Year: 2004

Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday described the U.S. occupation of Iraq as “a fiasco” and suggested American voters should follow the example set by Spain and change their leadership.

“The occupation is a fiasco,” he said. “There have almost been more killed after the war, from a year ago, than during the war. In the end, the occupying forces have not handed over control of the situation to the U.N.

“I said during the campaign I hoped Spain and the Spaniards would be ahead of the Americans for once,” Zapatero said in an interview on Onda Cero radio. “First we win here, we change this government, and then the Americans will do it, if things continue as they are in Kerry’s favor.”

And on the war on terrorism:

“Fighting terrorism with bombs, with Tomahawk missiles, isn’t the way to beat terrorism, but the way to generate more radicalism,” he said.

I can’t help it, I really like this guy…

[Source: Washington Post]

Iraq on the Record is a report and associated online database presenting the results of an investigation of the misleading statements, falsehoods, and outright lies presented to the American public during the runup to the Iraq war, as comissioned by Representative Henry A. Waxman.

The Iraq on the Record Report, prepared at the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, is a comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

[The] database identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by these five officials in 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq.

Check out the report: Iraq on the Record.

[via eclecticism]

The European Commission president, Romani Prodi, has said a war on terror that uses force rather than thought is no answer to resolving conflicts.

“It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists,” Prodi was quoted as saying in the daily La Stampa.

“We must remember that it has been a year since the war in Iraq started. Terrorism is infinitely more powerful than a year ago.”

At last someone’s thinking right and facing the reality that use of force will only bring more force and terror.

Scientists may have discovered the solar system’s 10th planet, more than 3 billion kilometers farther away from the sun than Pluto.

The object — about 10 billion kilometers from Earth — has been given the provisional name of Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the sea.

Sedna was found using the recently launched high power Spitzer Space Telescope.

Initial details indicated Sedna to be made of ice and rock and to be of a smaller size than Pluto, with a diameter of almost 2,000 km.

NASA is set to make an official announcement later Monday.

[via CNN]

According to a spokesman for the winning Spanish socialist party, Zapatero (the prime minister elect) will take Spanish troops out of Iraq on June 30 — the day the Coalition Provisional Authority is scheduled to turn over power to an interim Iraqi government.

The PM-elect has said: Spanish troops should never have been in Iraq, because there was no U.N. resolution authorizing military action.

He also told a Spanish radio station that no decision would be taken until he was in power and without wide political consultation.
“But the Spanish troops in Iraq will come home,” he added.

Outgoing prime minister Jose Maria Aznar was a key European ally of the Bush administration, taking his country to war even though polls showed 90% of the Spanish people were against it.