The BBC reports that the Bush Administration is changing its tune on how it will discover Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Before, the Administration claimed its interrogation of high level Iraqi Administration officials would reveal the location of the weapons. That didn't pan out, despite interrogations of 18 Senior Iraqi officials.

US officials now say they believe it may be lower-level informants, rather than leaders, who reveal details of Iraq's alleged weapons programmes.

Note: the main focus of the article is the capture of Dr. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, dubbed by the press "Mrs. Anthrax."

Findlaw Columnist and Human Rights Watch lawyer Joanne Mariner today urges the U.S. to abandon the use of cluster bombs, if not altogether, at least in populated areas:

Cluster bombs are large weapons that contain dozens and often hundreds of smaller submunitions. They come in over 200 models and can be delivered from the air or the ground, releasing "bomblets" or "grenades" respectively.

Because of the wide dispersal pattern of their bomblets, cluster munitions can destroy broad, relatively "soft" targets, such as airfields and surface-to-air missile sites. They are also effective against targets that move or do not have a precise location, such as enemy troops or vehicles.

...It is precisely the qualities that make cluster bombs militarily desirable that make them so dangerous to civilians.

The London Observer covers the GeorgeGalloway story and says the Labour Party Minister may face criminal charges over his anti-war comments:

George Galloway, the anti-war Labour MP who is suing over allegations he secretly took money from Saddam Hussein, faces the prospect of a criminal prosecution for treachery. The Observer can reveal that the Director of Public Prosecutions is considering pursuing the Glasgow politician for comments during the Iraq war when he called on British troops not to fight.

In an interview with Abu Dhabi TV during the Iraq conflict, Galloway said: 'The best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders.' Lawyers for service personnel claim his call for soldiers to dis obey what he called 'illegal orders' amount to a breach of the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934. The maximum penalty is two years in jail.

Galloway dismissed attempts to prosecute him, but said: 'I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: "He incited them to disaffect."'

Human Rights Groups side with Galloway on his comments.

Roger Bingham of the civil rights group Liberty said 'Galloway's statement is an expression of opinion. We live in a free-speech, democratic society and elect MPs to speak out on national issues.' Andrew Burgin, of the Stop the War Coalition denounced the move. He said: 'This war was immoral and illegal and should never have been fought. This proposal to prosecute is part of an ever-expanding witch-hunt against George Galloway because he was the most vocal anti-war voice.'

Other issues now are emerging regarding Galloway and his alleged ties to fundamentalists. No question Galloway is fighting for his political life.

Matthew McAllester, the Newsday reporter who along with cameraman Moses Saman and Photographer Molly Bingham, were held in an Iraqi prison for a week, has written an eight chapter description of the ordeal.

"I just needed to share the rising horror I was trying to control, knowing that we were in the depths of a prison known for years to human rights groups as a center of torture and execution. It was part of this feeling of silent togetherness that the five of us would foster over the next days, a feeling that I suspect we will always have."

We've read his earlier, abridged accounts and were impressed with the detail and his ability to recall and recount. We suggest you give this much longer version a read as well. [link via Jim Romanesko]

Via Atrios, a Fox News Television Engineer faces smuggling charges for bringing back loot from Iraq:

A television news engineer faces smuggling charges after attempting to bring into the United States 12 stolen Iraqi paintings, monetary bonds and other items, federal officials said Wednesday.

A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., charges that Benjamin James Johnson, 27, tried to bring the paintings into this country last Thursday. They were contained in a large cardboard box that was examined by Customs agents at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

An affidavit filed with the criminal complaint says that Johnson, who accompanied U.S. troops in Baghdad, gathered up the paintings at a palace that belonged to Uday Hussein, one of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's sons. The paintings depict Saddam and Uday.

Johnson, who initially told Customs officials he was given the paintings by Iraqi citizens, said he had planned to keep them "for decoration" and to provide one to his employer, the affidavit says. It is U.S. policy that all such items belong to the Iraqi people.

Roger Ailes has news of the arrest of a Boston Herald reporter for bringing back a painting. (permalink not working, scroll down)

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. is unprepared to stop the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in Iraq.

Bush adminstration officials now say they underestimated the strength of the Shiites, who make up 60% of the Iraqi population. The U.S. goal of a "crescent of democracies" among Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied territories and Saudi Arabia is even more doubtful now. The U.S. is hoping that differences between the Persian Shiites and the Iraqi Shiites will keep fundamentalism in check.

Some U.S. intelligence analysts and Iraq experts said they warned the Bush administration before the war about vanquishing Hussein's government without having anything to replace it. But officials said the concerns were either not heard or fell too low on the priority list of postwar planning. ...."This is a 25-year project," one three-star general officer said. "Everyone agreed it was a huge risk, and the outcome was not at all clear."

A 25 year project? How many of those supporting the war knew we might be in this for 25 years? This war is beginning to sound less and less like a victory and more and more like a foolish, expensive gambit.

Via Atrios, who as usual got the news first, we learn that 4 American soldiers are accused of trying to steal almost $1 million of the $700 million in cash found hidden in Iraq.

The four have not been identified as of now, but they will face court-martials. Three of them are members of an engineering unit attached to the 4th Battalion.

We thought it was a bad idea to have young members of the armed forces guarding money when we first heard about it. The temptation is too strong and many of them are too young to resist a sudden impulse. One lousy mistake and these kids military careers and futures get a black mark forever.

Why wasn't this job assigned to Treasury Department agents? Dumb move, Rumsfeld, Dumb. It's not too late, send the IRS, or some federal accountants or money laundering specialists in to finish the job.

Three cheers for Bill Clinton and his recent comments criticizing the Administration for its approach to foreign affairs:

Former US President Bill Clinton blasted US foreign policy adopted in the wake of the September 11 attacks, arguing the United States cannot kill, jail or occupy all of its adversaries. "Our paradigm now seems to be: something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us," said Clinton, who spoke at a seminar of governance organized by Conference Board. "And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.

...Since September 11, it looks like we can't hold two guns at the same time," Clinton said. "If you fight terrorism, you can't make America a better place to be."

Clinton said that if he were at the White House right now he would scrap a 726-billion dollar tax cut proposal made by the president in January to stimulate the flagging economy.

Update: This article is from April 16 but for some reason is listed today under Yahoo's top news. Sorry if you are already familiar with it, we weren't.

We love this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, Naturalizing the dead. Go read the whole thing, but here's a quote:

SIX IMMIGRANT soldiers from California have been granted citizenship for their heroic contributions to the U.S. victory in Iraq. Too bad they were in body bags when they received the honor. The posthumous awards come as small reward to the families of the dead. To many immigrants -- and to us -- the whole idea is an insult. The New York family of fallen U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Riayan Tejeda, a native of the Dominican Republic, even spurned the offer. "He fought for this country for eight years, and they want to give him citizenship now?" his younger brother asked mournfully. "It doesn't matter anymore."

The Chronicle calls on Bush to truly honor the dead by granting citizenship to all who serve in our armed forces who want it, and reopening amnesty negotiotiations with Mexico for undocumented workers from Mexico.

A framed naturalization certificate that can be displayed at a soldier's funeral is not enough. Not nearly enough.

The Iraqi National Congress says it is only 12 to 24 hours behind Saddam and closing in on him.

The Iraqi National Congress said yesterday that it has received several credible reports of sightings of Saddam Hussein and that it is hunting the ousted president in an area between Baghdad and the Iranian border. "We are 12 to 24 hours behind him, but we are getting closer," said Zab Sethna, the chief spokesman for the group, which is expected to be a major player in Iraq's interim government. "We are convinced he is alive and on the run."

The Independent, UK has an editorial today, So Where are They Mr. Blair?, pointing out

Not one illegal warhead. Not one drum of chemicals. Not one incriminating document. Not one shred of evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

The Independent asks,

But, Mr Blair, where are they? A month has passed since American and British troops entered Iraq, more than a week since the fall of Baghdad. But thus far not even a sniff. Not a drum of VX or mustard gas, not a phial of botulin or anthrax, not a shred of evidence that Iraq was assembling a nuclear weapons programme.

If evidence of the weapons don't turn up, The Independent wants a Parliamentary investigation.

If only for the credibility and reputation of our country, this newspaper hopes that enough weapons of mass destruction will be discovered to justify a war that has grievously weakened the UN, strained the Atlantic alliance and split the European Union. But they'd better be found pretty soon....This pointless war cannot be un-made. But we urgently need to know that the invasion was not illegal as well. With Britain and the US in full control of Iraq, a month should suffice. If no "smoking gun" has turned up by then, a full parliamentary inquiry is essential – into the competence and accountability of the intelligence services, and into how our Government used them to sell a mistaken and reckless policy.

We'd like to ask our Government the same question.

Remember Colin Powell at the Security Council two months ago (though today it seems another age on another planet): the charts, the grainy intelligence satellite pictures, the crackly tapes of the intercepted phone conversations among Iraqi officials? How plausible it all sounded, especially when propounded by the most plausible figure in the Bush administration.

Was it just the overly fertile imagination of our intelligence agents? Or the determination of the Administration to attack Iraq no matter what, using whatever justification they thought the American public would buy?

The U.S. is holding 6,850 Iraqi war prisoners. Just a handful are top Iraqi leaders. In deciding what to do with the prisoners, the U.S. says that it is in uncharted legal waters.

Prisoners of war are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. does not dispute this.

Unlike the 660 or so captives held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay as part of the American war on terrorism, the POWs in Iraq were combatants in a conventional war, so the United States is bound by the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of them, the U.S. officials said.

The Government says it is leaning towards dividing the prisoners into two groups:

A senior U.S. government official said yesterday that "it's very early in the process" of determining the legal fate of the Iraqi military officials in detention. But the government is inclined to divide those it eventually brings to justice into two groups, allowing Iraqi authorities to try people for "crimes against the Iraqi people," while courts under U.S. auspices would handle "crimes against Americans" such as Iraqi soldiers' waving a white flag before attacking, placing artillery in schools and mosques, and beating U.S. POWs, the official said.