July 5 - Article in the Sun (UK) about the stirring bayonet charge by British sodliers in Iraq (Army's fearless five:

THE staggering heroism of five British soldiers as they helped rout more than a HUNDRED Iraqi rebels is revealed for the first time today by The Sun.

The men came to the rescue of ambushed comrades — saving their lives with the Army’s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago.

After a bloody battle which raged for four hours at least 28 of the enemy lay dead. Fleeing cohorts are thought to have dragged away at least the same number of bodies.

Just two of Our Boys were slightly wounded. Last night the brave troops — members of the same regiment as the private tipped for a Victoria Cross — told of the desperate fight.

Private Anthony Rushforth, 23, said: “We were pumped up on adrenaline — proper angry. It’s only afterwards you think, ‘Jesus, I actually did that’.”

The terrifying bayonet charge by the members of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment — nicknamed The Tigers — saw trench after trench taken from the enemy.

It was led by Sgt Major Dave Falconer, 36. He said of his men: “I am very proud of them.”

The other heroes were Sgt Chris Broome, 35, and privates John-Claude Fowler, 19 and Matthew Tatawaqa, 23. The men, from C Company, raced to the rescue in Warrior armoured vehicles after an ambush by rebels loyal to rogue ShiÂ’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Two Land Rovers transporting Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been pinned down by heavy fire south of Al Amarah, 150 miles from Basra.

As the Warriors arrived, they too were targeted by machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

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July 5 - Canadian Sampson believes he was freed as part of Saudi-U.S. terror deal:

OTTAWA (CP) - The tale of Bill Sampson, a Canadian jailed fort (sic) 31 months and accused of terrorism and murder in Saudi Arabia, has taken another bizarre twist with a claim that he finally won his freedom last year in a prisoner exchange brokered by the United States.

In return for the release of Sampson and other westerners held in Riyadh, the Americans agreed to send five Saudi terror suspects they had captured back to their homeland, the New York Times reported Sunday. The Canadian government had no immediate comment, other than to say it was looking into the matter.

Sampson, in a telephone interview from Penrith, Britain, where he now makes his home, said he's convinced the story is correct.

"It confirms information that I have found from different sources myself over the last nine months," he said.

[...]

"It's my information that the Saudis themselves broached the idea of an exchange," said Sampson.

"We were used from the very, very outset as hostages, and this had been deliberate from the start, to use us as a means of leverage against western governments."

The Times, quoting anonymous U.S. and British officials, said the prisoner exchange that finally freed Sampson was engineered by Robert Jordan, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

The deal was controversial in Washington, where some officials thought the U.S. was taking too big a risk by releasing potentially dangerous terrorist suspects from Guantanamo, said the newspaper.

But the Americans reportedly went ahead because they wanted to help British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a loyal ally in the war then shaping up in Iraq.

Blair's government had been trying to win the release of six Britons held along with Sampson, who is a dual Canadian-British citizen. Also held was Belgian Raf Schveyns.

All were arrested following a series of bombings in Riyadh that westerners claimed were the work of al-Qaida terrorists and the Saudis claimed were part of a turf war among western bootleggers involved in the illicit alcohol trade.

All eight westerners were finally set free in August 2003, three months after the five Guantanamo prisoners were sent home to Saudi Arabia.

Sampson said the Belgian documents, obtained and shown to him by Schveyns following their release, indicate that diplomats in Riyadh were worried about the three-month time lag.

05:12: CNN is carrying the story. The Saudis say the report is "pure fantasy" and US National Security Spokesman Sean McCormack said there was "no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions."

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.-D) is very worried about the release of the Gitmo prisoners and thinks there was undue influence by the Saudis, but his comments had nothing to do with the upcoming presidential campaign because CNN doesn't connect the two.

[Read on to see what kind of "influence" was being exerted, and I apologize to Canadians and the British for the indifferent CNN coverage]

The Daily Telegraph (UK) takes an entirely different slant:

United States officials yesterday accused Saudi Arabia of demanding - and receiving - the release of Saudi terrorist suspects from Guantanamo Bay as the secret price for last year's diplomatic deal to release six Britons accused of a deadly bombing campaign.

The allegations, levelled by senior American officials in the New York Times, cast new light on what was already one of the murkiest episodes in Saudi-British relations.

The six Britons and one British-born Canadian returned home last August after a bizarre two-year ordeal that saw them accused of plotting a string of bombings that ended in the death of a fellow Briton in late 2000.

Though western residents and diplomats insisted that the bombings were the work of Islamic militants, Saudi authorities claimed that the bombs were the result of a feud between foreign bootleggers, illegally selling alcohol within the expatriate community.

The seven confessed to a variety of "crimes", but later retracted their confessions. They have since launched a High Court legal action naming high-ranking Saudi leaders, saying they were tortured into false confessions as Saudi authorities tried to cover up the existence of al-Qa'eda terrorists in the kingdom.

Two men, Sandy Mitchell and a Canadian, William Sampson, were sentenced to public beheading, four were sentenced to 12-year jail terms and the seventh was detained for 10 months but not charged. They were all granted clemency last summer and were released three weeks later after signing a letter apologising to King Fahd and thanking his subjects for their hospitality. (Emphasis added.)

When they arrived in Britain, credit was given to British Government pressure and to the Prince of Wales, who made a private plea for clemency to the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah.

[...]

One American source described as knowledgeable about the negotiations told the New York Times: "This presented itself as a way for the United States to help its friends, both the Brits and the Saudis. It's what diplomacy is all about."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London declined to confirm or deny US involvement in brokering the three-way deal, saying: "We worked very hard to secure the release of the men, and were relieved when they were released."

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July 1 - Robert at Expat Yank concludes that the BBC is bored with Iraq and that accounts for their sudden interest in what they perceive as sudden US interest in the Sudan, but rest assured, the BBC comes up with the usual suspects starting with the Oil (or maybe it should be oiiilll!!!.)

Robert calls the BBC on their dimestore punditry. One excerpt:

One is the pressure from right-wing Christian groups in the US, who have taken up the cause of their fellow Christians in Sudan.

Their nagging - on the issues of slavery and the forcible imposition of Sharia law - helped get sanctions imposed on Sudan in 1997. . .

"Nagging"? She actually wrote, "nagging." Well, darn it, but slavery and sharia tend to make the open-minded, democratic and, yes, even "right-wing Christians", a bit tense. It might even lead some to "nag" . . . and one would think that might be a tad understandable.

It is getting harder and harder to keep up with the BBC. Since the item clearly indicates annoyance with (and perhaps even condemnation of) the nagging lobbying of the right-wing Christians on the issues of slavery and sharia in Sudan, does that mean the BBC is pro-slavery? Or maybe that they are willing to tolerate slavery as an expression of diversity?

Oh well, the BBC got all bases covered for whatever happens in Sudan. It will be about the oil, right-wing Christians, and cited as another failure in Bush diplomacy (but not U.N. diplomacy. Never that.)

(Note that the BBC item was written before Annan's visit to the hastily abandoned refugee camp in Sudan.)

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