved in an illegal sex ring.
Expectations that the Baathists will make a bloody "last stand" in Tikrit - Saddam Hussein’s birthplace - are unlikely to be fulfilled, judging by reports this morning.
Tikrit has previously been subjected to heavy bombing and, according to the US military, Iraqi reinforcements were seen digging in around the town. But live pictures this morning from CNN correspondent Brent Sadler, who drove into the northern outskirts unopposed, showed no sign of Iraqi fighters or armour. A military base five miles from the centre was derelict, with destroyed artillery and empty tanks along the roads around Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad.
"I've not seen one single symbol of [Iraqi] authority in the last hour of transmission," Mr Sadler said.
Later, however, the CNN crew left in a hurry after coming under small arms fire - though it was unclear who was responsible for the shooting. One of the drivers suffered a head wound and a vehicle was badly damaged.
In a further sign of the Kurds’ assertiveness, Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas also came within two miles of Tikrit last night before pulling back. Again, there was little sign of resistance apart from minor skirmishes.
This seems to demolish the theory that the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard have retreated to Tikrit, though it only adds to the mystery of what has happened to them.
The US yesterday continued its verbal onslaught against Syria when Colin Powell called on Iraq’s neighbour to detain any Iraqi officials seeking refuge. President Bush had earlier said the Syrian authorities should "turn them over to the proper folks".
Tension was exacerbated yesterday when the US military said a man who shot dead a Marine outside a hospital in Baghdad was a Syrian national. In the early stages of the war a number of Arab volunteers crossed into Iraq from Syria.
US forces in Iraq have now sealed off the roads leading to and from Syria.
The Syrian foreign minister, Farouq al-Sharaa, yesterday described the American accusations as baseless and challenged Washington to provide evidence. The French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, on a visit to Damascus, called for an end to the war of words. "Now is the time for a display of responsibility, not polemics," he said.
Syrian television reported that President Bashar al-Asad received a phone call on Friday evening from the British prime minister, Tony Blair. It gave no details beyond saying they "discussed developments in Iraq and their repercussions".
The British foreign office confirmed last week that at present Syria has no legal obligation to hand over any Iraqi fugitives, since none have yet been formally indicted or charged with crimes.

Day 26 - April 14, 2003: Tikit taken – some shops open in Baghdad.
American tanks and troops entered the main square of Tikrit early this morning. As Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's birthplace there were predictions that his supporters would make a defiant last stand there - though resistance so far has been less than expected.
Bombing of the town continued yesterday and the US appears to have rejected an offer by a local tribal chief, Yussuf abd al-Aziz al-Nassari, to negotiate a peaceful surrender. According to Agence France Presse, Mr Nassari asked to be allowed 48 hours to persuade the remaining Iraqi forces to lay down their arms.
Tikrit - last major population centre to be wrested from Baathist control & will essentially mark the end of the "liberation" phase of the war - as US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it last week, "free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things".
In Baghdad, armed vigilante groups patrolling some of the streets - all but a handful of shops remain shuttered. Electricity supplies still not restored.
Attention at the weekend focused on the destruction of the city's museum. US forces had carefully avoided bombing it but then stood by as looters plundered its treasures or, in many cases, simply smashed them.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, tensions between Arabs and returning Kurdish refugees.
In the south, Basra still without safe drinking water - possible epidemic.
Confusion reigns in Najaf, where armed mob reportedly surrounded the home of Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani, a pro-western Shia cleric, and gave him 48 hours to leave the country. Last Thursday, another cleric who had just returned from exile in Britain was hacked to death in the holiest mosque in Najaf.
seven missing Americans who were found alive and well on a road north of Baghdad yesterday, and the capture near Mosul of Saddam's half-brother, Watban al-Tikriti (number 51 on the "wanted" list).
A meeting of prominent Iraqis is due to take place in Nassiriya tomorrow under US auspices. This appears to be the Americans' response to an attempt by Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial leader of the Iraqi National Congress, to establish a power base by convening his own meeting in the town. The US objected to Mr Chalabi's meeting, describing it as his "coronation". Mr Chalabi yesterday dismissed the Americans' meeting, saying "no decisions will be taken" at it, and indicated that he will not be attending. 
The US stepped up its verbal attacks on Syria yesterday. Bush: "I think we believe there are chemical weapons in Syria,"
Donald Rumsfeld repeated claims that Syria is giving refuge to senior Iraqi officials. The US military has also drawn attention to the presence of fighters in Iraq who are said to have Syrian nationality (it is an established fact that Arab volunteers from various countries did enter Iraq from Syria in the early stages of the war).
Syrian deputy ambassador in Washington, Imad Moustapha, accused the US of "a campaign of misinformation and disinformation about Syria": "We will not only accept the most rigid inspection regime, we will welcome it heartily."
Syria was not originally included with Iraq, Iran and North Korea in President Bush's "Axis of Evil". Many observers believe this is not a build up to military action but an attempt to make the Syrian government change its policies or face destabilisation. But the current focus on Syria does fit the blueprint for reshaping Israel's "strategic environment" that was proposed by the "Clean Break" document. Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and one of the leading proponents of war with Iraq, was the main author of the document, which set out advice for the incoming Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu.
A key passage said: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening,containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."

Day 27 - April 15th – Iraqi groups talks at airbase outside Nasiriya – Shia groups boycott it. Seven Iraqis killed in Mosul demo by US troops – too much democracy!
Mario Podesta, 15th april 2003, correspondent for Argentina’s America TV; died in a car crash while travelling from the Jordanian border to Baghdad.

Day 28 - April 16th W urged the UN to lift economic sanctions on Iraq.

Day 29 - April 17th SH’s half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was captured. Oxfam flew out water supplies and sanitation. April 18th Chalabi mad ehis first public appearance in Baghdad. Samir Abu Aziz al-Najim the 55th most wanted – handed over to US by Kurds.

Day 31 - April 19th US central command said Iraqi police in Baghdad on 18th arrested former finance minister, Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, who also served as a deputy prime minister.

Day 32 - April 20th SH’s son in law Jamal Mustafa Abdullah Sultan al-Tikriti, surrendered to the Iraqi National Congress after leaving Syria.

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was set up on 21st April and lasted until June 28th 2004. It took over from the ORHA (see below).

Jay Garner as governor – arrived on April 21st. An Iraqi “Council” was to be set up under his authority.

Day 40 - Bliar: April 28th: “Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit. I remain confident that they will be found.”

Baghdad Looted
Based on an interview with Robert Fisk in Z Magazine, by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, 23rd April 2003.
Americans were on a mission to destroy Iraqi culture, no matter what their spokespeople said to the media. Fisk counted 158 government buildings in Baghdad before he left, the only ones protected by the US Marines were Ministry of the Interior, which includes the Iraqi intelligence Corp, and the Ministry of Oil. “Even the Ministry of Higher Education/ Computer Science was burning.”
The National Archaeological Museum and the National Library of Archives, containing Ottoman and state archives and Koranic Library of the Ministry of Religious Endowment, were all burned. “Petrol was poured on these documents and they were all burned in 3000 degrees of heat.”
“So, somebody has an interest in destroying the centre of a new government and the cultural identity of Iraq.” The Americans claimed that ‘Saddamite remnants’ were doing all this burning, but as Fisk points out: “if I was a remnant of a Saddam regime and say I was given $20,000 to destroy the library I would say thakyou very much and when the regime was gone I would pocket the money. I wouldn’t go and destroy the library, I don’t need to, I’ve got the money.”
And why did the US, who had the capability and the obligation [under Geneva Convention] to protect these institutions, not do so?”
The London Observer reported that the US ignored its own civilian advisers when they warned of the threat of looting in the National Museum, failed to provide “just a few soldiers at each building…or at least one or two tanks” which at the time “were doing nothing” as forces already inside the city.

“during the rout of the Iraqi army during the American invasion of 2003, there were frequent pictures of tanks on fire giving an impression that the Iraqi army had fought to the end. This was an important point to establish since, if Iraqi soldiers had refused to fight for Saddam Hussein, then they might not feel they had been defeated and be capable of resuming the war later on.
I recall climbing on top of burnt-out tanks on the road north of Baghdad in the last days of the war and finding no bodies inside. The tanks had been abandoned before they were hit from the air. In other words, there was probably a lot more fighting to come.” P.Cockburn, Indie, 25/04/09

“Even before the first bomb fell, most Iraqis were against “liberation” by force” – Steele. US troops were quickly seen as out of control and trigger happy. On April 18th tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated against US occupation of Iraq in central Baghdad. That month US troops shot dead 18 people during street protests in Falluja – a strong Sunni Muslim area of central Iraq, north and west of Baghdad. April 28th US troops fired demonstrators near Baghdad and killed at least 13 people and wounded 75 others. April 30th US troops opened fire on civilians for a second time when an angry crowd gathered in Fallujah to protest over the previous shooting. Revenge attack on May 1st – a grenade was thrown into a US base in Fallujah, wounding 7 US soldiers. A 14 year old boy was shot in Basra on May 4th. The UK army called it an ‘unfortunate incident’.

May 2003

Bush declared the war over on May 1st. (Day 43)
Iraqi resistance begged to differ. On board Abraham Lincoln at sea off the coast of San Diego – Bush declared the war to be ended. The whole speech is to be found.
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html

Bush at pains to ensure the conflict was linked yet again to 9-11. “there are a lot of implications to declaring a war officially ended; under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release POWs and halt operations targeting specific leaders.” BBC
But, “the US [was] not prepared to do that”, the BBC’s Matt Frei in Washington said.
Therefore Ari Fleischer warned that the speech would not mark the ned of hostilities “from a legal point of view.” For propaganda purposes the war was over, but for legal purposes it continued.

On the 3rd of May– senior Washington official’s statement, and raised with Downing Street, that US officials “would be amazed if we found weapons-grade plutonium or uranium, or large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons either.

Ritter led 14 inspection missions in Iraq.

A story appeared in the Times, by Nicholas Rufford (12/28/03), just before the Hutton report was published, which reported on an operation by Intelligence organisations to build public support for sanctions and the use of military action in Iraq. MI6 in the UK organised ‘Operation Mass Appeal’ – a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs.
A senior official admitted that MI6 had been involved, but denied that it had planted misinformation. Scott Ritter, too, claimed that “MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.”
“The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was”. He also said “there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. “Stories ran…about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction),” said Ritter, “They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage.”
UKs foreign office worked with MI6 to promote British Middle East policy in 1997 – using misleading intelligence, and targeted in particular Poland, South Africa, India, initially, as they were non-aligned UN countries not supporting the UK and US position on sanctions.
Ritter willingly took part in this campaign – he obtained approval to cooperate from Richard Butler, then executive chairman of the UN special Commission on Iraq Disarmament. Ritter provided information on Iraq to be planted in newspapers in India, Poland, and south Africa,  that would “feedback” to UK and US.
Ritter came out and talked about the operation as he opposed the war and was frustrated at “an official cover-up” and the “misuse of intelligence”. ”What MI6 was determined to do by the selective use of intelligence was to give the impression that Saddam still had WMDs or was making them and thereby legitimise sanctions and military action against Iraq.”

Bush sets up climate plan designed to delay action

Elizabeth Neuffer, 9th May 2003, freelance camerawoman for Argentina’s America TV; died in a car crash while travelling from the Jordanian border to Baghdad.

Walid Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami, 9th May 2003, translator accompanying foreign correspondent for the Boston Globe in Iraq; killed in a car accident.

Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by US forces in 2003, Gaddafi announced that his nation had an active weapons of mass destruction program, but was willing to allow international inspectors into his country to observe and dismantle them. US President George W. Bush and other supporters of the Iraq War portrayed Gaddafi's announcement as a direct consequence of the Iraq War by stating that Gaddafi acted out of fear for the future of his own regime if he continued to keep and conceal his weapons. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a supporter of the Iraq War, was quoted as saying that Gaddafi had privately phoned him, admitting as much. Many foreign policy experts, however, contend that Gaddafi's announcement was merely a continuation of his prior attempts at normalizing relations with the West and getting the sanctions removed . To support this, they point to the fact that Libya had already made similar offers starting four years prior to it finally being accepted.[38][39] International inspectors turned up several tons of chemical weaponry in Libya, as well as an active nuclear weapons program. As the process of destroying these weapons continued, Libya improved its cooperation with international monitoring regimes to the extent that, by March 2006, France was able to conclude an agreement with Libya to develop a significant nuclear power program. Wikip.
Jack Straw was to refer to the autocratic and murderous Ghadafi as “a statesman.” G had previously plotted to kill King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/10/libya.saudi/ 
http://www.mapreport.com/countries/gadhafi.html   Ghadaffi timeline

The Iraqford Files
The US and UK laid out their blueprint for postwar Iraq on May 9th. “Delegate UN to an advisory role alongside the World Bank and the IMF. Russia and France have favoured suspending the sanctions but want some control by the UN until Iraq government is established. “Anyone who thinks they know how long its going to take is fooling themselves,” said Rumsfeld.
“Paul Nielson, European Union’s commissioner for aid and development accused America of seeking to seize control of Iraq’s vast oil wealth. Nielson, a Dane who went on a three day fact-finding mission to Iraq said US was “units away to becoming a member of OPEC” and “they will appropriate the oil”. Iraqis called for the UN or an Iraqi government to take control of the oil.” – Grauniad May 9th.
Iraq on May 9th. How was the White House now going to force the new Iraq to line itself up with US economic and strategic interests? The appointment of a former US General Jay Garner as governor – which was opposed by most Iraqis – was the first step – he arrived on April 21st. An Iraqi “Council” was set up under his authority.
Iraqi and American corpses pile up as Iraqis refused to be “liberated”. Public opinion gradually turns against Dubya until he no longer carries the majority of US voters with him.
A big PR problem arose out of the short sighted policy of putting up phoney reasons for going to war. The “search for a smoking gun” found nothing. Blix was proved right, but his staff were picked off one by one in a head-hunting exercise, so the US could set up its own inspectorate in Iraq. Why? Washington got down to the important business of negotiating with private firms to carry out the inspections.
And there were whistle blowers. Three GB soldiers were sent home after protesting civilian deaths.
April 16th a Palestinian guerrilla Abu Abbas was captured. He’d masterminded the 1985 hi-jacking of an Italian cruise ship, as evidence of a link between SH and terrorism. US marines raided the Baghdad home of a scientist wanted for work on SH’s banned weapons programme and, elsewhere, claimed to have found a terrorist training camp. Pentagon said that Iraq war has cost the US at least £125bn so far.

By May 10th 145 US troops had been killed. Boston Globe journalist Elizabth Neuffer was killed in a car “accident” – she hit a railing. Her translator also died; the 14th journalist to die since the conflict began.
US troops in stand off with Iranian militant group, People’s Mojahedin. US policy was to ‘employ’ terrorist groups such as this to ‘police’ Iraq in the ‘peace’.
The standoff over the Iranian group above was over their clashing with another terrorist group ‘employed’ by the US – Tehran backed Badr Brigades.

Office for the Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) had been set up following the invasion. It was a caretaker administration to exist until a civilian government could eb established.
Garner was appointed as director of ORHA in January – a retired US army Lt General. He’d been involved in the 1991 Desert Storm and was closely tied to Rumsfeld.
“an obvious choice” wikipedia
Garner wanted to put the Iraqi people in charge ASAP and to do it with elections. The US put enormous pressure on Garner to remove members of the Baath party from their postions in the government – Garner refused. He lasted until 11th May whereupon he was sacked – the ORHA was dissolved and replaced by the CPA.

Bremer took over the same day, appointed by Rumsfeld with only two weeks to prepare  - title US Presidential Envoy and Administration in Iraq – media and whitehouse called him Ambassador – even though Bremer’s post was never confirmed by the US Senate and his credentials never formally presented to the Iraqi government, and there was no true US diplomatic mission in Iraq at this time.
Both Garner and Bremer were frequently referred to as proconsuls in the press – titles given to governments of foreign provinces in the Roman Empire – Wiki.
Bremer – a retired diplomat with no experience of Iraq, after three days he decided that he, not the Iraqis, would run the country.

Bungled – no restoration of essential services, economic decline, mismanagement of billions of dollars in Iraqi and US funds, corruption and a failed effort to build a new Iraqi military and police.

12th May  - Suicide bomb in Riyadh killed 34.

WMD May Never Be Found…
Both sides of the Atlantic had to deal with a misled public – pissed off since no WMDs were found.
Right after the war – on May 15th – Jack Straw conceded that hard evidence of WMD might never be found but added that it was “not crucially important” to find them because the evidence of wrong doing was overwhelming. – guardian 15/05/03
On May 29th Blair was accused by ministers of distorting the findings of the chief UN weapons inspector to support Britain’s claims about Saddam’s weapons programmes.

16th May bombing of Jewish and Spanish targets in Casablanca – 45 killed. Morroco. Mohamed al-Fazazi (spiritual; leader of the Moroccan group Salif Jihadia and alledgedly linked to 9-11) was accused of being “the inspiration” behind this. Germany claimed that Fazazi preached in Hamburg in a mosque used by 9-11 terrorists.

May 18th, Jay Garner, the US general was dismissed as Iraq's first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections. Bush probably didn’t agree with the fee, $200 a day plus expenses.

Splits in Washington?
There were rumours of a split between Rumsfeld and the military – that he had over-ruled their requests for more troops. He was hoping for a walk-over – this was in March.
Robert Buzzanco, associate professor of history at University of Houston, author of “Masters of War: Military dissent and politics in the UN era and Vietnam and the transformation of American Life”, talked about the internal dissent Bush resisted. General Anthony Zinni, (former) Special Envoy to the Middle East, wondered “what planet they live on” when hawks demanded intervention despite world and Arab dissent. Wesley Clark expected “a quick war, then lots of trouble…long term risk from a devastating defeat of Saddam that is extremely dangerous…a deepening of the Arab sense of humiliation across the region. They will view the American and Allied victory as a reimposition of colonialism.” Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki publicly rebuked Rumsfeld as he estimated troop strength needed in Iraq, and Shinseki was to be proved right. As Bush proclaimed victory, Marine General David McKiernan countered that “the war has not ended”.

A rift appeared too between Washington and Iraqi opposition groups. Zalmay Khalidzad, Bush’s Special Envoy to the Iraqi opposition, a member of the NSC, said that the Iraqi people should be allowed to run their affairs “as soon as possible”. He refused to say how long a military administration would remain in Baghdad.

Khalidzad was a Afghan, and a Muslim – highly ranked in the Bush administration. A native Pashtun, born in Mazar-i-Sharif, emigrated to the US. One of the signatories of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) letter sent to Clinton. Educated at University of Chicago – studied closely with Albert Wohlstetter. Khalidzad had worked under Reagan and Bush sr. as special assistant to the president for Southwest Asia, the near eats and North Africa. From 85 to 89 he served as senior US State Dept official advising on Soviet War in Afghanistan and the Iran Iraq war. From 91 to 92 he was a senior defence Department official for policy planning. Served a s a counsellor to Rumsfeld. Worked as an advisor for Unocal Corp in mid 90s – and Cambridge Energy Reasearch Associates. He produced risk analysis for proposed Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Pakistan pipeline. Khalilzad was appointed special envoy to Afghanistan after the invasion and special envoy to the Iraqi opposition.

Opposition groups had been peed off by Washington’s proposal to install a US military governor in Baghdad and leave much of the existing Iraqi bureaucracy in the hands of president Saddam’s Ba’ath Party, effectively a climb-down by Washington. Leaked plans showed that the US State Department intended to privatise the Iraqi economy, “particularly the state owned national oil company”, starting with the petrol stations and finishing up with exploration and development bits.

Mohamed Heikel: “using force would be very dangerous. It will unite Islam, Arab nationalism, bin Ladenism, terror, the Israeli Palestinian conflict – the frustration in the Arab world will be brought together in one charge.”

Only Kanan Makazi of the Iraqi National Council was “broadly reassured”.
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – represents Iraq’s Shia majority – said this was a bad idea, “The Iraqi people need no guidance”.
The US needed to balance the fact that Saudi Arabia want the Sunni elite to remain in power.
Kurdish officials are worried about possible clashes between Turkey and Kurdish militias and say any invasion by Turkey will lead to regional instability.

Chemical Donald
Donald Rumsfeld argued that the military should again be allowed to use chemicals as weapons of war in Iraq. “non-lethal” chemical agents , used for riot control – temporary incapacitation – but lethal in confined spaces – “illegal”. Chemical Weapons convention (CWC) 1997 – international law…”any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation, or permanent harm to humans or animals” is forbidden as a method of warfare – ratified by 141 countries including the UK.
House of Representaitives armed services committee.
“CWC” is “a straight jacket” – Rumsfeld.
“calmatives” – “used to relieve anxiety, beat depression or reduce pain” – risky. “Deaths are inevitable…should Rumsfled persuade Bush to authorise use of non-lethal agents Iraq would be entitled under the 1925 Geneva Convention protocol to retaliate in kind.”
US government scientists have developed “a way to make pox viruses incredibly deadly. The stated goal of this research is to fight possible bio-terror attacks. The new virus kills all mice, even if they have been given antiviral drugs along with a vaccine that would normally protect them from death.” Nexus, project censored 2005.

May 24th Tariq ali wrote: “the UNSC has capitulated completely, recognised the occupation of Iraq and approved its recolonisation by the US and its bloodshot British adjutant.”

GW challenged the insurgents by raging “bring them on” – which they did…. - date this

Resistance Summer ‘03
 “Even before the first bomb fell, most Iraqis were against “liberation” by force” – Steele. US troops were quickly seen as out of control and trigger happy. On April 18th tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated against US occupation of Iraq in central Baghdad. That month US troops shot dead 18 people during street protests in Falluja – a strong Sunni Muslim area of central Iraq, north and west of Baghdad. April 28th US troops fired demonstrators near Baghdad and killed at least 13 people and wounded 75 others. April 30th US troops opened fire on civilians for a second time when an angry crowd gathered in Fallujah to protest over the previous shooting. Revenge attack on May 1st – a grenade was thrown into a US base in Fallujah, wounding 7 US soldiers. A 14 year old boy was shot in Basra on May 4th. The UK army called it an ‘unfortunate incident’. --duplicated
May to June – attacks escalated.
Guardian May 22nd – The UN Security Council voted 14 to 0 to lift sanctions on Iraq and hand temporary control of the country to the US and UK. Syria boycotted the vote.
May 27th two US soldiers killed and 9 injured in an attack on army checkpoint in Falluja.

Full story from Fallujah
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bristol-stop-the-war.coalition/

Reconstruction and occupation
US construction firm Bechtel got the contract for reconstruction in Iraq with 90% sub-contracted out. 250 European firms crammed into a west London hotel for seminar organised by (Tom Elkins of) Bechtel.
May 23rd “executives from over 1000 companies gathered in London to bask in sunshine of re-established consensus under the giant umbrella of Bechtel” Tariq Ali.
Estimated $36.6m initial work – over 18 months will rise to $680m.
The US developed Agency, USAid, awarded the contract which includes one seaport, 5 airports, electrical power systems, road and rail networks, sanitation, school and health facilities. UK companies bidding included Costain, NSF. The Wall Street Journal reckoned coalition partners were to be favoured. Another seminar in Kuwait – Bechtel expected greater than 10,000 firms worldwide to be fighting for the work.
Abt Associates – US firm specialising in privatisations with record of ‘invoice irregularities’ privatising the state-run health service

News was controlled by a defence contractor – given the job to report and relay news.

May 30th, Asked why WMDs haven’t been found Blair said “We have only just begun the process of investigating all the various sites…It is not the most urgent priority.”
But a massively increased (CIA) weapons detection team sent in to Iraq after the war – and still nothing was found.
May 31st: “Those people who are sitting there saying ‘Oh it is all going to be proved to be a great big fib got out by the security services. There will be no weapons of mass destruction’. Just wait and have a little patience.”
Did Blair still hope for something to be turned up? Was he promised that something would turn up? Or did he know all along that nothing would be found?
Desperately in December that year he was again to bring up the WMD question – while talking to UK troops Blair said that the Iraq Survey Group uncovered massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories in Iraq. Again, complete bullshit from the master himself.  Paul Brewer dismissed this – “ I don’t know where those words came from but that is not what [Iraq Survey Group Chief] David Kay said. – Observer, 01 10 04.

May 30th from Ex Int Review Rep. Henry Waxman (Dem-Cali) one of growing group of congressmen who have been questioning Cheney and the Iraq profiteers.  “[H]e is ranking Democrat on the House Committee on government reform, who has been seeking investigation by various Federal agencies to follow the trail of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the second Gulf War.”
“John Conyers (Dem-Mich) has demanded from [Rumsfeld] that Richard Perle, who resigned as chairman of the secretive Defence Policy Board amid charges of conflict of interest, be removed from the DPB completely. Conyers is also demanding that the Pentagon release to the House Judiciary Committee, on which Conyers is the ranking Democrat, the financial disclosure records of all 30 or so members of the DPB, so that potential conflicts of these members…who war-gamed and promoted war with Iraq since no later than September 18th 2001…could be determined.”

“two tier health system” – Khudair Abbas – ‘minister for health’ in puppet government.
“reforms” at tank point.
Anti-unions laws were retained from the saddam era.

June 2003

June 12th – Apache helicopter was shot down. US troops questioning about 400 suspects after the biggest military operation in Iraq since the regime collapsed two months before.
June 13th – Almost 100 Iraqis killed in attack. An independent research group said that up to 10,000 civilians killed in war.
June 14th the most intense operation since ‘victory’, the US admitted killing at least 97 Iraqis in two days. Six US soldiers were injured. This was to eradicate Baath Party loyalists, paramilitary groups etc. The Pentagon “suggested there were ‘foreign fighters’ using the [terrorist training] camp.”  27 Iraqis killed near Baghdad in separate incident.
Lots of arrests also – Operation Peninsula Strike. “It was the first time such a large group mounted attack on US position since end of war and 150 killed during the war – June 14th.
June 15th – hundreds of US soldiers swept through Falluja in operation against guerrilla resistance.
June 17th US troops searching Baghdad after sniper shot dead a US soldier on patrol.
June 19th – US soldier killed and two injured when military ambulance they were in was struck by rocket propelled grenade.
On June 22nd, it was reported that over 25% of US deaths have occurred since May 1st when war was declared over.
June 26th – 6 UK soldiers killed and 8 injured in 2 attacks in Majar al-Kabir. One US soldier attacked and one injured when their vehicle is ambushed on a road leading to Baghdad airport. One Iraqi possibly killed.
August 8th a car bomb outside the Jordanian embassy as many as 19 killed – after ‘softly softly’ policing began.

June 2003 – Iranian military C-130 transport plane went down outside Tehran killing 7 – caused by US sanctions?

On June 6th Blix complained about the poor quality of the intelligence given to him by US and UK – “only in three of those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases was there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say.” Guardian.
On June 10th he lashed out at the “bastards” who he says tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high profile post.
The Iraq survey group was set up to replace the UN’s efforts – which the US obviously felt was inadequate. They went in early August. CIA advisor David Kay, head of the CIA led Iraq Survey Group, admitted that his 1,200 member team of inspectors had discovered none of Saddam’s WMDs, “the team found no evidence Saddam took any significant steps to build [nuclear] weapons or produce fissile materials after 1998 – when UN inspectors laft the country for the last time before their brief return in the 3 months before the war began on 20th March. Bush stated that he wanted a further $600m to fund WMD search. According to the NYTimes the size of Kay’s team was to rise to 1,400 and bring total spending on this futile exercise to $1bn.

Blair came under fire in June from MPs to hold an independent inquiry into the war after Clare Short mad accusation that Blair had lied to the cabinet. But Blair rejected those calls. Blunkett admitted the government was wrong to publish the “dodgy dossier” (June 8th). Blix was speaking out about poor intelligence and that he’d been undermined throughout his three years as UN Chief Weapons Inspector.
On June 10th the all-party parliamentary intelligence and security committee served notice that it expected ministers to cooperate fully with its inquiry into Iraq’s banned weapons programme.

On June 28th Andrew Gilligan announced he was ready to sue a serving minister.

Son of Star Wars agreement was signed in June by the MOD’s chief scientist prof Roy Anderson and head of US marine Defence Agency Lt Gen Henry O Berng (?).

The US abandoned plans for expansion of the 25 member governing council in March (what year?). Instead planned to transfer to a hand-picked prime minister . This was the 3rd switch of strategy in 6 months. June 30th – transfer planned in a hundred days. An interim constitution known as the transitional administrative law. A vague process known as “extensive deliberation and consultations with cross sections of the Iraqi people”

July 2003
July 1st (check) explosion destroys a mosque killing 5 Iraqis injuring 4 others
July 2nd Straw claimed political and security situation is improving.
July 5th UK freelance tv cameraman killed by Iraqi ginman in Baghdad.
A tape of SH broadcasting resistance appeared on July 4th.
Richard Wild, 5th July 2003, British freelance cameraman; gunned down in central Baghdad.
Jeremy Little, 6th July 2003, Austrian journalist with NBC News and embedded with the US 3rd infantry division; died of post-operative complications, days after being injured in a grenade attack.

July 6th BBC’s governors demanded that Downing Street retract its claims of bias against its journalists. July 7th Campbell cleared by MPs of exerting “improper influence” on the drafting of the government’s intelligence-led dossier on Iraq but the Commons foreign affairs committee attacks the government over its handling of the affair. July 8th Bliar told the committee of MPs that his evidence for Iraq’s attempts to secure uranium from Niger did not come from the forged documents but “separate intelligence.”

July 6th Joseph Wilson revealed that the central reason for going to war – WMDs was false.
July – 519th MI Co with Carolyn Wood still in charge is sent to Abu Ghraib.

Even minimal security is expensive and a side-effect of having to take such measures was to make it impossible for freelance journalists not working for major papers, television companies or radio stations to stay in Baghdad.

The David Kelly Episode
Kelly testified before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee that he was not the source of a BBC story which had accused the government of making false claims.
The BBC story surrounded the report that some knowledgeable insiders didn’t believe claim that Iraq could launch WMDs in 45 minutes.

David Kelly – a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Scott Ritter, might have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. “Kelly was a known and government approved conduit with the media,” said Scott Ritter . Hutton (see Hutton report, 2004) heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the “Rockingham cell”, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence.

July 14th a US soldier killed and 6 injured in Baghdad. July 16th – guerrilla attack kills US major and his son and a soldier.

17th July – Kelly went missing. An audio tape of Saddam Hussein was broadcast on al Arabiya.

Found dead on 18th July. Dr Alexander Allan found blood level concentrations of 97 micrograms of parcetamol and 1.0 microgram of dextropropoxyphene per millimetre. He calculated it was equivalent to approximately 20 tablets. Kelly was found with three ten tablet blister packs of co-proxamol in his pockets. Only one tablet remained. He also had a cut to his wrist which had severed his ulnar artery.

A group of experts questioned results produced by the toxicologist who investigated the death of Kelly. Alexander Allan examined the body of Kelly after it was found in the woods – 18th July – and came to the conclusion that Kelly had swallowed at least 20 co-proxamol tablets which contributed to his death. But in BMJ the international Toxicology Advisory Group said that the science of measuring drug levels in the blood after death is based on flawed evidence.
Robert Forrest, one of the authors, and a professor of forensic toxicology at the University of Sheffield, said that “Alexander fell into the trap of trying to estimate the number of tablest from the blood concentrations. A lot od toxicologists felt that was an extrapolation from the data that was inappropriate.”
The BMJ article said,”Drug concentrations are likely to have changed after death. For many drugs, including those found in David Kelly, concentrations may increase by as much as tenfold.”
Alhtough Forrest said he accepted the suicide verdict.

Hugo Young wrote, “this is trifling stuff. In a normal world, where top people had not taken leave of their senses, it would certainly not push anyone over the brink of suicide, if that’s what happened to David Kelly.” Hugo Young, July 19, 2003, in Guardian, shortly before his own death.

Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer, who was a guest on the the Alex Jones radio show, revealed that sources within MI5 and MI6 are `furious' that Kelly was murdered.
“With apparent backing from the organisations whose members he claims to speak for, Shrimpton presented their view that Dr Kelly had been murdered by a team of assassins and the charade of an apparent suicide was then played out to cover this up.
Shrimpton was a man with  impeccable credentials, including contributions to the Journal for International Security Affairs and having previously given a closed-doors confidential briefing to the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Shrimpton exploded the much-reported myth that Dr Kelly had taken his own life.
“Shrimpton explained how he had learned that David Kelly was the BBC's source before the BBC disclosed this fact. He went on to explain that his source from within the intelligence community knew David Kelly personally, and did not believe that he had committed suicide. After making their own enquiries, says Shrimpton, this source determined that Dr Kelly had not committed suicide, but rather had been assassinated.
Apparently at ease to discuss these explosive disclosures, Shrimpton explained that there was advance knowledge of Kelly's death in Whitehall, but that the deed itself was most likely carried out by the French external security organisation, DGSE. There was no indication that anybody in MI5 or MI6 had been involved. He went further by suggesting that the hit squad itself was composed of Iraqis from the former regime's Mukhabarat intelligence organisation, recruited from Damascus with the help of Syria's own intelligence apparatus. They were apparently then flown into Corsica, seven days prior to the murder. He doubts that any of the hit-squad are still alive.
Officially, Kelly's body was said to have been found in a copse, in a wood, but the forensic tents were set up in the adjacent field, suggesting, says Shrimpton, that the body was found in the field. This has not been explained to his satisfaction.
The incision in Kelly's wrist was probably to conceal the injection of both Dextroprypoxythene, the active ingredient in Co-Proxamol, and Succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant, rather than as evidence of his bleeding to death, as highlighted by a group of six doctors in letters published in the British press. Shrimpton further agreed with the doctors by pointing out that Kelly only had one Co-Proxamol tablet in his body and that this was not sufficient to kill him.
According to Shrimpton, Kelly was murdered because he had been talking to the press and there was a fear of what else he might discuss with journalists. Furthermore, Kelly was due to return to Iraq and may have learned fresh information on that trip which Whitehall could not afford to trust him with.
[T]he story has been effectively censored by the British Press, who according to Shrimpton are concerned about losing the pro-Euro Tony Bliar as Prime Minister were they to publish details of Kelly's assassination. Bliar's departure, he says, could threaten Britain's proposed adoption of the Euro as the national currency.
http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/kellymurder.htm

Dr David Kelly - latest   - Monday 16th February 2004 
"According to Skolnick and Bloom, a London newspaper is sitting on a
"firestorm, while insisting key Intel official allow use of his name. He confirms P.M. Tony Bliar ordered assassination of MI-6 top scientist, Dr. David Kelly, about to finger Bliar on phony data instigating Bush/Bliar attack seizing Iraq oil.
Lord Hutton Inquiry, finding of Kelly "suicide" a fraud, Intel official also says.
Story release, Editor says, would oust Bush/Bliar."
The UK Channel 5 television station ran a programme on Friday, called `Germ Warfare: Dr Kelly's Last Interview'. It details some of Dr Kelly's history with bio-chem warfare and in particular his role in covertly inspecting USSR installations.

Mail on Sunday july 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297444/MI5-agent-told-Kelly-exterminated.html

In the US the CIA was being cast as scapegoat while a covert CIA operative was identified publicly. The FBI investigated a possible conspiracy as this operative just happen to be the wife of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, author of the report on the false Niger yellowcake uranium claims that originated out of Cheney’s office.”Wilson’s irrefutable documentation was carefully shelved at the time in order to put 16 false words about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear threat in the mouth of George Bush in his state of the union address. ”
Bush’s spokesman “has assiduously drawn a fine line between the legal and the political” in the inquiries. Karl Rove “unquestionably called a journalist to prod him that Mrs Wilson was “fair game” but “her name was already put into the public arena by two other unnamed “senior administration officials”.”

Washington worked hard to create news stories and “crises” over Iran’s nuclear capability. On November 8th, Grauniad carried headline, “crisis over Tehran’s suspected nuclear bomb project.” Talks in Vienna and report from UN’s nuclear watchdog. DG of UN’s IAEA is Mohamed El Baradei.
The media said ‘is Iran next after Iraq?’ Iran labelled part of the ‘axis of evil’ and accused of sponsoring terrorism via Hizbullah in Lebanon and shipping arms to the Palestinians. Iran accused of harbouring Al Qaida remnants fleeing Afghanistan. Iran ‘actively’ acquiring WMDs ‘manufactured and stockpiled chemical weapons’ – ‘direct threat to Israel’ which has a nuclear capability already. Bush eschewed diplomatic contacts, renewed bilateral sanctions, penalised foreign firms doing business with Iran, opposed GB and EU efforts to build bridges through “critical engagement”. Worse treatment from USA than North Korea? Pressuring Russia to end its joint nuclear energy development project at Bushehr. Subject to internal inspection and Russia has undertaken to repatriate spent fuel.

On July 12th GW denounced the Iranian government’s ‘uncompromising, destructive policies’ at home and seemed to urge the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their leaders.
“The US no longer believed President Mohammad Khatami returned to office in a land-slide victory last year could or would fulfil his promises of gradual reform.”
“Washington wants a second secular Iranian revolution – and it wants it now.”
All this succeeded in created a backlash in Iran against reformers and those who wanted to foster better relations with the west. – BASED ON SIMON TISDALL ARTICLE, GUARDIAN, 31/07/02, WAR ON IRAN IS THE NEW NIGHTMARE.
Accepted extra inspection of nuclear sites by IAEA, under pressure from fears that it intends to use a Russian built nuclear reactor to develop nuclear weapons. The Kremlin resisted US demands to freeze its $800m deal to help build Iran’s first nuclear power plant.
DB: Indeed, Iran. The U.S. was advised by none other than that, as Bush called him, "man of peace," Sharon, to go after Iran "the day after" they finish with Iraq. What about Iran? A designated axis-of-evil state and also a country that has a lot of oil.
NC: As far as Israel is concerned, Iraq has never been much of an issue. They consider it a kind of pushover. But Iran is a different story. Iran is a much more serious military and economic force. And for years Israel has been pressing the United States to take on Iran. Iran is too big for Israel to attack, so they want the big boys to do it.
And it's quite likely that the war may already be under way. A year ago over 10 percent of the Israeli air force was reported to be permanently based in eastern Turkey, that is, in these huge U.S. military bases in eastern Turkey. And they are reported to be flying reconnaissance over the Iranian border. In addition, there are credible reports, that there are efforts, that the U.S. and Turkey and Israel are attempting to stir up Azeri nationalist forces in northern Iran to move towards a kind of a linkage of parts of Iran with Azerbaijan. There is a kind of an axis of U.S.-Turkish-Israeli power in the region opposed to Iran that may ultimately, perhaps, lead to the split-up of Iran and maybe military attack. Although there will be a military attack only if it's taken for granted that Iran would be basically defenceless. They're not going to invade anyone who can fight back.
August 27th – Guardian – Iranian nuclear row. IAEA says Iran is using highly enriched uranium to develop nuclear weapons. They said Pakistani companies were selling Dutch designs for enrichment centrifuges. Russia is helping Iran build a civilian nuclear reactor. Iran has refused to sign additional protocol to non-pro treaty – drawn up after 1991 Gulf War – requires short-notice inspections of declared and undeclared sites.
The US put in a September 2003 deadline to Iran – what happened?
“Tehran has developed a series of not inflexible negotiating positions. The question, once again, is whether the US is really interested in finding solutions…By continuing and possibly escalating dispatches, US hawks seek not merely to tame the mullahs but to topple them.” – Simon Tisdall, Gaurdian.
Wheel in Chomksy: “it is unlikely that the US will invade Iran, though it will presumably continue to undermine it from within.”

July 13th IGC has its first meeting

Democracy Debate
July 21st the UN Sec-Gen gave his stamp of approval to Iraq’s governing council selected by US forces in Iraq.
Cut to Chomsky – Democracy in Iraq “will be the kind of democracy that the US has tolerated within its own regional domains for a century”. He predicted that the US would only allow “limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the US has long been allied” maintaining “the basic order of quite undemocratic societies,” quoting Thomas Carothers, a Latin American scholar and an official of the Reagan administration who worked in its “democracy enhancement” programs.

Saddam’s Saga
July 22nd – Saddam’s sons were killed in a gun battle in Mosul – bodies splashed all over our newspapers. US raid Mosul and say they missed Saddam “by a matter of hours”.
July 27th – Tikrit and the US miss Saddam by 24 hours.
July 29th, a tape recording purported to be Saddam declared his two sons had died as martyrs.
July 31st – two of Saddam’s daughters and nine children given asylum in Jordan. They needed asylum due to US policy of detaining family members of the wanted – in violation of elementary standards of justice.
September 1st a recorded message from Saddam was broadcast denying responsibility for the Najaf car bomb.
July 25th Tokyo approved its biggest deployment of troops since 1945 as Washington casts around for help in shouldering the post-Saddam burden.

Guatemala
Into the 21st century, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica are still under the elite’s jackboot. Death squads still operate throughout these countries, as well as the crippling poverty. Street children in Honduras are systematically exterminated like vermin. Killings carried out by 1/3 police, 1/3 organised crime, 1/3 private citizens. During “War on Terror” and axis of evil – these countries were never mentioned.
What is the extent of US support to oppressive regimes in Central America? To what extent does democracy exist in central America within US sphere of influence?
Former dictator tried to make a comeback in the country’s second general election since a 1996 peace accord which ended the 36 year civil war in which as many as 200,000 people died.
Efrain Rios Montt blamed for the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians - ‘whole villages were wiped out if they were thought to be hostile or to have assisted left wing guerrillas’ - at the height of the civil war.
In July Montt supporters burnt tyres and laid siege to public offices in the capital, Guatemala City, to protest against a constitutional amendment preventing the former dictator from standing for president. The ban was later overturned by a sympathetic high court.
But in the election, after a rush to the polls, he ended up third with 11%, behind Oscal Berger the business candidate with 48% and centre left candidate Alvaro Colom on 26%.
October – Ex-civil defence patrol members kidnapped journalists and a driver at a roadblock near the Mexican border, and threatened to shoot  or burn them alive.
The run-off vote is on December 28th.
Human rights groups said that 29 opposition candidates had been shot.

Nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, Mayan Indian activist.

August 2003

More Journo Deaths
Mazin Dana, 18th August 2003, a Palestinian cameraman with Reuters was shot dead by US soldiers while filming outside of Baghdad’s Abu Gharaib prison. The US apparently mistook his camera for a grenade launcher.

US snipers shot dead two Iraqis, and injured 20, for ‘selling weapons’ on August 8th.
US blaming of Ansar al-Islam.

August 11th – Afghanistan operations handed over to NATO. Mighty Canada took charge.

Israel
Mid August bombs in Jerusalem killed 20; ended 8 week Israeli-Palestine truce. US pushing Europe to act against Hamas.
US vetoes UN call to protect Arafat, David Teather in New York, Wednesday September 17, 2003, The Guardian:
The United States…vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding that Israel neither harm nor expel the Palestinian authority president, Yasser Arafat…flew in the face of the security council, which voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion. Eleven members gave their backing and three, Britain, Germany and Bulgaria, abstained…sparked anger among the Palestinians. Syria, the only Arab nation on the security council, tabled the resolution after last week's statement from Israel's security cabinet that it intended to "remove" Mr Arafat.
John Negroponte, the US ambassador to the UN, said it did not support the assassination or forced exile of Mr Arafat. But it had vetoed the resolution because it failed to condemn groups such as Hamas, which it blames for promoting terrorism. "The Palestinian Authority must take action to remove the threat of terrorist groups," he said.
The US said the wording of the resolution did not promote the "road map" to peace, which has been backed by the US, the UN and Europe.
Discussions on the resolution have been taking place over two days. Almost all of the delegates condemned the comments by the Israelis regarding Mr Arafat. On Monday, Britain proposed a number of amendments that were rejected by Syria.
Syria's UN ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, expressed regret at the result of the vote, calling the resolution "highly balanced" and noting that most of the language came from previous resolutions adopted by the security council.
"The fact that the US delegation used its veto is something extremely regrettable," he said. "It only complicates a situation in the Middle East that is already very complicated."
Last Friday, the 15 council members - including the US - agreed on a press statement expressing "the view that the removal of chairman Arafat would be unhelpful and should not be implemented".
Predictably, the UN vote and veto brought condemnation from each side.
Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian UN observer, said the US had lost its credibility to play an honest broker in the peace process.
Ra'anan Gissin, senior adviser to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, said the UN "has shown time and time again its duplicity and hypocrisy" with not a single resolution condemning the 120 suicide bombers in the last three years.

James Sensenbremner – rep chairman iof the house judiciary committee opposed passage of the final bill – did not do enough to tighten immigration controls.

August 31st to September 9th General Liller visited Ghraib to “gitmoize” Iraq detention and interrogation operations. “Taxi To The Dark Side” website

September 2003

September 5th bodyguards of Saddam captured – according to major General Ray Odierno.
September 17th, audio tape from Saddam aired on al-Arabiya.
Saddam’s former defence minister surrendered to US troops in northern Iraq on Sep 19th.
September 10th – Chaplain James Yee is arrested. “Taxi to the Dark Side” website

On Sep 18th Blix was reported as saying that he believed Iraq had destroyed most WMDs 10 years before.
Iraqi officer claimed he was source for UK 45 minute claim on 7th December.
http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/february-23-04.htm
Blair wriggled about over the WMD issue. He was treading a very fine line – keeping several contradictory lies going at once, and gradually changing the official line.
He addressed US congress (July?) and he declared that history would forgive him and GW, even if WMDs were never found in Iraq. And the language was changing. Blair started talking about “programmes for WMDs”.
Then on December 23rd UK Security officials made the ludicrous claim that Saddam was hoodwinked into believing he had WMDs. Of course! – Guardian.

Mark Fineman, 23rd September 2003, LA Times correspondent in Baghdad; died as a result of an apparent heart attack while waiting for an interview in the office of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

World Trade Organisation conference
“Held in Cancun, Mexico, September, It foundered on the refusal of the US, the EU or Japan to concede an inch on the subsidies and trade protections they offer to a wide range of their own industries. Including steel and textiles as well as agricultural products – let alone the notorious EU sugar regime.” NI 363.

The absurdity of huge subsidies to maintain a trade in sugar that benefits no-one, not the producer, not the consumer, but does make the sugar companies extremely wealthy. Why not use the subsidies to reclaim the sugar plantations to create sustainable communities in the third world. Because an empowered and healthy workforce would cause problems for the corporations, especially the sugar barons who would be on the scrapheap.


October 2003
October and November 2003, daily attacks on US troops more than doubled from 15 to 35.

After the war - in October - Ankara and Washington agreed on an action plan against the PKK, who both sides regard as terrorists – aljazeera. This too would become a source of tension between Turkey and the USA.

October 24th Last minute pledges from Arab states and Japan gave big boost to Iraqis reconstruction funds as government opposed to US invasion begin to soften their positions.
GW made a “surprise” visit on November 27th with a fake thanksgiving dinner.

Baha Mousa, aged 26, a hotel receptionist in Basra. UK troops surrounded the building and arrested him and six others. They were hooded and beaten at a UK base. Mousa was dead two days later. His family were paid off with $3000 – they rejected a further $5000. On December 14th they won ruling to force MoD to hold an independent inquiry. “Daoud Mousa, an Iraqi police colonel” and Baha’s father…saw “his son lying on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. “his son had seen British soldiers looting the hotel safe and that a British officer had later ordered the soldiers to hand the cash back and that they should be disarmed.”
The troops involved “dcided to revenge themselves upon” Baha. Blair and Hoon had both tried to block the inquiry.
Mousa family lawyer Phil Shiner. 5 other families applications for judicial review – rejected.
Indie 15th December 2004.
His body – “his nose was broken. There was blood above his mouth and I could see the bruising of his ribs and thighs. The skin was ripped off his wrists where the handcuffs had been.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baha-mousa-inquiry-shown-video-of-soldier-abusing-iraqi-detainees-1744953.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/illegal-tactics-used-in-interrogation-1745807.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-story-of-baha-mousa-1742762.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha_Mousa


More Journo Deaths
Ahmad Shawkat, 28th October 2003, editor of the Iraqi weekly Bilah Ittjah (without direction); killed by unknown gunmen in the city of Mosul.

North Korea
In October made the claim that it had reprocessed plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods – enough to make 6 A-Bombs. When did Korea decide to throw out UN Inspectors?

Philippines
14th October 2003: “Killing of terror suspect Father Rahman al-Ghozi, a senior leader of Jemaah Islamiah on October 11th, 2003. “Staged execution ahead of a visit by President George Bush…residents in the town…where the killing took place said there was no sign of a firefight.”

Dialogue between Iraq and North Korea from 1999, including a meeting in 2000 in Baghdad – had come to nothing.


November 2003

In November Bush made a state visit to London to meet his fuck-buddy Bliar. Just a week prior to this The UK government announced high risk of suicide attack in London, which ensured that Bush’s outrageous demands for control of the security operation and the closure of central London during his visit are likely to be granted.

Security Bits…
Jake Stratton, 2004 Risk Map report.

3rd November – Shimon Peres called for Jewish settlers to be pulled out of Gaza Strip immediately
Geneva initiative led by former Oslo accord negotiator Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abd Rabbo close ally of Arafat

November 4th GW got Senate approval for $87.5bn in funds to continue the occupation of Iraq.

Good times for Arms Manufacturers
Defence Group Radstone announced profits rose by 74% on 10th November – an English company supplying Lockheed Martin, BAE systems, Northrop Grunman and Harris Corporation.
November 16th the last of 9 tapes by Saddam since his defeat.
November 11th Bremer was recalled to Washington cos of lack of progress in Iraq. Is the US trying to speed up the transfer of power?

GM Foods
“Vatican watchers said it was no secret that the US Ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson, was known to have tried persuade the Vatican to speak out in favour of the crops, providing a counterpoise to the opposition that is building strongly across Europe, including in Italy.” Independent 11th November. So the Vatican have set up a biased seminar entitled “ GMOs: Threat or Hope?” including Cardinal Martino, who has spent 16 years in the US at the UN and is outspokenly pro GMO. He supports the biblical notion that man was put on earth to control nature.

Saudi Arabia
The world’s largest crude oil exporter. Nov 11th – “some oil traders concerned about growing instability” - oil prices rose on November 10th after weekend bombing.
Richard Armatage, US deputy secretary of state is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He pledged that the US “will be fully participating partners” in the oil-rich kingdom’s anti-terror fight.
Armitage had blamed al-Qa’ida for the recent car bomb, and that the attack was aimed at “the government of Saudi Arabia and the people of Saudi Arabia.”, and he expected more to follow.
The Arab foreign workers’ compound was bombed and 17 were killed.
It’s a coincidence that only countries not supporting America’s TWAT campaign are being bombed by al qua’ida.
“Despite the arrest of hundreds of suspects after May’s (12/05/03) attacks on Western residential compounds…and repeated promises to leave no stone unturned, some officials in Washington are still doubtful how vigorously the Saudi government will act”.
The article mentions “lukewarm Saudi cooperation in investigating past  attacks against American military personnel, which infuriated the FBI”.
“15 of the 19 hijackers on 11 September were Saudi nationals”.
UK residents blamed in August for bomb in Saudi on November 17th 2000, which killed Christopher Rodway, UK engineer. On November 23rd a second car bomb killed two UK men – aircraft engineers. May 2001 – bomb in a litter bin.

Trade War
Tuesday 11th November Independent carries story of “trade war” between US and Europe. US products may double in price over the next few months in retaliation to duty imposed on European steel two years ago. The WTO agreed the 30% tax was illegal and gave the EU permission to impose duty on US goods yesterday. – to be formally ratified in December?
Look up trade talks at Cancun.
The US is complaining about the EU blocking import of GE products, and retaliating against EU ban on beef from cattle which are given hormones to stimulate growth.
The World steel price had dropped and the US wanted to protect its industry – which is an admirable thing to do, but hypocritical when it is a government who preaches “Free trade” and against barriers.
The UK – as ever – is loyal to the US. Brown wants to dismantle the remaining trade barriers between Europe and the US, so he said at the annual conference of the UK Chamber of conference in March.

Resistance - November
The shooting of a US appointed mayor, Mohened Ghazi al-Kaby, of a volatile part of Baghdad, November. The US account of his death differed from that of witnesses who said, not only did a US soldier shoot him after refusing him entrance to council headquarters, but delayed medical help and took him to a US field hospital instead of the two civilian hospitals that were both nearer to where the shooting occurred, meant that he died of his injuries. – Independent 09/11/03.
There were arrests – 20 on 11/11/03 after explosion killed 6 Iraqis in Basra.
Wolfowittz himself was the target in October with a rocket attack on his hotel in Baghdad, appearing to be “visibly scared before the cameras.”
Did the US hope for a swift victory in Iraq so they could tell Bliar to get stuffed?
Suicide bomber drove his Oldsmobile into a police station in Baghdad’s Sadr district on October 9th and killed himself and 9 others. Another suicide car bomb near the Baghad hotel left 8 people dead and at least 32 wounded on October 12th. Suicide car bomb outside the Turkish embassy on October 14th killed 2 and wounded at least 13. Three US soldiers and 7 Iraqis killed in gun battle on October 17th outside office of the Shi cleric in Kerbala. An ambush outside Kirkuk on October 19th killed 2 US soldiers. Rocket fired at the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad narrowly missed Wolfowitz. US colonel killed and 18 wounded on October 26th. 35 people killed by suicide bomber – explosives packed into ambulance outside Red Cross hq and three police stations attacked, Baghdad, October 27th. 16 soldiers killed when Chinook helicopter attacked six miles south of Falluja on November 2nd. Six US soldiers killed when Black Hawk helicopter crashed on November 7th in central Iraq, hit by a rocket propelled grenade. That was the third time in two weeks that Iraqis have brought down a US helicopter. Car bomb on Italian military police base in Nassiriya killed 14 Italian officers and 8 Iraqis on November 12th.
By November US occupation forces were suffering “flagging morale” as soldiers are penalised for suffering stress and trauma. One, staff sergeant George-Andreas Pogany, a Green Beret, was facing charges of cowardice which could lead to a death sentence, after suffering trauma linked to seeing the mangled body of an Iraqi man.
Iraqification was on the cards – the US wanted to reduce their troop numbers. The v-p of the JCS general Peter Pace said Us wanted numbers down to 50,000 by 2005.
Rumsfeld claimed more than 118,000 Iraqis had been trained for police work. General Richard Myers, chair of the JCS, said only 60,000 Iraqis had been trained.
In December, Paul Bremer’s convoy was attacked in Iraq.
Suicide car bombers, machines guns and mortars killed 19 and wounded 120 – attacking government buildings and foreign troops’ bases in Kerbala on December 27th.
The year in Baghdad ended with a car bomb on December 31st at a restaurant, killing 8 and wounding more than 30, including three western journalists.

Atrocities in Samarra
November 29th US troops return fire on insurgents in Samarra after ambush on convoy. Seven Spanish intelligence agents, 2 Japanese diplomats, 2 US soldiers and Colombian oil worker also killed.
November 30th US killed 46 Iraqis and captured 8 in 3 repelled ambushes on US convoys in the Iraqi city of Samarra according to US spokesman.
December 1st Iraqi officials in Samarra challenged US accounts of a bloody battle and accused the US of spraying fire at random on the city streets, killing several civilians.

Sidney Blumenthal, former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and author of the Clinton Wars, Guardian, November 1st 2003: “the Bush administration acts as though it is astonished by the postwar carnage. Its feigned shock is a consequence of Washington’s intelligence wars. In fact, not only was it warned of the coming struggle and its nature – ignoring a $5m state department report on The Future of Iraq – but Bush himself signed another document in which that predictive information is contained.”
“According to the congressional resolution authorising the use of military force in Iraq, the administration is required to submit to the Congress reports of post-war planning every 60 days. The report, bearing Bush’s signature and dated April 14 – previously undisclosed but revealed here – declares: “We are especially concerned that the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime will continue to use Iraqi civilian populations as a shield for its regular and irregular combat forces or may attack the Iraqi population in an effort to undermine Coalition goals.” Moreover, the report goes on: “Coalition planners have prepared for these contingencies, and have designed the military campaign to minimise civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.”

Back Home
01/11/03 – Guardian
“4 weeks ago in the throes of a tight contest seen as a run-up for next year’s presidential election, an FBI listening device was discovered in John Street’s office and federal agents said he was the subject of a corruption investigation.”
His Republican challenger, Sam Katz, said he had lost to street in 99 by 10,000 votes. “the FBI investigation reeks of dirty tricks.”
“Mr Street now appears to be on course for an election victory.”
Street did the following – urban renewal projects – crackdown on drug dealers – after school programs.
It is calimed, though, with limited success.
Intimidation against Katz?

Blame Intelligence
1st November 2003 – Sidney Blumenthal, Guardian.
“In Bush’s Washington, politics is the extension of war by other means. Rather than seeking to reform any abuse of intelligence, the Bush administration, through the Republican-dominated senate intelligence committee, is producing a report that will accuse the CIA of giving faulty information.”

Naomi Klein wrote about “a disastrous decision made one year ago. On November 11 2003, Paul Bremer, then chief US envoy to Iraq, flew to Washington to meet George Bush. The two men were concerned that if they kept their promise to hold elections in Iraq within the coming months, the country would fall into the hands of insufficiently pro-American forces.
“That would defeat the purpose of the invasion, and it would threaten President Bush's re-election chances. At that meeting, a revised plan was hatched: elections would be delayed for more than a year, and in the meantime, Iraq's first "sovereign" government would be hand-picked by Washington. The plan would allow Mr Bush to claim progress on the campaign trail, while keeping Iraq safely under US control.
In the US, Mr Bush's claim that "freedom is on the march" served its purpose, but in Iraq, the plan led directly to the carnage we see today.
“Mr Bush likes to paint the forces opposed to the US presence in Iraq as enemies of democracy. In fact, much of the uprising can be traced directly to decisions made in Washington to stifle, repress, delay, manipulate and otherwise thwart the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people.
Yes, democracy has genuine opponents in Iraq, but before George Bush and Paul Bremer decided to break their central promise to hand over power to an elected Iraqi government, these forces were isolated and contained. That changed when Mr Bremer returned to Baghdad and tried to convince Iraqis that they weren't yet ready for democracy.
“Mr Bremer argued that the country was too insecure to hold elections, and besides, there were no voter rolls. Few were convinced. In January 2004, 100,000 Iraqis peacefully took to the streets of Baghdad, and 30,000 more did so in Basra. Their chant was "Yes, yes elections. No, no selections." At the time, many argued that Iraq was safe enough to have elections and pointed out that the lists from the Saddam-era oil-for-food programme could serve as voter rolls. But Mr Bremer wouldn't budge and the UN - scandalously and fatefully - backed him up.
“Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Hussain al-Shahristani, chairman of the standing committee of the Iraqi National Academy of Science (who was imprisoned under Saddam Hussein for 10 years), accurately predicted what would happen next. "Elections will be held in Iraq, sooner or later," he wrote. "The sooner they are held, and a truly democratic Iraq is established, the fewer Iraqi and American lives will be lost."
Ten months and thousands of lost Iraqi and American lives later, elections are scheduled to take place with part of the country in the grip of yet another invasion and much of the rest of it under martial law. As for the voter rolls, the Allawi government is planning to use the oil-for-food lists, just as was suggested and dismissed a year ago.
“So it turns out that all of the excuses were lies: if elections can be held now, they most certainly could have been held a year ago, when the country was vastly calmer. But that would have denied Washington the chance to install a puppet regime in Iraq, and possibly would have prevented George Bush from winning a second term.
“Is it any wonder that Iraqis are sceptical of the version of democracy being delivered to them by US troops, or that elections have come to be seen not as tools of liberation but as weapons of war?
“First, Iraq's promised elections were sacrificed in the interest of George Bush's re-election hopes; next, the siege of Falluja itself was crassly shackled to these same interests. The fighter planes didn't even wait an hour after George Bush finished his acceptance speech to begin the air attack on Falluja. The city was bombed at least six times through the next day and night. With voting safely over in the US, Falluja could be destroyed in the name of its own upcoming elections.
“In another demonstration of their commitment to freedom, the first goal of the US soldiers in Falluja was to ambush the city's main hospital. Why? Apparently because it was the source of the "rumours" about high civilian casualties the last time US troops laid siege to Falluja, sparking outrage in Iraq and across the Arab world. "It's a centre of propaganda," an unnamed senior American officer told the New York Times. Without doctors to count the dead, the outrage would presumably be muted - except that, of course, the attacks on hospitals have sparked their own outrage, further jeopardising the legitimacy of the upcoming elections.
“According to the New York Times, the Falluja general hospital was easy to capture, since the doctors and patients put up no resistance. There was, however, one injury: "An Iraqi soldier who accidentally discharged his Kalashnikov rifle, injuring his lower leg." 

December 2003

 Iraqi occupation - December
In December assassination squads modelled on the ones used by Israeli Defense forces in the West Bank and Gaza strip Task Force 121 is being trained by the IDF at Fort Bragg to carry out assassinations of suspected guerrilla leaders. US special forces are already operating inside Syria in an attempt to kill ‘foreign jihadists’ before they can cross the border.
General William ‘Jerry’ Boskin the principle planner behind Task Force 121 told an Oregon church congregation  that the US is a “Christian Army” at war with Saddam. – Maria Tomchick in Znet.
“Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq,” Julian Borger, The Grauniad, 12/09/03.
www.guardian.co.uk/

Bush appointed Baker, a former secretary of state, as his unpaid envoy on December 5 2003, he called Baker's job "a noble mission"  - to persuade the world to forgive Iraq's crushing debts. But Baker is also a senior counsellor and an equity partner with a reported $180m stake in the merchant bank and defence contractor the Carlyle Group. 
The Carlyle Group - part of a consortium secretly proposing to try to collect $27bn (£15bn) on behalf of Kuwait by using high-level political influence.
Baker had been urging other countries to relieve the new Iraq regime of its $200bn debt burden. Jerome Levinson, an expert on political and corporate ethics at American University in Washington, told the Guardian: "The consortium is saying to the Kuwaiti government, 'Through us you have the only chance to realize a substantial part of the debt. Why? Because of who we are and who we know'."

December 7th, front page of NYTimes – Dexter Filkins – its opening paragraph – “as the guerrilla war against Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers have begun wrapping entire villages in barbed wire. In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning relatives of suspected guerrillas in hope of pressing insurgents to turn themselves in.”

Saddam Found!
In a hole near Tikrit.

Add lyrics to In a Hole by JMC





On December 16th Germany and France agreed to a US request to write off part of Iraq’s $120bn debt.
And two divisions of Haliburton file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a $4.2bn plan to settle hundreds of thousands asbestos claims.
December 13th – Saddam Hussein captured. In a hole.

Dec 3rd, the US planned a paramilitary battalion in Iraq drawn form the five political parties to help American troops fighting against fast spreading insurgency.
December 10th, the Pentagon excluded countries that opposed Iraqi invasion from bidding for reconstruction contracts.
December 12th, a Pentagon audit found that Haliburton overcharged the government by $61m for delivering petrol to Iraq.
Haliburton’s role included operating oilfields in Iraq. They hadcontract for firefghting and capping Iraqi oil wells awarded without bidding process in March (2004?) – it’s subsidiary KBR wasn’t till May that congress and public learned that Halliburton may be asked to pump and distribute Iraqi oil (Democrat Henry Waxman).

Libya changed sides in 2004: Shell and BAE are looking to cash in on Libya’s untapped resources – GB FO Minister Mike O’Brien went to Sirte near Tripoli in August 2002
Important, because by 2020 the UK could be dependent on imported energy for 80% of its needs.
The US energy department has calculated that net imports of oil, already at 54% will rise to 70% by 2025. Libya produces high-quality, low sulphur, crude oil at very low cost and hold 3% of the world’s reserves and vast natural gas reserves.
In December 19th 2003 Libya were caught trying to import nuclear technology from Malaysia. The IAEA said “Libya was not close to building a nuclear weapon…so the west’s triumphalism says more about the US-UK desire to placate domestic critics than about forcing any fundamental policy change on a recalcitrant Gadaffy.” – Meacher .

Operation began on 16th December 2003 to track down Naif Sharokh, who the army claimed was behind movement of suicide bombers from Nablus to Israel.  January 2004

GW signed a ban on late term abortions into law on November 5th 2003. Three judges around the US ordered injunctions that have blocked its enforcement. The law could be unconstitutional as it does not provide adequate safeguards for mothers. But fundamentalist fanatic Ashcroft wanted to press forward with enforcement using US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to do this. Feotus rights?
Roe v. Wade – look up – campaign to reverse.

To deliver verdict on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war.
It was a white wash, failing to discover that the government used MI6 as a “backchannel” to promote the case for invading Iraq – Operation Mass Appeal.
“The Hutton report inquiry concluded that Dr Kelly committed sucide after accepting evidence from Nicholas Hunt the forensic pathologist, that the scientist died primarily of a self inflicted wound causing haemorrhage, with co-proxamol ingestion as a secondary cause.” 

Jay Rockefeller – senior Democrat on the Senate panel – against the war?

Blair Wriggles
Butler Report provided new evidence regarding the Attorney General’s view on legality of the war. “It is clear that the Attorney had given Blair earlier advice which had not been shared in Whitehall. This was Blair’s informal style being allowed to change the way that Whitehall works. For example, notes of phone calls with foreign leaders were always circulated. This happened with his early calls with Bush, and then notes ceased to be circulated. The tension was considerable across Whitehall on the question of legality, yet no note of the Prime Minister’s meeting with the Attorney was made available. This was a considerable change in Whitehall practice. Blair controlled the Iraq policy personally and very informally and normal information-sharing systems were closed down.”

Blair “pleaded the defence of good intentions – he acted in good faith but was misled by wrong information. This leave a conundrum: why is he not more angry with those who misled him? – “an intelligence agency that had so badly misinformed him…a private office in Downing Street that apparently did not ask elementary questions, such as whether they were talking about battlefield or strategic weapon systems. Tony Blair is curiously indulgent to all those who led him into the most damaging episode of his premiership. We even read that all key players in preparing the false prospectus for war are to be rewarded in a special honours list. A parade of relevant officals down Whitehall in sackcloth and ashes would provide a more convincing demonstation that Downing Street is really sorry.” Cook, Grauniad, 15 October 04.

It was a time of enlightenment for many – for the first time becoming aware of the level of dishonesty, corruption, and support for violence, at the heart of Western Democracies. It was a privilege that populace of the United States, UK & Spain were able to share: being lied to repeatedly by their elected leaders.

In the run up to war any idea that ran contrary to the Wolfowitz invasion plan had to be countered, spiked, censored, ridiculed. So the simple solution to removing Saddam Hussein, that of supporting internal Iraqi dissent with a view to his being toppled from power, was out of the question. It could have been done in 1991, with a Shia uprising in the south. That time, at best, lack of action, and at worst, actual support from the West, Saddam was able to put this insurrection down. Washington didn’t want to run the risk of a popular government coming to power in Iraq.

While GW Bush and his merry men were desperately trying to stitch together the various elements required so they could carry out their long cherished dream of invading Iraq, European leaders, hampered by their democratic constitutions, had to either adopt a stance of opposition, or do a strange unconvincing dance of half truths, unanswered questions and innuendo in order to keep everything from simmering over. Blair had media support, and pretty much unprecedented control over his party and parliament. But on February 26th it looked like it was about to go a bit Pete Tong. 198 rebels voted for a “not yet” amendment, including 121 Labour mps, the biggest rebellion by members of a single party in over 100 years. One of Blair’s little dances was the one of insisting on going the “UN route”, something that Washington would have happily dispensed with except that the risk of going into Iraq without international support would have been too great, both for their overstretched armed forces, and for domestic opinion. But Washington was by now getting “impatient” with Blair’s “UN route”. Blair was pressing for UNSC endorsement of any military action. His ministers promised two more votes before any war could begin. Hans Blix with his International Lawyer hat on, has gone on record as saying that the war could only be legal if a resolution authorising action came from the UNSC, and not action by individual governments.
Even within the cabinet there were splits, with Straw opposing Blair’s plans to use the historic royal prerogative right to declare war . Blair was risking losing his own position if he continued to fly in the face of public and informed opinion in this way. But the power of Washington over London was such that Blair could not risk voicing any dissent for Bush’s policies of imperial expansion.

Robert Buzzanco, associate professor of history at University of Houston, author of “Masters of War: Military dissent and politics in the UN era and Vietnam and the transformation of American Life”, talked about the internal dissent Bush resisted. General Anthony Zinni, (former) Special Envoy to the Middle East, wondered “what planet they live on” when hawks demanded intervention despite world and Arab dissent. Wesley Clark expected “a quick war, then lots of trouble…long term risk from a devastating defeat of Saddam that is extremely dangerous…a deepening of the Arab sense of humiliation across the region. They will view the American and Allied victory as a reimposition of colonialism.” Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki publicly rebuked Rumsfeld as he estimated troop strength needed in Iraq, and Shinseki was to be proved right. As Bush proclaimed victory, Marine General David McKiernan countered that “the war has not ended”.

A rift appeared between Washington and Iraqi opposition groups. Zalmay Khalidzad/ Khalilzad, Bush’s Special Envoy to the Iraqi opposition, said that the Iraqi people should be allowed to run their affairs “as soon as possible”. He refused to say how long a military administration would remain in Baghdad. Oppostion groups had been peed off by Washington’s proposal to install a US military governor in Baghdad and leave much of the existing Iraqi bureaucracy in the hands of president Saddam’s Ba’ath Party, effectively a climb-down by Washington.
Kanan Makazi of Iraqi National Council – “broadly reassured”.
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq – represents Iraq’s Shia majority – said this was a bad idea, “The Iraqi people need no guidance”.
Saudi Arabia want Sunni elite to remain in power.
Kurdish officials are worried about possible clashes between Turkey and Kurdish militias and say any invasion by Turkey will lead to regional instability.



Notes
Bin Laden
Hardly a mention all year – the man who was initially the reason for invading Afghanistan and the mastermind behind world terror – no one seemed all that bothered about catching him suddenly.

Just as it looks like Dubya’s finished, they find Saddam. Then it all went quiet on the Saddam front for the rest of the year.

Economic Shit
US democratic programs designed to create what economists call a “fiscal train wreck” by vast increases in government spending and sharp tax cuts primarily for the very rich”. Vast unpayable bills – to “starve the beast” – rhetoric from the Reagan years – to undermine government services that benefit the general population.
GW’s tax cuts in 2003 took US defecit to record $480bn next year. His dad got it to $290m in 1992. Clinton notched up a cumulative surplus of $ ½ trillion by 2001 which Bush blew most of in a single year.
CBO estimates the cumulative deficit will hit $1.4 trillion by 2013. Tax cuts will increase inequality.

Jay Rockefeller – senior Democrat on the Senate panel – against the war?

Saudi Bits…
Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Prince al-Waleed bin Talal – billionaire businessman and nephew of King Fahd.
Powerful Islamic establishment known as the Riyadh spring – was quickly silenced by the Saudi government. “the Kingdom’s notorious religious police”.
King Abdullah II of Jordan
Abdel Wahid Balqziz, the secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Jamal Khashoggi – sacked as editor in chief of al-Watan because of the newspaper’s campaign against the excesses of the kingdom’s notorious religious police.

Brazil
President Luiz Imácio Lula da Silva, “the country’s first working class leader, his electoral victory…was hailed as an epochal moment: here was a true child of the left at long last given the opportunity to reshape the largest country in Latin America. Yet even during the election campaign Lula was careful to calm the global financiers who were panicking at the prospect of a Workers’ Party victory – Brazil, he said would continue to follow IMF-approved economic policies” NI, March 2004.
Does the IMF now rule the world?

Bolivia
Presdient Gonzalo Sanchez do Lozada was forced to suspend plans for UK and Spanish petroleum corps to export natural gas to the US via Chile.
Protests in October and strikes – 40 dead. Authorities feared a coup and called for Sanchez’s resignation. Capital, La Paz and El Alto paralysed. Armed forces fired on protesters. This was part of GW’s massive effort to secure fuel supplies from Latin America.

India
UK and US attempts to make India enter talks over Kashmir seen as “a breathtaking example of double standards” in Delhi. – Phil Reeves, Times, March 31st, 2003.
Bombay bomb attacks – India blamed Pakistan. Lashkar-i-Toiba an Islamist militant group in Pakistan – Aug 27th Guardian.

And Finally…
Worldcom – largest corporate failure in US history - $11bn accounting fraud did it. Richard Breeden wrote the report – 78 recommendations. New-look Worldcom, now known as MCI. Tyco scandal?

Russia BP – TNK merger in Russia

Industrial group Access / Renova (Renora?) accuse dof money-laundering – court cases going on.

Rift between Puitn and business – leading to civil war?

Yukos associate Platon Lebeder

Shell and Exxon Mobil also pumping cash into various Russian oil and gas schemes – Sakhalin Island – www.Guardian.co.uk/oil


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