Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 7:16:41 PM CET
Leaflets dropped 10 March 2003
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Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 7:01:38 PM CET
An Open Letter to President Bush
Dear Mr. President,
Before the bombs begin to fall, leaving us no time for calm reflections, it seems only natural to step back and try to assess the overall picture as it develops. No, we are not joining those who seek to dissuade you from taking a military action in Iraq. On the contrary, we think that this action is long overdue, and that Iraqi people were left to suffer from the evil regime of Saddam Hussein for too long. Neither can we share the pacifist sentiments expressed recently by many millions of marchers. Our own experience under no less evil regime of the Soviet Union has taught us that freedom is one of a few things in this world worthy of fighting and dying for. And the sooner we do it the better because such regimes, as history proved time and again, leave us no option but to confront them and to destroy them for they, by their very nature, are both oppressive internally and aggressive externally.
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Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 6:39:34 PM CET
Air Force testing big bomb; U.S.: Spy planes turned back
With events moving closer to a possible war with Iraq, here is a look at some of the latest developments around the world: ROAD TO WAR?
• MASSIVE BOMB TEST: The U.S. Air Force hopes the Tuesday test of a new 21,000-pound bomb will pave the way for its use in Iraq against critical targets on the surface and underground. The final test of the new Massive Ordnance Air Blast -- MOAB -- will for the first time include the use of the actual explosives. Two previously undisclosed tests, one in February and one March 7, were inert. The Air Force may decide to release video of the final test in hopes of placing additional pressure on the Iraqi military to realize it cannot win against the U.S. military.
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Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 6:35:53 PM CET
Saddameter
Chance of Invasion Today: 99 percent
Russia says it will veto the new U.S.-British resolution in its current form. U.S. and France lobby swing votes on Security Council. A leader of Pakistan's ruling party says Pakistan will abstain. Britain implicitly offers to push back March 17 deadline in exchange for votes. New U.S. spin: We've gone to war justly without U.N. support before. Turkey continues to negotiate compensation for U.S. troop deployments.
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Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 6:28:46 PM CET
US develops superbomb
The US has made a superbomb which could be used to frighten Iraq into submission. The giant device contains 21,000lb of high explosive and dwarfs the huge "daisy cutter" bombs used against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon intends to test the bomb and videotape the results as a warning to Iraq of what the US could inflict.
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Topic: - on March 11, 2003 at 5:30:40 PM CET
PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS IN IRAQ
The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."
"I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs," she told Irish national broadcaster, Tom McGurk on the RTE1 Radio "Sunday Show."
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Topic: - on March 10, 2003 at 10:34:28 PM CET
Oops Reuters
PLEASE BE ADVISED PICTURES FROM KUWAIT, KUW100 THROUGH 106 WHICH MOVED BETWEEN APPROXIMATELY 1500 AND 1600GMT MARCH 10, 2003 INADVERTENTLY IDENTIFIED THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY BASE.
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Topic: - on March 10, 2003 at 10:12:17 PM CET
Secretive U.S. 'counter - disinformation' office back
A Cold War-era office with a shadowy name and a colorful history of exposing Soviet deceptions is back in business, this time watching Iraq.
The Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team's moniker is more impressive than its budget. It's a crew of two toiling in anonymity at the State Department, writing reports they are prohibited by law from disseminating to the U.S. public.
The operation has challenged some fantastic claims over the years -- a U.S. military lab invented AIDS, rich Americans kidnapped foreign babies for their organs, the CIA plotted to kill Pope John Paul II.
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Topic: - on March 10, 2003 at 9:57:36 PM CET
Report: Iran Close to Making Nukes
Iran now has hundreds of centrifuges to produce enriched uranium and is moving closer to building a nuclear weapon than international authorities had previously believed.
``We have seen this week Iran has got a more aggressive nuclear program than the (International Atomic Energy Agency) thought it had,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday on CNN. He used the reports to bolster the Bush administration's case against Iraq.
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Topic: - on March 10, 2003 at 9:55:07 PM CET
UK Spy base was asked to spy on UN delegates by NSA
GCHQ ROCKED BY UN BUG SCANDAL Gchq has been rocked by the arrest of a member of staff on suspicion of breaching the Official Secrets Act.
The 28-year-old woman is at the centre of an alleged 'dirty tricks' campaign to bug United Nations delegates as the US heads towards war against Iraq. Further arrests at the Cheltenham intelligence centre might follow.
The scandal centres on a leaked memo to GCHQ from its American equivalent, the National Security Agency.
The NSA asked GCHQ to intercept phone messages and e-mails so that it could build support for an attack on Iraq.
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Topic: - on March 10, 2003 at 9:35:12 PM CET
Inspectors Find Banned Iraqi Bombs
International weapons inspectors have stumbled upon a new kind of bomb in Iraq that could be filled with chemical or biological agents and strewn over populated areas. Baghdad also may have in its possession a drone aircraft capable of spraying harmful agents over its enemies.
Armed with this new information, U.S. officials are expected to press chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to admit he has found a "smoking gun" -- the irrefutable evidence many countries have been looking for before they agree to wage war against Baghdad -- in a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council on Monday.
American officials hope this will help the U.S. and its allies garner more international support for military action against Iraq after March 17, the deadline proposed in an amendment to a U.S.-British resolution before the Security Council.
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Topic: - on March 9, 2003 at 6:38:46 PM CET
Saddam’s War
His survival strategy is probably hopeless. But he has every reason to believe he can sway world opinion. And if that fails, he can turn a surgical U.S. invasion into a bloody nightmare. It was the usual creepy military parade through downtown Baghdad. Some of Saddam’s fedayeen (“men of sacrifice”) were dressed in dazzling white uniforms—”the color of a shroud, because we expect to die,” explained a 24-year-old fedayeen leader. More jarring were the fedayeen garbed in the familiar tan camouflage of the United States Army. Saddam has ordered thousands of uniforms identical, down to the last detail, to those worn by U.S. and British troopers. The plan: to have Saddam’s men, posing as Western invaders, slaughter Iraqi citizens while the cameras roll for Al-Jazeera and the credulous Arab press.
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