MILAN RAI
The British author of Regime Unchanged, a just-released book on the invasion of Iraq, Rai is in the U.S. until November 25. He said today: “President Bush recently said in an interview with the BBC of the war on Iraq: ‘War is my last choice, not my first choice.’ In March 2002, a year before the war on Iraq, President Bush told three senators meeting National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, ‘[Expletive deleted] Saddam. We’re taking him out.’ The President was determined to avoid a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis. On March 17, 2003, UN weapons inspectors presented the Security Council with a program of activities which they felt could clarify the lingering questions…. Instead of allowing the Security Council to consider, and possibly approve and initiate these ‘key remaining disarmament tasks,’ President Bush chose that night to give Iraq a 48-hour ultimatum, and to order the inspectors out of Iraq immediately. War was the first choice, ahead of inspections.”

DAVID MILLER
Miller is the editor of the soon-to-be-released Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq and a member of the Stirling Media Research Institute. He said today: “Opposition to the war, the occupation of Iraq and the Bush visit are re-galvanizing U.K. public opinion, which has been shifting back to opposition to the war. This has been partly because public opinion now believes that Blair duped them over the issue of weapons of mass destruction. It is also partly because U.K. voters feel that the relationship between Blair and Bush is too close and that the U.S. is making the world a more dangerous place. The news that the U.S. government effectively asked for the right to ‘shoot to kill’ protestors in the U.K. will not play well in the U.K.” [See: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/24/npoll24.xml, www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13631337_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-SECURITY-BLITZ-AS-DUBYA-FLIES-IN-name_page.html, www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13622444_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-BUSH-OFF—POLL-REVEALS-BRITS-FURIOUS-AT-COST-OF-VISIT-name_page.html, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4798530-102285,00.html] More Information

Dr. SALIH IBRAHIM
A pathologist from Iraq who has lived in the U.K. since 1981, Ibrahim has substantial contact with his family in Basra, which he last visited in January. He said today: “My family doesn’t want me to visit now because that would make the family a target for thieves. Lack of order means that gangs of thugs can do what they want. My brother is considering moving to Baghdad. Doctors in Basra are killed and kidnapped; the hospital can’t function. Everyone is terrified…” Ibrahim will be participating in protests this week.
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GLEN RANGWALA
A lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, Rangwala was last in Iraq in September this year. He said today: “President Bush last visited the U.K. in April, during the first phase of the war on Iraq. Tony Blair stood alongside him and told him that ‘the regime is weakening, the Iraqi people are turning towards us.’ As they talk this time … U.S. jets and helicopters will still be bombing Iraq, as they grapple with the prospect of a violent resistance movement that can outlast and outwit them, having brought chaos to Iraqi society and having deepened the poverty of many…. [In April] Blair assured the President, ‘On weapons of mass destruction, we know that the regime has them, we know that as the regime collapses we will be led to them.'”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167