] Ali Ghanem, a driver, said three people died last week in
] the town, just southeast of Baghdad, after being
] contaminated by something stolen from the Al-Tuwaitha
] site.
]
] "They were buried with the material in the village of
] Wardieh," he said.

I'm suspicious of this report because for there to be deaths, there would also have to be other signs of radioactive poisoning. For example, someone exposed to high levels of radiation would probably begin vomiting within about an hour. But I'm extremely concerned that there are going to be other serious health consequences (increased cancer rates and birth defects) from the contamination -- we just don't know the extent of it yet.

(Unconfirmed) Three deaths from radioactive contamination at looted Tuwaitha site in Iraq

A lengthy list of Iraqi opposition groups, with short descriptions of each one, including history and current goals.

Iraqi opposition groups and individuals

Silent since March 24th, Salam Pax ("Where Is Raed?") is back online, blogging from Baghdad! He Emailed a document with all of his backdated blogs to a friend, and they were posted today.

Day by day stream of thought of the attack on Baghdad, from an articulate Iraqi civilian being forced to live through it. The whole thing is well worth reading, but here are some of the highlights:

March 24th:
The air raid sirens are not really that dependable, when they don’t sound the all clear after a whole hour of silence you get fidgety. The better alarm system is quite accidental. It has become a habit of the mosque muezzins (the prayer callers) to start chanting "allahu akbar - la illaha ila allah" the moment one of them hears an explosion. The next muezzin starts the moment he hears another calling and so on. It spreads thru the city pretty fast, and soon you have all the mosques doing the "Takbir" for five minutes or so. Very eerie but works well to alert everybody.

March 30th:
No good news anywhere, no light at the end of the tunnel and the Americans’ advance doesn’t look that reassuring. If we had a mood barometer in the house it would read "to hell with saddam and may he quickly be joined by bush". No one feels like they should welcome the American army. The American government is getting as many curses as the Iraqi.

April 1st:
There is one item which I have not thought I would need a big supply of: antacids. Air raid sirens start wailing or the heavy bombs start falling; five minutes later I go for the drawer with the antacids. Now every time the bombing starts my brother starts humming Nirvana’s "Pennyroyal Tea"

The streets are more crowded by the day and more shops are opening. Can you imagine having to stop all your work for two weeks? A huge part of the population, especially shop owners, groceries and the like all depend on a daybyday income. Two weeks is a lot of time with no money. Most manual labor is paid by the day and all these people have to sit at home because there is no work. Shop owners who live near their shops are opening; banks are open even private banks and life goes on. Things cost double their normal price but we are happy that you can still buy what you need from shops because this means we can keep what we have stored for harder days which are sure to come.

April 2nd:
Pachechi was on all the Arabic news stations with interviews and talk shows. If it is a choice between him and Chalabi. I go for Pachechi. (Elonka's Note: Search on this second name with the spelling of "Pachachi")

April 7th:
Since the day the Airport was seized we have no electricity and water is not reliable, at times if you have a tap that is higher than 50cm you won’t get water from it. . . . Right after that we saw Al-Sahaf denying once again what we have just seen minutes ago. He kept insisting that there are no American troops in ... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Salam Pax Is Back!

Under the title of "Arab-American denies plotting with al-Qaeda against US", Hawash's story has found its way to the Arab world's press:

] Maher Mofeid Hawash, 39, also known as Mike Hawash,
] appeared in court in Portland in the northwestern state
] of Oregon to deny the charges that have landed him in
] jail along with six co-accused.
 . . .
] All seven are charged with violating federal US laws by
] providing material support to a foreign terrorist group
] and conspiring to contribute services to al-Qaeda, which
] launched the September 11, 2001 attacks on US targets.

Arab Times: Hawash pleads not guilty

] A few hundred yards away, the team found more equipment
] that scavengers had tried to drag toward a parking lot.
]
] Next to a heavy lathe were 19 small yellow cylinders and
] four large gray ones. They were emitting so much gamma
] and neutron radiation that the team could not interpret
] the results

More information on Tuwaitha.

Washington Post: Iraqi Nuclear Site (Tuwaitha) Is Found Looted

] Garner named Massoud Barzani from the Kurdistan
] Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the rival Patriotic
] Union of Kurdistan, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim from the Supreme
] Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi of
] the Iraqi National Congress and Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi
] National Accord.

Ugh. I knew it, he's been laying low, but they named him anyway. Chalabi, the one who's already up on fraud charges in Jordan. Blech.

US names five Iraqis to form core government

] BAGHDAD – In an Iraqi teenager's youthful hand, Amal wrote her
] war diary, committing to the pages of her orange journal the
] emotions of a family at Baghdad's ground zero.

Daily entries from March 16 - April 17.

Iraqi Teen's War Diary

This is an article from last week (4/25/2003) about the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. In this article, there's brief mention that looting evidently took place, but not what was taken. The MEMRI article from today (5/1: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD49703 ) goes into more detail about what was taken, and how the radioactive material is steadily contaminating civilian homes in the area.

Washington Post: Iraqi Site That Contained Uranium Was Looted After War

] "When order was disrupted, simple citizens -- sorry
] to say -- did not have containers to store drinking
] water, so they stole those barrels, each one containing
] 400 kilos of radioactive uranium. Some of them dumped the
] powder on the ground in very large quantities, and others
] took the contaminated barrels to their homes, and the
] barrels appeared in various areas. They stored water in
] them, and had every intention of drinking from them or
] [using] the barrels to sell milk."
]
] "I visited some homes and measured radioactivity; I saw
] with my own eyes in one of the homes a contaminated
] barrel used to store tomatoes for eating. In other
] barrels they stored cooking utensils and other household
] utensils for everyday use, not knowing that some of them
] were contaminated. When they realized that these
] components were radioactive, they dumped some of them in
] the river or the sewer system. We found radioactive
] materials in homes, in beds, and in clothing. I saw a
] ten-year old girl, who had a yellow cake [disc] hanging
] from the button of her shirt."

OMG

MEMRI: Iraqi Citizens Accidentally Stole Uranium Containers and Used Them to Store Food, Then Dumped Them in the River

] A PERFORMANCE-BASED ROAD MAP TO A PERMANENT TWO-STATE SOLUTION
] TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
]
] The following is a performance-based and goal driven roadmap,
] with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks
] aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties
] in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and
] institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet.
] The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the
] Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President
] Bush's speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia, and
] the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial
] statements.

This is the full list of goals and timeline. I have profound doubts that either side will be able to stick to it though. :/

albawaba.com: Full text of Middle East ''road map'' to peace