three thirty am in moscow we're bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's headlines here on r t the u.s. is stripped of its prize aaa credit rating for the first time triggering fears of another global financial downturn as investors ready for a black monday the downgrade comes despite the white house making a last minute deal with republicans to raise the country's debt ceiling. in the eurozone debt woes provoke a turbulent week with european central bankers now agreeing to buy italian and spanish bonds to stop the rot brussels is already that italy's economy fails it

would be too big to rescue and it could drive the whole currency down with it. and demonstrations in israel as a quarter of a million protesters demand the government drive down the cost of living or go prime minister netanyahu has set up a team looking at reducing taxes but the opposition says he's trying to end the protests not deal with the issues. and finally we're in the republic of south ossetia marking three years since the conflict with georgia devastated the region but finally brought recognition morial services are being held in the capital symbol for the victims of the conflict. up next our special report on the invasion of iraq and the consequences for the country after the war. those weapons inspection process was little more than a game they can see all denied to see return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever to eliminate by inspection is quite frankly a fool's errand on the contrary there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that saddam was somehow. back in

his box reality is that between the original unscom inspections and the unmovic inspections you destroyed with those inspections ninety two probably ninety five percent of the iraqi arsenal the first gulf war destroyed almost nothing. and you know post-war u.s. battle damage assessments confirm the weapons inspectors were effective but for saddam to get rid of this stuff. they had the country under control by nine hundred ninety eight at the latest those inspectors have discovered most of the weapons of mass destruction and the iraqi programs at that point were essentially at an end before the war in iraq the united nations inspectors told us. that that i've been saying. did not have nuclear weapons

capability ironically the major effect of the invasion of iraq in terms of weapons of mass destruction has to be has been to show that the inspectors were right all along the inspection regime worked. it was the most intrusive inspection regime histories and it worked and i think the day that's another reason why we went to war from. these maniacs. purging our enemies and weakening our troops' resolve and confusing the american people well you should listen to these protests because they're obviously hoping saddam hussein who would have guessed that you could build a massive international peace movement on the protection of sadam hussein the media is culpable for the misleading of the american public they've bought into the bush

administration's rhetoric they don't understand that there was moral violence and immoral while and we use moral violence god bless this president he is truly a great man reducing troop morale confusing the american people involving our enemies they are absolutely committing sedition or treason as far as i'm concerned there's a huge difference between personal opinion and opinion which the grades and the bases are military in a time of war it's a disgrace i don't believe the mainstream media acted responsibly in regards to iraq you know i was be little i was called a traitor i was called crazy palos on of c.n.n. accused me of drinking saddam hussein's kool-aid for making accurate statements of response to aluminum tubes people out there accusing you of drinking saddam hussein's co i thought of an ideologue and i'm a republican ideologue i'm actually a fairly conservative person who voted for george w. bush but i don't allow my ideology to get in the way of the facts and the reality

of my duties and responsibilities as an american citizen the media supposed to be the fourth the state that they decide is completely climb in bed with the administration on this in a way the administration constructed a box were and that was that box and all the information that they're going to stray she wanted to community and the public and congress what they would do is you to have the iraqi national congress. taking bogus defectors the information from him giving him to the pentagon and then the iraqi national congress then giving him to the journalists and they said if you don't believe us the iraqi national congress call the pentagon so you have the circular reporting and you had the new york times admitting that it was using one source for all of its information and weapons of mass destruction and it was as you know subtle firming by going to the pentagon which to put this stuff on paper it was served. a lot of exaggerations partial information sometimes the whole information but on balance

a very one sided view of iraq's new program and a lot of these stories the journalist didn't want to look into because the editors told them to run with wouldn't be supportive of the administration it's a patriotic thing to do i think that there was a part of me too much of in a sense getting into the upcoming war and not enough look at it we really need to go there were some journalists out there raising the alarm bells the seymour hersh is the walter pincus of the world but unfortunately those great investigative reporters there are usually exiled when the heat is on and it's only after the fact that they end up being praised and given the pats on the back and the excitement was to make the case to go to war you know to show that you know and that was the controversy to the media markets you know it was the titillation of wm d. here us not to not there to the ration of the conflict of tacky administration both the washington post new york times it very conservative editors that support of the

white house on this. the people of the united states and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an ally. that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder is a regime as an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons and let there be no doubt about it we know for a fact that there are weapons there. there were a group of people who for many years had advocated going after saddam hussein and they push this hard and of course raw intelligence data can be interpreted in a lot of different places i'm sure experts will talk to you about. and so there were a group of people i think that were adamant that this was the right course to pursue .

to illyria. illyria. we'll eat. sleep. q c a s c a. t m. we'll. be i'm. so so. pleased to

be a. medium. why did the administration so dramatically underestimate the cost of this war we did not have perfect foresight and two thought we were going on in iraq. with the cost of the war rising and a search for weapons of mass destruction going nowhere the administration turns to david kay this work is being carried out into the direction of dr david kay respected scientist and former u.n. inspector was leading the weapons search in iraq we are determined to take this apart you have a tremendous group of dedicated american men and women involved in this with the best assets of the intelligence community and for by. dr kay and his team are

making progress we have had found a large body of continuing activities and equipment. we are surprised by new advances that will make that work of laboratories and safe houses controlled by iraqi intelligence and security services and unlike pre-war intelligence we don't require someone just to say something we actually need the physical evidence equipment suitable for continuing chemical and biological weapons research. they became instant not going to be done with this for quite some time david kay wants more time and he says it could take another six to nine months to make a definitive finding ministration is asking congress for hundreds of millions more six hundred million dollars to fund a continuing search you have not yet found shiny pointy things that i would call a weapon before we can draw from conclusions we need to let the iraq survey group complete its work. we were all wrong probably in my judgment

and that is most disturbing. it's inevitable that there will be an outside commission appointed i mean he should have this gravity. and we will get to the bottom of this and we will let the chips fall where they may democracy you have an obligation your obligation is to speak truthfully to the public that's the basis of civility in our belief in our system of government it is going to require an outside effort probably through an outside commission to deal with some of these very serious problems is i think explanations are important in a democracy this whole episode has caught the white house completely by surprise they've become so fearful of admitting error that they stand up and defend things that only are face to face are untruthful president bush is being pounded with calls for an independent investigation into how u.s. intelligence so badly misjudged iraq's capabilities before the war that the

president holding all the cards pointing all the people having everybody accountable to him is a very bad idea if i would care to try to operationalize some of the comments i made about what was going wrong in iraq and so i said if you among other things that if you're going to do this you have to treat it like an intelligence problem and that is not go looking for hidden weapons but going looking for the people who would be associated with hidden weapons one of the first things that worried me was we had a big army running through iraq in march and april the d.m.d. was not used against them. nor was it found. that's sort of remarkable if they had had large stockpiles i really believe in the jungle telegraph put the word out on sprayed let people know what you're about to watch out offer and usually you'll get people coming to you around a weapons program if a weapons program exists you're going to find people people engaged in the production of technology engineering design people involved in protecting the

weapons people involved in moving them and people involved in preparing to use the weapons we found none of them we were running and so fewer and fewer leads but look profitable and a lot of evidence that stopped up to explain something other than large stockpiles of weapons this committee has a special responsibility to the men and women of our armed forces to look at the prewar intelligence because planning for military operations is policymakers take data they interpret threat they assess risk and you talk about. how much more you express who is left out of the public white paper of the sea any of us feel that the evidence so far leads only to one conclusion. so what has happened was more than a failure of intelligence was a result of unique elation of the intelligence to justify a decision to go to war secret societies have their own rules and. secret societies

generally don't feel an obligation to openly and democratically communicate prime minister blair has set up a sit somewhere commission in great britain at his going to report back into what i write here is not going to be until march of two thousand and five five months after the presidential election should the american people have the benefit of the commission before the election well the reason why if we gave it time is because we didn't want to be hurried this is a this is a a strategic look kind of big picture look about the intelligence gathering capacities of the united states of america. if there are no weapons of mass destruction which there are and if there are no ties with al-qaeda which they were and which they aren't maybe now there are then why do we go to war. well all you need do is go on the web and and download

project for a new american century day you will find the video logical and the strategic underpinnings for this policy which was rejected by george bush the first which is really kewl out of town in those days became the devout policy of this government and was implemented starting with the war i felt in my last year in the pentagon that i felt there was a great deal of contempt for the constraints on government that our constitution lays out. and i also felt that it was it could have been a constitution and i only absorb this sense of complaint by association with with some of the so senior appointed civilians who are all neoconservatives who all believe in dominance who believe in preemption who believe in the military option as the first resort rather than the last resort they have had a very fixed indeed almost obsessive idea that in fact iraq is

a major actor in the world and a probable threat possibly a deadly threat to the united states this is a group of people who are essentially believe that might makes right. that the united states at this stage of history has unchallengable power and therefore responsibility to use it to. make the world over. the manner that we or the other think it ought to be made over i think behind the basic neoconservative philosophy is a considerable arkan's that american interests are the primary. goal of all american foreign policy and they seem to have a really serious abit of not being interested in listening to what other people say about this subject so i don't think it's an accident at all. so much of the

justification turned out to be foolishness. misleading deliberately so they thought they had a place in history they were going to bring dad obviously a fairy dysfunctional arab peninsula as well as a rat and it will change history they believe they won the cold war. and they said i we won the cold war because we were tough but the soviet union we get tough with these people and they become like us it is feared to say the iraq war was a diversion from from the weren't terrorism and certainly people weren't paying as much attention to afghanistan as they should you know of the resources that might have gone to afghanistan and ended up being focused more on iraq if you if you attack another country with no justification people going to say wait a minute this isn't a war on terrorism this is a war on. as imperialism is colonialism you know and this is why it's

a distraction because you need the help of these people get this view that the cia and the f.b.i. are lurking around the bazaars in the souks the middle east and handcuffing people who are assassinated just doesn't work or works you've got to have the help of the locals to get a fire these people and you can put them in jail or remove him from to see only person saddam was a threat to at this point as we saw when the army claps was to iraq he didn't have weapons of mass destruction he wasn't scaring anybody certainly wasn't scaring the iranians or the turks or the saudis or anybody else it was a state that was on the verge of failure now it is a failed state failed states because terrorism you know you can name afghanistan levanon somalia any time you can you create a vacuum it's where people flock to piskun canada to fight wars and some of bin

laden has been saying for years america wants to and they did an arab country occupy an oil rich arab country. he's been saying this is part of his propaganda so what did we do after nine eleven we invade and the oil rich and occupy an oil rich arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us the only real connection is that having invaded iraq. we are very likely to make it a focus of terrorism we're likely to produce what the president has said iraq represents namely the central battlefield in the war on terrorism why because we sent a lot of americans into a place where they're sitting ducks for people who think the only good american is a dead one. on the. iraq cannot be covered by americans ok what the intention is i don't care if

we truly want to build a democracy that they cannot be ruled by foreign power the only tool in the tool box the bush administration is military force and military force is a very blunt instrument it just doesn't work we've created more terrorists in iraq and we hadn't even solve the problem afghanistan one of the more ironic effect of the attack on iraq was. to buttress other countries in the conviction of the famous remark by an indian general after the first gulf war when he said listen this war is that if you if you have to fight in ited states you better have nuclear weapons you don't want your president be seen as a hot dog and when when your president gets into a job suit gets in the back of a jet and lands on an aircraft carrier and then waddles out with this little straps . that's not mean you want

a sign of kind of maturity and testosterone blasting through when you're talking about. things so fundamentally important as something of a shock to warrant sending young men and women to their deaths there is a sense in washington now that you can't raise. objections to this because you're not supporting the troops and if you i would i would rapidly point out that unlike almost anybody i know that holds an office in this country i've had two sons in uniform both of whom have been in combat and so i don't have to take any nonsense from anybody nor will i mark twain's definition of patriotism patriotism is supporting your country all the time. and your government when it deserves it no i don't think it's patriotic to stand by and remain silent while your country stumbles into a disaster of patriotism is the last refuge of sky. interests and i think these are

scoundrels they have no argument now they have no defense for what they did the country is in a terrible international security situation and i think it's perilous so they're attacking the patriotism of others. i know that the insiders don't have it all right make mistakes it's more likely the mistakes if you like in history if there is no criticism it was jefferson who said they had that our kind of government is not based on trust it's based on in fact suspicion to suggest that if you have a different viewpoint than any given an administration and or if you are not supporting the president and policies that may be highly erroneous i don't see that as patriotism at all in fact i would argue that. any patriot with integrity is going to speak out if he or she feels that that we're on the wrong course it's not unpatriotic to demand that congress uphold its constitutional responsibility and

part of the declaration of war it's not unpatriotic to be very upset vocally upset when congress abrogates this constitutional responsibility by transferring war powers forward into the present ited states as they did in october of two thousand and two thousand when you guys were working mastectomy dot com i was out in iraq trying to get rid of saddam and i must kill for bad besides i was going to jail so it doesn't take a whole lot of courage for me to come out against the war and i did at the beginning but i was studiously ignore when we did the first gulf war when i came out of baghdad in one thousand nine hundred one i met with the president of states i met with the senior leadership of both parties and one thing that sticks with me to this day is the extent to which each one of them. explained to me and very emotional terms the extent to which they had had to plan their consciences. to come to the. solution how to vote on the use of force authorization it had been

a moral decision on their part it is a big one that kept them up at night is it thought their way through the us we owe our soldiers our sailors our airmen and our marines nothing less before we send them sometimes the true patriot takes the unpopular course but helps their country of origin stakes and even if they can't persuade at least for me america has this amazing land of opportunity beauty of of idealism hope it is a beacon to the world it's a place of fantastic people and what infuriates me more than anything else is that this is ministration has systematically slander white all that black and the image of america to our friends and allies around the world having the authority and the ability to go and wage war is a very very solemn form and he needs to be done with care and with deliberation and

with genuine forethought and i think that none of that was present in the lead up to this entire what we now call during freedom when going up or has no clothes you have to have a big presence of mind and the courage to stand up and say depression i was. regime is seeking a nuclear bomb. is attempting to purchase which treatment to use shoot you when spinach.

curious fish is thirty eight thousand liters. but you see. saddam hussein in an advanced nuclear weapons development program. the british government is lucid m c recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. and.

wealthy british soil. is not on. the. markets why not scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports on our t.v. . from

.

india all she's afraid of being.