Iraq

U.S. Military public affairs officers at Central Command in Qatar are putting the finishing touches on their media center. USA Today reports that a $250,000 briefing stage has been shipped in from Chicago at a cost of $47,000. "Painted battleship-gray and backed by a 38-foot repeating world map, the set has five plasma screens, two rear screen projectors, two podiums and five digital clocks, including one giving Baghdad time. Behind the set is a state-of-the-art control room that requires at least three service members to operate," USA Today writes.

Minneapolis FBI agent Colleen Rowley, who last year exposed the agency's mishandling of warning signs prior to September 11, has written a new letter to FBI director Robert Mueller, warning that "the diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to our government's plan to invade Iraq ... will, in all likelihood, bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad. ... It is altogether likely that you will find yourself a helpless bystander to a rash of 9-11s.

More than two dozen journalism school deans and professors, independent editors, journalists and authors have sent an open letter to major media editors, criticizing media coverage of Iraq and warning that "this is no time for relying solely on official sources and their supporters." Signers of the letter include: retired New York Times columnist Tom Wicker; former New York Times reporter William Serrin; Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California at Berkeley; author Studs Terkel; independent journalist and filmmaker Barbara Koeppe

"[O]n the first day of Gulf War II: Die Harder, the Pentagon reportedly intends to launch 300 to 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq -- more than during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War. '[Y]ou have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Harlan K. Ullman, who ... did co-author the 1996 book that defined the strategy that the U.S. military will be following. Euphemistically known as 'Shock and Awe,' the plan is designed to cow those Iraqis it doesn't blow up into immediate submission.