by SCOTT SAXON

January

U.S. forces in Afghanistan began searching door-to-door for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. • Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said Saddam Hussein was “keeping his head down these days,” and indicated the next stops in the terror hunt would be Somalia, Yemen and Indonesia. • Nevada’s Yucca Mountain was chosen as the dumping site for America’s nuclear waste. • President Bush choked on a pretzel and fell down. • UN Human Rights chief Mary Robinson said detainees recently sent to a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay were POW’s and entitled to the protection of international law, contrary to the views of the White House. • Two days after saying he’d testify against Ariel Sharon on crimes against humanity in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres, former Lebanese Christian militia leader Elie Hobeika was blown up in his car. • The United States declared Afghanistan “Taliban-free.” • President Bush called Iran, Iraq and North Korea an “axis of evil”; Iran and Iraq accused Bush of war-mongering. • A tape was released of Osama bin Laden saying the U.S. government would lead its people and “the West in general into an unbearable Hell and choking life.” •

February

200 Israeli Defence Force (IDF) officers and reservists filed a petition demanding an end to Palestinian occupation and refused to serve in the territories. Ariel Sharon called the protest “the beginning of the end of democracy.” By December, the number of “refuseniks” had risen to over 500. • CIA Director George Tenet warned the U.S. would face a massive terrorist attack “within the year.” • President Bush boasted, “When our country was attacked, Americans did not respond with bigotry.” • U.S. federal agents began arresting aliens of Middle-Eastern descent hoping to prosecute any with “ties to terror.” • Canadian troops landed at Kandahar. • The New York Times reported the Bush administration would create an “inspection crisis” to justify an attack on Iraq. • The FBI issued a warning prompted by a man, “possibly of Middle-Eastern descent,” buying teddy bears, propane and BBs from a Los Angeles Wal-Mart. • The Pentagon announced it would abandon its Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) after protests of its plan to release phony news stories to foreign press. • The White House ended a 24-year pledge not to use nuclear weapons. • Secret Service agents forgot confidential security plans at a skateboard shop in Salt Lake City. •

March

U.S. General Tommy Franks, the overseer of operations in Afghanistan, began a briefing by offering his “thoughts and prayers” to families of service members killed “in our ongoing operations in Viet Nam.” • Tom Ridge, the American Homeland Security chief, unveiled a colour-coded terror-alert system, and immediately placed the U.S. on yellow alert. • Six months to the day after the 9/11 attacks, the INS notified a Florida flight school that accused hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi had been approved for their student visas. • A couple of guys threw grenades into a crowded church in Islamabad. • Britain was accused of faking reports of an al-Qaeda biological and chemical weapons lab in Afghanistan to justify sending in their troops. • Indian soldiers stood guard at the Taj Mahal after a Pakistani militant group threatened to blow it up. • Donald Rumsfeld said it wouldn’t make any sense to release Afghan prisoners, even if they were acquitted. • A review of Department of Energy documents revealed Bush had made recommendations from a trade group representing America’s oil barons national policy. • The Pentagon asked to be exempt from most environmental laws.

April

Saddam Hussein vowed to see the U.S. defeated if they attacked, and announced he would stop pumping oil for a month. • Israel launched an assault on Jenin. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called the operations “a massacre,” and commented that “when the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage.” Amnesty International found that “serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed, including war crimes.” Kofi Annan ordered a U.N. fact-finding team to go find the facts, but Israel wouldn’t let them in. • An American fighter jet dropped bombs on Canadian troops when its pilot heard gunshots and got spooked. • New legislature in the U.S. made it okay for police to conduct searches without explaining why. • Saddam Hussein was given a big, pink birthday cake while schoolchildren chanted, “Bush, Bush, hear very well! We love our Saddam Hussein.” •

May

The American Senate passed a resolution expressing full support for Israel’s latest military actions. “I’m content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank,” Rep. Dick Armey said. “I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave.” • Whores in Perth complained that U.S. sailors were wearing them out. • The U.S. formally renounced its obligations to co-operate with the International Criminal Court (ICC). • A man was arrested for putting pipe bombs in mailboxes around the American Midwest. • The anthrax strain mailed around the U.S. last year was traced back to a cow from Texas. • A government watchdog group came up with documents suggesting the U.S. military was planning to develop biological weapons in violation of international treaties and federal laws. • 100,000 Israeli citizens and political figures gathered in Tel Aviv to call for an “end to IDF terror” and withdrawal from illegal settlements. • Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter met in Havana. • Word got out that the White House had received numerous warnings about the 9/11 hijackings that were never followed up on. • The FBI was given authority to investigate people who weren’t suspected of anything. • New York City marked the end of the WTC clean-up.•

June

The Justice Department announced plans to fingerprint all Muslim and Middle-Eastern U.S. visa holders. • Israeli border police carved a Star of David into the arm of a Palestinian teen. • U.S. officials arrested a man they accused of being an al-Qaeda member about to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb,” but later said the suspect didn’t actually have such a bomb, and the plan had not gone “much past the discussion stage.” • Fidel Castro started a petition to keep Cuba socialist. • Israel began building a fence along the West Bank. • The White House was evacuated when a plane accidentally entered its restricted airspace. • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it’s wrong to execute the mentally handicapped. • President Bush called for Palestinians to get rid of Arafat, threatened to cut off U.S. financial aid and said “other countries” wouldn’t give them money either. • The EU announced it would give more money to Palestinians. • China celebrated the UN’s Anti-Drug Day by executing 64 convicted drug criminals. • North and South Korea had 21-minute naval battle in the Yellow Sea.•

July

The ICC spent its first day of business fielding calls from the press, while President Bush complained that “our soldiers could be drug into this court.” • An American army pilot accidentally killed dozens at an Afghan wedding. • The Canadian military said the $750-million they paid for four used submarines was a good deal, even though the subs leak. • A man videotaped a California policeman pummeling a restrained black teenager. • Bush promised to clean up a Wall Street rife with fraud and deceit. • Dick Cheney was sued for fraud and deceit. • Israel’s cabinet voted to endorse a bill that prohibited non-Jews from living on state land, but later changed their minds. • White supremacists marched through Georgia to protest an influx of Hispanic immigrants. • The UN exempted U.S. peacekeepers from ICC prosecution for one year, should any case arise. • The U.S. tried but failed to block a UN international convention on the use of torture against inmates. • A New York man sued McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken for making him fat. •

August

President Bush blamed terrorism on “some kind of false religion.” • Information on a computer found in Kabul revealed that Mullah Omar didn’t like Osama bin Laden and was about to expel him when U.S. missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan led to their reconciliation. • The Pentagon said they don’t need UN approval to attack Iraq, and weren’t likely to ask for it. • U.S officials admitted that their “dirty bomb” arrestee probably had no ties to al-Qaeda after all. • Saudi investors pulled an estimated $200-billion (U.S.) out of the U.S. stock market in protest of increasing tensions between the two nations. • A group claiming to be Iraqi dissidents took over the Iraqi embassy in Berlin. • Donald Rumsfeld suggested the U.S. “attack Saddam now, and let history be the judge” whether there was ever any reason to. • A group of journalists were invited to an Iraqi factory that U.S. secret services said was a biological arms plant, and found milk and baby food. • Customs inspectors in Hamburg stopped a ship carrying military equipment from Israel to Iran. •

September

Mohammed Atta’s father claimed Mohammed was still alive and in hiding to avoid being assassinated by the U.S. • Jean Chrétien said he wanted to see proof that Iraq was creating weapons of mass destruction before he’d support a U.S. strike, explaining, “When you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.” • President Bush said he’d found “all the proof” he needs of Hussein’s weapons violations to warrant a full-scale attack, and cited a 1998 UN Atomic Energy Agency report, which actually contained no such proof. • A statue of Adolf Hitler praying went on display at a museum in the Netherlands. • Switzerland joined the UN. • It turned out the landlord of a San Diego apartment complex two of the accused 9/11 hijackers lived in was an FBI informant. • A Sikh maintenance worker managed to get New York City subways shut down after someone saw him and his turban coming out a maintenance hatch and assumed the world was about to end. • Former U.S. attorney-general Ramsey Clark sent a letter to the UN saying Bush was leading everyone “toward a lawless world of endless wars.” • Gerhard Schröder was narrowly re-elected as German Chancellor after promising not to get the country involved in an Iraq war, which the White House said “had the effect of poisoning” German/U.S. relations.•

October

President Bush signed a bill recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. • Yasser Arafat signed a law declaring Jerusalem the Palestinian capital • Washington vowed to attack Iraq if the UN didn’t adopt American-dictated inspection resolutions, calling Saddam Hussein an evil-doer who’d used chemical weapons on his own people. • Newly de-classified documents revealed the U.S. had tested biological and chemical weapons on its own people. • A sniper ran loose in Virginia and Maryland. • Law enforcement agencies spent the month searching for two men in a white van before finally arresting two men in a blue car. • A U.S. intelligence official said the case against Iraq was “basically cooked information” that the CIA and FBI were urged to slant to support the administration’s desires. • Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize. • A car bomb killed nearly 200 people at a beach resort in Bali. • North Korea revealed that it had its own nuclear weapons program. • A group of Chechen rebels took 800 hostages in Moscow theatre. Russian commandos ended the siege with an “incapacitating gas” that left 128 hostages dead. • Austria caught U.S. stealth-bombers sneaking through its airspace. • British Petrol warned Washington not to hog all Iraq’s oil after their invasion.

November

An unmanned CIA drone plane fired a missile at a car in Yemen, killing six alleged al-Qaeda members. • The American mid-term elections gave Republicans control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. • Everyone finally agreed on UN resolutions on Iraq and inspectors went to Baghdad. • Jean Chrétien’s communications director called President Bush a moron. • U.S. soldiers were being shot at in Kuwait. • Donald Rumsfeld implied that the OSI was done away with in name only, and “every single thing… intended to be done by that office is being done.” • The Environmental Protection Agency introduced rules that allowed for more emissions, claiming it would make the air cleaner. • Bush signed the Department of Homeland Security into being, along with the Homeland Security Act, ridding U.S. citizens of some pesky freedoms and promising financial perks to all the president’s friends. • After months of blocking an independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks, Bush finally conceded and named accused war-criminal, liar and government cover-up man Henry Kissinger to lead it. • The White House gave Israel $14-billion (U.S.), and asked Ariel Sharon not to use the money to expand settlements. • Ariel Sharon announced he would expand settlements in Hebron. • The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on whether the Miranda Law’s “right to remain silent” precluded beating a person into talking. • Suicide bombers hit an Israeli-owned hotel and missiles were fired at an Israeli passenger plane in Kenya. • Israel said al-Qaeda was operating out of the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.

December

UN inspectors complained about pressure from the U.S. to urge Iraqi scientists to defect, even if it was against their will, so that U.S. interrogators could ask where Iraq is hiding its weapons of mass destruction (WMD). • The White House claimed it had “solid evidence” about where Iraq was hiding its WMD, but didn’t feel obliged to share it with anyone. • A survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries showed that America isn’t admired all that much. • The UN demanded Israeli accountability following a recent spate of UN worker deaths and the bulldozing of a UN food warehouse in Palestinian territories. • Palestinian security forces arrested a group posing as al-Qaeda operatives in what the Palestinian Authority suspected was a Mossad-led plot to justify further attacks in Gaza. Israel called the claims ridiculous. • Iraq produced 27 files, 11,807 pages, 352 appendices and 529 megabytes of information on its nuclear, chemical and biological and missile programs, along with a re-iteration that it had no WMD and an apology to Kuwait. • A man in South Dakota who joked during the president’s visit to Sioux Falls that “God might speak to the world through a burning Bush,” was sentenced to 37 months in prison. • America continued to prepare for war. •