by Scott Ritter

[Scott Ritter is the author of new book with the same title. He is a former intelligence officer, marine, and ballistic missile advisor to General Norman Schwarzkopf. He served as chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq.]


. . .the most important thing is to understand the reality that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush administration, in particular, as a target of the Bush administration as it deals -- as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United States. You see, this isn't a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the national security of the United States of America, because in the same document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a legitimate means of dealing with such threats. It also recertifies the Bush administration doctrine of regional transformation globally, but in this case particularly in the Middle East. So, we're not talking about hypotheticals here, regardless of all the discussion the Bush administration would like you to believe there is about diplomacy. There is no diplomacy, as was the case with Iraq. Diplomacy is but a smokescreen to disguise the ultimate objective of regime change. . . .

Suicide bombing isn't as new or alien as westerners imagine

Madeleine Bunting
Saturday May 14, 2005
The Guardian

One of the most chilling aspects of the Iraqi conflict is that suicide bombings have now become a matter of everyday routine. During April there were 67, a new record. On Wednesday there were no less than five separate suicide attacks across Iraq, killing 71 people and injuring scores of people.

Toby Harnden, Telegraph, 2/13/05

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/13/wirq13.xml

The US Army’s only Muslim chaplain in Iraq has described his struggle to “educate” soldiers to respect Muslims and how he helped free an innocent Iraqi from American custody after he had been framed by the coalition’s Kurdish allies.

Naomi Klein
Saturday December 4, 2004
The Guardian

David T Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London

Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day

The abduction in Iraq earlier this week of two French journalists has outraged Arab and Muslim intellectuals, journalists and religious leaders as well as many ordinary citizens

On first hearing that the new contingent of Spanish troops being sent to Iraq are wearing the Cruz de Santiago de Compostela (Cross of St. James of Compostela) on their arm badge, one could be forgiven for thinking the authorities in Spain had lost their minds. On reflection, however, and in the context of the prevailing world political atmosphere, more sinister conclusions can be drawn from this action.

By Aws Al-Sharqy, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, August 13 (IslamOnline.net) – Discovering an Islam that is totally different from the one smeared in their media, a number of American servicemen and women were said to have embraced Islam and married Iraqis.

By David Wise

The sign on the White House these days might well read "Welcome to Credibility Gap."

Sooner or later, every modern administration has fallen into this unwelcome gulch, a disaster that happens when the gap between the government's words and the known facts becomes discernible to the voters. The phrase "credibility gap" came into use during the Democratic administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, but deception as an instrument of national policy began long before that. Misleading official statements, "spin" and, at times, outright lies are an all-too-familiar part of the White House landscape. Government lying has become as American as apple pie.

US troops in Iraq are no longer being seen as liberators, but as occupiers - and incompetent ones at that. As Con Coughlin in Baghdad reports, goodwill gained from ousting Saddam has turned to resentment.

Express News Service
New Delhi

A majority of Iraqis actually welcome the US invasion on their country though the jury is still out on whether coalition troops should pull out immediately or stay back, according to an opinion poll conducted by NDTV in Baghdad.