NEWS ARCHIVE
RETROSPECTIVE: THE 43 DAYS
OF THE INVASION
Visit the full
archive at:
http://www.endthewar.org/features.htm
INVASION DAY 1: March 19, 2003
The War has Started
Robert Fox and David Taylor,
Evening Standard
http://pub189.ezboard.com/fmymp3boardfrm17.showMessage?topicID=4.topic
Commencement of Hostilties: US Planes
Bomb Iraqi Artillery North of Kuwaiti Border, 17 Iraqis Surrender
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CA01#BODY
Faith
prevents support of war - Another Look
Joe Dennis, The Walton Tribune
http://www.endthewar.org/frontps/Op-eds/faithprevents.htm
Early Risk for U.S. Ground
Troops: Region's Legacy of Land Mines
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.endthewar.org/features/landminelegacy.htm
INVASION DAY 2: March 20, 2003
International red cross confirms one casualty and 14
injured in Iraq day 1
Associated Press
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_762832.html?menu=
The International Red
Cross has stated at least one person has died and 14 have been
wounded in the first day of war in
Iraq.
One More
Time: No War
Endthewar.org Feature
http://www.endthewar.org/features/nowar.htm
Military Readies For Gulf War Illness
Precautions, Monitoring Already In Place for Iraq War Troops
WebMd Medical News
March 20, 2003
Anti-War Protests Sweep Globe Following Launch of
Strikes in Iraq
Agence France Presse,
March 20, 2003
Anti-War
Protests Sweep
Globe Following Launch of
Strikes in Iraq
Agence France Presse
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0320-02.htm
INVASION DAY 3: March 21, 2003
Iraq:
As Antiwar Protests Erupt,
U.S.
Hopes To Win The PR Battle
(Jeffrey Donovan, Radio Free
Europe)
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/03/21032003185720.asp
Perle CROWS ‘Thanks
God for the death of the UN’
(Richard Perle, The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,918812,00.html
Operation Obliterate Iraq (and Poison
the Troops)
Endthewar.org
feature, March 21, 2003
Word from Iraq Hours Before "Shock & Awe"
by Kathy Kelly & Ramzi Kysia,
CommonDreams.org, Friday, March 21, 2003 by
1,025 Anti-War Protesters Arrested in
San Francisco
BBC News On Line,
March 21, 2003
INVASION DAY 4: March 22, 2003
Conflict Could Spill Over to Other Regions:
Putin
(Arab News)
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2003%20News%20archives/March
%202003%20News/22%20news/Conflict%20could%20spill%20over%20to%20other
%20regions,%20says%20Putin%20%20aljazeerah.info.htm
image from
Al-Jazeera with link and
comments, March 22, 2003
INVASION DAY 5: March 23, 2003
This is the reality of war. We bomb. They suffer
(Robert Fisk, Independent)
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=389918
Donald
Rumsfeld says the American attack on Baghdad is "as targeted an air
campaign as has ever existed" but he should not try telling that to
five-year-old Doha Suheil.
Robert
Fisk
23
March 2003
Around the Globe, Protest Marches,
in New York, 200,000 Take to the Street
By Michael
Powell, Washington Post, March 23
INVASION DAY 6: March 24, 2003
IMAGES
TO EXPLODE THE MYTHS OF WAR (Brian Reade, Mirror)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12770628&method=full&
Why
these pictures will lead to more horrors closer to home…
'This makes us love Saddam, not America' : 34 die as
US missiles hit wrong target
Luke Harding
in Halabja, northern Iraq,
The Guardian,March
24, 2003,
Allies Risk 3000 Casualties in Baghdad - Ex-General
Reuters,
Monday, March 24, 2003
INVASION DAY 7: March 25, 2003
Uprising
reported in Basra - British forces are bombarding
the
CITY(BBC News)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2886235.stm
A
"popular civilian uprising" is reported to have taken place in the
southern Iraqi city of Basra, according to British military
intelligence officials.
In Baghdad -
Missile Strike Shatters a House, and a Family
Attack on Neighborhood Evokes Anger at U.S.
By Anthony Shadid,
Washington Post,
March 25, 2003; Page A11
INVASION DAY 8: March 26, 2003
Who Lied to Whom ABOUT WMD? (The
New Yorker)
http://www.rense.com/general36/who.htm
Why did the Administration endorse a
forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?
Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution
authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of
senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director
of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability. It was an important
presentation for the Bush Administration.
On The Scene: A Formidable Foe
(CBS)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/iraq/scene/main546258.shtml
The shattered
American armor on the streets of an-Nasariyah says it all. The
Marines are dealing with an enemy that is both far more determined
-- and far more capable of disrupting their schedule than anyone
thought.
Six Days of Shame
(Mirror)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12776744&method=full&siteid=50143
Today is a day of
shame for the British military as it declares the Iraqi city of
Basra, with a stricken population of 600,000, a "military target".
No More Innocent Victims!
Endthewar.org
feature March 26, 2003
INVASION DAY 9:
March 27, 2003
Civilians Slaughtered
(Robert Fisk, The Independent)
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/March
%202003%20op%20eds/27%20op%20eds/Civilians%20slaughtered%20in%20Iraq,%20
by%20Robert%20Fisk%20%20aljazeerah.info.htm
Two missiles from a
single American jet killed them all — more than 20 Iraqi civilians,
torn to pieces before they could be ‘liberated’ by the nation which
destroyed their lives.
INVASION DAY 10:
March 28, 2003
The destruction of Safwan Hill - Napalm Used In Iraq,
by the US coalition
(iraqwar.ru)
http://www.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=917&lang=en
Herald Correspondent
Lindsay Murdoch, travelling with a Marines artillery unit, reports
on one of the war's first battles on the Iraq-Kuwait border. The
destruction of Safwan Hill was a priority for the attacking forces
because it had sophisticated surveillance equipment near the main
highway that runs from Kuwait up to Basra and then Baghdad. The
attacking US and British forces could not attempt to cross the
border unless it was destroyed.
Raw, Devastating
Realities That Expose the Truth About
Basra
(Robert Fisk, The Independent)
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0328-01.htm
Two British soldiers
lie dead on a Basra roadway, a small Iraqi girl – victim of an Anglo
American air strike – is brought to hospital with her intestines
spilling out of her stomach, a terribly wounded woman screams in
agony as doctors try to take off her black dress.
Blair Caught Lying: UK Soldier was Not Executed:
Family Offended
By Stephen Moyes and James Hardy, Daily
Mirror, March 28, 2003
INVASION DAY
11: March 29, 2003
British MP Sees Catastrophe Ahead (Inter
Press Service)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0329-02.htm
Labour Party MP Tam Dalyell, revered as
the 'father' of the British Parliament, sees catastrophic times
ahead if the war on Iraq continues.
INVASION DAY
12: March 30, 2003
In Baghdad,
blood and bandages for the innocent
(Robert
Fisk, The Independent)
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles199.htm
The piece of metal is only a foot high,
but the numbers on it hold the clue to the latest atrocity in
Baghdad. At least 62 civilians had died by yesterday afternoon, and
the coding on that hunk of metal contains the identity of the
culprit. The Americans and British were doing their best yesterday
to suggest that an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile destroyed those
dozens of lives, adding that they were "still investigating" the
carnage. But the coding is in Western style, not in Arabic. And many
of the survivors heard the plane.
INVASION DAY
13: March 31, 2003
Three British soldiers sent home after protesting at
civilian deaths (The
Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,925984,00.html
Three British soldiers in Iraq have been
ordered home after objecting to the conduct of the war. It is
understood they have been sent home for protesting that the war is
killing innocent civilians.
INVASION DAY
14: April 1, 2003
Cholera in Basra a 'huge concern' of UN
Eastern Daily Press
http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/search/nfdetail.asp?Brand=EDPOnline&Category=
News&ItemId=NOED01+Apr+2003+12%3A32%3A39%3A460&archive=1
Cholera in Basra has become a “huge
concern”, United Nations children's agency Unicef has warned. Around
half of the one million-plus people living in Iraq's second city are
without water.
Just the Beginning: Is Iraq the opening salvo in a
war to remake the world?
By Robert Dreyfuss, The American
Prospect, April 1, 2003
INVASION DAY
15: April 2, 2003
Strains of war test the allies
(Times Online)
http://www.flora.org/nowar/forum/2408
TENSIONS between Britain and the US over
the conduct of the Iraq war were growing last night as British
commanders voiced their dismay at American soldiers_ heavy-handed
tactics. The strains burst into the open after US troops fired on a
civilian vehicle, killing the driver, hours after seven Iraqi women
and children were shot dead at a checkpoint. An Apache helicopter
was also said to have blown up a lorry, killing 15 members of a
single family, yesterday.
Children killed in US assault
(Ewen Mackaskill
and Suzanne Goldenberg , The
Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,927890,00.html
Dozens of Iraqi villagers were killed
and injured in a ferocious American air and land assault near the
Iraqi city of Babylon, hospital officials in the town said
yesterday. Reuters reporters on the scene confirmed the deaths of at
least nine children, two other civilians and two Iraqi fighters at
Hilla in a bombardment on Monday night and early yesterday morning.
Beyond
Baghdad - Machinations about Iraq's future under way
Brian
Whitaker, The
Guardian,
Wednesday April 2, 2003
INVASION DAY
16: April 3, 2003
Iraq: Humanitarian Situation Report No. 15 – 2.2.
Operational Issues (Report
by the UN Office of the Humanitarian UN Office of the Humanitarian
Coordinator for Iraq)
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/ca68f9e0cfaa5ee785256cfd0069201f?OpenDocument
The ICRC reported heavy fighting in
Kerbala, Najaf, and Nassriyah, thus preventing humanitarian access
to the area. ICRC reports that Nassriyah and Najaf City have been
without water for about a week.
Raid and Aid Charade
(The Guardian)
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=1918&CategoryId=5
The Guardian proclaimed [April 1, 2003],
exposing details of how the noble British “Raid and Aid” approach to
Iraqi civilians contrasts sharply with the “brutal” American tactics
executed by “nervous and trigger-happy” “cowboys,” showing little or
no regard to innocent Iraqi lives.
However, taking a closer look will
reveal that the British troops and their commanders are, by any fair
assessment, just as liable to end up in the Hague as their American
comrades-in-arm, or in-crime, I should say.
Wailing children, the wounded, the dead: victims of
the day cluster bombs rained on Babylon
Robert Fisk, The Independent
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0403-06.htm
The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash
of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of
shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh.
The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something
illegal - something quite outside the Geneva Conventions - occurred
in the villages around the
city once known as Babylon.
In Iraqi Hospitals, Child War Casualties Mount
By Samia Nakhoul, Reuters,
April 3, 2003
Halliburton, Dick Cheney, and Wartime Spoils
by Lee Drutman and
Charlie Cray, CommonDreams.org
April 3, 2003
INVASION DAY
17: April 4, 2003
Cluster Bombs Liberate Iraqi Children (The
Asian Times, Hong Kong)
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0403-09.htm
After uninterrupted, furious American
bombing on Monday night and Tuesday morning, as of Wednesday night
there were at least 61 dead Iraqi civilians and more than 450
seriously injured in the region of Hilla, 80 kilometers south of
Baghdad. Most are children: 60 percent of Iraq's population of
roughly 24 million are children.
Red Cross Horrified by Number of Dead Civilians (Canadian
Press)
http://truthout.org/docs_03/040603A.shtml
OTTAWA — Red Cross doctors who visited
southern Iraq this week saw "incredible" levels of civilian
casualties including a truckload of dismembered women and children,
a spokesman said Thursday from Baghdad.
Roland Huguenin, one of six
International Red Cross workers in the Iraqi capital, said doctors
were horrified by the casualties they found in the hospital in Hilla,
about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad.
INVASION DAY
18: April 5, 2003
The Scars of War Are Left Behind
The guardian
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=9§ion=0&article=24746&d=5&m=4&y=2003
The whole land stinks of burning. Seen
from several miles away on Thursday morning, Aziziya was marked by
columns of thick gray smoke, like still tornadoes on the horizon.
Seen just after sunset, rushing through
in a US Marine convoy that would not stop, it was pocked by
unnatural fires, flickering in the heart of scorched trucks and
tanks.
INVASION DAY
19: April 6, 2003
Iraq: 50 U.S. Soldiers killed, U.S.: 2,000 Iraqi Troops Killed
IslamOnline.net & News Agency
http://www.islam-online.net/english/News/2003-04/06/article09.shtml
Amidst the mounting propaganda warfare
raging between Iraq and the U.S.-led troops, Iraqi Information
Minister Mohammed Sa.eed al-Sahhaf said Sunday, April 6, that the
Iraqi fighters shot dead some 50 U.S. troops in the puzzling airport
battle, while the U.S. Central Command said that up to 2,000 Iraqi
troops have been killed in the fighting.
INVASION DAY
20: April 7, 2003
Russian Ambassador to Iraq: Americans Deliberately Fired at Russian
Diplomats' Motorcade
Alexander
Krasnov, a RIA Novosti correspondent
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2657.htm
Russian ambassador to Iraq Vladimir
Titorenko believes that the motorcade of Russian cars with diplomats
and journalists was deliberately fired at by Americans. During the
attack, the ambassador suffered a slight hand wound. Doctors
rendered aid to the ambassador.
According to the ambassador, Americans delivered fire deliberately.
Rubber Bullets Used on War
Protesters in Oakland
By
Jim
Winborne, Reuters,
April 7, 2003
INVASION DAY
21: April 8, 2003
Al-Jazeera cameraman killed in US raid
Reuters
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,932169,00.html
An al-Jazeera cameraman has died and
another of the Arabic-language news channel's journalists is missing
after a coalition bombing raid hit its Baghdad office this morning.
Journalists injured as Baghdad hotel attacked
The Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,932201,00.html
The base for most western journalists in
Baghdad, the Palestine hotel, has been attacked this morning as the
battle for the Iraqi capital intensifies.
Four Reuters journalists including a TV cameraman, a technician and
two others working at the hotel were injured, according to Sky News,
which within 30 minutes of the attack, was able to broadcast footage
from within the hotel.
14 civilians killed in bombing of Baghdad's
residential neighborhood
Al Jazeera
with agency inputs
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2676.htm
At least 14 Iraqi civilians were
reportedly killed when missiles hit the Mansour residential
neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital on Monday.
"Many civilians have been killed and
homes destroyed - there is a lot of destruction in this area," Al
Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, Tayseer Alouneh reported.
Killing a child: 'I did what I had to do'
Reuters, April 8
2003, 12:49 PM
INVASION DAY 22: April 9, 2003
US Central Command: Saddam's rule has ended
The Straits
Times
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/story/0,4395,182162,00.html
BAGHDAD -- Jubilant crowds swarmed into
Baghdad's streets on Wednesday, dancing, looting and defacing images
of Saddam Hussein as US commanders said - with some qualifications -
that his regime's rule over the capital had ended.
Iraq war planned long in advance; banned arms not the priority: Blix
(WMD)
AFP Madrid
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2836.htm
The invasion of Iraq was planned a long
time in advance, and the United States and Britain are not primarily
concerned with finding any banned weapons of mass destruction, the
chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said.
Regime Collapses, Reports of Mass Casualties
EPIC
Action Alert, April 9, 2003
War in Iraq Military: US-backed militia loots,
terrorizes town
By
Charles Clover,
Financial Times; Apr 09, 2003
Jubilant Iraqis Celebrate Saddam's Fall:
500,000 Iraqi Children Miss the Ceremonies due to Death by Sanctions
Endthewar.org Editorial, by
Mike Zmolek, April 9, 2003
INVASION DAY
23: April 10, 2003
'We shoot them down like the morons they are': US general
Lindsay
Murdoch, Herald Correspondent south of Baghdad
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/09/1049567715079.html
Hundreds of Muslim fighters, many of
them non-Iraqis, were putting up a stronger fight for Baghdad than
Iraq's Republican Guard or the regular army, a top United States
military officer said yesterday.
"They stand, they fight, sometimes they
run when we engage them," Brigadier-General John Kelly said.
"But often they run into our machine
guns and we shoot them down like the morons they are."
Three Marines Killed In
Baghdad
Attack
IOL & News
Agencies
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2840.htm
In a new indication that the seemingly
easy capture of the capital Baghdad does not mean the U.S.-led war
on Iraq was won, three U.S. Marines were killed Thursday, April 10,
in a new attack in Baghdad, reported Al-Jazeera TV channel.
Powerful TV image obscures details
By
Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune,
April 10, 2003
INVASION DAY
24: April 11, 2003
Iraq creates National resistance front to US- British coalition
ITAR-TASS
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2863.htm
Iraq has launched activities with the
aim to create a National resistance front to the U.S. British
coalition.
One of its leaders in exile, Abdel Amir ar-Rakabi, who represents
the Iraqi patriotic movement, told Abu Dhabi satellite television
that a resolution on the establishment of the National resistance
front would be announced in Iraq in two days' time,
INVASION DAY
25: April 12, 2003
Baghdad Seeths With Anger Toward U.S.
NIKO PRICE,
Associated Press
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2900.htm
At first they cheered, smiled, offered
hearty thumbs-ups to the U.S. soldiers newly in their midst. But
across Iraq's lawless capital, that sentiment is evaporating as
quickly as Saddam Hussein's government melted away.
Baghdad was bursting with anti-American
feeling Saturday as residents saw their city being stripped by its
own citizens while U.S. forces stood by, rarely intervening and in
some cases even motioning treasure-laden men through checkpoints.
Looters ransack Baghdad museum
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2942449.stm
Thousands of valuable historical items
from Baghdad's main museum have been taken or destroyed by looters.
Nabhal Amin, deputy director at the
Iraqi National Museum, blamed the destruction on the United States
for not taking control of the situation on the streets.
INVASION DAY
26: April 13, 2003
TV
crew 'under fire' in Tikrit
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2943795.stm
A CNN reporting crew has come under fire
after entering the city of Tikrit - the home town of Saddam Hussein
that is still not under coalition control.
INVASION DAY
27: April 14, 2003
US rejects Iraq DU clean-up
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2946715.stm
The US says it has no plans to remove
the debris left over from depleted uranium (DU) weapons it is using
in Iraq.
It says no clean-up is needed, because
research shows DU has no long-term effects and the 1990 study
suggesting health risks to local people and veterans is out of date.
A United Nations study found DU contaminating air and water seven
years after it was used.
Hospital chaos... but UK docs are sent home
Stephen Martin
in Baghdad and Lorraine Fishe, Information Clearinghouse
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2923.htm
BRITAIN is pulling a medical ship and
field clinic out of Iraq even though there are only two hospitals
left open in Baghdad. Last night there was anger at the decision as
thousands of sick and injured Iraqis faced death in hospitals
without electricity, water and few drugs. The Red Cross said 33 of
the 35 hospitals in Baghdad were "no longer functioning".
INVASION DAY
28: April 15, 2003
10 killed after shooting in Mosul, US troops blamed
Press Trust of India/ Agence France-Presse
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=20592
At least 10 people were killed and
scores wounded in shooting in Mosul on Tuesday, a hospital doctor
said, as other witnesses alleged US troops had opened fire.
INVASION DAY
29: April 16, 2003
Inquiry Demanded Over US Failure to Stop Library Looting
The
Independent
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0416-09.htm
The burning of Iraq's National Library
is a "devastating loss" and is the equivalent of losing the British
Library, international academics said. The US military's failure to
prevent the calamity must be investigated to prevent it happening
again, they added. The burning of the library, with its thousands of
rare printed books and hand-written archives, marks a further
erasure of Iraq's past, obliterating large chunks of Middle Eastern
history and destroying many unique documents
Death By Slow
Burn - How America Nukes Its Own Troops
What 'Support Our Troops'
Really Means
By Amy Worthington, The Idaho Observer
April 16, 2003
INVASION DAY
30: April 17, 2003
Heavy-handed and hopeless, the U.S. military doesn't know what it's
doing in Iraq
Iraq Peace
Team, Electronic Iraq
http://electroniciraq.net/news/674.shtml
Voices in the Wilderness representatives
met today with the U.S. Military's Civil Military Operations Center
(CMOC) in their headquarters at the Palestine Hotel to discuss the
emergency, humanitarian crisis facing Baghdad. Trash removal has not
occurred for a month. Electricity, Sanitation and Communications
were all seriously damaged during the U.S. war, and have yet to be
restored in Baghdad. Cholera outbreaks have been reported in Basra,
and rumored to have been found in the central Iraqi city of Hilla.
A Worthy Cause: Oppose Landmine Use in Iraq
banminesusa.org
April 17, 2003
INVASION DAY
31: April 18, 2003
Over 200,000 Iraqis Demonstrate in Baghdad and other
cities: "Iraq for the Iraqis!"
Frontlines correspondents, with additional information from AFP,
Reuters, AP Al-Jazeera, Al-Arayiba and Abu Dhabi
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3012.htm
Tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated
following Friday prayers. While some mainstream media reports in the
US focused on one of the demonstrations, with 12,000 people who
marched through Downtown Baghdad, the scope and breadth of the mass
mobilizations at many other sites went mainly unreported.
INVASION DAY
32: April 19, 2003
Prove Iraqi guilt, MPs tell Blair
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,939535,00.html
Tony Blair is facing the threat of a
fresh rebellion from Labour backbenchers who are growing
increasingly alarmed that the failure to uncover weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq will confirm that the war was illegal.
INVASION DAY
33: April 20, 2003
Anthrax, Chemicals and Nerve Gas: Who is Lying?
The
Independent
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0420-01.htm
For months, Mr Ritter, the United
Nations weapons inspector who famously quit in 1998 after seven
years on the job, has said Iraq's capability of producing or
deploying chemical or biological weapons was 90-95 per cent
destroyed on his watch and was very unlikely to have been built up
again under international sanctions and the constant surveillance of
spy satellites and US and British war planes.
INVASION DAY
34: April 21, 2003
Pressure on Blair over reliability of weapons reports
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,940353,00.html
The Conservatives said yesterday that
Tony Blair had a moral obligation to investigate whether the
intelligence services had misled the government into believing
Saddam Hussein was harbouring weapons of mass destruction, (WMD) the
stated cause of the war in Iraq.
The defence minister Lewis Moonie
rejected the call but conceded that it might take a long time to
find any weapons.
Empty-Handed U.S. Focuses on Iraqi Arms Scientists
Reuters
http://informationclearinghouse.literati.org/article3055.htm
Having failed to find Saddam Hussein's
vaunted arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological arms, the United
States is now focusing more on the scientists who hold Iraq's
weapons secrets in their heads.
US to Keep Bases in Iraq
The Guardian
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0421keepbases.htm
The US is planning a long-term military
presence in Iraq, in a move which will dramatically extend American
power in the region and spread dismay and fear among its opponents
across the Arab world.
INVASION DAY
35: April 22, 2003
What Happened to Iraq’s
“Weapons of Mass Destruction”?
World
Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/wmd-a22.shtml
Tens of thousands of liters of anthrax.
Thousands of liters of botulinium toxin. Hundreds of tons of mustard
gas. Tons of nerve gas. Illegally extended missiles and hundreds of
bombs and artillery shells to deliver these deadly toxins. Mobile
bio-weapons labs. Even secret facilities for the development of
nuclear weapons. All these and more were alleged by the Bush
administration during the months of diplomatic posturing leading up
to its attack on Iraq.
INVASION DAY
35: April 22, 2003
Iraqi children die quietly as infections spread
Agence
France-Presse (AFP)
http://www.timeenoughforlove.org/saved/YahooNewsIraqiChildrenDieQuietly.htm
Thousands of Iraqi children caught in a
deadly outbreak of diarrhea and other infections which have
erupted in the aftermath of the war. They are being caused,
especially in the capital Baghdad, by a vicious
combination of water contamination, electricity blackouts which are
rotting food, tonnes of garbage which have piled up in the streets
and open sewage.
INVASION DAY
36: April 23, 2003
IRAQ: CHRISTIANS FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE
The Institute
on Religion and Democracy
http://www.ird-renew.org/Liberty/Liberty.cfm?ID=624&c=29
Whilst Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was
brutal and ruthless, it was primarily political and not a religious
oppression. He persecuted those who threatened his leadership.
Shi'ites were a threat simply because they were in the majority, so
Saddam repressed them mercilessly. The non-Arab, stateless Kurds,
forming some 20% of the population, were suppressed because they
resisted subjugation. The situation was intensified because Iraq's
oil fields lie in the predominantly Shi'ite south and the mostly
Kurdish north. These groups were persecuted, terrorised and policed
into submission. No-one dared criticise the regime. Saddam's secular
Baathism promoted pan-Arab nationalism and suppressed overt
religious expression, including Islam. As a small minority
(estimated 1.5%), Iraq's Christians were not a political threat to
Saddam. Today, Iraqi Christians have good reason to feel anxious.
Because they were not overtly persecuted by Saddam's regime they
risk being seen, by some, as Saddam sympathisers.
INVASION DAY
37: April 24, 2003
Iraq environmental crisis worsening, threatens health: UN
Agence France-Presse
(AFP)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030424/323/dygsb.html
A United Nations watchdog warned that
war damage to sanitation and electricity systems, coupled with
worsening pollution, had aggravated Iraq's environmental crisis and
posed a threat to health.
INVASION DAY
38: April 25, 2003
US to offer proposal to end Iraqi sanctions next week: report
Agence France-Presse
(AFP)
http://www.reliefweb.net/w/rwb.nsf/0/9e2d6eebe257b013c1256d13004cb191?OpenDocument
The United States plans to propose next
week a UN Security Council resolution lifting all international
sanctions against Iraq and putting oil revenues under US control
until an interim authority takes over in Baghdad, The Washington
Post said Friday.
INVASION DAY
39: April 26, 2003
Arms dump blast fuels Iraqi hostility towards U.S.
Reuters
http://in.news.yahoo.com/030426/137/23u9z.html
At least 12 Iraqis died on Saturday when
an arms dump exploded on the edge of Baghdad, sending rockets
scything into nearby houses, and residents blamed the Americans for
the carnage.
INVASION DAY
40: April 27, 2003
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden (Al-Queda)
Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/walq27.xml
Iraqi intelligence documents discovered
in Baghdad by The Telegraph have provided the first evidence of a
direct link between Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network
and Saddam Hussein's regime. Papers found yesterday in the bombed
headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal
that an al-Qa'eda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in
March 1998.
INVASION DAY
41: April 28, 2003
Fighting is over but the deaths go on
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,944743,00.html
Unexploded ordnance and landmines
littering northern Iraq have killed or maimed more people - many of
them children - since the end of the war than during the fighting, a
Guardian investigation has revealed.
INVASION DAY
41: April 28, 2003
Tests cast doubt on possible find of Iraqi chemical weapons (WMD)
Associated
Press
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030428-1543-iraq-bannedweapons.html
A metal drum found in northern Iraq that
initially tested positive for nerve and blister agents might instead
contain rocket fuel, according to new tests, a U.S. chemical weapons
expert said Monday.
INVASION DAY
42: April 29, 2003
Top Iraqi Prisoners Deny Saddam Had WMDs
Associated
Press
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/iraq/5746585.htm
High-ranking Iraqi prisoners are
uniformly denying Saddam Hussein's government had any weapons of
mass destruction before the war, U.S. officials familiar with their
interrogations said Tuesday.
INVASION DAY
43: April 30, 2003
Troops 'are letting looters smuggle Iraqi
antiquities'
The
Independent
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0430-10.htm
The American military was accused
yesterday of doing nothing to prevent the mass smuggling of Iraq's
antiquities – three weeks after the country's museums were
ransacked.
