Poll: China Image Scores Better Than U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States' popularity in many countries - including longtime allies in Europe - is lagging behind even communist China.

The image of the U.S. slipped sharply in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, and two years later has shown few signs of rebounding either in Western Europe or the Muslim world, an international poll found.

``The U.S. image has improved slightly, but is still broadly negative,'' said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. ``It's amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China.''

In Britain, which prides itself on its ``special relationship'' with Washington, almost two-thirds of Britons, 65 percent, saw China favorably, compared with 55 percent who held a positive view of the United States. In France, 58 percent had an upbeat view of China, compared with 43 percent who felt that way about the U.S. The results were nearly the same in Spain and the Netherlands, the Pew polling found.

The United States' favorability rating was lowest among three Muslim nations that are also U.S. allies - Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan - where only about one-fifth of those polled viewed the U.S. in a positive light. Only Indonesia and Poland viewed the U.S. more positively than China. [Full Article]

Related Link: Pew Research Center Survey

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Saddam Insists He's Still Iraq President

NEW YORK - Saddam Hussein loves Doritos, hates Froot Loops, admires President Reagan, thinks Clinton was "OK" and considers both Presidents Bush "no good." He talks a lot, worries about germs and insists he is still president of
Iraq.

Those and other details of the deposed Iraqi leader's life in U.S. military custody appear in the July issue of GQ magazine, based on interviews with five Pennsylvania National Guardsmen who went to Iraq in 2003 and were assigned to Saddam's guard detail for nearly 10 months.

The magazine, which reached newsstands Monday, said the GIs could not tell their families what they were doing and signed pledges not to reveal the location or other details of the U.S.-run compound where Saddam was an HVD, or "high value detainee," awaiting trial by Iraqi authorities for mass killings and other crimes.

However, the five soldiers told GQ of their personal interactions with Saddam, saying he spoke with them in rough English, was interested in their lives and even invited them back to Iraq when he returns to power.

"He'd always tell us he was still the president. That's what he thinks, 100 percent," said Spc. Jesse Dawson, 25, of Berwick, Pa.

A Pentagon spokesman had no comment on the article.

The GIs recalled that Saddam had harsh words for the Bushes, each of whom went to war against him.

"The Bush father, son, no good," Cpl. Jonathan "Paco" Reese, 22, of Millville, Pa., quoted Saddam as saying.

Spc. Sean O'Shea, then 19, of Minooka, Pa., said Saddam later mellowed in that view. "Towards the end, he was saying that he doesn't hold any hard feelings and he just wanted to talk to (George W.) Bush, to make friends with him," he told the magazine.

Dawson quoted Saddam as saying: "He knows I have nothing, no mass weapons. He knows he'll never find them."

Their description of the man who once lived in palaces and now occupies a cell with no personal privacy matched recently published photos, apparently smuggled out of prison, showing Saddam in his underwear and a long robe.

The story said that once, when Saddam fell during his twice-a-week shower, "panic ensued. No one wanted him to be hurt while being guarded by Americans." One GI had to help Saddam back to his cell, while another carried his underwear.

Saddam was friendly toward his young guards and sometimes offered fatherly advice. When O'Shea told him he was not married, Saddam "started telling me what to do," recalled the soldier. "He was like, `You gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.'"

Then he smiled, made what O'Shea interpreted as a "spanking" gesture, laughed and went back to doing his laundry in the sink.

The soldiers also said Saddam was a "clean freak" who washed after shaking hands and used diaper wipes to clean meal trays, utensils and table before eating. "He had germophobia or whatever you call it," Dawson said.

The article said Saddam preferred Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast, telling O'Shea, "No Froot Loops." He ate fish and chicken but refused beef.

For a time his favorite snack was Cheetos, and when that ran out, Saddam would "get grumpy," the story said. One day, guards substituted Doritos corn chips, and Saddam forgot about Cheetos. "He'd eat a family size bag of Doritos in 10 minutes," Dawson said.

The magazine said Saddam told his guards that when the Americans invaded Iraq in March 2003, he "tried to flee in a taxicab as the tanks were rolling in," and U.S. planes struck the palace he was trying to reach instead of the one he was in.

"Then he started laughing," recalled Reese. "He goes, `America, they dumb. They bomb wrong palace.'"

Saddam also said his capture in an underground hideout on Dec. 13, 2003, resulted from betrayal by the only man who knew where he was, and had been paid to keep the secret.

"He was really mad about that," Dawson said. "He compared himself to Jesus, how Judas told on Jesus. He was like, `That's how it was for me.' If his Judas never said anything, nobody ever would have found him, he said."

U.S. officials said at the time that intelligence from several sources led to Saddam's capture.

The magazine said Saddam prayed five times a day and kept a Quran that he claimed to have found in rubble near his hideout. "He proudly showed (it) to the boys because it was burned around the edges and had a bullet hole in it," GQ said.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. Full Article

Behind the Downing Street Memos

Behind the Downing Street Memos Lurks the specter of treason

by Justin Raimondo

Everyone is talking about the Downing Street memos, and they are important – although not for the reasons generally assumed. Naturally, we covered these on Antiwar.com when they were first published, but now that the "mainstream" media is finally paying attention it behooves us to go over them with a fine-tooth comb, in an attempt to tease some meaning out of the daily slaughter on the evening news. The key paragraph in the first memo, and the one most cited, is this: "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The mysterious "C" is none other than Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, Britain's intelligence service, no doubt conferring with his American equivalent, then-CIA director George Tenet. The date – July 23, 2002 – is significant: if you'll remember, at that time our lying president was telling us that war with Iraq would be a "last resort." Yeah, sure. Not that anybody really believed him, but it's significant that he still felt it necessary to make the effort to deceive. Meanwhile, the War Party was plotting to pull a fast one, using every trick in the book to gin up a war with Iraq – a constant stream of wild stories presented in the guise of "intelligence" and planted in a compliant media, all positing "weapons of mass destruction" poised to hit American cities. Bob Woodward revealed that the decision to go to war had already been made in his book, Plan of Attack, but the media doesn't cover books. Leaked memos, however, are another matter: especially ones with "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL – UK EYES ONLY" emblazoned at the top, along with a further notation: "This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents." Well, yes, we genuinely do need to know why our young people are dying by the dozens every week, until now it's over 1,700 and rising. And it isn't sensitive anymore, now that the horse is out of the barn, so it's OK for the public to see these previously secret documents: that's why we're reading them today and why they're being covered in the "mainstream" media.[Full Story] Copyright 2005 Antiwar.com

U.S. House votes to curb Patriot Act, defies Bush

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people's library reading habits and bookstore purchases.

The House voted 238-187 to scale back the government's powers to conduct secret investigations that were authorized by the Patriot Act, a post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law.

"We can fight terrorism without undermining basic constitutional rights. That's what the message of today is about," said Rep. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who pushed the measure through the House with the support of 38 Republicans.

The White House has warned Congress that any weakening of the Patriot Act would prompt senior advisers to recommend that Bush veto the $57.5 billion bill to fund activities next year for the Justice Department and other federal agencies, which now contains Sanders' amendment. [Full Story]

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Debate deepens over Guantánamo

Wednesday's hearing in Congress highlights the rift between the Bush administration and critics over the role of detention.

By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – In Washington, debate over conditions at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is escalating into a larger argument: What role should detention properly play in a conflict with stateless, extremist enemies?

To top US officials, the war against terrorism is unexplored territory. Thus traditional doctrines covering criminals and military prisoners do not apply.

To critics, the continued fuzzy legal status of Guantánamo detainees undermines US values - not to mention the nation's image abroad. Shutting the camp, they claim, is now the administration's best option. [Full Story]

Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science Monitor.

Relatives of Gujarat riot victims seek damages from state

AHMEDABAD, India (AFP) - Survivors of one of the worst massacres during the 2002 sectarian riots in Gujarat filed a compensation claim against the western Indian state's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party.

Over 120 people from the minority Muslim community were burnt or hacked to death by Hindu mobs in February 2002 in two separate residential colonies.

A former member of parliament, Ehsan Jaffri, from the opposition Congress Party, was among those killed in the riots.

"Today, I have filed a civil suit for compensation along with 24 other families of the Gulbarg Society who lost all in a single day of communal hatred," said his son Tanvir Jaffri.

He said the victims were seeking total damages of seven million rupees (162,800 dollars) from the BJP state government as well as Hindu right wing groups.

Representatives of the families whose kin were killed said the process of filing the compensation claim was delayed because of red tape.

The Gujarati government was accused of turning a blind eye to the riots in which about 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died.

The riots were triggered after claims that a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindus at Godhra, killing 59 people. A subsequent official report said the train fire was an accident.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050614/wl_sthasia_afp/indiagujaratunrest_050614045545
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.