In The News

Granting Access to Media Helps Military Sell the War

Michael Tackett March 21, 2003
In contrast to the media coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, TV viewers in the US and around the world can watch the current war on Iraq in real time almost 24 hours a day. “I think the White House and the military establishment have programmed an irresistible story for journalists in this country," said Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary in the Clinton administration. But the access the...

Iraq War: Big Tasks and Narrow Window

March 20, 2003
The coming war in Iraq will be complicated by the absence of a UN mandate, forcing the US military to take over administering the country. The pressure of the American electoral calendar may also prevent the Iraq war from opening a door to a Middle East peace settlement. In an interview in London with YaleGlobal Online editor Nayan Chanda, the Director of the International Institute for...

Hussein Was Target of Bombing

Walter Pincus March 20, 2003
Worldwide anti-war protests could soon become moot, if Saddam Hussein was indeed taken out on the first strikes on Baghdad. According to the Washington Post, US intelligence officials believe that Saddam Hussein was still inside a compound struck by bombs yesterday. Whether he was injured or killed, no one is certain, but intercepted communications indicated that medical personnel were called to...

Iraq Rift Could Threaten US-EU, Global Economy

March 19, 2003
A new study out from an American university says that the EU-US rift over military action in Iraq could do great damage to the cause of global free trade. "The US and the Europeans have to collaborate and lead the way, or else there's really no other real incentive for other countries to put things on the table" in global trade talks, said the author of the study. He also warned...

Americans and Europeans Widened the Gulf before the Iraq War

François Godement March 19, 2003
The build-up to the Iraq war has been marked by an unprecedented bitter falling out between the US and its European allies. In this opinion piece, a French scholar finds fault on both sides. The United States snubbed its European allies and did not try to reach out to global public opinion by explaining its reasons for going to war against Iraq. Europeans, on the other hand, tried to avoid...

War in the Ruins of Diplomacy

March 18, 2003
The morning after US President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his family to leave Iraq or face war, this editorial in The New York Times argues that the Bush administration has brought the US to the brink of war with Iraq by its own failings. It says that the US "now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to...

The Right War for the Right Reasons

John McCain March 12, 2003
Although it is uncertain whether the United Nations Security Council will authorize American and British armed forces to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, Senator John McCain firmly endorses this potential war, and praises it as an act of justice. He dismisses most critics’ claims that nonviolent options have not been exhausted by citing the UN's failure to disarm Iraq using nonviolent...