Bush's Iraq Plans An 'Illusion' Guaranteed To Make Situation Worse
May 24th PRESS RELEASE FROM KUCINICH

Plans being announced today by the Bush Administration regarding Iraq “are an attempt to create the illusion that somehow things are different and getting better, when just the opposite it true,” said Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich today. The resolution “guarantees that our troops will remain there and continue to be targets for violence that promises to increase,” Kucinich said. “Trying to fool everyone by calling it a ‘multi-national security force’ instead of an ‘occupying army’ isn’t going to fool anyone.” “Playing word games with the lives of Americans and the lives of innocent Iraqis only adds insult to the arrogance, the dishonesty, and the total futility of this war,” said Kucinich, who is campaigning in Montana today. Bush’s planned address tonight to spell out a “new” Iraq policy, “will be a further attempt to trick America and the world into believing that progress is being made,” Kucinich predicted. “Putting in place an interim ‘puppet government’ will only fuel the resentment and the hostility and make it more difficult to establish a truly sovereign government in Iraq," Kucinich said. The only way to achieve true progress is to ask the United Nations to bring in peacekeepers, bring our troops home, and allow the interim Iraqi government, with the assistance of the U.N., to assume full responsibility for the management of assets and reconstruction contracts, Kucinich said. “Anything short of that will further contribute to the instability and the violence.”

America's Brutal Culture Of Unseen Oppression
INDEPENDENT/UK
by Robert Chesshyre
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0525-04.htm

Iraqi Shia Holy Shrine 'Damaged'BBC NEWS
One of Iraq's holiest Shia Islamic shrines has reportedly been damaged in clashes between US troops and the forces of militant cleric Moqtada Sadr. For more on this story, check out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3744841.stm