In Bushzarro world, as we know, up is down, right is left, and violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and international law is legal and within Bush's reading on the Constitution. In fact, under the NPT, Iran has the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, although of course the neocons argue Iran is feverishly building nuclear weapons, an assertion made without any credible evidence (essentially a re-run of the weapons of mass destruction argument-lies and fabrications-made in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq). It is interesting to note that the very development of the B61-11 is a violation of the NPT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and international law dating back to the Clinton administration, thus once again illustrating the fact the neocons don't have a monopoly on criminal renegade behavior.

"A central and expressed purpose of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has always been to arrest the further evolution of the world's nuclear arsenals," noted the Los Alamos Study Group on February 10, 1997, during the Clinton administration. "This modified weapon-certified without nuclear testing and deployed after signing the CTBT-undercuts that treaty and could provide political cover to countries which have their own unsatisfied nuclear ambitions."

So-called "earth-penetrating weapons" (more accurately described as weapons that release radiation into the earth and atmosphere) were "rejected for deployment by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush," thus demonstrating there was at least a modicum of sanity-at least in regard to nuclear weapons-before Bubba and Bush Minor and his coven of Straussian neocons came on the scene.

"What is known about the B61-11 strongly suggests that its rushed development has been motivated by a desire to target one or more non-nuclear-weapon states." Iran is such a non-nuclear state. "Hersh says that within the Bush administration, there are concerns that even a pummelling by conventional strikes, may not sufficiently damage Iran's buried nuclear plants," reports the Independent. Naturally, the neocons realize there are no such "buried nuclear plants" and the purpose is simply to inflict on the Iranian people the sort of damage Bush and crew inflicted on Iraq's population of 24 million people (minus around 250,000 killed by the Straussian Mafia).

Clinton's Pentagon told a big lie about developing the B61-11 (and who knows what other secrecy-shrouded weapon systems) in "order to gain support for indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)." In April and May of 1995, the United States "repeatedly assured the world ... that it would not continue 'vertical proliferation.' Yet during these same months the Department of Energy (DOE) was seeking, and obtaining, approval for a weapon modification with significant new military utility." In order to keep the development secret, "this weapon was approved outside the regular budget process and without congressional debate, by means of secret letters to key committee chairmen, raising constitutional questions." Clinton-who is a more convincing liar than Bush-"and nuclear weapons laboratory spokespersons ... assured a skeptical public that no new nuclear weapons would be developed or built. At the very same time, secret development of this provocative weapon was being requested by the Department of Defense (DoD) and carried out by the DOE in complete secrecy."

As critics claimed before "everything changed" (or was changed by the neocons), "adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply makes their eventual use more likely," according to Dr. Robert W. Nelson of the Federation of American Scientists. "Furthermore, a 1994 law currently prohibits the nuclear laboratories from undertaking research and development that could lead to a precision nuclear weapon of less than 5 kilotons (kt), because 'low-yield nuclear weapons blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war,"" a blurring effect well under way within the Bush administration and over at the Council on Foreign Relations (see "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, an article actually arguing nukes should be used).

It is now obvious the criminal globalist elite plan to use nukes and believe they can contain this once unimaginable usage to the "third world" where "rogue regimes" with or without nukes or weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with in severe fashion-that is to say they must be irradiated and suffer horrible deaths.

"In addition to the immediate effects of blast, air shock, and thermal radiation, shallow nuclear explosions produce especially intense local radioactive fallout," explains Nelson of FAS. "The fireball breaks through the surface of the earth, carrying into the air large amounts of dirt and debris. This material has been exposed to the intense neutron flux from the nuclear detonation, which adds to the radioactivity from the fission products. The cloud typically consists of a narrow column and a broad base surge of air filled with radioactive dust which expands to a radius of over a mile for a 5 kiloton explosion."

Imagine such "intense local radioactive fallout" in Tehran, population approximately 12 million.

Obviously, if Bush indeed nukes Iran, as we are now told, we are dealing with a war criminal of Hitlerian proportions. Since it appears Bush and the neocon maniacs will be allowed to proceed and nuke Iran (and other countries on the neocon hit list), we can only hope in the catastrophic wake they will be rounded up and prosecuted. Fat chance of this happening before Bush and crew begin slinging nukes around.

Most American know little or nothing about Bush's desire to nuke Iran. Ignorance is bliss-until you wake up one morning and there are funny looking sunrises in the east, west, north, and south.

For far too many Americans, B61-11 might as well be tonight's lottery number.

Daud, however, insists that the ministry has studied the impact of canceling the subsidies and found it would not hurt families economically.

For Qadiryia Mohammad, a mother of eight with a disabled husband who cannot work, the cuts are devastating.

"We have no income and totally depend on the rations," said Mohammad, 48, a resident of Baghdad's al-Karkh neighborhood. "The cut on some items and problems with food distribution might force us to beg."

The Labor and Social Affairs Ministry reported in January that more than 2 million Iraqi families are living below the poverty line and that poverty had risen by 30 percent since the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

Government figures show that food prices jumped 26 percent from December 2005 to January 2006, due in part to a general rise in inflation and high demand for meat and vegetables because of the bird flu outbreak.

Inflation has skyrocketed since 2003, and according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expected to rise another 15 percent this year. The economy is expected to grow by 10 percent.

Baghdad-based economist Munthir Hadi predicted that the food ration cuts, combined with a spike in inflation, "will increase number of poor families."

"The Iraqi citizen still totally depends on the state," he said. "It's not easy to apply globalization theories. This requires more time."

The Iraqi government, backed by the United States and the IMF, is shifting to a free market economy after decades of Baathist socialist rule.

The country received a $685 million IMF loan in December 2005 and in return promised economic reforms, including raising the price of subsidized fuel - a decision that led to protests - and scrapping the food rations program, according to the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman.

The government and IMF did not make public details of the reforms.

Iraq's food rations have been problematic since last year. Their distribution by the Trade Ministry - which was recently charged with having the highest level of corruption of any ministry - has been poor. Last December, its inspector-general was fired.

The government has since allocated $490 million to compensate 5 million families for the shortfall.

However the payments are based on August 2005 prices and for some families that just isn't enough.

"I can't afford 25,000 Iraqi dinars [$14 dollars] for a canister of gas," said Mohammad.

"The economic situation is hard and food ration is insufficient," Mohammad added.

Shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes, he described to me all the disasters he was certain would follow the invasion.

The US and British troops would be bogged down in Iraq for years. There would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias. The real beneficiary would be the government in Iran.

"And what do the Americans say when you tell them this," I asked? "They don't even listen," he said.

Over the last three years, from a ringside seat here in Baghdad, I have watched his predictions come true, stage by stage.

Falluja fallout

The first stage was the looting.

As Saddam Hussein fled Baghdad, people started attacking every symbol of the old system, no matter how self-destructive that might be.

I saw crowds of people sacking a hospital, running out with bits of equipment which were useless to them, but essential to the running of the hospital.

At the information ministry, I watched them stripping the claddings from the walls and the underlay from the floors. The American soldiers outside did nothing to stop them. Sometimes they would fire in the air, but the looters scarcely even looked round.

Until then, most Iraqis had thought the US was all-powerful, and was there to help them. The perception started to change then and there.

For the next year, if you were careful, you could wander round Baghdad, and even drive to other parts of the country.

When we arrived for a tour of duty we travelled by road to Baghdad from Jordan, through places like Falluja, or else from Kuwait, past Nasiriya and Hilla. It was sometimes nerve-racking, but we always got through. Now there is no alternative to flying in.

The BBC, like most other news organisations, is based in the city centre, not inside the Green Zone. It still is, but now our bureau is protected like a fortress.

Everything in Iraq changed in April 2004, with the American onslaught on Falluja. The town is small, but it took a long time to subdue - and it never has been subdued entirely. The ferocity of the American attack angered a broad swathe of Iraqi opinion.

At the same time, against the advice of many Iraqi politicians, the Americans also took on the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

After that, the towns and cities of central Iraq became markedly more dangerous. We started hearing more of the American acronym IED, or improvised explosive device (it simply means a bomb).

Post-traumatic stress

The Coalition Provisional Authority under the leadership of Paul Bremer handed over to an interim Iraqi administration in July 2004.

It made little difference: the corruption had already started, and people now realised that neither the coalition nor the Iraqi administration could do anything about the failing water, power and fuel supplies.

The next key moment was the election of January 2005. The violence dropped noticeably, as the insurgents saw the size of the turnout and felt the general enthusiasm, and waited to see if they could do a deal with the new government.

But there was no new government for a full three months. The politicians squabbled among themselves, and the moment passed. The violence soon returned to its former level.

By July of last year there was already talk of civil war. A referendum and another election followed, and an effective administration was as far away as ever. Four months after the December election, Iraq still has no government.

'Easier targets'

The insurgency is fading a little now. Fewer American, British and Iraqi troops are dying, and there are less frequent attacks on the Iraqi police.

Instead, easier targets present themselves. There is an all-out effort to provoke a civil war. The bombings of Shia shrines are always followed by the murder of individual Sunnis: sometimes dozens at a time.

There is a quiet movement of population, as people leave mixed areas and head for places where others like them live. Marriages between Sunnis and Shias used to be frequent; now they've dropped away to almost nothing.

A psychiatrist at one of the main hospitals in Baghdad told me that serious mental illness in Iraq in the past had affected fewer than 3% of the population. Now, he said, the figure was 17%.

Another psychiatrist told me that in the days of Saddam Hussein, his patients had shown the effects of living under a ferocious dictatorship: stress levels were very high.

Now, he said, most of his patients suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's no longer the fear of violence and injury which troubles them, it's the daily reality of it.

While we were filming, someone fired a gun close by. I won't easily forget the terrified way some of the patients flinched.

Doing and undoing

Just over three years ago, when I interviewed the Saudi foreign minister, I asked him why he thought the US was determined to invade Iraq.

He said he had put the same question to Vice-President Dick Cheney. Mr Cheney had replied: "Because it's do-able."

It was. The trouble is, undoing the kind of damage the Saudi foreign minister foresaw is proving very hard indeed.

Any limited perspective on the Rice-Straw mission in terms of cajoling Ibrahim al-Jaafari to give up his prime ministership in Baghdad overlooks that Iraq is the cornerstone of the United States' imperial venture in remaking the Middle East, with the objective of controlling the region - its flows of oil, weapons and money.

Two major powers traditionally active in the region are responding to the Anglo-American drive for a New Middle East - Russia and Turkey.

The Russian moves are impressive - strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia, gaining observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), revival of ties with Syria and Egypt, contact with Hamas, networking with Iraqi Sunni tribal leaderships, institutional ties with the Arab League, and, arguably, the heavily nuanced line on Iran.

Germane to all this, Moscow perceives a likely replay of past Anglo-American attempts to pit the Muslim world against Russia. Given its history, geography and culture and the multinational and multi-faith character of its society, Russia has everything to lose in an "inter-civilizational" conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently wrote:

Russia will not let anybody set it at loggerheads with the Islamic world ... The increased significance of the energy factor in global politics is on the mind of many. Even those who have got used to thinking in terms of geopolitics appreciate that the equation formula of strategic stability has changed and the specific weight of nuclear deterrence itself has diminished ... At the same time, it is obvious that any sustained development of Russia's energy sector rules out for the foreseeable future any disregard of the Near and Middle East resources in a global energy balance.

In a lengthy message addressed to the Arab League summit meeting at Khartoum on March 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

I am well aware that the heads of state and peoples of the Arab world, and in other Muslim states, share Russia's growing concern about the danger arising out of new divisions in the international community. It is our deep conviction that the time has come to act, and to act together, under the auspices of the United Nations as a key player.

As the events of the last few years in the Middle East have shown, unilateral actions do not resolve problems and they even aggravate them. Russia, a multi-confessional country with observer status within the Organization of Islamic Conference, has firm intentions to make a significant contribution to this teamwork.

Putin called for "consensual approaches" to the issues of social, economic and political transformation in the Arab world: "Events should not be rushed in an artificial way, nor should outside pressure be applied." Stressing that resolving the Palestinian problem within the framework of UN Resolutions 242, 338, 1397 and 1515 should be the priority, Putin described Russia's "dialogue" with Hamas as an "approach to new realities in a constructive and pragmatic way".

Putin said Iraq's unity and territorial integrity could only be achieved through a national dialogue and by "ending the foreign military presence". He called for a lowering of "tensions around Lebanon and Syria" and opposed "any third-party" role.

It comes as no surprise that the countries of the Arab Middle East have warmed to the Russian overtures.

Moscow hosted on March 27-28 the first session of the so-called Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group comprising Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. Putin greeted the foreign delegates attending the conference. Significantly, Yevgeni Primakov, former prime minister and renowned orientalist who played a key role in crafting the Soviet Union's ties with the Arab world through the Cold War years, chaired the Moscow meet.

Again, the head of the Saudi National Security Council, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, paid a "working visit" to Moscow on Tuesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the hugely influential Saudi prince's agenda included the Palestine issue, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and "conditions in Iraq", apart from "building up and deepening" Russia-Saudi relations.

Turkey, too, is seeking to revive its ties in the Middle East - a region that it turned its back on in 1923. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum as a "permanent guest" meshes with a series of Turkish moves in the past three years.

Turkey claims it is trying to act as a "bridge" between the Middle East region and the Western world. (Curiously, Russia also is staking claims for a similar role as a "civilizational bridge" between the Muslim world and the West.)

But the US may not accede to such a profound role for Turkey or Russia - and Ankara and Moscow cannot be unaware of that. The US simply ignored similar Turkish (and Russian) claims in the 1990s to act as a "bridge" in the Balkans during the crises in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Turkish-US relations (like Russian-US relations) have been increasingly bumpy. Yet Turkey couldn't sit on the fence. It has vital interests to safeguard - least of all in its eastern provinces.

Turkey also has a government with a ruling party of pronounced religious orientation, which is approaching an election and would have to grapple with a resurgence of nationalism that has overtones of political Islam, and is heavily laden with "anti-Americanism". And this at a juncture when the so-called Kemalist secular camp has atrophied (or fragmented) almost to the point of irrelevance in the country's party politics, and a drift in Turkey's search for European Union membership is visible.

More important, as in Moscow, few in Ankara are convinced that Washington is anywhere near being transparent in its Iraq policies. Both Russia and Turkey would suspect that Washington did not have an "exit strategy" in Iraq because no exit was (or is) intended. They fear that if push comes to shove, the US will not hesitate to turn Iraq, in fragments, into a de facto colony.

Few in Ankara today, therefore, share Washington's hostility toward Syria and Iran. Ankara, like Moscow, favors engagement of Syria and Iran and opposes the use of force or "regime changes" in these neighboring countries.

Equally so, Turkey is deeply skeptical (like Russia) about the United States' "transformational diplomacy" in the Middle East. "Democratization is a process, and it should be expected to proceed at a different pace in different countries," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in a written statement last month.

Ankara also hosted Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said, "At this stage, the international community should adopt a prejudice-free attitude and give the new Palestinian government the opportunity to fulfill its obligations."

Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby in the US went ballistic over the Hamas chief's visit to Turkey. But the Turkish leadership (like the Kremlin) held firm. Erdogan insisted Turkey was doing the "right thing at the right time".

Again, Jaafari visited Ankara when the US was working hard to get him to quit office. (Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the visit took place without his knowledge, and he wouldn't "recognize" any agreements that the Iraqi prime minister entered into with the Turkish government.)

A visit by influential Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to Turkey is now talked about. Turkey is reaching out to different Iraqi constituencies - just in case.

Turkey's Sabah newspaper recently quoted a "high-level" US official voicing fears in Washington about "Turkey's metamorphosis into a new Malaysia". Indeed, Turkey sought and obtained the post of secretary general of the OIC. (Turkey was supportive of Russia's observer status in the body.)

Erdogan's presence at the Arab League summit in Khartoum last week signified the culmination of an initiative made during his visit to Cairo in January 2003. The Arab League initially had reservations on account of Turkey's close ties with Israel, but circumstances have changed dramatically since the Iraq war began. (Interestingly, on his return journey to Ankara from Khartoum, Erdogan made a detour to visit the OIC headquarters in Jeddah.)

Looking after interests

But Turkey does not cross swords with the US or Britain in the Middle East. Like Russia, Turkey is primarily taking precautions that at the very least a New Middle East, if one indeed shapes up under Anglo-American supervision, would not be pitted against Turkey's core interests. In uncertain times, it becomes prudent to hedge one's bets.

Having said that, both Moscow and Ankara will focus on Iraq in immediate terms. This course is Iraq's security. Moscow and Ankara would be justified to ask: "What was it that Straw could offer Rice?"

The answer lies in one of the most influential and enduring British strategic theories attributed to T E Lawrence. This strategy was distilled by Lawrence in the deserts of Arabia in the second decade of the 20th century (and to which Britain remained largely faithful even in Northern Ireland). In terms of this, Straw would tell Rice that in Iraq, to begin with, instead of being bogged down in a senseless trench war where armed clashes were turning into mass butchery, Washington should focus on a strategy of warfare that dispensed with battles.

Conceivably, Straw would counsel Rice that instead of attacking the Iraqi enemies, she should go around them, as Lawrence would have done, "immobilizing and isolating them, wearing them down as their sentries peer into the darkness searching for attackers who might or might not be lurking in the night" - to use the inimitable words of David Fromkin, author of the classic study on 1922 Middle East settlement, A Peace to End All Peace.

A problem remains, however. As Fromkin would point out, Lawrence's strategy has its limitations. It has no use for a country fighting for survival; a country that obstinately refuses to surrender and may need to be crushed by force; and an enemy that will not surrender even if tired, but chooses to fight to hold on to something it can't afford to give up.

Thus a paradox so typical of our times arises: the strategy attributed to Lawrence, the hero of British imperialism, is most effective against a great power that favors pitched, face-to face battles.

But Straw could as well have told that to Rice while strolling in the town center in Blackburn. A symbolic visit to Baghdad should not have been necessary.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

For three years now, most Americans have expected someone else's children to fight this ill-conceived, unconstitutional war in Iraq - a war that is hidden from consciousness because the powers that rule refuse to show the flagged-draped coffins, arriving at Dover. But the bottom line, the distillate, is simple to understand: If you are unwilling to fight or send your own children to this war of choice, then, don't advocate that others volunteer. It's so simple. If you truly believe that the occupation of Iraq is a noble cause, then, go immediately to the nearest recruitment station and encourage your children to do the same. If you think our troops are fighting for your freedoms, enlist now. And if you are already in the service of this country, ask yourselves this question: Would I want my own children to choose the armed forces as a career at this time?

We need a strong military, one in which our soldiers receive higher compensation for putting themselves in danger, for time spent away from family, for honorable service to protect the rest of us from the threat of another country's aggression, and the most sophisticated protective equipment. For their duty, they should obtain comprehensive benefits including state of the art medical care. We must always respectfully acknowledge those who choose to serve by sending them to war only as a last resort when every other effort has failed. The truth is that military force is seldom necessary. Because most problems can be solved through negotiation. It's what we teach our children. Don't fight; use conflict resolution. But that's not what most of our elected officials value. And the reason they don't is because they are banking huge sums of money. It's called war profiteering. They are using our loved ones to increase their wealth. And they don't care. Senator Diane Feinstein's contractor husband had made enough money in Iraq that he's moved his wife into a 16 million dollar mansion. So, you see, it's not just the Republicans who are making out like banditos. Leaders from both parties are reaping rewards. When they gave Bush the authority to go to war, they sold our loved ones down the river so that they can shop on Rodeo Drive. How much money do they need to be happy? How many soldiers have to die so they can continue their excessive lifestyles?

It's time for all of us to say no to war. It's time for each American to say no to George Bush. It's time to march in the streets for peace. It's time for us to take our future from the control of those who want to exploit our troops and destroy other countries and the people of those countries in our names.

The George W. Bush scandal-plagued Administration has wreaked havoc on our conscience. The George W. Bush Administration is toxic. Cleaning up the pollution from the George W. Bush Administration will involve decades of effort. Restoring our image abroad will require years. This is an emergency. Our color-coded terror system should be RED to alert us to the dangers from George Bush who's made us all less safe with his immoral appetite for aggression and endless war.

Our children are at risk. Our country is in peril. We have a madman with his finger on the button, poised to destroy our lives because of an insatiable lust for power. We can't depend on Congress to stand up and act on our behalf. Most have capitulated.

We live in a climate of fear and that's what BushCo. requires to succeed. We have to stand up to this fear and demand peace before it's too late. It's almost too late now. Iraq is in civil war; our troops there are weary and without adequate armor. And George W. Bush is planning the bombing of Iran, because the country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reminds him of Adolf Hitler. Does George Bush remind anybody of this dictator? If your answer is yes, then join with me to insist that Bush and Cheney stand down and step down. Now. They are a danger to our military and to our liberties.

And demand a draft. Only, then, will our leaders be forced to stop playing Russian Roulette with our loved ones.

Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles.

A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers."

The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names.

After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle.

Troops serving overseas would be particularly vulnerable to attempts at identity theft because keeping track of their bank and credit records is difficult, said Jay Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.

"It's absolutely absurd that this is happening in any way, shape or form," Foley said. "There's absolutely no reason for anyone in the military to have that kind of information on a flash drive and then have it out of their possession."

A flash drive also contained a classified briefing about the capabilities and limitations of a "man portable counter-mortar radar" used to find the source of guerrilla mortar rounds. A map pinpoints the U.S. camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004.

Lt. Mike Cody, a spokesman for the U.S. forces here, declined to comment on the computer drives or their content.

"We do not discuss issues that involve or could affect operational security," he said.

Workers are supposed to be frisked as they leave the base, but they have various ways of deceiving guards, such as hiding computer drives behind photo IDs that they wear in holders around their necks, shop owners said. Others claim that U.S. soldiers illegally sell military property and help move it off the base, saying they need the money to pay bills back home.

Bagram base, the U.S. military's largest in Afghanistan and a hub for classified military activity, has suffered security lapses before, including an escape from a detention center where hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been held and interrogated.

Last July, four Al Qaeda members, including the group's commander in Southeast Asia, Omar Faruq, escaped from Bagram by picking the lock on their cell. They then walked off the base, ditched their prison uniforms and fled through a muddy vineyard.

The men later boasted of their escape on a video and have not been captured. The military said it had tightened security at Bagram after the breakout.

One of the computer drives stolen from Bagram contained a series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of American military officials that identified several Afghan governors and police chiefs as "problem makers" involved in kidnappings, the opium trade and attacks on allied troops with improvised bombs.

The chart showed the U.S. military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable marginalize."

A chart dated Jan. 2, 2005, listed five Afghans as "Tier One Warlords." It identified Afghanistan's former defense minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim, current military chief of staff Abdul Rashid Dostum and counter-narcotics chief Gen. Mohammed Daoud as being involved in the narcotics trade. All three have denied committing crimes.

Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the U.S. military wanted removed from office. The men were involved in activities including drug trafficking, recruiting of Taliban fighters and active support for Taliban commanders, according to the presentation, which also named the military's preferred replacements.

The briefing said that efforts against Afghan officials were coordinated with U.S. special operations teams and must be approved by top commanders as well as military lawyers who apply unspecified criteria set by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The military also weighs any ties that any official has to President Hamid Karzai and members of his Cabinet or warlords, as well as the risk of destabilization when deciding which officials should be removed, the presentation said.

One of the men on the military's removal list, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was replaced in December as governor of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. After removing him from the governor's office, Karzai appointed Akhundzada to Afghanistan's Senate. The U.S. military believed the governor, who was caught with almost 20,000 pounds of opium in his office last summer, to be a heroin trafficker.

The provincial police chief in Helmand, Abdul Rahman Jan, whom U.S. forces suspect of providing security for narcotics shipments, kept his job.

Though U.S. officials continue to praise Pakistan as a loyal ally in the war on terrorism, several documents on the flash drives show the military has struggled to break militant command and supply lines traced to Pakistan. Some of the documents also accused Pakistan's security forces of helping militants launch cross-border attacks on U.S. and allied forces.

Militant attacks on U.S. and allied forces have escalated sharply over the last half year, and once-rare suicide bombings are now frequent, especially in southern Afghan provinces close to infiltration routes from Pakistan.

A document dated Oct. 11, 2004, said at least two of the Taliban's top five leaders were believed to be in Pakistan. That country's government and military repeatedly have denied that leaders of militants fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan operate from bases in Pakistan.

The Taliban leaders in Pakistan were identified as Mullah Akhtar Osmani, described as a "major Taliban facilitator for southern Afghanistan" and a "rear commander from Quetta" in southwest Pakistan, and Mullah Obaidullah, said to be "responsible for planning operations in Kandahar."

At the time, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, his second-in-command Mullah Berader, and three other top Taliban commanders were all suspected of being in southern or central Afghanistan, according to the military briefing.

Another document said the Taliban and an allied militant group were working with Arab Al Qaeda members in Pakistan to plan and launch attacks in Afghanistan. A map presented at a "targeting meeting" for U.S. military commanders here on Jan. 27, 2005, identified the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta as planning and staging areas for terrorists heading to Afghanistan.

One of the terrorism groups is identified by the single name "Zawahiri," apparently a reference to Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy and chief strategist in Al Qaeda. The document said his attacks had been launched from a region south of Miram Shah, administrative capital of Pakistan's unruly North Waziristan tribal region.

In January, a CIA missile strike targeted Zawahiri in a village more than 100 miles to the northeast, but he was not among the 18 killed, who included women and children.

Other documents on the computer drives listed senior Taliban commanders and "facilitators" living in Pakistan. The Pakistani government strenuously denies allegations by the Afghan government that it is harboring Taliban and other guerrilla fighters.

An August 2004 computer slide presentation marked "Secret" outlined "obstacles to success" along the border and accused Pakistan of making "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents." It also complained of political and military inertia in Pakistan.

Half a year later, other documents indicated that little progress had been made. A classified document from early 2005 listing "Target Objectives" said U.S. forces must "interdict the supply of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) from Pakistan" and "interdict infiltration routes from Pakistan."

A special operations task force map highlighting militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan in early 2005 included this comment from a U.S. military commander: "Pakistani border forces [should] cease assisting cross border insurgent activities."

"The rocket attack at a school today martyred six students," Farahi said.

Another 14 were wounded, he said. They were taken to a hospital at a US-led military coalition base for treatment.

The children had been studying in an open area outside the Salar mosque because they did not have a proper school building. The rocket hit the yard and most of the casualties were caused by shrapnel, he said.

The second rocket did not cause casualties.

There were reports of another two rockets hitting an Afghan army base in the small city, but this was not immediately confirmed by the defence ministry.

Farahi blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan", a term Afghan officials often use to refer to remnants of Taliban regime ousted in late 2001 and their Al-Qaeda allies.

The Islamist Taliban movement have been waging an insurgency since they were toppled in a US-led invasion that followed the September 11 attacks on the United States, which were blamed on Al-Qaeda.

Mr Reid indicated he believed existing rules, including some of the conventions - a bedrock of international law - were out of date and inadequate to deal with the threat of international terrorists.

"We are finding an enemy which obeys no rules whatsoever", he said, referring to what he called "barbaric terrorism".

The conventions, he said, were created more than half century ago "when the world was almost unrecognisable". They dealt with how the sick and injured and how prisoners of war were treated, "and the obligations on states during their military occupation of another state", he said.

Given the big changes undertaken by the military over the past 50 years, he added, "serious questions" must be asked about whether "further changes in international law in this area are necessary".

Mr Reid declined to say whether he had come round to the US view that detainees at Guantánamo bay should not be allowed the protection of the conventions or the courts. Similarly, he would not say if he thought Britain should support the US practice of extraordinary rendition, the transferring of prisoners to secret camps where they risk being tortured. However, he said, it was not "sufficient just to say [Guantánamo] is wrong".

Mr Reid said yesterday that while domestic laws had been introduced to deal with new threats - he referred to the new offence of "glorifying terrorism" - international law had not changed.

He also spoke of the "concept of imminence" - the circumstances when a state could strike without waiting for an attack.

It was a principal issue during the debate over the invasion of Iraq and has clear implications for any possible future action against Iran.

Mr Reid noted that last year Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, advised that force could be used only against imminent attack, that it must only be used as a last resort, and that it must be proportionate.

"But what if another threat develops?", Mr Reid asked. "Not al-Qaida. Not Muslim extremism. Something none of us are thinking about at the moment." Terrorist groups were trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, he said.

The Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, said: "After the disaster of Iraq, the idea that the doctrine of pre-emptive strike should be expanded will be met with incredulity in the west and alarm in the ministries of Tehran."

Sir Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford University, said: "Some of the biggest coalition problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq have come from failures of the coalition to observe basic norms on certain matters, especially with regard to treatment of prisoners.

"Dr Reid is certainly right to raise the question of whether we need new rules in face of imminent attack. This problem above all requires confidence in government and coalition decision-making processes - confidence that has sadly been undermined by Iraq."

A few were starved or beaten to death, while British soldiers are alleged to have tortured some victims with thumb screws and shin screws recovered from a gestapo prison. The men in the photographs are not Nazis, however, but suspected communists, arrested in 1946 because they were thought to support the Soviet Union, an ally 18 months earlier.

Apparently believing that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable, the War Office was seeking information about Russian military and intelligence methods. Dozens of women were also detained and tortured, as were a number of genuine Soviet agents, scores of suspected Nazis, and former members of the SS.

Yesterday there were calls for the Ministry of Defence to acknowledge what had happened and apologise. Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' defence spokesman, said: "It's too late for anyone to be held personally responsible, or held politically to account, but it's not too late for the MoD to acknowledge what has happened."

Sherman Carroll, of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, said British authorities should also apologise and pay compensation to survivors. "The suggestion that Britain did not use torture during world war two and in the immediate aftermath, because it was regarded as 'ineffective', is a mythology that has been successfully propagated for decades," he said. "The fact that it took place should be acknowledged."

The MoD dismissed the calls, saying questions about the interrogation centres were a matter for the Foreign Office.

Declassified Whitehall papers show that members of the Labour government of the day went to great lengths to hide the ill-treatment, in part, as one minister wrote, to conceal "the fact that we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps".

Almost six decades later the photographs were still being kept secret. Four months ago they were removed from a police report on the mistreatment of inmates at one of the interrogation centres, near Hanover, shortly before the document was released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

Although the file was in the possession of the Foreign Office, the pictures were removed at the request of the Ministry of Defence. They have finally been released after an appeal by the Guardian. The photographs were taken in February 1947 by a Royal Navy officer who was determined to bring the torture programme to an end. Pictures of other victims, taken by the same officer, appear to have vanished from the Foreign Office files.

Meanwhile documents about a secret interrogation centre which the War Office operated in central London between 1945 and 1948, where large numbers of men are now known to have been badly mistreated, are still being withheld by the Ministry of Defence. Officials say the papers cannot yet be released because they have been contaminated with asbestos.

It is not clear whether the men in the photographs fully recovered from their mistreatment. It is also unclear, from examination of the War Office and Foreign Office documents now available, when the torture of prisoners in Germany came to an end.

The Counter-Terrorism Science and Technology Centre will make stuff to defuse bombs and sniff out explosives.

A team of 15 scientists will work on various projects at a top secret laboratory in Wiltshire.

Defence Secretary John Reid described the centre as a "world class hub" to keep Britain one step ahead of terrorist threats.

The centre will provide information to many government departments.

The James Bond films have shown the super spy using briefcases, cars and watches containing hi-tech gadgets, in his fight against the villains.

The latest movie, Casino Royale starring new Bond Daniel Craig, hits the big screen later this year.