The deception that launched the invasion of Iraq now increasingly shapes media coverage of the occupation. Read Sami Ramadani at;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1704737,00.html

Click on 'Read more' for other recent Iraq stories.

Bush told Blair we're going to war, memo reveals:
· PM backed invasion despite illegality warnings
· Plan to disguise US jets as UN planes
· Bush: postwar violence unlikely
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,1700881,00.html

Noam Chomsky on last month's Iraqi elections: Elections, if taken seriously, mean you pay some attention to the will of the population. The crucial question for an invading army is: "Do they want us to be here?" There is no lack of information about the answer. One important source is a poll for the British Ministry of Defence this past August, carried out by Iraqi university researchers and leaked to the British Press. It found that 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops and less than 1 per cent believe they are responsible for any improvement in security. There's a good reason why the United States cannot tolerate a sovereign, more or less democratic Iraq. The issue can scarcely be raised because it conflicts with firmly established doctrine: We're supposed to believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq if it was an island in the Indian Ocean and its main export was pickles, not petroleum. As is obvious to anyone not committed to the party line, taking control of Iraq will enormously strengthen US power over global energy resources, a crucial lever of world control. Suppose that Iraq were to become sovereign and democratic. Imagine the policies it would be likely to pursue. The Shia population in the South, where much of Iraq's oil is, would have a predominant influence. They would prefer friendly relations with Shia Iran. Read the full article at:
http://www.globalecho.org/view_article.php?aid=6301

Private 'armies' in Iraq: In September 2005, the BBC reported the deaths of four British 'security contractors' in Iraq, killed when their convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb. The use of various terms - 'security guards', 'security consultants', 'risk consultants' - masks the fact that there is a large force of privately managed, armed civilians, active in Iraq, who are taking an active part in the imposition of corporate control.
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2181