The young man wearing the brown shawl summed it up succinctly: "We want you to go back home. We do not want your American and British aid," he said, his eyes flashing with anger.  
 
If the British humanitarian taskforce had any doubts as to the legitimacy of his claims, the sudden burst of gunfire from a nearby building left no one in any doubt.  
 
The first attempt to deliver aid to the Iraqi people was, in all respects, a practical and logistical disaster. A convoy of vehicles, including two water tankers and as many Warrior armoured vehicles, had set off from the abandoned Shaiba airfield earlier. The intent was to deliver food and water to win over the hearts and minds of the beleaguered Iraqis.  
 
As the convoy pulled up inside the town, however, a crowd of predominantly young men ran towards it. Fights and skirmishes broke out for bottles of water. Iraqis asked for food and cigarettes. And while a cordon was quickly created, hundreds rushed towards the trucks, overpowering the soldiers.  
 
"We have had no water and no food," said Ali Abdullah, 50. He stood away from the crowd, stroking his beard and surveyed the scene intently as crowds of young men fought over the water.  
 
"For five days now, we have been without electricity. Have you brought some electricity?"  
 
The exercise had been beset with a number of difficulties from the outset. On leaving the nearby Shaiba airfield - a series of abandoned hangars, runways and outbuildings on the road to Basra - there had been innumerable delays as reports of violence filtered back from Zubayr. Earlier, there had been a delay in confirming security in the town.  
 
Inside Zubayr, however, the distribution initially began with good nature. Young men joked with each other, smiled and passed around bottles of water. Within 10 minutes, however, an undercurrent of resentment flowed to the surface. The war, the bombing, sanctions and their cumulative toll all boiled over.  
 
Jalil Ali, 25, the young Iraqi in the brown shawl, asked if any of the humanitarian aid was being provided by Americans.  
 
"Take it back," he yelled, pretending to push it away. "We want the Americans to go back home. We do not need them here. Go back home. I do not need this."
 
Around him, his friends giggled. Not far away, people rushed out of earthen buildings and raced down a dual carriageway. Ali, however, seemed to realise the irony only too well. "They bomb. And now they want to give water and food. How can they do both? How?" It was then that the gunfire erupted.  
 
Earlier, the soldiers had been optimistic but pensive. After enduring a rainy and windy night in the disused hangar at the Shaiba airfield, the convoy had been well intentioned. It was a curious sight: a line of trucks bearing much-needed humani tarian aid - aid that betrayed all the hallmarks of an occupying force, but aid none the less. The Iraqis, while initially jubilant, were quickly sceptical.  
 
"I need electricity," said Moyed Abdullah, 33. "I need to power my house. See the electricity lines? They are not working; they have not been working for days. Do you bring any electricity?"  
 
Around him, British and US soldiers struggled to control the crowds. Time and again, the Iraqis were pushed back - always, they seemed to slip in under the makeshift rope-line. After a while, it seemed, it was better simply to stand back and wait for the inevitable to happen.  
 
The burst of gunfire from across the road finally stopped all attempts to supply the aid. As soldiers leapt into the jeeps, a Warrior turned round and took out the position the gunfire had come from. And with daylight fast fading, the humanitarian taskforce decided to speed back to its base at Shaibah airfield.  
 
Tomorrow, they will undoubtedly try again to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi civilians. And presumably tomorrow, they will encounter yet more resentment.

"Bush Ideologues Reshape the World Over Breakfast"  
 
So ran the front-page headline in the Financial Times. The story described a "victory celebration" at the American Enterprise Institute the morning the Marines rolled into Iraq.  
 
The AEI panelist-celebrants were Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, Richard Perle of the Pentagon's Defense Review Board and Michael Ledeen, author of "The Terror Masters." Apparently, the boys were yukking it up over what we were going to do to the French, Germans, Iranians, Syrians and Untied Nations, after we polished off the Iraqis.
 
Kristol bewailed the failure of Bush's father to take Baghdad. This resulted in a regrettable "lack of awe" among Arabs, said he. Perle joked that there were more anti-war demonstrators in San Francisco than Iraqis willing to fight for their country. Ledeen said France and Germany had reached "new lows of disgustingness" by "shoring up tyrannical regimes." Then he went into his mantra about the need for "a longer war."  
 
Kristol urged that we split Germany off from France but noted that such "intelligent diplomacy may be too much to hope for from the State Department." When Perle declared that "Americans are not vindictive," Ledeen interrupted to say that, in the case of France, he certainly hoped we would be.  
 
What was it Burke said? Great empires and small minds go ill together. But back of all this braggadocio, there are great questions here that President Bush will soon have to confront. Where do we go after Iraq? The logic of the Bush Doctrine ? "We will not permit the world's worst dictators to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons" ? points to a clash with Iran. Iran is also the preferred target of Ariel Sharon, who seems frustrated he has not been invited to do target acquisition for the U.S. Air Force.  
 
Well, why not Iran? After all, once a U.S. proconsul is installed in Baghdad, Iran will be surrounded by U.S. military power in Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, the Arabian Sea, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Why not do Iran after Iraq?
 
The are problems, however, with this scenario. Iran is three times as large and populous as Iraq, and more Iranians will likely fight for Islam than Iraqis were willing to fight for Saddam. Who will be our allies in this war? Tony Blair, who just survived a near-death experience? On what authority would we confront Iran? Tehran has not defied 18 U.N. resolutions.  
 
In short, if Bush is going to pursue the Kristol-Perle-Ledeen policy, he will have to go it alone ? against Europe and the Islamic world, the U.N. and the "international community." Is Bush up to it, when the war on Iraq ? a country ruled by a tyrant out of central casting ? ignited anti-American convulsions worldwide, including huge demonstrations in the United States?  
 
A second candidate for pre-emptive war is North Korea. Compared to Pyongyang, Tehran is the Garden of Eden. And while Iran may be challenging the Bush Doctrine by building nuclear reactors and mining uranium, Kim Jong-Il has been spitting his defiance in our face. Thus far, we have been politely wiping it off.
 
The trouble with North Korea, though, is that this regime may not only have atomic weapons, it has hundreds of missiles that can rain death and destruction on South Korea and Japan, and 11,000 artillery pieces that can put scores of thousands of shells on U.S. troops, on the DMZ and in the suburbs of Seoul on day one of the war.  
 
Nor is there any diplomatic support from China, Russia, Japan or South Korea for confrontation with the North.
 
What President Bush is faced with is one of those computer chess games, where defeating it in stage one and two is easy, but stages three, four and five become progressively more difficult. He took down the Taliban regime with almost no casualties. Taking down Saddam required a quarter of a million men. What will it take to take down Iran or North Korea, or both? Can Americans be persuaded that these regimes had something to do with 9-11 and must be smashed, else we are not safe?
 
Then there is the Bush pledge to Blair and the Arabs to bring Sharon around to signing on to the "road map" for peace. Can that commitment be honored if Sharon balks?  
 
What do we do if the Turks decide their vital interest in not having an independent Kurdistan requires a permanent Turkish army presence in northern Iraq?  
 
After Baghdad falls ? and that battle is still ahead as of this writing ? the big decisions come. Those toasts to America's future wars at that AEI breakfast may have been premature.

En Espagne, l?opposition à la guerre ne faiblit pas et menace de traîner Aznar devant le Tribunal pénal international (TPI) pour crime d?agression

Par ailleurs, les premières distributions d?aide ont été un désastre logistique et pratique, rapporte le ?Guardian? de Londres. La situation est si embarrassante pour les Américains qu?ils se retrouvent à brandir le ?joker? de l?ONU, constate ?La Tribune? de Genève.

Le quotidien californien s?inquiète cependant que cette ?bataille de long terme? ait pris un bien mauvais départ. En effet, la Grande-Bretagne reproche à Washington la mainmise américaine sur les contrats de la reconstruction du pays, rapporte ?Le Temps? de Genève.

?La destruction de l?Irak, du pain bénit pour l?économie? est le titre donné par ?La Jornada? de Mexico à son éditorial. ?On est en droit de se demander quelle part des 75 milliards demandés par Bush au Congrès tombera dans les poches de Dick Cheney et de ses partenaires?, avance le journal, qui rappelle que le vice-président américain était encore, il y a peu, PDG de l?une des plus grandes entreprises du bâtiment du pays.

De son côté, ?L?Economiste? de Casablanca commente l?expulsion des journalistes de la chaîne de télévision Al Jazira de la Bourse de New York : les Etats-Unis ?ne redessineront pas que la carte politique de l?Irak et de la région. La recomposition s?étend à l?information. Dans quelques jours ou quelques semaines, elle s?étendra au pétrole et peut-être, plus tard, au commerce, aux finances??