08 Jul 03

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.

The Commission released its first interim report on July 8, 2003.

The Commission held its third public hearing on 'Terrorism, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim World' on July 9, 2003 in Washington, DC. [National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States]

Part 3: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

by Robert Stevens and Richard Tyler

07 Jul 03

The following is the conclusion of a three-part series of articles. Part 1: Clare Short, Robin Cook and Andrew Gilligan was posted July 3. and Part 2: Andrew Wilkie and Dr Ibrahim al-Marashi was published July 4.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee investigation into whether Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government distorted intelligence material to justify its war against Iraq is to publish its report today.

From extensive leaks to the press, there is every reason to suppose that the Labour-dominated parliamentary committee will largely exonerate the government. However, some of the testimony given to the inquiry contradicts such a conclusion clearly exposing the way the British government set out to sell a previously determined decision to go to war by claiming that Iraq possessed 'weapons of mass destruction'.

In order that this information does not remain buried amidst thousands of pages of undigested transcripts, the World Socialist Web Site is publishing a précis of the most important testimony given. [World Socialist Web Site]

by Robert Scheer

08 Jul 03

They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document - now known to be a crude forgery - that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either.

What is startling in Wilson's account, however, is that the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the vice president's office were all informed that the Niger-Iraq connection was phony. No one in the chain of command disputed that this 'evidence' of Iraq's revised nuclear weapons program was a hoax. [WorkingForChange]

by Ben Russell and Andrew Buncombe

09 Jul 03

The White House has dealt a devastating blow to Tony Blair by rejecting as flawed British claims that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy uranium from Africa to restart his nuclear weapons programme.

The Bush administration was in full retreat yesterday with officials admitting that the allegation should not have been included in President George Bush's State of the Union address. The American admission represented the first serious split between London and Washington over the case against Saddam and exploded into a full-scale row in Westminster as Mr Blair told senior MPs that the Government was standing by its story.

Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers demanded that Mr Blair release the intelligence behind the allegation to an independent inquiry. [Independent/UK]

by Thomas E. Ricks and Rajiv Chandrasekaran

07 Jul 03

Recent Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops have demonstrated a new tactical sophistication and coordination that raise the specter of the U.S. occupation force becoming enmeshed in a full-blown guerrilla war, military experts said yesterday. The new approaches employed in the Iraqi attacks last week are provoking concern among some that what once was seen as a mopping-up operation against the dying remnants of a deposed government is instead becoming a widening battle against a growing and organized force that could keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops busy for months. [The Washington Post]

by Norman Mailer

17 Jul 03 Issue

Exeunt: lightning and thunder, shock and awe. Dust, ash, fog, fire, smoke, sand, blood, and a good deal of waste now move to the wings. The stage, however, remains occupied. The question posed at curtain-rise has not been answered. Why did we go to war? If no real weapons of mass destruction are found, the question will keen in pitch. [The New York Review of Books]

By Richard Leiby and Walter Pincus

06 Jul 03

Joseph C. Wilson, the retired United States ambassador whose CIA-directed mission to Niger in early 2002 helped debunk claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium there for nuclear weapons, has said for the first time publicly that U.S. and British officials ignored his findings and exaggerated the public case for invading Iraq.

Wilson, whose 23-year career included senior positions in Africa and Iraq, where he was acting ambassador in 1991, said the false allegations that Iraq was trying to buy uranium oxide from Niger about three years ago were used by President Bush and senior administration officials as a central piece of evidence to support their assertions that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.

'It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war,' Wilson said yesterday. 'It begs the question, what else are they lying about?' [Washington Post]

by Bill Vann

05 July 03

In a further bid to place U.S. officials and military personnel beyond the reach of war crimes prosecution, the Bush administration cut off military aid to about 35 countries that failed to meet a June 30 deadline for signing bilateral immunity agreements.

Washington had demanded such deals with all the countries that have signed on to the International Criminal Court (ICC), using the threat of the aid cutoff to impose its will on foreign powers that are considered U.S. allies. At least 90 have reportedly resisted the U.S. blackmail effort. The Bush administration claims that 51 nations have signed immunity agreements, seven of them 'secretly.' [World Socialist Web Site]

by Step Vaessen

03 Jul 03

The Indonesian military is claiming it now has control over the whole of Aceh province - six weeks after the battle started to crush the rebels. But Jakarta insists the war on the GAM separatists will continue. With many of the rebels now hiding in the hills, more and more civilians are getting caught up in the violence. [Radio Netherlands]

03 Jul 03

If U.S. troops are sent to Liberia, they should not make any deals that involve a withdrawal of the indictment of President Charles Taylor by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Human Rights Watch said today...

The Special Court for Sierra Leone recently indicted Taylor as one of those 'bearing the greatest responsibility' for war crimes (including murder and taking hostages); crimes against humanity (rape, murder, extermination, sexual slavery); and other serious violations of international humanitarian law (use of child soldiers) committed in Sierra Leone. The indictment charges that Taylor actively supported the rebel Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone's ten-year civil war.

The indictment was announced on June 4, 2003 while Taylor was in Ghana attending peace talks on the recently intensified Liberian conflict. News reports today suggest that the United States is considering sending peacekeepers to Liberia. [Human Rights Watch]