Day of political lies

Writers from around the world plan to mark March 20, the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, as the 'day of political lies.'

The Berlin-based Peter Weiss Foundation for Art and Politics, which organizes the annual Berlin Literature Festival, said Wednesday that public readings will be held on March 20 in dozens of cities in Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia to raise awareness of the substance and form of political lies.

The events are to include a reading of Eliot Weinberger's What I Heard About Iraq in 2005, which was first published in the London Review of Books. It is a compendium of statements from American government authorities and their allies before and after the war and places them in counterpoint to the observations and experiences of soldiers and Iraqis and compares them as well with the progress of the reconstruction, the abuse at Iraqi prisons and the reliability of prewar intelligence.

Among the writers signing the call for the 'day of political lies' were Britain's Doris Lessing and Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, India's Amitav Gosh, Turkey's Orhan Pamuk, Americans Paul Auster and Russell Banks, and Germany's Peter Schneider and Ulla Hahn.

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