Patrick Cockburn, discusses “The Surge: A Special Report” which he wrote for the Independent, where he is Middle East correspondent: the split between the Sadr and Hakim factions; American propaganda that Iran is behind Sadr and the Mahdi Army and the “new” EFP bombs; the widespread humanitarian catastrophe; the occupation and sectarian war it has created; divisions in Kurdistan; the crisis in Kirkuk; predictions in the event of an eventual withdrawal; the redirection toward the Sunni insurgency; the unimportance of Allawi, Maliki or anyone else America installs in power; the danger to U.S. soldiers in Iraq if Cheney bombs Iran and predictions for the short and long term.

MP3 here.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.

Historian and journalist Gareth Porter, discusses the Israeli government, Israeli Lobby and neoconservative’s responsibility for pushing the United States toward war with Iran since 2002, split opinions in the run-up to war with Iraq, the neocons recently announced upcoming propaganda push and the scoop that he can prove the Cheney regime has known since before they started lying about it that the Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) are made in Iraq by Iraqis not by Iran trying to start a war with us.

MP3 here.

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and foreign policy analyst. He is also a Foreign Policy In Focus scholar. His book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, is published in May 2005 by University of California Press.