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       News: Rumsfeld Blames Zarqawi for Anti-War Protesters. Blair: No Troops to Iran. Civil War Rages in Iraq

Think Progress
Rumsfeld: War Critics Being Manipulated By Zarqawi and Bin Laden’s ‘Media Committees’

Excerpt:
Yesterday on Rush Limbaugh, embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that those who criticize the Iraq war are being manipulated by terrorists, including Zarqawi and bin Laden, through the U.S. media:

There have always been people who have opposed wars…I think we just have to accept it, that people have a right to say what they want to say, and to have an acceptance of that and recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees.

They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it.

News.Scotsman
Blair refuses to back Iran strike

Excerpt:
TONY Blair has told George Bush that Britain cannot offer military support to any strike on Iran, regardless of whether the move wins the backing of the international community, government sources claimed yesterday.



U.S. News & World Report
Washington Whispers

Excerpt:
The main lesson that the Senate Intelligence Committee drew from the run-up to the Iraq war was that Washington needs intense scrutiny of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. So with all the buzz about nukes in Iran, it would be safe to assume that the committee is deep into an inquiry, right? Well, not quite. Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, the committee chair, warns that "we have not made the progress on our oversight of Iran intelligence, which is critical."



Contra Costa Times
By any name, it's civil war, Iraqis admit

But by any measure, Iraqis will tell you their country is embroiled in what amounts to civil war.
Since the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya mosque, a Shiite Muslim shrine in the city of Samarra, waves of suicide bomb attacks have struck other Shiite targets, killing hundreds of civilians.
They have been followed by reprisals in the forms of assassinations and kidnappings, with hundreds of Sunni Muslims found bound, gagged and shot in the head across Baghdad and surrounding towns.
"We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. last month. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."



Anti-War.com
Rumsfeld's Fall Drags Hawks in Its Wake


While the unprecedented calls by six retired generals for his resignation have focused primarily on his competence, management style, and strategy for invading and occupying Iraq, Rumsfeld's departure would almost certainly cripple the coalition of neoconservative and aggressive nationalist war hawks in and around the administration for the remainder of Bush's term.

That is why the hawks outside the administration, led by the neoconservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, appear anxious to persuade Bush himself that the current campaign against his defense secretary is really aimed at him.

posted by hcpgr @ 7:10 AM Permalink