On 22 March 2003 a young man was blown to bits in Iraq by a bomb in a taxt - this marked the first ever suicide bomber in Iraq.

The mystery is that it was in the northern enclave of the Kurds and far from the shock and awe of Baghdad. The murderers of this young man were never found.

The government demonised him in the media, they tried to claim he was some sort of evil spy. In truth he was simply an excellent young journalist trying to bring the truth of the plight of the Kurds to the world when the world had forgotten.

I met him on fathers's day 2002 when he was freely filming Afghan and Iraqi refugees to take the film back to their families if he could, he was a lovely and peaceful young man who would not have hurt a fly.

Last month I saw a photo of his daughter born after his death and wept for this young man, his daughter has his eyes you see.

Beautiful, deep blue eyes looking at the world.

RIP Paul Moran, journalist, husband and father. Our first casualty in Iraq constantly and deliberately forgotten by all but his family and colleagues.

He was not even a combatant and he was trying hard to leave Iraq because his wife was pregnant.

No tears for Paul, no inquest, no investigation, no repatriation by the government - probably just as well ABC did that anyway.

Jeremy Little was the victim later of a bomb, but who cares hey? Not a soldier to be glorified by our "dear Leader" who despises any journalist who doesn't toady to him.

I do not know the latest poll of Iraqis about the "war" and following events but really to judge the effectiveness of these actions. Should we not ask them?

We can judge from Australia's perspective but it is Iraq so lets ask Iraqis.

Also "No political consequence" so far there is none as people through an election voted them in again. Eventually they might suffer something. Time and democracy will tell.

Those elusive weapons of mass destruction are very well hidden... on American soil. How blind we all are.

THERE WERE NO WMD ?

After reading (and then researching this) please let me NEVER hear again the saying "There were no WMD"......

QUOTE:
[The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.]

The 'lefy' response is typified by the following comment:

"General Sada obviously must own shares of Haliburton, bought before the war, and is all part of the conspiracy of lies of people who wanted to go to war"

NOW.. I'M GOING TO SHOUTTTTTTT THIS because I've already brought this info to the forum but it is repeatedly ignored.

1/ SADA WAS ONE OF THE PILOTS TO FLEW THE PLANES TAKING THEM !

2/ Shares in Haliburton ? Conspiracy ? Lies ? if you can research this mans testimony and still say these things, it is abundantly clear that those taking this view are in DEFinite need of psycho therapy for 'entrenched paranoia and delusion'

I guarantee that if G.Bush described a 'Duck' with feathers, webbed feet and a flat bill and goes Quack Quack -that mob would STILL call it a "conspiracy of lies and in reality it is a DOG"

CONCLUSION.

1/ THERE WERE WMD !

2/ PLO have CLAIMED they have them via Syria

3/ SADA WAS THE PILOT WHO FLEW THEM TO SYRIA AND ADMITTED IT.

For goodness sake... take those blinkers off.

David B, writing in capitals still doesn't make something true. Hans Blix, Scott Ritter, David Kay, Charles Deulfer and all the weapons inspectors have said precisely the same thing - Iraq had no WMD.

None, nada, zip and claiming they were flown to Syria is really pointless because that would mean Iraq still had no WMD. The twisted logic of the right wingers in this country is amazing.

America on the other hand used depleted uranium by the tonne, cluster bombs by the hundreds of thousands, phosphorous bombs, new age Mark 77 napalm, bunker busters, daisy cutters and all manner of weapons including new trial weapons.

Give it a rest mate - not even in this new civil war that we have wished on Iraq have any manner of WMD been used.

The rest of the world cannot be wrong David.

Ah, David you might need a bex & good lie down now. No WMD were found, and no evidence has been found they were there to start with.

Your general sounds about as reliable as that other useful idiot Chalabai. Did you belive him also? What's one man's fancies when the U.N. and U.S. found nothing? How much verfication did the NY Sun do?
Mate, you've definitely picked the wrong horse here.

The article makes a valid point regarding the absence of political consequences here in Australia. The fact a sniper got shot by his own sidearm seems to be sufficient to hold everyone's interest as the local-angle story, while the bigger picture is more or less ignored. Whether this is due to political lethargy on behalf of the elctorate, or the sheer weight of support for John Howard in the popular press (not including Fairfax) is hard to decide.