] LINDA MOTTRAM: As we've been hearing in John's report,
] 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.
]
]
] Rafael Epstein reports.
]
]
] RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The man who'll negotiate with the UN and
] others over international help for Iraq is US Assistant
] Secretary of State for International Organisation, Kim
] Holmes.
]
]
] KIM HOLMES: The oil reserves of Iraq will be intended for
] and used for the purposes of the Iraqi people and that is
] just a bottom line, bedrock principle.
]
]
] RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The US has in mind the former head of
] Shell USA, Philip Carroll, and the deputy chief of BP
] USA, Rodney Chase to run Iraq's oil industry. Rebuilding
] will cost billions of dollars, much of which will flow to
] private companies.
]
]
] Bu

AM - Battle over who can sell Iraq's oil

] San Francisco -- A full-page ad Monday calling for the
] impeachment of President Bush sparked dozens of calls,
] letters and e-mails from readers angered that it would
] appear in The Chronicle.
]
] "We consider it an outrage that you accepted the
] advertisement to impeach our United States President,"
] said one letter faxed to Dick Rogers, readers'
] representative for the paper. "I find this type of
] advertising anti-American and in poor taste," complained
] another reader.
]
] "Most of the calls were from people who said it was
] distasteful to run the ad while our troops were dying
] overseas," Rogers said. "There weren't many calls in
] favor."

Readers mad that Chronicle ran ad to impeach Bush / Antiwar group paid about $45,000

] Baghdad%u2014First the Americans killed the correspondent
] for Al-Jazeera yesterday and wounded his cameraman.
]
] Then, within four hours, they attacked the Reuters
] Television bureau in Baghdad and killed one of its
] cameramen, father of an 8-year old son, and wounded three
] other staff members. Also fatally wounded was a cameraman
] for the Spanish television network Telecinco
]
] Was it possible to believe this was an accident? Or was
] it possible that the right word for these killings %u2014
] the first with a jet aircraft, the second with an Abrams
] tank - was murder?

Back in 2001, the U.S. fired a cruise missile at Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul, from which tapes of Osama bin Laden had been broadcast around the world.

No explanation was ever given for this extraordinary attack on the night before the city's "liberation." Al-Jazeera's Kabul correspondent, Tasir Alouni, was unhurt. By the strange coincidence of journalism, Alouni was in the Baghdad office yesterday to endure the U.S. Air Force's second attack on Al-Jazeera.

The French television channel France 3 had a crew in a neighbouring room and videotaped the tank on the bridge. Their tape shows a bubble of fire emerging from the tank gun's muzzle, the sound of a massive detonation, then pieces of paint-work falling past the camera as it vibrates with the impact.

In the Reuters bureau on the 15th floor, the shell exploded. It mortally wounded their Ukrainian cameraman, Taras Protsyuk, who was also filming the tanks, seriously wounded another members of the staff, Briton Paul Pasquale, and two other journalists, including Reuters' reporter Samia Nakhoul.

On the next floor, Telecinco's cameraman Jose Couso was also badly hurt and later died.

The U.S. responded with what all the evidence proves to be a straightforward lie. Gen. Buford Blount of the 3rd Infantry Division — whose tanks were on the bridge — announced that his vehicles had come under rocket and rifle fire from snipers in the Palestine Hotel, that his tank had fired a single round at the hotel and that the gunfire had then ceased.

The general's statement, however, was untrue.

I was driving on a road between the tanks and the hotel at the moment the shell was fired and heard no shooting. The French videotape of the attack runs for more than four minutes and records absolute silence before the tank fires. And there were no snipers in the building.

Were these deaths mishap, or murder?

] The colonel in charge of the tank that fired said they
] had reacted after seeing enemy "binoculars" being used in
] the hotel.

Oooo... Thats questionable. A lot of people in the military are pissed off about the POW footage. It is pluasable that someone would decide to call in those locations for revenge. I didn't really think that was realistic until I saw the pentagon press conference yesterday, which I felt was rather "spinny." Instead of being matter of fact about it they went to alot of effort to talk about how Americans are really good guys and they avoided directly answering questions about the incident other then to say that "war zones are dangerous." Operation piss off the planet continues.

Straw to seek explanation for press deaths

quoted:
===

Who Armed Iraq? A Ranting Screeds Special Report: It's come up often, and it's apparently becoming more common, not less, for critics, especially Our European Friends, to claim that America armed Iraq, especially in the '80s. So it falls to me, apparently, to list the facts.

For the purpose of investigating these charges, it is best to look at what Iraq had at the time of its invasion of Kuwait, because the accusations pertain to what Iraq was supplied with (passive voice deliberate here) in the decade or so preceding this invasion. Thus we need to account for whatever Iraq lost during the conflict to insure that there aren't any omissions (thus nixing possible accusations that America destroyed whatever it gave Iraq during the war to hide the evidence).

The main sources for the below are the Desert Shield Fact Book (Frank Chadwick, Loren Wiseman et al, GDW 1991) and the Gulf War Fact Book (Frank Chadwick, Matt Caffrey et al, GDW 1991). Equipment will be listed by category, along with the nation of origin. For those scoring at home, items of AMERICAN origin will be highlighted thusly, and of European (FRANCE) likewise. As of 90/91, Iraq had the following:

Ranting Screeds - Who Armed Iraq?

] U.S. forces near Baghdad found a weapons cache of around
] 20 medium-range missiles equipped with potent chemical
] weapons, the U.S. news station National Public Radio
] reported on Monday.
]
] NPR, which attributed the report to a top official with
] the 1st Marine Division, said the rockets, BM-21
] missiles, were equipped with sarin and mustard gas and
] were "ready to fire." It quoted the source as saying new
] U.S. intelligence data showed the chemicals were "not
] just trace elements."

The 4-minute NPR audio from today's "Morning Edition" can be listened to here:

 http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1223246

Note: This is not an eyewitness report. It's an interview with an NPR reporter who was told by an official from the Marines who said he'd heard it from the intelligence network. Enough degrees of separation to treat the report with skepticism, but enough detail to definitely be of interest!

U.S. Finds Missiles with Chemical Weapons

] But Fox News Channel reported that coalition forces were
] guided to the site after breaking into Saddam's coded
] communication system, known as a Jaguar security
] encryption system.

(unconfirmed) Saddam's Bunker Located via Cracked Jaguar Encryption

] The correspondent, Shaker Hamed, issued the call for help
] on Abu Dhabi TV saying that "25 journalists and
] technicians belonging to Abu Dhabi television and Qatari
] satellite television channel Al-Jazeera are surrounded in
] the offices of Abu Dhabi TV in Baghdad".

Baghdad reporter issues SOS (April 09, 2003)

] Al-Sahhaf's aura of confidence, along with the surprising
] resilience of Iraqi fighters in the first weeks of the war,
] have become an unlikely source of pride for an Arab world that
] has watched the invasion in impotent anger.
]
] "He's the comic relief of the war," said Salwa, a 59-year-old
] Egyptian teacher. "At the same time, he's the voice of victory
] that we want to believe."
 . . .
] By Monday, U.S. troops were occupying the Baghdad parade
] grounds and one of the main presidential palaces and calmly
] chatting live on TV with a Fox News reporter. Meanwhile,
] a few hundred yards away on the eastern bank of the Tigris
] River, al-Sahhaf stood on the roof of the Palestine Hotel
] telling reporters that U.S. troops had been taught "a lesson
] that will not be forgotten in history" and were "committing
] suicide against the walls of Baghdad."
 . . .
] Indeed, it seems like the only appropriate ending for
] this televised point-counterpoint (with al-Sahhaf on one
] side and reality on the other) would be for a U.S. tank
] to roll by in the background of one of al-Sahhaf's news
] conferences with a soldier holding up a "Hi, Mom" sign.

Iraqi information chief unshakable as Baghdad falls around him

Robert Fisk: a brave and honest journalist.

A collection of Articles & Reports by Mr. Robert Fisk Audio & Video