Let's Make Enemies: "Khamis used to be happy to defend his pro-US position, even if it meant arguing with friends. But one year after the invasion, many of his neighbors in the industrial park have gone out of business. 'I don't know what to say to my friends anymore,' he says. 'It's chaos.'


His list of grievances against the occupation is long: corruption in the awarding of reconstruction contracts, the failure to stop the looting, the failure to secure Iraq's borders--both from foreign terrorists and from unregulated foreign imports. Iraqi companies, still suffering from the sanctions and the looting, have been unable to compete.


Most of all, Khamis is worried about how these policies have fed the country's unemployment crisis, creating far too many desperate people. He also notes that Iraqi police officers are paid less than half what he pays his assembly line workers, 'which is not enough to survive.' The normally soft-spoken Khamis becomes enraged when talking about the man in charge of 'rebuilding' Iraq. 'Paul Bremer has caused more damage than the war, because the bombs can damage a building but if you damage people there is no hope.'"

Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim (washingtonpost.com)

Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim (washingtonpost.com): "Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources.


Powell, describing the mobile labs as 'the most dramatic' element of his Feb. 5, 2003, speech before the U.N. Security Council, said he hoped the recently appointed commission to examine prewar claims of Iraqi weapons 'will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence . . . placed in the intelligence at that time.' He also said he has spoken to CIA officials about how suspect information ended up in his speech."