URGENT BULLETIN:
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minister has been found and is negotiating to surrender. The problem is, the US doesn't want to arrest him. This report is from www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com:

29 April - ABC News Australia reports that Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (M.S.S.) has been at his aunt's house in Baghdad for the past four days, and has asked US troops to arrest him so he can be "protected". Adel Murad, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, says US troops have refused because he is not on their "most wanted" deck of playing cards... al-Arabiya satellite channel has offered M.S.S. a new job as a commentator and analyst. "We want to benefit from the experience of Mr Sahaf and his analysis of the current situation and the future of Iraq," said the station, without giving details of the job package... wow, we have nothing funny to add to that, speaks for itself.

It appears that the US will be able to let some pressure off the house of Saud by removing its troops from the kingdom. This will allow two changes in the US relationship with the Saudis. First, it will remove one gripe by Arabs who see the kingdom as a puppet of the US. Second, it will allow the US to criticise the Saudis without having to worry that they will revoke basing rights in the kingdom. The bases were necessary to maintain pressure on Iraq. That is no longer necessary with the fall of Saddam Hussein. Instead, the US military will be based in Qatar and Iraq for the foreseeable future.

The Atlantic Monthly has an in-depth article about the House of Saud in its May issue. The main point of the article is that "Saudi Arabia is controlled by an increasingly bankrupt, criminal, dysfunctional, and out-of-touch royal family that is hated by the people it rules and by the nations that surround its kingdom." It is a scathing critique of the House of Saud and predicts an impending disaster unless a serious attempt at reform is made in the kingdom. The article also goes into great detail regarding contacts between American business and military leaders and members of the ruling house. Reading it reminds me of the Shah of Iran before the Islamic revolution there in 1978. When the Saudis are overthrown, it will come as a big surprise and a serious blow to American interests in the region.

In events today:
The United States has said that virtually all its troops, except some training personnel, are to be pulled out of Saudi Arabia.
Earlier on Tuesday, the US military confirmed that it was moving its air command centre from Saudi Arabia to the al-Udeid air base in neighbouring Qatar.
US Rear Admiral David Nichols said the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) at the Prince Sultan base in Saudi Arabia would be closed by the end of the summer.
US troops have become a potent symbol of Washington's role in the region, and many Saudis see them as proof of the country's subservience to America. Osama Bin Laden used American presence to justify anti-US attacks

In Iraq
The US says it will deploy up to 4,000 additional troops to boost security in Baghdad.
US forces in the Iraqi town of Falluja open fire on protesters, reportedly killing at least 13
The governor of Basra under Saddam Hussein has surrendered in Baghdad, according to the Iraqi National Congress.

Israel/Palestine
The outline of the Road Map to Peace between Israel and the Palestinians has not yet been published, but is expected this week. The acceptance of a new cabinet by the Palestinian parliament has removed the final roadblock to publishing the plan. The outline of the plan is fairly well known, though the details are still sketchy. The Palestinians have accepted the plan, but Israel still has objections to it.

Outline:
Phase 1: End to violence
In the first phase of the roadmap, terrorism and violence are supposed to end, Palestinian life should be normalised, the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories improved, and Palestinian institutions rebuilt. Palestinians should resume security co-operation and end terrorism and incitement. Palestinians should restructure their security services. Palestinians should undertake comprehensive political reform including a new constitution and elections.
Phase 2: Transition
The second phase of the roadmap aims to focus on creating an independent Palestinian state with "provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty". This phase is intended to start after Palestinian elections and end with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Arab states are called on to restore pre-intifada links to Israel - trade offices, diplomatic delegations and the like.
Phase 3: Permanent status agreement/end of conflict
The objectives of this phase are "consolidation of reform and stabilisation of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security performance, and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a permanent status agreement in 2005". The Quartet (US, UN, EU, Russa) is to convene a second international conference to endorse agreements reached by the Israelis and Palestinians on final borders, Jerusalem, refuges and settlements. The conference is then meant to support progress to a comprehensive Middle East agreement between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Agreements are intended to protect the "religious interests of Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide". Arab states are called on to accept "full normal relations with Israel and security for all the states of the region in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace".
This was published at the BBC.

I am always more philosophical on Sundays. Perhaps it is because it is a slower day, more relaxing and providing more time to think. Perhaps it is because I let my mind wander when I am lying in bed in the morning because I don't have to get up until late.

In any case, I have been thinking about America's role in the world. How should the US project its power? How should we shape our foreign policy? We can use the awesome power that we have in the world for good or for evil. I think that everyone agrees that it should be used for good, but what is the shape of that good? Those that supported the War in Iraq felt that the goal of the war was to promote good. That is, to bring freedom to Iraqis and to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Of course, there are also those who supported the war for reasons based more on greed and self interest. I will not name anyone because I do not know the personal motivations of anyone in the Bush Administration, though they can be guessed at by their statements and actions.

So what good should the US promote in the world? Should we even be promoting good, or just let the world be? Both a liberal and a conservative would agree that, to some extent, the US should promote good, but what good? Some would argue that we should promote democratic values, tolerance for other religions and ethnicities, freedom to pursue individual happiness or wealth, fair play, the dislike of inequality, and the rights of free speech and freedom of the press. It is an impulse that Americans have had since the founding of the American republic. There is an article in May's Atlantic Monthly about Walt Whitman's 1871 essay "Democratic Vistas" in which Whitman described the destiny of America as that of spreading democracy, freedom and progress throughout the world. From the beginning of the republic, American has viewed itself as the shining city on the hill, inspiring the world to freedom.

The question of what values a society should be based on are as ancient at least as Plato, who wrote about the creation of a just society in his Republic. The question is probably older than that. It is a prime question in the bible as well as any ancient code of laws promulgated by priest or ruler at the dawn of civilization. But this is not an academic historical exercise. It is a very relevant modern issue for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our relations with Israel and the Palestinians. Our support of freedom and capitalism in eastern Europe throughout the cold war colors our current relationship with the countries there as well as Russia. The issue of how we go about promoting good in the world also colors our relations with our allies in western Europe.

What makes a just society and what values should the US promote? The main values that (almost) all Americans share are summarized in the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These are derived from English law and guaranteed by almost all the states. For the most part, they are not inconsistent with other value systems throughout the world, but their interpretation and implementation might lead to conflict.

In Iraq, where the US is in the process of nation building, we would like to see the country adopt American values. We also know that, if Iraq adopts those values, the US will have little to no say in how the country develops them. To what extent do American values conflict with Islamic law? Can the two coexist? I do not know enough about Sharia law to say that they can or they can't, but having read the Koran, I am sure that Islamic values and christian values are not incompatible.

America has structured its society to place the values enshrined in the Constitution above all other values. To be sure, many religious people would place religious values higher, but the Constitution attempts to provide for this. In America, religious values are personal values, whereas the Constitution embraces public values. The government will not allow for any religion to promote its public values above the Constitution except where they do not conflict. This is easier for America because we inherited our values from Europe, which spent hundreds of years fighting bloody wars to work out the differences between religion and the state. Islam has not resolved this conflict within its society. Like Europe in the middle ages, there has historically been no separation between church and state in Islam. In fact, there is no church as such. Islamic values pervade society. Jews and Christians have lived for centuries under Islamic rulers because they accepted the public values of Islam, but were not allowed to rule. It was only in the twentieth century that secular, western European governments were formed in the Middle East.

I think that the values that America promotes can be compatible with Islamic values. Islamic law allows for religious tolerance, but also (like in western Europe) requires the government to support religion. Islamic values include the values of fair play and freedom, tolerance of different ethnicities, and dislike of inequality. Free speech and freedom of the press might don't seem to have corresponding Islamic values, but there is no reason they should not be allowed. I can see conflicts with these values if people exercise their rights by criticizing important religious ideas or leaders, such as the prophet Muhammed. But people do the same in western democracies and are promptly marginalized. In the marketplace of ideas, the least popular ones get less of a voice. The same should be true in Islamic societies as well.

So should the US promote democracy in the world? If we believe that our values are the best that the world has to offer in producing a just society, then we not only have the right to promote those values, but we have the responsibility to do so. The next question becomes, what is the best method of promoting our values? That is the question that should be central in any political debate over American foreign policy. However, that is a discussion for another time.

Something from The New Republic Online:

MATERIAL BREACH: America's failure to prevent the tragic looting of the Baghdad National Museum has been an understandable source of outrage. But something far worse than looted Mesopotamian art may soon turn up on the international black market: looted Iraqi uranium. That's the grim news in this rather buried Washington Post story.

Now, we can imagine--if not understand--how Donald Rumsfeld would have been simple-minded enough to believe that no stuffy old museum would be worth U.S. military protection. But this latest story defies explanation. Rumsfeld is a man obsessed with weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and he justified the war in Iraq on those very grounds. How could he possibly fail to realize the importance of locking down vulnerable nuclear material? It's as baffling as it is outrageous. If it turns out that nuclear material has indeed gone missing, another shrug of "stuff happens" will absolutely not be an acceptable response from Rumsfeld. "I resign" might be more like it. - 30-

Defense officials acknowledge that the U.S. government has no idea whether any nuclear materials have been stolen, because it has not dispatched investigators to appraise the site. What it does know is that the complex lay unguarded for days and that looters made their way inside. It makes you wonder just how important Weapons of Mass Destruction were as a justification for this war when obvious sites go unguarded for days, but oil fields are the first sites liberated by invading armies.

I received this e-mail forwarded from two different people. I thought it was worthy to be forwarded on. Here is the letter from MoveOn in its entirety:

Dear MoveOn Member,

The war in Iraq is over; the U.S. occupation of Iraq has now begun. In an unnecessary war, victory is never sweet: American soldiers, Iraqi civilians, and Iraqi soldiers lost their lives in a conflict that never should have happened. That's not victory, that's tragedy.

The hawks in the Bush Administration see this as a vindication of their belligerent world view. Never mind that we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction; never mind that Iraqi democracy (or even security) is nowhere in sight. The hotter heads have prevailed: pre- emptive unilateralism is now the official policy of the U.S.. Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle are now thinking even bigger about the "projection of American power." In the chilling words of a senior official close to the Bush administration, "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran."

Folks, we just have to stop this madness, and there's really only one way to do that: We need to throw these bums out. The good news is that over the last few months, we've built a base that just may be large enough to succeed. MoveOn's total membership is now over 1.3 million.

We've taken out ads, written letters, delivered mountains of petition signatures, and taken action in hundreds of cities. And now we need to turn our attention toward one goal: regime change in the USA, the best way to repudiate Bush's policy of war.

Are you in? If you're willing to help show Bush the door in 2004, just click below. We'll count you among the participants in this next phase of the peace movement.

http://www.moveon.org/pac/newpres

We'll throw out Bush and the Republicans using every means available:
by registering a wave of new voters, by organizing to make sure they get to the polls on election day, by raising enough money to compete with the President's mountain of special interest money, and by volunteering for political campaigns. We'll make it easy for you to play a part.

President Bush believes he doesn't have to listen to the American public -- which, even during war, has overwhelmingly been skeptical or strongly resistant to the idea of an American empire. He has decided that his faith in the military takes precedence over his faith in democracy. The election in 2004 is our chance to take our democracy back.

Polls show overwhelmingly that American's do not trust President Bush to revive the failing economy. They're just as concerned with the Administration's assault on civil rights, civil liberties and the environment. Last week in New Orleans, Presidential Advisor Karl Rove said that this will be a "close, competitive" race. If all of us get involved, it won't just be tight. We'll win.

And that will go down in history. It will demonstrate that we mean what we say -- that we have the passion and the commitment to see our approach to foreign policy through. It will demonstrate that politicians who seek to curry favor through belligerence face political consequences, and that those who advocate a reasonable, multilateral foreign policy will be rewarded. And it will set the stage for an American policy that leads the world into a cooperative and safe future.

Let's elect a new President in 2004, and put an end to the politics of unnecessary war.

Sincerely,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn Team
April 24th, 2003

I encourage anyone who is concerned with the direction the country is headed to get involved. If you do not participate in MoveOn, get involved with whichever political campaign you can. I have signed up to volunteer for Howard Dean. If he loses the primary, I will volunteer for whichever democrat will challenge Bush and the neo-conservative agenda.

Just one question from me. Who was it that said, "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran."

Bush Administration Power Struggles - New Maneuvering
There is a new article in the New York Times today regarding the power struggles within the Bush administration. The factions so far are the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and the Vice President's office. Vice President Dick Cheney is viewed as falling in the the neo-conservative camp along with Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon and members of the Defense Policy Board such as Newt Gingrich and Richard Perle. Richard Armitage at the State Department also falls into this camp as a sort of fifth column.

Rumsfeld opposed this week's talks with North Korea in Beijing. Instead, he circulated a memo proposing that China and the United States try to bring down the North Korean government. After all, if it worked in Iraq, then it will work in North Korea, right? Conservatives such as Gingrich have criticized Powell's plan to discuss Syria's support for terrorism and possession of chemical and biological weapons with Bashar al-Assad. Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, have since advocated toning down criticism of Syria, which has come mainly from Donald Rumsfeld and other conservatives.

The White House is backing Colin Powell on negotiating with Syria on its support of terrorism, negotiating with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program, and promoting talks between Israel and a newly emerging Palestinian leadership to create a Palestinian state. George Bush has no love for Newt Gingrich, going back to the rivalry between Newt Gingrich and George Bush I.

Who's Next Part III - France?
Relations between the US and France seem to be at an all-time low. Forget Lafayette; forget the Statue of Liberty; forget the Marne; forget D-Day; the Bush administration is pursuing steps to punish France for opposing the United States on the war in Iraq. Colin Powell, in an interview on The Charlie Rose Show, warned that France would suffer consequences. Possible consequences include shifting NATO decisions to the Defense Planning Council, which does not include France, and bypassing the North Atlantic Council, of which France is a member; and limiting French participation in American-sponsored meetings with European allies. In addition, when Bush attends an international economic summit meeting in Évian in the French Alps later this spring, he will stay at a hotel across the border in Switzerland, never mind that Switzerland had been even more opposed to the war in Iraq than France. Trade or economic sanctions are unlikely because such sanctions would hurt the US as much as France. France could not be singled out without EU retaliation.

Powell said the US would be reviewing all aspects of its relations with France. Senior officials met with Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, to discuss possible consequences for France. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, I. Lewis Libby and Eric Edelman also attended. Libby and Edelman, described by some administration officials as driving forces within the group, are two influential hawks on the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. However, not only conservatives within the administration are pushing this policy. Colin Powell is angry with the French for what he perceives as a betrayal in the UN for failing to support a US-backed resolution to authorize war in Iraq.

The disagreements with France over how to proceed in Iraq are continuing. France proposed the immediate suspension of sanctions against Iraq but is still pressing for UN weapons inspectors to verify illegal weapons finds before lifting sanctions. The White House position is that sanctions must be lifted immediately, "not merely suspended". The main aspects of sanctions that France likely wants to keep in place is the Oil for Food program. Under this program, the UN, not the US, would control sale of Iraqi oil.

President Bush believes that the two countries share many common values and that the alliance would continue. However, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the division went further than a difference of opinion. The differences seem to be focused on the role of the US and the UN in international relations. Conservatives in the US oppose a powerful UN and oppose anything that might subject US sovereignty to international law, such as the International Criminal Court. France is also seen as opposing US influence in the world from a philosophical and cultural standpoint.

There is more in this article in the New York Times and at the BBC.

Bush Administration Power Struggles
The Washington Post ran an article on the rivalry between the State Department and the Pentagon. While relations between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are said to be civil, the bureaucratic tussles among mid-level officials are intense. The power struggle has been evident in the disagreements between the State Department and Pentagon over middle east policy. The State Department sought to limit the role of Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. However, he was popular with the neo-conservatives in the Pentagon, so they airlifted him into Iraq a few weeks ago. Disagreements are beginning to arise in the administration’s approach to North Korea as well. The Defense Department pressed to have Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, a Rumsfeld ally, replace James A. Kelly as the head of a delegation to the upcoming meeting between China, the US and North Korea.

Newt Gingrich, the deposed head of the neo-conservative movement, has weighed in on the dispute. He said the State Department had failed in its efforts to apply diplomatic pressure to persuade Iraq to disarm and comply with U.N. resolutions, and that it is time for "bold, dramatic change" at the department. What Gingrich overlooks is that the policy to persuade Iraq to disarm was doomed to failure by the Pentagon. The UN strategy was never intended to succeed and was scuttled by the failure to give it enough time to work. Gingrich faulted Secretary of State Colin Powell for saying he would visit Syria, which the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration have accused of aiding members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Gingrich also faulted the State Department for advocating a road map for peace in the Middle East. One former official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush said Gingrich's comments were really directed at the president.

In fact, Newt may have a point. Bush has no real foreign policy, so the various factions within his administration are vying for control. The dispute seems to be part of a larger attempt by neo-conservatives to control the direction of the Bush administration. Conservatives complain that the State Department bureaucracy is thwarting President Bush from carrying out a forceful agenda to stop terrorism and confront enemy states. Defense Department has expressed sympathy for Israeli efforts to limit the involvement of the EU and the UN in the Israeli peace process. The Road Map for Peace was drafted by the US, the EU, the UN and Russia. The State Department thinks these parties are important in the process in order to put pressure on the Palestinians.

As part of the neo-conservative movement to gain control of government, we have seen the wholesale relaxation of civil service employment rules in the Department of Homeland Security. With the victory in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld’s political influence has never been higher, so he is proposing similar rules for the defense department. The plan would replace guaranteed annual raises with a pay-for-performance plan, shift as many as 320,000 military members out of jobs that could be done by civilians in order to make it easier to contract out work, and allow managers to hire and transfer employees without time-consuming competitions. The plan would eliminate the traditional civil service system that emphasizes longevity of service in determining pay. The American Federation of Government Employees argues that relaxing civil service rules could lead to cronyism in hiring and promotions and that agencies lack the funding and evaluation systems needed to execute pay-for-performance plans fairly.

Israel-Palestine
Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen, the incoming Palestinian prime minister, agreed to a compromise in the power struggle over the makeup of a Palestinian cabinet. This is important because the US has refused to publish the Road Map for Peace without a new cabinet. There were compromises on both sides so that the Palestinians can move forward in negotiations with the Israelis. The compromise was reached hours before the midnight deadline on Wednesday. The disagreement centered around Abu Mazen's plan to name his choice as security chief and to crack down on the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The dispute is a positive sign that democracy is working in Palestine.

In Iraq
Anti-Americanism still runs high. In fact, many papers are running stories stating that U.S. planners are surprised by the strength of Iraqi shi’ites. Hundreds of thousands made a long-banned pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala yesterday. While they may appreciate the fact that they can make the pilgrimage, they are still very keen for the U.S. to leave Iraq as soon as possible. "It is a complex equation, and the U.S. government is ill-equipped to figure out how this is going to shake out," a State Department official said. U.S. intelligence reports reaching top officials throughout the government this week said the Shi’ites appear to be much more organized than was thought. The US will try to counter shi’a fundamentalism by finding moderate clerics and moving them into positions of influence. However, the anti-American shi’ites recognize the pro-western clerics, many of whom were exiled and returned recently. The death of Abdul Majid Khoei, a pro-American cleric who was stabbed to death in Najaf a couple of weeks ago, shows the limits of the American plan. These same anti-American shi’ites demanded the exile of Ayatollah Ali Sistani from Najaf last week. Sistani is considered Iraq’s top shi’a cleric

Thomas Friedman
Thomas Friedman has a new column, this time about removing Yassir Arafat and with a warning to the neo-conservatives who oppose peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The main point of his Op-ed piece is this:
What does America want in Iraq? It wants the emergence of an Iraqi political center, of both parties and politicians, who are authentically Iraqi, authentically nationalist and respectful of Islam — but with a progressive, modernizing agenda and a willingness to work with the U.S. to transform Iraq. In the near future — once Iraqi politics really resume — the ability of any Iraqi politician to be openly pro-U.S. will be restricted if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict burns on and the Bush team is seen as siding only with Ariel Sharon and doing nothing to defuse the situation. In that context, pro-U.S. Iraqi politicians will be delegitimized, in both Iraq and the Arab world, as pro-Sharon stooges. As a result, we will either end up with Iraqis who are not legitimate or Iraqis who, like so many other Arab leaders today, can only cooperate with us in secret. Note to neo-cons: If you care about the outcome in Iraq, you should be for an energized peace process — one that draws redlines for both Israelis and Palestinians and moves them both toward an interim deal..

I was out of town for the Easter weekend, so was not able to post anything since last Thursday. Here are my thoughts for the day.

One of my favorite columnists is Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. I do not always agree with him, but he always has something interesting to say. He brings a perspective to Middle East issues that you rarely hear elsewhere. He is a liberal in the classic sense. This kind of liberal believes in the good that America can do for the world. This kind of liberal believes in America and what it stands for and believes that we have a responsibility to project those values throughout the world for the betterment of mankind. There is no cynical hidden agenda for this type of liberal. This type of liberal is different from the more cynical leftist who sees a right-wing conspiracy behind every action by the US. The leftist would see the liberal as misguided and naive. After all, it was this kind of liberal who brought the US into Vietnam in order to bring democracy to southeast Asia and prevent the communists from taking over. Thomas Friedman supported the war in Iraq because it would bring democracy and western values to the middle east and act as a cultural, political and social counterweight to radical Islam, which is the shibboleth of the early 21st century, just as communism was in the 20th. Here is an excerpt from Thomas Friedman's column today:

Yes, this Iraq war was about Saddam. For George Bush and Tony Blair, though, I think it was about something larger, but unstated. They were implicitly saying: "This terrorism bubble has come to threaten open societies and all they value. So, we're going to use Iraq - because we can - to demonstrate to you that we'll come right into the heart of your world to burst this bubble. Take note."

We and the Arab-Muslim world must now draw the right conclusions. One hopes Americans will now stop overreacting to 9/11. Al Qaeda is not the Soviet Union. Saddam was not Stalin. And terrorism is not communism. America sliced right through Iraq. It did so because we are a free-market democracy that is capable of amassing huge amounts of technical power. And it did so because our soldiers so cherish what they have that they were ready to fight house to house from Basra to Baghdad. That was the real shock and awe for Iraqis - because the terrorism bubble said Nasdaq-obsessed Americans were so caught up with the frivolity of modern life, they had lost the will to fight. Wrong.

We are strong because of who we are. Iraq was weak because of what it was. So, yes, let's add a metal detector or two at the airports, but let's stop thinking we have to remake our whole society, constrict all civil liberties, ban all Arab students and throw out all our foreign policy doctrines that have served us so well - from deterrence to collective security to the usefulness of the U.N. - to meet this new terrorism threat. We do not, and we must not.

Will UN Sanctions Against Iraq Be Lifted?
Why shouldn't the UN lift sanctions against Iraq? Bush seems to want sanctions lifted immediately. Yesterday I said that it seems like a no-brainer, but what happens when sanctions are lifted? The oil for food program was part of the sanctions, so lifting the sanctions removes the oil for food program and undermines the UN's remaining influence over developments in Iraq. If the sanctions are in place, then the UN retains control of Iraq's oil resources and has leverage over contract to rebuild the nation. Without a interim government in place, the sale of oil would be controlled by the US alone, removing the only leverage the UN has in Iraq and putting the US in complete control of Iraqi oil. Without sale of oil, the US must fund the reconstruction of Iraq on its own during that period.

Before today, Russia, Mexico and France had argued that the sanctions should not be lifted until the issue of weapons of mass destruction is settled. This would mean reintroducing UN weapons inspectors to Iraq and a much longer period before oil could be sold to rebuild Iraq. Hans Blix said his experts could be back in Iraq within two weeks. On Thursday, Britain, France, Spain and Germany put forward a joint statement calling for an end to sanctions but continued support for a central role for the UN in Iraqi reconstruction. The four nations are working with Russia to produce a series of draft resolutions for the UN security council on how to assist Iraq and which will define the UN's postwar role in Iraq. Chirac said the UN should define the conditions of rebuilding Iraq, including who should get contracts for reconstruction of the country.

This is the most important issue currently facing the UN. It is probably the most important issue facing the UN in years. It applies not just to UN involvement in Iraq, but the role of the UN in international relations for the future. According to the New York Times, if the issue is not handled carefully, it potentially could deepen divisions. Given the track record of contempt that the Bush administration has towards the UN, it is unlikely that the issue will be handled carefully.

What Iraqis are jockeying for position in an interim Iraqi government?
Those competing for leading post-war roles include:
* Ahmed Chalabi of the London-based INC who appears to be trying to force the pace by moving from his initial base in southern Iraq to the capital, Baghdad
* Ayad Alawi, who leads a party which includes many military defectors from the old regime, is said to be in Baghdad seeking to garner support from so-called "clean" Baath party members
* Mashaan al-Juburi who defected from the regime in the 1990s and is now working with the Kurds and Americans in northern Iraq; he describes himself as acting governor of Mosul
* Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, a member of the US-backed Iraqi National Congress, had announced his election as mayor of Baghdad by local people and was liaising with the US military
* The "Free Officers and Civilian Movement" has emerged out of the woodwork. Its name and the slogan "Iraq First" was spray-painted on a wall beneath a torn picture of Saddam Hussein.
* A well-known Shi'ite party had done the same, with the slogan "Yes to Islamic national unity."
* Activists for a Kurdish party and a monarchist movement have also been handing out leaflets to bemused passers-by.

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
As the War in Iraq ends, the world is beginning to refocus on the Palestinian issue. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is entering a new phase in which the US will have to pressure Israel to take painful steps, particularly dismantling Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The next steps in the process are laid out in the Road Map, devised by the Quartet, made up of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, over the last year. Israel conveyed 14 objections to the peace plan at a meeting with US officials. Among the objections were that the Road Map calls for Israel to pull back troops and dismantle Jewish settlements without concrete steps by the Palestinians to end their attacks on Israelis and that it does not specifically preclude any right of return to Israel by Palestinians to their pre-1948 homes in Israel. The peace plan calls for Israel, in the plan's first year, to dismantle settlements created since March 2001 and freeze all settlement activity including natural growth of settlements. Colin Powell will be visiting the Middle East in the next weeks in order to give fresh impetus to the peace process, probably in May.

The EU urged the US to act quickly to publish the Road Map now that the War in Iraq is over. Colin Powell has stated that installation of a new Palestinian prime minister would lead to a much more active American engagement in the process, including publication of the Road Map. Publication is delayed by a dispute between Yassir Arafat and the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas. The dispute is blocking the accession of Abbas to his post. Because the US and Israel refuse to work with Arafat, this effectively blocks any further progress towards peace in Palestine. Three US congressmen as well as the consuls general of Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany have met with Yassir Arafat to urge him not to obstruct Abbas. The US is also applying pressure on Israel in order to bolster Abbas in the dispute. The US is pressing Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza once Abbas is installed. The US is asking Israel to consider a troop pullback from Palestinian population centers, an easing of checkpoints and other curbs on Palestinian travel and work permits, and a speedier turnover of tax revenues collected by Israel to Palestinian authorities. Sharon is considering the steps but would not pull back troops.

I have added a few links to my page for people to go to some of my favorite sources directly. I added the English version of al Jazeera even though it is a temporary site for coverage of the War On Iraq. I didn't add the regular al Jazeera site because I didn't think most of my readers would be able to read the Arabic. My own Arabic studies have progressed to the point that I was able to translate a headline today after 10 minutes with extensive reliance on a dictionary. The headline stated: Franks Visits Saddam's Palace and Bush Calls for Lifting of Sanctions. It helps if you have read the news elsewhere.

While our attention has been diverted to the happenings in Iraq, there have been other things happening in the world. (Besides SARS, I mean.) The Israelis have continued building a wall around the West Bank to separate the Palestinians from the Israelis. Funny thing is, though, the wall doesn't follow the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank, called the Green Line. It cuts a snaking line considerably within the West Bank in order to keep illegal Jewish settlements on the Israeli side of the line. "The barrier coils around Qalqilya's 40,000 residents, reaching some seven kilometres into occupied land to take in the Jewish settlements of Zofin and Alfe Menashe to the north and south. The area sits on the Western Aquifer Basin - the second largest fresh water resource in the region - and nearly 20 wells will be embraced by Israel's new "security zone" around Qalqilya. Furthermore, six [Palestinian] villages will be stranded between the fence and the Green Line." BBC 17 April, 2003. In many places, the fence separates Palestinian agricultural lands surrounding the villages from the people who cultivate them.

"There is also talk of an Eastern Wall that would seal off the Palestinian areas from the other side, enclosing the West Bank populations in the discontinuous cantons - a concept Palestinian leaders are thought to have rejected during the 2000 peace talks at Camp David." BBC 17 April, 2003

I found a link to an interesting Blog from a guy in Baghdad. The last post was March 24, but the archives are rather interesting. I added a link to his blog to the left of my main page. Here's a sample in the form of an open letter to the West he posted last December:

The whole region is a cesspool. dictatorships are all around the arab region. Turkey and Iran fair just as bad as the rest of the lot. But the benevolent western eye looks at Iraq only.
Thank you for your keen interest in the human rights situation in my country,
thank you turning a blind eye for thirty years,
thank you for providing the support for my government to send 2 million Iraqis to war with Iran and getting them killed,
thank you for not minding the development of chemical weapons by a nut case when you knew he was a nut case,
thank you for not minding that members of the Iraqi communist party get acid baths (you don't think that this was used for the first time in Kuwait do you?, the government used these baths since the late 70's),
thank you for ignoring all human rights organizations when it came to the plight of the Iraqi people,
thank you for keeping sanctions which you knew only weakened the people and had no effect on the government.
Thank you for knowing all this and not minding.
For all your efforts I salute you with a hearty FUCK YOU.

There isn't a single bit of information which is not old and has been rehashed by many human rights organizations before, so what makes you so worried about how I manage to live in this shit hole now?

I forgot to thank all the western construction companies who have built the mentioned prisons, and the eastern European countries who provided the training.

So now you care? I don't know whether I am angry, sad or scared. You had the reports all the time and you knew. What makes today different than a year ago?

Can the US legally hold Abu Abbas? Is he really the much vaunted link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism? He was convicted by an Italian court in absentia for the Achille Lauro hijacking, but the US cannot legally arrest him according to the 1995 interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that was also signed by President Clinton. He has also visited Palestinian areas repeatedly since 1996 with Israeli and U.S. acquiescence. In recent years his group has been a conduit for some of the $35 million Saddam's regime paid to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. On the other hand, many Arab governments have paid money to the families of suicide bombers who have had their homes destroyed.

What is the war on terrorism about? Is it about al Qaeda? Is it about protecting the American people against crazed bombers? Or is about any terrorism, anywhere in the world, even if there is no link between the terrorist groups that are targeted? Simply being a terrorist does not automatically make someone a member of al Qaeda or a danger to the United States. Many of the terrorist groups on the US’s list of terrorist organizations have never taken any action against the United States or its citizens. Among these are Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which target Israel exclusively. Is it the responsibility of the United States to root out all terrorist groups everywhere in the world?

Some terrorist groups do not target the United States but are linked, however tentatively, to Al Qaeda. Ansar al-Islam is one of them. This is the group that was operating in Kurdish-controlled regions of Iraq. The American public knows little about them other than what we have been told by the Bush Administration. That is, that they are a radical Islamic organization that has links to al Qaeda. I have seen no evidence to support these accusations. I have no doubt that they are a radical Islamic organization. It may well have links to al Qaeda, but links prove nothing. After all, if we use the evidence that is given to prove most of the links that are asserted in this global terrorist conspiracy, then George W. Bush has links to Osama bin Laden. The Bush family has had been closely tied to the bin Laden family through business arrangements for decades.


News and Opinon:
Bush called for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq, now that the US has destroyed the Baathist regime. [I figure this is a no-brainer. The only question is how quickly the UN will pass the resolution and whether they will try to attach anything else to it. - Ed.]

General Tommy Franks entered Baghdad and held a meeting in Saddam Hussein's palace. [There is a great picture on the cover of the New York Times today in which General Franks strikes a victorious pose walking through the ruins of the palace. - Ed.]

Denmark, Netherlands and Spain suggested Wednesday they may quickly send peacekeeping troops to help stabilize Iraq without waiting for a U.N. resolution. All three backed the US in the war.

Mideast countries, including some friends of the United States, expressed alarm Tuesday over possible U.S. action against Syria. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council rejected U.S. threats against Syria. Syria states the U.S. statements are not as negative as the media presents them and that diplomatic channels are much quieter and much more constructive.

Leaders of old and new EU member states sign a treaty on EU expansion. Jacques Chirac called the new Europe the European family. Ten new members, eight of them from the former communist bloc, will formally join the EU in May 2004. The new members:
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Poland
Slovakia
Slovenia

April 15 - Tuesday
Reconstruction
A city council and police force were being formed in Diwaniyah, a leadership council was established in Karbala, and coalition forces were working with local experts to restore power in Nasiriyah, which could help jump-start an adjacent grid in Basra.
Palestinian Abu Abbas, wanted for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985, is reported captured by US-led forces in Baghdad, Iraq.
Dozens of civilians have been killed in Kirkuk since 10 April, and looting and forced expulsions continue. The report says US-led forces contravene Geneva Convention by failing to bring law and order.
Rallies take place in Baghdad, calling for law and order to be restored in Iraq

Interim Government
Delegates at an Iraqi opposition meeting held at the Tallil air base near the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur issue a 13-point plan on the future of Iraq, including the dissolution of the former ruling Baath party.
Iraqi factions end meeting in Ur with agreement to convene again in 10 days.
Thousands of Shiite Muslims whose representatives boycotted the meeting demonstrated in nearby Nasiriya against the gathering. Many of those who did not attend said they opposed United States plans to install the retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner to run an interim administration in Iraq.
The American-led interim administration could begin handing power back to Iraqi officials within three to six months, but forming a government will take longer

Weapons of Mass Distraction?
Several of the plants named before the war as potential places for chemical and biological warfare manufacture were inspected by the UN teams and found not to be incriminating.
None of the 12 to 20 Scud missiles Iraq was accused of retaining have been found.
Nor have the mobile biological warfare laboratories have been found
The United States and Britain have started to look for evidence on the ground. They are currently unwilling to let the UN do the job.

Rhetoric vs. Syria
Bush administration officials continued to accuse Syria of helping members of Saddam Hussein's family and leadership circle to escape to Syria and allowing some members of Hezbollah to travel from Syrian-controlled southern Lebanon to Iraq.
US Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says US forces have blocked a pipeline used to pump Iraqi oil to Syria in a volume that allegedly violated UN sanctions.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar says Syria is a friend of his country and will not be the target of any military action.

It seems the US has declared victory in Iraq and gone home. There were no earthshattering stories today, just a retread of yesterday's "dramatic rescue" of seven POW's. Why does it always seem you find the missing in the last place you look? Of course there was the liberation (or occupation, depending on your POV) of Tikrit and the plundering of the Iraqi national museum, including the oldest piece of writing on earth, of which this weblog is a proud descendant. Does somebody really think they are going to be able to sell that on the open market?

For more war-related fun, here's an interesting website: http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

Lo, What News?

April 14 – Monday
When is the War Over?
Large-scale combat in Iraq is finished, and the U.S. war commander is sending forces home. US military spokesman says the fall of Tikrit does not mean the war is over. The 4th Infantry Division crossed the border into Iraq on Monday. The USS Portland returned to Little Creek, Va., on Friday. At least two attack submarines also have returned from the war. Two aircraft carrier battle groups, the USS Kitty Hawk will leave the Gulf around the middle of this week and the USS Constellation will leave for San Diego shortly afterward.
The Air Force has sent home the four B-2 stealth bombers.
None of the suspicious materials removed from the battlefield so far, including containers of suspected chemical agents, has yielded positive test results. Testing continues.
U.S. forces in Qaim, a town near the Syrian border, have pushed Iraqi forcesout of the way.' The town is still not under coalition control

Reconstruction
National Library and its centuries of archives ransacked and burned. The entire contents of Iraq's national library and archives are reported to have been burned down, destroying priceless records of the country's history. [To Arabs, this could be a cultural disaster on par with the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258. – Ed.]
American civil affairs officers began meetings with Iraqi government officials in an effort to revive essential city services, including the police and fire departments. Americans held meetings at government ministries to begin planning how government can be revived. American patrols appeared to have adopted more muscular tactics in dealing with looters.
More than 2,000 Baghdad policemen report back to work. Iraqi police also join British troops in Basra to help restore calm.
American and Iraqi officials prepare to meet in southern Iraq on Tuesday to begin setting up an interim government

Who’s Next?
U.S. accused Syria of developing chemical weapons and harboring fugitives from the regime of Saddam Hussein. Ari Fleischer warns Syria against harbouring fugitive Iraqi regime members and says "Syria is a terrorist state". Colin Powell says the US will consider imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria for its alleged support of members of the toppled Iraq regime. The EU and Russia called on the US to reduce tension in its dealings with Syria. [Victory can be intoxicating, can’t it? I’m sure Hitler felt it after invading Poland. – Ed.]
The Economist last week had an article on "Why Jordanians fear to protest too loudly." The upshot was that they don't protest because they fear the all-pervasive mukhabarat, or secret police. Contrary to popular American public opinion, Jordan is not a democracy instilled with liberal western values. It is a repressive dictatorship without real freedoms that we in the West take for granted, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom to peaceably assemble.

Sunday is fun-day. One of my favorite pastimes is the study of language. Today, I was thinking about wordshapes and wordstructures. Specifically, strings of consonants. I was wondering what the longest string of consonants I could come up with was. I started with four. RDSH can be found in the word “wordshapes”. Then I thought four in a row was rather common. Earthworm, fights, construct. OK, five in a row: Fightclub, wordstructure, hearthstone. Of course, these have some flaws. For example, the gh in Fight isn’t really pronounced; wordstructure and fightclub don’t show up in the dictionary, and the th in hearthstone really represents one sound.

Well, if we are going to have restrictions on what we can accept as a word or consonant in this game, we need a definitions of “word” and “consonant". A word (according to the American Heritage Dictionary) is a sound or combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes. What the hell is a morpheme? It is a sound, but it is not important, we can ignore that part for our purposes. A word is a sound or combination of sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning. Well, that is broad. Under this definition, a sentence is a word, but I think we have enough to go with so long as we use common sense. So wordstructure and fightclub are words because they have concrete meanings. German used to be famous for combining individual words into überwords. My favorite was Donauschiffsfahrtsgesellschaftskapitan, or Danube Ferry Company captain. They have since changed the rules of spelling and taken all the fun out of trying to figure out what the hell they had written.

Then what is a consonant? A speech sound produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the air stream by any of various constrictions of the speech organs. That is rather clinical, but the main point is that it is a sound. The other definition is that it is a letter or character representing such a speech sound interrupting a flow of vowels. So a consonant in writing is not a group of letters, but an individual letter. So th is not a consonant, but the sound it makes is. Also, the h in th or gh is not a consonant in spoken English, because it does not individually make a sound. But in written english, it is considered a consonant. Can we make other combinations of five following these rules?

First-class. Can we put two words together and call it a word? Depends on your spelling rules, I suppose, look at the German conglomeration above. (Con = with, Glomerare = to wind in a ball). Most of the words in the English language are two words put together at some point and called a word. So long as it is a discreet set of sounds that conveys a discreet meaning, it is a word, right? So first-floor (as in first-floor apartment), first-string. Holy cow, that’s six! OK, maybe this hyphenated thing is cheating.

Hearthstrap, earthstrength, worldstrife, wurststroganoff. There may be a reason this type of word is rarely used. Just try and pronounce them! I challenge anyone to come up with seven in a row. It is so much easier in German: vorwärtsschweben.

News and Opinion
There is an in-depth and comprehensive article in the New York Times Magazine on the law of war this week. For anyone with an interest in the legal and moral aspects of waging war in Iraq, it is a must-read. I don’t agree with everything it says, especially its conclusions; it is thought-provoking nonetheless.

April 13 – Sunday
casualties as of 3 p.m. Eastern time Saturday:
KILLED CAPTURED
OR MISSING
U.S. 110* 16*
BRITAIN 31† 0†
IRAQ N.A. 13,800†
Iraq reports only civilian dead, and said on Sunday that they total 1,252.
Sources: *U.S. Department of Defense; †British Defense Ministry

North of Baghdad
US Marines rapidly advanced towards the town from Samarra by mid-morning.
Seven US POW’s are rescued near Samarra by US forces travelling from Baghdad to Tikrit. Two of those rescued have gunshot wounds. Two of the Americans were captured after their Apache helicopter came down. Others were survivors of the 507th Maintenance Company.
Task Force Tripoli, made up of members of the First Marine Expeditionary Force enter Tikrit with 250 US armoured vehicles, made a rapid advance from Samarra. They are reported to be fighting Iraqi forces, including tanks, on the southern outskirts of Tikrit
Armed men purporting to represent tribal groups in Tikrit say Iraqi troops have left and they are now negotiating a truce with the US military
US soldiers are now patrolling the streets of Mosul in some numbers. Shops are starting to reopen.
Kirkuk's Arabs are being threatened with eviction. Returning Kurdish families are demanding their old homes back.

South of Baghdad and Basra
100 members of the former Iraqi police are helping British forces restore law and order in Basra
An armed mob reportedly surrounds the Najaf house of a pro-Western Shia cleric, Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani, and is giving him 48 hours to leave the country. This suggests there is an effort in Najaf - the heart of the Shiite world - to remove any pro-western voices at all.
Four US paratroopers have been shot and wounded while clearing an Iraqi arms dump in Mahmudiya.
Kuwaiti fire-fighters extinguish the last oil-well fire in Iraq's al-Rumeila field.

In Baghdad
100 Iraqi engineers and other civil servants respond to a US military appeal in Baghdad for volunteers to restore both law and order and public services. 20 former army and police officers have also registered to go back to their jobs. US troops plan to mount joint patrols of Baghdad with Iraqi security forces
Thousands of Iraqis are returning to Baghdad from the countryside. A tailback of traffic stretching several kilometres is reported to the east of the city. [Tailback must be a British term for a traffic jam. – Ed.]

Elsewhere in Iraq
US marines have discovered 278 artillery shells carrying a substance which tested positive as a chemical agent. [So far, we have no confirmation that any previous finds test positive in laboratory tests. – Ed.]

Outside Iraq
US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld says he has no doubt that some Iraqis from the ousted regime have fled to Syria.
Pope John Paul II urges solidarity with those suffering in conflicts in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world at a mass for Palm Sunday.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin is in Saudi Arabia for talks on Iraq's future.
Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, advises Iraqis to organise post-war reconstruction through mosques.

April 13 – Sunday
United States sends home the B-2 Stealth bombers it deployed to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. [If military personnel from the Air Force and Navy are being sent home, is this an indication that the US believes that it has won the war? If so, when will it accept responsibility for security as an occupying force? – Ed.]

April 12 – Saturday
In Baghdad
US troops in Baghdad fight off an attack by about 15 gunmen on the west bank of the Tigris in a 20-minute battle. US tanks are firing towards the River Tigris and the north of the city. One marine is killed by a gunman on the east bank, at a hospital near the Palestine Hotel.
Sunni Muslims are fighting gun battles with their Shia neighbours in Baghdad.
British and American forces are blamed by Arab media for the breakdown of law and order in Baghdad.
Northern Iraq
Turkey sees no immediate need to send troops into Iraq
US reinforcements reported to have reached Mosul.
A street battle between Kurds and Arabs is reported in Mosul. 15 people have been killed and at least 200 injured.
Kurdish soldiers begin leaving northern city of Kirkuk
American paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade discovered what they described as suspicious warheads and rocket components outside the former Iraqi governor's office in Kirkuk, a tantalizing but inconclusive find.
Delta Company, 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, said civil affairs soldiers would be moving into Kirkuk.
Elements of the First Marine Division have been assigned to take Tikrit.
Marines also moved toward Baqubah, a town northeast of Baghdad.
The main Iranian rebel group, the People's Mujahedin, says 18 of its fighters have been killed and 43 wounded in fighting near its camps in north-eastern Iraq. It accuses Tehran of sending agents into Iraq to mount attacks on its bases and says Iranian-backed forces have seized the border town of Khanaqin.
Southern Iraq
US 4th Infantry Division begins entering Iraq.
UK military commander in Basra says his troops cannot provide a fully functioning police force in the city
US marines take the town of Kut. US marine commander, Colonel Richard Mills, said several large fires in the city suggested that looters had moved in quickly.
Elsewhere in Iraq
Fighting in Qaim, near Syria, is dying down
An assault on Iraq's 12th Armored Brigade was suspended on Friday night when American commanders received reports that the brigade might surrender. It is stationed at Ramadi, where it guarded the western approaches to Baghdad.
American officials still have to contend with snipers, suicide bombers and ambushes by small numbers of Iraqi paramilitary troops and Islamic militants from Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan
Gen. Amir al-Saadi, Iraq's top science adviser, turned himself in to US marines in Baghdad after telling a German journalist that Iraq had no chemical or biological weapons. He said Iraq's last report to Hans Blix, a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, accounted for 550 missing artillery shells filled with mustard gas and that the country was close to accounting for all missing weapons of mass destruction, including VX nerve gas, when the war overtook it. [Was the rush to war necessary to prevent Iraq from fulfilling all the conditions of UN resolution 1441? – Ed.]
Outside Iraq
USS Kitty Hawk may leave the Gulf in a couple of days
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warns civil war could erupt in Iraq unless American and British forces restore law and order.
The United States has accepted the need for a further UN resolution to pave the way for a joint effort for the reconstruction of Iraq in a statement by the finance ministers of the seven leading industrial countries.
Germany will be insisting on debt repayment and restructuring. [Was this one of the reasons Germany opposed the war? – Ed.]

If the war was about bringing democracy to Iraq, will Egypt be next? Probably not.
Human rights groups accuse Egyptian authorities of detaining hundreds of people, including opposition member of Parliament Muhammad Farid Hassanein, in brutal crackdown on people protesting war in Iraq; witnesses say detainees were beaten and tortured

Does winning a war give someone a license to say stupid things? Otherwise, what could be the explanation for two things said today by George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld? George stated that "the war in Iraq is about peace." This is an actual quote, I'm not making it up. War is Peace. Slavery is Freedom. Ignorance is Strength. Personally, I find the whole situation double-plus ungood.

In the other quote, Rummy called the chaos in Baghdad "untidy". Well, yes. If you consider anarchy in its purest form untidy, I suppose that is true. People are destroying the infrastructure of the largest cities and many of the smaller cities in the country and nobody is stopping them. Banks are being robbed, hospitals looted of everything down to the beds. My vote for understatement of the year goes to Donald Rumsfeld.

Of course, this should have been expected. The stated goal of the war was to remove the Baathist regime from Iraq. Once it was removed, the US would step in and take the reigns of government. What seems to have been overlooked was that the Baathist regime was the government. Iraq is not like the US where a different political party can take control every four years. The Baathist regime was pervasive in the country. Every aspect of government was controlled by it. Rooting out Saddam Hussein's regime when it has run the country without opposition for the past 30 years means destroying every aspect of government, including such low level government functions as police and fire protection. There are no reigns of government left to take. This is the anarchy we are seeing now. If the US had decided to put enough troops on the ground, then perhaps there would be enough soldiers to take on police duties as well as fight the remaining gunwielders. But Donald Rumsfeld want to make a point that a war could be won with a lot of air power and few ground forces, so we are stuck with the situation.

It seems the US does not want to step up to its moral and legal responsibility to provide security for Iraq. International law requires an occupying force to provide security for the country it is occupying. The Pentagon has responded that they are not an occupying force because the war is not over. The war is not over because people are shooting at them. People are shooting at them because there is no security force to maintain order. There is no security force to maintain order because the US cannot or will not provide it. They will not provide it because... Well, I think you see the picture. Is this the real reason nobody in Washington is willing to declare victory? So long as the war drags on, you can escape your obligations under international law?

April 11 - Friday
Baghdad
Euphoria, vindictiveness, confusion surge in capital city as government offices, hospitals, homes are looted.
Taking the law into their own hands, some Baghdad residents blockaded streets today as disorder spread in the Iraqi capital.
Donald Rumsfeld says Media’s coverage of "chaos" in cities is exaggerated. He said much of the lawlessness was a natural pent up response by people to the end of a repressive regime. Any such transition was inevitably “untidy”.

North of Baghdad
One of the fiercest battles of the war has raged unseen for nearly three weeks near the town of Qaim on the border with Syria. Units of Iraq's Special Republican Guard and Special Security Services have so far fended off attacks by American Special Forces troops and British commandos.

Southern Iraq and Basra
Former American general Jay Garner has arrived in Umm Qasr. He has been called the Viceroy in Waiting, even the president elect of Iraq. ORHA was designed to mirror the structure of Iraqi government ministries.
UK ships, planes, helicopters and field hospital units would shortly be withdrawn from the Gulf region, including HMS Ark Royal and some of her accompanying ships. British law enforcement specialists would be sent to the region. There are vehicle check-points and the 7th Armoured Brigade are pulling over cars to check them for loot.
Aid agencies are waiting until order is restored before they begin bringing in food and water supplies to Basra.
Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in Basra have shot and killed five Iraqi bank robbers during looting.

Outside Iraq
World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn said a U.N. Security Council resolution according legitimacy to a new Iraqi government would be required before the financial institution could lend.
The Bush administration moved yesterday to enlist allied support for postwar reconstruction and financing. Paul Wolfowitz said U.N. agencies would be particularly useful in areas such as refugee assistance and humanitarian relief. But while the United Nations can be a "partner" in that effort, he said, "it can't be the managing partner; it can't be in charge."
Russian, French and German leaders call for a central role for the United Nations in rebuilding Iraq.
Paul Wolfowitz said a meeting is planned for next week in Nasiriyah with a broad range of Iraqis. The meeting will start a "rolling dialogue" that would "define issues" and enable Iraqis to get a sense of "who are the people that can articulate positions well, who seem to speak for more than just themselves." U.N. officials will be invited as observers but they will not be sending a representative.
Members of the 4th Infantry Division and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are due to move north into Iraq from Kuwait soon. Next in line is the 1st Armored Division in Germany and possibly the 1st Cavalry Division in Texas.
U.S. military has issued a most-wanted list in the form of a deck of playing cards with pictures of Iraqi leaders that are targets of coalition forces. The deck will be issued to troops to help them remember the faces of personalities they can pursue, capture or kill. [Gotta Catch ‘em All! – Ed.]
Russian President Vladimir Putin asks why coalition forces have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - the reason given for going to war.

Meanwhile, What is happening in Afghanistan? The US still has 8500 soldiers there. Troops on search-and-destroy missions regularly fan out in the mountains and villages while medical helicopters ferry wounded or ailing Afghan civilians. On Wednesday, a U.S. bomb killed 11 Afghan civilians on the eastern edges of the country, near the border with Pakistan.

When was the last time we heard anything about the anthrax attacks of October 2001? As a news story, it seems to have been buried rather quickly. Yet nothing in the case was solved. Is it even an open case? We still have no idea who might have released half a dozen envelopes filled with Anthrax into the postal service, killing a number of people. Is this being hushed up? Perhaps because the FBI has absolutely no leads? At first, it seems that it was going to be used as a pretext for attacking Iraq. After all, we had just suffered the largest terrorist attack in American history (9/11 for those of you who weren't paying attention) and Rumsfeld was hopping to get into Iraq then. The BBC reports that Tony Blair held him off with promises of support for that invasion later.

But what about the Anthrax? It didn't come from Iraq, so where did it come from? Nobody claimed responsibility for it. Just about every terrorist worth his salt claims responsibility for his attacks, otherwise he doesn't get people's attention in order to publicize his ideas. The media reported that the anthrax came from the Ames strain of the microbe. That's Ames, Iowa. Not the Baghdad strain or the Shanghai strain or the Kiev strain. It was a home-grown strain of a deadly disease that had been studied by the US for military application of bioweapons. If you like conspiracy theories, here is an interesting idea. Let's say that the US wants to keep people scared in order to keep the population under control. If there were a series of massive terrorist attacks, killing thousands, there were a seemingly random release of a deadly bioweapon on the US population, and they were linked to a worldwide radical islamic conspiracy and a brutal dictator, wouldn't you want the government to do something about it? See this website for more on this idea.

Well, in order for the US to do something about it, they would have to convince people to "relinquish personal and social freedoms for the mirage of health, safety, and security. Once habituated to modern lifestyle restrictions, such as enforced health and travel restrictions, the general population might become virtually "enslaved" with little effective resistance, widespread pharmaceutical dependence (particularly using anti-depressant drugs), through the use of PSYOPs. Media distractions and manipulations [are] considered essential in achieving this objective." For more on this particular conspiracy theory and its application to the SARS virus, check out this website.

There are a few ways to look at it, either 1) some cabal of the military industrial complex is sponsoring terrorist attacks and creating and releasing diseases on the public at large in order to enslave the American populace, 2) a similar military industrial cabal is using the events of the past couple of years (disease, terrorism, etc) opportunistically to enslave the American populace, or 3) the American populace is panicking itself into enslaving itself and the military industrial complex as an institution which is part and parcel of the American populace is cooperating willingly. By enslavement, I mean "relinquishing personal and social freedoms for the mirage of health, safety, and security." By military industrial complex, I mean the people that run our economy and government.

What is my opinion? I don't really believe in any intentional activity on the part of a secretive cabal. The media in this country is free enough to uncover any sort of activities which smell of coverups and secrecy. I do believe in the military industrial complex and I do believe that the American public is panicking about terrorism and worldwide disease outbreaks. I think the truth regarding these issues probably lies somewhere in between 2 and 3. I think that the American population is willingly relinquishing personal and social freedoms to the military industrial complex and it is doing it in public view and with public approval. However, I also think that the military industrial complex is being opportunistic in advocating for increased power and is using the public's fear to gain it.

Who will run Iraq?
Under current plans the Army will be put in charge of the northern half of the country, the Marines will oversee the south, and the land forces command, headed by Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, will supervise Baghdad. The civilian Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) will report to McKiernan
The Marines are prepared to stay for at least 90 days after hostilities end before being replaced by Army or international forces. They do not want to provide security for rebuilding Iraq.

ORHA
About half a dozen key officials have been hand-picked by the Pentagon. The office is based in the Department of Defense, not the State Department or USAID, though the office will have workers from those agencies as well as British civil servants.
The ostensible mission of the office is to humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing Iraq and prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government by the Iraqis themselves. However, their brief extends to overhauling everything from the country's currency, to power supplies, legal code, police service and schools. ORHA will also manage the contracts for foreign companies to increase oil production. The office has been secretive about how it plans to achieve these goals.

Head – Retired General Jay Garner
General Garner will be in overall control and is likely to be based in Baghdad. After the Gulf War, he oversaw US efforts to aid Kurds. Two years ago, he signed a statement supporting Israel and accusing Palestinians of filling their children with hate. Arab and Muslim leaders say this raises questions about whether he is the right man for the job.
General Garner will have three deputies:
George Ward, former US Marine and Ambassador to Namibia will be in charge of humanitarian assistance.
Lewis Lucke, a veteran of USAID will be in charge of reconstruction and probably oil contracts
Michael Mobbs, a Reagan-era arms negotiator and Pentagon legal adviser will be in charge of civil adminstration

OHRA will divide the country into three areas, with administrative centers in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
North – Retired General Bruce Moore will have control of the oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk.
Center – Barbara Bodine, the former US Ambassador to Yemen. She is a State Department Arabist.
South – retired General Roger “Buck” Walters and Texas businessman was hand-picked by the Pentagon. He will have control of the southern oil fields.

Each administration will have a staff of about 12 supplemented by Iraqi exiles who have been living in the US and UK. OHRA already has close ties to such groups as the Iraqi National Congress, though the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), the main Shia group, has refused to work with the office because the see the office as a government of occupation.

April 10 – Thursday
Troops from the 5th Marine Regiment responded to a tip about 3 a.m. that Saddam Hussein and his younger son, Qusay, were alive and hiding out in a house near the center of Baghdad about 200 men attacked the Marines from the Imam Mosque in northern Baghdad. Dozens of attackers were killed and about eight were taken prisoner and were being interrogated. Marine officers said they appeared to be Syrian or Jordanian. One Marine died and 22 others were injured.
Elements seem to be moving in to fill the power vacuum. In Kut, military intelligence has detected as many as 2,000 Iraqi and guerrilla volunteers from other Arab countries regrouping. Farther east, officers said, they are becoming increasingly concerned about Iranian-backed Shiite groups along the Highway 7 corridor, where there are fewer U.S. forces.
U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon have circulated to senior US commanders a classified list of the top 50 most-wanted Iraqi leaders.
Looters continued to run free in Basra, though Sheik Muzahim Mustafa Kanan Tameemi was appointed by the British military to begin restoring some government to the city.

April 10 – Thursday
Casualties:
US (Source Pentagon)
101 killed
399 wounded
7 POWs

In Baghdad
Marines continue to fight in Baghdad near a presidential palace on the Tigris near a mosque. One marine died.
There is a connection in the minds of the US Marines between the regime of Saddam and what happened on September 11. They think this war is all about defeating terrorism, they will tell you that over and over again.
It's still pretty restrained here today - the euphoria of yesterday hasn't been repeated yet. It's mostly the Shia areas that are celebrating. An Iraqi went up to an American marine and said to him: "I'm going to exercise my right of free speech for the first time in my life - we want you out of here as soon as possible."
There continues to be quite a lot of fighting just across the Euphrates on the west side of the city with the 3rd Infantry Division. The Mansour neighborhood seems to have been taken over to some extent by non-Iraqi Arab fighters, including Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Albanians. In other areas there are pockets of what are presumed to be Fedayeen or Republican Guard elements.
1600GMT Four marines wounded in suicide bomb attack on a marine checkpoint near Palestine hotel.

North of Baghdad
0735: Continued bombing of Iraqi forces near Kirkuk
Kurdish fighters (peshmergas) and US special forces enter Kirkuk in the morning. The fighters say they control city centre, but pockets of Iraqi resistance from the Baath party remain. Truckloads of Kurds flooded into the city. Kurds seen looting buildings.
1240: Turkish military observers will be send to Kirkuk soon to monitor the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the northern Iraqi town.
Ari Fleischer reassures Turkey by saying that US forces "will be in control of Kirkuk". A battalion from the 173rd Airborne Brigade has reinforced U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish forces in Kirkuk The two main Iraqi Kurdish parties have agreed to withdraw their forces from Kirkuk, starting on Friday. A senior Pentagon official says Kurdish forces went into Kirkuk against a specific US request not to.
Iraqi forces have retreated on the road towards Tikrit and have bunkered up in an Iraqi position about 5km outside Kirkuk on the road to Tikrit. A column of dark smoke is going up from one of the nearest oil wells to the city. US bombs Adnan Division of the Republican Guard in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, "shaping the battlefield" before American ground forces move in, U.S. officials say.
Iraqi Army 5th Corps commander and the governor-general were expected to surrender to the U.S. Special Operations Joint Task Force
Kurdish and Shia opposition sources say they believe Saddam Hussein is in Tikrit.
Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces take St. Matthew Monastery, a 1,600-year-old shrine 20 miles north of Mosul.
U.S. forces and Peshmerga fighters are moving into Mosul. Iraqi army forces have been given an opportunity to lay down their arms and surrender.

South of Baghdad & Basra
A crowd rushed and hacked to death two Shiite Muslim clerics inside the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf -- Haider al-Kadar, of Saddam's Ministry of religion, and Iraqi Shia Muslim leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a returning exile who had urged support for U.S. troops. A meeting was being held among leading mullahs about how to control the shrine. Members of another faction loyal to a different mullah, Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr, verbally assailed al-Kadar. Apparently feeling threatened, al-Khoei pulled a gun and fired one or two shots. The crowd then rushed both men hacked them to death with swords and knives.
The British forces in Basra are being drawn into becoming a de-facto police force and also a humanitarian aid agency. British forces are trying to deal with the looting.
Locals protest British-tapped interim leaders in Basra.

Outside Iraq
French President Jacques Chirac voices "satisfaction" at downfall of Saddam Hussein and hopes for quick end to fighting.
Syria calls for an "end of the occupation" of Iraq "so that the people of Iraq can choose their government freely”
Kofi Annan says the main priority now is the restoration of law and order in the country.

Speaking of maps, Le Monde has a great interactive map that gives events in Baghdad since April 3 with an hour-by-hour rundown of events. On Le Monde’s homepage, just below the picture, choose Infographie: les forces américaines à Bagdad. It helps if you can read French, but the graphics tell a lot.

The US & UK forces in Iraq have so far failed to find definitive evidence of chemical or biological weapons that were the focus of UN inspections. Of course, there will be plenty of time to scour the country and the records of the Baathist regime. It is likely that something will be found to vindicate those who pressed so hard for this war. Al Jazeera today raised the spectre that the US will fabricate evidence. However, I think it is unlikely that the US will need to fabricate such evidence. This is not because I think they will definitely find chemical or biological weapons, though I think it is likely. Rather, I think that the necessity for finding these weapons has diminished since the war started. That is, I don’t think the neo-cons that started the war really care whether Iraq had such weapons. The fear of so-called weapons of mass destruction was important when the US was looking for UN legitimacy, but this importance disappeared when Bush and the neo-cons abandoned the UN route. The need to find such weapons is even less important now that crowds of Iraqis are cheering American troops in Baghdad. I suppose this is the backside advantage of having a disjointed argument upfront for why we should go to war. The Bush regime put so many unrelated arguments forward for why we should go to war that, if one of them pans out, the war gets ex post facto legitimacy.

April 9 - Wednesday
In Baghdad
US tanks drove unhindered into public squares on the eastern bank of the Tigris for the first time. An American armoured vehicle helped a crowd of cheering Iraqis to pull down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in the al-Fardus square. Dozens of exultant people leapt on the deposed figure and stamped on it, shouting "Death to Saddam!". People have attached the old Iraqi flag to the pedestal.
Andrew Gilligan :: 0840GMT Jubilant crowds chanting pro-American and anti-Saddam slogans have appeared on the streets. Flowers have been thrown at US tanks and even where there are no Americans to be seen, in the Shia suburbs to the north, people have clearly decided the regime is finished. Spontaneous demonstrations as well as looting and disorder have broken out. Saddam pictures are being torn up and there seem no Iraqi forces to stop it. Our own government minders never turned up for work this morning, another part of the regime that has simply vanished. Other members of the regime are quietly shredding their government identity cards. In the north in the Sunni neighborhoods, the troops have had to fight their way into the outskirts.
Andrew Gilligan :: 1432GMT I want to talk to you about my favourite Saddam statues, in anticipation they may not be here for much longer. One of my favourites is a moody looking Saddam on a tall plinth. And there are tiny little models of Mrs Thatcher, George Bush Senior and the President of France, Jaqcues Chirac cringing at his feet.
Andrew Gilligan :: 1625GMT People are rushing up to tell us how much they hate Saddam. It has become as taboo now to like him as it was to hate him 24 hours ago.
There are no Iraqi soldiers on the streets or Iraqi policemen,- they have disappeared from this part of town. We have heard this morning the sound of sporadic machine gun fire from somewhere quite close to us. That could be the die-hards, the true believers, the most loyal of the loyal putting up a last ditch resistance.
Crowds in Baghdad are saying they are glad that Saddam Hussein is gone or going - but they don't like the Americans , and what they want is to be able to rule their own lives.

Marines secured the area around the Martyrs Monument as U.S. forces moved into the center of Baghdad. The 1st Marine Division advanced towards the headquarters of the Fedayeen in Baghdad
Canadian Red Cross worker is dead after his car was hit by gunfire on Tuesday. International Committee of the Red Cross has halted work in Baghdad
Baghdad University: AP reports heavy fighting around the school's campus, located on the Tigris River south of the city's center.
Lebanese television has reported that Saddam Hussein is in the safety of the Russian embassy. A Russian delegation that came under fire from US forces as it left

Where's Saddam?
Baghdad on 7 April may have been dealing with senior representatives of the Iraqi government in guaranteeing a safe exit for Saddam Hussein. Russian intelligence has officially denied reports that the diplomats took with them Saddam’s secret archive as they left Baghdad. A Russian general said this allegation was being made to justify the US attack on the diplomatic convoy last week. However, general said his claims were based on the cooperation of Saddam and a group of his close officials with the United States during the Iran-Iraq war and encouragement for Saddam to invade Kuwait in 1991.

Kurdistan and North of Baghdad
An American F-15E fighter jet crashed near Tikrit on Monday. Central Command said it was investigating the cause of the crash and rescue crews were searching Wednesday for the crew.
Special Operations Forces were "actively engaging" Iraqi forces in Tikrit, Centcom said.
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan claimed on Tuesday that Saddam was hiding in Tikrit. Tikrit is a power center for Sunni Arab tribes that may hold out for as long as possible out of fear of losing power to the nation's Shiite majority.
A few burnt out trucks litter the newly taken positions on the Maqlub mountains. The overnight retreat was the result of heavy US bombing.
Turks have built up their forces along their border with Northern Iraq but are not moving.

Basra and South of Baghdad
3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division occupied Hillah today in central Iraq.
In Basra people are saying “a week ago we had order in our city, we had water, an administrative structure, and now the British have come and its descended into chaos.”
Talks will soon be held with exiled Iraqis and local leaders near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya to begin planning for an interim Iraqi government. Iraqi Free Forces (armed and trained by US Army) are patrolling in Nasiriyah.

Outside Iraq
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Syria has been ignoring a warning he gave last week about giving military assistance to Iraq and that some senior Iraqis were fleeing to Syria. [Does the increasingly hostile rhetoric towards Syria and Iran mean that now that a Neo-con victory in Iraq is inevitable that they want to widen the war? After all, we have a whole division that hasn’t even arrived yet. Can anyone say Cambodia, kids? Sure, I knew you could. – Ed.]
Iraq's UN ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, says "the game is over" and he hopes the Iraqi people soon will be able to live in peace. It is the first admission that Saddam Hussein no longer controls Baghdad.
With the US-led war to change the government of Iraq all but over there is still little sign of the weapons of mass destruction for which this campaign was fought. The concern lies in the possibility that the United States would present false evidence to prove that its decision to go to war was right. – Al Jazeera

Here is a new type of technology for online reporting, the panoramic picture. You can actually move the camera view to see a panorama of a site in almost any direction. I am guessing that it requires expensive equipment, because the only available pictures are from Basra and Umm Qasr, areas that are now considered rather safe. Scroll down the page past the video and audio to the Panos section to see some.

The outline for reconstruction of Iraq after the war as decided by Blair and Bush:
I. US & UK forces will maintain security while a sub-Pentagon department (Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid) controls infrastructure and aid
II. Formation of a broad-based, multi-ethnic interim Iraqi administration. UK will be looking for UN support of this administration. The goal is a UN resolution in order to create the administration, enable it to carry out substantial reforms and get rid of some of the laws which Saddam passed. The French are likely to support this resolution. Most analysts agree that this interim administration must not be seen as a puppet of the US.
III. Eventual move to an Iraqi government. Paul Wolfowitz says this will take longer than 6 months.

April 9 – Wednesday
Heavy artillery fire was reported in the south of Baghdad shortly before daybreak on Wednesday.
There is no one, it seems, organising a grand defence of Baghdad.
British intelligence believed Saddam left the building in Baghdad's al-Mansour district shortly before the bombs reduced it to rubble.
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is preparing to meet his French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, to continue discussions about post-war Iraq.
Baghdad :: Rageh Omaar :: 0610GMT It's been one of the quietest nights in the whole of this war. There has been very sporadic gunfire but no heavy artillery, no sound of warplanes.
Basra :: Clive Myrie :: 0612GMT It seems a little more stable here than it was yesterday.

April 8 – Tuesday
Casualties (from Washington Post, based on Pentagon reports and Iraqi statements)
US Military 96 killed
8 missing
7 POW
UK Military 30 killed
Iraq Military Thousands killed
Iraq Civilians 1200 killed
5100 injured
Journalists 12 killed

In Baghdad
2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry controls west bank of Tigris in central Baghdad, Iraqis control East Bank. The eastern part of the city is the commercial centre, the old part of the city and where most people live.
in the north-east, another group of marines entered the sprawling mainly Shia Muslim suburb of Saddam City.
7th Marine regiment divides eastern Baghdad into zones of responsibility for each battalionin order to clear them one by one. Combat engineers erected a floating steel bridge over the waterway, the Dayali River.
Iraqi officials were less visible in Baghdad on Tuesday, leading some to conclude that the regime of President Saddam Hussein is crumbling.

Central Iraq South of Baghdad
3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division today attacked Hilla with three infantry battalions from the west and another from the south, supported by tanks, fighters, helicopters and nearly 50 howitzers. The U.S. attack began with a dropping satellite-guided bombs on barracks, military compounds and the Baath Party headquarters downtown. Just over the horizon lay a city of a half-million people and several of antiquity's most evocative archaeological sites: the temple of Nebuchadnezzar; biblical Babel; the ruins of the temple of Marduk, chief deity of Babylon; traces of Hammurabi, the law-giver. 1st Brigade now has battle experience at An Najaf, the 2nd Brigade at Karbala and now the 3rd Brigade at Al Hilla. - Washington Post
0425: Task Force Tarawa of US marines are consolidating positions near Amarah taken without resistance on Tuesday, and are close to being able to link up with British troops coming from Basra in the south.

Southern Iraq and Basra
1830: British military spokesman in Basra Colonel Chris Vernon says the British will support a local sheikh trying to stop looting in the city. The army hopes to develop "post-conflict nation building" operations within a day or so.
Iraqi National Congress said leaders from across southern Iraq flocked to the town of Nassiriya to greet its leader Ahmad Chalabi, but a CIA report said he and other returning exiles would find little support among Iraqis.

Elsewhere
An international antiwar consortium estimates that between 877 and 1,050 civilians have been killed, based on news reports from Iraq.
Arab nations ask for special UN General Assembly meeting to discuss Iraq war

Here’s an interesting, though shallow article on the kinds of debates that have arisen regarding the war in Iraq. The debates extend far beyond the pros and cons of the war itself.

Here’s an interesting article in the New Republic about a favorite topic of conservatives: the liberal bias of the media and its portrayal of the war in Iraq. The New Republic is a subscriber service, so here is an excerpt.

"To read David Frum and other hawks, you'd think the press was concocting a story of U.S. military failure to suit its peacenik predispositions. And that's convenient, because journalists are a pathetically easy target (especially when you attack them as a group rather than naming individuals). But the media is simply the messenger. And attacking it has become a way for hawks to avoid confronting two, far more formidable foes: the uniformed military and the prewar expectations set by hawks themselves.

"Conservatives hate getting into spats with the military, especially in wartime. But the glaring truth is that, in questioning the Bush administration's conduct of the war, reporters are relying overwhelmingly on the opinion of current and former military officers. If hawks really believe the current war plan has been unfairly maligned, the honest response would be for them to respond directly to its military critics . . . either by defending the plan's assumptions or by defending the broader principle of civilian involvement in war planning. Instead, hawks have trained their fire on journalists, whose motives are easier to impugn.

"But criticism from the military isn't the only thing fueling media skepticism about the success of the war. The other factor is hawks' own predictions of easy victory."


April 8 – Tuesday
In Baghdad
US drops a bomb on what they claim is a meeting between Saddam Hussein and his sons in a residential neighborhood. BBC says that Hussein does not go to his bunkers, but hides in residential neighborhoods.
Rageh Omaar :: 0710GMT At the foot of the building there are tanks positioned on a bridge over the Tigris, firing at Iraqi defensive positions. But there's a new sound in the city - rotor blades from attack helicopters. It feels like an all out assault.
Andrew Gilligan :: 0906GMT There is a possibility that someone could have been sniping from the top floor of this hotel, which has now been targeted. The side of the hotel looks out east and not over the river. I'm puzzled as to why the Americans would have targeted this.
Andrew Gilligan :: 1201GMT The Americans are now pushing from the north, the south east and outwards from the centre onto the east bank of the Tigris but there has been quite fierce Iraqi resistance. 500 Iraqi Republican Guards take buses to try to retake territory on the other side of the Tigris.
US Marines continue fighting in SE Baghdad and capture the Rashid military airfield. U.S. marines from the Seventh Regiment moved to secure the Rashid air base.
US and Iraqi troops inside Saddam Hussein's presidential palace compound exchange heavy artillery and tank fire as US tanks try to move north.
101st Airborne captured a Republican Guard compound near the international airport in Baghdad.
Marines from an infantry battalion found a "battalion's worth" of tanks abandoned on the north side of a bridge through the village of Kumayt, across the Tigris River,
US army tanks crossed the Tigris towards where the Marines are fighting.
Heavy fighting around the government buildings in the center of Baghdad.

Marines outside Baghdad
24th MEU in Qalat Sukkar – 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines arrived April 7
24th MEU, Service Support Group 24 working on Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit in Umm Qasr
24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is taking up positions south of Baghdad for what could be a new front in the war in central Iraq. A division of the regular Iraqi army appears to be almost intact despite air attacks and still posing a threat between here and the Iranian border to the east. – BBC
US Marines with Andrew North, BBC have moved out of Nasiriyah and are quieting pockets of resistance and involved in humanitarian needs of local towns and villages.
Task Force Tarawa swung east today toward Amara to confront the 10th Armored Division of the Iraqi Army and determine whether it intended to surrender.

Southern Iraq and Basra
British officials said a local ``sheikh'' would form the leadership in Basra province
Former American General Buff Walters arrives in Umm Qasr to begin reconstruction under American authority.
British hold Basra, but do not control it. Lawlessness and massive looting run rampant. British are not providing police until they have the military situation under control. Their main aim is to hunt down any Iraqi paramilitaries who may still pose a threat. They say at the moment, they are not here to police the city.

Northern Iraq
Kurdish soldiers backed by US special forces are gradually advancing on the Iraqi-controlled towns of Kirkuk and Mosul

Outside Iraq
The leader of Iraq's main Shia Muslim opposition group announces he will return home after living in exile in Iran.
President Bush says UN will have a 'vital role' in postwar Iraq but details are vague.

Other Areas:
The International Committee of the Red Cross visited the local hospital in Hilla following attacks by American forces and reported 300 civilian casualties.

Journalists in Iraq
Two Polish journalists escape their captors and reach safety in the central Iraqi city of Najaf.
Rageh Omaar :: 0851GMT There was a round that directly hit the Reuters office. I raced up there and it's a grim situation. Several colleagues have been quite badly wounded and one of them critically. I don't know if it was deliberate. I doubt it. The situation with Al-Jazeera, initially, looks suspect. Their office had given Washington specific satellite references. We were watching and filming the bombardment and its quite clearly a direct strike on the Al-Jazeera office. This was not just a stray round. It just seemed too specific.
Four Reuters staff - a reporter, photographer, TV cameraman and TV technician - and a Spanish cameraman were wounded in the Palestine Hotel blast and are in hospital. Reuters cameraman and Spanish cameraman die.
Al-Jazeera television correspondent Tariq Ayyub has died of injuries

Total Journalist Deaths in Iraq
8 April: Jose Couso (Telecinco, Spain)
8 April: Taras Protsyuk (Reuters, UK)
8 April: Tareq Ayoub (al-Jazeera, Qatar)
7 April: Christian Liebig (Focus, Germany)
7 April: Julio Anguita Parrado (El Mundo, Spain)
6 April: David Bloom (NBC, US)
6 April: Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed (BBC, UK)
4 April: Michael Kelly (Washington Post, US)
2 April: Kaveh Golestan (BBC, UK)
30 March: Gaby Rado (ITN, UK)
22 March: Paul Moran (ABC, Australia)
22 March: Terry Lloyd (ITN, UK)

April 5 – Saturday
A US Cavalry unit moved eastward towards towards Amara and attacked Iraqi army and Hammurabi Republican Guard.
Shi’a uprising in Amara, British troops moving north towards town.