contributions

By John Daniszewski
BAGHDAD - The gunning down today of the governor of Mosul province and the first major car bombing in Baghdad in the two weeks since Iraq’s interim government took authority gave fresh evidence of rebels’ intentions to carry on their opposition to the interim Iraqi government.
After the car bombing this morning that claimed at least 10 lives, some ordinary Iraqis expressed disappointment at the end of a period of relative calm in the Iraqi capital since the (…)

If not murder, John F. Kerry and John Edwards have accused President Bush of something close to criminally negligent homicide in Iraq. "They were wrong and soldiers died because they were wrong," Kerry said of the Bush administration over the weekend.
This is strong language, but not unjustified. Last week’s Senate Intelligence Committee report adds to the pile of studies and reportage that has undermined the key reasons Bush gave for going to war: Saddam Hussein’s imperial designs, links (…)

by By Marjorie Cohn
In 1988, while trying to convince skeptical conservative activists of his father’s Christian bona fides, George W. Bush reassured them that George I was with them on judicial nominations, as well as abortion and other issues dear to their hearts. Then he punctuated his declarations with the six words that would ensure their support for him 12 years later: "Jesus Christ is my personal savior."
Bush’s brand of religiosity permeates his national policies. When Bob (…)

More than 50 arrests have been made in Peru as thousands of people rallied across the country against President Alejandro Toledo’s economic policies.
Police in the capital, Lima, used tear-gas to disperse protesters who tried to block roads with tyres and logs.
The 24-hour strike was called by Peru’s biggest workers union, which demands higher wages and an end to the government’s free-market policies.
Some 93,000 police were deployed across Peru to deal with any unrest.
Peruvian (…)

by Michael Jansen After more than 14 months in Iraq, the US military cannot effectively counter either local resistance groups or foreign Islamists operating there.
One of the reasons for the US failure is its ideological approach to violent opposition to the occupation. Refusing to admit that there could be a home-grown Iraqi nationalist insurgency, senior members of the Bush administration and the military have stubbornly blamed "Saddam loyalists", "dead enders" of the Baath party, (…)

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair today conceded it was increasingly clear Saddam Hussein had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, as his credibility was called into question.
Like Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Mr Blair’s central justification for going to war in Iraq was to rid the country of illicit weapons.
However, he had little choice but to admit Saddam had not stockpiled weapons after a long-awaited report by former top British civil servant Lord Butler (…)

By Peter Hartcher
In all three of the countries at the forefront of the invasion of Iraq, official inquiries have now concurred that the war was based on faulty intelligence.
In the US, in Australia, and now in Britain, it is a matter of official finding, and not just political accusation, that the main rationale for war had no sound basis in fact.
In a sense, it is a statement of the obvious. If the intelligence had been accurate, Saddam Hussein’s stockpiles of weapons of mass (…)

U.S. Peace Activist to Appear in Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday Israeli MK requests meeting with GSS Director, Avi Dichter over policy
[Jerusalem] American peace activist Ann Petter who has been detained since June 23 at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport will appear on Thursday, July 15, at 9 a.m. before Judge Matza at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem (Sha’arei Mishpat Street, Kiryat Ben Gurion, near Sacher Park). Petter was charged with being a security threat to the State of Israel. She will (…)

By Michael Isikoff
July 19 issue - American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack, NEWSWEEK has learned.
The prospect that Al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the U.S. election was a major factor behind last week’s terror warning by Homeland Security Secretary (…)

By William Rivers Pitt
A number of trial balloons have been floated in recent days, from Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge specifically, about canceling or postponing the national election because of a terrorist attack. DeForest B. Soaries Jr., the Bush-appointed chairman of the newly minted U.S. Election Assistance Commission, apparently got the ball rolling with Ridge by writing a letter to him. In it, he bade Ridge ask Congress for the power to put off the November election in the (…)