Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – July 25, 2003

The entire day at home was spent reading bulletins and books. The Americans have published photos of the bodies of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein's sons, to influence the resistance of the Iraqi people, which has drawn ethical objections. An attack on a U.S. military convoy in Mosul and the killing of three soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, with others wounded, has been interpreted as the Iraqis' response, potentially intensifying the resistance.

The U.S. Congress has released an 850-page report on the September 11 attacks. The report mentions that the attacks could have been prevented based on scattered intelligence, but due to a lack of coordination between the CIA, FBI, and others, it was not used. The Bush administration has prevented the release of a section of the report that refers to the help of a Saudi Arabian agent—a student in California—who assisted the attackers and Al-Qaeda, leading to criticism from the Democratic Party.

The publication of a rebuttal letter by Mr. Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, the Director General of Foreign Media at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and the brother-in-law of the daughter-in-law of Ayatollah Khamenei, against Mr. Saeed Mortazavi, the Tehran prosecutor, has given new ammunition to ill-wishers of the system and the hardliners of the Mosharekat Party and the Mojahedin of the Revolution.

Numerous explosions in Ramadi and attacks on U.S. military convoys and in southern Baghdad have cast doubt on America's propaganda regarding Uday and Qusay. The price of oil, which had slightly dropped after the U.S. propaganda about killing Uday and Qusay, began to rise again. It was announced that Tariq Aziz, a member of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, helped the Americans find Qusay and Uday's hiding place and was also taken to identify the bodies, confirming their identities through dental records.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, is now in the U.S., having a private lunch with George W. Bush. He is asking Bush to disband Islamic Jihad and Hamas, while he is seeking Israel's release of Palestinian prisoners, a halt to new settlement construction, and an end to obstruction of the roadmap plan. Israel has only agreed to release 350 of the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners and has passed a resolution considering Gaza and the West Bank as occupied territory.

In Gaza, an explosion at the office of the Palestinian Police Chief has wounded several people. Israeli propaganda is portraying this as a terrorist act by the Mujahideen against the Palestinian Authority, aiming to create a pretext for disbanding them.