STEPHEN ZUNES Associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, Zunes said today: “Claims of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda appear to be little more than a desperate effort by administration officials to convince the American public to support a reckless military adventure. Reports by the State Department, the CIA, the FBI and foreign intelligence agencies have all found no evidence to support such assertions. Osama bin Laden and his fundamentalist Al Qaeda movement have long demonstrated their hatred of Saddam Hussein and…

Bush administration officials have cited the Iraqi government’s use of chemical weapons as a key reason for launching an overwhelming attack on Iraq. Condoleezza Rice said last week: “He [Saddam Hussein] has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors…” On Sunday, a front-page New York Times article reported: “A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of…

On Saturday (August 17) in Washington, D.C., there will be a march calling for reparations for African Americans. The following commentators are available for interviews: JOE FEAGIN Graduate research professor at the University of Florida and author of numerous books on racism in the United States, Feagin said today: “Reparations for the enslavement and later blatant segregation of African Americans are long overdue. During this 350-year period of extreme racial oppression, African Americans saw their labor stolen, lost several trillions of dollars in income and wealth as a result, and also saw their actual lives severely shortened, while most white…

ADAM ISACSON Director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, Isacson said today: “At a time when a new hardline president is declaring a state of emergency in Colombia, the U.S. government is broadening its military mission from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism. This could lead just about anyplace. Those two trends are worrying enough on their own, but for them to happen at the same time should make us sit up.” More Information CECILIA ZARATE-LAUN Co-founder and director of the Colombia Support Network, Zarate-Laun said today: “Colombia’s new government has issued a decree that installed a state of…

JOHN MILLER Professor of economics at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and contributing editor for Dollars & Sense magazine, Miller said today: “The Bush administration is rounding up the usual suspects — conservative politicians, economists, business types, and even large donors — for a forum on why that pesky economy refuses to respond to Bush tax cuts and what to do about a federal budget now hemorrhaging red ink. Unfortunately, Tuesday’s economic gab fest is likely to shed little light on how to restore robust economic growth in a sluggish economy saddled with excess capacity of business capital, staggering levels of…

SCOTT RITTER Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is available for limited interviews. When asked by the Institute for Public Accuracy if he would be willing to go to Iraq with members of Congress, Ritter said he would consider such an option. He said today: “The offer by Iraq for members of Congress to go to Iraq is a positive one. Certainly, Congress doesn’t do inspections, but there should be a dialogue between members of Congress and the Iraqis. The U.S. government response highlights the fact that it isn’t interested in disarmament; it openly states that…

MARK WEISBROT Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot wrote the article “Economists in Denial” in today’s Washington Post. He said this afternoon: “[Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill is visiting countries in the grip of serious economic and financial crisis: Argentina’s economy has collapsed, and Brazil is headed toward default on its debt. And this comes at the end of a long period of economic failure: over the last 20 years, the income of the average Latin American has barely grown — by 7 percent — as compared to 75 percent growth over the previous 20 years (1960-1980).…

MIKE GRAVEL Gravel, currently president of Direct Democracy and sponsor of the National Initiative for Democracy, was a noted critic of the Vietnam War while in the Senate. He entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: “This is a déjà vu of Tonkin and the evidence seems to be as flimsy. [Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William] Fulbright’s biggest regret, he would later say, was signing off on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. The incident was a lie about a supposed attack on U.S. vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, fabricated by the…

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues to hear testimony from the individuals it has selected, the following analysts are available for interviews: PHYLLIS BENNIS Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader. Her testimony was put in the Congressional Record on Wednesday; she was not asked to testify. More Information More Information KATHY KELLY Coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, a group which has challenged the economic sanctions against Iraq, Kelly has been to that country over a dozen times, most recently in June. She will be…

CHARLIE CRAY Cray is director of the Campaign for Corporate Reform for the group Citizen Works. More Information VIRGINIA RASMUSSEN Rasmussen, who works with the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, wrote the article “Rethinking the Corporation.” She said today: “The legislation signed by Mr. Bush today is a quickly-devised effort to send a message that the people are ‘winning,’ when, in fact, nothing of the sort has happened…. A law establishing oversight and imposing a few penalties we are told will set things right and get corporations in line, but will in fact leave the giant corporations and their…