Loose cannons

Great strides I

"The Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council have made great strides in the security, economic stability and growth, and democratisation of Iraq." — US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in testimony to the US Senate foreign relations committee, February 12.

Great strides II

"According to [the US government] aid agency USAID there were more attacks [in Iraq] during January than any month since September. These included 642 organised assaults involving mortars, hand-grenades and small-arms, 522 'random' incidents from drive-by shootings to rock-throwing, and 11 attacks on coalition aircraft." — Glasgow Scotsman, February 15.

Massaged ...

"I think clearly the case may turn out to be that we had [intelligence] assessments from 2001 and early 2002 that were heavily qualified about the extent of Iraq's WMD capabilities slowly being massaged into something that was more politically tenable." — Carl Ungerer, former intelligence officer with the Office of National Assessments, February 17.

After all, we've got their oil

"Foreign minister Alexander Downer said today that the failure to find stockpiles of Iraq's elusive weapons of mass destruction was no big issue." — News.com.au, February 18.

Everyone knows we lied

"It's not entirely obvious to me what an inquiry [into the government's Iraqi WMD claims] beyond the existing [parliamentary] inquiry is supposed to establish." — Downer, February 19.

From Green Left Weekly, February 25, 2004.

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From GLW issue 572