We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes. More...

CARACAS - One million books, 10 million documents and 14,000 archaeological artifacts have been lost in the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq - the biggest cultural disaster since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed Baghdad in 1258, Venezuelan writer Fernando Baez told Inter Press Service (IPS)

"US and Polish soldiers are still stealing treasures today and selling them across the borders with Jordan and Kuwait, where art merchants pay up to $57,000 for a Sumerian tablet," said Baez, who was interviewed during a brief visit to Caracas. (A Sumerian tablet is pictured at right.) More...

[From the editorial board of the Free Arab Voice: For many leftists in the west, especially in the United States, the question of Iraq remains shrouded in ambiguity. They know that supporting an occupation isn't right, only they keep hearing these supposedly labor and women’s groups saying "we need the occupation". So when the left in the US denounces the occupation of Iraq, it can only do so half-heartedly because leftists are supposed to admit at the same time "it’s doing some good". The result is that the left is in horrible confusion and therefore deadlocked - except for a handful of activists. Partly that's Zionist influence in the left in the west, but it’s due as well to this flood of all sorts of disinformation, especially disinformation about the Iraqi Resistance. To this end, Nada Al-Rubaiee’s piece comes to fill a very important void. The Editorial Board of the FREE ARAB VOICE www.freearabvoice.org ]

Nada Al-Rubaiee
Member of the Central Committee of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance ( IPA)

During Bush’s campaign to invade Iraq, issues concerning Iraqi women were raised on several occasions. Part of this “feminist” hoopla was carried out by a few Iraqi women who promoted the invasion as a means of “liberating” Iraqi women from male and state repression. After the desired “liberation” of Iraq was accomplished, some of these same women were appointed to ‘prestigious’ positions in different occupation institutions of the “New Iraq” like the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and the Interim Iraqi Government of Ayad Allawy (Prime Minster). Others started operating openly inside Iraq under the banner of foreign-financed so-called NGO’s, as well as human rights and women’s organizations. More...

I've just had an email from a friend in the Green Zone. He has not set foot outside the compound since he's been there, and probably never will. Helicopter to and from the airport only. Welcome to free Iraq, and especially to liberated Falluja. More...

Iraqi authorities will today take back responsibility for the site of Babylon in a formal handover from the coalition forces. But what they will inherit, say experts, is a catalogue of disasters. According to the report of the British Museum's John Curtis, the site has been severely contaminated and parts have been irreparably damaged.

The report details: More...

US-led forces leave a trail of destruction and contamination in architectural site of world importance

Troops from the US-led force in Iraq have caused widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon, according to a damning report released today by the British Museum.

John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient Near East department and an authority on Iraq's many archaeological sites, found "substantial damage" on an investigative visit to Babylon last month.

The ancient city has been used by US and Polish forces as a military depot for the past two years, despite objections from archaeologists.

"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," says the report, which has been seen by the Guardian. More...

The damage wrought by the construction of an American military base in the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon must rank as one of the most reckless acts of cultural vandalism in recent memory. And all the more so because it was unnecessary and avoidable.

The camp did not have to be established in the city - where the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the world, once stood - but given that it was, the US authorities were very aware of the warnings of archaeologists of the historic importance of the site. Yet, as a report by Dr John Curtis of the British Museum makes clear, they seem to have ignored the warnings. More...

The brush fires are already being lit but fear not, Bush and Blair will tell us they knew things would get violent on polling day.

I tried out the new Beirut-Baghdad air service this week. It's a sleek little 20-seater with two propellers, a Lebanese-Canadian pilot and a name to take you aback. It's called "Flying Carpet Airlines". As Commander Queeg said in The Caine Mutiny, "I kid thee not." It says "Flying Carpet" on the little blue boarding cards, below the captain's cabin and on the passenger headrest covers where the aircraft can be seen gliding through the sky on a high-pile carpet.

And it's an odd little flight, too. You arrive at Beirut's swish new glass and steel airport where you are told to meet your check-in desk handler in front of the post office in the arrivals lounge. There are a group of disconsolate Americans - "contractors" who've been passing the weekend in the fleshpots - and fearful Lebanese businessmen and, well, you've guessed it, The Independent's equally fearful correspondent. More...

On November 8, the American army launched its biggest ever assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, considered a stronghold for rebel fighters. The US said the raid had been a huge success, killing 1,200 insurgents. Most of the city's 300,000 residents, meanwhile, had fled for their lives. What really happened in the siege of Falluja? In a joint investigation for the Guardian and Channel 4 News, Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil compiled the first independent reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of unburied corpses, rabid dogs - and a dangerously embittered population

Tuesday January 11, 2005
The Guardian

December 22 2004

It all started at my house in Baghdad. I packed my equipment, the camera and the tripod. Tariq, my friend, told me not to take it with us. "The fighters might search the car and think that we are spies." Tariq was frightened about our trip, even though he is from Falluja and we had permission from one group of fighters to enter under their protection. But Tariq, more than anyone, understands that the fighters are no longer just one group. He is quite a character, Tariq: 32 and an engineer with a masters degree in embryo implantation, he works now at a human rights institute called the Democratic Studies Institute for Human Rights and Democracy in Baghdad. He is also deeply into animal rights. More...

Summary: By losing the trust of the Iraqi people, the Bush administration has already lost the war. Moderate Iraqis can still win it, but only if they wean themselves from Washington and get support from elsewhere. To help them, the United States should reduce and ultimately eliminate its military presence, train Iraqis to beat the insurgency on their own, and rally Iran and European allies to the cause.

James Dobbins is Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at Rand. He was a U.S. Special Envoy in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

QUICKSAND OR QUAGMIRE?

The recent American presidential campaign has had the perverse effect of postponing any serious national debate on the future U.S. course in Iraq. Electoral considerations placed a premium on consistency at the expense of common sense, with both candidates insisting that even with perfect hindsight they would have acted just as they did two years ago: going to war or voting to authorize doing so. The campaign also revealed the paucity of good options now before the United States. Keeping U.S. troops in Iraq will only provoke fiercer and more widespread resistance, but withdrawing them too soon could spark a civil war. The second administration of George W. Bush seems to be left with the choice between making things worse slowly or quickly. More...

The US isn't protecting or feeding Iraqis, it's stoking violence and hardship.

Colin Powell invoked it before the invasion, telling aides that if the US went into Iraq "you're going to be owning this place". John Kerry pledged his allegiance to it during the first presidential debate, saying: "Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It's the wrong thing to do. But you own it." More...

It was the insouciance, the absolute indifference of the British military press office in Basra that shocked me. More...