We consider ourselves as in competition with China for leadership in the new century. That's our focus and frankly, you have made it very difficult for us to deal with you. We find your approach to international affairs ridiculous. The invasion of Iraq was insane. You've encouraged the very things you say you were trying to fix - terrorism and instability. Your attitude to Iran is ridiculous. You need to engage with Iran. We are. We are bemused by your hypocrisy. You lecture the world about dealing with dictators and you deal with Pakistan. We are very sorry for your losses from the 9/11 terror attacks. Welcome to our world. You threaten us with sanctions for not signing the non-proliferation treaty, but you continue to be nuclear armed and to investigate new weapons. You expect us to neglect our own security because you want us to. We don't care about sanctions.

They also spoke about economic development and the message here was that we're doing fine thanks. We can't address the poverty in our country wholesale--most of it is rural poverty anyway--but we find we have skills in the hi-tech area. We will continue to pursue that. We currently produce around 10,000 (I think, ed) science PhDs a year. We will build up a rich, well-educated strata.

Another thing he said that was mentioned a number of times was the relationship with Australia. They spoke of educational exchanges and the growing number of immigrants. Australia was thought of highly.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an incident in which Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [sic] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the public."

The document also says that no "intelligence of a threat neutralization nature" was garnered by the "FBI" interrogation, and that the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) believes that the Defense Department’s actions have destroyed any chance of prosecuting the detainee. The e-mail’s author writes that he or she is documenting the incident "in order to protect the FBI."

Lack of security and fear of kidnapping make Iraqi women prisoners in their own homes. They witness the looting of their country by Halliburton, Bechtel, US NGOs, missionaries, mercenaries and local subcontractors, while they are denied clean water and electricity. In the land of oil, they have to queue five hours a day to get kerosene or petrol. Acute malnutrition has doubled among children. Unemployment at 70% is exacerbating poverty, prostitution, backstreet abortion and honour killing. Corruption and nepotism are rampant in the interim government. Al-Naqib, minister of interior admitted that he had appointed 49 of his relatives to high-ranking jobs, but only because they were qualified.

The killing of academics, journalists and scientists has not spared women: Liqa Abdul Razaq, a newsreader at al-Sharqiyya TV, was shot with her two-month-old baby. Layla al-Saad, dean of law at Mosul University was slaughtered in her house.

The silence of the "feminists" of Allawi's regime is deafening. The suffering of their sisters in cities showered with napalm, phosphorus and cluster bombs by US jet fighters, the death of about 100,000 Iraqi civilians, half of them women and children, is met with rhetoric about training for democracy.

Tony Blair, acknowledged yesterday in Baghdad that violence would continue both before and after the January 30 elections, but added: "On the other hand we will have a very clear expression of democratic will." Does he not know that "democracy" is what Iraqi women use nowadays to frighten their naughty children, by shouting: "Quiet, or I'll call democracy."

LOPATE: But, aren’t a lot of people putting their hopes… pinning their hopes on the elections that are coming up?

WARE: Well they can pin as much as they like on those elections. I don’t know what good it’s going to do them. I mean, I’ll tell you right now, you can set any Disneyland date you like, let’s call it January 30th. You can hold an election. It will certainly look like an election. And it will sound like an election. But, anything other than sham, you can’t hope to produce. I mean, the… the West will do it’s best to support this process, but under no circumstances can I see any election in Iraq now or anywhere near in the future that will produce anything akin to a real mandate for anyone. ...

LOPATE: I get the feeling that you’re also telling me that Fallujah may be won for the moment, and maybe won for the rest of this war, but there’ll be many more Fallujahs…

WARE: Oh, absolutely. There’s not going to be the great…. You know… weeping sore that Fallujah was… I mean, it was a stellar act of defiance. I mean, to be able to actually secure and control a city, and to beat off the US military, and to play such a savvy political game that it tied the military hands… But, we’re going to see it popping up here, there, everywhere… In front, in behind, beside us, up and down, everywhere. I mean…… this doesn’t feel like victory to me…. ...

LOPATE: What would they bring back, another Saddam Hussein? Or do they want…..

WARE: Actually, many people joke, perhaps a little too seriously, that if we release Saddam and allowed him to run in this election, he would go very close to winning right now. Simply because so desperately crave the security which he was able to deliver. But this is not the real legacy that I fear of the folly of Iraq . It’s not a civil war that tears Iraq apart, as dreadful as that would be… We are giving birth to the next generation of Jihad. September 11 was in many ways the end note of al Qaida as we know it. Osama knew that he would be severely impaired after September 11, really it was an act of inspiration. He was lifting the lid off the Pandora’s Box of Jihad. After that, they were looking for a platform upon which to wage that Jihad, and we gave it to them. Invading Iraq on the sketchiest of grounds… to prevent a link to terrorism that was… not… there. Saddam was a threat? Without a doubt. He was a menace, he was a dictator to his people. He was a human rights nightmare. But, was he exporting terror? No! Now, we are doing that. We’ve created the new Afghanistan. Where the new generation of Al Qaida is blooding themselves and returning out to the rest of the world to spread….