Reuters reports that China is putting the wraps on anti-war protests:
Around 200 foreigners shouted anti-war slogans as they marched past the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Sunday in China's first government-approved protest against the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
Some 100 Chinese were scheduled to stage a sanctioned demonstration at another Beijing park later in the day, after authorities forced them to reduce their numbers and relocate from their chosen venue, the Wangfujing pedestrian shopping street near Tiananmen Square.

Reuters reports on a Sunday morning bombing of Baghdad, and other bombings:
"There were four very loud explosions, one after another, and this time they aren't far away, it seems they're around the centre," Reuters correspondent Hassan Hafidh said.
Reuters television journalists said that the bombing in central Baghdad targeted a complex inside a presidential palace that was used by President Saddam Hussein's powerful son Qusay.
In an earlier raid before midnight, about 10 explosions hit the city centre and another 20 or so boomed on the outskirts, especially to the northwest, where Saddam's Republican Guards who are tasked with defending Baghdad are based.

The Sydney Herald reports that Australia has flown combat missions in Iraq:
Australian F/A-18 Hornets launched strikes against Iraqi headquarters infrastructure overnight, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) said.

North Korea expressed its distaste for Japan's launching of spy satellites:
North Korea denounced as a "hostile act" Japan's successful launch of two spy satellites yesterday, warning that the deployment could lead to an accelerated arms race in Asia.
The two satellites will for the first time give Tokyo an independent means of monitoring its communist neighbour.

In a separate move, South Korea suggested that the United States reach out to North Korea with a bold diplomatic overture, as the Nixon administration did in the 1970s with communist China.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that suggestion could be "on the table" if North Korea satisfied the United States' concerns over its weapons and nuclear programs.

A Globe and Mail reporter reports on problems within the Kurdish territories:
Compared with the bombing in Baghdad and south, the U.S. campaign on the Halabja plain in northern Iraq may seem a minor sideshow in the war.
There are 52 confirmed dead after four nights of missile strikes on the Halabja area, as the U.S. provides air support for the Kurdish forces' long-planned campaign to rout out a radical Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam.
But the U.S.-led campaign here may have repercussions disproportionate to the size of the splinter group at which it was aimed.
Six of the dead guerillas belonged to Ansar, the ostensible target, which has been accused by Washington of having links to Al-Qaeda. But the other 46 were members of Komala al-Islamiyyah, the Islamic Group of Kurdistan, an organization that — until the bombs started falling on its bunkers — had a co-operation agreement with the Kurdish government that supports the U.S.-led invasion.

A Globe and Mail poll suggests divisions in Canada over the war in Iraq:
Support for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's handling of the Iraq war plunged in the past week, with opinion split virtually evenly outside Quebec, where antiwar sentiment is strongest, a new Globe and Mail/CTV poll suggests.
The poll, conducted by Ipsos-Reid, found Canadians deeply divided along regional and gender lines over the government's decision not to participate in the war in Iraq. Nearly half of the respondents said Canada should now join the military effort.

France seems to be copying the U.S. color-coded alert system:
France introduced a new terrorism alert system on Thursday, with four color-coded levels to make the national warning plan more flexible and understandable.
Until now, France had only two grades of alert for its terror warning system, simple and reinforced.
The new alert colors beginning with the least serious are yellow, red, orange and scarlet.

The AP notes that Russia appears to be adopting an approach toward fighting foreign terrorists much like America's:

Russia should revise its military doctrine to counter threats from terrorism, the defense minister said in an interview published Friday, suggesting the military be allowed to strike terror facilities in other countries.
The remarks by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov were similar to those made by President Vladimir Putin after Chechen gunmen seized a Moscow theater last year.
"The armed forces must be able, in case of necessity, to deal strikes at facilities which are used by terrorists to prepare acts of terror and sabotage both on the territory of our state and against Russian facilities and citizens on the territories of foreign nations," Ivanov was quoted by the military daily Krasnaya Zvezda as saying.

Prime Minister Blair's spokesman says the two Baghdad market explosions may be from Iraq's military:
Saddam Hussein has fired his commander of air defenses as U.S.-led forces claimed control of 95 percent of Iraq's sky, the British government said Saturday.
The spokesman also said new, unspecified intelligence indicated that U.S. and British bombing may not have been to blame for explosions in two marketplaces in Baghdad this week.
He stopped short, however, of saying that Iraqi missiles were responsible for the explosions, which reportedly killed scores of civilians.

A victory for U.S. and Kurdish troops in northern Iraq:
A combined American and Kurdish military assault swept through this remote mountain valley in northeastern Iraq today, capturing a series of villages from a militant Islamic group and restoring a swath of border territory to Kurdish control.
Kosrat Rosul Ali, a veteran Kurdish guerrilla and politician, said about 100 Ansar fighters had died throughout the day. No Special Forces fighters were wounded.
Mr. Ali said Iranian guards were cooperating and refusing to allow the Ansar fighters access to Iran. "The Iranians say they have closed the border," he said.
Some field commanders disagreed. "I am sure they all escaped over the border into Iran," said Ali Faqe Muhammad, a pesh merga captain. "They are gone from here, but maybe they will fight again."

Iraq has apparently turned to suicide attacks as a basic military strategy:
A bomber posing as a taxi driver summoned American troops for help, then blew up his vehicle Saturday, killing himself and four soldiers and opening a new chapter of carnage in the war for Iraq.
"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a Baghdad news conference. "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later."
He said Iraq, like many other nations, cannot match American weaponry. "They have bombs that can kill 500 people, but I am sure that the day will come when a single martyrdom operation will kill 5,000 enemies."

The AFP reports that Iraqis have turned the tables and are feeding U.S. soldiers:
Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear.
Sergeant Kenneth Wilson said Arabic-speaking US troops made contact with two busloads of Iraqis fleeing south along Route Seven towards Rafit, one of the first friendly meetings with local people for the marines around here.
Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.
In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: "We like Americans," adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because "he was not kind."

The AP takes note of a turn towards capitalism by North Korea:
North Korea's cash-strapped government said Saturday it will sell bonds to its people for the first time in its history amid signs the communist state is adopting some capitalist reforms to invigorate its moribund economy.

The story adds that:
North Korea has been relying on outside aid since 1995 to feed its 22 million people.
Last July it drastically raised wages and loosened state controls on prices in a move that included elements of a market economy.
In September, it designated a border city with China as an experimental capitalist enclave. The project has suffered a setback because of the legal problems of Yang Bin, the Chinese businessman picked to run it.

Two Canadian reporters received surrenders in Umm Qasr today:
Two Iraqis surrendered Friday to CBC reporter Paul Workman and the Globe and Mail's Geoffrey York.
"We were standing in front of a big statue of Saddam Hussein having our pictures taken . . . and all of a sudden a couple of guys came up to us with their hands over their heads," Mr. Workman said of the incident in the port city of Umm Qasr.
Workman said they thought the two men were locals at first but "Geoff York from the Globe and Mail talked to these two guys and it turned out that they were soldiers out of uniform who had been hiding for a week.
"They saw us, thought in fact that we were military and came to us to surrender."
The two soldiers were brothers, Mr. Workman said, "barely 20 years old, conscripts who said they'd been given four days of training then forced into the southern part of the country."

On Thursday, the AFP reported that Iran's government urged Iranians to protest against the war:

"The revolutionary and Muslim people of Iran, despite its opposition to the Baath regime (of Saddam Hussein) cannot remain indifferent to the savage massacre of our Muslim neighbours," said a government statement calling on Iranians to take to the streets after Friday prayers to protest the war. Tens of thousands are expected to obey.

Today, when protests came, the AP reported this:
Iranians demonstrated in the hundreds of thousands, denouncing what they called "Bush's barbarism" and "Saddam Hussein's dictatorship."
Demonstrators pelted the British Embassy in Tehran with stones, breaking windows and shouting "the British Embassy must be closed!" The police fired into the air to disperse the crowd, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Korea Times also reports on peace on the Korean peninsula:
Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Yoon Young-kwan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held a meeting Friday to discuss pending issues including the lingering standoff over North Korea's nuclear program.
``There is no decisive proof that North Korea has changed its stance toward having direct talks with the United States instead of multilateral negotiations, but it is also true that the North has been talking `differently' during recent meetings with relevant nations,'' he said.
Sources said South Korea has been working out a so-called ``two plus four'' consultative body comprising South and North Korea and four surrounding nations - the U.S., Japan, China and Russia - to address the nuclear issue.

South Korea is reassuring the U.S. on its commitment to the war:
President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday reassured a visiting top U.S. military officer that he will push ahead with his pledge to send 700 noncombat troops to assist U.S.’s war on Iraq despite a growing public opposition, Chong Wa Dae said yesterday.
President Roh told Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, ``I am trying hard to persuade those opposing the troop dispatch but it is proving to be a difficult endeavor, considering the dissidents used to be my supporters.’’
Roh fast-tracked the troop dispatch bill with the consent of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), but both GNP and his ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) backtracked in the face of strong public opposition. Roh said the troop dispatch was integral to enlisting U.S. support behind his effort to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis but his plea has not helped check a growing anti-war movement.

The London Times reports a retraction from the U.K. government:
The Government expressed "regret" tonight for any distress caused by stating that two British soldiers killed in Iraq had been "executed" by Iraqi forces.
Tony Blair yesterday described Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, and Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, as "executed British soldiers". The Prime Minister condemned pictures of their bodies that were broadcast on al-Jazeera television station.
But the family of Sapper Allsopp today reacted angrily to the Prime Minister’s suggestions. Nina Allsopp, his sister, said today that the claims were "lies". The Iraqi authorities also said that the claim was untrue.

Al-Jazeera has reported casualties in a Baghdad market:
Thunderous explosions rocked Baghdad on Friday in some of the most powerful bombardments of the Iraqi capital in days. One missile struck a market in western Baghdad on Friday afternoon, killing more than 50 people, news reports said.
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera said 55 civilians were killed Friday at the market in a residential neighborhood. Al Arabiya television said at least 52 people died. Footage showed the injured, many of them children, lying in hospital beds with their faces and heads wrapped in bandages.

Reuters reports on the prospect of falling base metal prices if a long war depresses the global economy:
The deteriorating effect on the global economy would keep pressure on base metals prices if the U.S.-led war on Iraq carried on for longer than the couple of months now foreseen, analysts said on Friday.
And, they said, any hopes that military supply shortages would lead to an accelerated demand for metals is a highly unlikely scenario.
Faced with prolonged fighting, base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange have tumbled over the last three days.

The Herald also reports:
Rejecting responsibility for the mounting civilian toll in Iraq, the Pentagon is adopting the political strategy of blaming all such casualties on Saddam Hussein.
"Any casualty that occurs, any death that occurs, is a direct result of Saddam Hussein's policies," a spokeswoman for the United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, told journalists.

The Sydney Herald reports that Dominique de Villepin sees a repair of the U.S.-France friendship:
On rebuilding ties with the US, he said: "These times of great changes call for a renewed close and trusting relationship with the US. France is ready. Because they share common values, the US and France will re-establish close co-operation in complete solidarity."
Mr de Villepin also said France's difficulties with Britain could be overcome. He emphasised that France would not forget Britain's help during World War II.
Earlier this week Mr Blair said it was essential that America and France heal their deep differences over the Iraq war.

Russia sounds pessimistic notes about its oil interests in post-war Iraq:
Russia can forget about its oil interests in Iraq, Washington and London having decided to cut Moscow out of any postwar arrangements in restructuring Iraq's resources, the head of Russian state-run oil firm Zarubezhneft said in an interview yesterday.
"We're clearly going to have to cut our losses on anything we have there and anything we could have had," the company's general manager Nikolai Tokarev told the daily Vremya Novostei.

The Sydney Morning Herald reprints a Guardian report:
Serious divisions have emerged between Britain and United States over plans for the running of Iraq's largest port at Umm Qasr.
Air Marshal Brian Burridge, Britain's chief military officer in the Gulf, said it should be run by Iraqis as a model for the future reconstruction of the country.
But earlier this week the Bush Administration handed the $US4.8million ($8million) contract to the private Stevedoring Services of America (SSA).
The Seattle-based firm has clashed with workers across three continents and faced accusations of being union busters. SSA will manage the port and handle cargo and shipping.
The Seattle-based firm has clashed with workers across three continents and faced accusations of being union busters. SSA will manage the port and handle cargo and shipping.

A dispatch from the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers speculates on the origins and the fate of the "Tigris Trout":
Now the trout in this region face a new threat: war. How the trout will fare only time will tell. In desperate times local people use explosives, bleach, nets and all manner of scurvy techniques to snare the fish for food. In other cases, however, the trout are the beneficiaries of war.
Johannes and I saw this in Croatia last summer, where stream banks like those of the Zrmanja River were mined so heavily that native people are afraid to go there. The trout in such Balkan streams have been left untouched for more than 12 years. Their populations are among the most healthy of any trout stream I have seen; a fantastic fishing opportunity for any anglers willing to risk their lives to catch a beautiful native fish.

Dawn reports from Islamabad on further ties between China and Pakistan:
China would give $2.4 billion financial assistance to help undertake three mega development projects that included $700 million for the expansion of the Pakistan Steel Mills.
"This new huge financial assistance by China is very important for Pakistan as it will further cement trade and economic relations between the two countries," said Prime Minister's Advisor on Finance Shaukat Aziz said on Thursday.
Responding to a question, the adviser on finance said that China would give roughly $800 million for the construction of second 300 MW nuclear power plant at Chashma.

The AP notes reaction to criticisms of Al-Jazeera's POW coverage:
"War has victims from both sides," said Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Hilal. "If you don't show both sides, you are not covering" the war.
Before the American POW controversy, British TV and newspapers had been freely showing pictures of Iraqi POWs. Since then, the media have toned down their footage — showing Iraqi POWs, but usually at a distance or with their faces partly covered.

Iran's media, reports Reuters, is pro-Iraq:
Despite a history of enmity dating back to the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, Iran's official media are unabashedly anti-American and almost backing President Saddam Hussein -- alienating many local viewers in the process.
State television marks its war coverage with a logo reading "War of Dominance," and broadcast media without fail call the United States and Britain the "aggressors" in their campaign to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
This is despite Iran's official policy of "active neutrality" on the war.

Russia continues to reject U.S. criticisms and responds with some of its own-from Foreign Minister Ivanov:
Ivanov called for the ratification of a U.S.-Russian arms reduction treaty to be delayed until the flare-up in tensions between the two countries over Iraq subsides.
"Maybe now is not the right moment psychologically to bring this document up for ratification," Ivanov said in a speech to the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament.
"It is becoming clear that the attempts to present the military action against Iraq as a triumphant campaign for the liberation of the Iraqi people with minimal casualties and destruction are far from the reality," Ivanov said.

The St. Petersburg Times asks why so few Russians are protesting the war-"with the exception of crowds of about 100 people at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and of less than 50 at the consulate in St. Petersburg, nothing has happened here." An excerpt:
Boris Pustyntsev, the head of the Citizen's Watch human-rights organization, agrees that there has not been the type of reaction to the war that has been seen in other major cities, but he sees this as a positive sign.
"Thank God that this massive psychosis hasn't hit Russia," Pustyntsev said Monday. "I'm convinced that, unless we're suicidal, we should understand that [Hussein] has to be disarmed."

The Globe and Mail offers rebuttals from Canada on Ambassador Cellucci's anger at Canada:
Durham MP Alex Shepherd hinted in the caucus meeting that Mr. Cellucci should be expelled if he keeps up his rhetoric.
"He is a guest in our country. We expect him to act like a guest," Mr. Shepherd said in an interview later. "If you're going to beat up on your friends, you are not going to have any friends."
Mr. Wilfert, parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister John Manley, said Mr. Cellucci should be more "temperate" and "look carefully" at Canada's response to the United States, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when Canada took in U.S. planes and passengers.

The Herald, in another story headlined, "Business as usual for US once the battle is over," reports on Halliburton's contract for putting out Iraq's oil fires:
It is a huge player in the oil services industry, and it also does extensive logistic support for the US military.
But Halliburton will work for almost anyone, albeit often under the cover of subsidiaries - the Iraqis, Indonesians, Burmese, Iranians. It has previously been fined for busting sanctions against Libya.

Meanwhile, Trade Minister Mark Vaile and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane have said:
"When we went with the Americans into Vietnam, while (sic) they stole our wheat markets ... [and] ... they did exactly the same thing in the Middle East when we went into conflicts with them there," Macfarlane had said.
Emerson then asked Vaile if he shared MacFarlane's views about our war ally and trading partner.
He did. And he made it quite clear he will be voicing those concerns next week, in America.

Friday's Sydney Morning Herald reports possible suicide attacks by Iraq's soldiers:
United States troops say they are dealing with a new tactic from Iraqi soldiers - a willingness to use civilians in suicide attacks to halt the American advance.
"They have decided on suicide missions to get at us," said Charlie Company commander Captain Jason Conroy, 30. "We need to be really careful about any civilian vehicles approaching us."
He said the 7th Cavalry had lost two Abrams tanks to attacks by civilian fuel tankers. "They are just running the trucks into the tanks and exploding them. They could do the same with cars loaded with [munitions]."

Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said on Wednesday:

"Pakistan and China have identity of views on the Iraq issue and want a quick ceasefire in the war," the prime minister said while speaking at a press conference at the PAF base Chaklala on his return from a three-day visit to China.
He termed his visit very successful and said both the countries had decided to work closely to ensure peace and international security.
He said the new Chinese defence minister discussed with him further consolidation of Pakistan-China defence relations.
Talking about his visit, he said Pakistan and China agreed to further enhance political, economic, commercial, technical and cultural cooperation.

The Korea Times reports on divisions between President Roh Moo-hyun and the "'young and restless' generation who helped him win the election last year":
Both Roh and his aides appeared to be caught off guard when anti-war sentiment spread like a bushfire, following the start of U.S. campaign in Iraq.
``We have to wait and see whether this means a breakup of the marriage between Roh and the young and restless,’’ an analyst said.

The Korea Times reports that South Korea's joined the post-war reconstruction fracas:
In view of the U.S. dominance of construction projects undertaken following the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the U.S. will no doubt take the initiative in the reconstruction projects in the devastated Middle Eastern country and is expected to grant priority for opportunities to participate in the restoration work to other countries according to the degree of their contribution to the U.S.-led combat.
``If the ongoing war in Iraq ends in the short-term (within a month), we expect South Korea to ride on a construction boom in the Middle East, not to mention the rehabilitation projects in Iraq. The government is drawing up measures to support local companies’ efforts to participate in those projects,’’ Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Yoon Jin-sik said.
Seoul critics say the U.S. is not likely to award South Korea with opportunities to taking a leading role in the infrastructure reconstruction projects in Iraq even if the Seoul government sends 600 noncombat troops to support U.S.-led forces in Iraq....Moreover, South Korean firms were kept out from construction project auctions in Saudi Arabia for 10 years after the first Gulf War.

The Economist's weekly newsletter says:
Belgium suggested the creation of a “hard core” of European Union countries, starting with itself, France and Germany, to form a defence club distinct from NATO. The Belgian implication was that Britain is too close to America and would not be part of the new group. The idea is due for discussion on April 29th.

Reuters reports from Geneva:
The United Nations on Thursday rejected a call by eight countries including Russia and Syria to examine the human rights and humanitarian situation in Iraq as a result of war.
Western countries, including Australia, Canada and Ireland on behalf of the EU, opposed the call, saying the U.N. Security Council was already addressing the issue.
The result was 18 countries, including all Arab and Muslim states, in favor, 25 against, with seven abstentions and three delegations absent during the public vote, officials said.

Canada's Globe and Mail reports on Canada's refusal to participate in the war in Iraq:
U.S. officials say Mr. Bush and his advisers are furious, not only with the decision to stay out of the battle but also with what they say is the anti-American rhetoric that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has tolerated.
U.S. diplomats have delivered similar messages in other countries that have failed to back the war in Iraq.
In Mexico, which had a key seat on the Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, a Texas friend of Mr. Bush, irritated many Mexicans earlier this month when he said that the U.S. administration would not be "placated" by any half-hearted support from its neighbours.

Merrill McPeak, the retired chief of staff who led the Air Force in the Gulf War, gave an interview to the Oregonian yesterday.
He said, "We've been in Europe now since 1945. We've been in Japan since 1945, been in Korea since 1950. We haven't had a Middle East occupation force, so this is a start of that. This is the way great powers operate; it's the way Rome operated."

Iran maintains its neutrality, reports AFP:
Iran will bar Iraqi Shiite opposition fighters based on its territory from crossing the border to fight in Iraq until the end of the US-led war, government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said.
"We will not allow until the end of the war any military activity in favour of either of the two parties, and our borders are completely closed," Ramezanzadeh told a press conference.

The New York Times reports that Iraq's soldiers may be fighting under threat of execution:
Up and down the 200-mile stretch of desert where the American and British forces have advanced, one Iraqi prisoner after another has told captors a similar tale: that many Iraqi soldiers were fighting at gunpoint, threatened with death by tough loyalists of President Saddam Hussein.
"The officers threatened to shoot us unless we fought," said a wounded Iraqi from his bed in the American field hospital here. "They took out their guns and pointed them and told us to fight."

The New York Observer has published an opinion piece in which the author asserts:
It’s no coincidence that three of the four countries leading the charge against the U.S.—China, Germany and the former Soviet Union—are responsible for the most brutal, murderous and inhumane dictatorships in human history. And I believe with all my heart that their goal is not to prevent a supposed U.S. tyranny, but to weaken us enough that they can finally reinstall their own.

From a story on bringing aid into Iraq comes this report from Safwan:
A smaller aid convoy brought by Kuwait's Red Crescent Society was greeted by hundreds of Iraqis.
Many were young men, some shoeless and dirty, who began fighting over the white boxes of aid as soon as the truck doors opened. Aid workers tossed out the boxes, which disappeared into a forest of grasping hands.
British soldiers tried to keep order, but the crowd dissolved into a chaotic mass of pushing and shoving.

This week's Newsweek reports that:
"According to a top Saudi diplomat, in 1990, when King Fahd gave permission to the United States to use Saudi bases to oust Saddam from Kuwait, the Saudi king added, "But he must not get up off the floor again." In other words, Saddam could not be contained; he must be killed. According to a knowledgeable source, the Saudis proposed that the CIA run a covert operation to depose Saddam after the war.

In the wake of reports of a massacre of 24 Hindus in Kashmir, India and Pakistan clashed in Kashmir and conducted missile tests:

"There is always the danger that India will try something while the United States' attention is on Iraq. We would be foolish not to be wary," Shireen Mazari, head of Pakistan's Institute of Strategic Study, said after Wednesday's tests. "If the international community does not come down hard on India, tension could rise."
On Wednesday, India fired first — announcing it shot off a Prithvi missile from its Chandipur testing range in the eastern state of Orissa. The missile has a range of 95 miles and can carry a nuclear payload.
Pakistan followed hours later with an announcement that it tested its Abdali surface-to-surface missile, which has a range of 132 miles with similar nuclear capabilities. Officials would not give details about where or when the test was conducted.

Fallout from the Al-Jazeera POW broadcasts continues:
"There has to be a national effort to protect the freedom of the press even more," al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said. "We appeal to authorities to pay attention to this."
But in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized al-Jazeera's coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
"Al-Jazeera has an editorial line and a way of presenting news that appeals to the Arab public. They watch it and they magnify the minor successes of the (Iraqi) regime. They tend to portray our efforts in a negative light," Powell said in an interview with National Public Radio, broadcast on Wednesday.

The AP reports on Iraq's paramilitary troops:
U.S. officials, worried they may have underestimated these fighters, have begun calling them terrorists and war criminals and focusing significant military efforts on wiping them out.
"I'm not going to call them troops because they're ... essentially terrorists," Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

In light of the repeated accusations that Iraq's military is using terrorist methods, or is simply a group of terrorists, and in light of the alleged connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq, a point can be made. Although links between terrorist groups and Iraq are uncertain, both of them have used asymmetrical tactics in response to the U.S. and allied military forces. While the U.S. has employed "shock and awe" tactics and relied on bombs and missiles to barrage Baghdad and other cities, Iraq has specifically urged its citizens to use guerrilla methods to fight against far superior allied weapons, and has made use of images of POWs and dead Iraqis as propaganda against the allies. Osama bin Laden has done the same in using video and audio messages to rally support for his cause. Al-Qaeda has also used relatively small and focused applications of weapons in, among other attacks, the USS Cole bombing, the airplane attacks in America, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the nightclub bombing in Bali, and attacks on U.S. troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabai, relying on strategy, ingenuity, and fierce dedication to overcome financial and material disadvantages. It's clear that Saddam Hussein is hoping that similar nonmaterial advantages can resist the allies.

A report on Basra includes this from Al-Jazeera reporter Mohammed al-Abdallah:
"The streets of Basra are very calm and there are no indications of violence or riots. There are no signs of the reported uprising.
"All we can hear are distant explosions in the southeast, and we believe fighting is going on there."

A report on U.S.-Canada relations includes these excerpts, with the first coming from legislator Alex Shepherd on U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci:
"Somebody should simply remind him that as a diplomat that he has a role to play here -- and one is that you don't try to undermine the government of the day."
"Why does the prime minister fail to grasp that his stance is deeply injurious to our national interests?" fumed Stephen Harper, leader of the official opposition Canadian Alliance.
The conservative National Post called on Chretien to stop "the slew of juvenile anti-U.S. posturing issued from within his party" and said the prime minister was living in "a lost age" where multilateral institutions still had influence.

A Reuters story on the U.S. wheat industry's interest in exporting to a post-war Iraq says:
Prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the United States was a major supplier of wheat, rice, poultry and a range of other farm commodities to Iraq. Much of those sales were backed by $2 billion in Agriculture Department export credit guarantees that Baghdad never paid off.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, asked this week whether American wheat should have special entree into Iraq after the war, said: "I wouldn't speculate on that at all. The issue today is to complete the war."

The text accompanying a National Geographic map of the Middle East in February 1991, commenting on the invasion of Kuwait, states, "Iraq appeared to expect no effective opposition and seemed to be deploying forces for another attack-on Saudi Arabia. Then in a rare and swift show of solidarity, the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and voted to embargo Iraqi trade."

NASDAQ, which joined the NYSE in banning Al-Jazeera from its facilities yesterday, issued a statement from its spokesman, who said, "In light of Al-Jazeera's recent conduct during the war, in which they have broadcast footage of U.S. POWs in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention, they are not welcome to broadcast from our facility at this time."

At today's Pentagon press conference, spokeswoman Victoria Clark, stating that she didn't like to use the term "paramilitary" in reference to Iraq's irregular military forces, that it "sounds too nice," is "too positive in some way," instead called them "thugs."

Christopher Hitchens wrote a cover article on the Kurds in National Geographic's August 1992 issue.
He said a peshmerga is "in the Kurdish term of honor, one who has made an understanding with death." He wrote that "all across Iraqi Kurdistan you can drive for miles, map in hand, and mark off each succeeding heap of stones as theh place where a village once stood....The Kurds have been hardened by the digging up of mass graves; estimates of the missing and dead range from 100,000 to 300,000."
He also wrote that "ever since President Woodrow Wilson incorporated promises for Kurdish autonomy into his Fourteen Points following World War I, the Kurds have traditionally looked to the United States as their deliverer from old injustices. George Bush appeared to sympathize with their cause during Desert Storm, yet his subsequent lack of support has left them baffled."

The ACLU says:
Documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit suggest Attorney General John Ashcroft is forcing banks, Internet service providers, telephone companies and credit agencies to turn over customer records -- without a judge's approval.

Mark Brazelton, a lieutenant commander on the USS Roosevelt, has told reporters in an apparent reference to Ansar al-Islam territory in Northern Iraq:

"We left without knowing the target and once we got there talking to the airborne commander (...) they gave us coordinates," Brazelton said, speaking after returning from the bombing mission.

Asked what the target of the raid was, he answered: "It was a terrorist al-Qaeda camp."

Dawn, reprinting an article from Reuters, says Iraq has instructed tribes and the Fedayeen troops to conduct guerilla war, saying:
"The enemy has violated your lands and now they are violating your tribes and families.
"Kill them. May God make you victorious ... so they lose their objective ... and curse their fate. Kill the enemy in places and times that are different in style.
"Fight them in small groups, hit their frontlines and their rear units so the whole advance will stop. And when it stops, attack them. If they deploy, leave them alone, don't fight them, but if they rest somewhere, attack.
"If you cause them any damage, no matter how small, they will flee. Don't wait for our orders. Just fight them. Everyone of you is a military leader."

The India Times reports that:
Iraq's ruling Baath party has warned that anyone fleeing Baghdad because of the US-led war will not be allowed to return and their property will be confiscated.

In a continuation of the trend of calling participants in this war terrorists, the New York Times reports:
A senior administration official who was deeply involved in the war planning with President Bush said in an interview late this afternoon that President Saddam Hussein's loyalists "fight like terrorists," not soldiers, and attributed the absence of a warm welcome for American troops to what they said was "a reign of terror in some of these cities, with these paramilitary and special security organizations enforcing the same brutal terror they have been enforcing for years."

Reuters reports:
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Tuesday it had taken control of an Egyptian-owned oil tanker on the east coast of the United States after boarding the vessel and denying U.S. entry to two
Iraqi crew members.
Coast Guard spokesman Bill Barry said:
"Neither the ship nor the crew pose any known threat -- but these actions were deemed appropriate and necessary given the current military operation (in Iraq) and the heightened threat
level: Orange."

Dennis Publishing said on Tuesday it is shipping 15,000 free copies of Maxim, Stuff and its musical magazine Blender to 40 different military tent sites across Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Afghanistan and Oman.

An AP story from the Iraq-Jordan border on Iraq's civilian casualities says:
Journalists, taxi drivers and refugees who show up at this border tell of dozens of bombed-out cars lining the highway from Baghdad.
Iraqi newspapers publish photographs of decapitated bodies.
Every day, most Arab television stations show footage from Iraqi hospitals, where men, women and children lie in agony from injuries attributed to U.S. missiles.
"My son was killed in the shelling," wailed a woman dressed in black, lying in a hospital bed next to another son, a toddler. Her image was broadcast on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network.
Perhaps the greatest impact came from Qatar's Al-Jazeera network, which showed an Iraqi boy, maybe 12 years old, his head half blown off and a tranquil expression frozen on his face.

Reactions to the expulsion of Al-Jazeera from the NYSE have included this comment:
"Among other things, it would raise questions about how other foreign news agencies would be handled here in the United States if their coverage was out of favor with a particular
accrediting organization,'" said Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. "American journalists might find their credentials or journalistic access limited or denied in
other countries in response to the Al-Jazeera situation with the NYSE."
NYSE executive vice president Robert Zito claims:
"We've had lots more requests recently especially since war has started, and we've got to prioritize. First on the list are news organizations that cover business news in a very responsible
way ... and Al-Jazeera is not a business news organization."

News of calls for a boycott of U.S. and allied entertainment in Southeast Asia:
In Indonesia, a youth wing of the vice president's party called on cinemas in a major city to stop showing movies from the United States, Britain and Australia, a radio reported.

The Muslim-oriented group also called on radio stations to stop playing songs from the three countries, said Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta.

Reporting on the 1991 post-Gulf War Iraqi revolt against Saddam Hussein, Reuters says that National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft claims that, when he wanted to disallow Iraq's use of gunship to put down the revolt, he "was overruled by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, now the vice president, and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, now the secretary of state. "They said it would be a serious thing to do. It would undermine his (Schwarzkopf's) command over his forces and so on -- so I didn't pursue it," said Scowcroft.
"It was a mistake...If we had taken it to the president, I would have been very strongly opposed to letting them continue to fly."

The AP reports from Northern Iraq:
The Kurdistan Islamic Group says it suffered 43 deaths, 30 injuries and lost six buildings in last weekend's strikes aimed at Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic group with alleged al-Qaida and Baghdad ties.

"We're moving so we don't give the Americans an excuse to attack us again," Anwar Mohammad, a high-level official of the Kurdistan Islamic Group, said Tuesday.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Celluci says, regarding Canada's opposition to the Iraq war:
"There is no security threat to Canada that the United States would not be ready, willing and able to help with. There would be no debate, there would be no hesitation. We would be there for Canada -- part of our family.
"And that is why so many in the United States are so disappointed and upset that Canada is not fully supporting us now."

Reuters also reports, regarding the relative importance of security and trade at the border:
"Security will trump trade, there is no doubt about that," Cellucci told reporters, saying there could be unspecified "short term" strains in the relationship given U.S. unhappiness with Canada.

A report from spring break in Cancun says:
U.S. bombs falling on Baghdad didn't prompt the cancellation of any wet T-shirt contests or force all-you-can drink night clubs to close their doors.
"I really am worried about the war but that doesn't mean I can't have a good time with my friends," said University of Louisville sophomore Becca Vierling.

Pakistan newspaper Dawn reports on relations between China and Pakistan:
China has agreed to help set up another 300-megawatt nuclear power plant at Chashma. In this connection, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed here on Monday in the presence of Pakistan's Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Two other MoUs were signed under which China will help develop Pakistan railways system. Beijing is to extend a soft-term credit of $500 million for the purpose.

The PM's adviser on finance, Shaukat Aziz, inked the MoUs on Pakistan's behalf.

An MoU was signed under which China has declared Pakistan a popular tourist destination, and agreed to help arrange and facilitate tourist groups.

News of French efforts to be involved in the rebuilding of Iraq:
"I don't see how American executives can work when their lives will be at risk," Gilles Munier, an executive board member of the French-Iraq Association for Economic Cooperation, said. "There will be such hatred toward Americans."
Munier criticized French companies for negotiating with American companies for a piece of their businesses in Iraq, saying that such "collaboration" would damage the image of French business among Iraqis.
Chirac has warned that France would vote against any U.N. Security Council resolution that would give "the American and British belligerents the right to administer Iraq."
The Bush administration awarded a $4.8 million contract Monday to a Seattle-based company to rebuild Iraq's only deep-water port.

The AFP, in a story headlined, "Saudi Arabia aims to stop bloodshed with Iraq peace plan, US denies all knowledge," reports on the Saudi Arabian plan, spearheaded by Prince Saud al-Faisal:
"America is not an imperialist country ... I cannot recall that the United States had occupied a country for colonialist reasons... All US troops which came to Saudi Arabia in 1991 left," he (Saud) said.
"The longer the war continues the more it breeds hate. This is why we want to stop it.
"I fail to see how a smart weapon is going to distinguish between a good Iraqi and a bad Iraqi. We need smart people to end the conflict," Prince Saud said.
"I don't believe that any war should be blamed on one side only. The two sides are responsible for the start of the war. We in the Arab world should not conceal our mistakes."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We are not aware of any peace proposal from Saudi Arabia."
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf...told Al-Jazeera television: "There is no basis for Saudi Foreign Minister (Saud al-Faisal)'s comments."

The AFP reports:
The US army said it gave the main Iraqi oilwell firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co., a firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, without any bidding.
Kellogg, Brown and Root, a unit of Houston, Texas-based Halliburton, was handed the contract by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has been placed in charge of fighting the blazes.
The contract had not been put out to tender, said the Corps spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Gene Pawlik.

News of a growing German boycott of American goods and services brings this, from German bicycle manufacturer Riese und Mueller, which has canceled its dealings with American suppliers.

"Americans only pay attention when money is on the line," director Heiko Mueller told Reuters.

Coca-Cola has responded to the boycott with this: "We're really a local business in Germany, the product is made in Germany and they're boycotting German products," said Jonathan Chandler, communications director for Coca-Cola Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East.

U.S. General Victor Renuart Jr., at a briefing in Doha today, stated, concerning the repeated bombing of groups of Iraq's soldiers and weaponry, that it "allows us to revisit targets that we have not killed."
Reference is made to killing targets, not to killing soldiers.

A report from Zurich states that:
The United States has pressured foreign nations to follow its lead and confiscate frozen Iraqi assets — or face a cutoff of access to the U.S. financial system.

The AP reports:
Al-Jazeera said Monday two of its reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange have had their credentials revoked because of the satellite station's coverage of the war in Iraq.

An AP reporter says:
The Apaches encountered heavy groundfire during their assault on the Medina armored division, but the helicopters managed to kill about 10 Iraqi tanks before cutting off their attack.

Reference is made to killed tanks, not to the presumably killed soldiers inside them.

The Times, in another article on reactions to reports of Russian companies supplying banned materials to Iraq's government, quotes Ari Fleischer saying, "These actions are disturbing, and we have made our concerns clear to the Russian government. We've asked the Russian government that any such ongoing assistance cease immediately."

Continuing, the article mentions that Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone with President Bush, and according to the Kremlin press service, "Putin confirmed Russia's stated position on an Iraq settlement and stressed the need to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the region."

The St. Petersburg Times, in an article on the Russian economy and war in Iraq, quotes Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, "We built our forecasts and our policies in such a way that the economy is currently immune from the various splashes in the world economy."

The article adds that:
An unprecedented amount of petrodollars has been flowing into the country in recent months as oil prices rocketed ahead of military action in Iraq, swelling the country's reserves to an all-time high of nearly $55 billion. But the wave of dollars has put downward pressure on the ruble, stoking inflation fears.

An interview in the El Paso Times of a POW in the 1991 Persian Gulf War includes this excerpt:
More than a decade after her capture and release, Coleman said she has come to terms with the experience, but this new war has rekindled some memories.

"The night of the initial bombing, I caught myself subconsciously rubbing the scar on my arm," she said.

An embedded British reporter reports:
Iraqi conscripts shot their own officers in the chest yesterday to avoid a fruitless fight over the oil terminals at al-Faw. British soldiers from 40 Commando’s Charlie Company found a bunker full of the dead officers, with spent shells from an AK47 rifle around them.

A London Times story analyzing Saddam Hussein notes that:
A 19-volume authorised biography is compulsory reading for Iraqi officials....Saddam has penned scores of articles and tracts ranging from weighty discussions on socialism to advice on hygiene: men should bath once a day and women twice daily.

The London Times today reported:
According to British and American officials, the final touches are being made to the ambitious plan, which envisages deploying an entire civil administration to take over the running of Iraq, from healthcare to education and security....most of the key posts in the future Iraqi civil service will be held by former American generals, diplomats and aid workers, who will report directly to the Pentagon.

The overall head of this de facto Iraqi government will be General Tommy Franks.

Today's Wall Street Journal, in a story on possible post-Saddam currencies in Iraq, says:
Officials at the U.S. treasury are already consulting with Iraqi exiles about a postwar currency...Some Iraqi exiles say Mr. Hussein should be replaced on the dinar by Hammurabi...Others object, arguing that Mr Hussein identified with Babylonia, and that ancient Jews prospered there.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reports:
American bombers en route to Iraq have refuelled over Spanish urban centres in a flagrant violation of "all aviation security norms."
Eight B-52 bombers flew over Bilbao, Pamplona and Barcelona on Friday, refuelling from five KC-135 tanker planes above Bilbao, according to El Pais.
El Pais says Spain's Minister of Defense, Trillo, has neither confirmed nor denied that report.

The AFP reports from Jordan:
Four Jordanian students were killed when a missile exploded near their car as they were driving out of Mosul, in northern Iraq, to flee US and British bombardments, a government official said on Sunday.

Andrew Sullivan, in a post entitled "THE TACTICS OF FAILURE," continues the trend in this war of referring to soldiers as criminals:
The setbacks the allies have suffered these last couple of days are all due to one thing: some Saddam units acting as terrorists. By pretending to surrender and then opening fire, by relocating in civilian neighborhoods, by shooting prisoners of war in the head, the soldiers apparently still loyal to Saddam are not reversing the allied advance.

The front cover of this week's U.S. News and World Report shows Saddam Hussein in his appearance after the initial Baghdad bombing; the back cover, an ad for the Chevy TrailBlazer, is headlined, "So much power, you might develop one of those maniacal laughs."

The AP, reporting from Kabul, says:
U.S. and allied Afghan forces clashed with militiamen loyal to a renegade warlord in a battle that left up to 10 rebels dead, officials said Monday. There were no American casualties.

The story quotes warlord Bacha Khan Zardran's spokeman, Ghamay Khan Mohammadi, claiming,
"American and Afghan soldiers attacked our troops. We don't know why. We returned fire and they retreated toward Gardez."

SANA, the official Syrian news agency, said today that "A U.S. warplane fired a missile at 10 a.m. local time yesterday on a civilian bus carrying Syrian nationals in al-Rutbeh...killing five and wounding at least 10."

Poland's Defense Minister, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, admitted that Poland has commando troops in Iraq in what it had "originally said was a supporting, non-combat, role."

The Reuters story continues:
photographs showed masked GROM soldiers taking prisoners, scrawling graffiti on a portrait of Saddam and posing with U.S. Navy Seals holding up a U.S. flag.

"These photos shouldn't have happened," said Szmajdzinski. "The next time it will definitely be with the Polish flag."

Tommy Franks today continuedto refer to the existence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, this time in the past tense:
"I think that we probably have received several ... bits of information over the last three or four days about potential WMD locations."

Reuters reports:
On Friday, as rumors swirled through financial markets that Saddam had been killed, futures reflecting the chance that Saddam would not be leader of Iraq by the end of March rose to 79 percent, from 65 percent earlier in the day, and from about 20 percent earlier this month, according to Tradesports.com.

Last night on the BBC, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, was interviewed in a hotel in Cairo, where the Arab League is meeting, by a BBC broadcaster. As they spoke, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" came over the hotel's sound system and remained in the background for the rest of the interview.

A Globe and Mail reporter reporting from Safwan says, regarding its liberation:
Many of Safwan's people were still in shock from an American bombardment that had killed a dozen people in the town, just a few hours before the U.S. marines had rolled in to capture it. "Are you here to help us or to kill us?" they shouted at journalists in my vehicle when we entered the town today.

Tonight on MSNBC, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Edward Peck, discussing the television images of U.S. POWs captured by Iraq, said, "We've done the same thing" in regard to the broadcast of images of Iraq POWs to American audiences.

The furor over the American POWs and dead soldiers being displayed on television is one of a long line, over the past decade, of similar incidents between America and countries either at war with the U.S. or hostile to the U.S. They include the rescue of Scott O'Grady after his plane was shot down by Bosnian Serbs in June 1995, the capture of three U.S. soldiers in April, 1999, when the Kosovo bombing campaign was underway, the negotiated release in July 1995 of two Americans held in an Iraq prison, the release in late 1994 of a U.S. helicopter pilot shot down over North Korea, the Somalia "Blackhawk Down" incident in 1993, the taking hostage of three international Red Cross workers for over a month in late 1996 by Sudanese rebels, the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder in 2002, and the U.S. military plane, together with its dozen or so soldiers, held by China in the spring of 2001 for about two weeks.

This doesn't seem to be just a long string of coincidences, especially since in nearly all of these cases, the other party was greatly inferior militarily and economically to the U.S., and all of these incidents have happened after the rise of CNN, which, along with other cable news stations, allows 24-hour coverage and publicity of the incidents, offering anti-U.S. forces a chance to show Americans, and others, directly and vividly how capable they are of resisting the U.S.

Wassim Slim, a doctor in Britain's military, says that captured Iraqi troops "are completely terrified, they have been fed a lot of stuff about what will happen to them if they are captured.
"A lot of them have been very scared of having needles or canulas put into them because they have been told they will be injected with poisons and terrible things."

The Sydney Morning Herald, continuing a tendency for soldiers to be described as criminals in this war, reports in Monday's paper "unofficial accounts of the arrest of 45 allied paratroopers who are said to be in detention at Ramadi, a security base west of Baghdad."

An article in the Washington Post speculating on what will happen to Iraq's oil after this war quotes Muhammad-Ali Zainy, an oil expert who left Iraq in 1982, saying, "When these huge fields are developed, there will be a secure new supply of oil for the world. This is the true reward." The Post also notes that Iraq has "more than $150 billion in debt, most of it war obligations owed to Kuwait and other gulf states."

The AP has reported that:
The U.S. government agreed Sunday to reschedule $177 million of Jordan's debt to Washington, helping Jordan face the consequences of the war in Iraq....Iraq is Jordan's sole oil supplier.

U.K. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon has, says Reuters, "declined to rule out the use in Iraq of cluster bombs, which explode into scores of 'bomblets,' some of which fail to detonate immediately and become, in effect, land mines."

Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, said today:
"Mr. Saddam Hussein is very well, in good condition....He is much better than Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair. He is quite confident because he is a man of deep faith in God. He is loved by his own people; Mr. Bush is hated by his own people...by all peoples around the world."

An article in China's People's Daily discussing China's opposition to the Iraq war and the appropriate Chinese response quoted Gao Changpeng, a machinist in Harbin:
"No one dares ignore a big powerful country. We need to work even harder and make our utmost efforts to build up our country's economic power and overall national strength beginning with our own jobs."

A report from Reuters begins:
Charred Iraqi corpses smoulder in burned-out trucks. Black smoke hangs over bombed cities where U.S. troops battle Iraqi soldiers. Youths greet British tanks with smiles, then sneer when they have passed.

Russia's Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, said, "We will have to defend our interests so that the contracts which were signed under Saddam Hussein are not annulled as lacking legal force and to make sure the Iraqi debt owed us is respected,"

The AP reports that the State Department has issued a warning saying that "frequent political demonstrations may escalate, increasing the potential for anti-American violence and for terrorist actions against U.S. citizens and interests."

At today's U.S. Central Command briefing, General John Abizaid mentioned plans for a "democratic, or at least different, Iraqi regime." After rejecting the notion, posed by a questioner, that the U.S. forces are overconfident, Abizaid went on to say, "there won't be anything that stops us on the battlefield" and "the outcome is still certain." He also said, "we've captured two thousand prisoners thus far"-referring to them as "prisoners" and not "Iraqi soldiers."

Related to the U.S. Army video game, Hezbollah has released a game that "includes all that an anxious persons dreams of in order to participate in facing the Zionist enemy....Special Force game will render you a partner of the resistance."

A Reuters article discussing links between Halliburton and the U.S. military declares:
When it comes to making money from a war in Iraq, few can match the firepower of the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

An article dicussing the video game industry's varied connections to the Iraq war says:

The video game industry has plenty of direct links with the U.S. military. Last year, the Interactive Digital Software Association, a trade group for the U.S. industry, organized a drive to equip each of the 72 submarines in the U.S. Navy fleet with a video game console and 20 games each.

Games are also used for military training. Navy pilots in flight school often use a modified version of a commercial flight simulator game to hone their skills....the U.S. Army became a publisher last year with "America's Army: Operations," a free game.

An AP story covering the Sunday morning talk shows notes:
Rumsfeld noted that under the conventions governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."

Given that, one wonders why the U.S. military has allowed many U.S. television networks and newspapers to show images of Iraqi soldiers kneeling before U.S. soldiers, being searched for weapons as they lie on the ground, and having guns pointed at them as they surrender.

One of the things noticed from Wednesday until now is that many of the reporters in and around Iraq are female. But, commentators on television are nearly exclusively older white men, and sightings of Asian and Hispanic individuals in the U.S. media have been extremely rare.