Iraq

"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.

"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."

"The Bush administration has frequently compared the level and scope of international support for its military operations in Iraq to the coalition that fought the first Persian Gulf War," reports Glenn Kessler. "But the statements are exaggerations, according to independent experts and a review of figures from both conflicts." The so-called "coalition of the willing is almost entirely a U.S.-British campaign, with virtually no military contribution from other countries except Australia.

"The new US war on Iraq has begun: arguably the greatest moral tragedy of a generation, an unprecedented failure of diplomacy and international order, and a profound crime against the principles of democracy," the Independent Media Center wrote in a statement calling on citizens to seek out news from and create news stories for their nearest IMC.