Waggy Dog Stories
by Paul Krugman

An administration hypes the threat posed by a foreign power. It talks of links to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism; it warns about a nuclear weapons program. The news media play along, and the country is swept up in war fever. The war drives everything else — including scandals involving administration officials — from the public's consciousness.

The 1997 movie "Wag the Dog" had quite a plot.

Although the movie's title has entered the language, I don't know how many people have watched it lately. Read the screenplay. If you don't think it bears a resemblance to recent events, you're in denial.
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The Rise of a Bigger, Better Taliban
by Ted Rall

We told you so.

We warned the Bush Administration that invading Iraq would destabilize the Middle East and spread radical anti-American Islamism. We told the American people that taking out Saddam Hussein without a viable government to replace him would open a vacuum for anarchy, civil war and a power grab by radical Iranian-backed Shiite clerics. Now the antiwar movement's doomsday scenarios have been fulfilled so completely that military history scarcely mentions a more thoroughly botched endeavor – and we'll be living with the fallout for years.
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WMD issue gaining traction

It looks like the WMD story has legs. Driving the increasingly aggressive coverage is the willingness of many inside the US intelligence community to come forth with their frustrations.
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The entire intelligence apparatus is suddenly under fire, and it has no intentions on taking the hit for Bush and Rumsfeld's politicizing of the intelligence process. It's making sure the blame rests squarely where it belongs, and it looks as though the media is looking at the right place.

Even Powell has come under fire for his LIES at the UN Security Council. Imagine that!
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Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims
Secret transcript revealed

Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.
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General admits chemical weapons intelligence was wrong

The leading American marine general in Iraq conceded yesterday that intelligence reports that chemical weapons had been deployed around Baghdad before the war were "wrong".

The admission came at a time when the quality of the intelligence underlying the US and British allegations against Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the conflict is increasingly questioned.

Lieutenant General James Conway, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said he had been convinced that before and during the war, shells with chemical warheads had been distributed to republican guard units around Baghdad.

"It was a surprise to me then - it remains a surprise to me now - that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites," he told reporters in a video-conference at the Pentagon yesterday.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," he added. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."
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It's not only the WMD

I was channel surfing while spending a Friday night scanning notes and watching DVD movies on my monitor when I saw Ken Adelman of PNAC say the "real weapon of mass destruction" was Saddam Hussein.
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I was irritated when I saw him say such an idiotic thing, but I'm growing less worried about the lack of these weapons than the way we're deploying troops to Iraq. The 3rd Infantry Division needs to come home. They're getting mean and angry. The people around them are growing to hate them. These are conditions ripe for a massacre of some sort. By either side.
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"Pit bulls on a chain"

Look, every day this unit is in theater, the risk of something really, really bad happening grows. There's a growing sense of being trapped here. They have no idea when they're going home and every day they spend there is a day in combat.

So you now have a unit which has been deployed for eight months and in combat for two. Keep in mind. most WW II divisions saw 30 days of combat. The 3ID is looking at 75 days with no relief in sight.
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Revealed: the cluster bombs that litter Iraq

The shocking extent of unexploded cluster bombs dropped by American and British planes, which litter Iraq eight weeks after the conflict, is revealed in detail for the first time today.

The first map based on military intelligence to show the exact location of unexploded anti-personnel mines, cluster bombs and anti-tank mines, obtained by The Observer, shows the vast area of the country which is at danger from live munitions.

Experts in clearing conflict zones of unexploded bombs say that millions of Iraqi adults and children are at risk, along with humanitarian aid workers, United Nations personnel, civilian staff and military officials.

Its revelation raises fresh questions for Tony Blair and George Bush, who insisted that post-conflict Iraq would be a safer place than it was under Saddam Hussein.
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