UN URGES FAIRNESS, OPENNESS, INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS FOR HUSSEIN WAR CRIMES TRIAL
16 December 2003

Kofi Annan said in his report to the Security Council today that the Iraqis must be assured that current Coalition participants, allies of those forces and the UN itself, will continue to provide support both financial and military for the stabilization and democratization of Iraq. He also specified that any trial of Saddam Hussein for war crimes must withstand international human rights scrutiny, abide by the Geneva conventions and be transparent.

The US favors an all-Iraqi prosecution, but observers fear that Iraq's judicial system is at best weak and ill-formed at present. The UN favors an international tribunal, able to provide an open and fair forum for the exposition and prosecution of Ba'athist war crimes. The UN further requires that there be no death penalty option, which many international treaties and the UN as a body view as a tool of tyrants and a departure from civilized rule.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi Foreign Minister for the Transitional Governing Council, said that Iraq must look toward the future and overcome its tragic past. Zebari went on to say that the UN is the necessary partner for assisting Iraq in achieving that future. He offered condolences for the deaths of UN officials in Iraq, and urged the UN to return its offices to post-war Baghdad, saying the Governing Council would provide whatever level of security necessary to reach out to the UN. [s]

NO WMD, JUSTIFICATIONS FOR WAR IN QUESTION
26 January 2004

David Kay, chief weapons inspector for the Iraq Survey Group, who recently left his post, reports there was no evidence to indicate the presence of any weapons of mass destruction, any stockpiles, or any competent programs to develop such weapons. Kay said evidence was found that indicated there had been programs in the past, but that it appeared that all the weapons had been destroyed, and that the programs were in disarray, and no production facilities existed. [Full Story]

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
30 January 2004

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Levin cited Donald Rumsfeld as saying on 11 March 2003, one week before the war: "we know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours, and placing them in residential neighborhoods." The issue is how statements of such certainty had been made when new revelations indicate there was no reliable intelligence on which to base irrefutable affirmations of WMD in Iraq. [Full Story]

REUTERS REPORTS 3 JOURNALISTS AMONG ABUSED IRAQIS
18 May 2004

The Reuters News Agency is reporting that 3 Iraqi journalists working for the agency were beaten and sexually abused when they were detained in January, while covering the story of a downed helicopter. The abuses occurred not at Abu Ghraib prison, but at the Volturno Forward Operating Base, near Fallujah. Reuters latest publication of the story is due to the fact that the Pentagon has not responded to requests for a review of an initial military report that found no torture had occurred (issued long before the Abu Ghraib photos had become public). [Full Story]