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http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=394631

THE three pro-[northern irish] Agreement party leaders are only expected to meet President Bush for around half-an-hour... on Monday afternoon... Bush isn't expected to hold any extensive discussions with David Trimble, Mark Durkan or Gerry Adams... It's understood the summit on the war with Iraq was seized upon by [the British gov't] as an opportunity to apply pressure on Adams and the IRA to decommission and announce the standing-down of the terrorist organisation.

...Craigavon Bridge in Londonderry was blocked by about 150 people yesterday in protest at President Bush's visit. They were removed by police.

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http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/apr/07/world/20030407wor1.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US counterpart George W. Bush agreed by telephone on the need to continue Russian-American political dialogue on the Iraq war. Moscow nevertheless Saturday criticized the US State Department’s annual report on human rights abuses, accusing Washington of double standards.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2539950,00.html

Russia's ambassador to Iraq on Monday accused American troops of firing on his convoy outside Baghdad... Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko said U.S. forces fired on the convoy - which was carrying Russian diplomats and journalists toward Syria on Sunday - despite clear markings and efforts to let them know it was not carrying fighters. ``The economic counselor tried to signal to let them know we are foreigners but they fired at him and now he is suffering wounds to the head... The Americans opened fire on a Russian diplomatic car and on the car of the Russian ambassador, which very clearly had the Russian flag on it,'' said Titorenko, whose broken index finger was bandaged. He said that the firing from the Americans lasted 30-40 minutes... A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had assured Russia that no harm was intended but was not accepting responsibility... The convoy was ``in the wrong place at the wrong time,'' the diplomat said.

... [Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander] Yakovenko did not comment on Russian media reports that bullet holes in the vehicle and a bullet removed from an injured diplomat matched the caliber of bullets from an American M-16 rifle.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/06/iraq/main547986.shtml

U.S. warplanes struck a convoy of allied Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces during a northern battle Sunday in one of the deadliest friendly fire attacks of the war. At least 18 people were killed and more than 45 wounded, including senior Kurdish commanders, Kurdish officials said.

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http://atimes.com/atimes/China/ED08Ad02.html

While global attention remains focused on the war with Iraq, other proliferation crises are still developing, particularly in East Asia... Taiwan faces a growing missile threat from China... Taiwan has set up, evidently with US encouragement, plans to establish a comprehensive system of missile defense... This "action-reaction" sequence looks like a missile race and as part of a larger arms race to include conventional weapons as well... not just the United States but China and Russia as well are each exploring missile defenses against nuclear weapons and the utility of either weaponizing space or using it as a medium through which their missiles and missile defense systems will traverse. North Korea's proliferation and China's steady development also are obvious reasons behind Japan's move to send up spy satellites... Since the ABM Treaty is dead and the United States expects to start testing the components of its missile defense system next year, it is also clear that others will follow suit.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/07/1049567623418.html

North Korea has suddenly toughened its public position in the crisis over its nuclear arms program, abandoning talks with South Korea and warning it will arm itself with a "tremendous military deterrent"... The tougher North Korean line comes ahead of this week's discussion of the crisis by the United Nations Security Council. Pyongyang has said it will not be affected by any UN resolution on its arms program.

...Last month, the North withdrew from economic talks with the South. Yesterday's snub means that North-South contacts are now effectively frozen. North Korea's attitude reflects its anger at Seoul's support for the US war in Iraq and the recent joint South Korean-US war games, which it saw as a prelude to US action against the North.

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http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,930570,00.html

War in North Korea is now almost inevitable because of the country's diplomatic stalemate with America, a senior UN official claims.

Ahead of this week's crucial talks between members of the UN Security Council, Maurice Strong, special adviser to the Secretary General Kofi Annan, was gloomy on the chances of a peaceful settlement. 'I think war is unnecessary, it's unthinkable and unfortunately it's entirely possible,' he said. Strong, who has just returned from a private mission for Annan in North Korea and is due to report to UN officials in New York tomorrow, said he felt both North Korea and America seemed to think they had time on their side but were both on a slide towards war.

...North Korea fervently believes it is next on America's list for pre-emptive strikes, says Strong. It takes George Bush's rhetoric in his 'axis of evil' speech as a very real threat to its national security.

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http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/br/Qindia-pakistan-sinha.R15J_DA6.html

NEW DELHI, April 6 (AFP) - Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha has described Pakistan as a "fit case" for an Iraqi style military action by the US because it has weapons of mass destruction, sheltered terrorists and lacked democracy. "It is a fit case," Sinha told the Hindustan Times in an interview published Sunday when asked whether Pakistan deserved action similar to that against Iraq... "India has a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the US has in Iraq," he said.

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http://www.latimes.com/la-war-poll5apr05,0,3145206.story

most Americans now express support for an expansive U.S. role in the Middle East, with a clear majority backing the war in Iraq and half endorsing military action against Iran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll.

...More than three-fourths of Americans — including two-thirds of liberals and 70% of Democrats — now say they support the decision to go to war. And more than four-fifths of these war supporters say they still will back the military action even if allied forces don't find evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Bush's overall job approval rating jumped to 68%, the highest level since last summer, and three-fourths of those polled said they trust him to make the right decisions on Iraq.

...The Times poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 745 adults Wednesday and Thursday; it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

...A 2-to-1 majority said that, because of the war, the country cannot afford even the stripped-down, $350,000,000,000.00 version of Bush's proposed tax cut that the Senate recently approved.

...By 62% to 33%, those polled said the war is likely to make the world a safer place; 52% believe it will help stabilize the Middle East [whether they like it or not! --mrs. h].

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http://www.boston.com/dailynews/097/world/U_S_forces_storm_into_Baghdad_P.shtml

U.S. forces in tanks and armored vehicles stormed into the center of Baghdad on Monday, seizing one of Saddam Hussein's palaces... American soldiers who reached the gold-and-blue-domed New Presidential Palace used the toilets, rifled through documents in the bombed-out compound, and helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glassware and other souvenirs... ''I do believe this city is freakin' ours,'' boasted Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville Ga.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/07/iraq/main548101.shtml

After bombing Saddam Hussein's New Presidential Palace on Monday, the U.S. Army swept in and took inventory. Soldiers searched the vast complex by the river and marveled at what they saw. "This used to be a nice place, they should make it like a Six Flags, or something," said Spc. Robert Blake, 20, of State College, Pa., and the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,931141,00.html

Ariel Sharon has brushed aside an appeal by the White House to stop an unprecedented move by Jewish settlers into a Palestinian district of Jersualem which his critics say will further hinder a political settlement... The first Jewish families have moved into new flats in the Ma'aleh Ha'zeitim settlement, beside the densely populated Arab district of Ras al-Amoud. It is the first time a Jewish settlement has been built in a Palestinian area of Jerusalem since Israel seized control of the entire city in 1967... More than 100 more families are expected to move in during the coming months.

...The flats at Ma'aleh Ha'zeitim are built on land bought in the 19th century by religious groups to expand a Jewish cemetery. The property fell into Jordanian hands after Palestine was divided in 1948. Jewish groups argue that they are entitled to live on the land, and to remove the Palestinian "squatters", under the Jews' right of return. The courts agree, even though no similar right is extended to Palestinians driven from their homes in West Jerusalem. Moreover, the supreme court has ruled that Palestinians cannot buy property in the Jewish quarter of the city, even if they once lived there.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-637522,00.html

ISRAEL has dismissed Tony Blair as “irrelevant” to the Middle East peace process after he said that progress towards a Palestinian state was as important as toppling President Saddam Hussein... Ariel Sharon’s Government described Mr Blair’s comments, made in a BBC interview, as “inappropriate and unbalanced”.

Interviewed by the BBC’s Arabic service last Friday, Mr Blair said: “We have got a situation now where the President of the United States of America . . . has laid out a two-state vision — Israel, recognised by everyone, confident about its security; and a viable Palestinian state. I believe it is every bit as important that we make progress on that as we get rid of Saddam.”

Dov Weissglass, Mr Sharon’s chief adviser, responded angrily, telling Israel radio: “We regret that Great Britain is pushing itself out of involvement in the peace process as a result of extreme positions it has adopted."

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030405/ap_en_ot/war_arnett&cid=487&ncid=1618

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Peter Arnett, fired by NBC earlier this week for giving an interview to state-run Iraqi television, is reporting for pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya, the station said Saturday... [Arnett] won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press and covered the 1991 Gulf War for CNN, a network he also left under a cloud. Arnett [had been] the on-air reporter for a retracted 1998 CNN report that accused U.S. forces of using sarin nerve gas in Laos in 1970. He was reprimanded and later left the network.

Since being fired by NBC, Arnett has been hired by a private Belgian TV network, a state-run Greek television channel, and The Daily Mirror of London... [as well as] Al-Arabiya.

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http://www.dailykos.com/archives/002283.html#002283

WASHINGTON, April 5 — Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation. Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.

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http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2003-daily/07-04-2003/world/w13.htm

TEHRAN: A group of Iranian theological students have called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to allow them to go to Iraq to safeguard holy Shi'ite Muslim shrines, a newspaper said on Sunday... [The paper] said Iran's religious seminaries would abandon classes on Monday to stage nation-wide demonstrations against the war in Iraq. "The Islamic world will not tolerate any aggression or disrespect to Iraqi holy shrines and attacks on Iraqi civilians," it quoted a statement by an unnamed seminary school in the city of Qom, where most of Iran's religious schools are based. Every year tens of thousands of Iranians make pilgrimages to Najaf and Kerbala.

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http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=5917385&fb=Y&partnerID=1660

Pilots say the sky over Baghdad is so congested with coalition planes that they worry more about in-flight collisions than Iraqi anti-aircraft fire... it's also becoming more difficult to avoid hitting civilian targets... Pilots are using smaller bombs... [so] some targets must be hit more than once.

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http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,930794,00.html

The US is ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the new Iraq as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad, officials said yesterday... National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has also ruled out any key role for the UN.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/07/1049567628327.html

The controversial leader of one of Iraq's main opposition groups, Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, has been secretly flown by the US military to southern Iraq... The move prompted fresh speculation that the Pentagon was grooming Mr Chalabi, 58, as a future prime minister... In an interview taped on Thursday at Dukan, Mr Chalabi told the CBS program 60 Minutes that US forces should remain in the country until elections could be held and a democratic government established. "We expect to have a constitution ratified within two years," Mr Chalabi said.

...He has a PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago and masterminded a Kurdish-led offensive against Iraqi forces in 1995 that collapsed after America declined to provide air cover. In 1992 Mr Chalabi was sentenced to 22 years' hard labour in Jordan for bank fraud and embezzlement.

...His credibility suffered when coalition forces met unexpectedly stiff Iraqi resistance. He had assured US authorities... that the Iraqi army would not fight.

...Meanwhile, the White House is preparing to unveil its civilian administrator, the retired general Jay Garner, who will take temporary control of postwar Iraq.

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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1048313518329

Both the main Kurdish and Shia opposition groups yesterday rejected US plans to put Jay Garner, a retired general, in charge. "We are concerned that this looks more and more like an occupation," said Hamid al-Bayati, a senior official of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), the most prominent Iranian-backed Shia group.

..."There was a similar situation after the monarchy was overthrown in 1958," said Nawsherwan Mustapha, a leading member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). "It's a matter of both principle and practice. The US has no clear vision of the situation inside Iraq."

Many in the northern-based opposition are privately scathing about those they regard as being dependent on the US - meaning both the Iraqi-Americans gathering in Kuwait and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a group long supported by the Pentagon and receiving US funding. "What is their constituency? It's not inside Iraq," said a senior KDP official. "They don't even have a medium for talking to people in the country."

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http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s826087.htm

The former American Lieutenant General chosen by the Americans to run post-war Iraq, Jay Garner, is set to make his first public appearance in Kuwait today. But he still does not have the open chequebook that he needs to rebuild Iraq. What he wants is access to cash from the Iraq's oil, the world's second largest supply. The United Nations though, still controls the Oil-for-Food Program, which is currently the only legal avenue to sell Iraq's oil, and it is resisting American demands for access to the program. The UN is demanding a central role for itself and it's nervous about Washington's appointment of a former US oil executive to run Iraq's oil industry.

...The US has in mind the former head of Shell USA, Philip Carroll, and the deputy chief of British Petroleum USA, Rodney Chase to run Iraq's oil industry. Rebuilding will cost billions of dollars, much of which will flow to private companies.

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http://www.boston.com/dailynews/096/wash/Wolfowitz_says_new_government_:.shtml

It probably will take at least six months to set up a new Iraqi government once coalition forces take full control of the country, a Bush administration official said Sunday... [And] the United Nations should not be invited in to supervise and run an interim government like it did in places like Kosovo, he said.

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j040703.html

On the Saturday edition of Chris Matthews’ "Hardball" ...he interviewed one Esra Naamas, a representative of "Women for a Free Iraq." Ms. Naamas, an Iraqi-American who met with the [US] President and other top government officials, hailed the invasion as a "liberation." Matthews asked her how many Saddam loyalists remained in Iraq:"One-hundred thousand?" "Yes," she said, nodding. "And what should be done with all these people?" "Executions." "Thousands of executions?" "Yes. Thousands." In his newfound enthusiasm for this war – and, perhaps, out of a sense of fair play: Ms. Naamas is, after all, barely in her twenties – Matthews gave her an easy out, as the interview progressed, and asked her again: "Thousands of executions?" "Yes!" she exclaimed, "these people have to be punished for what they did!"

...This is the meaning of the fight yet to come, as The Observer put it in a recent article: the real war to take place in the wake of our initial "victory." ...Matthews’ question is... pertinent... The top leaders will be thrown in the brig, and the "coalition" will throw away the key. But what about the hundreds of thousands of lower level BA’athist cadre who remain in Iraq?

...The State Department... favors retaining as many trained Iraqi personnel as possible... The UN would be brought in to manage humanitarian relief, and administer the country until order is restored and elections are held. The costs, too, would be shared... On the other hand, there is the position of the Pentagon... which models its vision of postwar Iraq on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

...A policy [has been suggested] of "de-Nazification" ...[also known as] "de-Baathification," as touted by Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya in The New Republic. Makiya is a key figure in what he describes as "the democratic wing" of the Iraqi exile community... The Baath party, like the German Nazis, is to be banned – the first act of the emerging Iraqi "democracy." The 2 million Baath party members will not all be purged... [but] the purge he envisions is not restricted to the corridors of government... [He said,] "The most insidious presence of the Baath Party is in the schools, the universities, the trade unions, the women's organizations, and the youth groups. It is reflected in curricula and in the way teachers have been trained to think; it is evident in the affairs of the mosques – especially the subordination of the appointment of clerics to political considerations; it figures prominently in the practices and mindsets of hundreds of thousands of police officers and army personnel."

A social revolution, imposed from the top down, is what Makiya and his fellow exiles want to see... As in postwar Germany, Makiya would institute various "grades" of de-Baathification, from "major offender" to "exonerated." ...Those not imprisoned would become official non-persons, in the old Soviet mode... According to him, an entire science of victimology will have to be invented: "There must be a legal definition of victimhood at the hands of the Baath, and it must be broad enough to include members of the Baath Party who were themselves victimized by the regime. Such a definition might give ‘victim’ status – and a basis for compensation – to anyone oppressed because of political opposition to the regime or because of race, religion, or ideology; and to anyone who as a result suffered loss of life, limb or health, loss of liberty or property, or who experienced professional or vocational damage." Those who are not victims must, by definition, be victimizers, and they will be cast into the outer darkness.

In the victimological sweepstakes that will define postwar Iraq, the traditional roles will be reversed: the Shia will lord it over the Sunnis, and the exiles – with their influential connections to the conquerors – will come out on top. This will breed new resentments, but the presence of American troops will preserve the new elite’s status unto eternity – or so they hope.

...Just as Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, proposed that postwar Germany be reduced to an agricultural, pastoral society, with its industry basically destroyed, so the plan for Iraq after the American conquest is predicated on a similarly monolithic vision of Iraqi industrial organization: based, not on agriculture, but on oil production – and a constant infusion of US taxpayer dollars.

... The Morganthau-type plan put out by the neocons, and favored by the Pentagon, assumes a permanent American troop presence. It is an implicitly colonial model, that sees the US military as the de facto ruler of a conquered province – and Iraq as a forward base for future military operations. The UN-Powell plan, on the other hand, assumes some endpoint to an American military presence. It is an exit strategy... but politically it will be hard to pull off... The news that James Woolsey* is on the list of administration favorites to lead the "interim" Iraqi government is a not so subtle hint as to which plan is favored by the White House.

...The real war is going to be the long occupation, during which US troops will be sitting ducks for every Islamist nutball in a region filled with them – and the War Party will be looking for new lands to conquer. The danger could not be greater. God help us all.

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*

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ED08Ak05.html

Watch what happens with R James Woolsey. A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Woolsey is being pushed hard by his fellow neoconservatives in the Pentagon to play a key role in the post-Saddam Hussein US occupation... He has pushed for war with Iraq as hard as anyone, even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. If he soon pops up in Baghdad, you can bet that the "clash of civilizations" is imminent, if it has not begun already.

To Woolsey's mind, the US is already engaged in what he and many of his fellow neoconservatives call "World War IV" ..."We want you nervous," Woolsey told [Egyptian Pres Hosni] Mubarak and the Saudi monarchy in a speech to students at the University of California at Los Angeles last week. "We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, that this country and its allies are on the march, and that we are on the side of those you most fear: we're on the side of your own people."

"Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war," Woolsey declared in a NATO conference in Prague last November... "After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe," he said, "the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East."

...In January 1998 [Woolsey] signed a public letter to Clinton by the newly formed Project for the New American Century calling for the adoption of a "regime change" as the main US policy goal towards Iraq. In that same year, he lobbied hard for passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, which not only formalized regime change as a policy but allocated up to US$100,000,000.00 for the Iraqi opposition, mainly the Iraq National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi. That lobby went into high gear immediately after September 11... Woolsey even suggested that Saddam was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center towers and the anthrax-bearing letters sent to various lawmakers after September 11, and that US intelligence agencies could not find the connection because they lacked sufficient imagination.

...Like other neoconservatives, Woolsey also appears to have somewhat ambivalent views about the democratic revolution he seeks to generate throughout the Arab world. "Only fear will re-establish respect for the US," he told the Washington Post... When asked whether he would retain his enthusiasm for democracy in the Arab world if 'tomorrow' democratic elections were won by Islamist parties hostile to Washington, he joked, "Well, then perhaps the election should be the day after tomorrow."

Still, Woolsey insists... "The key alliance here... is going to be with the moderate and sensible and reasonable Muslims who constitute the vast majority of the world's Muslims and their understanding that we are on their side, just as we were on the side of the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the Cold War."

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