Posted by In These Times intern Stephen Kovach
Charles A. Duefler, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), confirmed today that the U.S. has stopped looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The announcement follows four months after the ISG submitted an interim report to Congress that, according to the Washington Post, "contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials”.
This is just the latest development in what has been an uneasy twelve days in Iraq. Since the start of the new year, twelve U.S. soldiers and at least 118 Iraqis have been killed -- including Baghdad's deputy police chief and governor. Prime Minister Allawi confirmed that elections would not be held in all parts of Iraq, and the head of Iraq's intelligence service, General Muhammad Shahwani, recently tallied the number of Iraqi insurgents at 200,000: a figure far above any previous official estimate. That number, according to the BBC's Paul Reynolds, is not indicative of a mere insurgency. It indicates an all-out war.
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Jessica Clark is a writer, editor and researcher, with more than 15 years of experience spanning commercial, educational, independent and public media production. Currently she is the Research Director for American University’s Center for Social Media. She also writes a monthly column for PBS’ MediaShift on new directions in public media. She is the author, with Tracy Van Slyke, of Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media (2010, New Press).
