NB
CEIP = Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
IASPS = (Israeli-based) Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies
NPR = (US) National Public Radio
PBS = (US) Public Broadcasting Service
PNAC = Project for the New American Century

Other...

CBS The Japan Times The Telegraph, Calcutta Toronto Sun Sunday Herald (Scotland) Belfast Telegraph (IraqCrisis home page)

www.tompaine.com www.antiwar.com Common dreams .org www.drudgereport.com

Thurs 14.08.03
Global Eye -- Dark Passage
By Chris Floyd
"Not since "Mein Kampf" has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow.

"Adolf Hitler clearly spelled out his plans to destroy the Jews and launch wars of conquest to secure German domination of world affairs in his 1925 book, long before he ever assumed power. Despite the zigzags of rhetoric he later employed, the various PR spins and temporary justifications offered for this or that particular policy, any attentive reader of his vile regurgitation could have divined his intentions as he drove his country -- and the world -- to murderous upheaval. ... " www.informationclearinghouse.info

The president's real goal in Iraq
(by Jay Bookman, also in www.informationclearinghouse.info)

Kelly: No 10 exaggerated the case for war
Richard Norton-Taylor and Vikram Dodd
"The government would not have convinced the public of the need for war against Iraq without exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, its own leading expert believed.
"David Kelly made the devastating claim in a taped conversation with a BBC journalist revealed yesterday at the Hutton inquiry ... " Guardian Special Report: Kelly

Weds 13.08.03
Inquiry blow for BBC
Newsnight reporter Susan Watts's evidence to the Hutton inquiry today offered little comfort to her colleague Andrew Gilligan and employer, the BBC. Not only did she deny that David Kelly had told her that Alastair Campbell had been involved in "transforming the weapons dossier" but she also accused BBC bosses of attempting to "mould" her stories so they collaborated Mr Gilligan's Today programme reports. Guardian Special Report: Kelly

Mon 11.08.03
I don't trust Mr Blair or the Hutton inquiry
"My patience is exhausted. I don't trust Mr Blair or the Hutton inquiry Something is rotten in the state of Britain and this time it is a Labour Prime Minister who is responsible

"The Hutton inquiry into the death of the scientist David Kelly begins today. The judge is an independent, honourable man and for the family and friends of Dr Kelly this is obviously an essential process that will hopefully nail the people,who they say hounded Dr Kelly to commit suicide. But for me and almost everyone I know - Black, Asian, Muslim and white Britons - this is not the story nor the inquiry that will give us the answers to the questions we seek. Quite the opposite in fact. The investigation that may result in high-profile resignations will be used only to keep Tony Blair in the life he and his wife have grown to love rather too well. ... " Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in Independent

Fake piety is no way to show respect
Roy Hattersley Guardian: Special Report on Kelly

Thurs 31.07.03
There is a veneer of normality about life in the new Iraq...   But America's failure to deliver on its promises has triggered a spiral of murderous anarchy that threatens to become an epic tragedy, by Robert Fisk Independent

Refugees begin tentative return to violent Iraq (also Robert Fisk in Independent)

Weds 30.07.03
Blair's lack of courage
If Britain had held out for UN control of Iraq, we wouldn't be bogged down in a bloody occupation, writes Clare Short
" ... The advice that I, and the Department for International Development, gave to the prime minister was that we should internationalise the reconstruction effort as quickly as possible. This was based on our experience in East Timor, Kosovo and Afghanistan, and also on our understanding of international law. I was delighted when the attorney general provided clear legal advice on the limitation of the authority of occupying powers, which strongly reinforced the case we were making." The Guardian

Tues 29.07.03
America is a religion (by Monbiot)
" ... American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons. The people who reconstructed the faces of Uday and Qusay Hussein carelessly forgot to restore the pair of little horns on each brow, but the understanding that these were opponents from a different realm was transmitted nonetheless. Like all those who send missionaries abroad, the high priests of America cannot conceive that the infidels might resist through their own free will; if they refuse to convert, it is the work of the devil, in his current guise as the former dictator of Iraq. ... " The Guardian

Fri 25.07.03
On the plains, Kurds and Arabs clash in the most dangerous flashpoint of all
"... For decades Kurds in northern Iraq under government control were an underclass, forbidden to hold jobs in the oilfields or even farm their lands. Arabs brought from other parts of Iraq lived in settlements built on the ruins of their villages. Some 300,000 Kurds were expelled or forced to flee.
"Now within a couple of weeks the balance of power has been reversed. It is the Kurds who are on the offensive and the Arabs who remain on sufferance. The result is a murderous ethnic conflict which will go on long after the Anglo-American war to remove Saddam Hussein is over."
IraqCrisis home page for Belfast Telegraph

Ten Questions for Cheney
"Dear Mr. Vice President: While it has been widely reported that the President made a false assertion in his State of the Union address concerning unsubstantiated intelligence that Iraq purchased uranium from Niger, your own role in the dissemination of that disinformation has not been explained by you or the White House. ... "
from Reps. Kucinich, Maloney and Sanders, members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
www.tompaine.com

Sun 20.07.03
U.S. Plans to Enlist Iraqis in Operations
"U.S. military commanders plan to train and arm thousands of Iraqis to conduct military missions alongside U.S. and British troops in an effort to restore security and quell resistance by forces loyal to ousted president Saddam Hussein... " Washington Post

Sat 19.07.03
MILITARY MORALE HITS BOTTOM IN IRAQ
While War Party proclaims 'colonialist consensus' at home
A conquered country needs to stay conquered, and that requires an occupation; we'll be in Iraq anywhere from 5 to 10 years, according to the experts and influential members of Congress. It is also going to require a lot more troops. But American soldiers are trained to win wars, not to baby-sit restive natives. Imperialism goes against the grain of the American character, as vociferously expressed by one of the military wives, Rhonda Vega of Hinesville, Georgia, who told a national TV audience... www.antiwar.com
Also from www.antiwar.com... "Soldiers shut up"

Thurs 17.07.03
Sixty-five percent of Iraqis polled in Baghdad claimed they want the U.S. military to stay ...
CBS

Britain has lost its sovereignty to the United States David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian
Pope on International Law (Reuters through Yahoo News)

Sat 07.06.03
Why did he do it?
Clare Short resumes battle with Tony Blair after reading the Guardian's book on Iraq, The War We Could Not Stop Guardian Book Reviews

Weds 04.06.03
Al-Jazeera TV chief sacked

Sun 23.03.03 Iraqi invasion one week on
This is the reality of war. We bomb. They suffer.
Veteran war reporter Robert Fisk tours the Baghdad hospital to see the wounded after a devastating night of air strikes. Independent: commentators

January 26, 1998: Rumsfeld et al to Clinton (about PNAC)

Do you trust George Bush to run the war? (Johann Hari)
'We are risking a gulf between the West and the Islamic world'
Politics: Robin Cook, in his first major interview since resigning, tells why he had to go.
Blow for Short in battle with Pentagon
Special report: the anti-war movement
Anti-War resource page

Tues 18.03.03 Start of Iraqi invasion (day after)
Things to Come
"The members of the Bush team don't seem bothered by the enormous ill will they have generated in the rest of the world. They seem to believe that other countries will change their minds once they see cheering Iraqis welcome our troops, or that our bombs will shock and awe the whole world (not just the Iraqis) or that what the world thinks doesn't matter. They're wrong on all counts." (NY Times Opinion)

Russia and France angered by end of diplomacy (Guardian Iraq page)
Short remains as resignations mount (Guardian Politics Iraq page)
War in Iraq a crime, says Vatican (The Australian)
US to win a Pyrrhic victory (Asia Times Middle East page)
Contradictory visions of American power (also Asia Times Middle East page)

Dollar Dethroned as Top Saving Tool (Moscow Times)
Bush Playing Iraqi Roulette (also Moscow Times)

Mon 17.03.03 Start of Iraqi invasion

Cook resigns from cabinet (The Guardian)
Cook resigns from cabinet over Iraq (Politics Guardian)
Without wholehearted public assent ... (Independent Argument)
PUSHED INTO WAR BY LIARS AND CHEATS (Mirror)
Cook wins Commons ovation BBC
Israel's Secret Weapon (also) BBC

Description of various anti-war rallies MSNBC.com
Common dreams .org
"If I die, it's for the U.S...not the freakin' world" (www.drudgereport.com)

Run-up to the war

Sun 16.03.03
Guardian: Special report Iraq
Health minister: 'I was wrong to vote for war. To choose party loyalty was immoral'
The split in senior Labour ranks over war in Iraq was blown wide open yesterday with an astonishing U-turn by health minister Malcolm Chisholm, who now 'bitterly regrets' his previous support for the party leadership's policy. (Sunday Herald (Scotland))
Ted Hondrich: Security one week. Morality the next. It's enough to turn the stomach (Independent)
Final play in Blair's diplomatic gamble (The Observer )

Is Tony Blair crazy, or just plain stupid?
By - ERIC MARGOLIS - Contributing Foreign Editor
Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, proposed a "compromise" last week to the deadlocked UN Security Council: President Saddam Hussein of Iraq should go on TV and admit he had weapons of mass destruction and had committed other transgressions.
Blair's offer, reeking of mock sincerity, was clearly crafted to dampen down a storm of Labour party criticism over his sycophantic support of President George Bush's impending crusade against the Saracens of Iraq. But it was an offer Iraq was certain to reject, thus ending diplomacy and opening the way to war. (Toronto Sun)

Rumblings of War
By DER SPIEGEL... "Enticements, threats, bribes - the U.S. wants to force a majority in the Security Council to vote in favor of war against Iraq. The struggle for power at the U.N. is moving toward a decision - How much credibility will the parliament of nations still have after that? A chronology of the battle of the diplomats." (New York Times)

Sat 15.03.03
The case against war: A conflict driven by the self-interest of America
by Robert Fisk
"Israeli and US ambitions in the region are now entwined, almost synonymous. This war is about oil and regional control. It is being cheer-led by a draft-dodger who is treacherously telling us that this is part of an eternal war against "terror". And the British and most Europeans don't believe him. It's not that Britons wouldn't fight for America. They just don't want to fight for Bush or his friends. And if that includes the Prime Minister, they don't want to fight for Blair either." www.robert-fisk.com
also note the Israeli-based IASPS's "New Strategy for Securing the Realm"

Hurd against war (Daily Mirror)

Friday 14.03.03
'Chirac has the moral high ground'
Marc Roche..."The French president's desire for a peaceful solution surely gives him the moral high ground against the Anglo-American warmongers. And it must be frustrating for Mr Blair to see that it is Mr Chirac who reflects and represents the large anti-war sentiment in Britain, particularly within his own party." (Guardian)
Cook grills PM on war but Short holds her peace
Robin Cook, the leader of the Commons, yesterday gave colleagues the impression that he is now the leading candidate to quit the cabinet if Britain goes to war against Iraq without a new UN resolution.
... The Labour chairman ... also rounded on Labour's left, saying: "If some people took themselves out of the television studios and did some party meetings they'd discover what was really going on." (Guardian)
Prime Monster (Mirror)
NORMAN: CRIMINAL THAT BLAIR WILL MAKE HISTORY (Mirror)

from... The Japan Times
U.N. still a valuable forum
By HUGH CORTAZZI...
"Political leaders of states represented on the U.N. Security Council, whether they are for a war on Iraq or against, have been arguing that unless their views prevail the U.N. will lose credibility. This is not necessarily the case."
9/11 gave life to U.S. imperial ambitions
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY
NEW DELHI -- As U.S. President George W. Bush readies a war on Iraq without any direct provocation, the United States faces international opprobrium and isolation. Rarely before has the U.S. risked its future international role and image on a huge strategic gamble untied to the protection of its vital interests.

Weds 12.03.03
TARGET PRACTICE (The Telegraph, Calcutta)
One geographically crucial EU member, Austria, told the Americans last week that it would not allow US troops proceeding to Iraq for an attack to pass through its soil. Nor would it allow any US plane to use its air space as part of the war preparations. Austria is geographically crucial for these preparations because the Alpine passes are the quickest route for the large number of US troops stationed in Germany to be moved east, if and when necessary.

Monday 10.03.03
Thank the Yank
Comment: When he was elected, the US president had no interest in global intervention. Four planes smashed that policy to smithereens and made the moral case for war to bring down the Iraqi dictatorship, writes David Aaronovitch. (The Observer)