Today in Iraq

War News for Sunday, May 15, 2005 Bring 'em on: Shi'ite cleric and his nephew gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Senior industry ministry official and his driver assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: The bodies of thirteen executed Iraqis are found in a dump in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen and two civilians killed and thirty seven injured in twin car bomb attacks on the Governor of Diyala's convoy in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: Director General in Iraq Foreign Ministry assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: US warplanes bomb targets near Fallujah.* Bring 'em on: Three beheaded corpses found and were apparently tortured in Jurf al-Sakhar. Bring 'em on: Two policemen and two civilians killed in clashes in Samarra. Bring 'em on: One Iraqi policeman killed in grenade attack in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen injured in bomb attack in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: 30 year old detainee dies of "apparent" heart attack in Camp Bucca. Bring 'em on: Bring 'em on for three to nine years according to Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. *According to military reports, the bombing attack near Fallujah was on unoccupied buildings which was an insurgent command centre, later ground troops inspecting the site after the bombings discovered mortar rounds, machine gun ammunition and homemade bomb making materials. There are no reports of casualties. Give me a fucking break; unoccupied insurgent command centre? Meanwhile Operation Matador is over; for the time being because the BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says the operation appears to have exacerbated tribal tensions in the area. Meanwhile Syria moves troops into the area. Condolezza Rice makes surprise visit to Iraq.

Rice flew immediately to the mountain stronghold of Kurdish Democratic Party Massoud Barzani. She rode in an Apache military helicopter under extremely heavy security. Most Iraqi officials learned of the visit only hours before Rice landed in the region aboard a borrowed government plane, said a senior adviser to Rice, Jim Wilkinson "We went to every length possible to keep it from as many people as possible," Wilkinson said.

Is the WAPO finally starting to admit the truth?

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was "being fixed around the policy," according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street. "Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials. Dearlove went on, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Truth? Maybe these guys might have some success?

Some accounts, which are now dismissed out of hand, say that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides to draw up a plan to invade Iraq within 24 hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. Blair somehow survived the revelations in the secret documents and managed to get himself reelected for a record third term for a Labour prime minister of the UK. However, things are changing now and Blair and Bush face awkward and troubling questions, the answers to which could be explosive in political terms both in Washington and London. The British government has not denied the authenticity of the leaked documents and this puts the Bush administration in a tight corner. A group of 89 Democratic congressmen has written to Bush, expressing shock at the revelations and saying that the documents raised “troubling new questions” over the legal justification for the invasion and regarding “the integrity of our administration”. The White House has not responded to the letter which says that if the revelations were correct, Bush's decision to wage war was taken months before he sought congressional authorisation for war in October 2002. Furthermore, the documents would also establish the accuracy of charges that the Bush administration manipulated and created intelligence “findings” to support its case. Effectively, it would also prove as a sinister charade all the talk that the Bush administration offered in public that all diplomatic avenues would be explored before deciding on military action. These revelations, however, pale when one takes note of a message by a group called Sept. 11 Truth Action to the 89 Congress people who have asked for an explanation demanding to know why the administration “fixed” the Iraqi intelligence in order to rationalise the invasion of Iraq. The Sept. 11 Truth Action group is made up of ex-military officials, scientists, lawyers, historians, publishers, researchers and concerned citizens who assert that they are “not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists, but sober, evel-headed analysts”. The group's allegation is startling. It accuses the Bush administration of an “even greater deception” aimed at justifying a pre-planned military agenda. Simply put, the White House is accused of being party to a conspiracy involving senior administration officials that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

Remember the Iraqi Interim Government? Well arrest warrants are flying! A little bit late? British defence chiefs have warned United States military commanders in Iraq to change their rules for opening fire or face becoming bogged down in a terrorist war for a decade or more. The Telegraph has learnt that the warning was issued last month in response to a series of incidents that led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians, mainly at checkpoints, after soldiers opened fire in the mistaken belief that they were being attacked by suicide bombers. Double standards? Heated criticism was growing last night over 'double standards' by Washington over human rights, democracy and 'freedom' as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the 'war on terror', put down Friday's unrest in the east of the country. Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House on Friday that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that 'terrorist groups' may have been involved in the uprising. Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient. Local story: Lejeune marine dies from combat wounds suffered in January.