DISPATCH FROM DOWN UNDER

"Going to War With the Army You Have"

By Michael Schwartz Why the U.S. can't correct its military blunders in Iraq

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/03/why_the_military_is_failing_in_iraq.html

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Iraq - A Quarterly Report:

Are you one of the millions of delusional Americans who believe things are "getting better" in Iraq? You can hardly be blamed.

http://207.44.245.159/article8216.htm

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"Foreign Forces Must Leave Iraq as Soon as Possible," Declares the Head of the Shiite Alliance:

No one in Iraq desires the establishment of permanent foreign bases on our land. The United Nations Security Council resolutions are clear: it will be up to the elected Iraqi government, when the time comes, to give those forces a specific departure date. As soon as possible."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030705I.shtml

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Hackers may have won Bush office: Kerry's wife

The US presidential election could have been computer hacked, the wife of Democrat candidate John Kerry has claimed.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/10/1110316121604.html

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U.S. panel faults intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons

U.S. commission investigating prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has found that U.S. intelligence on Iran’s nuclear arms is "inadequate

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/b17.asp?offset=

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Huge blast rocks Baghdad, Police find 35 corpses

A truck exploded in central Baghdad, killing 3 people and wounding 20 others. Meanwhile, the bodies of 35 dead people were found in two seperate Iraqi towns.

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7195

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Bush asked to testify at German 9/11 trial

The defense team for a Moroccan man being tried in Germany for complicity in the September 11 attacks demanded on Tuesday that the U.S. President George W. Bush be summoned as a witness.

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7185

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Iraq police find 41 bodies
By Elizabeth Piper in Baghdad
March 10, 2005

POLICE found 41 headless or bullet-scarred bodies in the heartland of the country's insurgency and gunmen attacked the planning minister's convoy in Baghdad today in a failed assassination bid.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12500223-38201,00.html

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French detainee goes free
ONE of the three French citizens handed over to France this week by the US after being held at its Guantanamo naval base in Cuba was freed today by French authorities, his lawyer said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12500288-23109,00.html

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Suicide bomb chaos in Baghdad

A SUICIDE bomber driving a garbage truck blew himself up today near a Baghdad hotel used by Iraqi police and their foreign instructors, killing at least one and wounding more than 20 others, officials said

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12491862-23109,00.html

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The changing face of US news

One of America's best-known news presenters is retiring on Wednesday after 24 years at the helm of the CBS evening news.

Dan Rather, who is 73, is leaving a year earlier than planned following a bruising fight with the Bush administration during the election.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4331479.stm

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U.S. military says it may abandon Abu Ghraib for safer location

By RAWYA RAGEH

BAGHDAD (AP) - Incessant attacks against Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison may force the U.S. military to return the facility to Iraq's government and take high-security inmates to a safer place, a U.S. military official said.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/03/08/954073-ap.html

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Thursday March 10, 2005 3:46 AM
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Defense Department hasn't developed a plan to reimburse soldiers for equipment they've bought to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite requirements in a law passed last year, a senator says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4854126,00.html

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TWO BROTHERS IN ARMS


Fresno California is a world away from the Middle East but the shopping mall recruiting centres are doing brisk business.

Defending American soil on the plains of Iraq still motivates here as it does across the country, Sky News correspondent Andrew Wilson writes.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13306561,00.html

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