warblog

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Thu, 03 Apr 2003 13:55:00 +0000

On CNN TV: Martin Savidge (an excellent speaker BTW) and Walter Rodgers (speaking ability unknown) reporting on the drive to Baghdad via videophone, intercut with scenes of Downtown Baghdad.

After this war thing and this school thing is over, I'm going to go produce compelling TV for a living. I'll hop in my car, tape the camera to the door, and just drive places on roads. You know, for those people who'll miss this gripping journalism.
< / sarcasm>

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Mon, 31 Mar 2003 14:30:00 +0000

Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear.

"Man I never thought a boiled egg could taste so damn good," one burly marine observed.

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:43:00 +0000

Why does the rest of the world hate the US?

A Pakistani student during an anti-war rally at a university in Islamabad, March 26, 2003. The students of Quaid-i-Azam University gathered on Wednesday to protest against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Thu, 27 Mar 2003 21:11:00 +0000

Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out.
President George W. Bush, to Condoleezza Rice, March 2002

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Thu, 27 Mar 2003 17:26:00 +0000

U.S. General Accuses Iraq of Killing POWs

Defense officials who have viewed the tape have said privately that several of the bodies had execution-style gunshot wounds to their heads.

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:25:00 +0000

Human shields-turned-hawks

They arrived as Saddam apologists willing to die for the despot—but they left Iraq weeks later with changed hearts and a determination that Saddam must go. Many of the human shields who had arrived with much fanfare to “stop” the United States and Britain were swayed by the strongest supporters of Saddam’s ouster: the Iraqi people.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 13:42:00 +0000

At least 15 burnt corpses lay in a poor residential area of northern Baghdad, apparently killed in a US-led air raid on the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, Reuters Television correspondents said.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 13:19:00 +0000

Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them"...

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defence department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life. His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention.

The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this redefinition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (al-Qaida) must be regarded as prisoners of war.

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 12:43:00 +0000

Basra uprising

The trouble apparently began early Tuesday with popular protests against the conscription of family members to be forced to act -- at gunpoint -- as human shields by fedayeen and other pro-Baghdad irregulars attacking British troops.

Outraged at this "disloyalty," Saddam's cousin and special envoy to the city, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- known as "Chemical Ali" for his command of the forces who used poison gas against Kurdish Iraqis -- ordered the execution of the local Shiite official of the ruling Baathist Party.

Other Baathists in the city -- who are usually Saddam's loyal supporters -- objected violently and helped organize demonstrations. They were swiftly joined by supporters of Daawa Islamiya (Islamic Call) a militant Shiite group that has long operated underground whose leaders have been in contact with U.S.-led coalition intelligence and special forces.

British military intelligence officers learned of the unfolding events through monitoring Iraqi radio communications. Then they learned Iraqi forces inside Basra were using mortars and firing artillery over open sights at angry crowds of Shiite demonstrators.

Al-Jazeera TV says no signs of Basra uprising

Al-Jazeera television said on Wednesday there were no signs of unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra despite British reports that an uprising against President Saddam Hussein may have started there.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 22:46:00 +0000

Another U.S. missile killed a Jordanian taxi driver on Thursday while he made a phone call at Kilo 160, a rest stop 150 miles west of Baghdad.

Taxi driver Sameer Sabah, a friend of the dead man, went pale when he heard one of his passengers at the Jordanian border speaking Spanish. Spain has been a key supporter of the U.S.-led war.

"Get out of my car before I do something," he said in a chilling monotone. "Your people killed my friend. He was killed by the cold hands of the American Army."

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 22:20:00 +0000

War pictures cause YellowTimes.org to be shut down, again

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 19:18:00 +0000

Evidence of Iraq weapons remains elusive

In months of allegation and investigation on the way to war, no firm evidence emerged that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. Now it is up to the U.S. invasion force to find such weapons - if they exist...

"Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term, namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target," said [former House of Commons leader Robin] Cook, who had access to high-level British information...

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 19:07:00 +0000

In a friendly fire incident, an American F-16 fired on a U.S. Patriot missile battery in Iraq after the battery's radar locked on the jet, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday. No U.S. casualties were reported.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 18:53:00 +0000

The Bush administration is scrambling to patch together plans to run Iraq on The Day After.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:59:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:57:00 +0000

(U.S. violates Geneva Convention?)

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:54:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:38:00 +0000

Saudis make peace proposal to U.S., Iraq

Saudi Arabia has contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal, the kingdom's foreign minister told reporters Tuesday. He said he was still awaiting a response.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:37:00 +0000

NYSE revokes credentials for Al-Jazeera

The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera said Monday two of its reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange have had their credentials revoked because of the satellite station's coverage of the war in Iraq.

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:17:00 +0000

Morocco offers US monkeys to detonate mine

A Moroccan publication accused the government Monday of providing unusual assistance to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq by offering them 2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines.

The weekly al-Usbu' al-Siyassi reported that Morocco offered the U.S. forces a large number of monkeys, some from Morocco's Atlas Mountains and others imported, to use them for detonating land mines planted by the Iraqis.

The publication quoted a highly-informed source as saying, "that is not a scientific illusion but a well-known military tactic."

noreply@blogger.com (K-Dawg) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 16:15:00 +0000

Has Saddam approved the use of chemical weapons when our troops cross a certain point?

U.S. officials say the Iraqi leadership has drawn "a red line" around the map of Baghdad and once American troops cross it Iraqi Republican Guards have been authorized to use chemical weapons, U.S. television networks reported on Monday.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 13:59:00 +0000

A Palestinian girl holds an Iraqi flag with the name of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein written on her forehead in Gaza city Sunday March 23, 2003 during a march by Palestinian women in protest against the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 13:54:00 +0000

U.S.: 500 Iraqis Killed in Last Two Days

About 500 Iraqi fighters have been killed in the last two days by the 3rd Infantry Division's tanks and mechanized units as they swept through southern Iraq, according to reports reaching ground forces command.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 00:43:00 +0000

The Bush administration, having declined for weeks to estimate the cost of the war, was giving congressional leaders a figure of $70 billion to $90 billion, aides said Monday. That, they indicated, would include about $60 billion for military operations and billions more for Iraqi aid and reconstruction and tightened security at home.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Borondy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2003 00:35:00 +0000

U.S. Attacks Republican Guard South of Baghdad

A British soldier was killed in action on Monday as he tried to calm rioting Iraqi civilians, bringing the total British dead and missing to 19. Iraqi civilians so far have shown little enthusiasm for the invaders.

Financial markets have begun to factor in a longer war than appeared last week. In New York, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped 3.6 percent, its biggest single day loss since last Sept. 27. Oil prices and gold rose, while the dollar slipped.

In Basra, water supplies were less than half the normal level following a power failure on Friday at the main treatment plant on the northern outskirts of the city.

Although other plants were able to keep some 40 percent of the usual needs flowing, the quality was poor, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.