"Sir Ray Tindle, the editor in chief of over 100 weekly newspapers across
Britain has informed all his editors that they can no longer report any
anti-war stories in their newspapers," reports Andy Rowell. Jeremy Dear of the UK's National Union of Journalists, condemned the move: " So much for the right to know, free speech and all those other rights which our forefathers fought to establish and which Sir Ray Tindle seeks to demolish at the stroke of a pen," Dear stated.

"Critics of the war ... blame the
news media, asserting that they failed to challenge the
administration aggressively enough as it made a shaky case
for war. In an interview, Eric Alterman ... argued,
'Support for this war is in part a reflection that the
media has allowed the Bush administration to get away with
misleading the American people.' ... The strongest indictment of the press, many of these
critics argue, are recent polls that suggest many Americans

"Weeks before the first bombs dropped in Iraq, the Bush administration began rebuilding plans," reports ABC News, which has obtained a copy of a 99-page contract worth $600 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) - the most money the agency has ever spent in a single country in a single year. Among the companies believed to be bidding are Bechtel, Fluor, Parsons, the Washington Group and Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm," ABC reports. "All are experienced. But in addition, all are generous political donors - principally to Republicans."