Los Angeles Times

"The deal, three years in the making, gives the southern rebels seats in the government and guarantees them revenue from the country's oil wealth to spur development. It also integrates the militaries and grants the southern region a chance to opt for self-determination after six years. ... The accord does not cover the conflict in Darfur." [more]

"The FBI complained that military interrogators have gone far beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture and have followed an apparently new executive order from President Bush that permits the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners." [more]

"It is perhaps not strange then that Allawi, who built his exile organization with defecting Iraqi military officers, is already proclaiming the need to delay elections scheduled for January and impose martial law. On Monday Bush said coalition forces would support such a call for martial law, presumably enforced by U.S. troops." [more]

"By nominating Cobb, the Greens have a candidate 'with zero name recognition,' said Dean Spiliotes, a fellow at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. 'It may be a good exercise in building up the party on the local level, but it means the party will drop off the radar. It's a shock, but it is great news for Kerry.'" [more]

"Michael Moore's documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," will open in about 1,000 U.S. theaters June 25, and a trailer promoting the expedited release could hit the Internet by the end of this week." [more]

"'We have not attacked the shrine of Imam Ali. We continue to respect the Shrine of Imam Ali,' said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, military spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition./ 'If there’s a hole in the shrine, go ask Muqtada who put that hole in the shrine. ... I would put money on Muqtada’s forces having caused it,' he said." [more]

"Iraq demonstrated that waging war against a nation that has not attacked another and ousting its leader — even a dictator — smacks of arrogance and sours allies whose help is needed in fighting other enemies and financing postwar reconstruction." [more]

"The U.S. should embark on a frank dialogue with China, conveying to the Chinese the mutual benefits of circumventing oil and offering any assistance required to curb China's growing appetite for it." [more]

"A major difference between Iraq's $116-billion debt and Africa's aggregate $300-billion debt is the creditors. Iraq's is owed mainly to various countries. Africa's main lenders are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ... Activists charge that the contrast between progress on Iraqi debt and the paralysis of debt-relief programs for Africa reflects the low priority Western nations often accord Africa." [more]

"The former leader of the U.S. hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction said Sunday that intelligence agencies owe the president and the public an explanation for the failure to find large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons after the U.S.-led war ... [He] also said that the looting and rioting that followed the short war could have destroyed evidence that would have shed light on whether Iraq possessed such weapons." [more]

Four generations of the Bush Dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest. [more]

A trip to Iraq, organized by peace and justice organization Global Exchange, will give the parents of troops stationed in Iraq a first-hand look at military activities and the civilian population there. For some of the parents, it is a chance to become more vocal about their opposition to the war. [more]

"The Iraq reconstruction aid is down from the $20.3 billion Bush had requested, but is still the biggest one-shot foreign aid outlay Congress has ever approved — and more money than Congress is providing this year for all other countries combined." [more]

"Some pundits and politicians, even those who may have been skeptical about the war to begin with, now argue that we must 'finish the job,' even if it means increasing our commitment of troops or ruling Iraq indefinitely. This is, however, exactly the kind of stubborn and mushy thinking that led us into the hell of the Vietnam War and the deaths of 58,000 Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese and Cambodians." [more]

"What has emerged here in the triangle that reaches from Baghdad's northern doorstep to Tikrit, Hussein's hometown, is a war of attrition. The Americans detain and kill anti-coalition fighters in the belief the insurgents' shell will eventually crack. The fighters retaliate with roadside explosions and mortar attacks on the assumption the Americans at some point will lose heart and go home." [more]

"The Bush administration's point man on nonproliferation has exaggerated the threat posed by Syria, Libya and Cuba in an effort to build the case that strong action is needed to prevent them from developing weapons of mass destruction, former intelligence officials and independent experts say." [more]

"A Christian extremist in a high Defense post can only set back the U.S. approach to the Muslim world." [more]

"Not only is the law being used to prosecute one of the administration's most vocal critics in an unprecedented attack on the 1st Amendment, but it appears to be part of a broader campaign by Ashcroft to protect the nation against free speech, a campaign that has converted environmentalists into 'sailor-mongers' and nuns into terrorists." [more]

"[Gen.] Boykin's new job makes his role especially sensitive: He is charged with speeding up the flow of intelligence on terrorist leaders to combat teams in the field so that they can attack top-ranking terrorist leaders. Virtually all these leaders are Muslim." [more]

"The White House acknowledged Monday that it substantially underestimated the cost of rebuilding Iraq, and that even the additional $87 billion it is seeking from a wary Congress will fall far short of what is needed for postwar reconstruction." [more]

"Nearly 300 American personnel and dozens of British soldiers, plus U.N. officials and untold numbers of Iraqis, [may] have died due to incredibly bad or corrupted intelligence." [more]

"Although senior CIA officials insist that defectors were only partly responsible for the intelligence that triggered the decision to invade Iraq in March, other intelligence officials now fear that key portions of the prewar information may have been flawed. The issue raises fresh doubts as to whether illicit weapons will be found in Iraq." [more]

"The move could disappoint those who viewed the ouster of Saddam Hussein as an opportunity to set Iraqi oil policy on a pro-American course, open the nation's oil sector to Western companies and reduce the influence of OPEC on world oil production and prices." [more]

"The team urged that the United States immediately deploy a 2,300-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit to stabilize the country and protect civilians amid a vicious civil war, said several U.S. officials familiar with the report. Two hundred Marines arrived in the country Thursday, five weeks after the call for urgent action." [more]

"The Justice Department already seems to be adjusting its sights. One person familiar with the department's agenda said the original Patriot II proposal is now 'dead.' " [more]

"The judge was clearly irritated about how Al-Marri was abruptly transferred to South Carolina and that neither he nor the defense lawyers know for certain whether his alleged offenses occurred in Peoria or elsewhere, because the government has not said exactly why Al-Marri is an enemy combatant." [more]

"Goller said she met with the Secret Service agent, Peter J. Damos, in the newspaper's security office and told him he could not speak to Ramirez. After some discussion, Damos left." [more]

"The top Marine commander in Iraq said Friday that U.S. intelligence was 'simply wrong' in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces during the war, but he stopped short of saying there was an overall intelligence failure." [more]

"The war was supposed to be over. But the deaths of four U.S. soldiers and the wounding of 15 others in just two days in armed attacks across Iraq raise the troubling prospect that a fresh wave of violent resistance to U.S. occupation is beginning." [more]

"The United States is urging Afghan President Hamid Karzai to rein in provincial warlords who are hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue needed by his government, and has not ruled out U.S. military aid in the event of a showdown." [more]

"U.S. intervention is a bad idea, because people want to make their own history, even if the face of oppression is like Saddam Hussein's. A quick and easy victory over Iraq must not be the model for a series of future campaigns of regime change around the world." [more]

"Far from being on the verge of destroying Western civilization, Saddam and his 21st century Gestapo couldn't even muster a half-hearted defense of their own capital. The hawks' cakewalk disproves their own dire warnings." [more]

"Last year, in an unusual court hearing behind closed doors at the Justice Department, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft won the legal authority to merge the FBI's crime-fighting and spying units to track suspected terrorists." [more]

"For all its ragged edges, the movement against war in Iraq mushroomed into a global force unprecedented in speed and scale. Never in the history of the world had so many marched in common cause." [more]

"The Bush administration has concluded that it probably cannot prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and is now focusing on managing the geopolitical fallout, informed Capitol Hill sources said Tuesday." [more]

"The Justice Department has stepped up use of a secretive process that enables the attorney general to personally authorize electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspected terrorists, spies and other national-security threats without immediate court oversight." [more]

"More than 1,000 readings of Aristophanes' comedy — or adaptations of it — were scheduled to take place Monday in all 50 states and 58 other countries [to protest the war]." [more]

"Mayor James K. Hahn signed the antiwar resolution late in the day, making Los Angeles the biggest city to take a stand against a unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq. About 100 other cities, including Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, have approved similar measures." [more]

"With two of his hazardous material inspectors gone, [one chief] said other aspects of police work have given way. Response time to nonemergency calls is longer, and there is less time for the sort of community policing designed to settle citizen disputes before they escalate." [more]

"In what may be the largest U.S. protest against war in Iraq to date, at least 200,000 people massed in San Francisco on Sunday as activists tried to build on the momentum of Saturday's turnouts around the world." [more]

"With 11 leading American poets, the event — dubbed 'A Poetry Reading in Honor of the Right to Protest as a Patriotic and Historical Tradition' — capped a long weekend of antiwar demonstrations around the world and across the country." [more]

"Thousands of people opposed to a war with Iraq protested across the United States on Saturday, staging rallies in New York, Southern California, Detroit, Miami, Chicago and other communities that recalled the peace demonstrations of the 1960s and '70s." [more]

"Protests in Europe included some of the largest antiwar demonstrations in decades, authorities said. And the biggest marches took place in nations that are strong U.S. allies and whose governments support President Bush's confrontation with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." [more]

"To Nile Delta villagers, a war on Iraq would be unjust — and a disaster for Egypt's economy." [more]

"In an overflowing school auditorium Monday night, at a forum with their congressman, a two-star Marine general and an assistant secretary of Defense, the citizens of Alexandria spoke of overwhelming concerns about war with Iraq, and particularly its aftermath. Their antiwar sentiments sounded like those heard in France and Germany." [more]

"As the Pentagon continues a highly visible buildup of troops and weapons in the Persian Gulf, it is also quietly preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iraq, according to a report by a defense analyst." [more]

"Washington claims that Baghdad harbors ambitions of aggression, continues to develop and stockpile weapons of mass destruction and maintains ties to Al Qaeda. Lacking solid evidence, the public must weigh Saddam Hussein's penchant for lies against the administration's own record. Based on recent history, that's not an easy choice." [more]

"The Air Force calls them 'go pills,' and that is what they do: keep pilots going in the air long after their tired minds and bodies would have preferred to fall asleep." [more]

"More than 14 months ago, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan produced swift and stunning results." [more]

"Guns and the warlords who wield them are distorting the Afghan economy, obstructing the role of government and impeding the delivery of relief and reconstruction aid." [more]

"[M]any Iraqi nationals live in quiet distrust of two governments — one that kills families of critics in exile, another known for jailing immigrants when national security is compromised. Recent reports that Washington is monitoring thousands of Iraqis in the United States as part of its war on terrorism served to underscore the apprehension." [more]

"Three organizations representing Arab and Iranian immigrants sued the government Tuesday, seeking curbs on a program that requires men and boys, mostly from Middle Eastern countries, to register with immigration authorities." [more]

"The ineffective and chaotic manner in which the program is being implemented is an indication that neither the Justice Department nor the INS believes it to be important to national security." [more]

"[Sahlepour] was shuttled between cells in Los Angeles, Pasadena and Lancaster, strip searched, chained to three other men and finally dumped at a train station in the high desert three days after he willingly appeared at an INS office to register, as required." [more]

"Hundreds of men and boys from Middle Eastern countries were arrested by federal immigration officials in Southern California this week when they complied with orders to appear at INS offices for a special registration program." [more]

"The Pentagon is moving the jet that fired the opening salvos of the last two U.S. wars to within easy striking distance of Iraq, erecting tent-like portable hangars for the batwinged B-2 bomber on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia." [more]

"Saddam Hussein has been a familiar name since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But as the United States again weighs the prospect of war with Iraq, the question of what to call the Iraqi president is becoming a bit of a media quandary." [more]

"Hamid Karzai's government may require the support of the U.S. and its allies for some time to come." [more]

"It's unlikely that Democrats, not wanting to look soft on terrorism, will buck the White House's war. So, grass-roots groups are starting to organize." [more]

"Doomed by the incoherence of a foreign policy defined largely by biblical notions of the struggle between good and evil, the Bush administration thrashes about in its hunt for the devil. Sadly, all that has produced are shopworn enemies that were once our surrogates in battles we would rather forget." [more]

"Refugees returning from abroad used to receive a one-time handout of 550 pounds of wheat to get them back on their feet. That was cut this month to 220 pounds, and Guy Gauvreau, the WFP's representative for northern Afghanistan, said he feared a cut to 110 pounds within two weeks if aid does not arrive." [more]

"Few in Europe's leadership seem to grasp that if the European NATO governments and public indeed object to a U.S. attack on Iraq, as they say, they can prevent it, or at least block it for many months, while accomplishing a fundamental transformation in the Middle Eastern situation to their own advantage (and possibly that of the Israelis and Arabs as well)." [more]

"Pushed aside is the earlier preoccupation with antimissile defenses, space-based weaponry and other programs designed primarily to protect the United States against foreign aggressors. Instead, the new emphasis is on a far more interventionist, proactive strategy in which the United States would stand ready to strike militarily around the world wherever and whenever it thought its security might be threatened." [more]

"Nevertheless, officials have opened three times as many investigations into hate crimes with Arab victims since Sept. 11 as in the same period the previous year. They include 350 federal cases and 70 by state and local authorities." [more]

"President Bush applauded Sabaya's death and Pentagon officials here said Friday that their deployment of more than 1,000 U.S. troops to the Philippines to train soldiers had paid off during Friday's clash." [more]

"By the most generous of readings, the council left many delegates disappointed. While they may have had unrealistic expectations coming in, given the difficulties of having such a large group take a hands-on role in choosing a Cabinet, they appeared to be leaving with a sense of having been cheated of their main job of designing the new government." [more]

"It is high time that Congress start questioning the hype and rhetoric emanating from the White House regarding Baghdad, because the leaked CIA plan is well timed to undermine the efforts underway in the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back to work in Iraq." [more]

"The assassination of an Afghan rebel leader 48 hours before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was part of a strategic plan by Osama bin Laden to expand his influence into Central Asia." [more]

"All four episodes took place within a few weeks of each other last summer. But poor communication, disjointed coordination among intelligence agencies and questionable attention to counter-terrorism operations may have hindered the ability of any one individual or agency to determine their collective significance, experts said." [more]

"The partnerships that Green Berets and other U.S. troops forged with Afghan fighters were key to defeating the Taliban. But it wasn't easy." [more]

"European leaders differ sharply with the Bush administration on the Middle East, believing that U.S. policy has been too sympathetic to the Israelis. The Europeans have challenged the administration's willingness to mount a military campaign against Iraq and its seeming inclination to use military force to deal with other threats as well. They are battling the Bush administration on steel tariffs in a dispute that threatens to become a full-blown trade war. And they complain that America no longer consults Europe first on global security issues, as it did during the Cold War." [more]

"Tens of thousands gather in the nation's capital, with attention focused on the Middle East conflict." [more]

"Environmentalists charge that the Pentagon's proposal would dilute the definition of 'harassment' so much that the National Marine Fisheries Service would find it difficult to regulate military activities that affect marine mammals. The changes also would make it harder for citizens and environmental groups to sue the military for endangering marine mammals. "The Pentagon's proposal, a draft of which was obtained by The Times, also would give the military exemptions under the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and hazardous waste laws." [more]

"Bush came under immediate fire from foreign policy thinkers known as the neo-conservatives. That group, composed mostly of Jewish and Roman Catholic intellectuals such as William Kristol and William J. Bennett, argues that Israel is responding to terror in the same way the United States did after Sept. 11. It is hypocritical for Bush to tell Israel to stop, they say." [more]

"The U.S. said it would block an Arab attempt to get the Security Council to pass its fourth resolution on the Middle East crisis in four weeks, arguing in a protracted debate here Monday that further U.N. action could undermine Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's cease-fire mission." [more]

"Prosecutors have admitted to a federal court that they have no evidence linking accused Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh to the murder of a CIA agent or direct attacks on Americans in Afghanistan." [more]

"Now, belatedly, the administration needs to dive in and separate the Israelis and Palestiniansóand with fear and rage pounding through both combatants' veins, it's going to take a higher-ranking referee than Anthony C. Zinni to make that happen." [more]

"The 'friendly fire' incident became one of the most publicized in the Afghan war and almost killed the man the Green Berets were assigned to protect: Hamid Karzai, who later that day was named the country's interim prime minister." [more]

"Thursday's fighting marked the latest in a series of deadly skirmishes between Philippine forces and the Abu Sayyaf. With four rebels dead in fighting earlier this week and an unknown number killed in heavy fighting last Friday, the results of Thursday's encounter make it an especially costly week for the extremist guerrilla group." [more]

"Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, disputed the notion that the fight in rugged terrain south of Gardez, which began March 2, was subsiding. He said that it was evolving and that troops were being repositioned within the battlefield or on its perimeter. In some cases, he said, fresh troops were rotating in." [more]

"Incidents are prompting travelers to wonder whether aviation security is in danger of running amok and turning on ordinary citizens. Whether the problems stem from overzealousness or bureaucratic ineptitude, making the system more user-friendly has become a concern second only to stopping terrorists." [more]

"Despite President Bush's insistence that America's enemies resent its liberties, most critics of the U.S. don't actually object to America's stated values. Instead, they point to U.S. unilateralism in the face of international laws, widening wealth disparities, crackdowns on immigrants and human rights violations--most recently in Guantanamo Bay. The anger comes not only from the facts of each case but also from a clear perception of false advertising. In other words, America's problem is not with its brand--which could scarcely be stronger--but with its product." [more]

"The ground war [in Afghanistan] is taking U.S. forces into rocky terrain and thin air, the sort of conditions that felled the Soviets." [more]

"The U.S. installation [in Pakistan] has become the secret hub for Special Forces commando raids, covert CIA operations and a host of other activities aimed at rooting out Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and developing intelligence to thwart future terrorist attacks against the United States." [more]

"A Pakistani terrorist who Indian police say admitted to aiding the 1993 street war against U.S. forces in Somalia may be the long-suspected link between Osama bin Laden and the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu." [more]

"After a year of internal divisions and military diversions, serious planning is underway within the Bush administration for a campaign against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." [more]

"War skeptics such as Richard Gere, Susan Sontag, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Bill Maher and the Berkeley City Council should be congratulated, not vilified, for daring to demur, ever so slightly, from government propaganda. Right or wrong, they have acted as free people in a free society who understand that if our course is correct, it can survive criticism. And if it is not, it is all the more important that we gather the courage to state that criticism clearly and in a timely fashion." [more]

"Hardt and Negri argue that a new global economic regime is emerging, which they call simply 'Empire.' It is a new form of imperial power defined partly by what it is not. It is not a nation-state. It is not an aligned superpower bloc. It is an empire, in the classic sense, but has no seat like the Roman Empire. It is a distributed network, like the Internet, created by international agreements binding nations big and small into relationships that none of them fully control." [more]