January 16 - 22 2005 ~ Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker: ".....In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. “Everyone is saying, ‘You can’t be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,’” the former intelligence official told me. “But they say, ‘We’ve got some lessons learned—not militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of there.”..... The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer. ....The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids. “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible,” the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me. ..."

January 16 - 22 2005 ~ "While the west has largely focused on violence against coalition forces, the depth of hatred for fellow Iraqis which spares no quarter for the bereaved or dead runs deep through the Sunni towns along the road to Najaf. Coalition forces know the area as the "Triangle of Death" but it is becoming no less lethal to Iraqi Shias..... "I am sure that civil war with the Sunni Salafists will happen eventually," said Jameel Alaan, a member of the Shia Dawa party. "All the good people are leaving now. But who will say this? Nobody." Sunday Telegraph

January 16 - 22 2005 ~ "...Graner is small potatoes, and it seems clear that the torture policies came from much higher up, but this is probably as far as the investigation will go. If Congress had been in the hands of the Democrats, you might have had serious hearings on all this (not that everyone in Congress wasn't appalled). But we in the US now live in what is virtually a one-party state, and such states don't investigate themselves." Professor Juan Cole

January 15 2005 ~ Reuters "..... In his statement to the jury asking that he be given another chance as a soldier, Graner did not discuss the most notorious episodes during his time there, such as when he directed the human pyramid or put a leash on a naked prisoner. Graner said he complained repeatedly to superiors about the rough treatment he says he was forced to mete out to prisoners. "We were not treating prisoners the way we were supposed to so I complained about it," he said. "I never stopped complaining." Graner named several higher-ranking officials to whom he complained about the conditions or treatment forced upon the prisoners, such as sleep deprivation and forced eating cycles. They told him to "follow your order, charge on." ...."

January 15 2005 ~ " As the United States prepared to hand back the ancient ruins of Babylon to Iraqi authorities Saturday, a leading British archaeologist alleged that Polish and US troops had caused "substantial damage"..." Turkish Press

January 14 2005 ~ " ...... The security situation in large parts of Iraq is now so dire that it is the police who often choose to wear masks so that they cannot be recognised, and the insurgents who make no attempt to disguise themselves even in the capital city in broad daylight. ....... Tony Blair has already had to accept that he went to war on a monumental blunder over whether Iraq was a threat. He must now confront the equally hard truth that the American-led occupation is not the solution to the insecurity of Iraq but a large part of the problem." Robin Cook in the Guardian

January 13 2005 ~ "... what really happened inside the city. Did the US really rid it of insurgents? What became of the people who lived there? In a special report for Channel 4 News, produced by Guardian Films, a hospital doctor from Baghdad travelled to the Fallujah area to find out. ...These people are freezing. They have received no food aid for three months - they’re meant to be voting on January the 30th . “We won’t vote! We just won’t vote! They must take us back to our houses first.” - Abu Rabee ...." Transcript.

January 13 2005 ~ Two angry emails following Channel 4 news last night. The first from Roger:

"Channel4 News got into Falluja the other night. As you`d expect, nothing is left. No aid for those wanting to return. Nothing works,no food, no water, nothing except dogs carrying rabies and whole families slaughtered where they sat..."

"...what a mess Fallujah looked in the C4 News film on Tuesday night - the whole population has been displaced and the buildings lie derelict. - and now the news that WMD do not exist at last has been conceded by the UK and US Govts. - and Blair walks away completely Scot free. Only Menzies Campbell wheeled out on Newsnight to call him to account last night. .."

January 13 2005 ~ And Wire services report 11 dead in Iraq violence, including two car bombings and a gun battle in Mosul, the assassination of the deputy police chief of Baquba, the burning of four bank guards and the shooting of a policeman in Baghdad.

January 13 2005 ~ The United States' hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has now been officially abandoned. See Guardian "..a final report in the spring that will be almost identical to the interim assessment he delivered to Congress last October. That assessment found Saddam had destroyed his last weapons of mass destruction more than 10 years ago, and his capacity to build new ones had been dwindling for years by the time of the second Gulf war. .."
Warmwell readers will remember that on September 24th 2002 Mr Blair stood up in the House of Commons, raised the dossier above his head and said,

"The threat of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction is not American or British propaganda. The history and present threat are real."

January 12 2005 ~ Professor Juan Cole "Michael Georgy of the Scotsman reports from Baghdad that interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi admitted on Tuesday that "pockets" of Iraq won't be able to vote on January 30 because of poor security. I suspect the pockets amount to about 3 million persons..."

January 12 2005 ~ "A Syrian held at Abu Ghraib prison identified Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. on Tuesday as "the primary torturer," a frightening figure who was the "true face" of America's occupation of Iraq. ..." San Antonio Express

January 11 2005 ~ "US Rejects Sunni Demand for Withdrawal Timetable - 2 US troops Killed, along with Baghdad Deputy Police Commissioner and Iraqi Police, Guards" See Informed Comment website for daily headlines by Professor Cole.

January 11 2005 ~ Scotsman "Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, yesterday came under fire after announcing that ... 400 soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers will this week fly from their base in Cyprus to Iraq .... which takes British troop numbers in Iraq above 9,000... Fusiliers join the Black Watch on the short list of army regiments to have served two tours in Iraq. ... central role Scottish infantry regiments are playing in Iraq may fuel anger over the government’s decision to end their status as independent fighting units. .." (The day after axing the Scottish regiments, Mr Hoon boasted of £4.3bn warplane order )

January 11 2005 ~ As we feared when we first heard of his appointment, Channel 4 news reported that America's former pro-consul in Central America, John Negroponte, is advocating the export and revival of the horrible El Salvador death squad method for Iraq to start killing off insurgents.

January 9 2005 ~ Reuters "US troops targeted by a roadside bomb have mistakenly killed two Iraqi policemen and two bystanders hours after an American warplane bombed the wrong house, exacting a heavy civilian toll..."

January 9 2005 ~ From Prof Juan Cole's website : "the drumbeat of violence continued on Saturday, with the US dropping a 5 hundred pound bomb on the wrong house in a village near Mosul, the kidnapping of an election official, the discovery of the body of the governor of the province of Salahuddin, a car bomb in Mahaweel, the murder of a translator for the US military, etc...." with link to Boston.com

January 4 2005 ~ George Monbiot in the Guardian ".. The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day's spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war. .."

January 4 2005 ~ Gunmen have killed the governor of the Baghdad province, Ali al-Haidari, and six of his bodyguards. See Reuters

January 3 2005 ~ The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds the government does not have enough evidence to charge in court, it was reported yesterday. Scotsman

January 2 2005 ~ We read on Prof Cole's site that thousands of demonstrators carried placards yesterday in front of the deserted city entrance. US officials are demanding to see papers - many of which were left behind when people fled. Children carried signs that read "Where is my Father?" or "Where is my house, you supposed Liberators?" Prof Cole comments: "The Fallujah demonstration was big enough to be news, but I couldn't find out anything about it via Western newspapers and wire services."

January 2 2005 ~ news.xinhuanet.com " The United States deployed a new contingent in Iraq's northern city of Mosul on Friday ahead of the nationwide elections to strengthen the security, said a US military statement early on Sunday. ...Three Iraqi militant groups -- the Army of Ansar al-Sunnah, Islamic Army in Iraq and Army of the Mujahideen released a statement on Dec. 30, which threatened to attack Iraqis who will take part in the general elections due on Jan. 30, 2005."

December 30 2004 ~ From Prof Cole's "Informed Comment" site, (which also has comment on the tsunami situation)
"Ansar al-Sunna and 2 other guerrilla groups in Iraq have threatened to kill anyone participating in what they termed "the farce" of Iraqi elections. CNN is reporting that all 700 voter registration workers in Mosul have resigned after death threats. The guerrillas are alleging that the secular process of American-sponsored elections will result in un-Islamic laws. I don't see how Mosul can participate in the election under these conditions. It has a population of about a million..."

December 30 2004 ~ Professor Cole "...widespread veiling has been forced on formerly relatively liberated Iraqi women. Spinner's piece belies claims made earlier this year by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that the US had improved the situation of women in Iraq."
He is referring to an article today by Jackie Spinner in the Washington Post

December 30 2004 ~ The massive bomb in Baghdad that killed 30 persons and wounded 25 the night of Tuesday- Wednesday turns out to have been an ambush. Guerrillas contacted the Iraqi police, told them the house was a safe house, and when the police approached, they blew it up. They also flattened ten houses around it. See Guardian

December 25 2004 ~ The Pope on Christmas Day ""With great apprehension I follow the situation in Iraq. ... Let there arise a firm will to seek peaceful solutions, respectful of the legitimate aspirations of individuals and peoples." BBC

December 19 2004 ~".... I still reel that so many Britons believed what they were told about this war. ..Just one pre-requisite of democracy is that all groups share sufficient national cohesion for a minority to acquiesce in majority rule. Only a fool could say that of today’s Iraq. Democracy will merely serve as a transition to Shia theocracy Iran-style, while Sunnis and Kurds break loose. Yet Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair cite Iraq in the same breath as postwar Germany and Japan. Was world statesmanship ever so dumb? ...." so wrote Simon Jenkins in March.

December 19 2004 ~ More voter registration stations attacked in Iraq. See Professor Cole's Informed Comment

December 19 2004 ~ The US State Department's website includes a Fact Sheet entitled, “Iran: Voices Struggling To Be Heard.” "In Iran, the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy." – President George W. Bush
What you will not see on the website is the fact that Shirin Ebadi is being prevented from publishing her memoirs in the US because of regulations that prohibit ‘trading with the enemy’.

December 19 2004 ~ "British officials insist they are still negotiating actively with the US to release all four British detainees still in Guantanamo Bay, including Richard Belmar and Martin Mubanga, both from London. These claims are now being treated with growing scepticism by the men's lawyers...Mr Abbasi and Mr Begg have been designated by the Pentagon as suitable for a military trial for alleged terrorist activity. Last month, Mr Abbasi was also declared an "enemy combatant" after a secret military tribunal at the base......." .." IoS

December 17 2004 ~ Perth SNP MP Annabelle Ewing walked out of the House of Commons yesterday, after callung Geoff Hoon a "backstabbing coward". Alex Salmond gave Ms Ewing his full backing in a statement saying that she may have broken the Commons rules, but Mr Hoon had "broken the hearts of Scottish soldiers". See BBC

December 16 2004 ~"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud....The one thing he has determined is we simply cannot afford to do nothing..." Condoleeza Rice in September 2002. A reminder from CNN archives of how the main players made the case for war against Iraq - and ignored Scott Ritter.

December 16 2004 ~ Patrick Cockburn ( in Counterpunch): "..Members of the Iraqi interim government are much more visible and vocal abroad than they are in Iraq - and enthusiasm for foreign travel among government ministers is a standing joke in the press. Their absence is understandable because they are in danger of assassination in Baghdad and are often confined to the Green Zone and a few heavily defended government buildings... . In Mosul most of the voter registration materials have been destroyed." Read in full

December 16 2004 ~ "....There is no end in sight, of course, to Iraq's carnage. Whether brought about by military action, car bombings, assassinations, depleted uranium shell-generated illnesses, contaminated water, inadequate medical care, or countless other ways in the violent hell that is today's Iraq, civilian deaths are guaranteed to climb significantly. When the suffering will stop is an open question. But even if by some miracle the bloodshed were to come to a screeching halt immediately, there's certainly no doubting the answer if we ask if America is now filling mass graves of its own."antiwar.com

December 15 2004 ~The government tried to argue Baha Mousa wasn't protected by the Human Rights Act because his death wasn't in Britain and that it was difficult to mount independent investigations in a war zone. The judges disagreed. Channel 4 news update yesterday: "According to his family Baha Mousa was unarmed when he was arrested, beaten up and killed by British troops. After a ruling that was pretty scathing of the Royal Military Police the family will now get the investigation the military failed to provide. " See also Wednesday's Independent

December 15 2004 ~ "Iyad Allawi's decision to start trials against high Baath officials may further roil ethnic relations in Iraq, since a recital of Baath atrocities just before the elections may help provoke Shiite-Sunni or Kurdish-Shiite violence. ....another mass grave was discovered near the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah on Tuesday..." Professor Cole

December 13/14 2004 ~The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war started in Iraq. See From the Wilderness

December 13 2004 ~ "...After watching the worldwide demonstrations on February 15, 2003 be brushed aside as a "focus group," I knew then that the minds of the American public had been misled by the corporate media . .
...I'm reporting information that the Bush regime wants kept under wraps. I fear reprisal from both the government and military far, far more than being kidnapped or blown up by a car bomb. Iraqis are of course shocked and outraged by the beheadings and kidnappings of people like Margaret Hassan. So many also believe it was a CIA/Mossad plot to keep aid organizations and journalists out of Iraq in order to give the military and corporations here a free hand to continue to dis-assemble and sell of the country. . ." interview with Dahr Jamail today ZNET.

December 13 2004 ~ A suicide car bomb ripped through a line of vehicles at a checkpoint outside Baghdad's international Green Zone last night, killing 13 people and wounding 15. See Guardian

December 13 2004 ~"Baghdad is in the grip of the most serious fuel crisis since the war, forcing drivers to spend more than a day queueing for petrol and underlining the Iraqi Government's struggle to maintain even basic services just weeks before elections. In the past two weeks, queues of hundreds of cars have stretched for kilometres and disputes between drivers and police have turned violent.. " The Age (Australia)

December 13 2004 ~ " The US continued to drop bombs on Fallujah on Sunday, according to AP. ...the British embassy in Basra came under mortor attack late Sunday or early Monday...the Association of Muslim Scholars and some other parties met again on Sunday to demand that elections be postponed..." all among the latest news from Professor Cole's website

December 12 2004 ~"..With the backing of the Foreign Office...Dr James MacKeith, emeritus consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital, is trying to visit Guantanamo Bay to see British detainee Moazzam Begg...In an eight-page letter written in July, Mr Begg alleges that gun-wielding US interrogators at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, chained and hooded him during questioning, that he and other prisoners were paraded naked and given ice-cold showers, deprived of sleep by bright lights and permanently denied natural light or fresh food. He also saw one prisoner being beaten to death.." Independent on Sunday

December 12 2004 ~ Washington Post: "...fighting in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah had drawn hundreds of fighters to rebel ranks. ...Abdullah Janabi, 53, a Sunni Muslim cleric from Fallujah who has eluded a dragnet by the U.S. military, vowed Friday in an interview that the fighting in the devastated city on the Euphrates River would continue for months. "In one day, we received 400 Iraqis and Arabs," he said from a village near Fallujah. U.S. soldiers, he said, "crossed the ocean obligated to fight people who want to die, while they still love life." ...."

December 12 2004 ~ "....Wilson's brave words brought applause and shouts of approval from the other 2,300 soldiers in the hangar at a base in Kuwait. His question is still resonating. ... the (ie the US ) death toll climbs to nearly 1,300.... Eighteen months after Bush declared that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over....the most powerful military machine on the planet, replenished by America's unmatched industrial power, is still sending its soldiers, reservists and National Guardsmen down dangerous roads in soft-skinned trucks and Humvees..." MSNBC

December 11 2004 ~ "As the Black Watch arrived back in Britain, reports emerged from Fallujah of a flattened city facing an unprecedented, permanent security crackdown, and an uncertain future.." says the Independent today, reminding its readers at least that the Red Cross "reported that hundreds of dead bodies remain stacked inside a potato chip warehouse on the outskirts. Some of the bodies were too badly decomposed to be identified. Raw sewage runs through the streets. All this, and there are no humanitarian workers working inside the city. .."

December 11 2004 ~ The report above appears on the Independent webpage just above the UK news that "Consumers have responded to the Government's healthy-eating message by stuffing themselves with cake, swilled down with plenty of alcohol.."

December 10 2004 ~ From the ever-excellent "Tom Dispatch"
"why not try Beverley Gologorsky's The Things We Do to Make It Home, a tiny novel about the wives and children of Vietnam Vets (and the vets themselves, of course). It's not exactly the book to fill you with Yule cheer, but it's a moving reminder -- painfully appropriate for our moment of back-door drafts and "stop-loss" tour-of-duty extensions -- that when soldiers leave wars, wars don't necessarily leave them. Our Iraqi adventure will, like the Vietnam one, inhabit American (and Iraqi) nightmares for years to come..."

December 9 2004 ~ Juan Cole today: "...This open dishonesty of Rumsfeld and Bush is becoming so brazen now that they have their second term that it is breathtaking. A few brave souls in the press are beginning to dare call the administration on the lies. ...Fallujah hasn't made a difference militarily. .....US military plans for social control in Fallujah seem genuinely Orwellian and clear violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Plans, it is alleged, are being made for forced work details by men in the city, and for use of high tech social engineering tools like retina scans for identification..." See also The Register

December 9 2004 ~ ".... 'Nope, that never happened. You're delusional, you imagined the whole thing. And you've got 30 seconds to withdraw your complaint. If you do, it will be as if this conversation never took place"......" The Department of Defense is currently investigating more than a hundred allegations of prisoner abuse. So far, not a single officer or high-ranking enlisted soldier has been charged in any of them. SeeWhitewashing torture? on Michael Moore's website.

December 9 2004 ~ "US troops on their way to Iraq peppered the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, with complaints yesterday" Guardian
"...Mr. Rumsfeld seemed taken aback by the question and a murmur began spreading through the ranks before he silenced them. "Now settle down, settle down," he said. "Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here." ....." NYT

December 9 2004 ~ "....What is Bush achieving in return for such horrendous costs? Bush has destroyed our alliances and the good will of a half century of US foreign policy. .. has created an insurgency where there was none. ..has destroyed US prestige in the Middle East and reduced America’s support among Middle Eastern populations to the single digits. ...made Osama bin Laden a hero and recruited tens of thousands of terrorists to his ranks . .." from War Crime, an article by American writer, Paul Craig Roberts

December 9 2004 ~"Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad in June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison...The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. ...." NYT

December 8 2004 ~ "Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was last night accused of staging a "shameless media stunt" after visiting Black Watch soldiers in Iraq just days before he is expected to consign the regiment to history..." Scotsman

December 8 2004 ~ Can anyone access Professor Cole's site today? http://www.juancole.com

December 8 2004 ~ Mr Bush speaking to American families who have lost loved ones in the war at Camp Pendleton. "....you can know this: They gave their lives for a cause that is just. And as in other generations, their sacrifice will have spared millions from the lives of tyranny and sorrow." Mens News Daily Throughout the speech, Mr Bush referred to "terrorists". He meant presumably the Iraqi fighters against foreign occupation.

December 8 2004 ~ A different slant from Camp Pendleton is provided by The Age.com"....Classified CIA assessments, disclosed on Tuesday, said the situation in Iraq was deteriorating and unlikely to improve soon...Preparations are stalled on many levels, ranging from delays in hiring and training thousands of election workers to deciding what kind of ballots and ink to use.
"I just can't see how we can hold these elections," an American consultant working with Iraqi election planners said on the condition of anonymity."

December /8 2004 ~"... The US has been trying to train Iraqi government units but the only ones which show a willingness to fight have been Kurdish troops and, in some cases, Shia. This exacerbates sectarian tensions between the Sunni...and Shia communities..." The Independent

December 8 2004 ~ Mr Blair must set up an independent inquiry into the number of civilians killed in Iraq since last year's war, a coalition of diplomats, lawyers, religious leaders and writers demanded today. Scotsman Here is the text of the letter to Tony Blair urging a proper count of civilian casualties in Iraq. BBC

December 8 2004 ~The death of the 1,000th US soldier in combat happened yesterday.
The Independent : "The New York Times published a classified memo from the CIA station chief in Baghdad, who said the situation was deteriorating and was likely to get worse...It is not known whether the cable mentioned the actions of the US troops in adding to the violence and chaos, and the mounting civilian death toll... "

December 7/8 2004 ~ "...Security in Baghdad is now so bad that when Robert Hill, the Australian Defence Minister, landed at Baghdad airport last week it was deemed too dangerous for him to travel along the airport road to Baghdad. He was unable to visit the Australian embassy." Independent

December 7 2004 ~ "essentially a backdoor draft" The BBC reports on the "eight US soldiers have begun legal action in an effort to stop the US army extending their tours of duty in Iraq."

December 6 2004 ~ "....Today, American planes regularly bomb the distant cities of Iraq and no one even seems to notice. No one, not even reporters on the spot, bothers to comment. No one writes a significant word about it. Should we be amazed or horrified, proud or ashamed? ..." Tom Dispatch piece on " the non-coverage of the air war the Bush administration has unleashed in "postwar" Iraq against heavily populated urban centers ...the wonder and even the horror of air power is largely gone, but the inventions, the destruction, and the carnage remain."

December 5 2004 ~ "....."We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks. " Read Naomi Klein's letter to the US Embassy in full

December 4 2004 ~ http://www.acallforlight.org is the new organisation that shares our dismay about media reporting of the so-called "war on terror". It organised Thursday's vigil outside the BBC. "During war, more than at any other time, language is twisted, stretched, and degraded. 'Precision airstrikes', 'collateral damage', and 'friendly fire': all phrases thrown over a tragedy like a blanket over a corpse; to blur uncomfortably sharp edges and make tolerable the ugly truth beneath."

December 4 2004 ~ Independent "..one of the deadliest attacks in weeks. The well-organised assault shows the continuing effectiveness of the resistance forces despite the capture of their headquarters in Fallujah by US Marines last month. Early yesterday, some 30 masked and heavily armed men opened fire from the roofs of neighbouring houses on al-Amil police station near the airport road in the south of the capital..."

December 4 2004 ~ Feedback from the vigil outside the BBC. Read why Medialens supported the vigil.

December 3 2004 ~ Twelve thousand extra US troops are now en route to Iraq from Fort Bragg in the US on a day that saw more dead. In the fortified Green Zone, US offices and Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad took heavy mortar fire on Thursday. A car bomb wounded two US soldiers in Baiji. There was heavy fighting in Mosul, leaving a dozen people dead..and on it goes.

December 3 2004 ~ "....the kidnapping of a female member of the governing council of Salahuddin and assassination attempts on two members of the municipal council of Khalis north of Baqubah. If provincial governing council members can't be protected, how can you have a stable government? Police in Salahuddin province maintained that guerrillas had established a special operations unit which had a list of 100 personalities they intended to assassinate. There is every reason to think that the guerrrillas do have such hit lists, and also that they have been relatively effective in implementing it." Read Juan Cole today

December 2 2004 ~ U.S. forces are maintaining a cordon around Falluja and are preventing refugees from returning. There are about 500,000 people in grim conditions outside the city. Temperatures are now approaching freezing point. See Reuters

December 1 2004 ~ Professor Cole today "It does seem likely that if the US beats down the Baathists enough to permanently defang them, the Shiites are likely simply to toss the Americans out after they take power (assuming that there is a real election, and Allawi is not simply installed as a US puppet [again])...."

December 1 2004 ~ Military Families against the War "Our brave men and women risk injury and death while our government continues an unjust war for political ends. We say quite simply this is wrong." A new website

December 1 2004 ~ Independent "The Red Cross has accused President George Bush's administration of overseeing the intentional physical and psychological torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. It also accused doctors and medics of liaising with interrogators in what was a "flagrant violation of medical ethics"..."

November 30 2004 ~ Fallujah "Some images that did manage to filter through the layers of American censorship include scenes of the devastated landscape of the city; the bloodied and fly-covered corpses of young Iraqi men lying in the streets or heaped in rows amidst the debris; a headless body; women and children escaping with the few possessions they have left; mortuary teams collecting the dead; and Fallujah infants being treated for horrific injuries in Baghdad hospitals. US general John Sattler declared: “We have liberated the city of Fallujah.” ...” Pak Trubune

November 29 2004 ~ "The press is always seen as a weapon of war by officials, and it is so seen by the Pentagon and the Bush administration today..." TomDispatch today compares US coverage of the Afghan anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s and its reporting of the Russian forces' actions in Grozny with its non-reporting of the razing of Fallujah. The examination of chosen terminology, choice of witnesses quoted (and not quoted) etc all depressingly revealing.

November 28 2004 ~"Journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah..." IPSnews.net

November 28 2004 ~"...Given the momentous problem of peak oil and the oil importance of the Middle East and their first term choice of the grab-the-oil policy path, the second Bush Administration has little choice but continuation of an aggressive, interventionist, unilateralist foreign policy." Bill Henderson

November 28 2004 ~ ".... It isn't that the government is elected that lends stability, but rather widespread acceptance of the government's legitimacy. The Sunnis are unlikely to grant that if they end up being woefully underrepresented. And then you will just have to reconquer Fallujah again next year. How long before you are just conquering rubble and snipers?.." part of Professor Juan Cole's Informed Comment today.

November 27 2004 ~ http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/story.jsp?story=587197
Sir: Saddam Hussein must be kicking himself now he has realised that all he ever needed to stay in power was an Iraqi cricket team.
PETER WALTON Buckingham

November 27 2004 ~ Concern grows over Iran. See letter from British academics in the Independent. " our deep concern at what appears to be a determination by the Bush administration to generate an international crisis over Iran. It is our fear that, having generated such an artificial and unnecessary crisis, the US will then embark on a doomed military "solution" in which it will seek to involve the British government and armed forces."

November 25 2004 ~ "...This is a nation of people who conducted a revolution against what was then the most powerful empire on earth … and they did it because they didn’t like a tax on teabags. If they could work up that sort of outrage in 1776, surely they can awaken their consciences, ever so slightly, to consider the monumental balls-up they are allowing their leaders to make of the whole world...." Read the AxisofLogic article Getting Sober by Paul Harris - or this extract.

November 24 2004 ~ All the President's Yes Men ... The next US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, told President Bush that Geneva Convention proscriptions on torture were "quaint" and "obsolete" and did not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners.
See also Lew Rockwell.com "He was heavily criticized for accepting large contributions from Halliburton, which was then headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and then ruling in favor of the company .."

November 22 2004 ~ "Bush was boycotted by 200 Chilean parliamentarians because they refused to pass through US metal detectors in order to meet with him." CBC.ca

November 22 2004 ~ "what role the media may have had in blunting the war's significance are questions Massing now takes up. His piece represents perhaps the opening salvo in a longer-term discussion. .."

November 22 2004 ~ "...A source with links to the insurgents said in Baghdad: "The Americans tried to control that area once before and failed. Why do they think they will succeed this time? The people are against them. They are afraid of Abu Musab [Zarqawi], but he is just one man; in the resistance there are many, and they are prepared to fight and die until the invaders are expelled." Independent

November 19 - 21 2004 ~"... But the war in Iraq is that first slippery step down a path that leads to a war against us all: the Bush Administration has chosen a naked, criminal, grab-the-oil policy path that leads to a century of resource wars and terrible societal and economic dislocation. .." Bill Henderson's article That's us under attack in Fallujah

November 19 - 21 2004 ~"Regrettably, recent events have again shown just how difficult it has become for neutral, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations to assist and protect the victims of the conflict in Iraq. Once again, the International Committee of the Red Cross appeals for everything possible to be done to allow such organizations to come to the aid of the thousands of Iraqis who are suffering." The Red Cross statement from Iraq in full http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/66VK3T!OpenDocument

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ " The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in the area reported that Mujahideen had cut the three main roads leading to Fallujah, in particular the road leading from Abu Ghurayb to Fallujah, in addition to two other routes running to the north and south..seriously obstructing the supply of the American attackers in and around the city. " www.jihadunspun.com

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ Non-Iraqi journalists have little choice .... "The hotel has become a prison, and every foray outside its fortified gates is tinged with anxiety about returning in one piece. Baghdad has never been tougher for journalists. Treacherous roads and kidnapping squads restrict travel. 'Embedding' with the military or going with Iraqi government officials is the safest way to leave the capital. Our ability to uncover and tell the truth about Iraq -- good and bad -- has suffered terribly…" More at www.nationinstitute.org

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ Meanwhile, the fighting goes on. Al Jazeera says, " fierce clashes erupted on Saturday morning between US and Iraqi National Guards troops and armed fighters. . . clashes were spreading to other districts of the city including Al-Amiriya, Al-Gazaliya, and al-Dura.
"Fighters have pushed their way to streets and roads and are using rocket-propelled grenade launchers. US forces responded with artillery fire. t A large blast rocked central Baghdad as fighting spread in Baghdad and a large plume of gray smoke could be seen rising from the area near the health ministry. ..."

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ Pressure is now building to postpone the elections. Guardian

November 19 2004 ~ "The past several days posed a characteristic difficulty for the US Department of Defense: how to wage war upon a population while doing so on behalf of that population..." 'Covering Iraq' provides analysis and discussion of US mainstream news in light of Dahr Jamail's reports and photographs from Occupied Iraq.

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ In Baghdad, "U.S. troops and members of the Iraqi National Guard raided a holy Sunni mosque earlier today following Friday prayers. The site of the raid, the Abu Hanifa mosque, is considered to be one of the most important Sunni places of worship in Iraq. Arrested in the raid was the mosque's imam." More

November 19 - 21 2004 ~ In Iraq 47 political parties have announced they would boycott the elections. Allawi's aide said, "I don't think within the time available we can do everything, so I think a delay or postponing elections is more likely than holding them on time." Prime Minsiter Ayad Allawi is a former Baathist who has ties to the CIA and British and Saudi intelligence. Read what Andrew Cockburn (Independent etc) said about Allawi in June this year.

November 18 2004 ~ "... anger across the Sunni heartland - even among moderates - against the occupation and Allawi has reached incendiary proportions. His credibility - already low before the Fallujah massacre - is now completely gone. Allawi insists on the record that not a single civilian has died in Fallujah...... ... refugees tell horror stories ... of the Americans using cluster bombs and spraying white phosphorus, a banned chemical weapon." See extract from the Asia Times

November 18 2004 ~ "Even the dogs have started to die, their corpses strewn among twisted metal and shattered concrete in a city that looks like it forgot to breathe. .." Read shortened version with link to orignal on TomDespatch

November 18 2004 ~"Some of my readers still want good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats. That's not the way the world is. It is often grey, and very bleak.." As usual, Professor Juan Cole tries hard to tell it like it is. (Read an extract of the entry for today)

November 17 2004 ~ "....For the bureaucrats and the Western leaders who will today express their outrage and sorrow at her reported death, she had nothing but scorn.."

November 17 2004 ~ "The abduction and murder of Margaret Hassan is a prime example of cui bono, who benefits. It certainly isn’t the Iraqi resistance—that is if we believe, as we are told through the corporate media, that they are responsible for this heinous act. However, when we consider the past behavior of the CIA and its long and sordid history of covert activity, another dimension emerges, one that cannot be discarded out of hand." Kurt Nimmo

November 17 2004 ~ Who killed Margaret Hassan? "...such a good and saintly woman, that is the question that her friends - and, quite possibly, the Iraqi insurgents - will be asking. This Anglo-Irish lady held an Iraqi passport. She had lived in Iraq for 30 years, she had dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need. She hated the UN sanctions and opposed the Anglo-American invasion. So who killed Margaret Hassan? .." Read Robert Fisk's Independent article

November 17 2004 ~ Having watched and waited with anxiety for so many days, we are desperately sad at the news that Margaret Hassan has been murdered. See, among many other reports, this from The Age.com ".... "The whole of CARE is in mourning," the organisation said in a statement. "Through her courage, tenacity and commitment, Ms Hassan assisted more than 17 million Iraqis living in the most difficult of circumstances. Everyone who met her was touched by her personality and compassion."

November 16 2004 ~ "The Black Watch could be pulled out of the "Sunni Triangle" within days now the US assault on Fallujah is at an end, it emerged yesterday. .." Scotsman

November 16 2004 ~ "Unfortunately it looks as if Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi aid worker kidnapped in Iraq, may have been killed. Her family fears as much following reports of a video appearing to show her murder." Channel 4 update.

November 16 2004 ~ " Martial law means in practice a daily curfew, no political meetings and no free press - but the resistance won't go away. .... There could not be a more tragic exercise in futility than Phantom Fury as Vietnam revisited - to destroy Fallujah in order to "save" it..... Few Sunni Iraqis will believe this was all about protecting them from "terrorists" and promoting "democracy". Precision-strike democracy is a neo-conservative phantom, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." www.mediapool.bg

November 16 2004 ~ "...This one's faking he's dead. He's dead now" The Independent on the video showing, inside a Fallujah mosque, a US soldier killing an unarmed and wounded man in cold blood.

November 16 2004 ~ http://www.sorry everybody.com - 27 million hits since the US election.

November 15 2004 ~ From the Barnes and Noble bookshop: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins "..his job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy (a coalition of government, banks, and corporations) while professing to alleviate poverty-policies that alienated many nations and ultimately led to September 11 and growing anti-Americanism.... reveals the hidden mechanics of imperial control behind some of the most dramatic events in recent history, such as the fall of the Shah of Iran, the death of Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, and the U.S. invasions of Panama and Iraq..."

November 15 2004 ~ Colin Powell has submitted his resignation to President George W Bush. See World Net

November 15 2004 ~ "The UN nuclear watchdog has partly cleared Iran of charges it tried to make a nuclear bomb, issuing its report one day after Tehran pledged to freeze what critics said was an atomic weapons programme.." Reuters

November 15 2004 ~ A hollow victory in Fallujah. Independent ">..plenty of evidence across Iraq that the war is far from over, and the devastation of Fallujah is likely to have fuelled the resistance...."

November 14 2004 ~ An emailer writes, "At the 11th hour ... I just stood in the garden and prayed for the town and people of Fallujah and all those brave people that have given their all - for what ?"
When the smoke has cleared around Fallujah, what horrors will be revealed? http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=582722

November 14 2004 ~ " U.S. officer, who demanded anonymity, said that Fallujah is now "occupied but not subdued." .....The U.S. military has moved about 500 of its soldiers from Fallujah to Mosul, as violence flares in other areas in Iraq.... On Saturday, a Red Crescent convoy reached Fallujah with the first aid since U.S.-led offensive broke out last Monday. "Conditions in Falluja are catastrophic," said Iraqi Red Crescent spokeswoman." Al Jazeera

November 14 2004 ~ "...five heavy explosions rocked central Baghdad after nightfall. There was no immediate explanation for the blasts. Sirens were heard coming from the fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and Iraqi leadership.." AP via Guardian.

November 14 2004 ~ "a Communist representative in the 100-member National Council in Iraq, which serve..s as a sort of interim parliament, was assassinated while traveling in the north near Kirkuk on Saturday. This would be like a senator being assassinated in the United States." Professor Juan Cole

November 13 2004 ~"...We are becoming Aunt Sallys in Iraq. “Catch-me-if-you-can”, our aim is increasingly just to demonstrate from behind sandbags that we can be there without being killed. In April it was the Sunnis in Fallujah; in the summer it was Shia rebels in Najaf; now in Fallujah and elsewhere it is the Sunni insurgency again. .." Matthew Parris in the Times. Lucid and well informed.

November 12 2004 ~ "And so we barge through another door marked "Open With Caution" and into yet another wing of our new age of extremity whose rooms now seem to extend in all directions forever. And this descent into barbarism is being reported to us in the anodyne language of embedded war reporters. ..."Mark LeVine, Four Times Falluja Equals?

November 11 2004 ~ "Mainstream media speak as if Fallujah were populated only by foreign "insurgents". In fact, women and children are being slaughtered in our name. ..It is the function of the experts, and the mainstream media, to normalise the unthinkable for the general public." New Statesman

November 11 2004 ~ "Allawi's aged cousin and the man's wife and daughter-in-law were abducted and guerrillas threaten to behead them if the Fallujah compaign is not stopped. In Iraqi society, PM Allawi is responsible for protecting his clan, including especially his first cousins, so this kidnapping makes him look weak and brings substantial shame on him."Professor Juan Cole

November 11 2004 ~ " The Fallujah fighting has killed fair numbers of Iraqi noncombatants, including Shaikh Abdul Wahhab al-Janabi of the respected Association of Muslim Scholars." Professor Juan Cole

November 10 2004 ~ "...the evil is not mindless but part of a rational programme of activity that British news media have willfully and systematically failed to comprehend...." Today's letters in the Independent remind us how the UK media in general, by following the current dogmas, fail to inform the people of things that the government find it better that they should not know.

November 10 2004 ~ Fallujah. Independent "... Local people claimed US warplanes bombed a clinic, causing many casualties. The main hospital was captured by US and Iraqi government forces on Monday, when, according to government figures, more than 40 "terrorists" were killed."

November 10 2004 ~ "voices abroad including the United Nations' refugee agency and the Red Cross expressed fears over civilians' safety. ..." AP

November 9 2004 ~ "I am reminded of the description of British soldiers as "lions led by donkeys" in the First World War. Now surely the phrase should be "lions led by liars"..."
"Sir....In mobilising his party for the invasion of Iraq, Mr Blair often illustrated the monstrosity of Saddam Hussein by pointing out that he had used chemical weapons against his own people.
In contrast, Mr Allawi, the new thug of choice but with no air force of his own, is outsourcing to US warplanes the attack on his own people in Fallujah. And they are killing civilians with conventional bombs and missiles and not counting the bodies. So that's all right then."
The Independent letters are always worth reading to know we are not alone in our horror and dismay. Other media, including the BBC, are not reflecting the widespread despair in the UK.

November 9 2004 ~ "....The former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle accused Mr Blair of allowing Britain to be dragged into an unwinnable war. "It is a throwback to the misjudgements of the Vietnam war," he said....
In the lead-up to the redeployment, Lt-Col James Cowan, the commanding officer of the battalion, expressed concern .... In one e-mail, Lt-Col Cowan wrote: "I hope the Government knows what it has got itself into. I'm not sure they fully appreciate the risks. .." Independent

November 9 2004 ~ Depleted Uranium and the legal position on taking military action against Iraq. In a written answer yesterday Geoff Hoon excuses a refusal to place a letter in the Library because of " legal professional privilege". We note with dismay how often the government now uses the "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information."

November 9 2004 ~ Extracts from Professor Juan Cole's site today "dramatic rates of desertion among Iraqi forces being committed to Fallujah....that serious opinion polling of the American public does not find anything like a mandate for Bush doctrines like preemptive war or unilateralism..."

November 9 2004 ~ ".... it should stop all further trials at Guantanamo Bay. " a possible glimmer of hope in the continuing, miserable fiasco. See BBC

November 8 2004 ~ " If President Bush could be as courageous as General Charles de Gaulle was in Algeria when he admitted that the Algerian insurgency had “won” and called for a “peace of the braves,” fighting would quickly die down in Iraq as it did in Algeria and in all other guerrilla wars. Then, and only then, could elections be meaningful. ..." Read the guest editorial on Professor Cole's site.

November 8 2004 ~Allawi declares Martial Law for 2 months. Maybe it is just me, but is it really possible to have democratic elections coming off 2 months of martial law? asks Professor Juan Cole

November 8 2004 ~ Iraq's interim prime minister said on Monday that he had given authority to international and Iraqi forces to rid Fallujah of "terrorists", promising that the "rule of law" would be restored "very soon". Independent We note the ambiguous use of quotation marks.

November 7 2004 ~ Tony Blair is charged with "gross misconduct" over the war in Iraq in a parliamentary motion to impeach him, published today. IoS

November 7 2004 ~ "...U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have warned that a military offensive could trigger a wave of violence that would sabotage the ballot. The influential Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars has threatened to call a boycott of elections if Fallujah is attacked...." Observer

November 7 2004 ~ "The voter registration cards are being based on the old UN food rationing cards, which were assigned by household rather than by individual. The charge that the Shiites may be getting too few is plausible, since Saddam clearly favored Sunnis over Shiites. The Allawi government insists that there are mechanisms in place for persons to complain about and appeal any irregularities deriving from the food ration cards.." Prof Juan Cole

November 7 2004 ~ "... (MoD) has ordered an infantry regiment known as the Tigers to be ready to boost British forces. The second battalion of the Shropshire-based Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment is already completing final preparations to deploy. Army chiefs have also drawn up plans to reinforce Black Watch soldiers based near Iraq’s “triangle of death” with tanks and possibly 100 Royal Marines from southern Iraq. ........ Only 10 days ago Tony Blair told the Commons that there were no plans to send extra troops. .." Sunday Times

November 7 2004 ~ "...Soldiers’ relatives will lay a wreath at the door of No 10 to mark the deaths of the 73 British soldiers killed in the conflict so far. The government is facing a backlash from families following the deaths of the Black Watch soldiers Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, and privates Paul Lowe, 19, and Scott McArdle, 22, during a suicide bomb attack near Falluja on Thursday. .." Sunday Times

November 7 2004 ~"...The protest, on Wednesday, has been organised by Rose Gentle from Glasgow and Reg Keys from Solihull in the West Midlands, both of whom have lost sons in the conflict. After visiting Downing Street, where they will demand an end to Britain’s military involvement in Iraq, they will meet anti-war MPs, including Alice Mahon, Peter Kilfoyle, Lynne Jones and Bob Marshall-Andrews. Jim Buchanan, 57, whose son Craig, 27, is a Warrior driver with the Black Watch, will join the protest. “I want to know why the families have been lied to and why our boys have been deployed to Camp Dogwood,” he said.

November 6 2004 ~ "More than 10,000 American troops are massing for the assault on Fallujah. ...reports grow that the insurgents have been spilling out of the city in all directions. And what of the tens of thousands of civilians still thought to be trapped in the city? ...." Channel 4 update

November 5 2004 ~ American warplanes pound Fallujah; residents say attacks are strongest in months - Associated Press "....U.S. planes dropped five 500-pound bombs at several targets in Fallujah early Saturday...The drone of U.S. aircraft heading toward Fallujah could be heard over Baghdad. The U.S. military said the main highway into Fallujah has now been completely sealed off. Residents reached by telephone Friday said the air raids were the most intense in months, and that, as well as bombs, U.S. planes dropped leaflets urging women and children to leave Fallujah, a city of some 300,000 people 40 miles west of Baghdad. .."

November 5 2004 ~"Just a phase " Letter in the Independent Sir: It is an experiment that America, and the world, have to experience. Bush will bankrupt the federal government. He will open the fissures in the governance of the USA and show the barbarism of the neo-liberal programme. He will expose the danger of religiosity. Americans themselves have to feel the effects of deregulation, de-greening and disinformation.
YOUSEF ABDULLA
Orpington, Kent

November 5 2004 ~ A "major offensive" - the euphemism of war.
Reuters " The US military blocked roads round Falluja on Friday after mounting air strikes overnight that local hospital sources said killed three people... US. marines are preparing a major offensive against Falluja as part of the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government's drive to crush all rebels in the country before elections due in January. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, visiting Europe, has not publicly given the go-ahead .... But the Marines say they need only the order from him and newly re-elected U.S. President George W. Bush."

November 5 2004 ~ Independent ".....Outside the gates of the regimental museum in the centre of Perth, locals listening to the news of the tragedy on the radio were clearly bitter. "This is all Blair's fault," said Margaret Gardner. "I have a lot of friends who have boys in the army and they are all worried sick. They should have been coming home, fighting an illegal war just to make George Bush look ...This is all Blair's fault," said Margaret Gardner. "I have a lot of friends who have boys in the army and they are all worried sick. They should have been coming home,.. fighting an illegal war just to make George Bush look good."

November 5 2004 ~ "This pooled dispatch from Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times was compiled under Ministry of Defence restrictions " says the Independent article below. This is surely a new and worrying departure.

November 5 2004 ~ Independent "... to local people the main source of danger was the British soldiers themselves. Black Watch officers found themselves facing a crowd of more than a hundred distraught and excited schoolchildren and a furious teacher from a nearby school whose way home was blocked by the soldiers. "The teacher is very angry because we're bringing danger to the children," said Captain Kelmanson. "By us being here, we attract the terrorists into the area. She's quite right, and if we knew it was a school we would have got the timing better."After yesterday's attack it is clear that local anxieties have been dramatically .."

November 4 2004 ~ 3 Black Watch soldiers have died in Iraq, Armed Forces minister Adam Ingram has told MPs. Mr Ingram was unable to give details of the incident in his Commons statement. Manchester Online

November 4 2004 ~ Lancet research: "... Its finding are truly horrifying. Recent reports indicate that the US is placing a far greater reliance on air power as a way of reducing Coalition casualties...... The continued US war in Iraq cannot be justified on any conceivable humanitarian grounds when many tens of thousands of Iraqis are being killed and many more injured. Surely, this study should be a wake up call for all those, regardless of their opinions about the original justifiability of the war, who sincerely are concerned about the fate of the Iraqi people. ..." Zmag.org

November 4 2004 ~More than 80 per cent of Fallujah's population of 300,000 are believed to have fled by now. .... "All the shops are closed and those who could leave have left. The resistance seem to have lots of weapons, and they have been coming in despite all the American checkpoints. ....The mujahedin inside the city say they do not expect to live, but they want to kill as many of the invaders as possible." Independent

November 4 2004 ~ "Hungary will withdraw its 300 non-combat troops from Iraq by the end of March, its new prime minister said yesterday, dealing a blow to President George Bush's efforts to hold the multinational force together." Independent

November 4 2004 ~ "A car bomb hit a bus taking workers to Baghdad airport, a road which has become one of the most dangerous in the country.." Independent

November 4 2004 ~ "...three headless corpses were found along an approach route to the Green Zone, the heart of US power in Iraq." Independent

November 3/4 2004 ~ "The invasion has produced a toxic mix of insurgents, resistance fighters, former soldiers, foreign "jihadists" and bandits, with no shortage of weapons, including thousands of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades - and, we now know, enough explosives to make thousands of bombs, and powerful enough to detonate nuclear weapons.." Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian

November 3 2004 ~ It hardly matters - but results from the US Election for the Rest of The World show a very different picture.

November 3 2004 ~ "Ohio settles it. The question is whether Ohio settles it sometime Wednesday (with Bush pulling ahead so far that the provisional ballots no longer matter) or on November 13.... the Democrats maintain that there are over 200,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted, and that they could make up the difference. CNN is saying that it is believed that the provisional ballots are largely Democratic..An Ohio official, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, is saying on CNN that the provisional ballots won't be counted for 11 days. ." Read Professor Cole

November 3 2004 ~ Guerrillas tried to use a car bomb to assassinate an Iraqi general in Mosul. The explosion killed seven soldiers and 4 civilians, but missed the general. Daily Times.com

November 3 2004 ~ The news that Margaret Hussan could be handed over "to the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" if the kidnappers' demands are not met within 48 hours is grim. No one seems to know who is holding her. The treatment shown on the latest video is distressing in the extreme. For a report see Guardian

November 3 2004 ~ Geoff Hoon has astonished MPs by revealing how he was apparently kept in the dark about controversial US plans to request the redeployment of the Black Watch in Iraq. Telegraph

November 2 2004 ~ "... fears that if the vote totals were extremely close, the final result could remain muddled. Democrats and Republicans had already been swapping charges of fraud in voter registration and of plans to intimidate voters at the polls. The elections were being watched as closely as ever, even by teams of international monitors, ....." International Herald Tribune

November 2 2004 ~ Hard Weapons for Soft Targets - depleted uranium, what effects it is having.. "Basrah is in desperate need of an oncology centre. If even a few of the young children we met are dying from the allied use of radiological weapons, then the lack of medicine and pain relief created by the long years of sanctions and now occupation, compounds a most terrible crime. " by Joanne Baker, director of Child Victims of War. (See also warmwell's depleted uranium page)

November 2 2004 ~".....it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, April 18, 1946, while awaiting the Nuremberg trials.

November 2 2004 ~".....We want the UN to take a stand on the situation in Fallujah. Best wishes, in the name of the people of Fallujah, the shura council of Fallujah, the trade union association, the teachers union, and the council of tribal leaders..." Letter from Fallujah to Kofi Annan

November 2 2004 ~" ...The most frightening thing of all is that the Project for a New American Century group, which has made an internal coup in the Bush administration, ultimately has its sights on China..." Professor Juan Cole

November 2 2004 ~The (Iraqi) interim president, Ghazi al-Yawar, has told the Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas: "I completely disagree with those who see a need to decide [Falluja] through military action. The coalition's handling of this crisis is wrong. It's like someone who fired bullets at his horse's head just because a fly landed on it; the horse died and the fly went away." His remarks seemed a direct challenge to the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. " (Guardian)

November 2 2004 ~ A US citizen is among six people reported kidnapped as gunmen storm an office in central Baghdad. says the BBC

November 1 2004 ~ "You should see the mail I’ve been getting lately from our troops over there. They know how much the Iraqi people hate them. They are sitting ducks anytime they go out on the road. Many believe we are not that far away from a Tet-style offensive inside the Green Zone with hundreds of Americans and Brits killed." part of the latest email from Michael Moore to his hundreds of thousands of supporters.

November 1 2004 ~ Bin Laden's words on the video of Oct 29:"....Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real cause and thus the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred..." See transcript "It never occurred to us that the Commander in Chief of the armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone at a time when they most needed him..."

November 1 2004 ~ Iraqi toll - Guardian letter "Medact's forthcoming report, Enduring Effects of War, will also highlight how further damage to essential infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity and the health system, is likely to lead to long-term deterioration in the health of Iraqis. .... Medact endorses the Lancet's call for major independent studies by the WHO or other bodies.
Dr Elisabeth McElderry Medact"

November 1 2004 ~ Guardian "We invaded Iraq to free Iraqis from a dictator who, by some accounts, oversaw the killing of about 300,000 of his subjects - although no one has been able to verify more than a small fraction of the figure. If it is correct, it took Saddam decades to reach such a horrific statistic. The US and UK have, it seems, reached a third of that total in just 18 months.

November 1 2004 ~ Guardian "The war on Iraq has made moral cowards of us all Scott Ritter: More than 100,000 Iraqis have died - and where is our shame and rage?"

November 1 2004 ~ The killing of the deputy governor of Baghdad is the latest in a series of attacks on officials linked to Iraq's US-backed interim government. It follows a rocket attack on Sunday in the city of Tikrit, which killed at least 15 civilians and wounded eight. BBC

November 1 2004 ~ Bogeyman to scare US into condoning the destruction of Fallujah? "......the flowery language of communiqus attributed to Zarqawi, including the December letter outlining Tawhid and Jihad's plans to sow instability in Iraq -- and the recent oath of loyalty to bin Laden -- sound far too sophisticated to have been authored by Zarqawi, who is said to be an inarticulate high school dropout." Boston Globe

November 1 2004 ~ "American officials have grossly inflated the role of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the violence in Iraq in their eagerness to blame foreign terrorists for the insurgency, according to Jordanian analysts and Western diplomats...Convicts ...remember Zarqawi ... as brutal and inarticulate, dependent on others for direction.." Boston Globe

October 31 2004 ~ "One of the US Army's top procurement officers yesterday called the Bush administration's grant of multibillion-dollar contracts to oil services giant Halliburton "the worst case of contracting abuse she has ever seen". IOS

October 31 2004 ~ "Stephen Hawking, Britain's most eminent scientist, has become the latest prominent opponent of the Iraq war by agreeing to take the lead role in a ceremonial protest to coincide with the United States presidential election." IOS

October 31 2004 ~"...Last week the Bush re-election team replaced one of its campaign adverts after acknowledging that a photograph had been doctored to increase the number of soldiers appearing to listen to the president." Sunday Herald

October 31 2004 ~ A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb yesterday next to a US military convoy west of Baghdad, killing eight Marines and wounding nine. Boston Globe

October 30 2004 ~ a website called www.us-election.org allows people who are not US citizens to vote in the next American Presidential election and is filled with information about all of the candidates; it may be useful for Americans to understand how we feel about their choices.

October 30 2004 ~ "Osama bin Laden released a video tape just days before the country goes to the polls.." This is London

October 30 2004 ~".On the one hand, it is a painful reminder that Bush dropped the ball, left the fight against al-Qaeda half-finished, and ran off to the Iraq quagmire....On the other hand, because so many Americans confuse Bush's swagger and aggressive instincts with being "strong on terrorism," any big reminder that al-Qaeda is out there could actually help W. It shouldn't, but it may well." Read Juan Cole today

October 30 2004 ~ "..Two months after 9/11, late November 2001, Bush distracted our top military commanders from the hunt for Bin Laden with rushed plans for a new war in Iraq. This shifted their focus at a critical moment, when we had Osama cornered at Tora Bora. The facts now show that it helped Bin Laden escape. The details are all public information, but the story never got out. Until now." See Topdog04.com

October 30 2004 ~ "... Mr Bush put himself among dangerous — in Mr Cheney’s case very dangerous — men. The so-called War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq involved stunning errors of analysis and execution. But democracy’s antibodies will emerge to rectify them. No foreign policy can be based on myth for ever.." As usual, Simon Jenkins (The Times) writes a clear, humane analysis.

October 29 2004 ~ The first Black Watch soldier has been killed . Roger writes, "One dead already. " Road accident ". How can you have a road accident in the middle of a massive desert ? ....."

October 29 2004 ~ "...something has obviously gone badly wrong at the apex of power in the UK. .. In the late 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost ...also exposed himself to fundamental public criticism... George W Bush and Tony Blair over Iraq and Vladimir Putin over Chechnya have gone the other way by restricting and distorting information available to their electorates....Blair used Alastair Campbell to bully the BBC as a way of diverting attention from the ghastly mess he and Bush had made in the Middle East. In a democratic system, it is time for the PM, whose quasi-apology was an insult to the public, to pay the final price."
Robert Service, Stalin's biographer, finds some surprising parallels between the PM and the Soviet tyrant. The Dictator of Downing Street Important reading

October 29 2004 ~ "There will be a massive onslaught of firepower on Fallujah and Ramadi and hundreds will die. But this time, they intend to finish the job so elections can take place there in the New Year. The timing - a week before the US elections - is supposed to be coincidental but draw your own conclusions.." Jon Snow's Channel 4 update.

October 29 2004 ~ Squaddies criticise American forces for 'ruining things' - Independent "..despite the pledge by Colonel James Bashall, chief of staff of the British-led Multinational Division in Iraq, many soldiers are upset. .."

October 29 2004 ~ "Not a word suggests that the American onslaught on the population of Iraq was and is systematically atrocious, of which the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was merely a glimpse. The coming atrocity in the city of Fallujah, in which British troops, against the wishes of the British people, are to be accessories, is a case in point. For American politicians and journalists - there are a few honourable exceptions - the US marines are preparing for another of their "battles". ..." Will there be a war against the world after November 2? by John Pilger is essential reading today

October 28 2004 ~ Iraqi Officials Deny Early Disappearance of Explosives Dr. Muhammad Sharaa who leads Iraq's science monitoring department, denies that the 380 tons of high explosives that has gone missing could have been moved in spring of 2003 before or during the war. AFP reports:

October 28 2004 ~A militant Islamist group today calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades claimed to be in possession of some of the missing explosives - and would use them if foreign troops threaten Iraqi cities. The statement said they had been taken while the al-Qaqaa facility had been under the protection of the American forces." See Guardian

October 28 2004 ~ "one form of tyranny has been replaced by another. Bombs, kidnappings and shortages have turned their lives upside down.." says Kim Sengupta in the Independent

October 28 2004 ~"The function of intelligence is to speak truth unto power. If it doesn't do that, it fails and I felt somebody had to speak up for intelligence standards. I did that. I got sacked and I don't regret it for a moment.".....John Morrison in the Guardian

October 28 2004 ~ Bush has fallen victim to his own hubris "...the people's own mobilisation has produced new voter registrations in the millions, and hundreds of thousands of activists have spread in the last week throughout the battleground states. The Republicans desperately cast out ploys to suppress these voters, many of them African-American. In the end, the American people refuse to be frightened into becoming an unrecognisable nation that disdains, as the Declaration of Independence said, "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind". Sidney Blumenthal today in the Guardian. Read in full

October 27 2004 ~ Did the government and the MOD send untrained soldiers to Iraq in order to hide their political intentions? " .. Army chiefs wanted the training for the Army to start at the beginning of December 2002. However, due to "sensitivities" the training was delayed. ..."Because ... If the UK had mobilised while all this was going on that would have shown an intent before the political process had been allowed to run its course." Independent

October 27 2004 ~ Washington Post "..insurgents made a new threat of nationwide attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces "with weapons and military tactics they have not experienced before" if American forces try to storm the militant stronghold of Fallujah. .."

October 27 2004 ~An Amnesty International report criticises the US over its treatment of prisoners during the war on terror BBC

October 26 2004 ~ "We will stay in Iraq for as long as we are invited to do so." says Adam Ingram.
Peter Kilfoyle "To ask the Prime Minister how often the full Cabinet has considered the committal of extra troops to Iraq." As usual Mr Blair's answers to Parliamentary Questions on Iraq are so obscure as to be meaningless. Andrew Turner's and Glenda Jackson's attempts to get clarity and truth are also in this Hansard extract

October 26 2004 ~ Juan Cole writes, "Helena Cobban at Just World News insightfully analyses last Friday's Shiite sermons in Iraq, showing the ways in which the clergy are threatening Shiites with hellfire if they don't vote.
I pretty much feel that way about Democrats who don't vote in 8 days."

October 26 2004 ~ Pentagon Probes Halliburton's Iraq Contracts - Washington Post

October 26 2004 ~ "...the director of the IAEA, is said to be "extremely concerned" about the "potentially devastating consequences" of the vanished explosives.... "The coalition was responsible" for looking after the weapons, an IAEA spokeswoman said. "We had hoped that they would be protected." .... Agency officials denied suggestions that the IAEA director had been under pressure from the administration to keep the news quiet until after the presidential election next Tuesday..." Read Independent report in full

October 26 2004 ~ "Allawi has ordered an urgent investigation into whether information was leaked to the insurgents who ambushed the unescorted convoy and why the young soldiers were unarmed, said the source, who asked not to be named. America's top enemy in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for what is one of the worst attacks on Iraq's new security forces..." Reuters

October 26 2004 ~ However, Arab News asks Zarqawi the Terror Monster: But Does He Really Exist? "Zarqawi is a semi-literate former petty thief with a low IQ,” says Husam Ghassen, a Jordanian ex-militant who knew the fugitive in the 199