IPS: “Iraq Invasion – 5 Years On”

Rather than summarize its latest reports myself, I’ll just share the latest newsletter (which you should be getting if you’re looking for sober, honest analysis of US foreign policy) from the Inter Press Service News Agency in Washington, DC.

IPS has a fraction of a fraction of the resources of MSM outlets, but runs rings around them in terms of insight and topicalness.

5th Anniversary of the War in Iraq
===================================
Why Did the U.S. Invade Iraq?
     Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – So why, exactly, did the U.S. invade Iraq five years ago this week? The official reasons — the threat posed to the U.S. and its allies by Saddam Hussein’s alleged WMD programmes and the possibility that he would pass along those arms to al Qaeda — have long since been discarded by the overwhelming weight of the evidence, or, more precisely, the lack of evidence that such a threat ever existed.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41643

*****
IRAQ: Five Years, And Counting
     Analysis by Dahr Jamail
WASHINGTON – Devastation on the ground and largely held Iraqi opinion contradicts claims by U.S. officials that the situation in Iraq has improved towards the fifth anniversary of the invasion Mar. 20. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41630

*****
"I Saw the Interrogator Waterboarding Him"
     Aaron Glantz
SILVER SPRING, Maryland – "I would like to share with you how one goes about becoming a concentration camp guard without having made many decisions," 24-year-old former Guantanamo prison guard Christopher Arent told a crowd of hundreds at the Winter Soldier gathering outside Washington, DC.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41633

*****
"We Reacted Out of Fear, and With Total Destruction"
     Dahr Jamail
SILVER SPRING, Maryland – Hart Viges joined the U.S. Army the day after Sep. 11, 2001, in the belief that he could help make the world a safer place. He ended up stationed in Fallujah, and then Baghdad. "We were the only authority and took full advantage of that."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41596

Rules of Engagement "Thrown Out the Window"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41605

*****
Anti-War Grannies Arrested Trying to Enlist
     Matthew Cardinale
ATLANTA – As part of actions across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, 10 "Grandmothers for Peace", ranging in age from 57 to 80, were arrested Monday while trying to enlist in the United States Army. Acts of civil disobedience are planned this week in at least 17 other U.S. cities.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41625

================================
Iraq: Beyond the Green Zone –
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iraq/index.asp

================================
Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), the world’s leading provider of information on global issues, is backed by a network of journalists in more than 100 countries. Its clients include more than 3,000 media organisations and tens of thousands of civil society groups, academics, and other users.

IPS focuses its news coverage on the events and global processes affecting the economic, social and political development of peoples and nations.

================================

Visit Inter Press Service at http://www.ipsnews.net