How'd we get here, anyway?

• Conflict within the Pentagon: Disagreements about war planning then and now, By David Shuster, MSNBC, January 12th, 2005
• Cheney lobbied Congress to ease sanctions against terrorist countries while he was CEO of Halliburton, by Jason Leopold, Online Journal, July 23, 2004
  • Over the Years, Cheney Opposed U.S. Sanctions, by Christopher Marquis, New York Times, July 27, 2000
• The Ties That Blind: How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons, by Norm Dixon, Counterpunch, June 17, 2004
• Reagan and Saddam: The Unholy Alliance, by Alex Dawoody, June 8th, 2004
• The Iraq Crisis: Effects of Sanctions, by Anup Shah, Global Issues, May 22, 2003
• How Iraq built its weapons programs: With a little help from its friends, by Tom Drury, St. Petersburg Times, March 16, 2003
• Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, Edited by Joyce Battle, February 25, 2003
• Rumsfeld's Account Book: Who Armed Saddam?, by Stephen Green, Counterpunch, February 24, 2003
• Reaping the grim harvest we have sown, smh.com.au, February 3 2003
• U.S. And Iraq Go Way Back, CBS News, Dec. 31, 2002
• Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program: Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq's 1996 accounting of its nuclear program., Fox News, December 17, 2002
• Iraq got germs for weapons program from U.S. in '80s: The CDC and a biological-sample firm sent strains of anthrax and more, government records show. By Matt Kelley, Associated Press, Oct. 01, 2002
• Following Iraq's bioweapons trail, by Robert Novak, Sun-Times, September 26, 2002
  "An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran."
• A Tortured Relationship: U.S. and Iraq Were Not Always Enemies, by Chris Bury ABC News, September 18, 2002
  Indeed, even as President Bush castigates Saddam’s regime as “a grave and gathering danger,” it’s important to remember that the United States helped arm Iraq with the very weapons that administration officials are now citing as justification for Saddam’s forcible removal from power.
• Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas, by Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, 18 August 2002
• Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift, by Robert Windrem, MSNBC, August 18, 2000
• WAR CRIMES: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal, by Ramsey Clark and Others, This report was given in New York, May 11, 1991.

RESOURCES to help you understand the CURRENT MESS

• Operation Truth: a non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to educate the American public about the truth of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the perspective of the troops who have experienced them first-hand.
• How Bush Got It Wrong, by Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books, Volume 51, Number 14, September 23, 2004
  Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, July 7, 2004
• Intelligence on Iraq, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications (PDF)
  This new Carnegie Report studies what the intelligence community understood about Iraq's WMD programs before the war and outlines policy reforms designed to improve threat assessments, deter transfer of WMD to terrorists, and avoid politicization of the intelligence process.
• U.S. / IRAQ pro/con A non-biased collection of arguments for and agaisnt invasion
• What the administration has told us about what the war would cost...follow the bouncing ball
• Iraq Body Count
• The Pie Chart of the second Iraq War is the reverse of the first in terms of cost. In the first war with Iraq, America shouldered 12% of the cost...this time we are covering 88% of the cost. Where is the Coalition of the Billing?
• "War--What's it good for?" A hell of a lot of money, actually. See who is profiting by the war in Iraq.
• The New Yorker's complete coverage of the War in Iraq
• The cost of the war with a running total and projections.
• Claim Vs. Fact: Pre-War Administration assertions compared to David Kay's Report
• Claims vs. Fact: Rhetoric, Reality and the War in Iraq
• Fourth Freedom Forum report, "Unproven: The Flawed Case for War in Iraq" (PDF), June 2003
• Try this fun game: Go to this website, The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities (and the justification for the war). To play our game, simply read through this document and spot the unsubstantiated lies. Take a stiff drink each time you spot one, and maybe you will care as little as everyone else in the country seems to.

• Veterans Against the Iraq War
• Iraq Veterans Campaign for Peace