News Releases

  • * Americans Just Out of Baghdad * Iraqi Dead * War Profits * U.S. Safety * Taxpayers

    MICHAEL BIRMINGHAM, STEWART VRIESINGA JEFF GUNTZEL, STEPHANIE SCHAUDEL While information has become more difficult to get from Baghdad, 15 members of the Iraq Peace Team have left the Iraqi capital and just arrived in Amman, Jordan. They are available for interviews. About half the Iraq Peace Team, composed of Americans and other Westerners, remains in Baghdad. Other members of the group have returned to the U.S. recently and are reachable through the Chicago office. MARC HEROLD Author of the recent article “When ‘Precision’ Bombing Isn’t,” Herold is a professor at the University of New Hampshire and a consultant to the…


  • * Supporting Troops * Rumsfeld: Lightning Rod * City Teach-in * U.S. Credibility * ‘Unavoidable’ Deaths

    NANCY LESSIN and CHARLEY RICHARDSON Lessin and Richardson are founding members of Military Families Speak Out. They have a son who has been deployed in the Gulf and just learned that he will be going into Iraq. They are in touch with over 300 other families of people from every branch of the military currently deployed in the Gulf and can help arrange interviews. Lessin said today: “The most supportive thing that anyone can do for our troops right now is to halt this invasion and protect their lives as well as the people in Iraq. We need to end…


  • U.N. — Accessory After the Fact?

    DENIS HALLIDAY Former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Halliday said today: “The people of Iraq are being crushed brutally everyday as we watch our TV. The U.N. and international law are being set aside by the U.N. Security Council member states. The Secretary General provides a weak voice reminding us all of Charter provisions, but too late and too little….” PHYLLIS BENNIS Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis. She said today: “International law, specifically the Geneva Conventions, requires the belligerent occupying…


  • Humanitarian Impact: Image and Reality

    Dr. APRIL HURLEY, MARTIN EDWARDS, Ret. U.S. Army Captain CHARLES LITEKY, KATHY KELLY, DANNY MULLER, Hurley and Edwards (al-Dar Hotel), Liteky and Kelly (al-Fanar Hotel) are in Baghdad with 20 other members of the Iraq Peace Team. Phone lines are intermittent. Team members are assessing damage, visiting hospitals and placing articles and photos on the web. Several additional team members have recently crossed into Iraq from Jordan. Muller, in Chicago, is in regular touch with team members. More Information JOY GORDON Gordon, a Fairfield University professor, wrote “Cool War: Economic Sanctions as Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which appeared in Harper’s…


  • Propaganda and War: Interviews Available

    JOEL CAMPAGNA Yesterday evening, the U.S. military intentionally bombed Iraq TV. Program coordinator on the Middle East and North Africa for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Campagna said: “Broadcast media is a civilian object under the Geneva Conventions and cannot be targeted unless it is used for military purposes (e.g. military communication).” CPJ also objected to the New York Stock Exchange pulling Al-Jazeera’s press credentials yesterday. More Information LAMIS ANDONI An independent journalist and analyst who has covered the Middle East for over two decades, including the Iran-Iraq war in the south of Iraq, Andoni is monitoring the Arab-language media.…


  • * Geneva Conventions * Water Supply * Following Orders * ‘Fragging’

    MARJORIE COHN A professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Cohn said today: “While the U.S. government has objected to Iraq broadcasting photos of U.S. POWs, the U.S. government has allowed the very same thing…. Photos of Taliban prisoners of war and John Walker Lindh were continually broadcast on U.S. media outlets. The Pentagon is refusing to abide by the Geneva Convention with regards to the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.” DENIS HALLIDAY, Former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and former U.N. Assistant Secretary General, Halliday today criticized plans for the…


  • Crossing the Border

    DANIEL ELLSBERG Ellsberg, currently in Washington, D.C., authored the recent book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. More Information DENIS HALLIDAY Former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program and former U.N. Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. BRIAN WILLSON Was in Vietnam as an Air Force officer, now active in Veterans for Peace. More Information ZAINEB ISTRABADI Associate director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program at Indiana University at Bloomington, an Iraqi-American. NORMAN SOLOMON Coauthor of the new book Target Iraq and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. JOHN QUIGLEY Professor of international…


  • Bombing Baghdad

    The following analysts can comment on the bombing of Baghdad and will be available for interviews in the coming days and weeks as events develop. CHARLIE CLEMENTS, M.D, Clements is a Vietnam war veteran and recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights. He has just returned from a 10-day emergency mission to Iraq with other public health experts to assess the vulnerability of the civilian population. More Information More Information Ret. U.S. Army Captain CHARLES LITEKY, KATHY KELLY, MICHAEL BIRMINGHAM, Members of the Iraq Peace Team — Liteky, Kelly and Birmingham — are…


  • Americans Intervening for Peace in the Middle East

    DANNY MULLER Muller is a coordinator with the Iraq Peace Team. He was in Iraq recently, and more than 20 members of the group are still there. Muller is in contact with them and information is regularly posted on the above web page. While phone lines are intermittent, after several attempts many callers are able to get through. Among the team members in Iraq: Ret. U.S. Army Captain Charles Liteky; Kathy Kelly; Michael Birmingham. HUWAIDA ARRAF Arraf is a member of the International Solidarity Movement. Another member of the group, Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed on March 16 when she…


  • White House Claims: A Pattern of Deceit

    President George Bush, March 17: “Under Resolutions 678 and 687 — both still in effect — the U.S. and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction…. Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.” John Negroponte, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., urging support for Resolution…


  • Could Israel’s “Illegal” Nukes Trigger Cutoff of Aid?

    n 2021, Grant Smith wrote to members of “The Squad” and other members of Congress who have been critical of Israel: “I believe your coalition has far more influence on the matter of foreign aid than it may realize. In 2016 and 2017 we sued the administration(s) over violations of the Arms Export Control Act,…

  • The “Final Moments of Northern Gaza,” Israel Barrs Medical Workers

    “Despite the superficial request of U.S. leaders to Israel to make a change in the next 30 days, Netanyahu has intensified his lunatism and has cut off the north completely from any medical supplies or food. … We are witnessing the final moments of Northern Gaza.”

  • A Critique of BRICS: Economically Enabling Israel

    He notes: “Since August, South Africa has become the number one coal supplier to the genocide and Russia number two, now that Colombia and Turkey have declared Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. …

  • Understanding Hamas

    “The killing of Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar are the sort of decapitation attempts that fading colonial powers use. This was highlighted in one of our conversations that the book is based on, with the Dutch expert Jeroen Gunning, one of the founders of critical terrorism studies.”

  • Sinwar Reported Killed in South Gaza as Israel Accelerates Genocide in North

    Gazans, irrespective of age or physical condition, were ordered to depart on short notice under circumstances in which they would be deprived of means of sustenance. The World Health Organization denounced the evacuation scheme as a ‘death sentence.’

  • Misinformation about Immigrant Voters

    Organizations that track misinformation have observed an acceleration of racist lies in social and mainstream media targeting immigrants and Latino voters. Such misinformation includes the claims that noncitizen immigrants are illegally voting in droves and the lie, popularized in fringe groups but amplified by Donald Trump, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets. The misinformation targets…

  • War and Media: Has Nothing Been Learned?

    “The media — despite some good reporting by many individual journalists in the field — has treated the IDF onslaught against Gaza, the West Bank and Gaza as reasonable conflicts rather than mass murder.”

  • Demands for Arms Embargo on Israel

    “As the genocide and massacres continue .. the Israeli regime and its enablers have reached new levels of depravity. Civilians, hospitals, schools, and vital infrastructure are being systematically obliterated, in direct contravention of international laws meant to protect human life. The world is witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe that the Israeli government is perpetrating with clear…

  • Corporations Undermining Democracy

    The International Trade Union Confederation released a list of seven corporations undermining democracy. Big Tech, Big Oil, and private equity firms all made the list.

  • Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine

    “Dehumanization is the first step in genocidal incitement. However, counter-annihilation is also a key feature of settler colonialism. It is the belief and practice that colonial society must annihilate Native people; otherwise, the colonizers, in turn, will be annihilated in a zero-sum calculus. It is a pre-emptive ‘self-defense’ against any real or imagined anti-colonial attack.…

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