Source: The Observer, United Kingdom, by Anthony Barnett
Summary: A US military contractor accused of human rights violations and of running an illegal sex ring in Bosnia has been awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to police post-Saddam Iraq.
Excerpt: An Observer reporter who contacted the firm's US headquarters purporting to be a potential police recruit for Iraq was told it was hoping to "get people on the ground in two to four weeks.' The recruiter told the reporter he could expect a salary of $80,000plus "hazard bonuses'. He was offered a contract of between three months and a year and told he did not need to be able to speak Arabic. He had to be a US citizen who had served as a police officer in America, and when the reporter said he had worked in Texas for a number of years he was told he sounded "ideal'.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/ Story/0,2763,935991,00.html
Source: Agence France Presse
Summary: India is mulling a "pre-emptive" strike against Pakistan, citing US reasoning for attacking Iraq as a precedent.
Excerpt: Defence Minister George Fernandes said he endorsed Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's recent comments that India had "a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq." India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Muslim militants in Kashmir. Islamabad denies the charge but says it offers moral and political support to what it describes as Kashmiris' legitimate struggle for self-expression.
Link: http://www.informationclearing house.info/article2867.htm
Source: Al-Jazeera, Qatar
Summary: Arab reaction to the falling of Baghdad was shocked, but mixed.
Excerpt: Some people said Saddam's fall should be a warning to other Arab leaders. "What happened in Baghdad must be taken into consideration by Arab rulers because the people are the ones who defend a country, and if they are tortured and their honour is violated then they will be the first to abandon it," said Hussein Taher, a 37-year-old private sector employee in Saudi Arabia.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/ topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2299&version=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258
Source: Financial Times, United Kingdom, by Charles Clover
Summary: So far, many post-war arrangements in one city are haphazard and even destructive.
Excerpt: The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US special forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorising their neighbourhood with impunity, according to most residents.
"They steal and steal," said a man living near the Medresa al Tayif school, calling himself Abu Zeinab. "They threaten us, saying: "We are with the Americans, you can do nothing to us'."
Link: http://search.ft.com/search/ article.html?id=030409000926&query= Charles+Clover&vsc_appId=totalSearch& state=Form
Source: Arab News, Saudi Arabia, by Essam Al-Ghalib
Summary: The toll of civilian casualties has overwhelmed Iraqi hospitals.
Excerpt: US forces have been using cluster bombs against Iraqi soldiers. But the majority of the victims are civilians, mostly children curious about the small shiny objects which are the same size as a child's hand. Cluster bombs, as explained by an administrator at the hospital, have been dropped by the hundred. They are supposed to explode on impact. However, many do not, and lie on the street exposed to the elements.
Link: http://www.arabnews.com/ Article.asp?ID=24936
Source: The Independent, United Kingdom, by Robert Fisk; Le Monde, France,
Summary: Reports of deadly US attacks on a Baghdad building known as a press headquarters have led to worldwide condemnations. Here are just two of the articles on the subject of war deaths among the press.
Excerpt: First the Americans killed the correspondent of al-Jazeera yesterday and wounded his cameraman. Then, within four hours, they attacked the Reuters television bureau in Baghdad, killing one of its cameramen and a cameraman for Spain's Tele 5 channel and wounding four other members of the Reuters staff. Was it possible to believe this was an accident? Unfortunately for the Americans, they make it look very like murder.
Links: http://argument.independent. co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story= 395412
http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3462--316173-,00.html
Source: Toronto Star, Canada, by David Olive
Summary: Canadian paper argues that the fact that US troops routed Iraq's forces is proof that opponents of the war were correct in saying that Hussein posed no significant threat to his neighbors or the US.
Excerpt: As the enormity of the rout was clear early last week, the Pentagon was dismissing the Iraqi forces as "a paper army." Pushed to the wall, the Iraqi regime did not try to blunt the enemy advance by dipping into its vaunted stockpile of "weapons of mass destruction" - or perhaps that, too, was a paper inventory.
Link:http://www.thestar.com/ NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename= thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article& cid=1035780886835&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724