Ken Livingstone on George Galloway

“I’ve known George for 20 years and there’s always been something about him that you can’t quite put your finger on. You feel that behind all the rhetoric, it’s all about George, its always about George” (The Independent, April 21 2005) (AJ)

The Shame of the Independent

The author William Shawcross has written a letter to the Independent newspaper complaining about their coverage of the death of Marla Ruzicka.
Sir: Marla Ruzicka was a brave and selfless woman who did an enormous amount in her short life for innocent victims of conflict. To run the story of her death under the splash headline “The senseless death of the woman who fought George Bush” (19 April) is totally misleading. She was murdered by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Your editorial rightly praised her work and you said her legacy “should put many politicians in America, and in our own country, to shame”. Yet you have no criticism for those who murdered her. That puts you to shame. WILLIAM SHAWCROSS, LONDON W2 (AJ)

Mandela Advisor leads UN team to help Iraqis draft new constitution

Nicholas Fink Haysom was a legal advisor to Nelson Mandela throughout his term of office as president of South Africa. A constitutional expert, Haysom has been designated by the UN to lead its team to work with Iraqis to draft a new constitution. Haysom has vast experience having worked as a consultant on constitutional reform, conflict resolution and good governance in Lebanon, Nigeria, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Sudan, Somalia and Sri Lanka. The UN website expresses its hope that the expertise of the UN team, and the standing of the UN will be used in the process. Any further UN-isation of the transitional political process is good for Iraq. (AJ)

Valuing all lives: a tribute to Marla Ruzicka

Marla
Ruzicka, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, is remembered by her friends in an article at Common Dreams. Marla sought to record the innocent victims of the conflict in Afghanistan and in Iraq and, as the Independent editorial puts it today, to “put a human face on the victims of US military intervention.” LFIQ concurs that there needs to be an independent and fully funded study to discover the true number of deaths in Iraq not just those of foreign soldiers.

Iraq: Latest Quality of Life Indicators

The Brookings Institute is an independent think-tank based in Washington. It is associated with the liberal wing of US Politics. Every Monday and Thursday it updates a comprehensive Iraq Index, a catalogue of statistics relating to Iraq reconstruction and opinion. The latest quality of life indicators show progress but the pace of improvement remains frustratingly slow. Countries that have pledged donations need to deliver. Reconstruction funds needs to be dispersed. Unemployment remains the number one priority for the new Iraqi government and the coalition. Here are some of the key indicators (AJ):

Continue reading Iraq: Latest Quality of Life Indicators

Labour’s manifesto on Iraq

The Labour Party manifesto says the following: ‘We mourn the loss of life of innocent civilians and coalition forces in the war in Iraq and the subsequent terrorism. But the butchery of Saddam is over and across Iraq 8 million people risked their lives to vote earlier this year. Many people disagreed with the action we took in Iraq. We respect and understand their views but we should now unite to support the fledgling democracy in Iraq. British troops should remain there under a UN mandate as long as the democratically elected Government wants them there. They will continue to train Iraqi security forces to take responsibility for their own future.’
LFIQ believes that this addresses the legitimate differences between party members on the war and rightly focuses on giving support to the emerging Iraqi democracy which we will continue to argue should be given a great priority by the next Labour Government.