From the London Times, March 27:

US TROOPS were accused of killing up to 22 Iraqis yesterday after becoming embroiled in a fierce battle with a powerful Shia militia at a Baghdad mosque, The reported clash, the circumstances of which were disputed by US Forces, raised fears in Washington that America was being drawn into the growing sectarian violence.

We always maintained Bush and his gang want high oil prices, not low. But Greg Palast, as usual, is long on hype and short on information and analysis. He won't even quote the full sentance of his leaked document before he condescendingly tells us "There you have it." And he is overlooking the fundamental question of control of oil. The price, the buyers, the sellers—all that is peripheral compared to the question of control which determines the rest. And as long as the US is in control of Iraq, no other world or regional power will have access to that oil except on Washington's terms. So the critical factor behind the Iraq adventure is not the price of oil any more than it is AIPAC's notorious "influence." Look instead to: 1.) the longterm threat to US global dominance represented by China's military-industrial rise, 2.) continued rivarly with Russia (watch Belarus), and 3.) the rift with the Saudis since 9-11, and the need to have a counter-balance to Arab-OPEC petro-hegemony (Palast's secret document notwithstanding). And while the Bush gang may not care about oil going to waste in insurgent attacks, they are assuredly not happy about the prospects of increasing chaos that could pose a challenge to US control of Iraq...

From AP, March 23:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and British troops Thursday freed three Christian peace activists in a rural area of Iraq without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.

March 16, the first day that Iraq's fragile new parliament formally met, was met not only with a new US offensive in the Samarra area that the Arab press is already comparing to Fallujah (Khajeel Times, UAE, March 19) but, perhaps more importantly, a social explosion in Kurdistan, which has heretofore been a relative haven from the chaos in the rest of Iraq. Illustrating the depth of disgust with the Kurdish leadership, it came on the anniversary of the Halabja massacre, and left the official monument to the victims destroyed. Most Western press accounts have not noted that the repressive violence from the PUK security forces left at least four Kurdish youth dead. This account from Kurdish Media:

From UPI, March 16:

One of America's most respected elder national security statesmen called for a full pull-out from Iraq Thursday.

Delivering the keynote address at the Center for American Progress' "Iraq; Next Steps for U.S. Policy," Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security advisor for President Jimmy Carter, said that "within a year we should be able to complete a course of disengagement" and withdraw from Iraq.

From the New York Times, March 16:

The U.S. military has sent about 800 troops from Kuwait to Iraq for extra security to coincide with an expected surge of pilgrims to Muslim shrines in coming days, officials said in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Just in case you thought it was still the 20th century. From the technology news site The Inquirer, March 15:

Robots break Asimov's first law

And so it begins

From the UK Telegraph, March 12:

An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.