The new report provides a salutary reminder that the sanctions and weapons inspections imposed by the much-maligned United Nations had already reduced Iraq’s weapons programs to impotence before the war was launched to eliminate them. Too bad John Bolton, the administration’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, is likely to continue underestimating the U.N.’s potential and to repeat old errors of hyping weapons estimates.

In a recent Times article, Douglas Jehl reported that Mr. Bolton repeatedly clashed with intelligence officials in 2002 and 2003 because they thought he was stretching the evidence as he sought to deliver public warnings about Syria’s pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Syria is clearly a bad actor that shipped military and civilian material to Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions. But policy makers need to keep the threat in perspective lest they be sucked in again by their own exaggerations.

NYTimes Editorial ( more. . .)

Warnings of the onslaught prompted the vast majority of Falluja’s 300,000 people to flee. The city was then declared a free-fire zone on the grounds that the only people left behind must be “terrorists”.

Three weeks after the attack was launched last November, the Americans claimed victory. They say they killed about 1,300 people; one week into the siege, a BBC reporter put the unofficial death toll at 2,000. But details of what happened and who the dead were remain obscure. Were many unarmed civilians, as Baghdad-based human rights groups report? Even if they were trying to defend their homes by fighting the Americans, does that make them “terrorists”?

Journalists “embedded” with US forces filmed atrocities, including the killing of a wounded prisoner, but no reporter could get anything like a full picture. Since the siege ended, tight US restrictions - as well as the danger of hostage-taking that prevents reporters from travelling in most parts of Iraq - have put the devastated city virtually off limits.

Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail, Guardian (UK) ( more. . .)

Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times

The Bush administration has proposed providing Israel with 100 “bunker-buster” bombs capable of destroying underground targets, a move seen as sending a message to Iran to halt its nuclear program.

The Pentagon on Tuesday notified Congress of the possible sale of 5,000lb GBU-28 bombs, developed during the 1991 Gulf war to destroy Saddam Hussein’s hardened command centers. Congress has 30 days to object.

According to Dr Nawar Ali, at the University of Baghdad, who works in the newborn babies research department, a significant number of cases of deformed babies had been reported since 2003.

“There have been 650 cases in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals - that is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher,” Ali warned.

The health expert said polluted water, which could contain radiation from weapons used in previous conflicts, was the main factor behind the increase.

The type of deformities found in newborn babies are characterised by multiple fingers, unusually large heads, unilateral lips or no arms or legs.

AlertNet ( more. . .)

When Howard Dean was a candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign put out a broadside that denounced “a Bush-Cheney policy where, for the first time in American history, we commit to war before exhausting our efforts to commit to peace.” Such statements pander to nationalistic conceits at the expense of candor. They apply perfume to the past and tacitly endorse a low threshold for war in the future.

………

Beyond the Western Hemisphere, larger-scale military actions ensued against Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2001, all followed by victorious celebrations back in the United States. Only defeat (Vietnam) or stalemate (post-invasion Iraq) have seemed to give the Washington establishment pause. The most tangible constraints appear to be military rather than political or ethical.

Norman Solomon, Baltimore Sun ( more. . .)

In a front page editorial in the left-wing paper she works for, Il Manifesto, Sgrena called on Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, to respond what she called a “slap in the face for the Italian Government.” She claimed that the Americans had not listened to either her testimony or that of another Italian agent: “Obviously, our two testimonies given to the American commission were useless. Or will I be charged with perjury?

“The greatest disappointment would be if our authorities were to accept this insult without reacting.”

Editor & Publisher ( more. . .)

What has been disturbing is the Bush administration’s attitude toward nuclear weapons. Back in 1969, America was instrumental in getting most of the rest of the world to sign the much-heralded Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was aimed at eventually eliminating nuclear weapons as instruments of war.

But, rather than reducing the numbers, the administration is in the process of building more, “modernizing” some of the older nukes and seeking to build new “mini-nukes” and “nuclear bunker busters,” presumably to work in places like Iraq.

The pity of it all is that if we start building new and better nuclear weapons, so will other countries with nuclear capabilities - Russia, China, India, for example. Twenty years from now, nations will probably be boasting about their bunker busting A-bombs, rather than celebrating the end of the threat of nuclear annihilation. In other words, we will have learned nothing from history.

Dave Zweifel, Capital Times ( more. . .)