The New York Times, in Editors' Note, Finds Much to Fault in its
Iraq WMD Coverage

Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher Online

NEW YORK — After months of criticism of The New York Times' coverage of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — mainly directed at star
reporter Judith Miller — the paper's editors, in an extraordinary
note to readers this morning, finally tackled the subject,
acknowledging it was "past time" they do so. Following the sudden
fall last week of Ahmad Chalabi, Miller's most famous source, they
probably had no choice.

While it does not, in some ways, go nearly far enough, and is buried
on Page A10, this low-key but scathing self-rebuke is nothing less
than a primer on how not to do journalism, particularly if you are an
enormously influential newspaper with a costly invasion of another
nation at stake.

"Your Bill for the War"

Sean Gonsalves, Cape Cod Times

Amount you owe for the war in Iraq: $4,000. Make check payable to Uncle Sam's Iraq Quagmire Fund. If you dispute any portion of this bill call 1-800-IMPEACH-THIS.

According to Doug Henwood, author of "After the New Economy," $4,000 is the amount that each household will have to fork over in taxes to foot the Iraq occupation bill.

"I feel a little callous about talking about the economic impact of the war in Iraq, which seems like an afterthought next to the human toll. But at a time when civilian budgets are being cut at every level, when clinics are closing and professors at our public universities have to pay for their own photocopying because there's allegedly not enough money, it's amazing how much we're spending," Henwood says.

"The Bush Doctrine"

Noam Chomsky Interview, BBC

If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the
Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would
every single American President since the end of the second
world war, including Jimmy Carter.

The suggestion comes from the American linguist Noam
Chomsky. His latest attack on the way his country behaves in
the world is called Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest
for Global Dominance.

Jeremy Paxman met him at the British Museum, where they
talked in the Assyrian Galleries. He asked him whether he
was suggesting there was nothing new in the so-called Bush
Doctrine.

"Venezuela's Oligarchy Imports Soldiers
Because It Cannot Recruit Them At Home"

Marta Harnecker

If anything has become clear following the discovery of
an incursion of a significantly large paramilitary group
into the country, it is that the 'anti-Bolivarian and
anti-Venezuelan oligarchy and its masters in the north'
have not been able to recruit Venezuelan soldiers for
their subversive objectives and 'have been forced to
recruit them in another country,' as expressed President
Chavez in front of tens of thousands of people, who
gathered in Caracas this past Sunday, May 16th, to
demonstrate their rejection of paramilitary activity and
to express their support for peace.