When Rove was in Texas, Masset continued, "there was a real sense of him being a total self-centered (person) who didn't care about anybody. He would literally destroy people who tried to oppose him." Plenty o' food for thought in that. But first we should maybe figure out how to smuggle Royal out of the country with a fake passport. The Bushies are having the hardest time trying to un-lie now. For example, at his Monday press conference, the president asserted, "Nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the (Sept. 11) attack."

How true: What Vice President Cheney in December 2001 said about links between 9-11 and Iraq was that it was "pretty well confirmed" that hijacking ringleader Mohammed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence. On June 17, 2004, Cheney said: "We have never been able to confirm that, nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know. ... I can't refute the Czech claim, I can't prove the Czech claim, I just don't know."

In July 2004, the CIA's own report stated it does not have "any credible information" that the alleged meeting ever took place. The CIA said the whole concoction was based on a single source "whose veracity ... has been questioned" and that the Iraqi official allegedly involved was in U.S. custody and denied the meeting ever took place. The 9-11 commission had already concluded the meeting never occurred.

Cheney has a consistent pattern of exaggeration on intelligence related to Iraq. The tragedy is that at least half the American people believed Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9-11 plot -- and most soldiers serving in Iraq still believe this.

It's pretty embarrassing when the British intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, accuse the FBI of leaking like a sieve. British intelligence has a lengthy history in the leaking-like-a-sieve department -- so that's some pot calling our kettle black. Nevertheless, they are making the point that our leaks about the "liquid terror" plot have pretty well bollixed up the case. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was so annoyed he referred to the entire Bush performance in the Middle East as "crap." This truth-telling has gone too far.

Or, come to think of it, maybe it's just begun -- and it's high damn time we got on with it. I'd suggest starting with the reality on the ground. Iraq is a disaster. The most credible estimate of how long it would take to fix it -- if it is fixable -- is another 10 to 25 years and a commensurate amount of dollars. Is it doable? Is it worth it? What are the consequences if we do or do not continue the effort? What are the consequences if the most likely result of our withdrawal -- partition into three parts -- takes place? (That's also a likely consequence of our staying.)

It seems to me that those who advocate withdrawal ASAP have just as much of a duty to make the arguments for doing so -- and to admit how much they don't know -- as those who got us into this mess five years ago with that titanic combination of misinformation and ignorance.

Let's start with what Donald Rumsfeld once described as "the known unknowns" and then see how far we get. Let's have what we should have had at the beginning -- as informed and unideological a debate as possible, with attention to the effects on our allies and the region. Onward.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

The NY Times recently wrote an article reporting that President Bush "expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices that the United States has made in Iraq."

Jon Stewart interviewed Aassif Mandvi, their Baghdad Senior Bureau Chief, to get the inside scoop on why the Iraqis are so damn ungrateful. Especially, given the fact that "everyone knew before the war that the Iraqis had huge stockpiles of gratitude."

Aassif Mandvi, completely bewildered by the lack appreciation, starts off by saying:

"Well, it is very surprising. After all, the United States invaded Iraq to help the Iraqi people, no other reason. In fact, what you called Operation Iraqi Freedom, the people here called Operation Doin' Us a Solid. But, as three years have gone by, it has grown harder and harder to find the right way to say thank you."

As you watch this clip and ponder why it is that Bush is so frustrated, just remember, it's not like the president is retarded...

David DeGraw is AlterNet's video blogger.

Marine Col. Guy A. Stratton, head of the manpower mobilization section, told The Associated Press that there is a shortfall of about 1,200 Marines needed to fill positions in upcoming unit deployments.

"Since this is going to be a long war, we thought it was judicious and prudent at this time to be able to use a relatively small portion of those Marines to help us augment our units," Stratton said, according to the AP.

Tours for recalled Marines could last 12 to 18 months, according to Marine officials.

Marines are trying to fill combat, communications, intelligence, engineering and military police positions, according to the Marine Corps.

Though the initial recall is for 2,500 troops, there is no cap on how many could be called up in the future.

Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve already have fulfilled their four-year, active duty requirement, but are on call for another four years.

Marines in their second or third years of on-call service will be tapped, because those in their first years just finished active duty and those in their fourth years have almost completed their military obligations.

The total of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve is about 59,000, according to Marine officials.

Recalled Marines will have five months before reporting for duty, and will receive refresher courses and training before being deployed.

This is not the first time the corps has called on the Individual Ready Reserve since fighting started in Iraq in 2003. The Marines recalled more than 2,600 troops in the early days of the Iraq war.

The Army has recalled about 10,000 soldiers since September 11, 2001, the majority of those coming in 2004 to help bolster needed positions for troops in Iraq.

The military operation, codenamed Anfal or "spoils of war", was launched in the late 1980s. The most notorious gassing episode, which led to the deaths of 5,000 people in Halabja, northern Iraq, will be the subject of a separate investigation by the Iraqi High Tribunal.

The verdict on Saddam's first trial, on charges of killing 148 members of the Shia community at the town of Dujail, is to be handed down in October.

Asked yesterday to identify himself to the court and show respect for the law, Saddam responded: "You know me ... This is the law of the occupation. I am the president of the republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces."

The trial judge, Abdullah al-Amiri declared: "This trial is on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Are you innocent or guilty." The judge then ordered a plea of "not guilty" to be entered.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, who allegedly led operation Anfal, also refused to enter a plea. Entering the court, using a cane and wearing a red checkered headdress, he identified himself as: "Fighting comrade, first major-general, pilot, Ali Hassan al-Majid."

Opening the proceedings Munqith al-Faroon, the chief prosecutor, produced photographs of dead women and children. "It's time for humanity to know ... the magnitude and scale of the crimes committed against the people of Kurdistan.

"Entire villages were razed to the ground, as if killing the people wasn't enough ... Wives waited for their husbands, families waited for their children to return - but to no avail."

The order to launch the Anfal campaign, the prosecutor said, had been issued by Saddam Hussein. Mr Faroon, described the detention of hundreds of Kurds, saying women were raped by guards and that those who died in prison were buried in shallow graves "which were easy for animals to dig open".

Saddam became angry and agitated when the prosecutor spoke of the rapes. "I can never accept the claim that an Iraqi woman was raped while Saddam is president," he shouted, banging on a podium in front of him and pointing a finger at the lawyers for the prosecution. "How could I walk with my head up? An Iraqi woman raped while Saddam is the leader?"

The former president said that during the 1990 Iraqi entry into Kuwait he heard that a soldier raped an Arab woman. "I ordered him tried and then hanged for three days at the site of the crime," he shouted.

The Anfal offensive was part of the Ba'ath regime's war with the Kurds in the north of the country.

Also on trial are Sabir al-Douri, the former director of military intelligence; Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, who was head of the Iraqi army's 1st Corps, which carried out the Anfal military operation; and Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, then the governor of Mosul.

The two other defendants are Hussein Rashid Mohammed, who was deputy director of operations for the Iraqi military, and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, at that time the head of military intelligence's eastern regional office.

More than 1,000 survivors and relatives of victims of the Anfal campaign demonstrated in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah yesterday, demanding the death penalty for Saddam. Khadhija Salih, a housewife who lost five brothers and sisters in the crackdown and herself spent a period in prison, said: "Today I will have my justice as I will see Saddam in the court ... If I could, I would have killed him myself with great pleasure."

The brutal Anfal campaign against the Kurds

By Anne Penketh

The US and Britain did nothing to stop Saddam Hussein's Anfal campaign against the Kurds because the Iraqi president was then a bulwark against the Shia revolutionary regime in Iran.

Although human rights groups accused Saddam at the time of committing genocide, criticism from Western governments, including Britain, was muted towards the dictator, then viewed as a vital ally against the Islamic Republic. The lack of criticism from Washington may even have emboldened Saddam to invade Kuwait in 1990.

Saddam unleashed the Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988 at the end of Iraq's eight-year war with Iran. Amnesty International estimates that more than 100,000 Kurds in northern Iraq were killed or disappeared. The offensive was under the command of Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, who earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" from the military's use of poison gas against the Kurds. It was the first time any government had used toxic gas against its own people. Anfal, during which hundreds of villages were cleared and local people expelled, comprised eight military offensives and ran from February to September 1988.

On 23 February, the Iraqi army launched its first assault, against Kurdish guerrilla headquarters in Sergalou, along a 40-mile front. Survivors say villagers were warned that if they did not flee, they might be killed or "become the victim of chemicals". During the campaign, the Iraqi troops were accused of a systematic eradication of all Kurdish settlements controlled by guerrillas allied to Iran.

Going to war in the first place was considered a mistake by 53 percent of respondents, up from 48 percent in July; 62 percent said US efforts to stabilize Iraq were going badly; and 65 percent were disappointed in how their president was handling the situation.

Forty-six percent said Bush had focused too much on Iraq and not enough on terrorists elsewhere, while 42 percent said the balance was about right.

Despite the warning the apparent rejection of the administration's Iraq policy sends to Republican lawmakers up for election in November, Bush's job approval rating in the poll remained unchanged from last month, at 36 percent. Fifty-seven percent disapproved.

Just 29 percent of respondents believed things were going in the right direction in the United States, compared with 67 percent who felt the country was headed down the wrong path.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll on Tuesday found Bush's approval rating had jumped five points to 42 percent following the arrest in Britain of 24 suspects in an alleged bomb plot against US-bound jetliners.

Bush's handling of the war on terrorism met with the approval of 55 percent of respondents in the Times/CBS poll. On other key policy issues, such as the economy and foreign policy, Bush's disapproval rating neared the 60 percent mark.

On the Middle East, the poll found that despite the recent
Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement, 70 percent of Americans believed that lasting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors would never come, against 26 percent who said it would.

A majority of 56 percent said it was not the US government's business to broker peace between Israel and its neighbors, while 39 percent believed it was.

Some of the MPs present said yesterday they could not remember Mr Prescott making the remark. He has been at pains to avoid breaking ranks with Mr Blair in public although he is believed to have raised concern about the bombing of Lebanon at a private meeting of the Cabinet. But Harry Cohen, the MP whose constituency includes Walthamstow, scene of some of the police raids in the alleged "terror plot" investigation, said Mr Prescott had definitely used the word "crap" about the Bush administration.

"He was talking in the context of the 'road map' in the Middle East. He said he only gave support to the war on Iraq because they were promised the road map. But he said the Bush administration had been crap on that. We all laughed and he said to an official, 'Don't minute that'." Mr Cohen added: "We also had a laugh when he said old Bush is just a cowboy with his Stetson on. But then he said, 'I can hardly talk about that can I?'

Last night, an official from the Deputy Prime Minister's office said: " These discussions are intended to be private and remain within the four walls. They are private so that there may be frank discussions."

And today Mr Prescott issued a statement in which he said: "This is an inaccurate report of a private conversation and it is not my view. "

Told that others at the meeting could not recall the words, Mr Cohen said: " He did. I stand by that."

Many Labour MPs have been infuriated by the spectacle of Mr Bush and Mr Blair jointly supporting the Israeli action. The Labour MPs went to see Mr Prescott to lodge their criticism of the Government's foreign policy and some said last night that they would be delighted if he did break ranks over the Bush administration following the outcry at the bombing of the Lebanon.

In the private discussions with Mr Prescott, the Labour MPs representing large Muslim communities pulled no punches in their criticism of Mr Blair for giving his backing to Mr Bush. Another of those who was contacted about the conversations did not deny Mr Prescott's words, but laughed and said: " I can't discuss that." When asked whether he had heard Mr Prescott use the "C-word", he said: "I don't remember that."

The Deputy Prime Minister is said to have made it clear he strongly backed the efforts by Mr Blair to persuade the Bush administration to revive the road map for Palestine and Israel. Mr Blair has given a commitment that he will give the peace process his priority when he returns from his holiday in the Caribbean.

"There was a very robust exchange of views," said the MP. " We had a row about community relations. The Deputy Prime Minister was told in no uncertain terms that the Government was relying too much on the elders in the Muslim community who didn't have the credibility that was needed."

Muslim Labour MPs also told Mr Prescott that they needed to retain their own credibility in their communities, which was one of the reasons why they had signed a controversial letter calling for a change in British foreign policy. They said it was not helpful for the Government to have attacked their letter.

Mr Prescott has been accused in the past of making his feelings known about the Republican administration in the White House. He became friendly with Al Gore, the unsuccessful Democrat presidential candidate in 2000, during the negotiations on the Kyoto treaty and allegedly told Mr Gore after his defeat that he was sorry he lost the race to Mr Bush.

Mr Prescott is also known to have used the word "crap" in relation to political events before. Earlier this month, he angrily rejected claims that he could resign over the row about his links to the bid by the tycoon Philip Anschutz for a super-casino at the Millennium Dome as "a load of crap".

Mr Prescott was left in charge by Mr Blair when the Prime Minister went on his delayed holiday but has largely taken a back seat while John Reid, the Home Secretary, has led for the Government on security and the alleged terror plot to blow up planes across the Atlantic.

Behind the scenes, Mr Prescott had to contend with growing backbench demands for Parliament to be recalled to debate the crisis in the Middle East. It remains an option, in spite of the ceasefire in the Lebanon. Campaigners claimed they had the signatures of more than 150 MPs from all parties for a recall. Significantly, they included Ann Keen, the parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, who is on paternity leave following the birth of his second child. Jim Sheridan, the Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, resigned as the parliamentary private secretary to the defence ministers over the bombing of Lebanon.

Mr Prescott has been keen to show Labour MPs that he is prepared to listen to their grievances but has insisted on party discipline to avoid splits. He will be furious at his alleged remarks being repeated, but the signs of dissent within the Cabinet are becoming greater.

Straight-talker's way with words

* Posing with a crab in a jar at the Millennium Dome, while Peter Mandelson was standing for election to Labour's ruling national executive committee, he said to cameramen: "You know what his name is? He's called Peter. Do you think you will get on the executive, Peter?"

* When asked why a car was transporting him and his wife 200 yards to the Labour Party Conference in 1999:

"Because of the security reasons for one thing and second, my wife doesn't like to have her hair blown about. Have you got another silly question?"

* On the Millennium Dome: "If we can't make this work, we're not much of a government."

* "The green belt is a Labour achievement, and we mean to build on it." (Radio interview, January 1998)

* On the Tories at the 1996 Labour conference: "They are up to their necks in sleaze. The best slogan for their conference next week is " Life's better under the Tories" - sounds like one of Steven Norris's chat-up lines."

* When asked by a journalist about Peter Law's decision to quit the Labour Party after 35 years: "Why are you asking me about this? I don't care, it's a Welsh situation, I'm a national politician."

The majority of the detained suspects were born in Great Britain and have connections to Pakistan. And it was the police, not the military, who aborted the attempts.

With the tragedies under way in Lebanon and Palestine, along with the nuclear threat from Iran in the background, the Iraq situation has taken a back seat in recent news. But what is happening there deserves attention, if for no other reason than that the Israeli attacks have reinforced anti-American sentiment in Iraq. Even Prime Minister al-Maliki, while visiting Baghdad's Sadr City, criticized the American bombings.

The British ambassador in Baghdad, like the two American generals serving in Iraq (one of them the commander of U.S. forces stationed there), came to an unsettling conclusion just a few days ago: Iraq will most likely deteriorate to an all-out civil war. As of now, it is estimated that about one hundred people are assassinated in sectarian and religious violence every day.

On June 13th, Bush made a surprise visit to Baghdad in support of Iraq's first prime minister. At the time the American military started an operation with the Iraqi armed forces [called Forward Together] to put a stop to the violence in the Iraqi capital.

But things didn't improve. On the contrary, from that moment until now, they have only worsened, raising doubts about the ability of the military and, above all, the U.S.-trained Iraqi police to succeed without solid support from the Americans.

In fact, Bush has already decided to double the North American contingent in Baghdad, a revealing measure that the U.S. Army is not in Iraq to combat terrorism but to try to reduce religious violence.

With the economy in collapse, oil production below pre-war levels, and aggravation of ethnic and religious hatred, there is now talk of plans to divide Iraq. The problem is that there are no clear geographic boundaries separating Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

And Turkey would not be quiet if a "Kurdish nation" emerged from this division. It is also likely that Iran would intervene to more openly defend Iraq's Shiites, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan would be tempted to do the same for Sunnis. The civil war would become even more likely.

Facing this monumental difficulty - which only surprises those who are blinded by the ideological fantasies of the neocons - Bush has resisted the temptation to pull American troops out from Iraq in time to avert a severe Republican defeat in the November Congressional elections. As honorable as this would be, on this occasion it would be irresponsible, added on top of the initial irresponsibility of invading Iraq without any credible plan for the post-war period.

On Tuesday Joe Lieberman, vice-presidential candidate in 2000 as the No. 2 to Al Gore, and one of the 29 Senate Democrats that in 2002 voted in favor of the invasion (a vote he continues to defend), failed to gain his party's nomination for reelection as Senator of Connecticut. He was defeated in the primaries by an obscure anti-invasion Democrat, Ned Lamont. It's one more sign of the growing American opposition to maintain troops in Iraq.

The Democrats are trying to ride this wave of American public opinion. It is mere political opportunism: a rapid American pullout of Iraq would solve nothing anything. The Democrats have not the slightest idea of how to honorably pull out of the Iraq situation. They only want to win elections.

Dramatically, Bush also doesn't know. He keeps the troops there, which is already quite a thing to do, given his resulting unpopularity. Bush's hope is that, with time, things in Iraq will start to get better.

The only problem is that this hope has been repeatedly contradicted by the facts over the past three years. As foreseen by The New York Times, the most probable outcome is that Bush will try to make it to the end of his term with as few shake-ups in Iraq situation as possible, leaving a resolution to the problem to his successor.

However, there are still two more years before Bush is gone. It is not a prospect that exalts.

But in Iraq, it takes no imagination to see that lives are being lost in bombing and explosions every day. While British police were busy arresting terrorists, a suicide bombing in Iraq killed 35 people and wounded 120. These Iraqi civilian are no different from the passengers in London's Heathrow airport; they too have relatives, friends and families.

With the help of the global media, the paranoia felt in London has spread around the whole world at lightning speed. Terror and war seem to have become the new normal in this world. After the war in Lebanon and Israel broke out, Western experts discussing a Third World War and wonder whether or not a global war in the nuclear era would be a fatal disaster for mankind.

But what meaning does this sort of discussion have for those who live in Iraq and whose relatives have already been killed during war? For every family who has a relative and every individual who has lost a friend, the fatal disaster of war has already come to pass.

When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about the London plot, he claimed that the incident was a strong warning to America that "our country is at a war with Islamic fascists." In fact, shouldn't this be a warning to America about the wisdom of continuing the Iraq War? As more than 100,000 American soldiers fought for democracy in Iraq, British youths were plotting a large scale terrorist attack. Isn't this a great irony?

Three years ago, American neo-conservatives were confident that democracy could be transplanted by military force to Iraq. But more and more, reality in Iraq has revealed to the American people that the entire exercise was a trap, a ploy, and is now a nightmare that simply will not go away. The attempt to transplant democracy by force of arms has had quite the opposite effect than was intended; Iraq is on the verge of civil war.

The American people are using a range of methods to express their views on the Iraq War. In Connecticut's recent Democratic Primary, well-known U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman lost to Ned Lamont, a millionaire with virtually no political experience. Media have suggested that Lieberman was defeated because he remains a supporter of the Iraq War. His defeat sent a signal that there is a force rising against the war in Iraq.

Academics are also reflecting on what has transpired. In his recent bestseller America at the Crossroads RealVideo, American-Japanese scholar Francis Fukuyama argued that democracy will grow within a society that it originates, but that it cannot be transplanted by military force. He argued that America's frustration with the Iraq War has forced the Bush Administration to return to realism, derailing the White House's determination to promote and implement democracy (by arms if necessary).

Some American scholars believe that there is cultural tradition ingrained in the psyche of the American people "to pursue shortcuts for anything." Since a powerful America has been built within just 200 years, is there anything that America cannot do? From the neo-conservative point of view, democracy seems to be instant anti-cold medicine. "Take it today, and the effects will be seen tomorrow." They assumed that the "seed" of democracy, so carefully nurtured in American history, culture and society, would be good in any part of the world. America has gone to great lengths to plant this "seed" in Iraq, but what has come of it? This might just be the end of neo-conservatism.