UPDATED - ColdType

its case. If it does not, the world will forever
believe that it paved the road to war with lies,’ he
added: ‘You can draw your own conclusions.’”
ABC News is reporting on another aspect of
what was suspected but now confirmed as intentional
deception: “To build its case for war with
Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,
but some officials now privately acknowledge the
White House had another reason for war – a
global show of American power and democracy.”
“Not lying”
OFFICIALS inside government and advisers outside
told ABC NEWS the administration emphasized
the danger of Saddam’s weapons to gain
the legal justification for war from the United
Nations and to stress the danger at home to
Americans. “We were not lying,” said one official.
“But it was just a matter of emphasis.”
The crimes of war
IN addition to the widely reported human rights
crimes, possible war crimes are surfacing. AP
reports: “Military officials are investigating a
Marine who says he shot an Iraqi soldier twice in
the back of the head following a grenade attack
on his comrades.
“The Marine Forces Reserve announced the
preliminary inquiry of Gunnery Sgt. Gus Covarrubias
on Friday, the day the Las Vegas Review-
Journal published an interview in which he
described the killing.
“Covarrubias, 38, of Las Vegas, said that during
an intense battle in Baghdad on April 8, he pursued
a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard
SO, THIS IS VICTORY
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who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his unit.
“I went behind him and shot him in the back of
the head. Twice,” Covarrubias told the Review-
Journal. He said he also shot the man’s partner,
who tried to escape. He showed what he said
were the men’s ID cards.”
“Whitewashing the facts”
HUMAN Rights Watch is disputing Pentagon
claims on the use of cluster bombs. The story in
The Times: “U.S. Misleading on Cluster Munitions.”
The U.S. Army has used ground-based
Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and
other artillery-launched cluster munitions in
populated areas of Baghdad and other Iraqi
cities, Human Rights Watch said.
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff Gen.
Richard B. Myers told a press conference in
Washington that coalition forces dropped
“nearly 1,500 cluster bombs of varying types”
during the war in Iraq, and that only 26 of those
fell within 1,500 feet of civilian neighborhoods,
causing only “one recorded case of collateral
damage.”
“But Myers did not mention surface-launched
cluster munitions, which are believed to have
caused many more civilian casualties. ‘To imply
that cluster munitions caused virtually no harm
to Iraqi civilians is highly disingenuous,’ said
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human
Rights Watch. ‘Instead of whitewashing the facts,
the Pentagon needs to come clean about the
Army’s use of cluster munitions, which has been
much more fatal to civilians.’”