Iraq

In Weapons of Mass Deception, we showed how the U.S. news media virtually ignored the use in Iraq of cluster bombs -- anti-personnel devices like land mines that leave behind a deadly litter of unexploded "bomblets." Now Paul Wiseman has written a major report in which he concludes, "The Pentagon presented a misleading picture during the war of the extent to which cluster weapons were being used and of the civilian casualties they were causing. Gen.

The Washington Post reports the picture-perfect turkey George W. Bush held in front-page photos of his Thanksgiving jaunt to Baghdad was actually a decoration. Instead of being served slices of the golden-brown bird by the President, troops were served from cafeteria steam trays.

The British wing of the Save the Children charity was ordered to stop critizing the U.S.-led coalition's military occupation of Iraq, after it issued a statement saying that "lack of cooperation from the coalition forces is a breach of the Geneva conventions and its protocols, but more importantly the time now being wasted is costing children their lives." Kevin Maguire reports that the incident exposed "tensions within an alliance that describes itself as 'the world's largest independent global organisation for children' but which is heavily reliant on governments and big business for cash."

"Freedom of the press is beginning to smell a little rotten in the new Iraq," reports Robert Fisk, listing some of the fatwas that U.S. Proconsul Paul Bremer has issued against Al Jazeera and other Arab media. "Things are no better in the American-run television and radio stations in Baghdad. The 357 journalists working from the Bremer palace grounds have twice gone on strike for more pay and have complained of censorship.