This is my third trip to Iraq since the war, and the situation is the worst I've seen...

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/9031657.htm


From Information Clearing House

The invasion of Iraq was an ''enormous mistake'' that is costing untold lives, strengthening al-Qaida and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday...

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/178/nation/Former_terrorism_czar_calls_Ir:.shtml


From Information Clearing House

The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq summoned news outlets to photograph her son's flag-draped casket arriving at Sacramento International Airport to protest a Pentagon policy banning media coverage of America's war dead...

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3467974/detail.html


From Information Clearing House

U.S. commanders acknowledge that military might alone cannot defeat the insurgency; in fact, the frequent use of force often spurs resistance by deepening ill will...

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=526961.html


From Information Clearing House

The transfer of authority to an Iraqi government has failed to impress Arab analysts, who predict violence against U.S. troops will continue and Arab governments will withhold full diplomatic recognition...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040628/325/ewua8.html


From Information Clearing House

Legal niceties, are unlikely to cut much ice with the insurgents - so long as foreign troops remain, they will provide both a sitting target and a rallying point for discontent...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1249241,00.html


From Information Clearing House

With nearly 140,000 American troops on Iraq's soil, plus tens of thousands of additional foreign soldiers and civilian security guards armed with everything from submachine guns to helicopters, most military power will not be in Iraqi hands, nor will the power of the budget, largely set and paid for in Washington...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6400.htm

http://www.lewrockwell.com/wiggins/wiggins9.html


Informant: Deborah Sobwick

by Jim Lobe

Asia Times

06/26/04

The Bush administration has gotten America into its worst foreign-policy debacle since the Vietnam War, the kind of crisis that creates a moment when you realize you can't continue this way,' said John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. 'We are as close to an open rebellion against American leadership in the world as we've seen since after World War II,' he told IPS. 'The costs of a unilateral, hardline, go-it-alone
approach are much greater than those who championed that style have anticipated.' Indeed, the tilt to the realists has been driven by the convergence of Washington's steadily growing diplomatic isolation and its patent failure to cope by itself, or with its dwindling number of allies, with the situation in Iraq...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF26Ak02.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Jonathan Steele / The Guardian

June 18th, 2004

With less than two weeks until the much-vaunted transfer of power from the Americans to an Iraqi government, a few hints of the limits to Iraqi independence have emerged from the men Washington has "approved" to participate in the new government. Last week America passed an order banning the radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, from taking part in Iraq's first democratic elections in January. It was an odd decision for a country which claims to be bringing democracy to Iraq...

http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=85703:740526,2763,1241809,00.html