WHERE TO GET INFORMATION

By John Catalinotto

It is hard to get good information about the war and especially about
Baghdad these days. But those who check out certain alternative sources
will at least find something a lot closer to the truth than the
propaganda coming from the Pentagon's Command Center in Qatar.

A "brigade" of people from Spain and the Basque Country have been in
Baghdad since before the U.S. invasion began. They give daily reports,
both on the civilian victims of the U.S. bombs and the mood in the city.
Here are a few items from their April 7 reports, after a major U.S.
incursion into the city.

"The information distributed by the [Spanish press agency] EFE
correspondent in Baghdad, Alberto Mazagosa, from the third floor of the
Hotel Palestina, in the midst of a formidable sandstorm and without
leaving his apartment, that the Republican Guard surrendered en masse,
has no basis in truth.

"This new incursion could be one more like those the invading force has
attempted in the last few days and, like all the others, could be
withdrawn. In any case we remain certain that the resistance will remain
firm, and that the Iraqis will not surrender."

The above reports unabridged can be found in Spanish, and some are
translated into English, on the web site www. nodo50.org/csca.

Four doctors from the Belgium Medical Team of Medicine for the Third
World got through the heavy bombing and fighting in Baghdad on April 7.
Two had just reached the city after driving from Damascus. They were
unable, however, to reach the hospitals that day to help with the
hundreds of wounded Iraqis or to deliver the medicine they had brought
from Brussels.

>From the Sheraton Hotel, where they are staying, they witnessed the
battle across the Tigris in the western part of town. In the afternoon,
however, shops opened again, cars were driving around and life was more
or less back to normal. "The Iraqi resistance troops remain visible in
our part of town," one of them says. "Some are driving around cheering
and waving flags of Iraq, just like after a victorious football match."

Look these up at www.irak.be/ned/ index.htm for English, French and
Dutch. They can also be reached through www.iacenter.org.

A site giving cold military assessments can be found at
www.aeronautics.ru, which reportedly gets its analysis from contacts in
Russian military intelligence. Again, from April 7:

"By the afternoon Iraqi actions became more confident.

"There is information that one of yesterday's air strikes severely
damaged one of their communication and control centers and currently the
Iraqi command has to control their units using VHF-stations and envoys,
which delays battle-orders and commands.

"Today the American command had to admit that the fighting potential of
Bagh dad defenders is 'fairly high' and the rivals show no sign of
demoralization."

http://www.workers.org/