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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (232389)	5/12/2005 12:51:41 PM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574951

Meanwhile, back in Iraq... Al ============================ Death toll nears 400 as violence escalates in Iraq By Steve Negus in Baghdad Published: May 12 2005 03:00 \| Last updated: May 12 2005 03:00 More than 70 people were killed in at least five attacks across Iraq yesterday in a dramatic surge in insurgent violence that has overshadowed the rise to power of Iraq's first elected government. The wave of attacks, which brings the total number of Iraqis dead over the past two weeks to nearly 400, has shattered the sense of optimism created by the January 30 elections. The escalation in violence appears designed to undermine the newly announced government led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shia Islamist al-Dawa party. Yesterday's blasts also came as US forces continued an offensive in a desert area near the Syrian border, alleged to be a main route for foreign Islamist volunteers infiltrating Iraq. US sources claim that at least 100 insurgents have also been killed in four days of fighting, in addition to three marines and at least two civilians, a woman and a child, shot at a checkpoint on Tuesday. The deadliest blast yesterday took place in Saddam Hussein's home-town of Tikrit, where a suicide car bomb exploded in a market outside a police station, killing at least 33 people. In Hawija, a predominantly Sunni Arab town south-west of the disputed city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber detonated explosives hidden under his clothes amid a crowd waiting outside a police and army recruitment centre, killing 32 people. In Baghdad, meanwhile, three car bombs killed four people and wounded 14, police said. US officials say the recent wave of suicide attacks is probably the work of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is believed to control most of the non-Iraqi volunteers that the US says make up the majority of suicide bombers. In an attempt to disrupt Mr Zarqawi's network, US forces backed by fighter-bombers and attack helicopters continued a sweep through the Euphrates river valley near the city of Qaem in the western province of Anbar, a region the US claims is used as a staging area for foreign fighters crossing the Syrian border. "It is here that these foreign fighters receive the weapons and equipment to conduct attacks such as suicide car bombs and assassination or kidnapping of political or civilian targets, in the more populated key cities of Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul," the US military said. Insurgents kidnapped the governor of Anbar, the predominantly Sunni province, and said he would only be released when US troops pulled out of Qaem, the governor's family reported on Tuesday. Additional reporting by Dhiya Rasan and Awadh al-Taee in Baghdad

To: steve harris who wrote (232389)	5/12/2005 1:16:30 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574951

Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents Critics of Bush call them proof that he and Blair never saw diplomacy as an option with Hussein. By John Daniszewski Times Staff Writer May 12, 2005 LONDON — Reports in the British press this month based on documents indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had conditionally agreed by July 2002 to invade Iraq appear to have blown over quickly in Britain. But in the United States, where the reports at first received scant attention, there has been growing indignation among critics of the Bush White House, who say the documents help prove that the leaders made a secret decision to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy. The documents, obtained by Michael Smith, a defense specialist writing for the Sunday Times of London, include a memo of the minutes of a meeting July 23, 2002, between Blair and his intelligence and military chiefs; a briefing paper for that meeting and a Foreign Office legal opinion prepared before an April 2002 summit between Blair and Bush in Texas. The picture that emerges from the documents is of a British government convinced of the U.S. desire to go to war and Blair's agreement to it, subject to several specific conditions. Since Smith's report was published May 1, Blair's Downing Street office has not disputed the documents' authenticity. Asked about them Wednesday, a Blair spokesman said the report added nothing significant to the much-investigated record of the lead-up to the war. "At the end of the day, nobody pushed the diplomatic route harder than the British government…. So the circumstances of this July discussion very quickly became out of date," said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified. The leaked minutes sum up the July 23 meeting, at which Blair, top security advisors and his attorney general discussed Britain's role in Washington's plan to oust Hussein. The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide, indicate general thoughts among the participants about how to create a political and legal basis for war. The case for military action at the time was "thin," Foreign Minister Jack Straw was characterized as saying, and Hussein's government posed little threat. Labeled "secret and strictly personal — U.K. eyes only," the minutes begin with the head of the British intelligence service, MI6, who is identified as "C," saying he had returned from Washington, where there had been a "perceptible shift in attitude. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." continued............... latimes.com