Australian troops secretly attacked Iraqi forces a day before war was announced by either the US or Australian governments.
SAS units attacked Iraqi positions on the evening of March 18 (Iraq time). This was 16 hours after President Bush had given Saddam Hussein a 48 hour ultimatum to leave Iraq or be attacked. The troops had secretly entered Iraq before the attack. (Source: The Age) The Iraqi Governing Council appointed by the United States has decided that family laws should be "cancelled" and issues such as divorce placed under strict religious law. The status of Iraqi women was much better than in other Middle Eastern countries, with laws prohibiting child marriage, arbitrary divorce (in some countries men can divorce their wives instantly just by announcing the fact), or official sexism in child custody or property disputes. The chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has dictatorial powers and is expected to veto the decision. However the US government is planning to hand over power (without direct elections) in June. (Source: The Age) Victorian taxpayers are paying about $18,000 a week to prop up the Mount Buffalo Chalet tourist resort, whose private operator has been accused of financial mismanagement. Parks Victoria chief executive Mark Stone said payments had been made since November last year. Mr Stone said that "whether the chalet is occupied or not we still have to run the sewerage and water systems up there". Chalet operator Robert Arnold is at the centre of allegations including an Australian Securities and Investments Commission complaint, claims that staff superannuation has not been paid, failure to comply with payroll tax requirements and failure to pay creditors. A source told The Sunday Age that employees' superannuation had not been paid since December 2002, with staff voluntary contributions not being included in the fund. The source also said that the Australian Tax Office was owed more than $1 million in unpaid payroll tax. A former employee of the chalet said that she had received no superannuation payments since June 30, 2002, and the voluntary contributions being set aside by staff were not entering the fund. She said former employees had contacted the Tax Office to check the state of their superannuation funds. She said there had also been delays of up to three weeks in the payment of staff wages. One employee says he is owed more than $10,000 in unpaid leave and other entitlements. "I don't believe I'll see any of my money," he said. (Source: The Age) The suicide rate among US soldiers occupying Iraq is rising, and is now 30 percent higher than the rate in peacetime. The 21 military suicides so far represent 4.2 per cent of the 496 American deaths in Iraq. William Winkenwerder, US assistant secretary of defence for health affairs, said "we don't see a trend there in looking at these cases that tells us there is more we might be doing". (Source: Hearst Newspapers, The New York Times) A mentally ill man who was shot dead by police after attacking someone, had been trying to get help for days but was ignored by the health system. Awale Mohamed had been telling people that he was ready to kill himself. A GP diagnosed Mr Mohamed as schitzophrenic, and wrote an urgent referral to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said he could see Mr Mohamed in six weeks. St George public hospital in Sydney said they could not assess him until the next afternoon. When he finally reached the hospital's mental health unit, he was sent home after an hour's assessment by a nurse with an assurance that he would be OK, despite relatives telling the nurse that Mr Mohamed was planning to kill himself and could hurt other people. The nurse refused to let Mr Mohamed be assessed by a doctor. Twenty-four hours later, Mr Mohamed was taken back to St George in an ambulance, having been shot dead in the street by police. Mr Mohamed's cousin Sugule said that "he should have got the help that was asked for, and he should not have died". (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) Contracts signed under the government's information technology outsourcing program are running at least $750 million over budget. Under the program, government departments paid private companies to do computer work which would previously have been done inside the department. Advocates of the free market said that this would be cheaper and more efficient. The government has abandoned the program, but contracts that are already signed are still in effect. (Source: Financial Review) Quotes of the Week: "My time in Iraq has always involved finding things to convince myself that I can be proud of my actions; that I was a part of something just. But no matter what pro-war argument I came up with, I pictured my smirking commander-in-chief, thinking he was fooling a nation". (Mike Prysner, a US soldier in Iraq) "You'd be surprised at how many of the guys I talked to in my company and others believed that the president's scare about Saddam's WMD was a bunch of bullshit and that the real motivation for this war was only about money". (An anonymous US soldier in Iraq) "Wow, 130,000 troops on the ground, nearly 500 deaths and over a billion dollars a day, but they caught a guy living in a hole. am i supposed to be dazzled?" (another anonymous US soldier) "My step-son ________ has been in Iraq since March 19th. Last night he spoke to my husband on the phone (no, not a phone provided by the US government, an Iraqi satellite phone which he pays for himself). His unit got hit in a mortar attack. He watched one of his comrades get his legs blown off. His buddy tied tourniquets around the other soldier's legs and managed to stop arterial bleeding, luckily he is still alive. _______ tried to give one soldier (a woman MP) CPR but she died in his arms _______ said that this is the worst it's been since the "end" of the war. He said the troops have been given new rules of engagement, and that they are to "take out" any persons who aggress on the Americans, even if it results in "collateral" damage. Unfortunately, _______ did have to kill someone in self defense and was told by his commanding officer "Good kill." _______ replied "You just don't get it, do you?". Here we are...Vietnam all over again". (the source for all these letters is Mike Moore's website). 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