"I don't think the timing of those comments was necessarily the best. I think they could have been better timed. I had no idea when I said them what the timing of the military operation would be."

"A lobbying fight over which mobile-phone technology should be established in a postwar Iraq has raised questions about whether that nation's anticipated reconstruction will be carried out in the best interests of its people, or of well-connected U.S. companies.

"Looking to capitalize on discord between the U.S. and some European allies over the decision to invade, one congressman has demanded that planners opt for a technology developed by a U.S. company -- although it might be less suited to the needs of Iraqis.

"The U.S. Agency for International Development is planning to rebuild Iraq's aging and war-torn telephone system, as part of a broader reconstruction effort. The agency is expected to propose spending more than $1 billion on the telecommunications project, much of it underwritten by U.S. taxpayers....

"One of the first battles to emerge is over rival mobile-phone technologies. Qualcomm Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. are pressing for a wireless standard called CDMA.

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), whose district is near Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters, said he had 41 co-sponsors for legislation he introduced Thursday backing CDMA in any taxpayer-financed rebuilding efforts. In letters to USAID and fellow lawmakers, he said the government tentatively had planned to use GSM, a rival system widely used in the Middle East, Europe and increasingly in the U.S.

"Mr. Issa dismissed the GSM technology as 'developed by the French.'....nearly all the wireless networks in the rest of the Middle East use GSM; because the two networks aren't compatible, an Iraqi using a CDMA phone likely wouldn't be able to make a call if they traveled elsewhere in the region."

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stern warning to Syria on Friday to stop sending military equipment to Iraqi forces, saying such shipments have included night-vision goggles. "We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government responsible for the incidents," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.

"There's no question but that to the extent that military supplies or equipment or people are moving across the borders between Iraq and Syria, it vastly complicates our situation," Rumsfeld said."

"I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold. Ten times, that is what we stand for."

I was with the LRA for six months and during this time many abductees escaped. Not all were so lucky. One boy tried to escape and was caught, tied up, and marched back to camp. All the recruits from the various companies were told that we were never going home, that we were fighting now with the LRA so as a symbol of our pledge to fight on, this boy would be killed and we would help. Soldiers then laid the boy on the ground and stabbed him three times with a bayonet until the blood began seeping from the wounds. Then the new recruits approached the boy and beat him on the chest. Each one had a turn and could only stop once the blood from the body splashed up on to you. This boy was sixteen years old. We were beating him with sticks, each recruit was given a stick.

US forces may have ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan more than a year ago, but their influence still permeates across the border in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province. Last weekend, a new fundamentalist government there announced plans to establish a version of sharia (Islamic law) similar in many ways to the rigid code practiced by the Taliban.

Mullahs representing an alliance of extremist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e Amal (MMA), have ruled the province since gaining an unprecedented majority in general elections last fall, cresting on a wave of anti-US sentiment following attacks on Afghanistan. Until then, religious leaders always commanded a following in the tribal areas - but had no real decision-making powers.

In some ways, the proposed laws are a diluted version of the sharia practiced by the Taliban. Girls will be required to cover their heads with scarves, but won't need to entirely veil themselves. And rather than banning education for women, the new laws will require separate universities for men and women. Yet many here fear the laws are a prelude to the Taliban's harsher practices.

"It is just a beginning of Talibanization of society. They always did identify with the Taliban ideology, so once the laws are implemented there will be no difference between them, and they will tread the same path as the barbaric mullahs of Afghanistan," says Farzana Bari, a leading rights activist who heads Pattan, a nongovernmental organization in Islamabad.

A shariat council wrote the laws, and a provincial cabinet has already approved them. Ruling fundamentalists say a local assembly will vote on them sometime next month. Because fundamentalists enjoy a two-thirds majority in the house, a vote in favor is probable. Even before the weekend announcement, Islamic militants in Peshawar, the capital city of the frontier, were burning video cassettes and whitewashing signs with female models.