Winds of Change.NET has started covering Iraqi-related developments on a more intensive basis as the situation heats up. If you've got relevant stuff too, email me! joe {at} windsofchange {dot} net. The next installment of the Winds of Change.NET Iraq Round-Up will be Tuesday, August 20.

• U.S. intelligence agencies detected increased activity at a site in Iraq identified as a biological weapons production facility, Reuters reports.
  

• Back at evil villain HQ, meanwhile, Iraq's information minister rejected the need for a resumption of U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq.
  

• The U.S. deployment of 4,000 Marines to Jordan for military exercises has received a lot of attention. Fellow blogger Kenneth Hunt finds the Sept. 8th pull-out date interesting, and wonders if they're leaving for an anniversary party elsewhere. Especially with this report also in the news. STRATFOR has an alternative explanation, however.
  

• The U.S. Navy has put out contracts for 10 cargo ships to move Army tanks, helicopters, ammunition and supplies to the Persian Gulf for a potential war with Iraq. The New York Daily News reports. The contract specifies the ships will "carry U.S. Army cargo such as ammunition and vehicles such as M1A1 tanks" to "pre-positioning sites" near Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Another Navy spokesman for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the ships would also be used to make "routine" shipments of M2 and M3 Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees (HMWVV). Thanks to Periscope 1 for the tidbit.
  

• Monday's Iraq Round-Up had a few features on the Kurds. Looks like the USA will get cooperation from some Kurds at least. Fred at Rantburg has the details, along with his usual acerbic commentary.
  

• An Iraqi opposition group said its militants had shot and wounded Qusay Hussein during an ambush earlier this month. Maybe so, maybe not. Unfortunately, he lived. Thanks to Terror Watch for this report. Here's some additional background on the Hussein boys, too, who may be worse than their dad.
  

• I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my Tech Central Station article "Doves in Wonderland." It looks at the "6 impossible things you'd have to believe before breakfast" in order to reasonably oppose invasion.
  

• A poll reported by Britain's Telegraph delves deeper into the issue of UK support for the war, which was raised as an issue in Monday's Iraq Round-Up. The poll says most people there are on the fence, preferring to have the Americans do it and the British quietly approve. The whys and underlying beliefs make interesting reading.
  
  
• Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. His article on risk, planning and war with Iraq is highly recommended. Especially by people who believe that the hallmark of a good military plan is its avoidance of risk. That's not always true... as I pointed out on Monday: "It's a 5 sided gains-costs-time-capabilities-stakes equation, always. Risk is just one element." M.T. Owens adds real depth to that point.
  

• James Robbins has a very good piece on urban warfare as Saddam's strategy, and how it might be defeated. Urban warfare has been covered a few times on Winds of Change, from our special Jenin feature in April to "U.S. Expert - Jenin is Our Future Too" (May 8, 2002). Not to mention the Globalsecurity.org listing in Monday's Iraq Round-Up. It was also the subject of my July 1st Tech Central Station article.
  

• Steve Chapman has a piece of his own, with the things he'd like to see before he'd be willing to support an invasion. I, too, would like to see the things he mentions. But the risks of allowing Saddam to continue unchecked are known. Saddam's crystal-clear behaviour puts us in a position where the known risks of letting him continue outweigh the unknown risks Steve cites... even if they're not resolved publicly before the go date. We didn't have an endgame plan for Germany post-Hitler, either, but it didn't take a genius to grasp that a world without him would be a big step forward. (Thanks to Instapundit for the pointer)
  

• Richard Perle agrees (Thanks to LGF for the link).
  

• Rod Dreher is even more direct: "We are a nation in which there are fewer and fewer people, and they are older and older people, who accept what every 12-year-old in Bihac knows: that there are things worth dying for, and killing for," Kelly wrote. Five years have passed since then, and Saddam is still there, stockpiling and likely weaponizing anthrax, cholera, and botulinum toxin, a concentrated pound of which can kill a billion people. Can you sleep knowing what that madman is brewing for you in his desert cauldrons? Can you live with the thought that Arab Muslim terrorists will carry out another September 11-like attack on America? You couldn't if you'd gone through it." Definitely worth reading.
  

• Meanwhile, the dishonesty of the antiwar movement mounts ever higher. As The Guardian Observer notes: "The opponents of Saddam therefore include many brave men and women who are paying dearly to uphold the values of at least a part of the liberal-Left... There are honourable grounds for upholding the authority of the United Nations and opposing American global domination. What is dishonourable - indeed insufferable - is the pretence of everyone from Trots to archbishops that their animating concern is the sufferings of the peoples of Iraq." (Thanks to Terror Watch for this link)
  

• (10:30) This article is especially poignant when read next to this recent reprint of Ahmad Chalabi's 1991 article about a democratic future for Iraq. Chalabi is now a prominent figure in the INC, a coalition of Iraqis that includes many of those "brave men and women" the Guardian referred to.

The next installment of the Winds of Change.NET Iraq Round-Up will be Tuesday, August 20....