You know we live in unusual times when the French accuse the Americans of acting arrogantly in Iraq, and the Germans refuse to fight.

And here is one more sign: The anti-globalization movement may have the best insight yet when it comes to recovery in Iraq. The anarchists and the mini-hippies, who regularly crowd the streets of Washington and other capitols in search of something to protest, are fairly consistent in one demand at least: They want Third World debt relief. So does the European Union, which has lobbied vigorously at the United Nations and the World Bank for the crushing debt of Third World countries to be lifted.

Debt relief, that's it. Whatever else the Iraqis need, and the list is long, they most certainly need debt relief. Billions of dollars are owed in French, German and Russian debts that could cripple the Iraqi economy irreparably were repayment demanded of the new Iraqi government.

So, let's give the new government a clean slate, and let's do it in the spirit of multilateralism. This is an opportunity not to be missed by those who pretend to be speaking on behalf of the developing world. It is a wonderful chance for these great champions of the Iraqi people to put their money where their mouth is.

In the weeks leading up to war in Iraq actors Martin Sheen, Mike Farrell, Sean Penn and Janeane Garofalo joined a cast of thousands in a fierce Hollywood resistance played out in protest marches and from the sofas of television talk shows.

But with the war in its waning hours, all is quiet on the western coast -- leading conservatives to suggest that Garofalo and her fellow travelers are in full retreat from a public backlash and feeling chastened by a swift American victory.
...
"What's the point of me saying anything right now, while they're in the end zone doing the dance and spiking the football?" Farrell said. "They are going to do the thing they are going to do, but we'll be heard from when it's appropriate and in the manner that is appropriate."
...
Farrell said that the ability of U.S. troops to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in relatively short order has not softened his opposition to the war.

"An illegal war is an illegal war no matter what the result. We'll never know now what could have been achieved through peaceful means."

Prof. Howard Suber, founding director of UCLA's film and television producer's program, said the eerie silence from Hollywood was to be expected once American troops were on the ground in Iraq.

"It's one thing to oppose the war and it's another thing entirely to appear that you are supporting the enemy," Suber said.

» Yahoo! News - Eerie Silence in Hollywood as Anti-War Stars Vanish

Supporters mark Saddam's birthday By Sonia Bakaric in Tikrit

SUPPORTERS in the hometown and last bastion of Saddam Hussein have declared their loyalty to the toppled tyrant on his 66th birthday.

While, some portraits have been torn down and statues smashed, slogans such as "Happy Birthday, Saddam Hussein" and "Saddam, we love you" could be seen in the city today.
...
"He was the only Arab leader to say how much he hated Israel. We won't let Iraq become another Palestine."

Another former soldier agreed: "Saddam is irreplaceable."

He said it was Saddam who "gave us everything, life, security, and stability".

"We will beat the Americans."

Mohammed Hassan, another former fighter, claimed he was "ready to bring together 1000 soldiers to attack the Americans for Saddam".
...
Asked about Saddam's disappearance, one old man replied aggressively before turning on his heels: "Who says he disappeared? We just don't know where he is, but he will come back to save us."

» The Australian: Supporters mark Saddam's birthday [April 28, 2003]

BAGHDAD Not yet three weeks after U.S. troops seized the heart of Baghdad and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is a country poised agonizingly between its past and its future.

There is widespread gratitude to the United States for ending the brutal dictatorship of Saddam, though it is not always easy to hear that through the cacophony of voices.

For the moment, the stage is held mainly by militant Shiite clerics demanding an Islamic republic; by ambitious carpetbaggers returning from long exile abroad to seek an instant ride to power; by members of the old government hoping to align themselves with the new power brokers; and most persuasively, by ordinary Iraqis whose daily lives were upended when the old system collapsed.
...
There are people, especially at moments of frustration and anger, who say that things were better under Saddam, that his straitjacket of fear was better than the chaos that followed the arrival of U.S. troops.

But catch the same people at less stressful moments, in the quiet of their homes, and they will say that they waited long years for the end of the dictatorship, that only America had the power to end it, and that what they want now is what they expected from America: a civil society based on Western-style freedoms, but also Western-style security for the individual and the family.

After nearly 24 years of misery under Saddam, Iraqis have had little time to taste life without him. There have been days of exhilaration and hope, but also of disappointment and despair. Day by day, the country stumbles forward, the trust in America and its promises still alive, but eroding. What follows are glimpses of the lives of just a handful of ordinary Iraqis, captured at random Saturday, each suggesting something of the frustrations, but also the yearnings, of a people whose lives America has turned upside down. - John F. Burns

» Short of basics (and of temper), Iraqis grope their way forward

WASHINGTON - No Iraqi prisoners will be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention center that holds Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday.

At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld said administration lawyers had not yet decided whether any of the dozen or so senior Iraqi officials being held by allied forces will face criminal charges. Some could be tried in U.S., international or Iraqi courts, although he said a U.S. venue is "not our first choice." That decision will be President Bush's, he said.
...
The defense secretary said allied forces in Iraq are holding about 7,000 people. He said officials are making it a priority to release any prisoners deemed to hold little value for interrogators seeking information about Iraq's weapons programs, its prisoner-of-war records or the whereabouts of deposed President Saddam Hussein.

A couple of hundred Iraqi prisoners are being released each day, he said.

Rumsfeld also accused Iran of being behind a Shiite movement to form a nondemocratic Islamic government in Iraq.

"There's no question but that the government of Iran has encouraged people to go into (Iraq), and they have people in the country attempting to influence the country," Rumsfeld said.

He disputed assertions by some that most Iraqis want American forces to leave now.

Most Iraqis, he said, want the U.S. and coalition forces to help restore order and basic services like water, food, electricity. "They want the coalition to help to provide stability and security, as Iraqis form an interim authority and eventually choose a free Iraqi government," Rumsfeld said. "And then they will want us to leave, to be sure. And that's what we would want as well."

» Yahoo! News - Rumsfeld: Iraq Prisoners Won't Go to Cuba

...gone are the obvious signs of public unrest which saw up to 100,000 demonstrators take to the streets in mid-February as the international focus fell on the need (or not) for a second resolution endorsing a war against Iraq.

Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind.

Several days ago, in a leafy, affluent suburb of Paris, one British resident was accosted by an angry Frenchman with the words: "English killers!"

This incident appears isolated with the focus of French anger not the citizens of Britain and the US, but the administrations.

As the coalition forces advanced in Iraq, the British Embassy in Paris received a steady stream of almost exclusively negative emails and letters. There was a particularly outraged response to the Sun newspaper's portrayal of the French President, Jacques Chirac, as a worm.

Embassy spokesman Richard Morgan identifies two key moments that turned the tide. One was a photograph carried by Le Figaro of a helmetless female British soldier atop a tank in Basra, which seemed to typify the UK forces' ability to deal more sensitively with Iraqi civilians than their American counterparts.

The other was the desecration of a British WWI cemetery near Boulogne at the end of March.

"People thought that was one step far too far," Mr Morgan said. "We got all kinds of letters of sympathy then saying, whatever we think about the war in Iraq doesn't mean that we are in any way ungrateful - so that started to balance out much more."

&raquo BBC NEWS | Europe | Anti-war anger simmers in Paris

It was meant to be a straightforward job: check out one of Saddam Hussein's prisons and try to find relatives of some of the thousands of Iraqis who have gone missing during the dictator's brutal regime.

Instead we found something a bit more disturbing than that.
...
Questioning the troops, it becomes clear that none of them have the slightest idea of the nature of the place they have come to.

To them it is just a set of co-ordinates on the map, another objective on their inexorable march across this battered and bruised country.

I patiently tell the commanding officer, Colonel Ford, about the reputation Abu Ghreib had - "Abu what?" - in the days when Saddam Hussein's secret police could just whisk Iraqi citizens off to oblivion at the slightest hint of troublemaking.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Six Iraqi scientists working at different Baghdad research institutions were ordered to destroy some bacteria and equipment and hide more in their homes before visits from U.N. weapons inspectors in the months leading up to the war, the scientists told The Associated Press.

In separate interviews, all of the scientists said they were involved in civilian research projects and none knew of any programs for weapons of mass destruction. It was not clear why their materials, ostensibly for nonmilitary research, were ordered destroyed.

But their accounts indicate the government of Saddam Hussein may have had advance knowledge of at least some of the inspectors' visits, as the United States suspected, and that the former Iraqi regime was deeply concerned about any material that could raise the suspicion of U.N. experts.
...
But the professor and other scientists said orders came from Ameer's office, through the department chairman, to hide and destroy materials when the inspectors were on their way.

"The chairman told us not to answer questions from any inspectors, to go to the cafeteria and stay there until they left," the professor said. "They were afraid. What they were afraid of, I don't know."

President Bush claimed during his State of the Union address that Iraqi spies had penetrated the U.N. inspections. While some inspectors privately suspect as much, none of the inspection teams found any firm evidence to support the president's claim.

&raquo Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - Middle East - Iraqis: We Were Told to Destroy Bacteria

Over the last few days, the sense of exuberance among the Iraqi Shia has been palpable.

Under Saddam Hussein, many of their public symbols and rituals were banned.

Now long pent-up feelings and long-suppressed political views are tumbling out into the open.

Comprising some 60% of all Iraqis but long ruled by a Sunni elite, the Shia have long felt themselves to be an underclass.
...
Najaf is still trying to recover from the violent events of 10 April, when a prominent cleric, Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, who had recently returned from exile in London, was killed in circumstances which are still far from clear.

Among the activists, three main trends are apparent:
The Daawa party
Sciri
The Sadr group

As we consider how to shape our legacy in Iraq, it's worth taking a peek at Kuwaiti cereal boxes.

Special K is sold in Kuwait, but every box has a piece of white paper pasted over an image of a young woman exercising.

It's not a sexy image, unless you've spent a month in the desert alone with a herd of camels, but it's still considered too explosive for Kuwaitis to handle.
For that matter, women themselves are still too much for Kuwait to handle.

Twelve years after Americans lost their lives to liberate Kuwait, women still don't have the vote.

As for men, they can vote, but most political power is still firmly in the hands of the ruling Sabah family.

Meanwhile, religious fundamentalism has been on the rise, with more women wearing the veil, and for the past few years even university classes have been segregated by sex.

U.S. military officials say they believe the capture of Saddam Hussein's finance minister may lead them to billions of dollars the Iraqi dictator is believed to have stashed overseas.

Military spokesmen for the U.S. Central Command said Saturday that Hikmat Ibrahim al-Azzawi was taken into custody after he was arrested by Iraqi police. Mr. al-Azzawi is the latest of the coalition's list of 55 "most wanted" Iraqis to be captured. Saddam himself remains missing and unaccounted for.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says conditions for civilians in Iraq are at a crucial stage, and measures must be taken quickly to re-establish safety and public order. The Red Cross is urging U.S. forces to restore electricity, water and other essential services to Baghdad.

The first major post-war convoy of food aid headed toward Baghdad from Jordan Saturday.

More aid may also start flowing soon from southern Iraq, where the British military says it has reopened a rail link between the city of Basra and Iraq's only deep-water port, Umm Qasr

» VOANews.com: Iraqi Prisoner Could Aid Hunt for Saddam's Cash

Less than 10 days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, thousands of Iraqis marched in downtown Baghdad on Friday to demand a rapid U.S. troop withdrawal and a prominent opposition leader said he expects Americans to relinquish most government functions within weeks.
...
The debate over Saddam's fate was rekindled with the appearance of a videotape said to show him and an audio tape said to contain his recorded message. At the same time, an Iraqi ambassador said he believes the man who ruled Iraq for nearly a quarter century is dead.

"I know his character," said Sami Sadoun, a longtime regime official who most recently has been envoy to Serbia-Montenegro. "He must have been killed, or everything would not have collapsed so quickly," he said in an interview with The Associated Press
...
"Everything is calming down. We haven't had enemy contact in four days," said a Marine spokesman in the capital, Staff Sgt. John Jamison. Yet the Ministry of Information Building was on fire at midday, apparently set ablaze by looters.

American forces also struggled to restore power to the city of roughly 5 million that has been without electricity for two weeks. "Without power, there is no peace," said Haifa Aziz, manager of a power substation. "For hospitals, for schools, for the people, they need electricity."

Thousands marched through the city's downtown, urged on by an imam at Holy Day prayers.

"No to America, no to Saddam," they shouted, and called for unity among Iraq's Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and Kurds. Some carried banners in Arabic and English. "Leave our country. We want peace," read one.

Inside the mosque, Sheik Ahmed al-Kubeisy addressed his remarks to Americans. "You are masters today. But I warn you against thinking of staying. Get out before we force you out," he said.

» Iraqis Rally to Demand Swift U.S. Pullout (washingtonpost.com)

The people below could be key figures in post-Saddam Iraq.

Lt Gen Jay Garner: A retired officer, who helped to set up the Kurdish safe haven after the last Gulf war.

Lt Gen Garner is currently in Kuwait preparing to establish what is being called the IIA (Iraqi interim authority). The plan is for the IIA to take over after what is supposed to be a 90-day period of US military rule.

Ahmed Chalabi: Hopes to be the new leader of Iraq. Has support at the Pentagon but also has powerful enemies elsewhere in Washington, London and Iraq.

Heads the main opposition group, the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC). Mr Chalabi is an urbane British-educated 57-year-old former banker who has spent 30 years in exile.

Casualties: Among U.S. troops, 125 dead 36 of these have been classified as accidents, and three missing. Among British troops, 31 dead 16 have been classified as accidental.

U.S. POWs freed: Eight.

Deployed: More than 300,000 allied troops are in the region, with about 255,000 from the United States and 45,000 from Britain, 2,000 Australian troops, 400 Czech and Slovak, and 200 Polish. About 140,000 of the coalition troops are inside Iraq.

Timeline: Wednesday was the 28th day of fighting. The war began on March 20 in Iraq.
...
Aid: Jordan sent Iraq 11 trucks of medical supplies and 50 trucks carrying flour donated by the World Food Program; the Spanish Red Cross sent 12,000 blankets; the United States flew in more than 38,000 ready-to-eat meals; Bahrain donated nearly 5 tons of clothes to hospitals.

Refugees: At the height of the fighting, an estimated 300,000 Iraqis fled into northern Iraq. All but about 3,000 have returned home.

Cost: The Pentagon's estimated cost for the Iraq war so far is $20 billion dollars.

» Boston.com / Latest News / World / Numbers and estimates from Iraq

The Pentagon raised on Wednesday the number of U.S. troops killed in the war against Iraq to 125, an increase of two from the previous day.

A total of 107 of the troops were killed in combat and 18 died from incidents such as accidents, the Pentagon said.

The number of wounded U.S. troops held steady at 495 and three were listed as missing.

» Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

It is not difficult to find a statue of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit, the town of a thousand Saddams. There is the equestrian statue of Saddam - sword in hand - in Tikrit's main square. Then there are numerous other Saddams - in linen suits, military uniforms, and wearing Arab headdresses.
Outside Tikrit's football stadium there is even a mural of a paternal Saddam,with his arm round his elder son Uday.

As you drive into town there is Saddam again - this time liberating Jerusalem from the back of a white horse. Yesterday, however, the man himself was nowhere to be seen, as American troops drove nonchalantly into his hometown, encountering little resistance.

Just before dawn US light armoured vehicles that had raced up from Baghdad arrived at Tikrit's main bridge. On the other side Kurdish forces advanced through the town's eastern suburbs. Three Cobra helicopter gunships circled above the shimmering blue Tigris river, against the majestic backdrop of Saddam's presidential guesthouse.

It was a moment of sheer Hollywood, with more than a hint of Apocalypse Now. It took a while before anybody noticed that the war in Iraq had just ended.

What cannot now be disguised, as U.S. marines swagger around the Iraqi capital swathing toppled statues of Saddam Hussein with the stars and stripes and declaring 'We own Baghdad,' is the crudely colonial nature of this enterprise," wrote Seumas Milne, a columnist in The Guardian, the leftist British daily.

Mr. Milne's comment, in a newspaper that rarely misses a chance to cast the United States in a negative light, was an especially virulent and hostile expression of a view that has become common in recent days.

That view, which Mr. Milne shares with many other commentators and government officials, is that the war in Iraq confirms the status of the United States as no longer just a superpower, but an unambiguously imperial power. It is seen as a country that uses its might to establish dominion over much of the rest of the world, as Rome once did, or as Britain did in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Many Americans will quarrel with that view, convinced not just of the absence of any American ambition to control foreign territory but persuaded by the Bush administration's assurance that power in Iraq will be turned over to Iraqis as swiftly as possible. It is not generally part of the American self-conception to associate the United States or even the Pax Americana with the great empires of the past.

But elsewhere in the world, the United States is being seen in a new way, as the latest -- and perhaps most powerful -- of the imperialist powers that bestrode the globe over the centuries. As evidence, critics cite not just the sudden collapse of Iraqi resistance, but the stunning American military triumphs in recent years, in Afghanistan, Kosovo and in the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

It is believed to be the Garden of Eden, the mythic place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join, the cradle of mankind where Adam came to pray to God.

Today it is a desolate wasteland of excrement, cracked paving stones and bullet holes. The eucalyptus known as Adam's tree, a place of holy pilgrimage for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, stands bleached and dead.
...
"Every generation was taught that this was the true Garden of Eden and this was Adam's tree, the place where he first spoke to God. Now, as you can see for yourself, it is ruined, there is no respect, no humanity, no..."

He struggled for the words. "No loving or kindness."

Whether you believe the holy tradition or not, Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent between the watery junction of Euphrates and the Tigris, was home to the first modern man.

It was here that the alphabet was invented and our days divided into 24 hours. It was here where the first epic poems were composed to hand down our collective history, and where we learned how to cultivate crops.

In a series of three articles the editor-in-chief of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, criticized the Arab media coverage of the war. The following are excerpt from the articles: 'Slow Down, Media of 1967'

"... when we examine the Arab media, [we find] that little has changed since the previous century. It seems as if today's wars are no different than those of forty years ago. At that time, the Arab media jumped ahead of the Arab armies by making false predictions. They assumed that publishing a headline about downing 100 Israeli warplanes in the war of 1967 would build self-confidence and may even come true in the future. However, those who doze off and wake up in front of Arab TV will not forgive the [Arab] media [for] its lies when the smoke clears up and the truth is seen in full."
...
"I know that adopting an impartial stand in the [Arab] media world is akin to suicide, because there are many who push the media into extremes, and take 'nationalistic' positions, and maintain that whoever thinks differently is committing treason against the [national] cause. [They maintain] that lying for the sake of the cause is moral and honorable. The Arab media [of today], in these hard times, is slowly turning into the 1967 media; at that time, radio announcers, analysts, and journalists exaggerated acts of courage and covered up defeats, which - historically - became a mockery."

Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief.
...
We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Revelers in Saddam City in eastern Baghdad took to the streets Wednesday -- just days ago under the grip of Saddam Hussein's regime -- looting government buildings and cheering American forces.

Video from the scene showed jubilant Iraqis chanting, "There is only one God, and the enemy of God is Saddam Hussein."

CNN's Rula Amin, who has spent years as a journalist in Iraq and is now in Jordan, spoke with CNN anchor Carol Costello about the demonstrations and fears of anarchy in Baghdad.

RULA AMIN: It's a very astonishing scene.

Residents of Saddam City have been waiting for this moment, but I don't know how much faith they had that it would come.

All the signs are saying that [Saddam's] regime is collapsing. But the U.S. is cautioning that this is not over yet.

However, residents of Saddam City seemed to have made up their minds: It's over. Saddam Hussein no longer matters. And his security forces don't matter any more.

That's why they are on the streets, cheering his fall, cheering the fall of the ruling Baath Party, welcoming U.S. troops and saying 'thank you' to President Bush.

This is a very expected welcome from these people, specifically. Saddam City is a very large, poor, overpopulated neighborhood of mostly Shiite Iraqis.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Arabs watched in disbelief on Wednesday as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, described by one Moroccan as the Arab world's "best dictator," lost Baghdad to U.S.-led forces without a fight.

"It's like a movie. I can't believe what I'm seeing," said Adel, a lawyer in Beirut. "Why didn't he just give up to start with if this was all the resistance he could muster? Instead of wasting all those lives for nothing."
...
"It seemed that Iraqis were all with Saddam, now it looks like many didn't like him. Maybe those destroying the statue are rebels against Saddam's rule," engineer Magdy Tawfiq said as he watched Saddam's statue being toppled by a U.S. tank.

But security guard Waleed Tawfiq said he still did not believe Saddam was out. "I will be upset if it turns out Saddam has lost power. He tried to defend his land. If he is dead he will be a martyr."

WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- To millions of Western viewers, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is the comic relief in the Iraqi tragedy. He is the porter in "Macbeth"; the grave digger in "Hamlet." His comments provide a backdrop of gallows humor as the Saddam Hussein regime unravels before a disbelieving world public on television.

Al-Sahhaf's version of developments has added a touch of the bizarre to the battle for Baghdad. Some examples from Sunday's U.S. incursion into the center of the city:

With U.S. heavy armor grouped around Saddam Hussein's main palace, and the crump of artillery reverberating through the city, he insisted that there was "no presence of the American villains in the city," because their advance has been defeated.

As U.S. military C-130 transporters thundered down the runway of Baghdad airport Sunday, al-Sahhaf was still saying that the airport was not in American hands. He also said large numbers of U.S. troops had been "poisoned" as they attempted to approach Baghdad.

At one point -- surrounded by Arab and Western journalists -- he again denied that there were U.S. troops in the streets. Someone asked him what all the firing in the streets was about. Those are our soldiers chasing the Americans out of town, he replied.

JUBILANT Iraqis celebrate their new-found freedom yesterday -- by tearing down a statue of hated tyrant Saddam Hussein.

Hundreds begged US troops to help tie a rope around the 17ft high bronze figure and take a blowtorch to its ankles.

Then they pulled -- and whooped with delight as the statue crashed to the ground.

The symbolic scene came after the 101st Airborne division -- known as the Screaming Eagles -- freed the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, killing 400 Republican Guards and capturing 100 more.
...
First, an American welder spent an hour weakening the statue.Then locals hauled until the rope snapped. Another was fixed in place, and many among the watching thousands applauded as Saddam fell head first on to a stepped podium above a pool of water.

Scores clambered over the statue and beat it with shoes or anything else they could grab.

One onlooker said: "It's very good because we don't like it."

An elderly man added in broken English: "Good, good, good -- Mr W. Bush, no Saddam."

As US troops proudly wore flowers given to them by townsfolk, a 25-year-old said he could not understand opposition to the war.

He asked: "Everyone who refuses this war -- why?"

Pointing to the statue, he went on: "Come here and live two days with this man, and then refuse this war."

» The Sun Newspaper Online - Iraqis celebrate freedom

ALBU MUHAWISH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers evacuated an Iraqi military compound on Sunday after tests by a mobile laboratory confirmed evidence of sarin nerve gas. More than a dozen soldiers of the Army's 101st Airborne Division had been sent earlier for chemical weapons decontamination after they exhibited symptoms of possible exposure to nerve agents.

The evacuation of dozens of soldiers Sunday night followed a day of tests for the nerve agent that came back positive, then negative. Additional tests Sunday night by an Army Fox mobile nuclear, biological and chemical detection laboratory confirmed the existence of sarin.
...
U.S. soldiers found the suspect chemicals at two sites: an agricultural warehouse containing 55-gallon chemical drums and a military compound, which soldiers had begun searching on Saturday. The soldiers also found hundreds of gas masks and chemical suits at the military complex, along with large numbers of mortar and artillery rounds.

Chemical tests for nerve agents in the warehouse came back positive for so-called G-Series nerve agents, which include sarin and tabun, both of which Iraq has been known to possess. More than a dozen infantry soldiers who guarded the military compound Saturday night came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to very low levels of nerve agent, including vomiting, dizziness and skin blotches.
...
The ranking officers made no official comment about suspected nerve agents. Troops not wearing chemical protection suits later reoccupied the military complex, while sections of the agricultural warehouse remained taped off.

» KRT Wire | 04/06/2003 | Troops, journalists undergo cleanup for nerve gas exposure

Hundreds of bodies discovered in a warehouse in southern Iraq by British troops may be soldiers killed in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The complex, found by a British artillery battery on Saturday, was initially thought to have been used to torture and execute opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime.

However, initial findings by investigators searching for evidence of Iraqi war crimes suggested the two tin sheds, which contained more than 200 bodies and stacks of coffins, were a repatriation complex for casualties of the conflict.
...
But examinations of documents found at the site near Zubayr have determined that about 85 per cent of the corpses are Iraqi, and the rest Iranian, a senior criminal investigator with the American 75th Exploitation Task Force said. Chief Warrant Officer Dan Walters said investigators had discovered 408 sets of human remains and 664 crude wooden caskets. Examinations indicated the injuries on the bodies were war-related.
...
The complex appeared to have small cell-like rooms with meat hooks and empty coffins stacked five or six high. There were a few single rows of coffins in which some human remains in crudely woven sacks had been placed.

Iran and Iraq have exchanged thousands of prisoners and remains of dead soldiers since the end of the war, which cost a million lives.

» Bodies in warehouse 'from Iran-Iraq war'

_ Casualties: Among U.S. troops, 57 dead, 16 missing and seven captured, according to the Pentagon (news - web sites). Among British troops, 27 dead.

_ Deployed: More than 300,000 allied troops are in the region, with about 255,000 from the United States, 45,000 British troops, 2,000 Australia troops, 400 Czech and Slovak troops, 200 Polish troops. Nearly 100,000 more U.S. forces on the way.

_ Timeline: Friday is the 16th day of the war, which began in Iraq on March 20.

_ Iraqi troops estimate: 350,000.

_ Iraqi deaths: Neither Iraq nor the coalition has released an estimate of military casualties. Iraq says nearly 500 civilians have been killed and more than 4,000 have been wounded since the war began.

_ Bombs dropped in Iraq: 750 Tomahawk cruise missiles, more than 14,000 precision-guided munitions and an unspecified number of cluster bombs have been fired on Iraq.

_ Iraqi prisoners of war: U.S. forces are holding more than 4,500 prisoners of war, the U.S. Central Command said Wednesday, and U.S. Marines reported Friday that about 2,500 Republican Guards had surrendered. Early in the week, Britain said there were 8,000 Iraqi prisoners of war in all.

» Yahoo! News - Numbers and Estimates For Iraq War

American actors and musicians are discovering that openly criticizing the US-led war in Iraq can have a hefty price tag, with even Madonna pulling the US release of a new video rife with anti-war imagery.

The Iraqi man who tipped U.S. Marines to the location of American POW Jessica Lynch said Thursday he did so after he saw her Iraqi captor slap her twice as she lay wounded in a hospital.

"A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being," the tipster, a 32-year-old lawyer whose wife was a nurse at the hospital, said in an interview at Marines' headquarters, where he, his wife and daughter are being treated as heroes and guests of honor.

"He is an extremely courageous man who should serve as an inspiration to all of us to do the right thing," said Lt. Col. Rick Long, spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Every day, the Iraqi resistance is becoming stronger... to prove that the man who is facing a well-armed army with simple and limited facilities... will not succumb or surrender... steadfast Iraq with the Arab nation by its side will not be defeated.

Al-Thawrah - Syria
...
The fate of President Bush and his ally Tony Blair and those supporting them reside on the palm of a devil... countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have tied their fate to that of the US and resolved to remain a military base. They have no hope for future survival as countries... without the presence of foreign troops on their land.

Al-Hayat al-Jadidah - Palestinian
...
As the Arabs are confronted with this neo-colonial attack they are now required more than before to stand by the Iraqi people and provide political and moral support to help resist and repulse these despotic invaders.

Al-Thawrah -- Syria
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It is sad and also very dangerous that our brothers in the Gulf are investing their money in supporting a dark Iraqi past, which is close to collapse, at the expense of the future of the Iraqi people... We tell our dear brothers in the Gulf that with sincerity and love we are really worried about your future.

Al-Ra'y Al-Am - Kuwait

SICK French yobs daubed a swastika and vile anti-war slurs at a cemetery for 11,000 British troops.

The showpiece cenotaph at the graveyard in Northern France was smeared in red paint with the words: "Dig up your rubbish. It's fouling our soil."

Other slogans at the Etaples cemetery near Boulogne included "Death to the Yankees" and "Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood."
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The graffiti was discovered by a shocked gardener and spotted by around 80 visitors. It was cleaned off the same day.

Roy Hemmington -- spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission -- said: "We are deeply offended. This is the strongest language and most vile graffiti I have witnessed at a war graves cemetery.

"The suggestion that the bodies of soldiers who died for France should be dug up is particularly foul."

Most soldiers buried at the cemetery were defending France at the Somme and Ypres during World War I.

Another 122 are troops who died fighting the Nazis in World War II.

Among the dead are a winner of the Victoria Cross, 217 holders of the Military Medal and 69 holders of the Military Cross.

A number had been awarded France's top military decoration, the Legion d'Honneur.
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During the first Gulf War, the 159 reporters privy to the battlefield used an unreliable system of trucks to get their stories out of the country. Cellphones were prohibited. TV viewers didn't know about the Army's celebrated "Hail Mary" maneuver, which flanked and routed the Iraqi Republican Guard, until a day after the war was over.

Today, more than 500 reporters embedded with troops and hundreds of other correspondents are covering the war in Iraq via videophones, satellite uplinks and tiny "lipstick" cameras that offer front-seat views from tanks and trucks. The world is tuning in 24 hours a day via thousands of Web sites and dozens of TV channels, including several round-the-clock news networks. CNN alone has 18 embedded teams in Iraq who go on air as often as 25 times a day.

But this deluge is creating a classic paradox of the information age: We know more than we ever did before, yet we may not be any closer to the real truth. Instead, the overload of scenes and dispatches is delivering an illusion that each hour's installment adds up to total insight -- whipsawing the public mood from highs to lows in the 11-day-old war.