Iraq Follow

The high command of the British Army officially sanctioned the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, a court martial has been told.

The US engineering company Bechtel is leading the corporate withdrawal from Iraq. Despite much of the country’s infrastructure still being in ruins, US government funding for reconstruction is coming to an end.

The New York Times carried a wonderful report of how Hashim al-Menti brought the news of Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation as US defence secretary to the group of US Marines occupying his house in Iraq’s Anbar province. "Rumsfeld is gone," he said. One of the Marines replied, "Who’s Rumsfeld?"

School students march in London Fifty school students took part in a die-in last Saturday to remember the dead of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon. This was during a weekend when the establishment picks and chooses which of the dead we are to remember.

In a crushing blow to George Bush, US voters last week voiced their dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, the declining economy, and ethics in government.

Suddenly, debate on both sides of the Atlantic centres on what was once seen as impossible – withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq.

What a cowardly bunch of timeserving lickspittles Labour backbenchers are. Last week they were offered the opportunity to vote for an official inquiry into the Iraq war.

Last week MPs had the opportunity to vote for an inquiry into the Iraq war - but just 12 Labour MPs took the chance.

The growing crisis faced by the US occupation of Iraq was the key issue in midterm elections, taking place in the US as Socialist Worker went to press.

Saddam Hussein, who was condemned to death by an Iraqi court last weekend, was a thuggish dictator. But the far greater criminals—those who created Saddam Hussein, those able to deal out death and destruction on a global scale—will not face justice any time soon.

Stewart MacKenzie, a former soldier, who allegedly sold fake photographs of British troops mistreating an Iraqi prisoner to the Daily Mirror, gave evidence at a court martial against seven colleagues who are accused of abusing Iraqi detainees in Basra last week.

On Monday of this week, families of British soldiers killed in Iraq returned to the High Court for a three-day hearing to press for an independent inquiry into the reasons for the war.