The Bush Administration and Congress Join the Cover-up in the Murder of Rachel Corrie

Coalition Forces Target Journalists, Charge Press Watchdogs

U.S. Using Cluster Munitions In Iraq

WAR IN IRAQ IMPACTS MEXICO

The Six Day War
Why America has already lost its war against Iraq

Photo Pages:
Day 12 Displaced in Basra
Day 10 Baghdad Bombarded
Day 9 - Asia Rising
Day 8 - Baghdad Bombarded - Rain of Terror
Day 8 - Day of Dissent: 26 Mar 03
Continuous: Wounded in Baghdad

Photo Directories:
Protests: April1-3
War (more images)
Protests: March 24-27
Protests: March 28-30
Protests: March 14th-17th
Protests: March 9th-13th
Protests: February 13th-17th
Rachel Corrie
Nude Protests
Cartoons
Protest Signs by Webb Mealy

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DHAKA, April 2 (OneWorld) - For the first time in its history, Bangladesh's 32nd Independence Day celebrations last week, were eclipsed by widespread anti-war hysteria, with traditional social events abruptly cancelled, and Islamists taking to the streets.

Last week's Independence Day celebrations by civil society, the leftist democratic alliance and cultural organizations, morphed into anti-war demonstrations across the country, which show no sign of abating.

Ironically, even an Independence Day march by the leading opposition party, the Awami League, became an anti-war protest on the streets of the Capital, Dhaka.

Thousands of marchers carrying Independence Day banners, chanted anti-war, rather than freedom slogans. Those in the rear also carried pro-peace banners and shouted anti-American and anti-British slogans before torching effigies of U.S President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In a public insult, they punched and slapped the effigies with a vengeance. Every neighborhood in towns and cities across the south Asian nation was adorned with an effigy of George Bush hung from bamboo poles, and garlanded with old shoes and sandals as a mark of disrespect to the American President.

For the first time in 32 years, the mammoth reception of eminent professionals, politicians, business community and diplomats at the Bangabhaban, the President's palace, was cancelled, "due to unavoidable reasons." Although no official explanation was offered, it was apparent that it was prompted by the ongoing Gulf war.

In an unprecedented move, the Bangladesh print media canceled their Independence Day holiday and resumed publication of daily newspapers, in a rare gesture of solidarity with the people of Iraq.

The weeklong International Film Festival of Bangladesh 2003 as well as a concert by popular Indian singer Adnan Sami was called off after the military strikes on Iraq. Officials of the Home Affairs Ministry told organizers all their security staff was deployed in tackling the spiraling number of anti-war demonstrations.

University teacher and Islamisation expert, Dr Anwar Hossain observed that though Islamists had occupied the streets, they were disorganized and would not make any major social or political impact.

Despite countrywide anti-war street protests, the authorities continued with the day's main celebrations, including a military parade at the abandoned Second World War airfield, and a visit to the memorial of dead war heroes.

Last February Bangladesh's right-wing government hastily signed a scientific protocol with the U.S, dubbed the America-Bangladesh military cooperation. Earlier during the interim government in September 2001, the government allowed the U.S to use air and sea space for military purposes against the "war on terror."

A senior official in charge of the Middle-East desk in the ministry of foreign affairs, said Bangladesh issued a strongly worded statement expressing its indignation against the Iraq war. The government also conveyed its concern to the U.S Ambassador.

He added on condition of anonymity that, despite the growing anger, Bangladesh had so far not threatened to revoke military cooperation with the U.S, officially permitted during the Afghanistan campaign.

The reasons for this ambiguity are not far to seek, with commercial interests remaining paramount.

Interestingly, Bangladesh political culture mostly comprises business entrepreneurs, boasting trade links with North America and Britain, to whom they export jute, tea, readymade garments and footwear.

As a consequence, the foreign policy of Bangladesh's major political parties is dominated by their trade links, which also form their major source of funding.

There has been a real fear in recent months that the right-wing government of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon might take advantage of the international focus on the U.S. invasion of Iraq to increase its repression in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Few people realized, however, that one of the first casualties would be a young American.

In December 2001, as violent Palestinian protests against the then 34-year Israeli occupation increased along with Israeli repression, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for the placement of unarmed human rights monitors in the occupied territories. In response, a number of pacifist groups from the United States and Europe began to send their own representatives to play the role of human rights monitors, even to the point of physically placing their bodies between the antagonists.

Among these volunteers was Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Of particular concern for her and her colleagues was the Israeli practice of bulldozing Palestinian homes and orchards, a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a series of UN Security Council resolutions that call upon Israel to abide by this legally binding international human rights covenant. The position of the Bush administration, however, like that of the Clinton administration before it, was to block the United Nations from enforcing its resolutions when they were directed at an important strategic ally such as Israel, even as the United States prepared to invade Iraq in the name of enforcing UN Security Council resolutions.

On March 16, in the Rafah refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation forces were planning to destroy the home of a Palestinian physician and his family. Rafah is supposed to be under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority, according to a series of disengagement agreements brokered by the U.S. government following the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Though the United States is supposed to be the guarantor of the accords and UN Security Council resolution 1435 calls upon Israel to withdraw to its September 2000 zones of control, the Bush administration has refused to insist that Israel end its re-occupation of Rafah and other parts of designated Palestinian territory.

Rachel was among a group of international observers who stood in front of the bulldozer as a form of nonviolent resistance against this illegal act by Israeli occupation forces. According to both Palestinian and American eyewitnesses, Rachel was standing in plain site of the bulldozer's driver. She was wearing a bright fluorescent orange jacket and had engaged the driver in conversation to try to convince him not to destroy the house. Nevertheless, after an initial pause, the bulldozer surged forward despite cries from Rachel's colleagues, trapping her feet under the dirt so she could not get out of the way before running her over. The bulldozer then backed up, running Rachel over a second time, mortally wounding her. She died in a nearby hospital a short time later.

The Israeli government claims that it was an accident. Incredibly, the Bush administration has accepted this interpretation.

In many respects, however, the Bush administration's response to Rachel's murder is not surprising. While Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other reputable human rights organizations--including Israeli groups such as B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Yesh G'vul--have decried the widespread attacks by Israeli occupation forces against the civilian Palestinian population, leading members of Congress, such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, have insisted that Israeli military actions have been aimed "only at the terrorist infrastructure."

Four months ago, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel for the murder of three United Nations workers in two separate incidents in the occupied territories in December. Among these was British relief worker Iain Hook, who was assisting in the reconstruction of Palestinian homes destroyed during an Israeli military offensive last spring. This veto undoubtedly gave the Israelis the confidence that they could literally get away with murder, even if it involved a foreign national.

To top it off, President George W. Bush is preparing to reward Israel for its repression. Despite enormous cutbacks in domestic spending for education, health care, public transportation, housing, and the environment, the Bush administration has announced that it intends to increase military aid to Israel by one billion dollars while providing an additional eight billion dollar loan guarantee to Israel's rightist government. Israel is already the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, taking in nearly one-third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget despite being a relatively affluent country making up only one one-thousandth of the world's population. This is part of an aid package that includes increased U.S. military aid to various Arab dictatorships and other repressive regimes in the Middle East as well.

It appears that the Democrats will be joining the Republicans in support for this additional aid package that will further militarize the already overly militarized Middle East. Indeed, Representative Pelosi and most of her Democratic colleagues have gone on record praising President Bush's "leadership" in his unconditional support for the policies of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in the face of widespread international condemnation of his government's poor human rights record and its ongoing violations of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

This should not be surprising. President Jimmy Carter, despite claims of supporting human rights, dramatically increased military aid to the murderous junta in El Salvador just six weeks after its forces, under direct orders from top military officers, raped and murdered three American nuns and an American Catholic lay worker. In similar fashion, President Ronald Reagan increased support for the Nicaraguan terrorists known as the Contras not long after they murdered Ben Linder, a young American engineer who was assisting a rural Nicaraguan village in a micro-dam project that would for the first time bring electricity to its residents.

In short, both Republicans and Democrats believe that the lives of Americans who work for justice in Third World conflict areas are secondary to ensuring the profits of American arms merchants and the pursuit of narrowly defined strategic objectives. Perhaps the best thing we can do in memory of Rachel Corrie and the others is to vote out of office the politicians who made their murders possible.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (www.fpif.org) where this article first appeared, and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (available at commoncouragepress.com). Email: zunes@usfca.edu

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 2, 2003 (OneWorld) - With the war in Iraq entering its third week, several international press watchdogs are raising concerns about alleged violations of free expression by U.S.-led coalition forces, particularly the bombing of the Iraqi state television station and the expulsion of four foreign journalists accused by U.S. forces of spying.

At the same time, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed relief at reports that four journalists who were reported missing in Baghdad have turned up safe in Jordan.

The four, including U.S. free-lance photographer Molly Bingham, photographer Johan Rydeng Spanner with the Danish daily Jyllands Posten, and correspondent Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman, both with Long Island, New York's Newsday newspaper, had been detained for six days and interrogated by Iraqi authorities before being permitted to leave for Amman.

CPJ, however, joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and the International Press Institute (IPI) in expressing concern at the bombing by coalition forces on March 26 of the state television headquarters in Baghdad.

U.S. military officials charged that the building was being used as a command-and-control center for the Iraqi armed forces, but both the IPI and CPJ said the bombing may violate the Geneva Conventions.

Last Friday New York-based CPJ sent a letter to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld requesting information about the bombing and any future intent by U.S. forces to attack it again.

"CPJ reminds you that broadcast media are protected under international humanitarian law and cannot be targeted unless they are used for military purposes," the group wrote. "In CPJ's view, the broadcast of propaganda does not constitute a military function." CPJ said it had not yet received a reply from the Pentagon.

Paris-based RSF has also complained about the bombing on March 29 and March 30 of the Iraqi government's Information Ministry headquarters in Baghdad. The attack damaged facilities for the foreign news media that work out of Baghdad, according to RSF, which noted that "journalists had left the building less than an hour before these strikes, which could have caused many casualties among the foreign journalists in Baghdad."

Meanwhile, both RSF and IFJ expressed concern that reporters who were not "embedded" -- that is traveling under the protection and control of coalition forces--had been poorly treated by U.S. forces.

Christian Science Monitor reporter Phil Smucker, for example, was deported to Kuwait after an interview on CNN in which he offered what the U.S. charged was too much information about their location. Unlike "embedded" journalists, he had not signed an agreement beforehand to withhold such information.

Similarly four other journalists--two Israelis and two Portuguese--were arrested March 25 by U.S. troops, accused of spying, and detained in a jeep for 36 hours without access to outside communications, despite the fact that they displayed their press accreditation, according to RSF. One of the four, Luis de Castro of Portugal, claimed to have beaten and suffered broken ribs while in U.S. custody.

"The US soldiers said we were terrorists and spies and treated us as such," said Dan Scemama, who works for the TV station Israel Channel One. "They want all the journalists in Iraq to have one of their liaison officers with them to supervise the footage they are broadcasting. There is no doubt that this is why they treated us so cruelly."

In yet another case, Al Jazeera cameraman Akil Abdel Reda, who was reported missing in the southern city of Basra, was questioned and detained for more than 12 hours on 29 March by US forces. A spokesperson for Al Jazeera, an Arabic-language satellite news station based in Qatar, said he had been "relatively well treated."

Al Jazeera last week was awarded a free-expression prize by London-based Index on Censorship last week for its "courage in circumventing censorship and contributing to the free exchange of information in the Arab world." The award was announced on the same day that coalition forces formally complained to the station management about its broadcast of U.S. and British war dead and prisoners of war, which Washington complained violated the Geneva Conventions.

Index on Censorship said the satellite station's "willingness to give opposition groups a high-profile platform has made it the most popular station in the Middle East but also led Arab and U.S. governments to try muzzling its reporting."

During the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in late 2001, a U.S. cruise missile destroyed the Kabul building that housed Al Jazeera's office in Kabul. The attack, which was never fully explained by Washington, was believed to have been prompted by the station's repeated showing of videotapes of Osama bin Laden during the campaign.

(Washington, D.C., April 1, 2003) - U.S. ground forces in Iraq are using cluster munitions with a very high failure rate, creating immediate and long-term dangers for civilians and friendly soldiers, Human Rights Watch reported today.

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"The United States should not be using these weapons. Iraqi civilians will be paying the price with their lives and limbs for many years." Steve Goose Executive Director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch
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While use of the weapon has not yet been confirmed by official U.S. military sources, it is evident from television images and stories from reporters embedded with U.S. units that U.S. forces are using artillery projectiles and rockets containing large numbers of submunitions, or cluster munitions. When these submunitions fail to explode on impact as designed, they become hazardous explosive "duds"—functioning like volatile, indiscriminate antipersonnel landmines.

Two U.S. Marines were killed in separate incidents on March 27 and 28 after stepping on unexploded cluster munitions delivered by artillery in southern Iraq.

"The United States should not be using these weapons," said Steve Goose, executive director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. "Iraqi civilians will be paying the price with their lives and limbs for many years."

Human Rights Watch has identified footage of the use of the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) by artillery units of the 3rd Infantry Division. This is a system that currently uses only submunition payloads. The 1st Battalion of the 39th Field Artillery Regiment of the division deploys at least eighteen MLRS launch units.

The standard M26 warhead for the MLRS contains 644 M77 individual submunitions (also called dual-purpose grenades). According to a Department of Defense report submitted to the U.S. Congress in February 2000, these submunitions have a failure rate of 16 percent. Thus, the typical volley of twelve MLRS rockets would likely result in more than 1,200 dud submunitions scattered randomly in a 120,000 to 240,000 square meter impact area.

The Washington Post reported on March 29 that the U.S. MLRS fired eighteen Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) against suspected air defense sites in support of a helicopter attack by units of the 101st Airborne Division on March 28. The payload of an ATACMS is 300 or 950 M74 submunitions with a reported failure rate of two percent.

Human Rights Watch has also seen video of U.S. Marine artillery units supporting the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion using 155mm artillery firing projectiles at Iraqi positions; an embedded reporter described "hundreds of grenades" being fired at the Iraqis. These were apparently the M483A1 and M864 projectiles whose submunitions (dual-purpose grenades) have a 14 percent dud rate. The M483A1 projectile contains eighty-eight dual-purpose grenades, and the M864 projectile contains seventy-two dual-purpose grenades.

It is not clear whether air-dropped cluster bombs have been used in the air campaign. Iraqi officials have repeatedly alleged use of cluster bombs by U.S. and U.K. aircraft, but these reports have not been confirmed. U.S. air forces used cluster bombs, notably the CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition, extensively in the first Gulf War in 1991, in Yugoslavia/Kosovo in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002.

At least eighty U.S. casualties during the 1991 Gulf War were attributed to cluster munition duds. More than 4,000 civilians were killed or injured by cluster munition duds after the end of the war.

Human Rights Watch has called for a global moratorium on use of cluster munitions until the humanitarian problems caused by the weapons are addressed. Short of that commitment, Human Rights Watch has urged the United States and others that may deploy cluster munitions in Iraq to prohibit the use of any cluster munitions in attacks on or near populated areas and to suspend use of cluster munitions that have been tested and identified as producing high dud rates. If cluster munitions are used, it is crucial that the U.S. record, report, track, and mark known or suspected cluster munition strike areas and preserve the information so it can be disseminated quickly in clearance efforts.

"The United States must rapidly provide extensive information and warnings to civilian populations to protect them from cluster munition duds," said Goose. "The United States now bears a special responsibility to help clear these deadly remnants of war as quickly as possible."

Vast numbers of cluster munition duds will complicate the reconstruction of Iraq as well as endangering civilians and peacekeepers, Goose said.

Iraq has also extensively used antipersonnel landmines. For more background on Iraq's mines and unexploded ordnance, please see http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/iraq/iraqmines1212.htm

In the face of almost universal rejection of the war in Iraq, tens of thousands took to the streets this week in cities like Puebla (over 25,000), Queretero (over 15,000) and Mexico City (daily demonstrations in front of the US embassy). Disgust with the US-led war is so widespread that conservative PANistas called for mass demonstrations, and one PAN Senator characterized George Bush as an "autocratic despot." Activists called for a universal boycott of US products, with special focus on CocaCola and McDonalds. Groups of young people entered WalMart stores, filling shopping carts to the brim and passing through the checkout line, then leaving without paying. The Fox administration warned of declining economic expectations in 2003, especially if the war drags on, though income from oil sales outpaced expectations so far this year.

Censorship by the US media, whether compulsory or self-imposed, was roundly criticized. Mexican media noted the biased nature of US reporting, comparing the relatively realistic portrayals of war by Al Jazeera with the blatant pandering of the major US networks.

Mexico joined France and 25 other nations to vote against an investigation by the United Nations Human Rights Commission into violations in Iraq. Both countries expressed concern that the investigation would turn into a "scenario of condemnation" against the United States. But later in the week Mexico's UN ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, announced the possibility of convening the UN General Assembly to demand an end to hostilities in Iraq. Mexico assumes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council next week.

Historians won't call this The Six Days' War; that name belongs to another Middle Eastern military rout with far-reaching consequences.

But by last Wednesday, the outcome of George Bush's invasion of Iraq was decided. The only remaining unknowns are how many months or years it will take America and Britain to figure out that they have already lost, and how many people will die in the interim.

From the beginning, Bush Administration rationales for this invasion have been based on the premise that Americans (and their faithful canine companions, the Brits) would be welcomed with open arms by both Iraqi civilians and soldiers. Once the prospect of life without Saddam appeared truly at hand, the Iraqi tyrant's brutal house of cards would collapse. Whole divisions, whole cities, would surrender without a shot. The war would last not much longer than it would take to drive to Baghdad (albeit on lousy roads), and the victory parade in Baghdad would make Paris on V-Day look tame. Some Bushites took the notion even farther; as with post-war Europe, all the Middle East would come to adore America, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity for all.

As Gilda Radner might once have said:

Never mind.

It was evident by the middle of last week, and has become increasingly evident each day since - even through the muddle of U.S. media coverage and frantic spinning in Washington and London - that Iraqis do not want the Americans in their country. Period. We are not welcome. Even if it means keeping Saddam. Even if it means guerilla war against a military using overwhelming force. Iraqis will not simply give up; nor will they spontaneously rise and do America's work for it by toppling Saddam Hussein. It seems to have never occurred to Bush and his advisors that people who hate Saddam wouldn't automatically welcome America - that not everyone casts their loyalties in black and white, "with us or against us," enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thinking.

This represents more than a military inconvenience to the American forces. It means more than a loss of the war's purported rationale. What it means is that even with all the firepower in the world - especially with all the firepower in the world - the United States cannot win this war. The Pax Americana that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, and their ilk envisioned for Iraq - and eventually the whole region - simply cannot be achieved through brute force alone. That's what we're starting to see already.

Amazingly, Pentagon planners seemed to be caught flat-footed by the guerrilla tactics employed by the Iraqis - tactics which are the only conceivable means of opposition for a resistance with no air power, with few resources, and that knows it cannot possibly compete with the Americans' firepower - but knows the land like the back of its hand and has been thinking about, and practicing, how to defend it in wartime for over 20 years. Donald Rumsfeld's bellowing about Iraq's unfair tactics evokes the British, 225 years ago, complaining that the Yanks didn't stand in a row and fight the way the Redcoats did.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld - and Bush - deserve to lose their jobs based on the military planning alone. Forget, for a moment, the complete evaporation of all of the other original rationales for this war. Forget that no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and the purported threat of further terrorist attack against the U.S. has yet to materialize.

Because Iraqis don't want to be "liberated" by the U.S., in only a week, the 30-70,000 troops on the ground inside Iraq have been shown to be a much, much smaller force than is necessary to seize Iraq's cities. Even that size force, in only a week, was in many places running out of food, water, gas, and/or bullets - a completely avoidable logistical nightmare.

The widespread expectation that conquering Iraq would be a military cakewalk, with only minor and manageable resentments by the natives afterwards, has colored every facet of the United States' preparation in the long months leading up to this invasion. The same arrogance that led pundits like Bill O'Reilly to mock guests who didn't think the war would be over in days or even hours, and that led the Pentagon's spin doctors to invite blow-dry reporters along for a joy ride, seems to have generated an invasion plan predicated on the idea that the invasion would be over as soon as the Americans showed up.

The war thus far has been notable for one other element - the extraordinary measures the Pentagon has, in fact, taken thus far to avoid civilian casualties. This has been more than PR spinning; the U.S. really has undertaken a fundamental shift in military strategy, relying on its surveillance assets and precision weaponry, and not simply unloading "Shock and Awe" type tonnage on Iraq's cities. Ground troops have, in fact, thus far mostly avoided Iraq's cities.

Three major factors have likely gone into this shift. One is that the U.S. intends to run Iraq after it topples Saddam, and would like to both not have to rebuild more than necessary and not offend its new vassals more than necessary. Secondly, the enormous global opposition to this war - including the opposition here at home - has likely had an impact. Washington would clearly not like to exacerbate anti-American feelings even more through wholesale slaughter of civilians.

But most importantly, the Americans aren't incinerating vast sections of Iraq's cities and towns because they didn't think they needed to. That could change, and soon. The Americans weren't wanting and won't tolerate lengthy sieges, or holding their fire as sitting ducks in a hostile land. Eventually they'll start unleashing the bigger guns.

Meanwhile, Iraqis living in Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries - people who, by and large, hate Saddam Hussein with a passion - are flooding back to defend their country against the Western invaders. Other Muslims and Arabs from throughout the region are starting to join them; already, American officials are warning Syria and Iran (and Russia) about the military weapons and supplies finding their way into Iraq. The murmurings of a broader regional war are barely audible - or at least a tacit understanding, transcending colonial borders, that the Americans must be driven out. Regardless of whether Baghdad "falls" or the Americans install a replacement government, the resistance will continue until the Americans can find a graceful way to leave.

After only a week, British soldiers were already talking about the similarity between their encirclement of Southern Iraq towns and their experiences in Northern Ireland, where every civilian coming and going must be searched, the locals know the land and the hiding places, and the attacks keep coming anyway. The difference is that Iraq, unlike Northern Ireland, is a desperately poor country where disease and famine already lurk; the privations of wartime threaten to make that bad situation far worse.

Bush's folly wasn't supposed to turn into a Persian version of "Red, White, and Blue Dawn." Now that it is under way, there will be enormous pressure to escalate the military tactics, to discard the caution regarding civilian casualties, to push for the sort of "decisive" military victory our MBA President promised in his prospectus.

But it would be a mistake - not only for the tremendous loss of life it would cause, and not only because of the global anti-American sentiment it would fuel, but because it would not, in the end, do any good. Somehow, George Bush was so busy invoking World War II that he forgot not only Vietnam, but the lessons of his own administration in Afghanistan. The U.S. managed to rout the Taliban and its rag-tag Army from power, but only 15 months later, it barely controls the capital city and has let the rest of the country slide back into civil war.

With oil resources at stake, the rest of the Muslim world enraged, and America's post-9/11 moral capital forgotten, it's hard to imagine that Iraq will turn out better. Even the most likely scenarios in which Saddam Hussein loses power are ugly: ever-increasing casualties, mostly among civilians, in a protracted Ba'Athist guerilla war; or, Iraq splintering into multiple nation-states or a multi-sided civil war; or, an expanded regional conflict involving Syria, Iran, other Muslim forces, and/or Israeli or Palestinian supporters attempting to draw Israel more directly into the conflict.

Meanwhile, the oil fields are vulnerable to attack; the whole operation is staggeringly expensive; and Bush himself will be under increasing pressure, as an election nears, to answer for his handling of both military and economic matters. And bear in mind that we're only 10 days into this one. With war comes surprises, and most of the imaginable ones aren't good.

The bottom line is that the long-term danger to American security, and damage to America's political and economic standing in the world, is likely to continue to rise so long as American forces are in Iraq. The danger and the damage will only subside when we leave.

And all because we thought they'd love us.

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