Stories from 2002-07-31

"Saddam is an enemy of Islamic Fundamentalists. Iraqi women are among the most emancipated in the Moslem world. You never see Saddam wearing a robe and shouting about Holy War. Iraq has not been a supporter of 'global terrorism,' although it does support Palestinian terrorists against Israel's UN declared illegal settlements on the West Bank. There is no evidence of Iraqi nuclear ability, nor that it ever provided chemical weapons to other nations or terrorists." [more]

"Sitting in the broiling sun, US Army Col. Bruce Jette, the head of the robotics team, is both triumphant and apologetic: 'Today is the first time conventional forces have ever employed robots in a wartime environment.' " [more]

" 'The central reality is uncertainty, and the defectors' stories only reinforce that,' Sen. Bob Graham said in an interview after a recent tour of the Middle East, where he discussed Iraq with regional leaders. 'None of the people we met claimed to have conclusive knowledge of the status of Iraq's weapons program,' said Graham, chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence." [more]

"This is the first time such charges have been made by a senior military man with pro-settler associations ó factors that make the charges difficult for the settlers and their supporters to brush aside." [more]

"Many of the reports of human rights groups contain accounts of wounded civilians waiting days to reach medical assistance, and being refused medical treatment by IDF soldiers. In some cases, people died as a result of these delays. In addition to those wounded in the fighting, there were civilian inhabitants of the camp and the city who endured medication shortages and delays in medical treatment for pre-existing conditions. For example, it was reported on 4 April that there were 28 kidney patients in Jenin who could not reach the hospital for dialysis treatment." [more]