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NUCLEAR
Safety, Security Have a Price
Nuclear power to get EU green light
Will this time be different for Gulf war troops?
Gulf War illness still unseen enemy
Inside Iraq - The Tragedy of a People Betrayed
Iran to Provide Nuclear Design Details, Inspector Says
Inspectors in Iran Examine Machines to Enrich Uranium
U.N. Arms Team Visits Iraq Missile Plants
ElBaradei grouses as Baghdad refuses to aid arms search
Saddam won't give up chemical bombs
Saddam told: disarm in three weeks or it's war
Israeli wall drives Palestinians to despair
S.Korea's Roh to Set Out Facing North, Woes at Home
Departing S.Korean Leader Kim Gets Kudos from Bush
Kim Dae Jung's Close Call: A Tale of Three Dissidents
North Korea's Need for Electricity Fuels Its Nuclear Ambitions
FEMA Study Falls Short, Indian Point Opponents Say
Powell in China faces tough sell for support on Iraq, North Korea
Buying support
Two men driving Bush into war
Bungled War Plans
MILITARY
Westerners join Sudan peace effort
Revealed: 17 British firms armed Saddam with his weapons
U.S. Mulls How Iraq May Use Biochem Arms
CEOs Say War May Hurt Economy
Iraq has poison bombs
China Seen More Flexible on Iraq Than N.Korea
US considers intervention in Colombia
Iran Fears U.S. Aims to Reshape Mideast
US firms given contracts to 'rebuild' Iraq
Greece reported setting up U.S.-Iraq meeting
US and Britain pound Iraqi defences in massive escalation of airstrikes
Destroying missiles would be to 'sign death warrant', says Iraq
Iraqi company says missiles key to defense
Anxiety Grows Along Iraqi Divide
Russian Envoy in Baghdad on Surprise Mission
Twilight of a tyrant
A People Betrayed: The 10-year Holocaust in Iraq
Violent group implements a cease-fire
Angry Bedouin find loyalty to Israel goes unrewarded
Hamas vows revenge as Israel shoots protesters
Six Palestinians killed in Gaza Strip, Nablus
Turks Remember Losses From Last War on Iraq
9 killed in attack on Shi'ite mosque
Philippines Debates U.S. Combat Role Against Rebels
U.S., Filipino Troops Open Anti-Terror Exercises
U.N. Members' Positions on Iraq
U.N. Fight Over Iraq Could Change Way of Going to War
Bush, Blair put forward last chance resolution on disarming Iraq
Malaysia's Mahathir Says West Wants to Rule World
Syria Snubs U.S. Call to Back New Iraq Resolution
France Opposes Second Iraq Resolution, Source Says
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
An ID With a High IQ
Ready or Not...
Fortress America
Threat grounds London-bound plane
ENERGY AND OTHER
UK 'to drop nuclear power'
ACTIVISTS
To Bush, the Crowd Was a Blur
Protesters try to halt ships
Men Get Their Turn for Nude War Protest
CBS won't forbid anti-war talk during Grammys
How the Protesters Mobilized
Pope Calls for Fast Against War in Iraq
Janeane Garofalo: 'It Wasn't Hip' to Protest Clinton's Wars
The Pope's disapproval worries Blair more than marchers
Just a Job: Trampling Civil Liberties in New York
MEET THE PRESS
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Safety, Security Have a Price
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45281-2003Feb21?language=printer
Southern Maryland's three counties have received the following federal grant funding to pay for local counter-terrorism efforts. Calvert County
Received $280,994.61 since January 2001
Purchases to date: Mobile mass decontamination shower trailer; cargo trailer to store emergency response equipment; suits, boots and gloves to protect against radiological, chemical and biological weapons; monitors to detect radiation on people and vehicles; personal alarms that will beep if radiation levels reach a dangerous level, to be carried by responders; gas masks; and other detection equipment for biological and chemical weapons. Charles County
Received $103,431.75 since May 2002
Purchases to date: Suits, boots and gloves to protect against chemical and biological weapons; gas masks; a decontamination tent; hot water heaters, containment equipment, pumps, hoses and nozzles; radiological monitoring equipment; and detection equipment for toxic gases, anthrax and ricin. St. Mary's County
Received $229,149.69 since June 2002
Purchases to date: Suits, boots and gloves to protect against radiological, chemical and biological weapons; two portable decontamination shelters; equipment to detect dangerous levels of radiation and biochemicals; gas masks; personal alarms that will beep if radiation levels reach a dangerous level, to be carried by responders.
SOURCES: Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's county emergency management agencies.
-------- britain
Nuclear power to get EU green light
Oliver Morgan
Sunday February 23, 2003
The Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,900859,00.html
Green measures by the European Union to cut carbon dioxide emissions will boost the prospects of Britain's nuclear industry, says the Government's energy
White Paper to be published tomorrow.
In an unexpectedly upbeat assessment of the future role for nuclear power, the paper will point to the introduction of a carbon emissions trading system by the EU in 2005, which will for the first time give economic credit to atomic plants for not producing greenhouse gases.
In addition, the Government will emphasise the need to maintain skills in the nuclear industry and develop new reactor designs through international collaboration. Ministers will argue that these moves, taken together, will render credible their stance on 'keeping the nuclear option open' while focusing on increasing the renewable energy sources.
The paper is expected to propose faster planning for the construction of renewable plants, which will be vital if these sources are to expand from producing 3 per cent of the energy now used in the UK to the Government's target of 10 per cent by 2010.
However, the paper softens the aim of providing 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 and settles for a doubling from 2010.
The Government will also outline plans to upgrade the electricity transmission system for renewables, stating that it is 'essential to create a network infrastructure capable of supporting our environmental objectives'.
Industry and Whitehall sources said the Government's position on nuclear power would mean the construction of two reactors after 2005. Emissions would be cut, and British Nuclear Fuels would be able to showcase its reactor design and start reducing the UK's 55-tonne stockpile of plutonium.
Brian Wilson, the Energy Minister, said: 'The clear emphasis of the White Paper is on a low-carbon energy mix. It is essential to maximise the potential of renewables and energy efficiency.'
-------- depleted uranium
Will this time be different for Gulf war troops?
By PAT HAMMOND,
Sunday News Staff
February 23, 2003
New Hampshire Union Leader
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=18465
As the U.S. Department of Defense moves decisively toward a military invasion of Iraq, its health component is also moving forward with a program designed to safeguard the troops against the illnesses that still plague tens of thousands of veterans of the Persian Gulf War.
Equipment crews work on a F/A-18C Hornet aboard the U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Lincoln in the Gulf region Saturday. (AP Photo) (AP Photo) "We only want to learn lessons once," the defense department's Dr. Michael Kilpatrick told the Sunday News. He is deputy director, Deployment Health Support Directorate, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness.
This admission of "learning lessons" may surprise the roughly one in five Gulf War servicemen and women who developed medical symptoms during, but mostly after, their service in the Gulf theater of operations.
Over the years, they have charged that the government:
# failed to take their illness seriously;
# repudiated their complaints or blamed their symptoms on depression or psychiatric conditions;
# inoculated them with allegedly contaminated anthrax vaccine and experimental drugs without their consent;
# failed to warn them of the medical dangers of exposure to depleted uranium;
# gave them inadequate protection against chemical and biological weapons;
# and, in the end, lost their medical records.
The sick veterans reported fatigue, memory loss, a decrease in their ability to concentrate, aches in their joints and muscles, pulmonary problems, severe headaches, diarrhea and other ailments. Veterans groups sprang up to advocate for the men and women when it became apparent the Department of Defense was not, at least initially, responding to their requests for diagnosis and treatment.
The volume of ill Gulf War veterans is hard to quantify with any certainty.
"We do know," Kilpatrick said, "that 125,000 Gulf War veterans have been through the comprehensive health examinations offered by the DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which means that one in five took us up on the offer. I think when you take a look at those examined, 90 percent had symptoms. Eighty percent of that 90 percent had diagnoses that explained the symptoms. The remaining 20 percent's symptoms could not be explained." Both explained and unexplained symptoms are characterized as Gulf War Syndrome.
Some advocates of sick Gulf War veterans claim that 10,000 of them have died as a result of their illness. In response, Kilpatrick cited a recent study that found that though 9,000 Gulf War veterans had died as of the end of last year the rate was the same for servicemen on active duty but not deployed to the Gulf, and the military death rate was 40 percent lower than the civilian death rate for similar ages.
While the DOD has not acknowledged responsibility for the ailments or for any wrongdoing when it comes to Gulf War illnesses, its new approach to Gulf War health issues reflects the reality that the illness-related allegations, which veterans raised repeatedly in congressional hearings on Gulf War illnesses in the years since the 1991 ground war, are being taken seriously at the Pentagon.
Veterans have blamed their illness on a wide range of causes including allergies to Saddam Hussein's burning oil fields, particles of sand or dust, dosages of depleted uranium, contamination from Iraqi scud missiles, exposure to a virus called mycoplasma ferentans, reactions to anthrax vaccinations and medication administered to the troops, and exposure to chemical or biological warfare.
Though the DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs have sponsored research trials to study some of the suspected causes and test some cures that provide hope, most Gulf War Syndrome sufferers continue to cope with their symptoms 12 years after the war they say spawned them.
New war, new approach
The department's new approach includes:
# pre-deployment health assessments;
# anthrax and smallpox vaccinations that DOD says are safe;
# improved protective gear against chemical and biological weaponry;
# specially trained medical personnel in each unit to keep tabs on health matters and make sure the soldiers' medical records are kept up to date;
# and education on what hazards the soldiers can expect to encounter and how to protect themselves against them.
"We are looking at a multi-layered approach to protecting their health," Kilpatrick said last week.
"Health assessment is done to make sure if they have any medical issues or concerns before deploying." Kilpatrick said the troops are given a medical threat briefing that includes threats that the enemy or the environment might pose, such as chemical munitions left behind or the existence of a chemical plant as determined through surveillance.
"We are telling them about what may be insect vectors of disease," Kilpatrick said, "and how to use insect repellent, so they can understand what they are being given to protect themselves."
Important information on the anthrax and smallpox vaccines is being passed on to the troops, Kilpatrick said, so they understand that both vaccinations are FDA (Food and Drug Administration) licensed, what the side effects may be, and what are some of the contra-indications to the smallpox vaccine.
Anthrax vaccine safety has been a concern of a number of Gulf War era veterans who attribute their ill health to the anthrax vaccine. These veterans include not only service personnel who were deployed to the Gulf but those who never left the United States, whose sole common bond, medically speaking, is the anthrax shots all personnel received.
New protective suits
Kilpatrick said the Iraq-bound troops are also being trained to have familiarity with the lighter-weight outer garments and new masks designed to protect them from chemical or biological weapons.
The troops are being taught that the chemical and biological weapon detectors are "sensitive, but not specific," Kilpatrick said, meaning, for example, that non-chemical or -biological weapons such as diesel exhaust fumes could set off the alarm. When it is determined that it was a false alarm, the troops must be informed that the alarm was not in response to a real biological or chemical agent.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Donald Sewell said that, based on the experience of the first Gulf War veterans, the troops will now be issued new protective suits called JSLIST suits, The Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology. They are lighter-weight than the suits issued in the Gulf War, making it easier for troops to perform their duties than with the heavier ones worn by the troops in 1991.
The protective masks that are worn with the suits have a wider range of vision than the old ones and an easily replaceable filtration canister. They fit the face more securely than their predecessors because they come all in shapes and sizes.
Detection and warning equipment for both chemical and biological agents has been improved over the equipment used in the Gulf War. A small hand-held ACADA (Automatic Chemical Agent Detector and Alarm), for instance, is capable of detecting all the traditional chemical warfare agents.
The biological detector can detect 10 of the high threat biological agents and work is under way to increase the number of organisms it can identify.
Medical Palm Pilots
With more units being deployed, Kilpatrick said, specially trained medical personnel in each unit will record and document on a Palm Pilot the daily health issues and treatment given the troops in that unit. That information is stored in the Palm Pilot until it is transferred into a computerized database for the servicemen's medical records in Washington.
The importance of up-to-date and complete medical recording is underscored by the fact that many troops returning from the first Gulf War and later complaining about symptoms they attribute to that war found that their medical records had disappeared, a development interpreted by many as an alleged government purge of records in an attempt to erase documentation of the illnesses the government initially dismissed as untrue.
Depleted uranium
The Gulf War was the first war in which depleted uranium, in the form of armor-piercing munitions and reinforced tank armor, was used on the battlefield. The Department of Defense said it played a key role in winning the war; its chemical and radiological properties, however, have given rise to concerns about health risks.
Fragments of depleted uranium may enter and become lodged in the human body, or the substance can enter through the nose and mouth or through the skin pores. Dr. Melissa McDiarmid of the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center has been following up and evaluating 33 service personnel wounded by depleted uranium during friendly fire incidents.
Critics say that's a pretty insignificant number on which to base conclusions when thousands of Gulf veterans may have been exposed to depleted uranium on the battlefield.
Asked if safeguards had been developed against exposure to this radioactive agent in the coming war, Kilpatrick said, "The DOD has training for all military personnel about the hazards of depleted uranium as a heavy metal on a battlefield."
For instance, "The (soldier is told) you should not go into that enemy vehicle we have been shooting at after it has been destroyed," Kilpatrick said. "There are many other radioactive and toxic substances in those vehicles, too. This isn't a time to go souvenir hunting."
Kilpatrick said McDiarmid is also doing a follow-up study of 90 people in the depleted uranium incidents of 1991 - four or five incidents in which American armored vehicles were hit with depleted uranium shot by other American armored vehicles. Of the 90, about a quarter have tiny fragments of it in their body and McDiarmid's follow-up is designed to find out if that is a health hazard, he said.
"To date, she has not found any medical problem related to the exposure of those individuals," Kilpatrick said. The question, he said, was whether to amputate the body parts where the depleted uranium fragments are or if it would be safe to allow them to remain.
"Those with fragments are excreting a large amount of uranium in their urine," Kilpatrick said. "But there was no abnormality found in their kidneys, no problem with bone cancer or lung cancer."
But all matters having to do with Gulf War illnesses are fraught with controversy, with some advocates of the ill veterans often pitted against what they see as a recalcitrant DOD bureaucracy.
Depleted-uranium scholar Dan Fahey, who has a master's degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, told the National Gulf War Resource Center Conference in Atlanta last May that the small numbers of participants in the McDiarmid study "limits the significance of its findings, and inhibits assessments of possible links between DU exposure and veterans' health.
Fahey, who has served on the board of directors of the National Gulf War Resource Center, questioned the validity of the DOD's findings on depleted uranium health hazards in the Gulf war and called for "a new study to determine whether the hundreds or thousands of veterans who encountered or entered equipment impacted by DU munitions have developed health problems related to their exposure."
Praise and skepticism
New Hampshire reactions to the DOD's new approach to health in the coming war were mixed in interviews last week.
Manchester Veterans Administration Hospital's Dr. Vincent Gordan, who has treated more than 700 veterans with Gulf War illness, hailed the program as a positive step.
"I believe they are on a better track than before," he said.
But two of Gordan's longtime Gulf War patients, an ex-Air Force sergeant and a former Marine captain who piloted helicopters, were skeptical.
Former Marine Capt. Wesley Davis of North Hampton attributes his own Gulf War illness to a substance known as squalene that he says was added to the anthrax vaccine administered him before leaving for the Gulf War theater.
Squalene is a substance that is found naturally in the body but can also be introduced in synthetic form, in vaccinations, for instance, to enhance the effectiveness of the vaccine. Medical research has been conducted on the presence of squalene in the anthrax vaccine administered to the Gulf era servicemen but physicians disagree with each other on whether it was existent in the vaccine or, if it was, whether it could cause harm.
Davis charges on his Web site, "New Hampshire Gulf War Syndrome Association," that Gulf War Syndrome is a "life-threatening, government-made autoimmune disease," the result of "the use of experimental, squalene boosted adjuvants, in vaccines given to unknowing U.S. and other Gulf War coalition forces."
The squalene debate
Davis told the Sunday News last week, that research by a Dr. Pamela Asa "proves that squalene has been used in vaccines given to Gulf War personnel and non-Gulf War personnel through at least the fall of 1999. Many thousands of people are ill; many are dead as a result of this experimentation. In the face of scientific proof the U.S. government continues to lie. Why,? - if the vaccines were just a plan gone wrong to protect the troops"?
Davis went on to say, "The question I would ask about ongoing deployment vaccinations is, 'Why should the government be trusted now?' It continues to lie about GWS despite all the evidence that it was caused by vaccine experimentation."
Asked if the government is still administering anthrax vaccine that includes squalene to the troops, Dr. Kilpatrick said, "The Department of Defense did an analysis of the anthrax vaccine lots used in the Gulf War and was not able to detect any squalene in that vaccine."
The DOD did send samples to the Centers for Disease Control, Kilpatrick then said, "and they did find trace amounts of squalene in that vaccine but also found it in tetanus and diphtheria vaccines.
"The CDC scientists said the trace amounts were so small they were most probably from the squalene that was naturally in the bacteria and not manufactured," said Kilpatrick.
A feeble effort
Another skeptic, former Air Force Sgt. Paul E. Perrone, said of the new approach to Gulf War health issues, "I believe these exams are an attempt by the government to cover themselves in the event another Gulf War syndrome should develop out of this new deployment. It is a feeble attempt, however, and does not relieve the government of its obligation to make the veteran whole if he/she should suffer a medical or emotional setback as a result of their military service."
Perrone, who lives in Methuen, Mass., but spent much of his childhood in Pelham, has written a book about the years in which he fought for government recognition that his illness was rooted in his service in the Gulf war and how he won his battles with the government for medical treatment and benefits.
Sgt. Michael Daigle is spokesman for the New Hampshire National Guard and Air National Guard. On the subject of health protection for guardsmen overseas, Daigle said: "The plan is to perform a more thorough screening when the troops return from deployment, and document any changes in their medical condition.
"It was not a huge problem for us in the last war," Daigle said, referring to Gulf War illness, "but we felt we would be more on top of it if we did this exit screening when they went off duty."
Dr. Gordan, at the Manchester VA, said what is needed is a study that looks at every piece of the Gulf War illness puzzle to get a sense of the "bigger picture," and not just a single aspect of it.
Heightened health risks
For the coming war, Gordan believes the health risks may be even more serious than the last battle with Saddam.
"When the last war ended, our troops were far from Baghdad," Gordan explained. "But this time they are to go to Baghdad. The danger is higher because, knowing what Saddam Hussein did so far, he is not going to spare anything, anybody. He is going to attack and who knows, a mind like this guy who put over 700 oil wells on fire, he has a deranged mind, he is going to do exactly what we don't expect, and (that is) obviously the worst.
"Protection gear is probably Number One. They should wear it when necessary for the necessary duration, follow orders.
"And I am sure DOD intends to do this kind of preventive measure based on the experience of the first Gulf War," Gordan said.
A mother's prayer
Annemarie Platt of Gorham is the mother of a serviceman who suffered from medical problems after the Gulf War. In conversations with the Sunday News as early as 1991, Platt, the wife of a career military man, was already attributing her son's problems to the anthrax shots he had received. He was having difficulty receiving medical attention. Pratt's letters to the Pentagon attracted the attention of Colin Powell, then commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who intervened on her son's behalf.
Platt has a deep-seated aversion to war. Born in Germany, she remembers what it was like to lose three of her childhood homes in the bombing raids that never stopped from 1942 to 1945.
As a survivor of war and as a mother of a son who has had Gulf War illness, what would she advise the families of men and women who are bound for Iraq?
"Pray to God that the war will be over soon," she said.
----
Gulf War illness still unseen enemy
Abram Katz,
Register Science Editor
New Haven Register
February 23, 2003
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=7150833&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7573&rfi=6
Twelve years after the Persian Gulf War, medical investigators still do not know why so many soldiers returned with mysterious symptoms. So as U.S. forces prepare to assault Iraq, physicians and public health officials fear a new generation of troops may acquire what is now called "Gulf War illness."
About 500,000 U.S. soldiers easily booted Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991.
Combat casualties were light. But about 10 percent of the men and women who served in the Persian Gulf came home with aches and pains, memory loss, unshakeable fatigue, insomnia, intestinal ills, heart problems and other physical and mental complaints.
The Department of Defense is taking several measures to reduce the risk of inexplicable ailments. However, without understanding the causes of Gulf War illness, there is no guarantee that new battlefield procedures and protective equipment will work, experts said.
"There's no reason to believe the situation is radically different. Environmentally, it's the same mission, the same geographical area, the same enemy and the same terrain," said Lowell S. Levin, professor emeritus of public health at Yale University and a consultant to the World Health Organization.
The Defense Department is spending $212 million on 244 Gulf War illness research projects, but none is conclusive because the subject of the study is impossibly complicated, according to experts.
Soldiers were exposed to preventive vaccines and medicines, disease-carrying insects, insect repellent, poor hygiene, sand storm grit, oil well soot, diesel fumes, trash fire smoke, depleted uranium ammunition and very low levels of nerve agents.
"It is important to recognize that after every conflict there are many reports of symptoms that cannot be explained," said Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick, deputy director of Deployment Health Support in the office of the assistant secretary of defense.
Gulf War veterans have been analyzed, studied and tested. Their death rate is average, the incidence of diseases is average, and they show average levels of birth defects, cancers and of 57 other symptoms, Kilpatrick said.
However, the men and women with Gulf War illness have two to three times higher rates of fatigue, memory loss, aches, sleep difficulty and other vague conditions, he said.
Kilpatrick said the Department of Defense is taking several actions:
• Areas in which troops are stationed will be monitored for environmental contaminants in air, soil and water.
• Soldiers will be examined for health problems before they are shipped out to identify potential medical issues.
• Units will have greater access to health care. Treatments will be documented. The location of units will also be recorded in real time.
• Troops will be issued improved gas masks and lighter-weight protective gear.
• Commanders will share more information. During Operation Desert Storm, chemical-weapon detectors were triggered often by diesel exhaust, cigarette smoke and other innocuous aerosols.
Troops scrambled into protective masks and suits, but they were not told that the alarms were false, Kilpatrick said.
Consequently, troops already stressed by the knowledge that they could be hit with chemicals or germs at any time were given even more anxiety.
Just the same, Gulf War veterans do not show an unusually high rate of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Kilpatrick.
• Health will also be assessed before soldiers return home.
"We need to be a continually learning organization so that we don't make mistakes again and again," he said.
The Pentagon plans to track 140,000 active-duty veterans for 22 years to develop epidemiological data on the effects of service.
Levin however, said he has reservations.
"Of course we can expect technical advances in protective gear, but what are we learning from the past and how have these lessons been applied?" he said.
"Unfortunately I think we're in for some interesting health problems, physical and mental," Levin said. "War is not a good time to do research."
Dr. Kenneth H. Dangman, of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of Connecticut Medical School, said: "In a combat situation we don't know what they (soldiers) will encounter, so it's hard to develop ways to avoid or deal with risks."
Meanwhile, some doctors blame Gulf War illness on chemical agents, others on treatment or disease, while a third group contends that a percentage of soldiers always experience post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dangman said Gulf War illness is probably a combination of some or all of these factors.
"It's hard to develop toxicology data. There are no records, and they were exposed to chemical agents at extremely low levels," he said.
A lack of information
Kilpatrick said Gulf War veterans were not well informed about the side effects of a drug, Pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, which was dispensed freely in capsules to protect against nerve agents. Sarin kills by interfering with nerves that control muscles.
Specifically, sarin locks into an enzyme called acetylcholine-sterase, which normally breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Cells have no way to "shut off," leading to convulsions and death.
PB works by also attaching to the enzyme, blocking the sites that sarin would otherwise attack. Unlike nerve agents, PB eventually lets go and leaves the body.
PB has been used to treat myasthenia gravis, a nerve disease that primarily affects facial and neck muscles, since 1955 and is considered safe.
Since the drug mildly mimics nerve gas, soldiers given the capsules tend to experience cramps, blurred vision and other unexpected problems.
"They were not told about the side effects, so they were scared and thought they'd been given an experimental drug," Kilpatrick said.
About 225,000 doses of PB were distributed, but there are no records on who took the pills.
Not all potential explanations for Gulf War illness are that complicated, however, Levin said. Lifestyle change could be a big factor, he said.
Soldiers encamped in the field are more concerned about weapons and gas masks than washing their hands after they use the latrine, for example.
They may not sleep well and are prone to catch viruses from one another. Unfamiliar foods consumed on a strange schedule can lead to digestive disorders.
A few weeks of that could leave some with fatigue, problems concentrating, depression, stomach problems and other vague symptoms, Levin said.
This is not to say that veterans' symptoms are "not real" or should be dismissed, the doctors emphasized.
Kilpatrick said soldiers now spending time in the Persian Gulf would have access to physicians trained to diagnose and treat deployment-related problems.
Dangman said, "If we could prevent Gulf War illness, that's the Holy Grail."
Abram Katz can be reached at akatz@nhregister.com or 789-5719.
----
Inside Iraq - The Tragedy of a People Betrayed
23 February 2003
UK Independent
excerpt from 'The New Rulers of the World'
by John Pilger
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=380738
Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a plastic ball; and it carries, according to Dr Jawad Al-Ali, 'the seeds of our death'...
Dr Al-Ali is a cancer specialist at Basra's hospital and a member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians. He has a neat moustache and a kindly, furrowed face. His starched white coat, like the collar of his shirt, is frayed.
"Before the Gulf War, we had only three or four deaths in a month from cancer," he said. "Now it's 30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's just in my department. That is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. That's almost half the population.
"Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease. We don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper survey, or even test the excess level of radiation in our bodies. We strongly suspect depleted uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War right across the southern battlefields. Whatever the cause, it is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us.
"The mushrooms grow huge, and the fish in what was once a beautiful river are inedible. Even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."
Along the corridor, I met Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician. At another time, she might have been described as an effervescent personality; now she, too, has a melancholy expression that does not change; it is the face of Iraq. "This is Ali Raffa Asswadi," she said, stopping to take the hand of a wasted boy I guessed to be about four years old. "He is nine. He has leukaemia. Now we can't treat him. Only some of the drugs are available. We get drugs for two or three weeks, and then they stop when the shipments stop. Unless you continue a course, the treatment is useless. We can't even give blood transfusions, because there are not enough blood bags."
Dr Hassen keeps a photo album of the children she is trying to save and those she has been unable to save. "This is Talum Saleh," she said, turning to a photograph of a boy in a blue pullover and with sparkling eyes. "He is five-and-a-half years old. This is a case of Hodgkin's disease. Normally a patient with Hodgkin's can expect to live and the cure can be 95 per cent. But if the drugs are not available, complications set in, and death follows. This boy had a beautiful nature. He died."
I said, "As we were walking, I noticed you stop and put your face to the wall." "Yes, I was emotional ... I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture. These children could live; they could live and grow up; and when you see your son and daughter in front of you, dying, what happens to you?" I said, "What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?" "That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all. If there is no connection, why have these things not happened before? Most of these children have no family history of cancer.
"I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. It is almost exactly the same here; we have an increased percentage of congenital malformation, an increase of malignancy, leukaemia, brain tumours: the same."
Under the economic embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council, now in its 14th year, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise to decontaminate its battlefields from the 1991 Gulf War.
Professor Doug Rokke, the US Army physicist responsible for cleaning up Kuwait, told me: "I am like many people in southern Iraq. I have 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in my body. Most of my team are now dead.
"We face an issue to be confronted by people in the West, those with a sense of right and wrong: first, the decision by the US and Britain to use a weapon of mass destruction: depeleted uranium. When a tank fired its shells, each round carried over 4,500g of solid uranium. What happened in the Gulf was a form of nuclear warfare."
In 1991, a United Kingdom Atomic Eneregy Authority document reported that if 8 per cent of the depleted uranium fired in the Gulf War was inhaled, it could cause "500,000 potential deaths". In the promised attack on Iraq, the United States will again use depleted uranium, and so will Britain, regardless of its denials.
Professor Rokke says he has watched Iraqi officials pleading with American and British officials to ease the embargo, if only to allow decontaminating and cancer assessment equipment to be imported. "They described the deaths and horrific deformities, and they were rebuffed," he said. "It was pathetic."
The United Nations Sanctions Committee in New York, set up by the Security Council to administer the embargo, is dominated by the Americans, who are backed by the British. Washington has vetoed or delayed a range of vital medical equipment, chemotherapy drugs, even pain-killers. (In the jargon of denial, "blocked" equals vetoed, and "on hold" means delayed, or maybe blocked.) In Baghdad, I sat in a clinic as doctors received parents and their children, many of them grey-skinned and bald, some of them dying. After every second or third examination, Dr Lekaa Fasseh Ozeer, the young oncologist, wrote in English: "No drugs available." I asked her to jot down in my notebook a list of drugs the hospital had ordered, but had not received, or had received intermittently. She filled a page.
I had been filming in Iraq for my documentary Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq. Back in London, I showed Dr Ozeer's list to Professor Karol Sikora who, as chief of the cancer programme of the World Health Organisation (WHO), wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Sanctions Committee]. There seems to be a rather ludicrous notion that such agents could be converted into chemical and other weapons.
Nearly all these drugs are available in every British hospital. They are very standard. When I came back from Iraq last year, with a group of experts I drew up a list of 17 drugs deemed essential for cancer treatment. We informed the UN that there was no possibility of converting these drugs into chemical warfare agents. We heard nothing more.
"The saddest thing I saw in Iraq was children dying because there was no chemotherapy and no pain control. It seemed crazy they couldn't have morphine, because for everybody with cancer pain, it is the best drug. When I was there, they had a little bottle of aspirin pills to go round 200 patients in pain. They would receive a particular anti-cancer drug, but then get only little bits of drugs here and there, and so you can't have any planning. It's bizarre."
I told him that one of the doctors had been especially upset because the UN Sanctions Committee had banned nitrous oxide as "weapons dual use"; yet this was used in caesarean sections to stop bleeding, and perhaps save a mother's life. "I can see no logic to banning that," he said. "I am not an armaments expert, but the amounts used would be so small that, even if you collected all the drugs supply for the whole nation and pooled it, it is difficult to see how you could make any chemical warfare device out of it."
Denis Halliday is a courtly Irishman who spent 34 years with the UN, latterly as Assistant Secretary-General. When he resigned in 1998 as the UN's Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq in protest at the effects of the embargo on the civilian population, it was, he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple as that ... Five thousand children are dying every month ... I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."
Since I met Halliday, I have been struck by the principle behind his carefully chosen, uncompromising words. "I had been instructed," he said, "to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the regime - Saddam Hussein - is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who are losing their children or their parents for lack of untreated water. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible."
In the UN, Mr Halliday broke a long collective silence. On 13 February, 2000, Hans Von Sponeck, who had succeeded him as Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Baghdad, resigned. Like Halliday, he had been with the UN for more than 30 years. "How long," he asked, "should the civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?" Two days later, Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Programme in Iraq, another UN agency, resigned, saying that she, too, could no longer tolerate what was being done to the Iraqi people.
The resignations were unprecedented. All three were saying the unsayable: that the West was responsible for mass deaths, estimated by Halliday to be more than a million. While food and medicines are technically exempt, the Sanctions Committee has frequently vetoed and delayed requests for baby food, agricultural equipment, heart and cancer drugs, oxygen tents, X-ray machines. Sixteen heart and lung machines were put "on hold" because they contained computer chips. A fleet of ambulances was held up because their equipment included vacuum flasks, which keep medical supplies cold; vacuum flasks are designated "dual use" by the Sanctions Committee, meaning they could possibly be used in weapons manufacture. Cleaning materials, such as chlorine, are "dual use", as is the graphite used in pencils; as are wheelbarrows, it seems, considering the frequency of their appearance on the list of "holds".
As of October 2001, 1,010 contracts for humanitarian supplies, worth $3.85bn, were "on hold" by the Sanctions Committee. They included items related to food, health, water and sanitation, agriculture and education. This has now risen to goods worth more than $5bn. This is rarely reported in the West.
When Denis Halliday was the senior United Nations official in Iraq, a display cabinet stood in the foyer of his office. It contained a bag of wheat, some congealed cooking oil, bars of soap and a few other household necessities. "It was a pitiful sight," he said, "and it represented the monthly ration that we were allowed to spend. I added cheese to lift the protein content, but there was simply not enough money left over from the amount we were allowed to spend, which came from the revenue Iraq was allowed to make from its oil."
He describes food shipments as "an exercise in duplicity". A shipment that the Americans claim allows for 2,300 calories per person per day may well allow for only 2,000 calories, or less. "What's missing," he said, "will be animal proteins, minerals and vitamins. As most Iraqis have no other source of income, food has become a medium of exchange; it gets sold for other necessities, further lowering the calorie intake. You also have to get clothes and shoes for your kids to go to school. You've then got malnourished mothers who cannot breastfeed, and they pick up bad water.
What is needed is investment in water treatment and distribution, electric power for food processing, storage and refrigeration, education and agriculture." His successor, Hans Von Sponeck, calculates that the Oil for Food Programme allows $100 (£63) for each person to live on for a year. This figure also has to help pay for the entire society's infrastructure and essential services, such as power and water.
"It is simply not possible to live on such an amount," Mr Von Sponeck told me. "Set that pittance against the lack of clean water, the fact that electricity fails for up to 22 hours a day, and the majority of sick people cannot afford treatment, and the sheer trauma of trying to get from day to day, and you have a glimpse of the nightmare. And make no mistake, this is deliberate. I have not in the past wanted to use the word genocide, but now it is unavoidable."
The cost in lives is staggering. A study by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) found that between 1991 and 1998, there were 500,000 deaths above the anticipated rate among Iraqi children under five years of age. This, on average, is 5,200 preventable under-five deaths per month.
Hans Von Sponeck said, "Some 167 Iraqi children are dying every day." Denis Halliday said, "If you include adults, the figure is now almost certainly well over a million." A melancholia shrouds people. I felt it at Baghdad's evening auctions, where intimate possessions are sold to buy food and medicines. Television sets are common. A woman with two infants watched their pushchairs go for pennies. A man who had collected doves since he was 15 came with his last bird; the cage would go next.
My film crew and I had come to pry, yet we were made welcome; or people merely deferred to our presence, as the downcast do. During three weeks in Iraq, only once was I the brunt of someone's anguish. "Why are you killing the children?" shouted a man in the street. "Why are you bombing us? What have we done to you?" Through the glass doors of the Baghdad offices of Unicef you can read the following mission statement: "Above all, survival, hope, development, respect, dignity, equality and justice for women and children."
Fortunately, the children in the street outside, with their pencil limbs and long thin faces, cannot read English, and perhaps cannot read at all. "The change in such a short time is unparalleled, in my experience," Dr Anupama Rao Singh, Unicef's senior representative in Iraq, told me.
"In 1989, the literacy rate was more than 90 per cent; parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. The phenomenon of street children was unheard of. Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall wellbeing of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20 per cent."
Dr Singh, diminutive, grey-haired and, with her precision, sounding like the teacher she once was in India, has spent most of her working life with Unicef. She took me to a typical primary school in Saddam City, where Baghdad's majority and poorest live. We approached along a flooded street, the city's drainage and water distribution system having collapsed since the Gulf War bombing. The headmaster, Ali Hassoon, guided us around the puddles of raw sewage in the playground and pointed to the high-water mark on the wall. "In the winter it comes up to here. That's when we evacuate.
We stay for as long as possible but, without desks, the children have to sit on bricks. I am worried about the buildings coming down." As we talked, an air-raid siren sounded in the distance.The school is on the edge of a vast industrial cemetery. The pumps in the sewage treatment plants and the reservoirs of potable water are silent, save for a few wheezing at a fraction of their capacity. Those that were not bombed have since disintegrated; spare parts from their British, French and German manufacturers are permanently "on hold".
Before 1991, Baghdad"s water was as safe as any in the developed world. Today, drawn untreated from the Tigris, it is lethal. Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever.
Dr Kim Howells told Parliament why. His title of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Competition and Consumer Affairs perfectly suited his Orwellian reply. The children's vaccines were, he said, "capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction".
American and British aircraft operate over Iraq in what their governments have unilaterally declared "no fly zones". This means that only they and their allies can fly there. The designated areas are in the north, around Mosul, to the border with Turkey, and from just south of Baghdad to the Kuwaiti border. The US and British governments insist the no fly zones are "legal", claiming that they are part of, or supported by, the Security Council's Resolution 688.
There is a great deal of fog about this, the kind generated by the Foreign Office when its statements are challenged. There is no reference to no fly zones in Security Council resolutions, which suggests they have no basis in international law.
I went to Paris and asked Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary-General of the UN in 1992, when the resolution was passed. "The issue of no fly zones was not raised and therefore not debated: not a word," he said. "They offer no legitimacy to countries sending their aircraft to attack Iraq." "Does that mean they are illegal?" I asked. "They are illegal," he replied.
The scale of the bombing in the no fly zones is astonishing. Between July 1998 and January 2000, American air force and naval aircraft flew 36,000 sorties over Iraq, including 24,000 combat missions. In 1999 alone, American and British aircraft dropped more than 1,800 bombs and hit 450 targets. The cost to British taxpayers is more than £800m.
There is bombing almost every day: it is the longest Anglo-American aerial campaign since the Second World War; yet it is mostly ignored by the British and American media. In a rare acknowledgement, The New York Times reported, "American warplanes have methodically and with virtually no public discussion been attacking Iraq ... pilots have flown about two-thirds as many missions as Nato pilots flew over Yugoslavia in 78 days of around-the-clock war there."
The purpose of the no fly zones, according to the British and American governments, is to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shi'a in the south against Saddam Hussein's forces. The aircraft are performing a "vital humanitarian task", says Tony Blair, that will give "minority peoples the hope of freedom and the right to determine their own destinies".
Like much of Blair's rhetoric on Iraq, it is simply false. In nothern Kurdish Iraq, I interviewed members of a family who had lost their grandfather, their father and four brothers and sisters when a "coalition" aircraft dive-bombed them and the sheep they were tending. The attack was investigated and verified by Hans Von Sponeck who drove there especially from Baghdad. Dozens of similar attacks - on shepherds, farmers, fishermen - are described in a document prepared by the UN Security Section.
The US faced a "genuine dilemma" in Iraq, reported The Wall Street Journal. "After eight years of enforcing a no fly zone in ... Iraq, few military targets remain. 'We're down to the last outhouse,' one US official protested. 'There are still some things left, but not many.'"
There are still children left. Six children died when an American missile hit Al Jumohria, a community in Basra's poorest residential area: 63 people were injured, a number of them badly burned. "Collateral damage," said the Pentagon. I walked down the street where the missile had struck in the early hours; it had followed the line of houses, destroying one after the other. I met the father of two sisters, aged eight and 10, who were photographed by a local wedding photographer shortly after the attack. They are in their nightdresses, one with a bow in her hair, their bodies entombed in the rubble of their homes, where they had been bombed to death in their beds. These images haunt me.
I flew on to New York for an interview with Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He appears an oddly diffident man, so softly spoken as to be almost inaudible.
"As the Secretary-General of the United Nations which is imposing this blockade on Iraq," I said, "what do you say to the parents of the children who are dying?" His reply was that the Security Council was considering "smart sanctions", which would "target the leaders" rather than act as "a blunt instrument that impacts on children". I said the UN was set up to help people, not harm them, and he replied, "Please do not judge us by what has happened in Iraq."
I walked to the office of Peter van Walsum, the Netherlands' ambassador to the UN and the chairman of the Sanctions Committee. What impressed me about this diplomat with life-and-death powers over 22 million people half a world away was
that, like liberal politicians in the West, he seemed to hold two diametrically opposed thoughts in his mind. On the one hand, he spoke of Iraq as if everybody were Saddam Hussein; on the other, he seemed to believe that most Iraqis were victims, held hostage to the intransigence of a dictator.
I asked him why the civilian population should be punished for Saddam Hussein's crimes. "It's a difficult problem," he replied. "You should realise that sanctions are one of the curative measures that the Security Council has at its disposal ... and obviously they hurt. They are like a military measure." "Who do they hurt?" "Well, this, of course, is the problem ... but with military action, too, you have the eternal problem of collateral damage." "So an entire nation is collateral damage. Is that correct?" "No, I am saying that sanctions have [similar] effects. We have to study this further."
"Do you believe that people have human rights no matter where they live and under what system?" I asked. "Yes." "Doesn't that mean that the sanctions you are imposing are violating the human rights of millions of people?" "It's also documented the Iraqi regime has committed very serious human rights breaches ..."
"There is no doubt about that," I said. "But what's the difference in principle between human rights violations committed by the regime and those caused by your committee?" "It's a very complex issue, Mr Pilger."
"What do you say to those who describe sanctions that have caused so many deaths as 'weapons of mass destruction' as lethal as chemical weapons?" "I don't think that's a fair comparison." "Aren't the deaths of half a million children mass destruction?" "I don't think that's a very fair question. We are talking about a situation caused by a government that overran its neighbour, and has weapons of mass destruction."
"Then why aren't there sanctions on Israel [which] occupies much of Palestine and attacks Lebanon almost every day of the week? Why aren't there sanctions on Turkey, which has displaced three million Kurds and caused the deaths of 30,000 Kurds?" "Well, there are many countries that do things that we are not happy with. We can't be everywhere. I repeat, it's complex." "How much power does the United States exercise over your committee?" "We operate by consensus." "And what if the Americans object?" "We don"t operate."
There is little doubt that if Saddam Hussein saw political advantage in starving and otherwise denying his people, he would do so. It is hardly surprising that he has looked after himself, his inner circle and, above all, his military and security apparatus.
His palaces and spooks, like the cartoon portraits of himself, are everywhere. Unlike other tyrants, however, he not only survived, but before the Gulf War enjoyed a measure of popularity by buying off his people with the benefits from Iraq's oil revenue. Having exiled or murdered his opponents, more than any Arab leader he used the riches of oil to modernise the civilian infrastructure, building first-rate hospitals, schools and universities.
In this way he fostered a relatively large, healthy, well-fed, well-educated middle class. Before sanctions, Iraqis consumed more than 3,000 calories each per day; 92 per cent of people had safe water and 93 per cent enjoyed free health care. Adult literacy was one of the highest in the world, at around 95 per cent. According to the Economist's Intelligence Unit, "the Iraqi welfare state was, until recently, among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab world."
It is said the only true beneficiary of sanctions is Saddam Hussein. He has used the embargo to centralise state power, and so reinforce his direct control over people's lives. With most Iraqis now dependent on the state food rationing system, organised political dissent is all but unthinkable. In any case, for most Iraqis, it is cancelled by the sense of grievance and anger they feel towards the external enemy, western governments.
In the relatively open and pro-Western society that existed in Iraq before 1991, there was always the prospect of an uprising, as the Kurdish and Shia rebellions that year showed. In today's state of siege, there is none. That is the unsung achievement of the Anglo-American blockade.
The economic blockade on Iraq must be lifted for no other reason than that it is immoral, its consequences inhuman. When that happens, says the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, "the weapons inspectors must go back into Iraq and complete their mandate, which should be reconfigured. It was originally drawn up for quantitative disarmament, to account for every nut, screw, bolt, document that exists in Iraq. As long as Iraq didn't account for that, it was not in compliance and there was no progress.
"We should change that mandate to qualitative disarmament. Does Iraq have a chemical weapons programme today? No. Does Iraq have a long-range missile programme today? No. Nuclear? No. Biological? No. Is Iraq qualitatively disarmed? Yes. So we should get on with monitoring Iraq to ensure they do not reconstitute any of this capability."
Even before the machinations in the UN Security Council in October and November 2002, Iraq had already accepted back inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the time of writing, a new resolution, forced through the Security Council by a Bush administration campaign of bribery and coercion, has seen a contingent of weapons inspectors at work in Iraq. Led by the Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, the inspectors have extraordinary powers, which, for example, require Iraq to "confess" to possessing equipment never banned by previous resolutions. In spite of a torrent of disnformation from Washington and Whitehall, they have found, as one inspector put it, "zilch".
An attack is next; we have no right to call it a "war". The "enemy" is a nation of whom almost half the population are children, a nation who offer us no threat and with whom we have no quarrel. The fate of countless innocent lives now depends on vestiges of self-respect among the so-called international (non-American) community, and on free journalists to tell the truth and not merely channel and echo the propaganda of great power.
It is seldom reported that UN Security Resolution 687 that enforces the embargo on Iraq also says that Iraq's disarmament should be a step "towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction ..." In other words, if Iraq gives up, or has given up, its doomsday weapons, so should Israel. After 11 September 2001, making relentless demands on Iraq, then attacking it, while turning a blind eye to Israel will endanger us all.
"The longer the sanctions go on," said Denis Halliday, "[the more] we are likely to see the emergence of a generation who will regard Saddam Hussein as too moderate and too willing to listen to the West."
On my last night in Iraq, I went to the Rabat Hall in the centre of Baghdad to watch the Iraqi National Orchestra rehearse. I had wanted to meet Mohammed Amin Ezzat, the conductor, whose personal tragedy epitomises the punishment of his people. Because the power supply is so intermittent, Iraqis have been forced to use cheap kerosene lamps for lighting, heating and cooking; and these frequently explode. This is what happened to Mohammed Amin Ezzat's wife, Jenan, who was engulfed in flames.
"I saw my wife burn completely before my eyes," he said. " I threw myself on her in order to extinguish the flames, but it was no use. She died. I sometimes wish I had died with her." He stood on his conductor's podium, his badly burnt left arm unmoving, the fingers fused together.
The orchestra was rehearsing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, and there was a strange discord. Reeds were missing from clarinets and strings from violins. "We can't get them from abroad," he said. "Someone has decreed they are not allowed." The musical scores are ragged, like ancient parchment. The musicians cannot get paper.
Only two members of the original orchestra are left; the rest have set out on the long, dangerous road to Jordan and beyond. "You cannot blame them," he said. "The suffering in our country is too great. But why has it not been stopped?"
It was a question I put to Denis Halliday one evening in New York. We were standing, just the two of us, in the great modernist theatre that is the General Assembly at the UN. "This is where the real world is represented," he said.
"One state, one vote. By contrast, the Security Council has five permanent members which have veto rights. There is no democracy there. Had the issue of sanctions on Iraq gone to the General Assembly, it would have been overturned by a very large majority.
"We have to change the United Nations, to reclaim what is ours. The genocide in Iraq is the test of our will. All of us have to break the silence: to make those responsible, in Washington and London, aware that history will slaughter them."
This is an edited extract from John Pilger's latest book, 'The New Rulers of the World', published next month by Verso, as a fully updated paperback at £8
-------- iran
Iran to Provide Nuclear Design Details, Inspector Says
Associated Press
Sunday, February 23, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49845-2003Feb22?language=printer
TEHRAN, Feb. 22 -- Iran has agreed to provide information about the design of any proposed nuclear facility, the top U.N. nuclear inspector said today.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said Iran will consider allowing his agency to inspect undeclared nuclear facilities with little prior notification.
"It is a sign of greater transparency from Iran regarding its nuclear programs," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei's visit to Iran included a tour of a nuclear plant under construction in Natanz, about 200 miles south of Tehran. He also met with Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, before departing a day ahead of schedule. He had been scheduled to visit a nuclear facility in Isfahan in central Iran.
In Vienna, an IAEA spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said ElBaradei left early because he had completed the work he had set out to accomplish. Fleming said two senior members of ElBaradei's team would stay in Iran for several days.
"They will be visiting a number of sites, including Arak," a nuclear power plant under construction in central Iran, she said.
ElBaradei, who is in charge of nuclear inspections in Iraq, was visiting Iran's nuclear facilities to ensure that its nuclear industry was limited to peaceful, civilian uses and to check the safety of generating plants.
Iran announced earlier this month that it had started mining uranium and was building facilities, including one at Natanz, to process ore into fuel for nuclear power plants. Uranium must be enriched before it can be used in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Highly enriched uranium can also be used for nuclear weapons.
Iran has said its nuclear power industry is intended solely to meet the nation's growing energy demands. U.S. officials say Iran's oil and gas deposits make an expensive nuclear power program unnecessary and contend that the facilities are part of a secret nuclear weapons program.
President Bush has labeled Iran as part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
In December, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said satellite imagery showed that some structures at the Natanz plant were being buried, indicating Iran is building "a secret underground site where it could produce fissile material."
But Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, said Friday the walled compound was built partially underground for safety reasons.
ElBaradei described the Natanz nuclear plant as a "very sophisticated" centrifuge facility for uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, Khatami reiterated that his country was following international regulations and that its facilities are open to U.N. inspections.
"Iran is fully committed to the international conventions concerning civilian application of nuclear energy," he was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
----
Inspectors in Iran Examine Machines to Enrich Uranium
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
February 23, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/international/23IRAN.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - International inspectors visiting Iran this week were shown a network of sophisticated machinery to enrich uranium, spurring concerns that Iran is making headway in its suspected program to develop nuclear weapons, Western officials and international diplomats said today.
The site in question is near the city of Natanz and was visited on Friday by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who went to Iran to assess the status of its nuclear program. It was the first time that inspectors had visited the installation.
During the visit to the Natanz site, inspectors found that it included a small network of centrifuges for enriching uranium. The inspectors also learned that Iran had components to make a significant number of additional centrifuges.
American officials believe Natanz is part of a long suspected nuclear weapons program, an Iranian project that American intelligence believes has benefited from Pakistani assistance and that is far more advanced than the effort by Iraq.
The officials say Iran's goal is to mine or purchase uranium, process the ore and enrich it to a purity suitable for making weapons - a process that would give Iran a largely indigenous capability to make nuclear weapons.
Iran insists that its aim is to make fuel for a civilian nuclear power program, and it maintains that it is opening its plant in Natanz to the atomic energy agency to demonstrate its peaceful intentions.
The new information on Iran's program comes at an awkward time for the Bush administration, which is making final military preparations for a potential American-led invasion to topple the government of Saddam Hussein, an action justified partly on grounds that Iraq is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Noting that North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs are far ahead of Iraq's, critics of the Bush administration have contended that it has focused too much on a lesser proliferation problem. Administration officials contend that it is important to act before Iraq becomes a nuclear power and say the United States is trying to devise strategies to try to head off North Korea's and Iran's weapons programs.
Dr. ElBaradei, who had planned to visit Iranian sites for three days, cut short his visit to Iran and left today. Two senior officials from the atomic energy agency plan to continue their work in Iran for several days.
The site near Natanz has long been of concern to American intelligence agencies, which had concluded that Iran was building a large gas centrifuge plant there to enrich uranium.
The plant under construction there has thick concrete walls and is being built underground, an apparent precaution against a military attack. After the work on the plant was disclosed by an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Dr. ElBaradei asked that it be included in his visit to Iran.
The agency also pushed for the visit because of Iran's announcement in September that it was proceeding with an ambitious nuclear power program, one that is planned to give it an indigenous ability to make and reprocess its own fuel. One objective of Dr. ElBaradei's visit was to ask Iran to adopt an additional protocol that would provide the agency with significantly greater access to sites in Iran and information about its nuclear program.
American and foreign intelligence services believe Iran's program would work as follows: Iran would mine natural uranium at domestic sites or buy it abroad. The uranium would then be taken to a facility at Isfahan, where it would be converted into uranium hexafluoride, a gas.
The fuel would then be taken either to the centrifuge facility at Natanz or, perhaps, to some covert centrifuge plant. The progress that Iran has made in centrifuge technology, as documented by the inspectors, reinforces concerns that Iran is moving forward in this major area.
Iran says Natanz will be used to produce low-enriched uranium for civilian power plants that it has yet to build. The plant that Russians are building at Bushehr would not need low-enriched uranium from Natanz because Russia is supplying the fuel.
Iran also says the Natanz facility will be under international safeguards, which means there will be monitoring equipment and regular inspections to make sure that no enriched uranium is diverted.
But American and British intelligence officials have several concerns. One is that if Iran is able to build a civilian plant in Natanz, it can develop a clandestine nuclear enrichment plant elsewhere. Another is that Iran might somehow divert material from Natanz and take it to a secret centrifuge plant for enrichment to weapons-grade material.
Still another concern is that Iran will complete the Natanz plant under international inspection but then withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it is legally allowed to do with three months' notice. It could then reconfigure the installation to make weapons-grade uranium. A rule of thumb is that it takes 1,000 centrifuges of the type Iran is using to make a bomb's worth of fissile material per year.
An urgent question is whether Iran has run some uranium hexafluoride through the small network of centrifuges at Natanz. That would produce small amounts of low-enriched uranium but would be a violation of Iran's obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Those obligations require that the production of nuclear material be reported.
Asked to comment on the centrifuges observed at Natanz, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency declined to respond.
"Iran will attempt to justify Natanz as part of its civilian nuclear power program, but it is actually an effort to develop a nuclear weapons breakout capability," said Gary Samore, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and former expert on proliferation on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council.
"It makes no technical sense for Iran to do this for civilian purposes because Russia has agreed to provide lifetime fuel services for Iran's only nuclear power plant under construction, the one at Bushehr," Mr. Samore added. "The Iranians will argue that they have plans to buy an additional four or five plants from Russia. But it would make more economic and technical sense for Russia to provide the fuel for those plants."
Natanz is just one Iranian plant that is of concern. According to American intelligence, Iran has been building a plant near Arak in west-central Iran to produce heavy water, which can be used to make plutonium. Iran has yet to build a reactor that could use the heavy water.
Earlier this week, the Iranian resistance group asserted that research and testing on centrifuge technology was being carried out at a front company near Tehran called the Kola Electric Company. Iran says the company is a watch factory.
-------- iraq
U.N. Arms Team Visits Iraq Missile Plants
Sunday February 23, 2003
AP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2427062,00.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.N. weapons inspectors visited two sites Sunday involved in producing and testing the Al Samoud 2 missile, which the inspectors have ordered Iraq to destroy.
The inspectors went to the Al Fatah facility on the northwest outskirts of Baghdad, which makes components of Al Samoud 2 guidance and control systems, as well as parts of the engine and airframe, Iraq's Information Ministry said.
They also visited the Al Rafah facility, 80 miles south of Baghdad, which tests engines of the Al Samoud 2 and other missiles.
On Friday, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said U.N.-supervised destruction of all Al Samoud 2 missiles, warheads, fuel, engines and other components must begin by March 1 because they exceed the 93-mile range limit set by U.N. resolutions adopted at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
No Iraqi official has commented publicly on the order.
Missiles inspectors tagging the rockets for destruction at the Ibn al-Haithem company on Saturday were met by factory director Owayed Ahmed Ali, who pleaded with them to let Iraq keep its weapons so it can defend itself in the face of war.
``I asked (the inspectors), `You would destroy a defensive weapon now that we are threatened by the Americans, who might strike at any moment?''' he said.
``Some said, `You are right, but we have orders,' while others said, `You have other means to defend yourself.'''
President Bush said Saturday that Saddam Hussein has not disarmed and does not intend to, and that the United States will submit a new resolution to the U.N. Security Council early in the week to set the stage for war.
The resolution, to be offered jointly with Britain and possibly Spain, will make its case in ``clear and simple terms,'' Bush said. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he expected the Security Council to vote on the new resolution by mid-March.
The United States and Britain accuse Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, despite U.N. bans on both, and have massed nearly 200,000 troops around Iraq for a possible war. Iraq denies holding such weapons and says its enemies have their eyes on Iraq's oil and on world domination.
Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who currently heads the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, flew into Baghdad on Saturday night, a source in Baghdad told The Associated Press.
Primakov, who forged close ties with Baghdad as a former Soviet minister, has mediated in Iraq on several occasions. However, his mission to Baghdad in a bid to prevent the 1991 Gulf War ended in failure.
The source did not give details of Primakov's mission, but Russia's respected Echo of Moscow radio, citing a source in Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration, called Primakov's trip a confidential mission at Putin's request. Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency carried a similar report.
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s nuclear agency and one of the leaders of the U.N. inspection team, said Saturday that peace was still possible, but he wanted to see more cooperation from Iraq.
``We have not finished our work in Iraq. We are not getting full cooperation from Iraq but we hope to get it next week. We'd also like to see active cooperation in freely interviewing Iraqi scientists,'' ElBaradei said as he finished a two-day trip to Iran.
``We still believe that war is not inevitable.''
Al-Thawra, the newspaper of Iraq's ruling Baath Party, said in an editorial Sunday that Bush has become isolated.
``The Bush administration now seems confused, not knowing what to do or how to behave. Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction and the international community is opposing any aggression on Iraq. In light of this, the U.S. buildup and threats are meaningless,'' it said.
``If Bush ... avoids war, he will be responding to the demands of the American people, who oppose any aggression on Iraq, and directing taxpayers' money to boost the U.S. economy.''
``Any visitors to Baghdad will be welcomed,'' it added. ``Any aggressors will be defeated and humiliated.''
In addition to the missile-related installations, U.N. inspectors on Sunday also visited a military engineering facility south of Baghdad, an electronics research company and a deodorant factory in Baghdad, Iraq's Information Ministry said. A team visiting the northern city of Mosul went to a veterinary college and a company that makes soft drinks, it said.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Children's Fund and Iraqi health workers began a five-day campaign Sunday to vaccinate 4 million Iraqi children against polio. Thousands of health workers spread across the country, going from door to door, to vaccinate Iraqi children under the age of 5.
Carel de Rooy, UNICEF's representative in Iraq, said the campaign was routine and had nothing to do with a possible war.
----
ElBaradei grouses as Baghdad refuses to aid arms search
AP
February 23, 2003
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030223-86368386.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraq is not fully cooperating with the U.N. inspectors in their search for suspected weapons of mass destruction, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said yesterday.
"We have not finished our work in Iraq. We are not getting full cooperation from Iraq. but we hope to get it in the coming weeks," Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a news conference in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
"We'd also like to see active cooperation in freely interviewing Iraqi scientists," Mr. ElBaradei said.
However, he said there was still a chance to avoid war. "We still believe that war is not inevitable," he told reporters as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Iran, where he visited two nuclear plants to ensure the country's nuclear industry was limited to peaceful, civilian purposes.
Earlier this month, Mr. ElBaradei told the U.N. Security Council that inspectors had found no evidence that Iraq had resumed its nuclear weapons program. He also said they could do their job without Iraq's full cooperation.
In an interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel published yesterday, he said he sees no reason to halt weapons inspections and resort to war to disarm Iraq.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov on a confidential mission to Baghdad yesterday in a reprise of the role he played before the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Moscow media reported.
Mr. Primakov, a top member of the ruling Communist elite during Soviet days, sought in vain to avoid the first allied war in which a U.S.-led coalition drove invading Iraqi forces from neighboring Kuwait.
Mr. Primakov, an expert on the Middle East, has long-standing ties with the Iraqi leadership and has sought to mediate in previous conflicts between Baghdad and the United Nations.
Russia has long been pushing for a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis and has supported letting U.N. weapons inspectors continue their work.
Yesterday, the weapons inspectors tagging Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles for destruction were met by an irate factory director, who pleaded with them to let Iraq keep its weapons so it can defend itself in the face of war.
Nine inspectors arrived at the Ibn al-Haithem company on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, which is involved in producing the missile and split into three groups to tag the missiles, according to Owayed Ahmed Ali, director of the factory.
Mr. Ali said he pleaded with them not to force Iraq to destroy the missiles, as chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix ordered it to do Friday. Mr. Blix said U.N.-supervised destruction of all Al Samoud 2 missiles, warheads, fuel, engines and other components must begin by March 1.
No Iraqi official has commented publicly on Mr. Blix's order to destroy the weapons, which exceed the 93-mile-range limit set by U.N. resolutions adopted at the end of the 1991 war.
An assistant to Gen. Hossam Mohamed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison to the U.N. inspectors, said yesterday he still hadn't seen the chief inspector's letter and couldn't comment.
In addition to Ibn al-Haitham, which conducts the final assembly of the Al Samoud 2, inspectors visited Al Nasser, which makes Al Samoud 2 components, and checked on an engine test stand, spokesman Hiro Ueki said.
----
Saddam won't give up chemical bombs
By Philip Sherwell
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
February 23, 2003
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030223-78979096.htm
AMMAN, Jordan - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's air force has developed a more sophisticated delivery and detonation system for chemical weapons than previously known to United Nations inspectors, a former officer has disclosed.
The former officer, who was fairly senior in the air force hierarchy when he fled Iraq last year, said Baghdad was still pursuing the chemical armaments program when he left Iraq - despite its insistence that it had abandoned its weapons of mass destruction project after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The officer - who did not want to be identified because of fears for his safety and that of his relatives still in Iraq - said he was trained to handle binary-system bombs, which mix lethal chemicals moments before detonation for maximum effect.
"Saddam will never surrender these weapons," he said. "They are as much a part of his life as eating and drinking."
He described in detail how the chemical bombs and sprays were fitted and operated, backing up his testimony with drawings and graphics, during meetings lasting several hours in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
The former officer's claims, if true, would indicate a clear breach of U.N. resolutions and fuel fears that Saddam may use chemical weapons against U.S. and British forces in the event of war.
"What he describes is a logical development of the techniques we know the Iraqis were working on," a former senior weapons inspector told the Sunday Telegraph.
"If what he says can be confirmed, then this is a very big discovery. It would be proof that Iraq has continued with the development of a new type of weapon," another former weapons inspector said.
A spokesman for UNMOVIC, the U.N. weapons inspections agency, said in New York that inspectors would be interested in interviewing the former Iraqi officer.
The chemical weapons previously known to inspectors were less advanced, their lethal contents mixed on the ground before the bombs were loaded on to planes.
At the time the Iraqi officer was trained, he was working at military bases at Habbaniyah 50 miles west of Baghdad, and al-Qaqa, 20 miles south of the capital.
He last witnessed the new bomb mechanism being tested - with water and oil rather than chemicals - at Habbaniyah in 2000, before the tests were switched to a different location. However, he said former colleagues with whom he remains in contact confirm that the program is still running.
He said that the bombs were partitioned into two compartments. When loaded with chemicals, the bombs had a black liquid in one compartment and a yellowish one in the other.
The pilots were trained to hit a switch to open the partition when they approached their targets, allowing the two substances to combine and reach their strongest potency. A few seconds later, outer doors on the bottom of the weapon would open automatically, releasing the mixture.
These weapons were intended for the Iraqi air force's more modern jets, but an alternative delivery method was developed for slower planes, such as the Russian Sukhoi-25s and for helicopters, he said.
----
Saddam told: disarm in three weeks or it's war
· Blair and Bush force second UN resolution
· Backbench MPs set to mount rebellion
Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday February 23, 2003
The UK Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901203,00.html
Saddam Hussein is to be given a final 'act or be defeated' deadline of the middle of March before a second United Nations resolution is debated by the Security Council, clearing the way for imminent military action.
Downing Street said for the first time last night that there would be a definite vote on the second resolution within three weeks. To be tabled jointly by Britain and America tomorrow, it will say the Iraqi dictator is in 'material breach' of resolution 1441 and call on him to comply fully with UN weapons inspectors or face 'serious consequences'.
In another signal that action against Iraq is entering its final phase and that war is almost inevitable, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who will be in charge of military operations, will travel to the Gulf tomorrow to meet armed forces moved to the region ahead of any attack.
Military sources said there were now about 8,000 British troops in the Gulf, with several thousand arriving every week. A full complement of more than 40,000 will be available 'in theatre' by the second resolution deadline.
Tony Blair will launch 'the last push for peace' this week with a series of high-profile statements and events to try to gain broad support for the resolution.
Officials hope that if a majority of Security Council members can be persuaded to back a second resolution authorising military action, it would be very difficult for France, Russia or China to use the veto, despite their desire to give UN weapons inspectors more time.
On Tuesday Blair will make an emergency statement to the Commons on Saddam's final chance to comply or face military action. There will then be a full parliamentary debate on Wednesday. The Government is braced for a significant backbench rebellion of 50 to 100 Labour MPs who will be asked to vote on a motion supporting Blair's decision to try to find a route through the United Nations to disarm Saddam.
Although military action will not be mentioned, Whitehall officials admitted that the vote, the first since the passing of Resolution 1441 in November, will be a chance for MPs to give the Prime Minister a 'bloody nose'. Government whips have already ordered MPs to attend and support the Prime Minister.
Number 10 sources also said that although MPs would be allowed to express an opinion before a decision on military action is taken, it was up to the Prime Minister to take the final decision.
'The Prime Minister will launch a "last push for peace" alongside the tabling of a new UN Security Council resolution this week,' Number 10 said. 'The resolution will state in clear and simple terms that Iraq is in breach of Resolution 1441. The commitment to a further resolution underlines our determination to explore every means possible to deliver a peaceful outcome. If we go to war, it is because we have to disarm Saddam.
'The resolution will not be put to a vote immediately; instead Saddam will be charged finally and fully to do what is required of him under 1441 - full disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.
'The time between the tabling of the new resolution and a vote on it will get the debate back to where it needs to be'
Blair will say Saddam still has to account for weapons of mass destruction unaccounted for when the UN inspectors left in 1998, including 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agents, 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent, 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals and 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents. He will also demand that scientists are interviewed without tape recorders or Iraqi minders.
'The Prime Minister will make clear that he has no desire for conflict, that he is determined to go the extra mile for peace and that he will seek to build as much common ground as possible in the international commu nity around the new resolution,' the statement continues,' the Number 10 source added.
'The process being launched this week, that is, putting down the resolution, a focus on Saddam, further reporting by [Hans] Blix [the head of the UN inspections team], then a vote taken in mid-March, comes six months since President Bush spoke to the United Nations, almost four months since 1441 was unanimously passed.
'Four months, the Prime Minister will say, is long enough to make a judgment about whether he is disarming and co-operating.'
-------- israel
Israeli wall drives Palestinians to despair
By Sharmila Devi in Bethlehem
February 22, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/financialtimes/business/FT1045511053783.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
Jamil Hosh arrived at his olive-wood factory and souvenir shop in Bethlehem this week to discover that Israel planned to seize a large chunk of land in his neighbourhood - leaving his business stranded in a military ghetto.
Mr Hosh is one of about 700 mostly Christian Palestinians affected by Israeli plans to build a wall that will loop around the Rachel's Tomb Jewish shrine in Bethlehem.
Israel says the 360km fortified wall that will encircle the West Bank is vital to prevent terrorism. The route of the wall is still being decided but settlers are pushing for it to include them and holy sites on the Israeli side, taking land from Palestinians in the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinians will also be fenced in on the Israeli side, cutting them off from their farms, water wells and public services.
The wall has rekindled Palestinian fears of "transfer". Rightwing Israeli politicians use the word to promote the dispersal of Palestinians, not necessarily in a forced manner but through creating such difficult conditions that people flee to find better lives.
A rise in house demolitions, the exile of militants and their families and the wall have heightened Palestinian worries of an escalation in Israeli operations while world attention is focused on a war against Iraq.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, Palestinian information minister, said Israel would be watching for a muted reaction from the international community before stepping up its actions. Mr Abed Rabbo urged US officials during meetings on the stalled peace process in London this week to act against the "war crime" being committed in Bethlehem: "They must do something to stop this ethnic cleansing."
Mr Hosh and his neighbours have been told they will need special permits to get through an army checkpoint to visit the rest of Bethlehem. Many believe ultimately they will be forced to abandon their homes and businesses. "Nobody knows exactly what will happen, maybe we will have to move. This area will be a disaster," said Mr Hosh.
Palestinians say they will lose 750 acres to the Israeli side of the fence around Rachel's Tomb, a flashpoint guarded by Israeli soldiers and visited by Jewish worshippers in armoured buses. Palestinians have vowed to fight a legal battle against the military order seizing the land but are unlikely to win.
"The Israeli plan is to force people out of the Bethlehem area. Tourism is very important for future development but they don't want to absorb the 85,000 people here," said Jad Isaac, director of the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem. "Already, 2,000 people have left during the past two years, young educated professionals, and once they are settled abroad they will send for their dependants, increasing the rate of migration."
The first section of the wall is being built in the northern West Bank.
Opinion polls show the wall receives broad support from Israelis. Both leftwing and rightwing parties have urged Ariel Sharon, prime minister, to speed construction to prevent suicide bombings.
-------- korea
S.Korea's Roh to Set Out Facing North, Woes at Home
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003
By Paul Eckert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51419-2003Feb23?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun takes office Tuesday facing a nuclear crisis with North Korea, policy rifts with the United States and domestic worries about public safety and corporate corruption.
The relatively inexperienced Roh, 56, has barely enjoyed a moment's honeymoon since his election in December, as the communist North's nuclear showdown with the United States has exacerbated economic uncertainties over a possible war in Iraq.
At home, a major scandal involving $500 million in secret payments to North Korea has eroded support for Seoul's engagement with Pyongyang, and a subway fire that killed at least 133 people has cast a harsh spotlight on public safety lapses.
Roh, who defeated a conservative opposition candidate by a narrow margin in the December vote, is a liberal former human rights lawyer who served one term in South Korea's parliament and had a brief stint as minister for maritime affairs and fisheries.
Analysts say Roh must cope with the North Korean nuclear crisis while steering the world's 12th largest economy through global economic uncertainty over war in Iraq and concerns about the untested leader's domestic economic policies at home.
Compared to outgoing President Kim Dae-jung, who took office in the heat of the 1997 Asian economic crisis, "there's more uncertainty about President Roh -- that's simply a fact of life" said Marcus Noland, a Korean economy expert at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
DIPLOMACY NOT CEREMONY
Key dignitaries gathering in Seoul -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese foreign policy czar Qian Qichen -- underscore that diplomacy will trump ceremony at Roh's inauguration Tuesday.
The latest crisis on the divided Korean Peninsula began in October, when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program in violation of international commitments.
It has escalated as Pyongyang expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and said it would pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and threatened to resume missile testing and abandon the 1953 Korean War armistice.
Roh's remarks on North Korea have highlighted a shared U.S.-South Korean goal of ending the nuclear arms programs, but also made tactical differences clear. Roh rules out the option of attacking the North which Washington says it retains.
Roh has tried to dispel the notion that his new team is oblivious to threats from North Korea, under which South Koreans have lived since Pyongyang launched the 1950-53 Korean War.
"A mere hint of war and resulting anxiety can inflict a great loss upon us. The recent downgrading of credit rating outlook because of North Korea's nuclear threat is a perfect case in point," he said.
SKEPTICS AT HOME AND ABROAD
The outlook cut by Moody's "means that in the event of a prolonged nuclear standoff with North Korea, the new economic team will need to exert even more effort to assure foreign investors," said former finance minister Kang Bong-kyun.
Roh's election tapped a wave of anti-U.S. protests, triggered by an accident last June in which two girls were killed by a U.S. army vehicle, whose drivers were later acquitted by an American military tribunal.
The protests illustrated a deep-seated resentment of Seoul's military ally and the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. Seoul and Washington are set to launch a review and overhaul of the 50-year-old alliance later this year.
"I firmly believe we have a window of opportunity to transform the Republic of Korea-United States alliance during the formative stages of President Roh's administration," said General Leon J. LaPorte, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea.
Roh has tried to assuage U.S. skeptics. In a speech at a Seoul seminar of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank, he said U.S. fears that he was "on the extreme, radical left" were "incorrect in more ways than one."
Roh, who won office on the vote of the two-thirds of South Koreans born after the Korean War, still has to win over the conservative older segment of the country's 48 million people.
"Relations with the North and the area of security and diplomacy should not become haphazard experiments of ideology gone overboard," said the Chosun Ilbo, the country's largest newspaper and a voice of the conservative establishment.
"One wrong move and the country's destiny could be forever changed," it said in a editorial on the new leader.
----
Departing S.Korean Leader Kim Gets Kudos from Bush
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 1:11 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51294-2003Feb23?language=printer
SEOUL (Reuters) - President Bush has lauded President Kim Dae-jung's diplomatic and political achievements in a letter to the South Korean leader published Sunday, Kim's penultimate day in office.
Many South Koreans say Bush's hawkish policies and skepticism about North Korea helped undermine Kim's "sunshine policy" of trying to use aid and engagement to end 50 years of confrontation with the communist North.
Kim's first summit in Washington, in March 2001, is remembered with rancor in South Korea because Bush publicly questioned whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could be trusted. Pyongyang responded by shutting down ties with Seoul.
The U.S. president's first visit to South Korea a year ago came weeks after Bush grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq in an "axis of evil" -- a label the North says confirms American hostility at the heart of a four-month-old nuclear crisis.
"You have helped your country weather an unprecedented financial crisis, displayed compassion and patience with North Korea, and dramatically improved relations with all of your neighbors," said Bush's letter, released by Kim's office.
"Above all, you have made the Republic of Korea a shining example of democracy and economic development that inspires not only the people of Asia, but people around the world," read the letter, which Kim's office said it received Saturday.
The 78-year-old Kim, a veteran democracy activist who was jailed and nearly killed for opposing decades of military rule in South Korea, hands power to President-elect Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday.
The final year of Kim's five-year term has been marred by the arrest and conviction of two of his sons on bribery charges, a scandal involving $500 million in secret payments to North Korea, and the second North Korean nuclear crisis in a decade.
The latest crisis on the divided Korean Peninsula began in October, when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program in violation of its international commitments.
It escalated as Pyongyang expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, said it would pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and threatened to resume missile testing and abandon the 1953 Korean War armistice.
----
Kim Dae Jung's Close Call: A Tale of Three Dissidents
By Donald A. Ranard
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Washington Post; Page B03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45509-2003Feb21?language=printer
Recent anti-American demonstrations in Seoul provoked surprise and outrage in the United States: How dare the South Koreans criticize us, after all we've done for them! But there's nothing new about anti-American sentiment in South Korea. It's always been there beneath the surface, rooted in the unusually complex relationship that has bound the two countries since the end of World War II. In the past almost 60 years, we've saved the South from the communist North, provided massive military and economic aid -- and propped up one dictator after another.
This week, South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung, 78, steps down after a five-year term in office. His departure prompts memories of an untold tale that dramatically encapsulates America's contradictory history in South Korea. In 1973, South Korean intelligence agents kidnapped and nearly murdered Kim, then the country's leading pro-democracy dissident against the U.S.-supported dictator Park Chung Hee. All accounts agree that it was the U.S. response, together with public outrage in Japan, that saved Kim. None, however, has described exactly what the United States did to help rescue Kim. Some mention the role played by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, but most simply say that Kim was saved by a "last-minute U.S. intervention," implying a concerted effort by officials at the highest levels of government.
In fact, he was saved by the intervention of a pair of American diplomats acting on their own initiative, without approval from their government -- a government whose policy toward South Korea may have contributed to Kim's plight in the first place. One of the men was Philip Habib, then the U.S. ambassador to Seoul. The other was my father, Donald L. Ranard, a Korea specialist at the State Department in Washington. Before my father died in 1990, he mentioned the incident to me a few times, but it was only after I'd interviewed some of his and Habib's old colleagues that I was able to piece the full story together.
On Aug. 8, 1973, Kim was kidnapped in broad daylight from a Tokyo hotel by five Korean men in dark business suits. Within hours, the incident was fueling media speculation in Japan that the Korean CIA was behind the abduction, a connection the South Korean government quickly denied.
In Seoul, Ambassador Habib went into action. The usual -- and professionally safe -- course would have been to ask Washington for instructions. But Habib was not your usual diplomat. A first-generation Lebanese American from Brooklyn, he was blunt, but shrewd, too, with a sure-footed sense of when to move on his own. Now was such a moment. Even if there had been time for instructions, he knew his superiors in Washington might not authorize the kind of response needed to save Kim. Under President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, U.S. policy was to not comment on human rights violations by South Korea, a vital ally. Officials who expressed concern to Park's government, even in private, were told to stop meddling in South Korea's internal affairs.
Habib got hold of the senior embassy and military staff. "I know how things work here," he told them. "They're going to wait 24 hours and if we don't say anything, Kim will be killed." After the CIA station chief had ascertained that the KCIA was indeed the culprit, Habib told his staff to contact every Korean of importance they knew. If they weren't in their offices, he said, go to their homes. If it was the middle of the night, better yet -- then they would know the United States meant business. "He told us: Don't get caught up in an argument with the Koreans over whether they did it or not," recalled Daniel O'Donohue, the embassy's political counselor. "Just tell them the U.S. wants this man alive." Habib himself met with the prime minister, Park's No. 2, and told him straight: If Kim doesn't come back alive, you are in deep trouble.
Back in Washington, my father was State's chief man on Korea -- and the chief critic of State's Korea policy. To the media and the public, he chose his words carefully. To his colleagues, he was frank: Our policy of silence was helping Park turn Korea from a semi-authoritarian regime into an all-out dictatorship.
When news of the kidnapping reached him, my father was in New York, attending a U.N. meeting. He left the meeting and called Wes Kriebel, his deputy in Washington, and then called Habib in Seoul for details. He called Kriebel back. They had to get a press statement out. What Habib had done was critical but, by itself, not enough. Park would be watching to see what Washington would say, and if he sensed any indecision, Kim would die.
My father knew from his own experience the need for a strong and timely statement of support from Washington. In 1960, as political counselor in the embassy in Seoul, he'd played a key role in the embassy's decision to support a student-led revolt against the Syngman Rhee dictatorship; in a statement written by then-deputy chief of mission Marshall Green, the embassy called on the South Korean government to settle the protesters' "justifiable grievances." Washington immediately issued a series of strong statements backing its embassy, Rhee stepped down and, after a free and fair election, South Korea launched its first experiment in democracy. A year later, Gen. Park staged a midnight coup. On its own initiative, the embassy condemned the coup in the strongest possible language. But this time Washington hesitated. South Korea's place in the world -- a weak country surrounded by stronger, aggressive powers -- had trained its leaders to read the reality behind the rhetoric of friends and foes alike, and Park read Washington's silence, and its subsequent pro forma statement of mild disapproval, loud and clear: The United States wasn't going to oppose the coup.
Together, my father and Kriebel worked out the statement on the Kim kidnapping. In unusually strong language, it said the United States "deplored" the abduction, calling it "an act of terrorism." Washington had a high regard for Kim, a respected Korean leader, and a great interest in his security. The statement invited Kim to the United States and called for his "imminent release." There was no reference to the communist threat from the North or national security or any of the other coded phrases that would tell Seoul, in essence: We don't like what you've done, but we're not going to do anything about it. The message was clear, and it reiterated what Habib was telling Park: Hands off Kim Dae Jung. Or else.
The statement went out -- how, Kriebel doesn't recall. Important pronouncements are normally cleared by the seventh floor, State's top tier. "I had the impression that someone on the seventh floor wasn't paying attention," O'Donohue told me. Or perhaps, Kriebel hinted, my father simply put it out himself. "Sometimes," he chuckled, "your father was his own seventh floor."
Five days after he was kidnapped, Kim turned up on the streets of Seoul, a few blocks from his house. He was bruised, shaken and dazed. But he was alive.
Later the world would learn just how close Kim had come to being killed. After grabbing him in the Tokyo hotel corridor, his abductors had shoved him into a nearby room, where they beat and drugged him. From there, they took him to the seaport of Osaka, and then by high-speed boat in the middle of the night to a freighter at sea. Bound and weighted down with concrete blocks, Kim was minutes from being thrown overboard when his captors abruptly aborted the plan.
Last year, a film producer in Tokyo, a Japanese-born Korean, asked me to review a script about the kidnapping. In it, Kissinger played the central U.S. role in Kim's rescue. Kissinger had played no such role, I told the producer; it was two lower-level officials, acting against the spirit of Kissinger's policy, who had saved Kim. The producer said that for dramatic purposes he felt he had to stick with his scenario.
I think there was another reason the producer didn't like my version: A Japanese audience simply wouldn't believe that two officials, even senior ones, could have acted with such independence. My guess is that Kim would find it hard to believe, too. He has always known that my father helped save his life -- he said so in a condolence message he sent to my mother after my father died. But I doubt that he knows the real story -- or suspects that if someone besides either Habib or my father had been in charge that day, someone less inclined to "meddle" in the affairs of another country, he probably would not be alive today.
Donald Ranard, a writer in Tacoma, Wash., is working on a book about his father and Korea. His brother Andrew Ranard, a Tokyo-based writer, contributed to this article.
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North Korea's Need for Electricity Fuels Its Nuclear Ambitions
February 23, 2003
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/international/asia/23ELEC.html
ONJUNG-RI, North Korea, Feb. 16 - The restaurant receptionist was shivering. The waitresses wore long underwear. Then, during a dinner of spicy dumplings and cold noodles, the lights went out three times.
"North Korea's No. 1 problem is electricity," Kim Young Il, a South Korean businessman, said, sighing, as the gas flames of a Korean barbecue burned blue into the Saturday night gloom.
"We try to deal with goods that can be produced without power like sun dried fish," he said, as the lights flickered back on. "Because there is no heat in hotels, I generally only travel in the country from May to October."
Behind the standoff between North Korea and the world over its nuclear weapons crisis is a power crisis.
Almost a decade ago, North Korea agreed to stop construction of Soviet-designed power plants that produced plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons. In return, a United States-led consortium was to build three nuclear power plants designed to be proliferation proof. Although the first plant under the agreement was to be ready this year, the project is years behind schedule.
The deal collapsed last fall after North Korean officials were said to have admitted to an American envoy that they were cheating on the accord and pursuing a second secret nuclear weapons program. Just as winter started, the United States ended fuel oil deliveries to North Korea that had been stipulated under the agreement.
"The U.S. stands between us and electricity," said Kim Dae Sung, a 35-year-old park guide, voicing a government-approved view that most of North Korea's shortcomings are the fault of the United States. Bitter that she never knows whether she will watch television after work or read by candlelight, she said, "Why do the Americans keep making problems with electricity?"
To visit North Korea today is to visit a country that has regressed into a preindustrial past.
Electric wires go from house to house, but at night entire villages disappear into darkness. During the day, residents trudge through the snow, carrying stacks of firewood on their backs. Without the power to mine coal or the fuel to deliver it, most rural households have reverted to cooking and heating with wood.
North Korea has become a nation of walkers and bicyclists as there is little gasoline for cars and buses. The railroad station here features a huge portrait of Kim Il Sung, the founder of this Communist state, with an inspirational slogan. But pedestrians use the tracks as a walkway, because no electric trains have run through here in years. Near here, the lighthouse at Kosong harbor is no longer lighted at night.
"The country was fully electrified before the crisis began in the 1990's," said Timothy Savage, who surveyed North Korea's energy needs in 2000 for the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, a California-based group. "They have appliances, radios, televisions, and in some cases refrigerators."
But because of a lack of maintenance, North Korea's hydro and fuel oil plants were working at only 30 percent of capacity, and 30 percent of production was lost as a result of leakage, the Nautilus survey found.
The survey calculated that this nation of 22 million people was limping along on 2 gigawatts of energy, less than the amount of power consumed by an American city of one million people.
"Energy is at the root of all of North Korea's economic problems, including the famine," Mr. Savage continued, referring to severe food shortages in the mid-1990's that killed as many as two million people, or 10 percent of the population.
Without power, electric pumps could not irrigate fields, electric threshers could not thresh grain and factories could not make fertilizer or parts for North Korea's ancient fleet of tractors.
Last year, the United Nations World Food Program helped to feed about one-third of the population here. But two of the largest donor nations, Japan and the United States, have suspended food shipments for North Korea, partly because of the nuclear weapons program and partly because of the invective heaped daily on both countries by North Korea's state-controlled media.
Calling for "desperate measures," North Korea's director of energy, Kim Jae Rok, was quoted this week in The Sunday Telegraph as saying that his nation now plans to build four nuclear power plants.
"This will enable us to meet the urgent need for electricity supplies in our country," Mr. Kim was quoted as saying.
Partly because of energy shortages, the number of South Korean companies interested in investing in North Korea has dwindled. The number of new projects approved by the South Korean government fell to 3 last year, from 13 in 1998.
Here at the Mount Kumgang resort project, easily South Korea's largest investment in North Korea, the Hyundai Asan Corporation solved the energy problem by importing three 1,000-kilowatt generators and diesel fuel to power them.
"Sometimes only two or three days a week, you see lights in the village," Kim Young Hyun, the resort manager, said of Onjung-ri.
Even Pyongyang, the nation's showcase capital, has been subject to blackouts, forcing people to climb stairs in high-rises and to store water in case water pumps stop.
"Energy supplies are very unreliable," said Lee Sang Man, a South Korean economist visiting here. Power shortages once closed for seven months a factory that Mr. Lee had invested in and was overseeing. The factory produced electric light bulbs.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
FEMA Study Falls Short, Indian Point Opponents Say
February 23, 2003
New York Times
By RICHARD LEZIN JONES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/nyregion/23INDI.html
Proponents of closing the Indian Point power plant claimed a modest victory yesterday with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision to withhold its endorsement of emergency plans at the nuclear plant.
In virtually the same breath, however, the critics of contingency plans at the nuclear reactor said that FEMA did not go far enough when it reported on Friday that it could not offer "reasonable assurance" that evacuation routes or other measures would prove effective in the event of an accident or terrorist attack.
"We dragged FEMA kicking and screaming halfway to the truth," said State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, who then offered what he and other opponents believe is the other half. "What FEMA did is evidence Indian Point should close."
In its 500-page preliminary report, FEMA said that its uncertainty over emergency preparedness in the communities surrounding the plant - in Buchanan, Westchester County, about 35 miles north of Manhattan - stemmed from the state's failure to provide detailed information about what specific steps those communities would take if a catastrophe were to occur.
Last month, leaders of the four counties around the plant said they would not endorse emergency measures in their communities, after a consultant hired by the state called those plans inadequate. Without endorsements from the county level, state officials said that they could not offer what are considered routine certifications of such plans.
Lacking the state's own certification, FEMA said it could not endorse the emergency plans in its report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which requires FEMA approval as a condition for granting operating licenses for nuclear plants. FEMA officials have asked the state to submit certification plans for the communities around the plant by May 2, just before the agency sends its final report to the N.R.C.
The FEMA report raises questions about the future of Indian Point, which has faced increased scrutiny about its safety since the terrorism of Sept. 11.
Critics of the plant's continued operation said Friday's report from FEMA might have helped bolster their stance. Assemblyman Brodsky, a Democrat from Elmsford, called the report "a step in the right direction" and said it "makes the case for inadequacy."
In a statement, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lauded FEMA's move. "Security at the Indian Point facility must be the highest priority on which the people at the facility and in the surrounding areas can depend," she said.
State emergency management officials said yesterday that they were still reviewing the details of the report and were not surprised by what they had seen so far of its findings.
"There are some planning issues that were raised with this report," said Donald L. Mauer, a spokesman for the state's emergency management office. "We'll take a look at that and see what can be done to improve public safety."
As for FEMA's request that the counties - Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester - submit certifications of the emergency plans, Mr. Mauer said: "We're going to continue to work with the counties, but it's still their decision."
It is unclear what action the N.R.C. might take without state or FEMA certification of the emergency plan, which includes such details as evacuation procedures within 10 miles of the plant.
The commission has never denied a license based on uncertified emergency planning procedures, and it would likely ask that the state address any deficiencies with the contingency measures before making a decision about the plant's continued operation. That process could take months and would likely face a raft of legal challenges from both sides.
-------- us politics
Powell in China faces tough sell for support on Iraq, North Korea
AFP
Sunday February 23, 2003 8:37 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030223/1/384yo.html
US Secretary of State Colin Powell opened the second leg of a three-nation tour of north Asia here on a mission to secure Chinese support for a new UN resolution on Iraq and backing for the US approach on North Korea.
Washington is patiently bidding for the UN Security Council to adopt a new resolution it expects to table this week and will lobby Beijing, a veto-wielding permanent member of the body, to vote for it or, at the very least, remain neutral by abstaining.
The United States is also pushing hard for China to use its influence with North Korea and urge Pyongyang to drop its insistence on direct talks with Washington to resolve concerns over its rogue nuclear programs.
But Powell, who meets President Jiang Zemin, Communist Party chief Hu Jintao and Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan Monday, has his work cut out for him as China has been thus far non-committal on an Iraq resolution and near hostile on US plans for North Korea.
In Tokyo, the first stop on his tour, Powell received Japanese support Sunday on both issues and had stern words for Baghdad and the United Nations, which he said must act to force Iraq to comply with Security Council resolution 1441 that gave it a last chance to disarm.
"It is time to take action," he told reporters at a news conference. "The evidence has been clear: they are guilty.
"1441 says they are guilty and 1441 said if they don't fix this, if they don't comply now, if they don't cooperate now, then serious consequences must flow," Powell said.
"We are reaching that point where serious consequences must flow."
Powell appealed for Japan and other like-minded nations to lobby UN Security Council members to thwart efforts by France and Russia to block the new US-British drafted resolution.
"We (will be) into a period of intense diplomacy after the tabling of the resolution next week and we would hope that those who support our efforts would use their good offices to show that support," he said.
Powell "expects to discuss (with the Chinese) how the Security Council can stand by its resolutions to disarm Iraq," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters on the secretary's plane en route to Beijing from Tokyo.
"He will consult with the Chinese on the new UN resolution that we expect to present to the council early this week," Boucher said.
At the same time, Boucher said Powell would be exploring with the Chinese ways they could help end the nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula sparked by Pyongyang's October admission it was violating a 1994 pact with the United States by pursuing a nuclear weapons program with enriched uranium.
The admission led to a cut-off in fuel supplies to North Korea, to which Pyongyang responded by expelling UN inspectors, pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, reactivating a mothballed plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and threatening to resume missile tests.
As North Korea's top ally, Beijing has sided with Pyongyang in its demands for bilateral talks with Washington as opposed to the multilateral discussions sought by the United States.
In China, Powell "looks forward to considering with the Chinese how to build on their existing efforts with North Korea," Boucher said.
A senior State Department official said Powell thinks the Chinese "can do more" to accept a multilateral forum for talks to end the stand-off.
"They have leverage," Powell said Friday, noting a recent increase in contacts between Beijing and Pyongyang.
Those contacts seem to have only entrenched Chinese support for North Korea's demand for bilateral talks with the United States.
But Powell has held firm.
"These concerns must be addressed in a multilateral forum," Powell said in Tokyo. "This should be of great concern to all of us as we think about entering into a discussion."
Any discussion, the top US diplomat added, " should be multilateral so that we can find a way to put in place assurances for all the parties," he said, lamenting that Pyongyang had brazenly violated its last bilateral accord with Washington.
"As we solve the problem this time, we must find a solution that will remove the nuclear potential on the peninsula and at the same time provide assistance for the North Korean people for the real problems they are facing," Powell said.
----
Buying support
The first gulf war 'paid for itself.' This time it's a very different story.
By Alan W. Bock Senior editorial writer
Sunday, February 23, 2003
http://www.antiwar.com/ocregister/Buying-support.htm
A striking but little-noted contrast between the gulf war of 1991 and the war to which we are building up - some stubborn part of me wants to believe it isn't inevitable - is in the costs of the war and who is expected to bear them. The contrast is worth exploring.
As many noted at the time, the United States not only persuaded other countries - chiefly Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany and Kuwait - to pay for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but might have made a small profit of $2 billion or $3 billion.
Andrew Bacevich, who now teaches international relations at Boston University, was in the military in Germany shortly after the war. He told me on the phone recently that repairs to any equipment that had been in the gulf were charged to a special account, even if the wear and tear had really occurred in Germany months later.
The war went so swimmingly from a financial point of view that pundits for a time discussed it as a model for the post-communist world: The United States uses its military to put out brush fires and defuse problems and the rest of the world pays the bills and is grateful for the stability.
It hasn't quite worked out that way.
U.S. taxpayers paid full freight for most of the Clinton administration's desultory excursions into nation-building with bombs, in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and beyond. Now that Bush II wants another war with Iraq, not only is no other country offering to pay the bills, we have to bribe other countries to join up. This sole superpower business is getting to be expensive.
Nobody knows the direct cost of waging the war itself. It wasn't included in the budget Bush presented to Congress - one that already included the biggest increases in domestic nondiscre- tionary spending in decades and the biggest deficits yet.
Former Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey, in one of those moments of relative honesty that the political class calls gaffes, last September offhandedly estimated the cost at about $200 billion. That was an estimate rather than a considered calculation, and it would be prudent to treat it as a lowball estimate. The first gulf war cost about $60 billion. The equipment is more expensive now, and the objective more ambitious. It is unlikely to be over in 100 hours.
What about subsequent occupation/transition costs? Tough to figure. Nobody knows how long the United States plans to stay. Economists cited in a recent International Herald Tribune article estimate the seven-year cost of failing to rebuild Bosnia at about $15 billion - and that's not including the costs of NATO soldiers, humanitarian aid and resettlement of a million refugees. Iraq is bigger and probably more intractable.
Then there are the costs of getting others to go along.
Just a few weeks ago Israel was asking for $8 billion in commercial loan guarantees over and above the just less than $3 billion a year in aid it gets virtually automatically - the ongoing bonus for going to Camp David with Jimmy Carter (Egypt gets about the same). Israel also has asked for $4 billion in additional military assistance.
What the United States gets for this is unclear. An agreement from Israel not to enter the war and aggravate Arab countries if Iraq launches only a few missiles? The aid is not contingent on progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Then there's Turkey, recently rebuffed (correctly in my view) by France, Belgium and Germany after a request for NATO help if Iraq counter-attacked Turkey after a U.S. attack on Iraq. But don't weep for Turkey. It's getting AWACS and Patriot missiles anyway. And it's exacting a high and rising price for any agreement to allow U.S. forces to use bases in Turkish territory.
A couple of weeks ago the United States was offering about $14 billion in direct aid and loan guarantees, up from a previous estimated price of $10 billion. Now the offer is around $26 billion ($6 billion grants, $20 billion loan guarantees) and Turkey says it's still too small. Turkey wants more like $32 billion, claiming it suffered costs in the last gulf war that were never compensated, expects to incur risks and costs this time, and needs a carrot to offer the Turkish people who, according to polls, overwhelmingly oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Turkey also wants to occupy some of the oil fields in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq - and probably a guarantee from the United States to squelch any possible upstart Kurdish rebellion.
Russia had an $8 billion oil deal, providing support services, equipment and the like, with Iraq. It is likely it is being coy just now in hopes of getting the best deal - not only a guarantee that U.S. taxpayers will cover that $8 billion in expected revenue if war makes the deal go sour, but a decent cut of the Iraqi oil spoils after the war.
France was cut out of the oil spoils after the first gulf war, and many thought it was holding out to get a guarantee of the spoils this time. But it might just be acting on principle or on irreducible hostility to war, so maybe it won't be in at the kill.
Qatar, which has welcomed U.S. troops and equipment, is getting something, but nobody seems to know what or how much. Oman and Yemen have to be getting something. Djibouti, where U.S. intelligence operatives are tracking al-Qaida and building infrastructure, will be getting money and aid, but again nobody knows how much.
In 1991 the world paid the United States to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. Now the United States has to bribe people to be allies. What does that tell us about the wisdom and prudence of the current cause?
----
Two men driving Bush into war
Ed Vulliamy in New York profiles the religious figures behind a 'Texanised presidency' who believe war will mean America is respected in the Islamic world
Sunday February 23, 2003
The Observer (UK)
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901066,00.html
Behind President George W. Bush's charge to war against Iraq, there is a carefully devised mission, drawn up by people who work over the shoulders of those whom America calls 'The Principals'.
Lurking in the background behind Bush, his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are the people propelling US policy. And behind them, the masterminds of the Bush presidency as it arrived at the White House from Texas, are Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz.
It is too simple to explain the upcoming war as 'blood for oil', as did millions of placards last weekend, for Rove and Wolfowitz are ideologists beyond the imperatives of profit. They represent an unlikely and formidable alliance forged between the gritty Texan Republicans who took over America, fuelled by fierce conservative Christianity, and a faction of the East Coast intelligentsia with roots in Ronald Reagan's time, devoted to achieving raw, unilateral power.
Rove and Wolfowitz have worked for decades to reach their moment, and that moment has come as war draws near. Bush calls Rove, depending on his mood, 'Boy Genius' or 'Turd Blossom'. Rove is one of a new political breed - the master craftsmen - nurturing a 24-year political campaign of his own design, but careful not to expose who he really is.
His Christian faith is a weapon of devastating cogency, but he never discusses it; no one knows if his politics are religious or politics are his religion. A Christmas Day child born in Denver, as a boy he had a poster above his bed reading 'Wake Up, America!' As a student, he was a fervent young Republican who pitched himself against the peace movement.
His first bonding with Bush was not over politics, but the two men's ideological and moral distaste for the Sixties - after Bush's born-again conversion from alcoholism to Christianity. Rove was courted by George Bush Snr during his unsuccessful bid to be the Republican presidential candidate for 1980.
But Rove's genius would show later, on Bush senior's election to the White House in 1988, when he co-opted the right-wing Christian Coalition - wary of Bush's lack of theocratic stridency - into the family camp.
Conservative Southern Protestantism was a constituency Bush Jr befriended and kept all the way to Washington, defining both his own political personality and the new-look Republican Party.
When Rove answered the call to come to Texas in 1978, every state office was held by a Democrat. Now, almost all of them are Republican. Every Republican campaign was run by Rove and in 1994 his client - challenging for the state governorship - was a man he knew well: George W. Bush.
'Rove and Bush came to an important strategic conclusion,' writes Lou Dubose, Rove's biographer. 'To govern on behalf of the corporate Right, they would have to appease the Christian Right.'
Bush's six years as Texas governor were a dry run for national domestic policy - steered by Rove - as President: lavish favours to the energy industry, tax breaks for the upper income brackets and social policy driven by evangelical zeal.
Bush had been governor for only a year when, as Rove says, it 'dawned on me' he should run for President; two years later, in 1997, he began secretly planning the campaign. In March 1999, Bush ordered Rove to sell his consulting firm - 'he wanted 120 per cent of his attention,' says a former employee, 'full-time, day and night'.
Rove hatched and ran the presidential campaign, deploying the Bush family Rolodex and the might of the oil industry and unleashing the most vigorous direct-mailing blizzard of all time. 'If the devil is in the details,' writes Dubose, 'he had found Rove waiting to greet him when he got there.'
By the time George W. became President, Rove was the hub of a Texan wheel connecting the family, the party, the Christian Right and the energy industry. A single episode serves as metaphor: during the Enron scandal last year, a shadow was cast over Rove when it was revealed that he had sold $100,000 of Enron stock just before the firm went bankrupt.
More intriguing, however, was the fact that Rove had personally arranged for the former leader of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, to take up a consultancy at Enron - Bush's biggest single financial backer - worth between $10,000 and $20,000 a month.
This was the machine of perpetual motion that Rove built. His accomplishment was the 'Texanisation' of the national Republican Party under the leadership of the Bush family and to take that party back to presidential office after eight years. Rove is unquestionably the most powerful policy adviser in the White House.
Militant Islam was another world from Rove's. However, on 11 September, 2001, it became a new piece of political raw material needing urgent attention. Rove and Bush had been isolationists, wanting as little to do with the Middle East - or any other corner of the planet - as possible. But suddenly there was a new arena in which to work for political results: and, as Rove entered it, he met and was greeted by a group of people who had for years been as busy as he in crafting their political model; this time, the export of unchallenged American power across the world.
Rove in theory has no role in foreign policy, but Washington insiders agree he is now as preoccupied with global affairs as he is with those at home. In a recent book, conservative staff speech writer David Frum recalls the approach of the presidency towards Islam after the attacks and criticises Bush as being 'soft on Islam' for his emphasis on a 'religion of peace'.
Rove, writes Frum, was 'drawn to a very different answer'. Islam, Rove argued, 'was one of the world's great empires' which had 'never reconciled... to the loss of power and dominion'. In response, he said, 'the United States should recognise that, although it cannot expect to be loved, it can enforce respect'.
Rove's position dovetailed with the beliefs of Paul Wolfowitz, and the axis between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly intellectual, East Coast Zionism was forged - each as zealous about their religion as the other.
There is a shorthand view of Wolfowitz as a firebrand hawk, but he is more like Rove than that - patient, calculating, logical, soft-spoken and deliberate. Wolfowitz was a Jewish son of academe, a brilliant scholar of mathematics and a diplomat. When he joined the Pentagon after the Yom Kippur war, he set about laying out what is now US policy in the Middle East.
In 1992, just before Bush's father was defeated by Bill Clinton, Wolfowitz wrote a blueprint to 'set the nation's direction for the next century', which is now the foreign policy of George W. Bush. Entitled 'Defence Planning Guidance', it put an onus on the Pentagon to 'establish and protect a new order' under unchallenged American authority.
The US, it said, must be sure of 'deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role' - including Germany and Japan. It contemplated the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry pre-emptively, 'even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests'.
Wolfowitz's group formalised itself into a group called Project for the New American Century, which included Cheney and another old friend, former Pentagon Under-Secretary for Policy under Reagan, Richard Perle.
In a document two years ago, the Project pondered that what was needed to assure US global power was 'some catastrophic and catalysing event, like a new Pearl Harbor'. The document had noted that 'while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides immediate justification' for intervention, 'the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein'.
At a graduation speech to the Military Academy at West Point, Bush last June affirmed the Wolfowitz doctrine as official policy. 'America has, and intends to keep,' he said, 'military strengths beyond challenge.'
At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and his boss Rumsfeld set up an intelligence group under Abram Schulsky and the Under-Secretary for Defence, Douglas Feith, both old friends of Wolfowitz. The group's public face is the semi-official Defence Policy Board, headed by Perle. Perle and Feith wrote a paper in 1996 called 'A Clean Break' for the then leader of Israel's Likud bloc, Binyamin Netanyahu; the clean break was from the Oslo peace process. Israel's 'claim to the land (including the West Bank) is legitimate and noble,' said the paper. 'Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights is a solid basis for the future.' At the State Department, the 'Arabist' faction of regional experts favouring the diplomacy of alliances in the area was drowned out by the hawks, markedly by another new unit with favoured access to the White House.
And in Rove's White House, with his backing, the circle was closed and the last piece of the jigsaw was put in place, with the appointment of Elliot Abrams to handle policy for the Middle East, for the National Security Council.
Abrams is another veteran of Reagan days and the 'dirty wars' in Central America, convicted by Congress for lying alongside Colonel Oliver North over the Iran-Contra scandal, but pardoned by President Bush's father.
He has since written a book warning that American Jewry faces extinction through intermarriage and has counselled against the peace process and for the righteousness of Ariel Sharon's Israel. He is Wolfowitz's man, talking every day to his office neighbour, Rove.
----
Bungled War Plans
February 23, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/opinion/L23FRIE.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
To the Editor:
I admire the continued integrity of Thomas L. Friedman's stance on Iraq, though I don't agree with it. This time, though, he has finally put his finger on the problem that those of us who don't want war have recognized all along: the Bush administration has utterly bungled war preparations and has done a great deal of damage to our stature in the world ("Tell the Truth," column, Feb. 19 [see below]).
There is no reason to hope that the leopard can change its spots and do a good job with the even tougher challenge of war itself, not to mention rebuilding. Sometimes peace is the default option when the odds on war as a solution start looking longer and longer.
JANE SMILEY Carmel Valley, Calif., Feb. 19, 2003
--
Tell the Truth
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
February 19, 2003
New York Times editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/opinion/19FRIE.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
As I was listening to the French foreign minister make his case at the U.N. for giving Saddam Hussein more time to comply, I was struck by the number of people in the Security Council chamber who applauded. I wish there were someone I could applaud for.
Sorry, I can't applaud the French foreign minister, because I don't believe that France, which sold Saddam his first nuclear reactor, the one Israel blew up, comes to this story with the lofty principles it claims. The French foreign minister, after basking in the applause at the U.N., might ask himself who was clapping for his speech back in Baghdad and who was crying. Saddam was clapping, and all his political prisoners - i.e., most Iraqis - were crying.
But I don't have much applause in me for China, Russia - or the Bush team either. I feel lately as if there are no adults in this room (except Tony Blair). No, this is not a plague-on-all-your-houses column. I side with those who believe we need to confront Saddam - but we have to do it right, with allies and staying power, and the Bush team has bungled that.
The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy and terrible at diplomacy. I covered the first gulf war, in 1990-91. What I remember most are the seven trips I took with Secretary of State James A. Baker III around the world to watch him build - face-to-face - the coalition and public support for that war, before a shot was fired. Going to someone else's country is a sign you respect his opinion. This Bush team has done no such hands-on spade work. Its members think diplomacy is a phone call.
They don't like to travel. Seeing senior Bush officials abroad for any length of time has become like rare-bird sightings. It's probably because they spend so much time infighting in Washington over policy, they're each afraid that if they leave town their opponents will change the locks on their office doors.
Also, you would think that if Iraq were the focus of your whole foreign policy, maybe you would have handled North Korea with a little less attitude, so as not to trigger two wars at once. Maybe you would have come up with that alternative - which President Bush promised - to the Kyoto treaty, a treaty he trashed to the great anger of Europe. You're not going to get much support in Europe telling people, "You are either with us or against us in a war on terrorism, but in the war you care about - for a greener planet - America will do whatever it wants."
I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie.
Tell people the truth. Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice - but it's a legitimate choice. It's because he is undermining the U.N., it's because if left alone he will seek weapons that will threaten all his neighbors, it's because you believe the people of Iraq deserve to be liberated from his tyranny, and it's because you intend to help Iraqis create a progressive state that could stimulate reform in the Arab/Muslim world, so that this region won't keep churning out angry young people who are attracted to radical Islam and are the real weapons of mass destruction.
That's the case for war - and it will require years of occupying Iraq and a simultaneous effort to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to create a regional context for success. If done right, such a war could shrink Al Qaeda's influence - but Al Qaeda is a separate enemy that will have to be fought separately, and will remain a threat even if Saddam is ousted.
It is legitimate for Europeans to oppose such a war, but not simply by sticking a thumb in our eye and their heads in the sand. It's also legitimate for the Bush folks to focus the world on Saddam, but two years of their gratuitous bullying has made many people deaf to America's arguments. Too many people today no longer accept America's strength as a good thing. That is a bad thing.
Some of this we can't control. But some we can, which is why it's time for the Bush team to shape up - dial down the attitude, start selling this war on the truth, give us a budget that prepares the nation for a war abroad, not a party at home, and start doing everything possible to create a global context where we can confront Saddam without the world applauding for him.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Westerners join Sudan peace effort
By Alsir Sid Ahmed
February 23, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030221-032429-8351r.htm UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
LONDON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- With the United States focusing on preparations for war against Iraq, European and Canadian peace envoys were expected in Khartoum to boost Sudanese peace talks scheduled to resume in Kenya on March 19.
British envoy Alan Gutly and Canada's Mabena Jaafar, accompanied by a large delegation from the Canadian foreign ministry, will visit the Sudanese capital within the coming week to back up their government's support for talks between the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and the commander of the insurgent Sudan People's Liberation Army, John Garang.
The representative of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Gen. Lazaros Simbobo, is also expected in the Sudanese capital this week.
IGAD, which is sponsoring the talks, is composed of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
No tangible progress was achieved in the three rounds of talks that followed the two sides agreeing on a framework for peace last July. Under the agreement, the predominantly Christian and animist south of Sudan would hold a referendum on self-determination after a six-year transitional period.
The two parties agreed on halting military operations in southern Sudan after the SPLA captured the government-controlled city of Tourit last September. Khartoum then suspended talks in protest.
The cease-fire agreement lacked a clear mechanism for implementation and was violated several times late last year by pro-government militias in the area of the Upper Nile.
As the time for the fourth round of peace talks approached, Washington seems less interested in Sudan than in the past, apparently absorbed in Iraq crisis.
Observers believe that Khartoum will try to take advantage of Washington's distraction to impose its own terms for ending the protracted civil war. It first began in 1955, even before the country became independent, with southern resistance to the northern drive to impose Arab culture and Islam on the south.
For their part, the SPLA was hoping to build on the growing feeling that the al-Bashir regime, which figures on the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring governments, has not changed and that its initial backing of Washington's war on terrorism has run its course.
In the meantime, the U.S. administration is expected to report to Congress on developments in the talks and to name the party it sees as responsible for blocking progress in the negotiations.
The report could be a turning point in Washington's relations with Sudan, depending on which party is seen as obstructing the peace effort.
-------- arms sales
Revealed: 17 British firms armed Saddam with his weapons
Investigation:
By Neil Mackay Home Affairs Editor
UK Sunday Herald,
February 23, 2003
http://www.sundayherald.com/31710
SEVENTEEN British companies who supplied Iraq with nuclear, biological, chemical, rocket and conventional weapons technology are to be investigated and could face prosecution following a Sunday Herald investigation.
One of the companies is Inter national Military Services, a part of the Ministry of Defence, which sold rocket technology to Iraq. The companies were named by Iraq in a 12,000 page dossier submitted to the UN in December. The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages -- including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme.
The five permanent members of the security council -- Britain, France, Russia, America and China -- are named as allowing companies to sell weapons technology to Iraq.
The dossier claims 24 US firms sold Iraq weapons. Hewlett-Packard sold nuclear and rocket technology; Dupont sold nuclear technology, and Eastman Kodak sold rocket capabilities. The dossier also says some '50 subsidiaries of foreign enterprises conducted their arms business with Iraq from the US'.
It claims the US ministries of defence, energy, trade and agri culture, and the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, supplied Iraq with WMD technology.
Germany, currently opposed to war, is shown to be Iraq's biggest arms-trading partner with 80 companies selling weapons technology, including Siemens. It sold medical machines with dual-purpose parts used to detonate nuclear bombs. The German government reportedly 'actively encouraged' weapons co-operation and assistance was allegedly given to Iraq in developing poison gas used against Kurds.
In China three companies traded weapons technology; in France eight and in Russia six. Other countries included Japan with five companies; Holland with three; Belgium with seven; Spain with three and Sweden with two, including Saab.
The UN claims publicly naming the companies would be counter-productive. Although most of the trade ended in 1991 on the outbreak of the Gulf War, at least two of the five permanent security council members -- Russia and China -- traded arms with Iraq in breach of UN resolutions after 1991. All trade in WMD technology has been outlawed for decades.
UNSCOM found documents showing preparations by the Russian firms Livinvest, Mars Rotor and Niikhism to supply parts for military helicopters in 1995. In April 1995, Mars Rotor and Niikhism sold parts used in long-range missiles to a Palestinian who transported them to Baghdad. In 2001 and 2002, the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies sent supplies to Iraqi air defence.
Foreign companies supplied Iraq's nuclear weapons programme with detonators, fissionable material and parts for a uranium enrichment plant. Foreign companies also provided Iraq's chemical and biological programmes with basic materials; helped with building labs; assisted the extension of missile ranges; provided technology to fit missiles with nuclear, biological and chemical warheads; and supplied Scud mobile launch-pads. Nearly all the weapons that were supplied have been destroyed, accounted for or immobilised, according to former weapons inspectors.
The Foreign Office said: 'The UK will investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute any UK company found to have been in breach of export control legislation.' The Department of Trade and Industry said details on export licences, including information on weapons sold to Iraq, was unavailable.
A spokesman for one of the British companies named, Endshire Export Marketing, said it had sold a consignment of magnets to a German middle-man who sold them to Iraq. Responding to claims that magnets could be used in a nuclear programme, the spokesman said: 'I've no idea if this is the case. I couldn't tell one end of a nuclear bomb from the other.' The company was included on a US boycott list in 1991.
He said the company considered the deal 'genuine business' at the time but that, with the 'benefit of hindsight', the firm would not have taken part in the deal. A spokesman for the MoD's International Military Services said he could not comment as no staff from 1991 were on the payroll and no documents from then existed.
Mick Napier of the Stop The War Coalition said: 'How can we support a government which says it's against mass murder when its record is one of supporting and supplying Iraq? This government depends on public mass amnesia.'
Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said: 'The evidence of British armament companies, with central government support, arming the Butcher of Baghdad lays to rest the moral garbage spewed from the British government. It exposes the fact that Britain, along with America, France and Russia, armed Saddam to the teeth while he was butchering his own people.'
Labour MP Tam Dalyell said: 'What the Sunday Herald has printed is of huge significance. It exposes the hypocrisy of Blair and Bush. The chickenhawks who want war were up to their necks in arms deals. This drives a coach and horses through the moral case for war.'
UK firms that sold arms to Iraq
Key:
A -- nuclear,
B -- biological,
C -- chemical,
R -- rocket,
K -- conventional
# Euromac Ltd-UK (A)
# C Plath-Nuclear (A)
# Endshire Export Marketing (A)
# International Computer Systems (A, R, K)
# MEED International (A, C)
# Walter Somers Ltd. (R)
# International Computer Limited (A, K)
# Matrix Churchill Corp. (A)
# Ali Ashour Daghir (A)
# International Military Services (R)
# Sheffield Forgemasters (R)
# Technology Development Group (R)
# International Signal and Control (R)
# Terex Corporation (R)
# Inwako (A)
# TMG Engineering (K)
# XYY Options, Inc (A)
-------- biochem weapons
U.S. Mulls How Iraq May Use Biochem Arms
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 9:28 AM
By Will Dunham
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52548-2003Feb23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are trying to assess how Iraq would use chemical and biological weapons in the case of war, with experts saying targeting civilians in a nearby state may be deadlier than attacking invading troops.
Iraq denies possessing such weapons, and U.N. weapons inspectors have come up empty-handed in their search for them.
But U.S. defense and intelligence officials and independent experts say they are confident Iraq not only has a hidden stockpile of chemical and biological agents but numerous ways to deliver them to their target.
Amy Smithson, a leading expert on chemical and biological weapons proliferation, said there could be no doubt Saddam Hussein maintains an extensive arsenal. But she noted that even with a large chemical and biological arms stockpile in 1991, the Iraqi president elected not to use them in the Gulf War.
Smithson said Saddam might be more inclined to use them in a war meant not to eject his troops from a neighboring state, as in 1991, but to topple him from power and disarm Iraq.
"Saddam Hussein's calculus has got to be somewhat different here," said Smithson, who heads the Henry Stimson Center's Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project.
U.S. officials are trying to figure out what Iraq plans.
"We do not know Saddam Hussein's doctrine for WMD usage," Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in recent testimony before a Senate committee.
"We assess, however, based on his past patterns and availability of weapons in his inventory, that he will, in fact, employ them. And the assessment is that he will employ them when he makes the decision that the regime is in jeopardy," he said.
"The real hard part about that is to identify when he might make that judgment, and, of course, that resides with one individual, his perceptions and the information that's available to him at the time to make such a call."
EXTENSIVE ARSENAL
Biological warfare agents include bacteria and viruses, as well as certain toxins. Iraq is thought to have anthrax, smallpox, ricin, botulinum and perhaps other agents in weaponized form, analysts said.
Chemical weapons are deadly poisons. Analysts said Iraq is believed to have VX and sarin nerve gas, mustard gas, phosgene, chlorine and cyanide. Saddam used chemical agents against Iran in the 1980-88 war and against Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88.
John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org think tank, said Iraq likely has a stockpile of hundreds of tons of chemical and biological agents. To put that in perspective, North Korea is widely estimated to have a stockpile of thousands of tons, and the United States had 31,000 tons and the Soviets declared 40,000 tons at their respective peaks.
Iraq has several methods to deliver the weapons to targets, analysts said, including putting them into artillery shells, rockets and ballistic missiles and releasing them from manned airplanes with spray tanks or from unmanned aircraft.
CIA Director George Tenet expressed concern about unmanned aircraft delivering "such weapons to Iraq's neighbors, or, if transported, to other countries including the United States."
Experts said perhaps the most effective way for Iraq to produce casualties with these arms may be an attack using missiles or unmanned aircraft on a densely populated urban area in a neighboring state before U.S. and British forces invade.
"You go after urban targets in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia because you cause mass panic, much more so than with soldiers who all have gas masks and gear. That's actually easier than to hit U.S. forces," said military analyst Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute.
'IRRESISTIBLE PRESSURE'
Pike raised the possibility of Saddam hitting Israel with missiles carrying chemical or biological weapons, prompting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to weigh a nuclear retaliation.
"Could a single Scud warhead spew forth so much poison gas or deadly germs into Tel Aviv that it would kill thousands of Israeli citizens, placing Sharon under irresistible pressure to retaliate 50-fold? I think that's something you'd have to worry about," Pike said.
Goure questioned whether the Iraqi military would be able to use chemical or biological weapons effectively against invading troops. He said a direct hit on U.S. or British forces could produce deaths numbering "anywhere from a hundred to several thousand -- probably not higher," partly because troops in the field are relatively scattered and moving quickly.
Goure said several factors could prevent such an attack from being effective.
These include U.S. forces disrupting the Iraqi command and control system to the point that an order fails to reach field commanders, and pressure from invading forces preventing the Iraqis from transporting hidden or buried stockpiles of agents to their delivery systems.
Other variables he cited include U.S. forces shooting down any Iraqi aircraft loaded with agents, or a commander refusing to carry out an order to use weapons of mass destruction.
Goure said one way for Iraq to attack troops would be to use crop dusters flying at night at low level, spraying large amounts of agents from 50 miles away or more, as the wind blew toward invading soldiers.
"That's the kind of thing you would worry about. Lord, is it nasty," Goure said.
-------- business
CEOs Say War May Hurt Economy
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 9:39 AM
By Julie MacIntosh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52583-2003Feb23?language=printer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The nation's most powerful corporate executives said looming war threats and terror scares could put a damper on the economy this year, but while some companies will delay spending on goods and equipment because of political uncertainty, most said they are not making significant changes to their business plans.
Leaders of some of the nation's biggest companies said political tensions and uncertainty were the primary reason economic growth would be suppressed this year.
But if those potential threats to the economy are alleviated, growth in the United States will probably accelerate, the executives said during a meeting of the Business Council of chief executives in Florida.
The government has raised its terror threat level and troops are massing in the Middle East. But many company leaders say they are making few, if any, changes to their overall business strategy to account for the risk of war or other contingencies.
Franklin Raines, chairman and chief executive of housing finance leader Fannie Mae , downplayed the political concerns and said most companies were not substantially holding back spending or altering their business plans.
Raines in an interview said forecasts that war worries could markedly dampen overall economic growth might be "overly pessimistic" because most corporate executives expected few negative effects on their own businesses.
Increased capital spending is usually a key component in an economic upturn. A survey of corporate heads by the Business Council showed capital spending this year is expected to be about flat compared with last year's outlays. Andrea Jung, president and chief executive of cosmetics company Avon Products Inc., expected a modest increase this year.
Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and chief executive of the McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., said in an interview that businesses needed to step up their currently restrained spending to help repair the wounded economy.
But Charles Holliday Jr., chairman and chief executive of chemicals company DuPont Co., said the political tension could prompt it to delay some capital expenditures by a few months. And Johnson & Johnson Chairman and Chief Executive William Weldon agreed that spending on capital goods and equipment across the economy could slow, but could not predict how long the slowdown might last.
Riley Bechtel, chairman and chief executive of Bechtel Group Inc., forecast a temporary delay in capital investment, but said "we're looking at months, not quarters."
CONSUMERS TO THE RESCUE?
Consumer confidence slid in mid-February to lows not seen in nearly a decade, as economic worries stymied optimism. But echoing chief executives' claims that spending will stay stable despite war jitters, consumer spending in December rose at its fastest rate in five months, closing out a weak fourth quarter on a strong note.
Consumer spending, a key measure of economic health, makes up two-thirds of the nation's economic activity. Jitters about security have certainly affected the nation's shoppers, who have stockpiled duct tape and food supplies in case of terror attacks or other emergencies.
But business leaders attending the Florida summit highlighted the purchasing strength of the American consumer as a reason for optimism.
"We saw a few signs of people probably stocking up a bit, with some of the geopolitical risk, but nothing major," DuPont's Holliday said.
Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co., said consumers are "hanging in there."
"The financial system is fundamentally strong," Immelt said. "If the consumer keeps spending, we'll be fine."
Some leaders warned, however, that even if the United States secures a quick victory in Iraq, or if war is averted altogether, other risks remain that could continue to suppress the economy.
"If we don't go (to war), we still have that problem to deal with," said Vernon Loucks, the former chairman and chief executive of Baxter International Inc. "We'd still have terrorism, and we'd still have Osama."
-------- chemical weapons
Iraq has poison bombs
By Philip Sherwell in Amman and David Wastell in London
23/02/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/23/wirq223.xml/
Saddam Hussein's air force has developed a more sophisticated delivery and detonation system for chemical weapons than previously known to United Nations inspectors, a former senior air force officer has told The Telegraph.
In an interview at a house in Amman in Jordan, where he has been hiding since he fled Baghdad last year, the former officer said that Baghdad was still pursuing the chemical armaments programme when he left Iraq - despite its insistence that it had abandoned its weapons of mass destruction project after the Gulf war.
"Ali" - The Telegraph knows his real name and former rank but promised not to disclose it in case his relatives still in Iraq are identified and punished - said that he was trained to handle binary-system bombs which mix lethal chemicals moments before detonation for maximum effect.
"Saddam will never surrender these weapons," said Ali. "They are as much a part of his life as eating and drinking."
His alarming claims, which indicate a clear breach of UN resolutions, will fuel fears that Saddam may use chemical weapons against American and British forces in the event of war.
United Nations weapons inspectors based in New York said yesterday that they would like to debrief the former officer urgently. "We would be interested in talking to this man," said a spokesman for Unmovic, the weapons inspection agency.
Ali described in detail how the chemical bombs and sprays were fitted and operated, backing up his testimony with drawings and graphics, during clandestine meetings lasting several hours in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
"What he describes is a logical development of the techniques we know the Iraqis were working on," said one former senior weapons inspector contacted by The Telegraph.
Another said: "If what he says can be confirmed then this is a very big discovery. It would be proof that Iraq has continued with the development of a new type of weapon."
The chemical weapons previously known to inspectors were less advanced; their lethal contents mixed on the ground before the bombs were loaded on to planes.
At the time that Ali was trained, he was working at military bases at Habbaniya 50 miles west of Baghdad, and al-Qa'qa, 20 miles south of the capital.
He last witnessed the new bomb mechanism being tested - with water and oil rather than chemicals - at Habbaniya in 2000, after which the tests were switched to a different location. However, he said former colleagues with whom he remains in contact confirm that the programme is still running.
He said that the bombs were divided in two by an internal partition. When loaded with chemicals, there was a black liquid in one compartment and a yellowish one in the other.
The pilots were trained to hit a switch to open the partition when they approached their targets, allowing the two substances to combine and reach their greatest potency. A few seconds later, outer doors on the bottom of the weapon would open automatically, releasing the mixture.
Ali then drew a detailed diagram of another binary-system bomb, also divided by a partition that was designed to explode after its release in mid-air, again allowing the two substances to mix at the last moment. These weapons were intended for the Iraqi air force's more modern jets, but an alternative delivery method was developed for slower planes such as Sukhoi-25s and for helicopters, he explained.
-------- china
China Seen More Flexible on Iraq Than N.Korea
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 1:10 AM
By John Ruwitch
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51284-2003Feb23?language=printer
BEIJING (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell flies to Beijing Sunday to try to persuade China to use its leverage over North Korea and push for its support for a possible new U.N. resolution on Iraq.
Analysts say Powell, who visited Beijing a year ago with President Bush, can expect perhaps tacit Chinese backing on Iraq, which China views as a distant problem not worth jeopardizing Sino-U.S. relations over.
But on North Korea, China's neighbor and longtime ally, Powell's prodding would elicit little in the way of overt support because the stakes were higher in Beijing's eyes, they said.
China, like France and Russia, has voiced its preference that U.N. weapons inspectors be given more time in Iraq.
But Beijing was likely to abstain from a vote on another, tougher resolution rather than veto it, said Mei Renyi, a foreign relations expert at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
"China thinks that right now is not the time for passing a second resolution. In addition, it does not want to put too many limitations on the weapons inspectors," he said.
But "unless it is absolutely essential, China will not use its veto because from the beginning China has never taken the lead and China is not willing to take the lead," Mei said.
Iraq was after all quite distant and not worth a setback to the recent warming trend in Beijing's relations with Washington, said a Chinese expert on Sino-U.S. ties who asked not to be named.
"For China, Iraq is not a very big issue. China won't clearly go against U.S. policies on Iraq like Germany and France have done," he said.
Before the 1991 Gulf War, China abstained from almost every Iraq-related resolution in the U.N. Security Council, where it is a permanent, veto-wielding member.
Last November, China went along with the rest of the Security Council and voted in favor of Resolution 1441, which called on Iraq to disarm.
CLOSER TO HOME
But Powell may find a cooler reception to suggestions that Beijing use its close diplomatic ties and economic clout to keep an unruly Pyongyang in check.
Crisis erupted in October, when the United States said North Korea had admitted to pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program. Since then, Pyongyang has ejected U.N. monitors, moved to restart a mothballed nuclear reactor and withdrawn from the global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Critics argue that China, as the main source of food and fuel shipments to North Korea and one of its oldest friends, has the chance to make a statement against proliferation and force Pyongyang to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Beijing views a nuclear-armed North Korea as destabilizing, fearing it could spark an arms race in northeast Asia.
But China opposes economic sanctions, fearing further brinkmanship by the north or possible collapse. It says the best way to resolve the issue is through direct dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang and not in the U.N. Security Council.
"China's main aim is to prevent military conflict on the Korean peninsula," said Yan Xuetong, director of Tsinghua University's International Affairs Institute.
China views regional stability as an essential component of its continued strong economic growth, and thus prefers slow, gradual movement toward reunification on the Korean Peninsula.
A sudden collapse of the reclusive Communist North could send a flood of refugees across the border into China and raise the prospect of bringing some of the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea closer to the Chinese border, analysts say.
Thus, Chinese academics say, Beijing has little to gain from strong-arming North Korea.
"The United States wants us to do this and do that. But what has the United States done for us?" asked a U.S.-trained academic at a Beijing university who requested anonymity.
"If Chinese pressure on North Korea triggers a flood of refugees, who will foot the bill? The least the United States could do is stop selling weapons to Taiwan," he said, referring to China's longtime rival.
Others say Beijing is doing more than it appears, working quietly behind the scenes to avoid an awkward debate playing out in the U.N. Security Council.
-------- colombia
US considers intervention in Colombia
Washington mulls tough response to kidnapping of CIA 'agents'
Martin McNamara in Caqueta, Colombia
Sunday February 23, 2003
The Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901180,00.html
The United States is considering direct military intervention in Colombia for the first time following the murder of an American and the kidnapping of three others, all suspected CIA agents.
The US embassy in Colombia has recommended Washington make a 'major response' to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) rebels responsible, and American officials have confirmed that military action is being considered to recover the men from the dense jungles of the southern province of Caqueta.
They were captured after their plane crashed into the jungle suffering engine trouble. Despite the swift arrival of the Colombian army, the rebels spirited three survivors away after executing one American and the Colombian pilot who are thought to have put up a struggle.
Washington has refused to release any information about the men, entrenching the belief that they were CIA agents on a surveillance mission.
For the people of Caqueta, the prospect of a US military incursion into the province is yet another nightmare. In the past year, since the collapse of the peace process, they have seen the suspension of local government and are living under a form of martial law. Scores of ordinary people have been tortured and murdered by right-wing paramilitaries and they face a constant campaign of bombing and kidnapping by the Farc.
The murder of the first US government worker in Colombia's bitter war has again focused attention on Caqueta. This isolated province first hit the headlines in 1999 when it became central to a truce under which the Farc were given effective control of a Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) the size of Switzerland.
San Vicente del Caguán became its unofficial capital and the site for peace talks between the government and the guerrillas, but now the threat of US action hangs over the town, just a few kilometres from the scene of the plane crash. A search for the kidnapped men has been launched by troops, backed by US helicopters and intelligence planes.
Sister Bernadette, a nurse who has worked here for 20 years, said: 'Farc ran everything. They were able to train and recruit and build up their strength. That is what the peace process achieved.'
The DMZ ended a year ago and thousands of troops poured back into the region, but the Farc still control much of Caqueta.
'In the jungle and the villages, this is still a demilitarised zone,' said Father Gabriel, a local priest. 'The Farc control everything and if we want to do anything we go to them, not the military.'
The military confine themselves to San Vicente and the main roads, but even so are only partly successful. Two bombs went off near the town's central plaza last month and kidnapping has become almost a mundane activity.
Local guerrillas have perfected a technique they call pesca milagrosa - miracle fishing. The name comes from the biblical story of Jesus telling his apostles to cast their nets on the water and how they emerged bursting with fish. The guerrillas will stop a convoy of cars and buses, and take hostage those they suspect have rich friends or families.
There was a local administration and police force in San Vicente, but when the DMZ ended, they all left - or were murdered. The town hall is closed, the police station was blown up and the area left without any form of non-military government.
Then the paramilitaries turned up. 'They arrived in town one night and the next day there were five bodies in the Caguán river,' said Fr Gabriel. Funded by ranchers and cocaine barons, the paramilitaries have grown into a fearsome force in Colombia. And although illegal, they have strong links to the military. Often no one can be sure which side is responsible for murders in Caqueta.
For anyone working with the community, the risk is from both sides. The guerrillas murdered a colleague of Sister Bernadette who was seen talking to the military. She herself was stopped at an army roadblock and her medical supplies confiscated. Every day for a week she went to the local military commander's office to demand their return but also visited the local Farc commander to explain her trips, lest he decide she was an informer.
A delegation from Amnesty International recorded 17 politically motivated murders, with 78 more noted.
Areas of the Caqueta jungle have been cleared for coca growing and it is targeted by US-backed anti-cocaine measures. Coca is grown by small farmers, but the crop is the Farc's main source of income and they control every aspect of production.
Locals complain the coca spraying destroys crops and wildlife, poisons the land and causes illness. The US has just increased its budget to the Colombian government to fight the cocaine trade and bring peace to the country.
'We'll believe it when the bodies stop floating down the Caguán River,' said Fr Gabriel.
-------- iran
Iran Fears U.S. Aims to Reshape Mideast
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 9:11 AM
By Simon Cameron-Moore
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52521-2003Feb23?language=printer
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) - Iran, afraid Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, voiced greater fears on Sunday that the United States aims to reshape the Middle East by launching a war against its old enemy.
Iran would deploy troops along its western border to stop any incursions if the United States unleashed war on Iraq, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told Reuters. But he said Iranian troops would not cross into Iraq.
Although President Bush a year ago bracketed Iran in an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea, the Iranian minister said he did not fear his country would be next in the U.S. firing line even though Washington is already locked in crises with the others.
Kharrazi said Iraq must be stripped of weapons of mass destruction but voiced anxiety about what he called a hidden U.S. agenda in the region.
"Basically we do not agree with the plan of America that the Middle East has to be reshaped. This is the job of the mature people of the Middle East, not powers from outside," he said.
"The status quo is better for us than the unpredictable situation," he said.
While Washington says its objective is to disarm Iraq and restore human rights in a country ruled by a dictator, a wide swathe of world opinion suspects the U.S. motives lie in Iraq's vast oil fields.
Kharrazi said the United States had let the Palestinian problem fester by extending support to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and said Washington was operating double standards by allowing Israel to maintain its weapons of mass destruction.
The United States had made a strategic error by naming Iran in an "axis of evil," Kharrazi said, adding that his country was democratic and its policy was to be transparent over its plans for nuclear energy.
"We don't have such a concern that one day we will be the target of America," he said.
Washington had not consulted Iran over its strategy toward Iraq and any violation of Iranian airspace would be illegal under international law, he said.
FEARING BORDER SPILLOVER
Iran was worried a conflict in Iraq could spill over the border, he said.
"We are going to defend our territory. There may be incursions from Iraq to Iran," he said. "But we are not going to intervene in the internal affairs of Iraq by deployment of force inside Iraq."
Kharrazi, in Kuala Lumpur for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, said Iran, fearing a massive influx of refugees from Iraq that could create a humanitarian crisis, was preparing camps for Iraqis fleeing war.
Kharrazi reiterated Iran's position that the Iraqi crisis should be settled peacefully through the United Nations, but said the onus lay on President Saddam Hussein's government to convince U.N. weapons inspectors of its full cooperation.
"I feel there is still room for avoiding war and the key is still in the hands of the Iraqi government to show its full compliance to show utmost cooperation with inspectors."
He said Iraq should definitely be disarmed of any weapons of mass destruction that the inspectors find.
"Theirs (the inspectors) is the final judgment," Kharrazi said, adding that he did not know if Iraq had such weapons.
But he said Iraq could even hide its weapons during a war, or send them to a third country. "That is one of our concerns. That is one of the reasons why war has to be avoided."
Iran, which fought an eight-year war against Iraq in the 1980s is no friend of Saddam, Kharrazi said. And while Tehran would like to see another government in Iraq, Kharrazi stressed that any new government should be the choice of the Iraqi people.
Iran opposed a post-war break up of Iraq, dividing it between the different ethnic groups and sects of Islam.
"The territorial integrity of Iraq is very important. We do not endorse a partition of Iraq," Kharrazi said, although his government has long sympathized with the Shi'ite minority in southern Iraq.
A forced change of administration would create future problems, especially if the next government was backed by the United States, he said.
-------- iraq
US firms given contracts to 'rebuild' Iraq
Feb 23, 2003 (PTI)
The Hindu
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/01232215.htm
New York - Though a war on Iraq is yet to start, the US has decided to give contracts to repair and rebuild the country exclusively to American companies in the 'post-war' era, a report said today.
The cost of the contracts is estimated to be around 900 million dollars, Time magazine said today.
The subcontracts would go exclusively to nations officially designated as friendly, the magazine added.
Much of oil infrastructure in Iraq is in a state of disrepair and would require extensive effort to make it work at the optimum capacity.
A recent report had said that the oil fields are littered with broken pumps.
The whole exercise could cost billions of dollars and earlier reports had said that the cost would be paid through Iraqi oil revenue, the report said.
----
Greece reported setting up U.S.-Iraq meeting
Sunday February 23, 2003
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030222/3/384s1.html
ATHENS - Retired U.S. general Anthony Zinni will meet two Iraqi generals in Athens next Wednesday as part of EU efforts to head off a war with Iraq, according to a Greek Sunday newspaper.
To Vima, one of Greece's most authoritative newspapers, said in an early copy obtained by Reuters on Saturday that military officials from other Middle Eastern countries, including Libya, would attend the meeting organised by Greek authorities.
"Next Wednesday in Athens Anthony Zinni, President George Bush's personal representative, will meet two Iraqi army generals from Baghdad in a rare meeting between the two countries," the newspaper said in its front-page story.
To Vima said the two Iraqi generals were close confidantes of President Saddam Hussein and were making the trip with his blessing. The report did not name them.
Zinni, a retired Marine Corps general and former commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf, is familiar with Middle Eastern leaders and has been a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The critical meeting was organised in high secrecy by Greek Defence Minister Yannos Papandoniou in his role as the present head of EU defence and security matters," the newspaper said.
"Iraq immediately accepted the meeting when Papandoniou sent out the invitation," it said.
Greece is current president of the European Union under the 15-nation bloc's six-month rotation deal.
A spokesman for Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis declined to confirm or deny the report. "If there is comment on this it will be made tomorrow (Sunday)," the spokesman said.
As EU president, Greece has been in the forefront of efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis.
Greece has diplomatic relations with Baghdad and an Iraqi ambassador is stationed in Athens.
The United States and Britain say they have intelligence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and have threatened war unless Baghdad complies with U.N. demands to come clean. Baghdad says it does not possess such arms.
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US and Britain pound Iraqi defences in massive escalation of airstrikes
By Raymond Whitaker
23 February 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=380766
Iraq has been ordered to destroy dozens of missiles which violate UN limits, but the US and Britain are not waiting to see whether Saddam Hussein complies.
In recent days, an Independent on Sunday investigation reveals, they have stepped up attacks on missile sites near Basra which could threaten the military build-up in Kuwait and the Gulf.
The raids are being carried out by aircraft patrolling the "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq, established by the victors after the first Gulf war. They claim the patrols are being carried out in the name of the UN - especially ironic, given the passionate debate over the need for a second Security Council to authorise war on Iraq.
Some have always disputed whether the "no-fly" zones have UN authority, but now the US and Britain have widened the "rules of engagement" to the point where warplanes are effectively preparing the way for an imminent invasion.
Targets have included surface-to-air batteries as well as an anti-ship missile launcher which was considered a threat to the growing concentration of naval vessels in the Gulf. In the past two weeks there have been at least three strikes in the same area on Ababil-100 mobile missile batteries. They are capable of rapidly firing four missiles a distance of nearly 90 miles, each with a single explosive warhead or up to 25 anti-tank "bomblets". From Basra they could easily reach the ground forces building up in northern Kuwait, which has been declared a closed military zone.
Attacks on such battlefield weapons, rare until recently, are part of a semi-secret air campaign, conducted under cover of the no-fly patrols, which has intensified sharply since the beginning of the year. Allied aircraft have gone into action over Iraq almost every day. By the end of this month the number of missions is likely to overtake the 78 flown during the whole of 2002.
While the number of attacks and the targets are known, important information is almost always kept back, including the number and type of aircraft deployed, the weapons used and the success or otherwise of each attack: US Central Command communiques routinely say "battle damage assessment is ongoing", and further details are never released. The Iraqis ritually say civilians have been killed; equally ritually, this is denied. What is certain, however, is that no allied aircraft has been shot down in more than a decade of patrols
Significantly, the air attacks have been heavily concentrated in the south of Iraq, with only one having been reported north of Baghdad since the beginning of the year. Millions of leaflets have also been dropped in the south, some warning Iraqis not to repair bomb damage, others giving the frequencies of anti-regime broadcasting stations.
The US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, proclaimed last week that there were sufficient forces in the Gulf region for war to be launched at any time. At the weekend, the Pentagon claimed that it had some 200,000 troops in the region, roughly half of them in Kuwait.
Within days there will be five US carrier battle groups in and around the Gulf, as well as the Ark Royal and its task force. The number of strike aircraft, including a third of the Royal Air Force's strength, is climbing to about 500. They will be able to unleash devastating power against Saddam when ordered to do so, but already Iraq's air defences have been significantly eroded by months of military action.
Mr Rumsfeld's announcement took military chiefs by surprise, however. Delays in reaching agreement with Turkey have hampered the deployment of some significant elements in the US invasion plan. Britain's Challenger 2 tanks and about half the 42,000 personnel in its combined force are still on the high seas. Sharp rise in number and type of targets
Until last summer, coalition aircraft patrolling the "no-fly" zones over Iraq hit back only at missile or artillery batteries that opened fire on them, or loosed AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles at radar units "locking on" to them. But with an invasion looming, the number and type of targets attacked have increased sharply.
- Last September, in a raid given unusual publicity, more than 100 British and US warplanes hit the main Iraqi air command and control centre in the west of the country, which would direct any Scud attacks on Israel.
- Air defence command bunkers along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of Baghdad, and the fixed communications that link them to missile and gun positions, have come in for repeated attack.
- Fibre-optic links get the most attention, since they are quickly repaired. The Iraqis are warned through leaflets that repair crews may be targeted.
- While continuing to dismantle Iraq's air defences, coalition aircraft are increasingly attacking battlefield weapons in the far south of Iraq, the likely focus of an invasion. Fixed and mobile surface-to-air missile batteries have been targeted, as well as surface-to-surface missiles threatening US and British land and naval forces.
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Destroying missiles would be to 'sign death warrant', says Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
23 February 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=380773
An increasingly cornered Iraq complained yesterday it might be signing its own death warrant if it obeyed a United Nations order to destroy dozens of missiles at the moment the US is poised to lead an invasion.
"They want us to destroy them at a time when we are threatened daily," said Owayed Ahmed Ali, the director of the Ibn al-Haithem plant, which produces the al-Samoud missiles, after another visit by UN weapons inspectors.
The protest is the most specific reaction yet to the demand by Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, that Baghdad start destroying the missiles by Saturday, after they were found to exceed the 93-mile range permitted by existing arms restrictions on Iraq.
With the order coming barely a week after Mr Blix's relatively benign report on 14 February, US diplomats were delighted. Not only does it impose a de facto deadline for Iraqi compliance, it also fits in with the likely timetable for the Bush administration to go to war.
Yesterday, President George Bush met Spain's Prime Minister, Jose-Maria Aznar, one of his strongest European supporters, at his ranch in Texas to discuss the new Security Council resolution Britain and the US will introduce tomorrow.
The draft is understood to contain no specific deadline. It will state that Iraq has failed to comply with UN resolution 1441 ordering it to disarm. Baghdad thus faces "serious consequences", the diplomatic formulation that authorises the use of force.
On Friday, Mr Blix will deliver a new report, this time behind closed doors. The next day is the deadline for Baghdad to start getting rid of its al-Samouds. Shortly after that, and certainly by 14 March, Washington and London are expected to force a showdown vote in the UN.
Whatever the outcome, Mr Bush repeated last week that the US would if necessary lead a "coalition of the willing" against Iraq. An invasion could begin any time, perhaps around 23 March, when moonless conditions will provide maximum advantage for US forces. Some analysts speculate the invasion might be launched sooner, if the administration calculates that further delay will erode international support.
As of last night - barring an act of reckless defiance by Saddam Hussein - the odds were stacked against London and Washington securing the required nine Security Council votes to pass the second resolution.
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who is on a visit to East Asia mainly devoted to the stand-off with North Korea, will take time out in Beijing to press for support from China, a veto-holding member of the council. Washington will also use economic and financial sticks and carrots to try and bring waverers on board, as it is doing with Turkey.
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Iraqi company says missiles key to defense
2/23/2003
AP
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-02-22-iraq-missile_x.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The director of a company involved in producing the Al Samoud 2 missile said Saturday that obeying a U.N. order to destroy the weapons would deprive Iraq of an important defense just as the United States is threatening war.
No Iraqi official has commented publicly on the order Friday from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix that Iraq hand over dozens of Al Samoud 2 missiles and components for destruction, which would begin by March 1.
An assistant to Gen. Hossam Mohamed Amin, chief Iraqi liaison officer to the U.N. inspectors, told The Associated Press on Saturday said he still hadn't seen the chief inspector's letter and couldn't comment.
On Saturday, a U.N. team of inspectors visited the Ibn al-Haithem company, which produces and assembles Al Samoud 2s.
After they left, company director Owayed Ahmed Ali said only two of the missiles had been tested above the 93-mile range allowed by the United Nations.
"They want to destroy them at a time when we are threatened daily - every minute and every second," he said.
"I asked (the inspectors), 'You would destroy a defensive weapon now that we are threatened by the Americans, who might strike at any moment?'" he added. "Some said, 'You are right, but we have orders,' while others said, 'You have other means to defend yourself.'"
Ali said nine inspectors visited the company Saturday and split into three groups. They entered "workshops, assembly areas and all departments. They tagged some of the missiles that were being assembled," he said.
Mohammed Modhaffar al-Adhami, a member of Iraq's parliament, told The Associated Press on Friday that he believed Iraq would destroy the missiles if so ordered. He said Iraq wanted to avoid what he called the "aggression" threatened by the United States if Iraq fails to comply with the U.N.'s disarmament program.
"Iraq will do the maximum in its cooperation to avoid any aggression ... even (destroying) the missiles," al-Adhami said.
Tests of the Al Samoud have determined that the weapon exceeds the 93-mile range limit set by U.N. resolutions adopted at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq's vice president offered to hold a dialogue with the United States, saying in a TV interview broadcast Friday that his country was ready to negotiate if Washington ends talk of war.
Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan's interview was aired on Iraq's Al-Shabab Television, which is owned by President Saddam Hussein's son, Odai.
"We are ready for a dialogue with the American administration and ready to build economic relations," he said. "If they abandon aggression, and there is a dialogue that leads to normal relations, achieves mutual interests far away from interference in internal affairs, then we have no objection."
The offer, which appeared aimed largely at the Iraqi public, is unlikely to attract a favorable response in Washington, which insists that Saddam first give up his alleged weapons of mass destruction. Saddam insists he already has.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell made an offer of his own Friday, declaring that if the Iraqi leader cooperates with U.N. disarmament demands, "or if he leaves the country tomorrow, there will be no war."
"People are hoping that war can be avoided," Powell said. "I hope it can be avoided. But the one who has the power in his hands to decide whether there will be a war or peace is Saddam Hussein."
With the threat of war hanging over the country, the United Nations reduced its humanitarian staff in Iraq to simplify an evacuation in case of military action. About 450 of the 900 foreigners working for U.N. aid programs in Iraq have left in the last two weeks, a U.N. official in Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.
The voluntary reduction in staff had no impact on the 104 U.N. weapons inspectors and 115 support staff working independently under a U.N. Security Council mandate to verify that Iraq has rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction. In New York, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said no new staff was being assigned to Iraq but no general evacuation order had been issued.
The United States and Britain accuse Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, despite U.N. bans on both, and have massed nearly 200,000 troops in the region to reinforce their threats of war. Iraq denies holding such weapons.
In addition to Ibn al-Haitham, the inspectors headed to eight other sites Saturday including the 7th of April factory, 20 miles east of Baghdad, which contributes to some Iraqi missile programs with the development of fuses, the Information Ministry said.
Other sites visited included a medical college in the northern city of Mosul, a facility for heavy engineering and a dairy factory, the ministry said.
On Friday, nuclear inspectors interviewed an engineer and a magnet specialist, both members of Iraq's former gas centrifuge program, inspectors spokesman Hiro Ueki said.
Biological and chemical inspectors also have been trying to interview key Iraqi scientists, but have not conducted an interview since Feb. 7 because of a dispute over whether the scientists can tape the interviews.
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Anxiety Grows Along Iraqi Divide
Kurdish Area Could Become War's Front Line
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50117-2003Feb22?language=printer
KALEK YASSINAGO, Iraq -- On a low ridge that runs along the Zab River, Iraqi troops were so close you could see their laundry fluttering on clotheslines. Soldiers' silhouettes moved slowly atop the ridge and disappeared into bunkers.
Below, at a point where the Kurdish-controlled zone of northern Iraq meets territory controlled by President Saddam Hussein's government, few seemed to be taking note of the military emplacement. Buses festooned with green balloons and white and green flags poured across the Zab Bridge, bringing home Kurdish Muslims from this year's pilgrimage to Mecca. Cars carrying everything from car parts to medical patients wove among the revelers on the way to the market town of Arbil, 20 miles to the southeast.
The Zab is part of a dividing line that meanders across northern Iraq and separates territory to the south, controlled by the central government, from land under the authority of the two main Kurdish political movements and their militias. The division took shape after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Kurds in the north revolted against Hussein's government. The United States refused to back the revolt, as well as a concurrent uprising by Shiite Muslims in the south, and it was crushed. But the United States, with help from Britain, began air patrols to protect the Kurds from Iraqi warplanes -- and the north has been essentially self-governing ever since.
Once again, however, the line has become a potential war front as the United States readies forces for a possible attack on Iraq to destroy Hussein's government.
The ridge above the Zab, with its bunkers and a roadside army headquarters at a narrow pass, would be an inviting target for U.S. bombers if the war gets underway.
But for now, civilian traffic across the Zab is heavy, as it is at another checkpoint just south of Arbil at a point called Qirda Rasha. Both straddle roads to Arbil, which is under the control of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headed by Massoud Barzani.
Despite the appearance of normalcy, travelers bring anxiety along with their goods and passengers when passing from one zone of control to the other. Motorists entering Kurdish territory say that to the south, intense preparations are underway for a war against U.S. invaders and potential enemies from within. To the north, Kurds express fear that a new conflict may disrupt more than a decade of relative peace.
"When I used to pass from the south, I always felt relief," said Adwan Latif, a traveler from Kirkuk, an Iraqi-controlled city 60 miles southeast of Arbil. He was on his way to visit his mother. "Now, even in Arbil, you can't relax. War is on the mind."
Another motorist was carrying a load of beans south. He said they are more abundant in Arbil, and he would deliver them to relatives at the Iraqi checkpoint. "They told me they need to store extra food in case of war," the man said.
One of the worries of people from Hussein's territory is the possibility that travel may soon be cut off. They say that the Iraqis are laying mines on their side of the frontier, around towns and along the dividing line. One merchant passing the Qirda Rasha checkpoint said a road to his village, Mafmur, has been closed and mines are being placed beneath the pavement.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party militia commander at the checkpoint said Iraqi forces have brought up heavy artillery to areas near Kirkuk.
Several passersby said Iraqi agents are demanding bribes for passage north. The bribes have become more expensive, they said, because many Kurds are resisting recruitment into a government militia called the Jerusalem Army.
"Men especially are being forced to pay more. They are asked, 'Why aren't you in the Jerusalem Army?' The regime people don't have to say anything else. They know you'll add a few bills to the bribe," said Malwan, a young plumber from Kirkuk going to Arbil to buy supplies.
He also expected financial problems in Arbil. Malwan, who did not want to give his family name, expressed concern that speculation against his money would leave him short of what he needed to make his purchases. Currency used in the Kurdish areas is different from the money used in the rest of Iraq. Both are called dinars, but the one circulating among the Kurds has a picture of a man in a turban. In the rest of the country, the portrait is of Hussein. Nine Kurdish dinars are worth one U.S. dollar. It takes 2,000 of Baghdad's dinars to equal a dollar.
Some of the traffic seemed to be politically motivated. One man from the far southern town of Najaf said he was on his way to visit an anti-government group, which he declined to name. He was a Shiite Muslim, the group that forms the impoverished majority of Iraqi citizens. The traveler from Najaf said he believes Shiites will rise again, as they did in 1991, once it is clear the Americans are committed to Hussein's overthrow.
"Lots of Iraqis have arms hidden somewhere," the young man said. "We will wait and wait to see what happens, and then these weapons will come out."
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Russian Envoy in Baghdad on Surprise Mission
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 7:20 AM
By Hassan Hafidh
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52195-2003Feb23?language=printer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov arrived in Baghdad on an unexpected mission for President Vladimir Putin, a Russian source in Baghdad said on Sunday.
The visit comes amid U.S. and British efforts to secure a new United Nations Security Council resolution expected to pave the way for war against Iraq.
Iraqi and Russian officials said Primakov arrived late on Saturday and had met senior aides to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has ordered Iraq to start destroying its al-Samoud 2 missiles by March 1 as part of the process of disarming the country. Iraq has not yet responded to the demand.
Primakov, a Middle East expert and a long-time friend of Saddam, did not appear in public in Baghdad and is believed to be staying at one of the presidential palaces. He is expected to leave later Sunday, the Russian source said.
The official gave no information on the nature of the mission.
Primakov served as Russia's prime minister from 1998-99. He traveled to Baghdad twice in 1990 as part of then-Soviet efforts to avert a U.S.-led attack to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. His missions failed.
Russia, which has extensive economic interests in Iraq, favors a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis over alleged weapons of mass destruction. Moscow says it sees no need to use force against Iraq and insists on allowing U.N. arms inspectors to continue their search for banned weapons.
Russian delegations have visited Baghdad regularly since the standoff with the United States began last year.
Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov traveled to Iraq in January along with a delegation of Russian energy companies. Deputies from Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament met Saddam in Baghdad earlier this month.
Washington has massed tens of thousands of troops in the Gulf for a possible attack on Iraq.
U.N. weapons inspectors continued their search in the country Sunday.
Ballistic experts visited several installations associated with weapons production outside the Iraqi capital, including al-Rafah factory west of Baghdad. The head of Iraq's weapons monitoring department, Hussam Mohammad Amin, is expected to discuss the missile issue at a news conference Sunday at 3 p.m. GMT. It was not immediately known whether he would respond to Blix's demand.
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Twilight of a tyrant
The man and his defenders
Sunday February 23, 2003
The UK Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901093,00.html
As a boy, Saddam Hussein shot his teacher and fished Iraq's rivers with dynamite. Now he stands on the brink of oblivion. Peter Beaumont pieces together interviews with schoolfriends and talks to exiles and intelligence experts to explore the extraordinary mindset of a man who wants to be a modern Saladin
In the well-to-do suburb of al-Amiriyeh, five miles west of Baghdad, there is a road avoided by most ordinary traffic that runs parallel to the airport highway. There, in a complex of nondescript buildings and garages, is the home base of the First Platoon of 2nd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of Saddam Hussein's Special Republican Guards, part of the so-called 'Golden Division' whose sole task is to protect Saddam.
The men who live in the barracks are tough. Their diet, weapons, pay and conditions are among the best in the Iraqi army. Their uniforms are smart and they are kept fit through constant exercise. Many are drawn from Saddam's home town of Tikrit and loyal clans from the surrounding areas, screened and selected for their fervent loyalty to the regime and, in particular, to the man known as the Great Uncle.
It is the duty of these men to drive the dummy convoys that hide where Saddam is going - and in which car. Members of their unit jog beside those cars on foot and fan out on the President's arrival to set up an outer security cordon. It is their duty to stop a bullet or a bomb intended for Saddam.
The men of the 2nd Battalion are not alone in their task of protecting Iraq's strongman. The gun-toting and sunglasses-wearing drivers of the black Mercedes who make up the presidential motorcade are only in Saddam's third and outermost line of defence against assassination.
Within their cordon are men of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Brigade, whose headquarters are near the National Security College in Baghdad and whose job is to kill anyone the 2nd Battalion has failed to stop.
And fitted neatly within their cordon - like the multiple layers of a Russian nesting doll - is a final group of bodyguards, drawn this time from the Amn al-Khas, the Special Security Service, the most loyal-of-the-loyal who provide not only close protection for Saddam, but are also placed discreetly around those offices of state to spy on military and intelligence officials who might foment a coup against him. At the very centre of these is 65-year-old Saddam himself. His last line of defence is the pistol he carries in his own belt.
These days the question in Baghdad and elsewhere is whether even these most loyal units can be trusted to defend Saddam in a country overwhelmed by a sense of fin de siècle weariness, where all expect an imminent American-led invasion, and where no one expects Saddam to survive. The expectation of his imminent demise - say those who are tasked with watching Saddam and guessing his next move - is shared by all save Saddam himself and the closest members of his family, who they claim have yet to comprehend the odds stacked against them.
Which leaves the biggest question still unresolved, the question whispered fearfully in Iraq and asked with perplexity in Washington, London and the UN: what exactly will Saddam do when his back is really against the wall?
'What we hear,' says one Western intelligence source, 'is that everyone except the family is looking for a way out. We know, from the contacts they have made with family members outside Iraq, that members of the regime, right up to the most senior - but not including Saddam - are making contact with the world outside to find a way to survive when Saddam is ousted.
'Others are liquidating and moving all their assets outside Iraq to where they believe they will be safe. And everyone is playing a waiting game. No one wants to get caught out by Saddam before the Americans arrive and no one wants to be the last man standing fighting for Saddam when the game has been lost.'
In recent weeks stories have emerged from Baghdad and the exile community of how loyal members of the regime, confronted with the certainty of the end of Saddam's rule, have tried to finesse a change of loyalties, the timing of which carries such lethal consequences.
According to certain sources, some in the apparatus of repression have tried to approach the families of those they persecuted to explain that they disagreed with their orders while others have simply tried to disappear. Other stories tell of senior military officers and Baath Party officials desperate to get the word out that their soldiers or their paramilitary forces will not fight; even, some claim, suggesting where they are positioned so that when the Americans come they can surrender to them.
But if the conviction is widespread throughout Saddam's regime that the game is finally up, one thing is certain: that message has not permeated Saddam's inner circle at the heart of his triple ring of steel.
As Arab Ministers prepare to meet in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss the crisis in Iraq and Saudi-led efforts to persuade Saddam and his family to flee rather than invite a conflict in which many innocent Iraqi civilians will inevitably be hurt, the word is still that Saddam is still having none of it. 'There is no suggestion that Saddam has got the message. Rather the contrary,' said one source. 'He still thinks he can play the game and outwit the world. We know that he watches television and the opposition to the war seems to have bolstered his determination to keep stringing the world along. The view is that he believes the longer he can put the war off the less likely it is to happen. At some stage, though, he will realise he has run out of room for manoeuvre, and that is when he could be at his most dangerous.'
There are suggestions, borne out by Saddam's reported actions in recent days, that he has moved to shore up his crumbling regime by arresting those in the Republican Guard he fears might first desert him and bring down the House of Saddam Hussein.
Last week Lieutenant-General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Jabburi Tai, head of the Iraqi military, was reported to have been placed under house arrest in an extraordinary move that was apparently designed to prevent a coup. According to a source contacted by the Guardian last week, he was being allowed to attend cabinet meetings shown on Iraqi television to give the impression of normality, but 'in reality his house and family are surrounded by Saddam's personal guards. They are there so he can't flee'.
The general is not alone in his difficulties. The same source claimed last week that several other high-ranking military and government officials had been arrested in the past few days.
So what is it like, this bizarre life that Saddam is living at the ground zero of the massive and violent secret state he designed and built for no other function than to ensure his own survival?
His two dozen palaces, between which he flits daily to avoid risk of detection by the enemies he sees round every corner (and probably is right to see them), boast dedicated staff that each day turn down his bed in each location; who filter the swimming pools he uses to keep down his weight and strengthen his bad back; bring in the fresh-cut flowers for the rooms and cook three meals a day for a man they know most likely will not appear that day. At other times, says the bush telegraph of Iraq, Saddam descends on the homes of 'ordinary' Iraqis - more likely wealthy cadres who have benefited from his rule - turfing out the occupants so that he can spend the night.
What food he does eat where he alights, say opposition sources, is flown in from abroad twice a week - shellfish, seafood, fresh steaks and alcohol - all of them checked for any signs of contamination before Saddam will eat it.
As each day he chooses a palace where he will sleep, he selects one of the almost identical offices where he will work for hours on end, overseeing every detail of the functioning of his secret state and listening to his advisers and Ministers as they report carefully on the missions assigned to them.
According to a profile of Saddam in Atlantic Monthly by Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down, Saddam is both a voracious reader and watcher of TV, closely monitoring both the Iraqi stations that he controls and also watching obsessively the output of CNN, Sky, al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, and the BBC.
His world view, suggests Bowden, is coloured by the films he watches and the novels he reads again and again: The Day of the Jackal, The Conversation, Enemy of the State - all books which paint the outside world in terms of conspiracy theories and violence.
Or perhaps it is the other way around. These are books and films that simply confirm the peculiar world view of a violent, clever and manipulative dictator who has cast his country in the model of his own notorious clan - as a gangster bureaucracy.
Saddam's last paranoid days within his rings of steel are a long way from the days that made him in the village of al-Ouja, near Tikrit, in the home of a maternal uncle where he was given the name Saddam, 'one who confronts'. It has turned out to be strangely prophetic.
Born into the al-Khatab clan - an extended family noted for its cunning and violence - his father, a poor peasant, died before Saddam was born. So the young Saddam grew up a loner who got on badly with his stepfather. Instead, he idolised his uncle and sometime foster parent, Khairallah Talfah, an army officer and ardent Arab nationalist who was jailed and dismissed from the military after a failed uprising.
Given the circumstances, perhaps, it is unsurprising that he was quickly indoctrinated into both the criminality of his clan and the mystique of the burgeoning Arab movements.
He was a tough kid according to childhood friends, who would fish in the river with dynamite, up to his chest in water. In those days, say those who knew him then, Saddam and three other school friends wrote down what they wanted to be when they grew up. One wanted to be a famous poet, another a general, the third a scientist. Saddam wrote that all he wanted was a 'Jeep, a hunting rifle and a pair of binoculars'.
A poor student, although not lacking intelligence, he earned respect the al-Khatabi way: by shooting and trying to kill the teacher who beat him at school.
Although Saddam was unable to read even at the age of ten, his uncle Khairallah - later to become Mayor of Baghdad - encouraged him, as did his son, Adnan, later to become the Minister for Defence. And what Khairallah, who had turned to teaching after his release from prison, schooled him in was the arts of manipulation and intrigue. When Khairallah moved to Baghdad in the mid-1950s he took Saddam with him, where he was plunged into a city alive with national fervour. The tough young peasant was about to become properly politicised.
Saddam had joined the relatively new Baath Party - which advocated both socialism and Arab nationalism - and where his first role was organising fellow students into a gang to intimidate political rivals. In 1958 Saddam killed for the first time. At the age of 21, he was implicated in the murder of a rival of his uncle's, a cousin who was the Communist Party chief in Tikrit.
Although there was not enough evidence to imprison Saddam or Khairallah, it was sufficient to mark Saddam as a candidate for a peripheral role in the attempted killing of the then Iraq leader, General Abdul Karim Kassem, by the Baathists in 1959 in revenge for his massacre of Baath supporters in the town of Mosul. The failed assassination was an event that was to become a key turning point for both the party and Saddam.
By the late 1960s - by when he had been in prison and exile in Egypt - the Baath Party had swept to power and a new version of Saddam had emerged. Although still a violent thug, he commanded respect, and had transformed himself from being a dim student from Tikrit into an autodidact who read widely and whose greatest understanding was of the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political power.
When the party seized control in 1968 his cousin Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr was president and chairman of the new Revolutionary Command Council. But Saddam was the real muscle and brains behind his relative.
The next 11 years marked a slow but determined progress as Saddam built up the support he required to grab power from his cousin. Although already regarded as the 'strongman of Baghdad' and the effective power, his coup in office was forced on him when rivals realised how powerful he had become and began suggesting that perhaps elections within the party might be necessary to stem his influence.
And on 22 July, 1979, Saddam finally seized power in what would be one of the most iconically terrible moments of his regime. President al-Bakr - Saddam's front man - had been quietly fading from the scene. On 11 July a closed session of the Revolutionary Command Council had removed his powers and transferred them to Saddam. On the 15th the 65-year President even helped his protégé, announcing on television that he was stepping down due to poor health. All that remained was for Saddam to eliminate opponents in the Revolutionary Command Council who might stand in his way.
And the man who would be the catalyst of this great purge was the RCC's Secretary-General, Muhie Abd al-Hussein Mashhadi, who had signed his own death warrant on 11 July by demanding a vote on Saddam's ascension to power.
On the 22nd, Saddam invited all members of the Command Council and other party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad. As he sat by smoking a cigar, one of his cronies announced to the gathering that a foreign plot had been uncovered. Mashhadi, who had been tortured after his arrest by Saddam loyalists, was led from behind a curtain to confess. He started naming names and as he reeled off the list of those allegedly involved they were led from the room. There were 66 in total.
As Saddam got up from his chair and ascended to the lectern, he told the audience of his shock. He wept as he mentioned the name of one of the plotters. As one man cried out his innocence, Saddam waved him away with a shout of: ' Itla! itla! ' [Get out! Get out!] As a final chilling touch, Saddam had ordered the filming of the entire event, videotapes of which were circulated throughout the country.
It is a moment that set the tone for his future rule. In the two decades and more that would follow there would be other pieces of theatre of the macabre designed to frighten and impress: the gas attack at Halabja; the murder of this paper's correspondent Farzad Bazoft; the use of the Western human shields in the last Gulf War, and the murder of his son-in-law Hussein Kamil, coerced back to Baghdad after his defection.
It is trait that has run in tandem with an equally alarming tendency, his ability at key moments to make dramatic misjudgments - such as his invasion of Kuwait and the present mood of the United States.
The question now is that when the penny finally drops that his regime is almost over and his back is against the wall, what will he do? It is this question which is troubling military planners in Washington and London more than any other. Among the scenarios they have imagined for Saddam's last hours are ones that would do justice to a modern Macbeth.
When it is clear he is doomed, these planners believe, Saddam will bring the whole edifice down on him and anyone - friend or foe - who is too close.
Crucially, it is likely to devolve to a single issue: to his psychopathic vanity. In a country plastered with murals of Saddam; in a place where paeans of praise are broadcast and published daily, his motivation, say many, comes down to an almost obsessive concern how he will be remembered in the decades and the centuries to come.
For unlike members of his own clan - and like his sons Uday and Qusay - who have used Saddam's rise to power to enrich and indulge themselves, often in the cruellest of ways, Saddam has told his official biographer that what drives him is how he will be remembered in 500 years. How he wants to be remembered as he has reminded the world again and again, is as a second Saladin, the great defender of Islam against the Crusaders.
If he cannot achieve that aim in life, rationalise the Saddamologists, there is always the myth-making potential of his own death surrounded by the bodies of his enemies.
'Saddam is a man whose whole existence is about control and his own perception of his image,' said one British defence source. 'What we fear is that when he realises he is finally finished, any reason for that control, including self-control, will have been removed.
'All that is left then is his violence and his twisted perception of his place in Arab history.
'It is at that point that he may decide that if he is going to die he may as well take as many of his enemies with him as possible. There will be no restraint in his mind about the use of chemical or biological weapons.'
Others have suggested that Saddam may engineer a humanitarian disaster through an atrocity against his own people: anything to halt the US advance. 'In the end,' said the same source, 'he may feel that there are no rules.' A final - and most wished-for option - is that his instinct for survival overrules all others, including power and self-esteem, and he takes to flight and exile. If he is going to do this soon, there is no indication of it. Which leaves his departure, say intelligence sources, to men who are defending him. Then the key role in the final scene of the last act may be given to the men of the Special Republican Guard closest to Saddam.
'A moment will come when these men will have to make a judgment,' said one source. 'They will be asking themselves whether they go down with Saddam or save themselves from Iraqi fury by doing the only thing that is left for them to do. Killing Saddam.'
The men who surround Saddam within his protective onion will, for the first time, be forced not simply to follow orders, but to make a choice - whether to die with the Great Uncle as the last of his Praetorian Guard fall back upon his body, or to survive themselves by purging Iraq of 30 years of horror.
In the barracks of the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the Special Republican Guard in al-Amiriyeh and elsewhere there can be few who, privately, have not begun to consider what they might have to do in those last hours.
--------
A People Betrayed: The 10-year Holocaust in Iraq
By John Pilger
Independent
February 23, 2003
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5675.htm
Dr Al-Ali is a cancer specialist at Basra's hospital and a member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians. He has a neat moustache and a kindly, furrowed face. His starched white coat, like the collar of his shirt, is frayed.
"Before the Gulf War, we had only three or four deaths in a month from cancer," he said. "Now it's 30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's just in my department. That is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. That's almost half the population.
"Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease. We don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper survey, or even test the excess level of radiation in our bodies. We strongly suspect depleted uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War right across the southern battlefields. Whatever the cause, it is like Chernobyl here; the genetic effects are new to us.
"The mushrooms grow huge, and the fish in what was once a beautiful river are inedible. Even the grapes in my garden have mutated and can't be eaten."
Along the corridor, I met Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician. At another time, she might have been described as an effervescent personality; now she, too, has a melancholy expression that does not change; it is the face of Iraq. "This is Ali Raffa Asswadi," she said, stopping to take the hand of a wasted boy I guessed to be about four years old. "He is nine. He has leukaemia. Now we can't treat him. Only some of the drugs are available. We get drugs for two or three weeks, and then they stop when the shipments stop. Unless you continue a course, the treatment is useless. We can't even give blood transfusions, because there are not enough blood bags."
Dr Hassen keeps a photo album of the children she is trying to save and those she has been unable to save. "This is Talum Saleh," she said, turning to a photograph of a boy in a blue pullover and with sparkling eyes. "He is five-and-a-half years old. This is a case of Hodgkin's disease. Normally a patient with Hodgkin's can expect to live and the cure can be 95 per cent. But if the drugs are not available, complications set in, and death follows. This boy had a beautiful nature. He died."
I said, "As we were walking, I noticed you stop and put your face to the wall." "Yes, I was emotional ... I am a doctor; I am not supposed to cry, but I cry every day, because this is torture. These children could live; they could live and grow up; and when you see your son and daughter in front of you, dying, what happens to you?" I said, "What do you say to those in the West who deny the connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?" "That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991, we saw nothing like this at all. If there is no connection, why have these things not happened before? Most of these children have no family history of cancer.
"I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. It is almost exactly the same here; we have an increased percentage of congenital malformation, an increase of malignancy, leukaemia, brain tumours: the same."
Under the economic embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council, now in its 14th year, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise to decontaminate its battlefields from the 1991 Gulf War.
Professor Doug Rokke, the US Army physicist responsible for cleaning up Kuwait, told me: "I am like many people in southern Iraq. I have 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in my body. Most of my team are now dead.
"We face an issue to be confronted by people in the West, those with a sense of right and wrong: first, the decision by the US and Britain to use a weapon of mass destruction: depleted uranium. When a tank fired its shells, each round carried over 4,500g of solid uranium. What happened in the Gulf was a form of nuclear warfare."
In 1991, a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority document reported that if 8 per cent of the depleted uranium fired in the Gulf War was inhaled, it could cause "500,000 potential deaths". In the promised attack on Iraq, the United States will again use depleted uranium, and so will Britain, regardless of its denials.
Professor Rokke says he has watched Iraqi officials pleading with American and British officials to ease the embargo, if only to allow decontaminating and cancer assessment equipment to be imported. "They described the deaths and horrific deformities, and they were rebuffed," he said. "It was pathetic."
The United Nations Sanctions Committee in New York, set up by the Security Council to administer the embargo, is dominated by the Americans, who are backed by the British. Washington has vetoed or delayed a range of vital medical equipment, chemotherapy drugs, even pain-killers. (In the jargon of denial, "blocked" equals vetoed, and "on hold" means delayed, or maybe blocked.) In Baghdad, I sat in a clinic as doctors received parents and their children, many of them grey-skinned and bald, some of them dying. After every second or third examination, Dr Lekaa Fasseh Ozeer, the young oncologist, wrote in English: "No drugs available." I asked her to jot down in my notebook a list of drugs the hospital had ordered, but had not received, or had received intermittently. She filled a page.
I had been filming in Iraq for my documentary Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq. Back in London, I showed Dr Ozeer's list to Professor Karol Sikora who, as chief of the cancer programme of the World Health Organisation (WHO), wrote in the British Medical Journal: "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Sanctions Committee]. There seems to be a rather ludicrous notion that such agents could be converted into chemical and other weapons.
Nearly all these drugs are available in every British hospital. They are very standard. When I came back from Iraq last year, with a group of experts I drew up a list of 17 drugs deemed essential for cancer treatment. We informed the UN that there was no possibility of converting these drugs into chemical warfare agents. We heard nothing more.
"The saddest thing I saw in Iraq was children dying because there was no chemotherapy and no pain control. It seemed crazy they couldn't have morphine, because for everybody with cancer pain, it is the best drug. When I was there, they had a little bottle of aspirin pills to go round 200 patients in pain. They would receive a particular anti-cancer drug, but then get only little bits of drugs here and there, and so you can't have any planning. It's bizarre."
I told him that one of the doctors had been especially upset because the UN Sanctions Committee had banned nitrous oxide as "weapons dual use"; yet this was used in caesarean sections to stop bleeding, and perhaps save a mother's life. "I can see no logic to banning that," he said. "I am not an armaments expert, but the amounts used would be so small that, even if you collected all the drugs supply for the whole nation and pooled it, it is difficult to see how you could make any chemical warfare device out of it."
Denis Halliday is a courtly Irishman who spent 34 years with the UN, latterly as Assistant Secretary-General. When he resigned in 1998 as the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq in protest at the effects of the embargo on the civilian population, it was, he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple as that ... Five thousand children are dying every month ... I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."
Since I met Halliday, I have been struck by the principle behind his carefully chosen, uncompromising words. "I had been instructed," he said, "to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the regime - Saddam Hussein - is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who are losing their children or their parents for lack of untreated water. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible."
In the UN, Mr Halliday broke a long collective silence. On 13 February, 2000, Hans Von Sponeck, who had succeeded him as Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, resigned. Like Halliday, he had been with the UN for more than 30 years. "How long," he asked, "should the civilian population of Iraq be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?" Two days later, Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Programme in Iraq, another UN agency, resigned, saying that she, too, could no longer tolerate what was being done to the Iraqi people.
The resignations were unprecedented. All three were saying the unsayable: that the West was responsible for mass deaths, estimated by Halliday to be more than a million. While food and medicines are technically exempt, the Sanctions Committee has frequently vetoed and delayed requests for baby food, agricultural equipment, heart and cancer drugs, oxygen tents, X-ray machines. Sixteen heart and lung machines were put "on hold" because they contained computer chips. A fleet of ambulances was held up because their equipment included vacuum flasks, which keep medical supplies cold; vacuum flasks are designated "dual use" by the Sanctions Committee, meaning they could possibly be used in weapons manufacture. Cleaning materials, such as chlorine, are "dual use", as is the graphite used in pencils; as are wheelbarrows, it seems, considering the frequency of their appearance on the list of "holds".
As of October 2001, 1,010 contracts for humanitarian supplies, worth $3.85bn, were "on hold" by the Sanctions Committee. They included items related to food, health, water and sanitation, agriculture and education. This has now risen to goods worth more than $5bn. This is rarely reported in the West.
When Denis Halliday was the senior United Nations official in Iraq, a display cabinet stood in the foyer of his office. It contained a bag of wheat, some congealed cooking oil, bars of soap and a few other household necessities. "It was a pitiful sight," he said, "and it represented the monthly ration that we were allowed to spend. I added cheese to lift the protein content, but there was simply not enough money left over from the amount we were allowed to spend, which came from the revenue Iraq was allowed to make from its oil."
He describes food shipments as "an exercise in duplicity". A shipment that the Americans claim allows for 2,300 calories per person per day may well allow for only 2,000 calories, or less. "What's missing," he said, "will be animal proteins, minerals and vitamins. As most Iraqis have no other source of income, food has become a medium of exchange; it gets sold for other necessities, further lowering the calorie intake. You also have to get clothes and shoes for your kids to go to school. You've then got malnourished mothers who cannot breastfeed, and they pick up bad water.
What is needed is investment in water treatment and distribution, electric power for food processing, storage and refrigeration, education and agriculture." His successor, Hans Von Sponeck, calculates that the Oil for Food Programme allows $100 (£63) for each person to live on for a year. This figure also has to help pay for the entire society's infrastructure and essential services, such as power and water.
"It is simply not possible to live on such an amount," Mr Von Sponeck told me. "Set that pittance against the lack of clean water, the fact that electricity fails for up to 22 hours a day, and the majority of sick people cannot afford treatment, and the sheer trauma of trying to get from day to day, and you have a glimpse of the nightmare. And make no mistake, this is deliberate. I have not in the past wanted to use the word genocide, but now it is unavoidable."
The cost in lives is staggering. A study by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) found that between 1991 and 1998, there were 500,000 deaths above the anticipated rate among Iraqi children under five years of age. This, on average, is 5,200 preventable under-five deaths per month.
Hans Von Sponeck said, "Some 167 Iraqi children are dying every day." Denis Halliday said, "If you include adults, the figure is now almost certainly well over a million." A melancholia shrouds people. I felt it at Baghdad's evening auctions, where intimate possessions are sold to buy food and medicines. Television sets are common. A woman with two infants watched their pushchairs go for pennies. A man who had collected doves since he was 15 came with his last bird; the cage would go next.
My film crew and I had come to pry, yet we were made welcome; or people merely deferred to our presence, as the downcast do. During three weeks in Iraq, only once was I the brunt of someone's anguish. "Why are you killing the children?" shouted a man in the street. "Why are you bombing us? What have we done to you?" Through the glass doors of the Baghdad offices of Unicef you can read the following mission statement: "Above all, survival, hope, development, respect, dignity, equality and justice for women and children."
Fortunately, the children in the street outside, with their pencil limbs and long thin faces, cannot read English, and perhaps cannot read at all. "The change in such a short time is unparalleled, in my experience," Dr Anupama Rao Singh, Unicef's senior representative in Iraq, told me.
"In 1989, the literacy rate was more than 90 per cent; parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. The phenomenon of street children was unheard of. Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall wellbeing of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20 per cent."
Dr Singh, diminutive, grey-haired and, with her precision, sounding like the teacher she once was in India, has spent most of her working life with Unicef. She took me to a typical primary school in Saddam City, where Baghdad's majority and poorest live. We approached along a flooded street, the city's drainage and water distribution system having collapsed since the Gulf War bombing. The headmaster, Ali Hassoon, guided us around the puddles of raw sewage in the playground and pointed to the high-water mark on the wall. "In the winter it comes up to here. That's when we evacuate.
We stay for as long as possible but, without desks, the children have to sit on bricks. I am worried about the buildings coming down." As we talked, an air-raid siren sounded in the distance.The school is on the edge of a vast industrial cemetery. The pumps in the sewage treatment plants and the reservoirs of potable water are silent, save for a few wheezing at a fraction of their capacity. Those that were not bombed have since disintegrated; spare parts from their British, French and German manufacturers are permanently "on hold".
Before 1991, Baghdad"s water was as safe as any in the developed world. Today, drawn untreated from the Tigris, it is lethal. Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever.
Dr Kim Howells told Parliament why. His title of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Competition and Consumer Affairs perfectly suited his Orwellian reply. The children's vaccines were, he said, "capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction".
American and British aircraft operate over Iraq in what their governments have unilaterally declared "no fly zones". This means that only they and their allies can fly there. The designated areas are in the north, around Mosul, to the border with Turkey, and from just south of Baghdad to the Kuwaiti border. The US and British governments insist the no fly zones are "legal", claiming that they are part of, or supported by, the Security Council's Resolution 688.
There is a great deal of fog about this, the kind generated by the Foreign Office when its statements are challenged. There is no reference to no fly zones in Security Council resolutions, which suggests they have no basis in international law.
I went to Paris and asked Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary-General of the UN in 1992, when the resolution was passed. "The issue of no fly zones was not raised and therefore not debated: not a word," he said. "They offer no legitimacy to countries sending their aircraft to attack Iraq." "Does that mean they are illegal?" I asked. "They are illegal," he replied.
The scale of the bombing in the no fly zones is astonishing. Between July 1998 and January 2000, American air force and naval aircraft flew 36,000 sorties over Iraq, including 24,000 combat missions. In 1999 alone, American and British aircraft dropped more than 1,800 bombs and hit 450 targets. The cost to British taxpayers is more than £800m.
There is bombing almost every day: it is the longest Anglo-American aerial campaign since the Second World War; yet it is mostly ignored by the British and American media. In a rare acknowledgement, The New York Times reported, "American warplanes have methodically and with virtually no public discussion been attacking Iraq ... pilots have flown about two-thirds as many missions as Nato pilots flew over Yugoslavia in 78 days of around-the-clock war there."
The purpose of the no fly zones, according to the British and American governments, is to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shi'a in the south against Saddam Hussein's forces. The aircraft are performing a "vital humanitarian task", says Tony Blair, that will give "minority peoples the hope of freedom and the right to determine their own destinies".
Like much of Blair's rhetoric on Iraq, it is simply false. In nothern Kurdish Iraq, I interviewed members of a family who had lost their grandfather, their father and four brothers and sisters when a "coalition" aircraft dive-bombed them and the sheep they were tending. The attack was investigated and verified by Hans Von Sponeck who drove there especially from Baghdad. Dozens of similar attacks - on shepherds, farmers, fishermen - are described in a document prepared by the UN Security Section.
The US faced a "genuine dilemma" in Iraq, reported The Wall Street Journal. "After eight years of enforcing a no fly zone in ... Iraq, few military targets remain. 'We're down to the last outhouse,' one US official protested. 'There are still some things left, but not many.'"
There are still children left. Six children died when an American missile hit Al Jumohria, a community in Basra's poorest residential area: 63 people were injured, a number of them badly burned. "Collateral damage," said the Pentagon. I walked down the street where the missile had struck in the early hours; it had followed the line of houses, destroying one after the other. I met the father of two sisters, aged eight and 10, who were photographed by a local wedding photographer shortly after the attack. They are in their nightdresses, one with a bow in her hair, their bodies entombed in the rubble of their homes, where they had been bombed to death in their beds. These images haunt me.
I flew on to New York for an interview with Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He appears an oddly diffident man, so softly spoken as to be almost inaudible.
"As the Secretary-General of the United Nations which is imposing this blockade on Iraq," I said, "what do you say to the parents of the children who are dying?" His reply was that the Security Council was considering "smart sanctions", which would "target the leaders" rather than act as "a blunt instrument that impacts on children". I said the UN was set up to help people, not harm them, and he replied, "Please do not judge us by what has happened in Iraq."
I walked to the office of Peter van Walsum, the Netherlands' ambassador to the UN and the chairman of the Sanctions Committee. What impressed me about this diplomat with life-and-death powers over 22 million people half a world away was that, like liberal politicians in the West, he seemed to hold two diametrically opposed thoughts in his mind. On the one hand, he spoke of Iraq as if everybody were Saddam Hussein; on the other, he seemed to believe that most Iraqis were victims, held hostage to the intransigence of a dictator.
I asked him why the civilian population should be punished for Saddam Hussein's crimes. "It's a difficult problem," he replied. "You should realise that sanctions are one of the curative measures that the Security Council has at its disposal ... and obviously they hurt. They are like a military measure." "Who do they hurt?" "Well, this, of course, is the problem ... but with military action, too, you have the eternal problem of collateral damage." "So an entire nation is collateral damage. Is that correct?" "No, I am saying that sanctions have [similar] effects. We have to study this further."
"Do you believe that people have human rights no matter where they live and under what system?" I asked. "Yes." "Doesn't that mean that the sanctions you are imposing are violating the human rights of millions of people?" "It's also documented the Iraqi regime has committed very serious human rights breaches ..."
"There is no doubt about that," I said. "But what's the difference in principle between human rights violations committed by the regime and those caused by your committee?" "It's a very complex issue, Mr Pilger."
"What do you say to those who describe sanctions that have caused so many deaths as 'weapons of mass destruction' as lethal as chemical weapons?" "I don't think that's a fair comparison." "Aren't the deaths of half a million children mass destruction?" "I don't think that's a very fair question. We are talking about a situation caused by a government that overran its neighbour, and has weapons of mass destruction."
"Then why aren't there sanctions on Israel [which] occupies much of Palestine and attacks Lebanon almost every day of the week? Why aren't there sanctions on Turkey, which has displaced three million Kurds and caused the deaths of 30,000 Kurds?" "Well, there are many countries that do things that we are not happy with. We can't be everywhere. I repeat, it's complex." "How much power does the United States exercise over your committee?" "We operate by consensus." "And what if the Americans object?" "We don"t operate."
There is little doubt that if Saddam Hussein saw political advantage in starving and otherwise denying his people, he would do so. It is hardly surprising that he has looked after himself, his inner circle and, above all, his military and security apparatus.
His palaces and spooks, like the cartoon portraits of himself, are everywhere. Unlike other tyrants, however, he not only survived, but before the Gulf War enjoyed a measure of popularity by buying off his people with the benefits from Iraq's oil revenue. Having exiled or murdered his opponents, more than any Arab leader he used the riches of oil to modernise the civilian infrastructure, building first-rate hospitals, schools and universities.
In this way he fostered a relatively large, healthy, well-fed, well-educated middle class. Before sanctions, Iraqis consumed more than 3,000 calories each per day; 92 per cent of people had safe water and 93 per cent enjoyed free health care. Adult literacy was one of the highest in the world, at around 95 per cent. According to the Economist's Intelligence Unit, "the Iraqi welfare state was, until recently, among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab world."
It is said the only true beneficiary of sanctions is Saddam Hussein. He has used the embargo to centralise state power, and so reinforce his direct control over people's lives. With most Iraqis now dependent on the state food rationing system, organised political dissent is all but unthinkable. In any case, for most Iraqis, it is cancelled by the sense of grievance and anger they feel towards the external enemy, western governments.
In the relatively open and pro-Western society that existed in Iraq before 1991, there was always the prospect of an uprising, as the Kurdish and Shia rebellions that year showed. In today's state of siege, there is none. That is the unsung achievement of the Anglo-American blockade.
The economic blockade on Iraq must be lifted for no other reason than that it is immoral, its consequences inhuman. When that happens, says the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, "the weapons inspectors must go back into Iraq and complete their mandate, which should be reconfigured. It was originally drawn up for quantitative disarmament, to account for every nut, screw, bolt, document that exists in Iraq. As long as Iraq didn't account for that, it was not in compliance and there was no progress.
"We should change that mandate to qualitative disarmament. Does Iraq have a chemical weapons programme today? No. Does Iraq have a long-range missile programme today? No. Nuclear? No. Biological? No. Is Iraq qualitatively disarmed? Yes. So we should get on with monitoring Iraq to ensure they do not reconstitute any of this capability."
Even before the machinations in the UN Security Council in October and November 2002, Iraq had already accepted back inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the time of writing, a new resolution, forced through the Security Council by a Bush administration campaign of bribery and coercion, has seen a contingent of weapons inspectors at work in Iraq. Led by the Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, the inspectors have extraordinary powers, which, for example, require Iraq to "confess" to possessing equipment never banned by previous resolutions. In spite of a torrent of disinformation from Washington and Whitehall, they have found, as one inspector put it, "zilch".
An attack is next; we have no right to call it a "war". The "enemy" is a nation of whom almost half the population are children, a nation who offer us no threat and with whom we have no quarrel. The fate of countless innocent lives now depends on vestiges of self-respect among the so-called international (non-American) community, and on free journalists to tell the truth and not merely channel and echo the propaganda of great power.
It is seldom reported that UN Security Resolution 687 that enforces the embargo on Iraq also says that Iraq's disarmament should be a step "towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction ..." In other words, if Iraq gives up, or has given up, its doomsday weapons, so should Israel. After 11 September 2001, making relentless demands on Iraq, then attacking it, while turning a blind eye to Israel will endanger us all.
"The longer the sanctions go on," said Denis Halliday, "[the more] we are likely to see the emergence of a generation who will regard Saddam Hussein as too moderate and too willing to listen to the West." On my last night in Iraq, I went to the Rabat Hall in the centre of Baghdad to watch the Iraqi National Orchestra rehearse. I had wanted to meet Mohammed Amin Ezzat, the conductor, whose personal tragedy epitomises the punishment of his people. Because the power supply is so intermittent, Iraqis have been forced to use cheap kerosene lamps for lighting, heating and cooking; and these frequently explode. This is what happened to Mohammed Amin Ezzat's wife, Jenan, who was engulfed in flames.
"I saw my wife burn completely before my eyes," he said. " I threw myself on her in order to extinguish the flames, but it was no use. She died. I sometimes wish I had died with her." He stood on his conductor's podium, his badly burnt left arm unmoving, the fingers fused together.
The orchestra was rehearsing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, and there was a strange discord. Reeds were missing from clarinets and strings from violins. "We can't get them from abroad," he said. "Someone has decreed they are not allowed." The musical scores are ragged, like ancient parchment. The musicians cannot get paper. Only two members of the original orchestra are left; the rest have set out on the long, dangerous road to Jordan and beyond. "You cannot blame them," he said. "The suffering in our country is too great. But why has it not been stopped?"
It was a question I put to Denis Halliday one evening in New York. We were standing, just the two of us, in the great modernist theatre that is the General Assembly at the UN. "This is where the real world is represented," he said.
"One state, one vote. By contrast, the Security Council has five permanent members which have veto rights. There is no democracy there. Had the issue of sanctions on Iraq gone to the General Assembly, it would have been overturned by a very large majority.
"We have to change the United Nations, to reclaim what is ours. The genocide in Iraq is the test of our will. All of us have to break the silence: to make those responsible, in Washington and London, aware that history will slaughter them."
This is an edited extract from John Pilger's latest book, 'The New Rulers of the World', published next month by Verso, as a fully updated paperback at GBP 8.
-------- ireland
Violent group implements a cease-fire
By Shawn Pogatchnik
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2003
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030223-91529236.htm
BELFAST - The Ulster Defense Association, an outlawed paramilitary group known for slaying Catholics and selling drugs on its own Protestant turf, pledged to halt both activities yesterday in a surprise cease-fire declaration.
Britain, Ireland and moderate Catholics cautiously welcomed the move, which follows a murderous internal feud that left one UDA commander dead and supporters of its most notorious leader, Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, on the run.
In a statement read by political representative Tommy Kirkham, the six-person UDA command said the group's approximately 3,000 members "have begun to observe a 12-month period of military inactivity."
In practice, this means a commitment by the organization to stop throwing pipe bombs at Catholic-occupied homes and businesses and to stop shooting people presumed to be Catholic. Such attacks have claimed at least half a dozen lives since 2001, when Britain ruled that the UDA's 1994 cease-fire had been violated so often that it was no longer valid.
The UDA also pledged to resume negotiations with John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general who since 1997 has been trying, with little success, to persuade the Irish Republican Army and outlawed Protestant gangs to abandon their hidden weapons stockpiles.
But the UDA emphasized it wouldn't surrender a single bullet until the IRA got rid of its own much bigger weapons collection. The IRA scrapped a few arms dumps in secret in October 2001 and April 2002 but retains a vast arsenal.
The UDA said that once IRA commanders "have decommissioned [weapons] fully, we will then fully respond."
Britain's governor for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, called the UDA statement "a positive move in the right direction - but one that must result in a permanent end to paramilitary activity in all its aspects."
The British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, have been pressing the IRA to make fresh disarmament commitments as part of a deal to restore a joint Catholic-Protestant government in Northern Ireland.
The coalition, established under Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, fell apart in October over police charges that an IRA spy ring was operating within the government.
The IRA-linked party, Sinn Fein, dismissed the UDA statement as implausible and noted that in the past the group had attacked Catholics using cover names, such as the Red Hand Defenders and the Orange Volunteers.
-------- israel / palestine
Angry Bedouin find loyalty to Israel goes unrewarded
The arrest of an Arab hero offends a community that provides soldiers for the nation's defence force
Conal Urquhart Zarzir in Israel
Sunday February 23, 2003
The Observer (UK)
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901130,00.html
For the young men of Zarzir, Omar Hayeb was a hero and proof that an Arab could prosper in the Israeli army. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was honoured for his bravery in Lebanon, where he was badly injured by a landmine.
Now Hayeb languishes in an Israeli military prison accused of spying for the Lebanese militia, Hizbollah. In the light of his experience many other Bedouin are questioning their generations of service to the Israeli Defence Force.
Zarzir is a small Arab town in northern Israel whose residents, unlike the majority of Israel's 1.2 million Muslim population, have served with Jews to protect the state of Israel since its foundation in 1948. The Arabs of Zarzir are Bedouin who over the past 40 years have given up their nomadic life as shepherds.
Soltan Haib, Zarzir council's engineer, said the charges against al-Hayeb were the latest in a series of slights.
'Already many of the charges against him have been dropped, but it has already tested Bedouin loyalty to the state,' he said. 'When we try to go to nightclubs we are told it is a private party, we are subject to special security checks at the airport, we are rejected for jobs because we are Arabs.'
Bassim Jrafat, an imam in Zarzir, said 60 per cent of the town's residents no longer agreed with serving in the IDF. He feels it is wrong for Bedouin to serve in the Israeli army and was dismissed by the Ministry of Religion when he refused to lead prayers at the funeral of a Bedouin soldier.
'I do not want our children to be killed and I do not want them to kill our Muslim brothers,' he said.
The council offices of Zarzir are similar to those in West Bank Palestinian towns with much milling around, smoking of cigarettes and coffee-drinking. But in Zarzir the Israeli flag is ever present and kippah-wearing Jewish Israelis go about their business.
The conference room is decorated with photographs of leading Israeli figures: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, and even leaders of the religious Right. But equal prominence is given to photographs of meetings with the royal family of Jordan. Hassan Hayeb, Mayor of Zarzir and brother of Omar, declines to discuss the charges against his brother but declares: 'Bedouin are renowned for their loyalty to the state they have chosen. Either they serve it 100 per cent or they fight it 100 per cent. 'The situation is not easy. We have relatives in Syria, Jordan and among the Palestinians. But we live by the law of Israel. We are like Muslims in the UK, loyal to our faith but we serve in the army of our home country.
'I am really disappointed by the failure of successive governments to address our concerns, and treat us like any other citizens of Israel.'
A short drive from Zarzir is a memorial garden for the 136 Bedouin killed in action. It has rock gardens, artillery pieces and a tank captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. A museum is run by Alisa Gross, a Jewish woman who works for free out of respect for the Bedouin. 'It is because of people commemorated here that there is an Israel and that I am here,' she said. 'It was not only Jews who created Israel.'
Khaled Majed Haib also works at the memorial. His father died when he stood on a mine in Lebanon in 1994 and his name is printed on the grey stone memorial. 'When he died I was 14 years old. I couldn't believe he was gone. But it was his destiny to go into the army as almost all the men in our family do,' he said.
Suleiman Jawmees served in the army for 27 years. 'I worked hard and then I pocketed my money. Now I have Peace,' he said with a smile. Peace is the name of the restaurant he owns, adjacent to his bakery.
'The army is a perfect life for a Bedouin. One day you are in one place, the next another. All the time you are living in tents,' he said. Although he owns property and a house, his pride is his tent, a long, framed structure covered in tarpaulins and lined with rugs and cane matting. In it he pounds coffee beans in a noisy traditional way which alerts neighbours to join him for fresh coffee.
Jawmees is the exception in a community that is the poorest in Israel. Nearly all Bedouin disagree with the Israeli government's iron-fisted treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Dr Alean Krenawi, the director of Bedouin Studies and Development at Ben Gurion University, said Israel's 200,000 Bedouin, who live in the north of Israel and in the southern Negev desert, have the highest unemployment rate and receive the lowest level of government investment.
'Since the outbreak of the intifada in October 2000, the situation has got worse. People don't trust each other and there has been a rupture in the peaceful coexistence that existed between the Arab Israelis and Jews before that,' he said.
Soltan Haib said the loyalty of the Bedouin should never be taken for granted. 'If our rights are ignored, then some might react in the same way.'
----
Hamas vows revenge as Israel shoots protesters
By Justin Huggler in Gaza City
23 February 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=380746
Two Palestinians were killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a crowd of protesters in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in one week to 33.
The Israeli army said its soldiers opened fire because Palestinians were throwing firebombs and rocks, though Palestinians claimed they only threw stones. The army said one man was shot dead because troops saw him holding something suspicious.
Yesterday's violence arose amid an Israeli army offensive against the Islamist militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where most of this week's deaths have taken place - a bloody backdrop to the first talks between the Israeli government and Palestinian officials in months.
A few metres from buildings left in ruins by the Israeli army, where, Palestinians said, three young civilians were killed, Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, a leader of Hamas's political wing, rejected calls for a ceasefire. "It's impossible to make what they wrongly call a ceasefire - this ceasefire means only surrender, and we prefer to die than surrender."
Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat's deputy in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, and a leading candidate to become prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said yesterday the PA leadership would back a proposed one-year ceasefire.
But a ceasefire that does not include Hamas, now the most powerful militant group, will not get far. There is little love lost between it and the PA.
Dr Rantisi described the fresh talks between Israel and the PA as "negotiations between Sharon and a few isolated Palestinian figures". He said: "All of Gaza is saying we are with resistance, not negotiation."
Tens of thousands turned up at the funerals that came day after day last week for Hamas militants - eight senior militants died in three days, six of them in a mysterious explosion for which Hamas blamed the Israeli army.
At the funerals there was little sign of support for a ceasefire as the organisers chanted: "Sharon prepare the coffins. Revenge is coming soon, in Tel Aviv and Jaffa."
The Israeli authorities may say in their defence that, with the PA calling for a ceasefire, Hamas represents the biggest Palestinian obstacle to the peace process. But there have been repeated accusations that the Israeli government is deliberately provoking Hamas, with incursions and killings of its leading militants in Gaza, to stall the peace process.
"If Sharon and his government invade Gaza, they are going to pay a heavy price," warned Dr Rantisi, pointing to the deaths of four soldiers as Hamas set fire to a tank in the Gaza Strip last Saturday - an incident which preceded the Israeli defence minister vowing to attack Hamas. According to Israeli press reports, the army is not planning to invade Gaza but intends to stick to assassinations and incursions.
Hamas and PA leaders competed to tour the ruins after the Israeli army enteredGaza City on Wednesday. There is now increasing speculation that Hamas is trying to establish itself as a rival PA leader. But Dr Rantisi has denied that, and yesterday said: "Now is the time for resistance, not authority."
----
Six Palestinians killed in Gaza Strip, Nablus
23-02-2003
Albawaba.com
http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=242714&lang=e&dir=news
Five Palestinians were killed and seven others injured during Israeli raids that started before dawn Sunday in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, Palestinain sources said.
The dead included three Palestinian policemen, Palestinian security officials said. An Israeli soldier was also wounded.
In addition, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian in an exchange of gunfire near the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip overnight Sunday. Troops fired overnight at two Palestinians who approached Netzarim, and one corpse was found Sunday morning.
The Beit Hanoun aggression was ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in response to last week's firing of Qassam rockets from the area at the Israeli town of Sderot. Sunday's raid of Beit Hanoun began at about 2345GMT Saturday. Two dozen tanks and two bulldozers, backed by three attack helicopters, entered the town from two directions. Israeli forces searched homes and the municipality, using dogs, witnesses said.
Israeli occupation troops demolished a Palestinian house in an explosion that killed Ahmed Afuna,15 , and caused damage to neighboring houses. The two other Palestinians killed were Mahmoud Hawila,27 , and Muhammed Kahalot, 22.
In the old city of Nablus, Sunday marked the fifth day of continued Israeli operations. Palestinian sources reported that four residents were wounded in clashes.
In addition, Nasser Jaara,14 , who was wounded by Israeli gunfire on Saturday, died of his wounds on Sunday.
-------- mideast
Turks Remember Losses From Last War on Iraq
Opposition Rooted in Economic Devastation
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50032-2003Feb22?language=printer
ISTANBUL, Feb. 22 -- Ask anyone in Turkey why the United States should not go to war in Iraq in the near future, and the answer will almost certainly focus on the recent past.
Turks speak of the economic devastation caused by the 1991 Persian Gulf War: how tourism revenue dried up, how a valuable oil pipeline from Iraq was shut down, how truckers who made their living on cross-border trade were idled -- or resorted to illegal smuggling. They speak of a surge in terrorism by ethnic Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. And they recount Washington's promises to compensate Turkey for its losses, and how most of the cash was never delivered.
"Nobody wants war," said Lokman Altunel, 40, owner of the Murat restaurant, whose family comes from the eastern province of Siirt. "People are still suffering from the last war."
At the Naturel barber shop across the street, shop owner Mevlut Ozgun, 33, said he doesn't remember personally suffering from the war 12 years ago, but he knows that oil prices here soared when the oil pipeline was shut. "All of the problems we now suffer economically started from that period on," said Ozgun, who added: "The U.S. is an ally of Turkey -- we know that. We are hoping they can reach a fair deal that can protect us from the heavy losses in this war."
With opinion polls showing that 95 percent of Turks oppose another U.S.-led war in Iraq, Turkey's government has bargained intently with the United States over the terms under which U.S. troops could be deployed here. U.S. military planners are counting on positioning as many as 40,000 U.S. troops at Turkish bases and, in the event of war, sending them into Iraq to open a northern front. In return, Turkish officials want billions of dollars in aid and loans to compensate for the impact of the war on Turkey's economy. They have taken negotiations down to the wire, leaving U.S. ships carrying tanks and other hardware waiting outside Turkish ports.
Officials on both sides say an agreement is at hand and that the final package could be sent to parliament for approval as early as Tuesday. Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said today that his cabinet would take up the issue but refused to discuss when the government would seek parliamentary approval. The leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters today: "As far as I know, a positive answer from the United States has not yet come to the proposals [Turkey] has made. These demands included political, military, and economic fields. When there is a positive response to these requests, Turkey will do its responsibility."
The often tense negotiations have underscored how leaders of the ruling party, caught between the demands of their most important strategic ally and the concerns of their citizens, have given great weight to public opinion.
"For the government to go to parliament, it needs a sound basis. And not only parliament, but public opinion has to be convinced that we are going into this cooperation [with the United States] with security for Turkey," said a senior advisor to the government, which came to power in November with an electoral landslide.
Security for Turkey means financial aid to cushion the economic blow a war is expected to cause, and history lends weight to those expectations. Before the Gulf War, Iraq was Turkey's top trading partner. But for six years afterward, until the start of the U.N.-sponsored oil-for-food program for Iraq, trade between the two countries dropped to virtually nothing. Officials say 50,000 tanker trucks went idle -- trucks that could each provide an income for three families, mostly in the hard-hit southeastern region closest to Iraq. Turkey's economic growth rate dropped from 5 percent before the war to just 1 percent afterward.
Despite promises made before the war by the United States and its allies, Turkey received scant compensation for its losses. "Ninety-nine percent of the Turkish nation felt betrayed," said Egemen Bagis, a member of parliament from the ruling party. "And that is the reason we have 95 percent against a war."
"Turkey was promised a lot, but nothing was delivered -- because it was a promise, with nothing in writing," Bagis said.
This time, Turkey has insisted on some form of written guarantee. "We have a saying in Turkish: 'If you burn your tongue drinking hot milk, you will blow on even the yogurt before you eat it,' " Bagis said. "Well, we are blowing on the yogurt. We have seen this movie before, and we don't like it."
Erdogan, who until recently was barred from elective office but looks set to become prime minister after a parliamentary by-election in March, said in a television interview late Friday: "Unfortunately, the U.S. did not keep its promises then. Now we say that in international relations, all these issues should be defined in a written document.
"President Bush's words are valid and respected in the U.S. Congress. We respect them too. But in terms of international law, a document should exist."
-------- pakistan
9 killed in attack on Shi'ite mosque
By Afzal Nadeem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2003
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030223-22061122.htm
KARACHI, Pakistan - Gunmen on motorcycles stormed a Shi'ite mosque in southern Pakistan yesterday and opened fire, killing at least nine worshippers and injuring at least nine, police and hospital officials said.
At least three gunmen entered the Imam Bargha Mehdi mosque in this port city as worshippers were performing evening prayers, Interior Ministry spokesman Iftikhar Ahmed said. The gunmen had been waiting at a nearby tea shop, witnesses said.
Mohammed Ali, one of the worshippers, said he saw four persons on two motorcycles approach the mosque.
"The call for prayer had just begun, and four people on two motorcycles rode up to the gate and opened fire," he said.
Among the dead was a 7-year-old boy who died at a nearby hospital hours after the incident.
Others described a narrow escape.
"Two injured people fell on me, and because I was covered by them, I was safe," said Anwar Hussein, who ran to the scene from a nearby hotel after hearing gunfire.
The motive for the killings was not immediately clear, and no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan has been wracked by religious violence in recent years, most by Sunni Muslim extremist groups targeting minority Shi'ites. Often, gunmen have attacked places of worship.
Most of the deaths have been blamed on a Sunni Muslim extremist group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, or the SSP, which is outlawed by the government. A breakaway faction of the SSP, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is also blamed for attacks on Shi'ite Muslims, and several of its members have been arrested.
Most of Pakistan's 140 million people are Sunni Muslims. The rivalry between the two Islamic sects dates to the seventh century, when they had a falling out about who should be the heir to Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The shooting came about two weeks before the start of the Islamic month of Muharram, which Shi'ites observe as a month of mourning.
"This is a conspiracy to create a sectarian problem in the coming holy month," said Hasan Zafar Naqvi, a top Shi'ite community leader in Karachi.
Police said about 25 people were believed to be inside the mosque at the time of the shooting.
President Pervez Musharraf banned five extremist groups in January 2002 in an effort to purge the country of extremist elements, but religious violence has continued and mosques are often the targets.
Karachi has also been the site of a series of violent attacks, many against Westerners and minority Christians, in recent months.
A suicide bombing June 14 outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi killed 12 Pakistanis and injured 50 others, and a suicide bombing May 8 outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi killed 11 French engineers and three others.
-------- philippines
Philippines Debates U.S. Combat Role Against Rebels
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page A30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49945-2003Feb22?language=printer
MANILA, Feb. 23 (Sunday) -- The Pentagon's plans to send U.S. combat troops to fight rebels in the southern Philippines have stirred conflicting emotions in a country still struggling to shake the shadow of its former colonizer.
Here in the capital, officials are divided over whether allowing foreign troops to fight on Philippine soil is wise -- or constitutional -- and one critic has accused the administration of treason.
Many Filipinos have voiced approval of the proposed U.S. operation, saying the country needs to tackle terrorism to improve its image, its economy and its self-esteem. But others, especially in the Muslim-dominated south, warn of an anti-American backlash.
"There's still this strong undercurrent of nationalism in the Philippines and it dates back to the United States' colonial history with the Filipinos," a Western diplomat here said. "Also, there's a sense of standing up to the big brother, to show some spine . . . as they are trying to think of themselves as sovereign equals with the United States."
The operation announced Thursday calls for the deployment of nearly 3,000 U.S. Army, Marine and Navy forces to Jolo Island to help Philippine soldiers wipe out the Abu Sayyaf rebels, a radical Muslim group the United States has labeled a terrorist organization.
In announcing the plan, a Pentagon spokesman said: "The intent is for U.S. troops to actively participate. . . . At this point, we're going into it saying the mission will go on until both sides agree it is finished."
Some Philippine government officials have contradicted that statement, saying no combat role would be permitted for U.S. troops. But early today a senior Philippine military official, who requested anonymity, confirmed that U.S. forces would engage in combat on Jolo, alongside their Filipino counterparts.
U.S. officials have alleged that the Abu Sayyaf is linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. The group, however, is more widely feared as a band of thugs who have kidnapped and killed Filipinos and Westerners.
"The situation in the south has been exasperating," said Alex Magno, a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines. "It's dragging down the whole country."
Magno said opinion polls last year showed "overwhelming" support -- 90 percent -- for another joint U.S.-Philippine operation against the Abu Sayyaf on the southern island of Basilan, where American forces have previously played a supporting role. But when Pentagon sources stressed this week that the next U.S. deployment would be far more aggressive, objections were raised here almost immediately, as officials questioned whether allowing foreign troops to conduct combat operations in the Philippines would be constitutional.
Philippine Sen. Aquilino Pimentel on Friday accused Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes of "treason in its basest form," according to the Philippine Inquirer newspaper. Pimentel said Reyes was turning the country into a "deadly laboratory for the testing of the effectiveness of U.S. troops, tactics and weaponry against so-called terrorists."
Seeking to soothe the fears of the plan's critics, Reyes assured reporters it would not infringe on the country's sovereignty. "I am categorically saying that anything that [the military planners] say that contradicts the constitution and the laws will not materialize," he said.
Reyes leaves today for Hawaii to discuss the Pentagon plan and other counterterrorism issues with Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the Pacific commander. Then he will travel to Washington for meetings with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials.
A spokesman for Reyes, Lt. Col. Danilo Servando, said Friday: "Right now, what we have is the approval of the president, in principle, of an exercise. That's all we have right now. . . . The shape, the form, is still something for discussion by both sides."
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former armed forces chief of staff, said he would support a training exercise. "But if the American troops participate in combat . . . that is another matter. It's a question of sovereignty," he said.
A spokesman for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo insisted that there would be no combat role for U.S. troops on Jolo Island. "What we're saying is the Americans will come in," Ignacio Bunye said in a telephone interview. "They will come in as trainers and advisers. They will have to be under the jurisdiction of Philippine armed forces officials. Anything outside that is unacceptable."
Magno, the university professor, noted that a controversy erupted last year over joint exercises on nearby Basilan Island but quickly subsided. He said he expects a similar denouement this year.
"Everyone here raises a constitutional question about everything," he said. "The public is tired of that. They want problems solved."
On Jolo -- where U.S. military assessment teams are to arrive within days, according to defense officials -- sentiment is mixed.
Datu Muedzul-Lail Kiram, a neighborhood councilor in the town of Sulu, said in an interview by telephone that he opposes a U.S. troop presence because he fears people in the largely Muslim south resent the U.S. role in putting down Islamic insurgents in 1899 and the early 20th century. "I am afraid the second Moro-American War would be triggered by this exercise," he said. "We don't want the Americans to invade our homeland."
But Fazlur-Rahman A. Abdulla, chief nurse of Sulu Provincial Hospital on Jolo, said by telephone that he had no problem with U.S. troops coming to fight the Abu Sayyaf. Years of fighting and isolation have taken their toll on Jolo, he said. "The damage to this town is almost irreparable," he said, "so if it needs someone to come to straighten this out, so be it."
Special correspondent Froilan Gallardo in Zamboanga City contributed to this report.
----
U.S., Filipino Troops Open Anti-Terror Exercises
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003
By Pedro Uchi
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51874-2003Feb23?language=printer
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - U.S. and Filipino troops formally launched new anti-terrorism exercises Sunday as the Philippines flatly rejected any combat role for the Americans in fighting local Muslim militants linked to al Qaeda.
Soldiers armed with assault rifles and army snipers atop a three-story house guarded a military camp in Zamboanga, where the two militaries vowed to crush the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.
"This is part of the $25 million (U.S.) security assistance but it's a small cost to pay to combat terrorism," U.S. Air Force special forces Colonel Douglas Lengendfelder told 100 Filipino and a dozen U.S. soldiers at the opening ceremony.
Philippine southern military commander Lieutenant-General Narciso Abaya said the training -- involving close-quarter combat, demolition and survival techniques -- symbolized the two countries' determination to defeat terror.
"The terrorists are still on the loose...We have to put an end to this menace with finality," Abaya said.
About 300 U.S. soldiers, including 70 special forces trainers, will take part in the exercises to be held in the largely in the largely Christian city of Zamboanga.
Actual training will start Monday.
But controversy swirled over a U.S. plan to field about 1,750 American troops, including elite units, in operations against the Abu Sayyaf, a mainly kidnap-for-ransom group linked by Washington to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
In a major strategic shift from training to fighting, some 350 U.S. Special Operations soldiers will be sent to Jolo island near Zamboanga to help subdue the rebels, Pentagon officials said in Washington Friday.
In Manila, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said the Philippines would reject any U.S. request to send American troops to fight the guerrillas. He said the Americans would only train, advise and support local soldiers.
"If they will ask for that (combat role), we will not allow it because that is against the constitution," Bunye said, referring to a constitutional ban on foreign combat troops.
"BULLY IN TEN-GALLON HAT"
Jolo is a jungle-clad, mist-shrouded island 960 km (595 miles) south of Manila and a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, which enjoys strong support from the local Muslim population.
Manila newspapers warned the deployment of U.S. troops for offensive operations would violate this country's constitution, which bars foreign combat troops from Philippine soil.
"The Pentagon disclosure is only the latest confirmation that, indeed, the Ugly American is back: loud, self-absorbed, a gratuitous bully but this time wearing a ten-gallon hat (cowboy hat)," the Philippine Daily Inquirer said in an editorial on Sunday.
A counter-terrorism exercise held on Basilan island near Jolo last year and involving more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers was described by the two militaries as a success for helping drive the bulk of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas out of Basilan.
The Abu Sayyaf, which claims to fight for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines, is estimated to number between 300 and 400 fighters.
Most of them are believed now to be entrenched in the Jolo jungles, where they have held three Indonesian seamen and four Filipino women Christian evangelists hostage for months.
The group burst onto the world stage in 2000 when it seized 21 mostly foreign hostages from the neighboring Malaysian dive resort of Sipadan and hid them in the Jolo jungles.
They freed the foreigners four months later in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom.
The military said Sunday it had confirmed one of the guerrillas killed in a clash Thursday was senior Abu Sayyaf commander Mujib Susukan, one of the Sipadan raiders.
-------- un
U.N. Members' Positions on Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 23, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Iraq-Glance.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
Here's a look at the different views held by the 15 Security Council members regarding potential military action in Iraq:
Permanent members with veto power:
--United States: Says Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, is not cooperating with weapons inspectors and is violating its obligations under U.N. resolutions; claims it already has Security Council authorization to use military force to disarm Iraq.
--Britain: Prefers a new Security Council resolution authorizing any military action, but is expected to join U.S.-led action without one; says Iraq is not cooperating or disarming and that time is running out for inspections.
--China: Believes inspections are starting to work and Iraq can be disarmed peacefully; wants inspectors to be given more time to do their job.
--France: Says inspections are working and sees no justification for military action now; has hinted it could use its veto to block council authorization for military action at this stage.
--Russia: Says there is no evidence Iraq is rearming; claims inspections are working and should continue.
Elected members without veto power:
--Angola: Says Iraq could be disarmed peacefully through inspections and believes military action needs to be sanctioned by the council.
--Bulgaria: Believes Iraq is not cooperating with inspections; could support U.S.-led military intervention without a Security Council authorization.
--Cameroon: Supports continued inspections.
--Chile: Says inspections are working and should continue in order to peacefully disarm Iraq.
--Guinea: Supports continued inspections and has not taken a position on military action.
--Germany: Insists Iraq must be disarmed peacefully and has said it will not participate in any military intervention, even if the Security Council authorizes such action.
--Mexico: Supports continued weapons inspections and believes any military action needs to be authorized by the Security Council.
--Pakistan: Supports continued weapons inspections and a diplomatic resolution of the conflict.
--Syria: Says Iraq is cooperating with its obligations under U.N. resolutions and has said sanctions should be lifted.
--Spain: Supports the Bush administration's stance on Iraq. Believes military intervention could proceed without Security Council authorization.
----
U.N. Fight Over Iraq Could Change Way of Going to War
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52859-2003Feb23?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The outcome of the struggle for a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq could influence the way nations go to war for years to come, foreign policy analysts say.
The United States and Britain are working for a new resolution that would essentially authorize war against Iraq for failing to give up its weapons of mass destruction.
But President Bush has consistently said he reserves the right to go to war even without a resolution.
The debate comes down to a struggle over who decides whether or when force can be used in this or other conflicts. France and others have argued that force is to be used only as a final resort with explicit U.N. approval.
What worries some analysts most is the prospect that if Washington goes to war without U.N. authorization, other nations might feel free to follow suit.
The White House, while going along with the U.N. process on Iraq for tactical reasons, maintains the danger posed by international terrorism justifies the use of pre-emptive or preventive force and that it will act as it sees fit to protect U.S. interests no matter what the Security Council decides.
The administration's National Security Strategy document released last September spelled this out, saying that the only way to fight terrorism and "rogue states" was to hit them first. "We cannot let our enemies strike first," it said.
Some say that approach violates the U.N. charter, which asserts that the only justification for the use of military force is self-defense, although the United States disputes this interpretation.
"What's happening at the U.N. is that major countries like France and Russia want to contain Iraq and stop (President) Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons, but they also want to contain the United States," said Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago.
"They don't want to see the United States launch a war of conquest in an oil rich region. They fear that if Washington does it once with Iraq, it will do it again," Pape said.
'DANGEROUS PRECEDENT'
"It would set an extremely dangerous precedent. Countries like India, which is involved in a dangerous confrontation with Pakistan in which both have nuclear weapons, would pay close attention," said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Bush himself spoke last week of using the Iraq crisis to teach a lesson to others that might threaten the United States. "By defeating this threat, we will show other dictators that the path of aggression will lead to their own ruin," he said.
From the moment it took office in 2001, the Bush administration signaled clearly its refusal to be hemmed in by a variety of international conventions.
It torpedoed treaties on global warming, an international criminal court and various arms control pacts. But none of these struck at the center of the U.N. structure the way the present struggle is doing.
One reason the administration has stuck with the Security Council over Iraq is that public opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans strongly prefer that an attack on Iraq be authorized by the United Nations, analysts say.
"The jury is still out on the implications of this struggle because the Bush administration, despite the reluctance of many of its key players, is still playing by the rules of the U.N. Charter," said Jeffrey Laurenti, executive director of the United Nations Association of the United States.
Key allies, including Britain and Turkey, where public opinion is overwhelming opposed to a war, have told Washington that U.N. approval is crucial if they are to take part.
"If Bush decides to launch war without U.N. approval, he will have essentially torn up the Charter and taken us back a century to the situation before the First World War where each country took care of its own interests and regarded force as a legitimate means of action," said Laurenti.
However Cirincione said that the French and Russian positions were not dictated solely by deep moral objections to war but by a desire to retain power and influence in a world so dominated by the United States.
"Countries like France and Russia are painfully aware that part of their international standing depends on having a strong and viable United Nations. To the extent that the United States weakens the U.N. their power is also weakened," he said.
This gives those countries a strong incentive to keep the United States operating within the U.N. framework rather than acting independently.
----
Bush, Blair put forward last chance resolution on disarming Iraq
23-02-2003
Albawaba.com
http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=242673&lang=e&dir=news
A new month-long ultimatum will be put forward to Saddam Hussein on Tuesday, February25 . Under the joint British-American 'last chance' resolution, the Iraqi leader will be given three weeks time to present proof of disarmament, or face a military strike.
The15 -nation United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote on the resolution after March7 , as soon as it is handed the latest report by Chief Arms Inspector Hans Blix. UN nuclear weapons inspector Mohamed Al-aradei stated that Iraq was still not providing full cooperation with UN inspection teams, but that war was not inevitable.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated during a visit to East Asia: "It is time to take action. The evidence is clear, they (Iraq) are guilty." Although the Bush administration claims it has all the proof it needs to launch an attack, the new resolution will seek the backing of the international community for the use of force against Iraq.
The US hopes to begin deploying its troops and military equipment in Turkey before March, although its reluctant ally has not yet officially approved the move. American and Turkish officials did however confirm that a tentative aid agreement has been reached on the provision of some five billion dollars in grants, as well as another $ 10billion in loan guarantees.
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Malaysia's Mahathir Says West Wants to Rule World
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003
By Simon Cameron-Moore
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52971-2003Feb23?language=printer
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Sunday the world was in a state of terror, allowing a fear of Muslims to affect international policy, and a war on Iraq would be seen as a war on Muslims.
He spoke on the eve of a three-yearly summit of leaders of the 114-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that is to issue a declaration calling on Baghdad to comply with U.N. disarmament resolutions while challenging Washington with vociferous opposition to any U.S.-led war on Iraq.
"The attack against Iraq will simply anger more Muslims who see this as being anti-Muslim rather than anti-terror," Mahathir, chairman and summit host, told a business forum.
"The world is in a state of terror...We are afraid of Muslims, of Arabs, of bearded people," he said of feelings since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Many NAM nations from as far apart as Afghanistan and Zambia have seized on a March 1 deadline for Iraq to start destroying its longer-range missiles as a chance to avoid war.
However, Iraq was not satisfied with the draft statement by the delegates representing two-thirds of the United Nations, and wanted the leaders to offer more support for Baghdad in their final declaration, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was quoted as telling Qatari satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
The United States, backed by Britain, is massing troops on Iraq's border and threatening war unless President Saddam Hussein surrenders his alleged weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies possessing such weapons.
Ahead of the two-day summit that opens Monday, Mahathir told fellow developing nations the United States wanted to conquer the world.
"I'm certain if they are successful in Iraq they will turn to Iran next and then to North Korea," he told a state-sponsored anti-war rally of 100,000 in a reference to the three nations President Bush has branded an "axis of evil."
"After that, who will become their victim? It is clear the Western powers want to conquer the world again."
IRAN NOT AFRAID OF BECOMING TARGET
Iraq's old foe Iran was not afraid that it would become a target of U.S. aggression, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told Reuters in an interview.
He said Tehran did fear Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, but said: "Basically we do not agree with the plan of America that the Middle East has to be reshaped. This is the job of the mature people of the Middle East, not powers from outside."
Iran would deploy troops along its western border to stop any incursions if the United States waged war on Iraq, but its military would not cross into Iraq, he said.
The issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and North Korea has dominated the run-up to the NAM summit, a movement founded during the Cold War as a counterweight to the Eastern and Western blocs.
While delegates agreed after two days of wrangling on a draft statement urging North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions, they failed to win Pyongyang's agreement to reconsider a decision last month to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Mahathir told NAM members U.S. inaction on North Korea was evidence of the polarization of the world over Iraq.
"The fact that North Korea's open admission that it has weapons of mass destruction has met only with mild admonishment by the West seems to prove that indeed it is a war against Muslims and not against the fear of possession of weapons of mass destruction by the so-called rogue countries," he said.
CHANCE TO AVOID WAR
Delegates said they saw a chance to avoid war after chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix gave Baghdad until March 1 to start destroying its longer-range missiles.
"Here's the big question for Iraq of their real commitment to comply," said a delegate from Chile, one of six current U.N. Security Council members belonging to the movement.
In their draft statement, the grouping hardens demands that Iraq comply with U.N. resolutions and criticizes the United States, stressing the need for multilateral action to avoid war.
The initial statement represented Iraq's minimum requirement, Ramadan was quoted as telling Al-Jazeera. He added that he hoped for a better statement from the summit.
While the draft represented the views of all members, the positions of the six non-aligned countries on the 15-member U.N. Security Council -- Angola, Guinea, Syria, Pakistan, Chile and Cameroon -- are crucial. Seven votes against can defeat a resolution. Most want weapons inspectors to be given more time.
Consensus on Iraq was followed late Saturday by a deal on North Korea. North Korea and fellow NAM members negotiated their way to a compromise that urges the communist nation to curb the nuclear ambitions upsetting its neighbors.
Members of NAM had been eager for a statement that would boost their credibility on non-proliferation, but they had to make do with less to break the deadlock.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri met North Korea's Kim Yong Nam -- number two in the communist hierarchy -- on the sidelines, but officials said there was no sign of a breakthrough in bringing Pyongyang and Washington to the negotiating table.
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Syria Snubs U.S. Call to Back New Iraq Resolution
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 12:47 PM
By Inal Ersan
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria turned down Sunday a U.S. request to support a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq. saying the measure would be used as a pretext for war.
Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara by telephone to support the resolution, Syria's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Mr Shara confirmed to Mr. Powell at the end of the telephone conversation that Syria does not see any justification to issue a second Security Council resolution," the statement said.
"Such a resolution, regardless of how balanced it is...will be exploited by those calling for war, both inside and outside the United States, as a pretext to strike Iraq."
Shara told Powell that Iraq could be disarmed peacefully and expressed Arabs' rejection of war, according to the statement which quoted Powell as saying Washington was "losing patience over Iraq's hesitation."
"This is an absolute rejection...Syria will not approve a resolution that permits military action against Iraq," Imad Shuaibi, a Syrian political analyst close to Damascus's thinking, told Reuters.
Syria participated in a U.S.-led coalition that ousted Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 following Baghdad's invasion of the oil-rich emirate the previous year.
Since then, Syria has mended long-standing differences with neighboring Iraq.
A non-permanent member of the Security Council, Syria voted last November for resolution 1441 that told Iraq hand over its alleged weapons of mass destruction or face serious consequences.
But Damascus said at the time its vote was intended to help avert military action against Iraq.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a strong opponent of war against Baghdad, has warned that military action would have dire ramifications for the region. Assad and Shara have led a diplomatic drive to avoid war.
"This (Powell's) call indicates that the resolution would be issued in a rush and that war is looming," Shuaibi said.
Powell dropped heavy hints Sunday about Washington's timetable for war, saying the Security Council should make a judgment on a new resolution soon after a U.N. weapons inspectors' report expected on March 7.
Shara also discussed the new resolution with his Spanish counterpart Ana Palacio Sunday and expressed Syria's view that the resolution "will be used as a pretext to launch war against Iraq," the official Syrian news agency reported.
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France Opposes Second Iraq Resolution, Source Says
Reuters
Sunday, February 23, 2003; 2:17 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53586-2003Feb23?language=printer
PARIS (Reuters) - France opposed a second U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq for now, a French diplomatic source said Sunday, as Washington prepared a new resolution contending Baghdad was failing to comply on disarmament demands.
The diplomatic source said President Jacques Chirac believed U.N. weapons inspectors needed more time to complete their work.
"We are still and remain in the inspections phase" allowed for by resolution 1441 on Iraq, the diplomatic source said.
France has veto power in the U.N. Security Council.
The source said Paris believed Washington was raising the tempo with a view to getting rapid adoption of a second resolution hot on the heels of a report that chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is due to make on March 7.
France was preparing to present a "memorandum" to the United Nations in the next few days setting out specific tasks which might serve as benchmarks for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to comply with U.N. demands that he get rid of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies having such weapons.
A memo was not regarded as a draft resolution, the source said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference in Tokyo he expected the Security Council to make a judgment about a new resolution on Iraq -- to be presented by the United States and Britain as early as Monday -- soon after the inspectors' report on March 7.
Washington and London want a new resolution seen as paving the way for an attack on Iraq if they feel Baghdad has not complied with U.N. disarmament demands.
In addition to France, two other permanent members of the Security Council -- China and Russia -- have said the U.N. inspectors should be given more time in Iraq.
But it is not clear whether any of those countries would use their veto against a second resolution, or merely abstain.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- homeland security
[The mark of 'the beast' some say...]
An ID With a High IQ
'Smart Cards' Are in Demand as Concerns About Security Rise, but Privacy Issues Loom
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page H01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45428-2003Feb21?language=printer
Far from a mere photo ID, the government badge dangling from Doug Verner's belt is also a high-tech security key.
When Verner, chief technology officer at the National Credit Union Administration, works from home on weekends, he slips his badge through a reader in his laptop and within seconds he is able to access the agency's secure computer network. By next year, when his office building is retrofitted, Verner will use the same badge to open the front door.
With security tighter than ever, "smart card" IDs are becoming a first line of defense against terrorists or hackers seeking to penetrate computer networks and office buildings. The cards are hot items with government agencies and corporations -- and their popularity is set to expand significantly.
The government has launched 64 smart-card programs in various agencies. The largest program will give cards to an estimated 15 million transportation workers, many of whom do not work for the government. The contract, expected to be offered by the Transportation Security Administration later this year, is a potential bonanza for smart-card manufacturers competing to supply the cards over the next few years. The TSA expects the cards to improve its ability to document and manage workers who have access to secure areas of the nation's airports, ports, rails, intercity buses and trucks.
"Security is one area that is likely to grow pretty rapidly," said Donald Davis, editor of Card Technology magazine, a monthly trade publication. "You can issue a single employee ID card to protect buildings and networks."
Smart cards contain a computer chip or other device that stores personal information about the cardholder. The technology quickly verifies employees in good standing and grants access to doorways and databases. For added security, the cards can store fingerprints, photos and facial recognition information on a central database.
The Defense Department issued 1.6 million smart-card IDs last year to military and civilian employees. Credit card companies, such as American Express Co., use the technology to add security to their services. Other companies, including Shell Oil Co., Microsoft Corp. and Pfizer Inc., have issued smart-card IDs to employees to protect their computer networks and buildings around the globe.
According to the Smart Card Alliance, an industry association, smart-card shipments grew 34 percent last year, to 72.7 million cards, in the United States and Canada, although the North American market represents only a fraction of the $3.5 billion global business.
As the cards swiftly proliferate, privacy advocates worry that security badges may be a first step toward national identity cards that contain masses of personal information. The data-storage capability of the cards continues to grow as the industry expands, and governments and companies have found wide uses for the cards.
Prepaid phone cards in Europe are by far the most common use for smart cards, which are widely used by Europeans for public and cellular telephones. Financial services firms, such as banks and American Express, are also big card buyers. These firms issue credit cards embedded with computer chips to customers for added convenience in storing passwords and other data, although analysts say Americans rarely use these services.
Retailers such as Target Corp. are beginning to experiment with smart cards as customer loyalty programs that also track spending habits. Target issues "smart" credit cards to customers who can earn discounts based on the amount of money they spend, although it's still early to measure its success.
The TSA will launch its pilot smart-card security program later this year at an airport and a port on each coast. Under the program, workers will undergo background checks and will probably be asked to offer a fingerprint to receive a card. Badge holders will then have access to secure parts of a facility based on the information stored on the card.
"Currently, the existing physical access security systems by transportation personnel are inadequate and present a significant risk to the country," TSA chief James M. Loy recently told a group of transportation officials in Washington.
Airports, pilots and flight attendants pushed hard for a more uniform system to conduct background checks and issue standard high-tech ID badges to trusted airport workers even before the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings. Computerized badges, which can be inactivated instantly after an employee is terminated, could have helped prevent an incident in 1987 when a fired airport employee used his standard badge to gain access to a Pacific Southwest Airlines flight. Shortly after takeoff, the employee fatally shot both pilots and the plane crashed into the ocean, killing 44 aboard.
"We've been calling for this since way back then," said John Mazor, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilots union. Mazor said smart cards would also replace the variety of ID badges pilots carry for the many airports they visit. "There's no uniformity," he said.
Dreams of winning the TSA contract have already sparked fierce competition and political brawling among rival vendors and manufacturers.
Three smart-card companies, Gemplus SA, SchlumbergerSema and Oberthur Card Systems, have formed an alliance and hired a lobbyist to press their case with the TSA and on Capitol Hill for their cards, which include an embedded computer chip. Rival companies Datatrac Information Services Inc. and Lasercard Technologies Corp. claim the alliance is spreading false information about their smart-card products, which use an "optical card" technology that functions like a mini CD burner. Both groups said they intend to bid on the TSA contract.
The contract "means a lot of money for one of the technologies," said Shalini Chowdary, smart-card analyst at the Frost & Sullivan consulting firm in Santa Fe, N.M. "If you talk to optical-card people, they will claim the optical card is more secure than the [computer chip] card. The [computer chip] card people will tell you theirs is better than the optical card."
After getting the cards into the hands of workers at airports and other transportation facilities, the TSA is considering a program that would allow passengers to receive cards for offering information about themselves. In exchange, passengers might be allowed priority movement through airport-security checkpoints.
The TSA hasn't decided what information it would require either of the transportation workers or the passengers to gain a card.
"Our basic concern is that the program could be a bridge to a broader national ID program," Katie Corrigan, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the TSA program. "A lot of it depends on how it gets implemented and whether it extends beyond the transportation worker. That's the type of thing where you build a system for one purpose and immediately you see other uses built on top of it."
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Ready or Not...
By MAUREEN DOWD
February 23, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/opinion/23DOWD.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON - Nobody in America makes me feel more insecure than Tom Ridge.
The man who is supposed to restore my confidence in the prospect of my safety gives me the uneasy sense that the door's unlocked, the alarm's off and there's a ladder leaning up against the house.
He seems like a pleasant, well-meaning guy and admits, "It's not always easy to know the right thing to say or the right thing to do."
But in George Bush's pulp Western, Mr. Ridge should be a square-jawed extra with no lines.
Last week, the head of Homeland Insecurity unveiled the big strategy he's been working on for nearly a year: a $1.2 million "ready campaign," a p.r. concoction complete with a "D'oh!" Web site. There are TV ads starring cute New York City firemen telling people to store water and get flashlights, and close-ups of Mr. Ridge spouting simple-minded axioms like "Have a good communications plan for your family."
The new campaign was developed with the help of focus groups convened by the Advertising Council.
George Bush has always mocked Washington's dependence on focus groups. Only last week, he derided mass European protests against the war, saying listening to the marchers would be like relying on focus groups to set foreign policy. (Millions of people marching in the streets of world capitals is not a sampling of opinion; it is opinion.)
Mr. Bush leads a West Wing that thinks politically all the time. Andy Card talks about rolling out the war with Iraq like a marketing campaign, and now Mr. Ridge runs his agency according to the principles of consumer marketing. (And maybe fund-raising, too. According to Al Kamen of The Washington Post, almost half the duct tape sold in the U.S. comes from a company whose founder gave more than $100,000 to Republicans in 2000.)
What can the Bush administration learn from a focus group of understandably confused Americans about making our borders and ports more secure? Do they have a preferred thickness of duct tape? Should they head straight to the bomb shelter or stop by Blockbuster first?
Peggy Conlon of the Ad Council told The Times's Lynette Clemetson that they asked focus group panels if it would be effective for Mr. Ridge to use celebrities to instruct the public on safety.
The group participants thankfully recoiled from that idea, knowing that they share little common ground with stars who already have "safe rooms" in their mansions stocked with Pellegrino, Dom and Botox and their "human shield" minions running around buying Prada emergency packs.
The focus groupers also nixed a proposal to have Mr. Ridge's ad campaign advise Americans to "be a soldier in your own home."
They did not like to think about a terrorist attack in terms of war, Ms. Conlon said, but more as a disaster like a tornado or earthquake that they could weather.
Anyhow, that's just another way of saying, you're on your own, buddy, you're an army of one, be all that you can be in the short time that remains.
In encouraging people to be prepared, the ready.gov Web site notes that you may be in a "moving vehicle at the time of an attack. Know what you can do." How about keep moving? The site's drawing illustrating a radiation threat shows a map of Texas, with the radioactive arrow pointed to the vicinity of Crawford.
The Republicans are afraid that Democrats are going to get traction with the argument that the White House has shortchanged national security in its Ahab pursuit of Saddam.
An upcoming article in The New Republic, contending that the president has not done enough, cites an American Association of Port Authorities estimate that it would cost $2 billion to make the ports secure. But since Sept. 11, only $318 million has been spent. Although Mr. Bush himself endorsed a program to screen cargo at foreign ports, his budget provides no money for it.
What Mr. Ridge is supposed to be doing is getting the best scientific and technical expertise, as it relates to all threats, and developing concrete plans and suggestions for every possible contingency.
He's not supposed to be selling security, or spinning it; he's supposed to be providing it.
He doesn't need to make security more alluring to us. We already find it absolutely alluring. We'd just like to get some more of it.
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Fortress America
By MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI
February 23, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23FORTRESS.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
In the last several weeks, as preparations for the war against Iraq have heated up, it has begun to sink in that this will be a different conflict from what we have seen before -- that there may, in fact, be two fronts, one far away on the ground in the Middle East, the other right here at home. For the first time in history, it seems plausible that an enemy might mount a sustained attack on the United States, using weapons of terrorism. The term ''soft targets,'' which refers to everyday places like offices, shopping malls, restaurants and hotels, is now casually dropped into conversation, the way military planners talk about ''collateral damage.''
Earlier this month, the federal government raised the official terrorism alert level and advised Americans to prepare a ''disaster supply kit,'' including duct tape to seal windows against airborne toxins. Members of Congress organized news conferences to demand that passenger jets be outfitted with missile-avoidance systems. In major public areas of cities, the police presence has been especially conspicuous, with weapons ostentatiously displayed. Whatever the details, the message was the same: war is on the way here.
The impossible questions begin with where, what and how, and end with what to do about it. Sgt. George McClaskey, a Baltimore cop, spends his days thinking about the answers, and one cold day recently, he took me out in an old police launch to survey Baltimore harbor. He showed me some of the new security measures, like the barriers at the approach to the harbor, which rose out of the water like stakes in a moat. Cables were suspended between these reinforced pylons, designed to slice into approaching high-speed craft and decapitate would-be suicide bombers before they reached their mark. It looked fairly daunting.
Then McClaskey maneuvered the boat toward an unprotected stretch of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. With the temperature dipping into the teens, the place was empty. But when the weather is warm, up to a quarter of a million people congregate on these piers and brightly painted promenades every weekend.
''If I wanted to create a big bang,'' McClaskey said, adopting the mind-set of a suicide bomber, ''I'd pack a small boat with explosives and crash it right there.'' He pointed to a promenade. ''It'd be a catastrophe,'' he declared. ''It would take 48 hours just for the tide to flush out the bodies from under the boardwalk.''
The port is lined with large oil terminals, storage tanks and petrochemical facilities, incendiaries in need only of a lighted fuse. Even the Domino sugar refinery, with its sticky-sweet flammable dust, poses a threat. ''Most people don't think about it,'' McClaskey said, ''but that's a giant bomb.''
The list of vulnerabilities is perilously long in Baltimore, as it is just about everywhere in the United States. And every one of those potential targets can set in motion an ever-broadening ripple effect. Should terrorists manage to blow up an oil terminal in Baltimore, for instance, the nearby ventilation systems for the I-95 tunnel would have to be shut. Shut down the tunnel, and the Interstate highway must be closed. Close down a section of I-95, and traffic along the entire Eastern Seaboard snarls to a halt.
''So how would you defend against frogmen blowing up half the harbor?'' I asked McClaskey.
The sergeant shrugged uneasily. ''Honestly,'' he confessed, ''I don't think it's possible.'' Like most law enforcement officers in this country, McClaskey has been trained to catch crooks, not to stop submerged suicide bombers. Imagining doomsday possibilities is one thing; we've all become good at it these past 18 months. Coming up with counterterror solutions is another story, often beyond the scope of our imaginations. But while that expertise may not yet exist in the United States, it's out there, if you know where to look.
''Sonar,'' replied Rear Adm. Amiram Rafael, when I put the same question to him 6,000 miles away in Israel, perhaps the one place in the world where terrorism is as much a part of daily life as commuter traffic. ''It can distinguish between humans and large fish by mapping movement patterns and speed.'' Rafael spent 28 years protecting Israel's coastline from terrorists and now consults for foreign clients. ''If the alarm sounds, rapid response units in fast boats are dispatched,'' he said. ''They're equipped with underwater concussion grenades.''
''To stun the divers?'' I asked.
''No,'' Rafael said, flashing a fatherly smile. ''To kill them.''
Until recently, the United States and countries like Israel occupied opposite ends of the security spectrum: one a confident and carefree superpower, seemingly untouchable, the other a tiny garrison state, surrounded by fortifications and barbed wire, fighting for its survival. But the security gap between the U.S. and places like Israel is narrowing. Subways, sewers, shopping centers, food processing and water systems are all now seen as easy prey for terrorists.
There is no clear consensus yet on how to go about protecting ourselves. The federal government recently concluded a 16-month risk assessment, and last month, the new Department of Homeland Security was officially born, with an annual budget of $36 billion. Big money has already been allocated to shore up certain perceived weaknesses, including the $5.8 billion spent hiring, training and equipping federal airport screeners and the $3 billion allocated for ''bioterrorism preparedness.'' All that has been well publicized. Other measures, like sophisticated radiation sensors and surveillance systems, have been installed in some cities with less fanfare. Meanwhile, the F.B.I. is carrying out labor-intensive tasks that would have seemed a ludicrous waste of time 18 months ago, like assembling dossiers on people who take scuba-diving courses.
This marks only the very beginning. A national conversation is starting about what kind of country we want to live in and what balance we will tolerate between public safety and private freedom. The decisions won't come all at once, and we may be changing our minds a lot, depending on whether there are more attacks here, what our government tells us and what we believe. Two weeks ago, Congress decided to sharply curtail the activities of the Total Information Awareness program, a Pentagon project led by Rear Adm. John Poindexter and invested with power to electronically sift through the private affairs of American citizens. For the time being, it was felt that the threat of having the government look over our credit-card statements and medical records was more dangerous than its promised benefits.
Congress didn't completely shut the door on the T.I.A., though. Agents can still look into the lives of foreigners, and its functions could be expanded at any time. We could, for instance, reach the point where we demand the installation of systems, like the one along the Israeli coastline, to maim or kill intruders in certain sensitive areas before they have a chance to explain who they are or why they're there. We may come to think nothing of American citizens who act suspiciously being held without bail or denied legal representation for indeterminate periods or tried in courts whose proceedings are under seal. At shopping malls and restaurants, we may prefer to encounter heavily armed guards and be subjected to routine searches at the door. We may be willing to give up the freedom and ease of movement that has defined American life, if we come to believe our safety depends upon it.
For the better part of a generation now, Americans have gone to great lengths to protect their homes -- living in gated communities, wiring their property with sophisticated alarms, arming themselves with deadly weapons. Now imagine this kind of intensity turned outward, into the public realm. As a culture, our tolerance for fear is low, and our capacity to do something about it is unrivaled. We could have the highest degree of public safety the world has ever seen. But what would that country look like, and what will it be like to live in it? Perhaps something like this.
Electronic Frisking Every Day on Your Commute
As a homebound commuter entering Washington's Foggy Bottom subway station swipes his fare card through the turnstile reader, a computer in the bowels of the mass transit authority takes note. A suspicious pattern of movements has triggered the computer's curiosity.
The giveaway is a microchip in the new digital fare cards, derived from the electronic ID cards many of us already use to enter our workplaces. It could be in use throughout the U.S. within a couple of years. If embedded with the user's driver's license or national ID number, it would allow transportation authorities to keep tabs on who rides the subway, and on when and where they get on and off.
The commuter steps through the turnstile and is scanned by the radiation portal. These would be a natural extension of the hand-held detectors that the police have started using in the New York subways. A cancer patient was actually strip-searched in a New York subway station in 2002 after residue from radiation treatments tripped the meters. But this doesn't happen to our fictitious commuter. The meters barely flicker, registering less than one on a scale of one to nine, the equivalent of a few microroentgens an hour, nowhere near the 3,800 readout that triggers evacuation sirens.
Imagine a battery of video cameras following the commuter's progress to the platform, where he reads a newspaper, standing next to an old utility room that contains gas masks. Cops in New York already have them as part of their standard-issue gear, and a fully secure subway system would need them for everybody, just as every ferryboat must have a life preserver for every passenger. Sensors, which are already used in parts of the New York subway system, would test the air around him for the presence of chemical agents like sarin and mustard gases.
The commuter finishes reading his newspaper, but there is no place to throw it away because all trash cans have been removed, as they were in London when the I.R.A. used them to plant bombs. Cameras show the commuter boarding one of the subway cars, which have been reconfigured to drop oxygen masks from the ceiling in the event of a chemical attack, much like jetliners during decompression. The added security measures have probably pushed fares up throughout the country, maybe as much as 40 percent in some places.
The commuter -- now the surveillance subject -- gets off at the next stop. As he rides the escalator up, a camera positioned overhead zooms in for a close-up of him. This image, which will be used to confirm his identity, travels through fiber-optic cables to the Joint Operations Command Center at police headquarters. There, a computer scans his facial features, breaks them down into three-dimensional plots and compares them with a databank of criminal mug shots, people on watch lists and anyone who has ever posed for a government-issue ID. The facial-recognition program was originally developed at M.I.T. Used before 9/11 mainly by casinos to ferret out known cardsharps, the system has been tried by airport and law enforcement authorities and costs $75,000 to $100,000 per tower, as the camera stations are called.
''It can be used at A.T.M.'s, car-rental agencies, D.M.V. offices, border crossings,'' says an executive of Viisage Technology, maker of the Face-Finder recognition system. ''These are the sorts of facilities the 19 hijackers used.''
Almost instantly, the software verifies the subject's identity and forwards the information to federal authorities. What they do with it depends on the powers of the Total Information Awareness program or whatever its successors will be known as. But let's say that Congress has granted the government authority to note certain suspicious patterns, like when someone buys an airline ticket with cash and leaves the return date open. And let's say the commuter did just that -- his credit cards were maxed out, so he had no choice. And he didn't fill in a return date because he wasn't sure when his next consulting assignment was going to start, and he thought he might be able to extend his vacation a few days.
On top of that, let's say he was also indiscreet in an e-mail message, making a crude joke to a client about a recent airline crash. Software programs that scan for suspect words are not new. Corporations have long used them to automatically block employee e-mail containing, for instance, multiple references to sex. The National Security Agency's global spy satellites and supercomputers have for years taken the search capability to the next level, processing the content of up to two million calls and e-mail messages per hour around the world.
Turning the snooping technology on Americans would not be difficult, if political circumstances made it seem necessary. Right now, there would be fierce resistance to this, but the debate could swing radically to the other side if the government showed that intercepting e-mail could deter terrorists from communicating with one another. Already, says Barry Steinhardt, director of the A.C.L.U. program on technology and liberty, authorities have been demanding records from Internet providers and public libraries about what books people are taking out and what Web sites they're looking at.
Once the commuter is on the government's radar screen, it would be hard for him to get off -- as anyone who has ever found themselves on a mailing or telemarketers' list can attest. It will be like when you refinance a mortgage -- suddenly every financial institution in America sends you a preapproved platinum card. Once a computer detects a pattern, hidden or overt, your identity in the digital world is fixed.
Technicians manning the Command Center probably wouldn't know why the subject is on a surveillance list, or whether he should even be on it in the first place. That would be classified, as most aspects of the government's counterterrorist calculations are.
Nonetheless, they begin to monitor his movements. Cameras on K Street pick him up as he exits the subway station and hails a waiting taxi. The cab's license plate number, as a matter of routine procedure, is run through another software program -- first used in Peru in the 1990's to detect vehicles that have been stolen or registered to terrorist sympathizers, and most recently introduced in central London to nab motorists who have not paid peak-hour traffic tariffs. Technicians get another positive reading; the cabdriver is also on a watch list. He is a Pakistani immigrant and has traveled back and forth to Karachi twice in the last six months, once when his father died, the other to attend his brother's wedding. These trips seem harmless, but the trackers are trained not to make these sorts of distinctions.
So what they see is the possible beginning of a terrorist conspiracy -- one slightly suspicious character has just crossed paths with another slightly suspicious character, and that makes them seriously suspicious. At this moment, the case is forwarded to the new National Counterintelligence Service, which will pay very close attention to whatever both men do next.
The N.C.S. does not exist yet, but its creation is advocated by the likes of Lt. Gen. William Odom, a former head of the National Security Agency. Whether modeled after Britain's MI5, a domestic spy agency, or Israel's much more proactive and unrestricted Shin Bet, the N.C.S. would most likely require a budget similar to the F.B.I.'s $4.2 billion and nearly as much personnel as the bureau's 11,400-strong special agent force, mostly for surveillance duties.
N.C.S. surveillance agents dispatched to tail the two subjects in the taxi would have little difficulty following their quarry through Georgetown, up Wisconsin Avenue and into Woodley Park. One tool at their disposal could be a nationwide vehicle tracking system, adapted from the technology used by Singapore's Land Transport Authority to regulate traffic and parking. The system works on the same principle as the E-ZPass toll-road technology, in which scanners at tollbooths read signals from transponders installed on the windshields of passing vehicles to pay tolls automatically. In a future application, electronic readers installed throughout major American metropolitan centers could pinpoint the location of just about any vehicle equipped with mandatory transponders. (American motorists would most likely each have to pay an extra $90 fee, similar to what Singapore charges.)
When the commuter arrives home, N.C.S. agents arrange to put his house under 24-hour aerial surveillance. The same thing happens to the cabdriver when he arrives home. The technology, discreet and effective, is already deployed in Washington. Modified UH-60A Blackhawk helicopters, the kind U.S. Customs uses to intercept drug runners, now patrol the skies over the capital to enforce no-fly zones. The Pentagon deployed its ultrasophisticated RC-7 reconnaissance planes during the sniper siege last fall. The surveillance craft, which have proved their worth along the DMZ in North Korea and against cocaine barons in Colombia, come loaded with long-range night-vision and infrared sensors that permit operators to detect move-ment and snap photos of virtually anyone's backyard from as far as 20 miles away.
A Government That Knows When You've Been Bad or Good
In the here and now, an aerial photo of my backyard is on file at the Joint Operations Command Center in Washington, which, unlike the N.C.S., already exists. The center looks like NASA, starting with the biometric palm-print scanners on its reinforced doors.
The center has not singled me out for any special surveillance. My neighbors' houses are all pictured, too, as are still shots and even three-dimensional images of just about every building, landmark and lot in central D.C.
The technology isn't revolutionary. How many times a day is the average American already on camera? There's one in the corner deli where I get my morning coffee and bagel. Another one at the A.T.M. outside. Yet another one films traffic on Connecticut Avenue when I drive my wife to work. The lobby of her office building has several. So that's at least four, and it's only 9 a.m.
There are few legal restraints governing video surveillance. It is perfectly legal for the government to track anyone, anywhere, using cameras except for inside his own home, where a warrant is needed to use thermal imaging that can see all the way into the basement. Backyards or rooftops, however, are fair game.
There is a growing network of video cameras positioned throughout the capital that feed into the Joint Operations Command Center, otherwise known as the JOCC, which has been operational since 9/11. The experimental facility is shared by several government agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department, the F.B.I., the Secret Service, the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Agents from different law enforcement bodies man the JOCC's 36 computer terminals, which are arrayed in long rows beneath wall-size projection screens, like the Houston space center. The wall screens simultaneously display live feeds, digital simulations, city maps with the locations of recently released felons and gory crime scene footage.
''From here we can tap into schools, subways, landmarks and main streets,'' says Chief Charles Ramsey of the D.C. Police, with evident pride. Theoretically, with a few clicks of the mouse the system could also link up with thousands of closed-circuit cameras in shopping malls, department stores and office buildings, and is programmed to handle live feeds from up to six helicopters simultaneously. Ramsey is careful to add that, for now, the majority of the cameras are off-line most of the time, and that the police aren't using them to look into elevators or to spy on individuals.
But they could if they wanted to. I ask for a demonstration of the system's capabilities. A technician punches in a few keystrokes. An aerial photo of the city shot earlier from a surveillance plane flashes on one of the big screens. ''Can you zoom in on Dupont Circle?'' I ask. The screen flickers, and the thoroughfare's round fountain comes into view. ''Go up Connecticut Avenue.'' The outline of the Hilton Hotel where President Reagan was shot materializes. ''Up a few more blocks, and toward Rock Creek Park,'' I instruct. ''There, can you get any closer?'' The image blurs and focuses, and I can suddenly see the air-conditioning unit on my roof, my garden furniture and the cypress hedge I recently planted in my yard.
The fact that government officials can, from a remote location, snoop into the backyards of most Washingtonians opens up a whole new level of information they can find out about us almost effortlessly. They could keep track of when you come and go from your house, discovering in the process that you work a second job or that you are carrying on an extramarital affair. Under normal circumstances, there's not much they could do with this information. And for the time being, that is the way most Americans want it. But this is the kind of issue that will come up over the next few years. How many extra tools will we be willing to grant to the police and federal authorities? How much will we allow our notions of privacy to narrow?
Because if domestic intelligence agents were able to find out secret details of people's lives, they could get the cooperation of crucial witnesses who might otherwise be inclined to keep quiet. There is more than a whiff of McCarthyism to all this, but perhaps we will be afraid enough to endure it.
The JOCC is also studying the effect of large-scale bombs in Washington. A three-dimensional map of all downtown buildings allows technicians to simulate bomb blasts and debris projections. They can also tap into the weather bureau for real-time data on wind speeds and directions to determine which parts of the city would have to be evacuated first in the event of a radiological or biochemical plume. Programmers are now working on an underground map of the capital that would show water and gas distribution and power grids.
Efforts are under way to establish facilities similar to the JOCC in big urban centers like Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and New York. One benefit of the JOCC's is that they are relatively cheap to set up, particularly since most major cities already have surveillance equipment positioned in places like tunnels and bridges. Each command center would likely cost around $7 million to build, with an additional $15,000 charge for every camera installed.
There is also talk of connecting all the facilities together so that officials in different parts of the country could coordinate response efforts to terrorism. ''Attacks will likely occur in different cities simultaneously,'' Chief Ramsey says. And as for those civil libertarians uneasy with the notion of blanket national surveillance, Ramsey just shrugs. ''We can't pretend we live in the 19th century. We have to take advantage of technology.''
The Mall Guard Who Carries a Machine Gun
Imagine a wintry scene: snowdrifts and dirty slush and a long line of people muffled against the cold. This is a line to get into the mall, and it is moving frustratingly slowly. What's the holdup? There is no new blockbuster movie opening that day, or any of those ''everything must go'' clearance sales that might justify standing outside freezing for 20 minutes. Customers are simply waiting to clear security.
Shopping in an environment of total terrorist preparedness promises to be a vastly different experience from anything ever imagined in America. But for millions of people who live in terror-prone places like Israel or the Philippines, tight security at shopping malls has long been a fact of life. ''I was shocked when I first came to the States and could go into any shopping plaza without going through security,'' says Aviv Tene, a 33-year-old Haifa attorney. ''It seemed so strange, and risky.''
It took me just under eight minutes to clear the security checkpoint outside the Dizengoff Center in downtown Tel Aviv. But that was on a rainy weekday morning before the food courts and multiplex theater had opened.
The future shopping experience will start at the parking-lot entrance. Booths manned by guards will control access to and from lots to prevent terrorists from emulating the Washington sniper and using parking lots as shooting galleries. Cars entering underground garages will have their trunks searched for explosives, as is the practice in Manila. It has also become common outside New York City hotels. This will guard against car or truck bombs of the type that blew up beneath the World Trade Center in 1993.
No one will be able to drive closer than a hundred yards to mall entrances. Concrete Jersey barriers will stop anyone from crashing a vehicle into the buildings -- a favored terrorist tactic for American targets overseas -- or into the crowds of customers lining up. Screening will follow the Israeli model: metal barricades will funnel shoppers through checkpoints at all doors. They will be frisked, and both they and their bags will be searched and run through metal detectors. Security would be tightest in winter, says a former senior F.B.I. agent, because AK-47's and grenade belts are easily concealed beneath heavy coats.
What won't be concealed, of course, are the weapons carried by the police at the mall. Major shopping areas will not be patrolled by the docile, paid-by-the-hour guards to whom we're accustomed, but -- like airports and New York City tourist attractions -- by uniformed cops and soldiers with rifles.
What will it be like to encounter such firearms on a regular basis? I lived for years in Moscow, and after a short time, I rarely noticed the guns. In fact, I tended to feel more uncomfortable when armed guards were not around; Israelis traveling in the United States occasionally say the same thing. But despite the powerful presence of guns in popular culture, few Americans have had much contact with the kind of heavy weapons that are now becoming a common sight on city streets. Such prominent displays are meant to convey the notion that the government is doing something to ward off terrorists, but they can have the reverse effect too, of constantly reminding us of imminent danger.
Even more mundane procedures might have the same effect -- for example, being asked to produce a national identification card every time you go into a store, much the same way clubgoers have to prove they are of age. The idea of a national identity card, once widely viewed as un-American, is gaining ground in Washington, where some are advocating standardizing driver's licenses throughout the country as a first step in that direction. Though perhaps reminiscent of Big Brother, these cards are not uncommon in the rest of the world, even in Western Europe. In Singapore, the police frequently ask people to produce their papers; it becomes so routine that people cease being bothered by it. How long would it take Americans to become similarly inured?
The new ID's, which are advocated by computer industry leaders like Larry Ellison of Oracle, could resemble the digital smart cards that Chinese authorities plan to introduce in Hong Kong by the end of the year. These contain computer chips with room to store biographical, financial and medical histories, and tamper-proof algorithms of the cardholder's thumbprint that can be verified by hand-held optical readers. Based on the $394 million Hong Kong has budgeted for smart cards for its 6.8 million residents, a similar program in the U.S. could run as high as $16 billion.
Among other things, a national identity card program would make it much harder for people without proper ID to move around and therefore much easier for police and domestic-intelligence agents to track them down. And once found, such people might discover they don't quite have the rights they thought they had. Even now, for instance, U.S. citizens can be declared ''enemy combatants'' and be detained without counsel. Within a few years, America's counterterrorist agencies could have the kind of sweeping powers of arrest and interrogation that have developed in places like Israel, the Philippines and even France, where the constant threat of terrorism enabled governments to do virtually whatever it takes to prevent terrorism. ''As long as you worry too much about making false arrests and don't start taking greater risks,'' says Offer Einav, a 15-year Shin Bet veteran who now runs a security consulting firm, ''you are never going to beat terrorism.''
In years past, the U.S. has had to rely on other governments to take these risks. For example, the mastermind of the 1993 W.T.C. bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was caught only after Philippine investigators used what official intelligence documents delicately refer to as ''tactical interrogation'' to elicit a confession from an accomplice arrested in Manila. In U.S. court testimony, the accomplice, Abdul Hakim Murad, later testified that he was beaten to within an inch of his life.
In Israel, it is touted that 90 percent of suicide bombers are caught before they get near their targets, a record achieved partly because the Shin Bet can do almost anything it deems necessary to save lives. ''They do things we would not be comfortable with in this country,'' says former Assistant F.B.I. Director Steve Pomerantz, who, along with a growing number of U.S. officials, has traveled to Israel recently for antiterror training seminars.
But the U.S. is moving in the Israeli direction. The U.S.A. Patriot Act, rushed into law six weeks after 9/11, has given government agencies wide latitude to invoke the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and get around judicial restraints on search, seizure and surveillance of American citizens. FISA, originally intended to hunt international spies, permits the authorities to wiretap virtually at will and break into people's homes to plant bugs or copy documents. Last year, surveillance requests by the federal government under FISA outnumbered for the first time in U.S. history all of those under domestic law.
New legislative proposals by the Justice Department now seek to take the Patriot Act's antiterror powers several steps further, including the right to strip terror suspects of their U.S. citizenship. Under the new bill -- titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 -- the government would not be required to disclose the identity of anyone detained in connection with a terror investigation, and the names of those arrested, be they Americans or foreign nationals, would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a rights group in Washington, which has obtained a draft of the bill. An American citizen suspected of being part of a terrorist conspiracy could be held by investigators without anyone being notified. He could simply disappear.
The Face-to-Face Interrogation on Your Vacation
Some aspects of life would, in superficial ways, seem easier, depending on who you are and what sort of specialized ID you carry. Boarding an international flight, for example, might not require a passport for frequent fliers. At Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, ''trusted'' travelers -- those who have submitted to background checks -- are issued a smart card encoded with the pattern of their iris. When they want to pass through security, a scanner checks their eyes and verifies their identities, and they are off. The whole process takes 20 seconds, according to Dutch officials. At Ben-Gurion in Israel, the same basic function is carried out by electronic palm readers.
''We start building dossiers the moment someone buys a ticket,'' says Einav, the Shin Bet veteran who also once served as head of El Al security. ''We have quite a bit of information on our frequent fliers. So we know they are not a security risk.''
The technology frees up security personnel to focus their efforts on everybody else, who, on my recent trip to Jerusalem, included me. As a holder of a Canadian passport (a favorite of forgers) that has visa stamps from a number of high-risk countries ending in ''stan,'' I was subjected to a 40-minute interrogation. My clothes and belongings were swabbed for explosives residue. Taken to a separate room, I was questioned about every detail of my stay in Israel, often twice to make certain my story stayed consistent. Whom did you meet? Where did you meet? What was the address? Do you have the business cards of the people you met? Can we see them? What did you discuss? Can we see your notes? Do you have any maps with you? Did you take any photographs while you were in Israel? Are you sure? Did you rent a car? Where did you drive to? Do you have a copy of your hotel bill? Why do you have a visa to Pakistan? Why do you live in Washington? Can we see your D.C. driver's license? Where did you live before Washington? Why did you live in Moscow? Are you always this nervous?
A Russian speaker was produced to verify that I spoke the language. By the time I was finally cleared, I almost missed my flight. ''Sorry for the delay,'' apologized the young security officer. ''Don't take it personally.''
El Al is a tiny airline that has a fleet of just 30 planes and flies to a small handful of destinations. It is also heavily subsidized by the government. This is what has made El Al and Ben-Gurion safe from terrorists for more than 30 years.
Getting the American airline system up to this level would require a great deal more than reinforced cockpit doors and the armed air marshals now aboard domestic and international flights. It would require changing everything, including the cost and frequency of flights. Nothing could be simpler, right now, than flying from New York to Pittsburgh -- every day, there are at least a dozen direct flights available from the city's three airports and countless more connecting flights. Bought a week or two in advance, these tickets can be as cheap as $150 round-trip.
Making U.S. airlines as security-conscious as El Al would put the U.S. back where the rest of the world is -- maybe a flight or two a day from New York to Pittsburgh, at much higher costs, and no assurance whatsoever you can get on the plane you want. Flights would take longer, and landings might be a little more interesting, because pilots would have to stay away from densely populated areas, where a plane downed by a shoulder-launched Stinger missile could do terrible damage.
Kayaking in the Wrong Place Is a Federal Crime
In a state of full readiness, American cities would be a patchwork of places you couldn't go near. At first, most people wouldn't even notice when no-sail zones were instituted around all 50 major industrial ports in the country. Maybe they would find out when they went to a local marina where they occasionally rent a small outboard to go water-skiing and found that it had been closed and relocated. Or maybe they went kayaking up near the Indian Point nuclear plant on the Hudson and spent an afternoon talking to the Coast Guard after they got a little too close.
There may be a lot of places private boats will be unable to go, like anywhere near a shipping channel used by oil and gas freighters. Infrared and video optronic systems that can detect small boats, and even inflatable rubber craft, may be deployed to enforce the no-sail zones. ''We invented it after terrorists rode a freighter to within 10 miles of Tel Aviv,'' says Rafael, the former Israeli rear admiral, ''and used inflatable boats to attack beachfront hotels.''
Each optronic installation costs $2 million, and four or five of the units would be needed to protect the approach to any major harbor, Rafael says. The system would thus cost around $500 million.
''I'm always amazed at how lightly defended your industry is compared to most other countries,'' says Hezy Ribak, another Israeli intelligence expert, who runs a security consulting firm. ''In Israel, we treat security at our industrial facilities the way we do borders. The stakes,'' he adds, ''are just as high, higher if you consider the damage terrorists can do if they infiltrate a nuclear power plant or blow up a gas reservoir.''
The P-Glilot natural gas reservoir near Tel Aviv is a good example of what security experts like Ribak have in mind for the U.S. From a distance, P-Glilot doesn't seem all that different than similar installations in New Jersey, Ohio or Texas. The massive storage tanks are even painted with quaint butterflies and birds. But just off the highway, watchtowers dot the landscape. If you drive closer, the complex takes on the feel of a military garrison, with high walls and electric fences bristling with sensors and cameras, and notices posted in Hebrew, English and Arabic warning: ''No Photography.'' Pull off the road and park by the perimeter fence for a mere 15 seconds, and a metallic voice sounds from an unseen loudspeaker, calling out your license plate number and telling you to move on.
''Security,'' Einav says, ''is about layers, creating buffer zones.'' On the ground, that means changing the way industrial sites are guarded. Security precautions in the U.S. are concentrated around the core of the targets -- be they reactors, pumping stations or chemical plants -- rather than the perimeter. ''Security at the main buildings might stop environmental protesters or the lone crazy, but it doesn't help in the case of a truck loaded with explosives, because the terrorists have already reached their objective,'' Ribak says. ''Why give yourself so little room? There should be as big a buffer as possible between the first line of defense -- the perimeter of the property -- and the target, to give yourself early warning.''
Perimeters, Ribak says, will need to be equipped with vibration sensors; thermal and infrared cameras; buried magnetic detection devices that can distinguish between humans, animals and vehicles; and several rows of old-fashioned razor coil to delay intruders, giving guards time to respond to alarms. In the U.S., where many industrial facilities are concentrated in dense urban areas, such security measures would necessitate the rerouting of highways and possibly the relocation of neighborhoods that are just too close. In New York City, power plants sit right in the middle of residential neighborhoods, like the one at 14th Street and Avenue D in the East Village. It is across the street from Stuyvesant Town and a public housing project, home to tens of thousands of people. Israeli security officials shake their heads in astonishment at such ''crazy'' U.S. practices, but then again who ever thought that putting an airport next to the Pentagon was a security risk?
Securing dense, mixed-use urban neighborhoods could not only complicate housing markets and commuting patterns, which are typically a disaster in most cities already, but could also come at tremendous expense. Consider the Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant in Berrien County, Mich. It has two Westinghouse reactors and sits on a relatively cramped 650-acre plot. Just to provide a three-mile buffer around the plant would run $76 million, according to U.S.D.A. statistics on the average price per acre of land in Michigan. For the Indian Point plant in Westchester, the cost would be exponentially higher. Add to that the $3.5 billion to $7 billion estimated by a recent Princeton University study to safeguard spent fuel pools from air attack, the roughly $3.5 million price tag of new perimeter sensors and the $160 million that Raytheon charges for a Patriot missile battery capable of knocking out airborne threats, and multiply the total by the 103 nuclear power stations in the country.
Now factor in the 276,000 natural gas wells in the U.S., the 1.5 million miles of unprotected pipelines, the 161 oil refineries, 2,000 oil storage facilities and 10,400 hydro, coal and gas-fired power generating stations, and you get a sense of the costs involved.
Every Day Is Super Bowl Sunday
But you probably won't be thinking about any of that when you go out to dinner or to the movies or to a ball game. By then, it could all be second nature. The restaurant attendant will go through your purse and wave a metal-detector wand over your jacket, as they do in Tel Aviv. The valet parker will pop open your trunk and look through it before dropping your car off at an underground garage, just as in Manila.
If you take the family to a Dodgers game, you'll be able to tell your kids how, back in the day, they used to have blimps and small planes trailing ad banners over stadiums. The flight restrictions, started at Super Bowl XXXVII in 2002, would not permit any planes within seven miles of any significant sporting events. Fans would have to park at least five miles from the stadium and board shuttle buses to gates. Spectators would be funneled through airport-style metal detectors and watched over by a network of 50 cameras installed throughout the stadium. Air quality would be monitored for pathogens by the type of portable detectors brought in by the Army at last year's Olympics.
Even people with no interest in sports who live in high-rises near stadiums would know whenever game day came round. ''Tall buildings near stadiums are also a risk,'' says Col. Mena Bacharach, a former Israeli secret-service agent who is one of the lead security consultants for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. ''They would have to be swept for snipers or R.P.G.'s.'' R.P.G.'s? Those are rocket-propelled grenades, another term that could become an American colloquialism.
It's still too early to tell what all this would mean to ticket prices, but, in a sign of the changing times, the security allocation alone for last month's Super Bowl was $9 million -- the equivalent of $134 for every one of the 67,000 fans in attendance.
Of course, public awareness programs could help to significantly cut down counterterror costs. In Israel, televised public service announcements similar to antidrug commercials in the U.S. warn viewers to be on the lookout for signs of suspicious activity. The messages are even taught to schoolchildren, along with other important survival tips, like how to assemble gas masks. ''I was out with my 7-year-old granddaughter the other day,'' recalls Joel Feldschuh, a former Israeli brigadier general and president of El Al. ''And she sees a bag on the street and starts shouting: 'Granddaddy, granddaddy, look. Quickly call a policeman. It could be left by terrorists.' ''
What Is Your Security Worth to You?
It is commonly held that a country as big and confident in its freedoms as the United States could never fully protect itself against terrorists. The means available to them are too vast, the potentially deadly targets too plentiful. And there is a strong conviction in many quarters that there is a limit to which Americans will let their daily patterns be disturbed for security precautions. Discussing the possibility that we might all need to be equipped with our own gas masks, as Israelis are, Sergeant McClaskey of Baltimore assured me it would never happen. ''If it ever reaches the point where we all need gas masks,'' McClaskey said, shaking his head with disgust, ''then we have lost the war on terror because we are living in fear.''
What does it really mean, however, to ''lose the war on terror''? It's as ephemeral a concept as ''winning the war on terror.'' In what sense will it ever be possible to declare an end of any kind?
One thing that makes the decisions of how to protect ourselves so difficult is that the terrorism we face is fundamentally different from what other governments have faced in the past. The Israelis live in tight quarters with an enemy they know well and can readily lay their eyes on. Terror attacks on European countries have always come from colonies or nearby provinces that have generally had specific grievances and demands. Americans don't know exactly who our enemies are or where they are coming from. Two of the recent thwarted terrorists, Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, were in fact Europeans.
The United States also lacks the national identity that binds Israel and most European countries and helps make the psychic wounds of terrorism heal faster. In Israel, hours after a bombing, the streets are crowded again -- people are determined to keep going. Immediately after 9/11, that's how many Americans felt, too, but it's not at all clear how long this kind of spirit will endure.
Nor is it clear how we will absorb the cost. An adviser to President Bush estimates that as much as $100 billion will have to be spent annually on domestic security over the next 10 years, if you factor in all the overtime accrued by police departments every time there is a heightened alert. There are many who believe, as General Odom does, that the money is ''insignificant.'' ''At the height of the cold war we used to spend 7.2 percent of G.D.P. on defense and intelligence,'' he says. ''We spend less than half that now.''
Outside of defense and some of the entitlement programs, however, domestic security will dwarf every other kind of federal spending: education, roads, subsidized housing, environmental protection. More than that, the decisions we make about how to protect ourselves -- the measures we demand, the ones we resist -- will take over our political discourse and define our ideas about government in the years to come.
One significant argument against the creation of an American security state, a United States that resembles Israel, is that even there, in a society rigorously organized around security, the safety of its citizens is far from guaranteed. But what keeps Israelis going about their daily lives -- and what might help Americans do the same despite the fear of violence here -- is the conspicuousness of the response and the minor sacrifices that have to be made every day. The more often we have to have our bags searched, the better we might feel. Sitting in the kind of traffic jam that would have normally frayed our nerves might seem almost comforting if it's because all the cars in front of us are being checked for bombs. We may demand more daily inconveniences, more routine abrogations of our rights. These decisions are not only going to change how we go about our days; they're also going to change our notion of what it means to be an American. How far do we want to go?
''Security is a balancing act,'' says Einav, the former El Al security chief. ''And there are always trade-offs. Give me the resources, and I can guarantee your safety. The question is, What are you willing to pay or put up with to stay safe?''
Matthew Brzezinski, a contributing writer for the magazine, last wrote about the detention of Hady Hassan Omar, a Muslim immigrant.
-------- terrorism
Threat grounds London-bound plane
Paul Harris
Sunday February 23, 2003
The Observer (UK)
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,901373,00.html
A plane heading for Heathrow was forced to make an emergency landing in Syria yesterday after a bomb threat caused a terror alert.
The Qatar Airways flight, carrying 234 passengers and 13 crew, touched down in Damascus after the mid-air alert. It had taken off from Doha and had been due to land in London last night. The plane requested permission to land after a female Spanish passenger claimed there was a bomb on board. The Airbus 332 was met by dozens of ambulances and fire engines on the tarmac. However, a search by Syrian police and soldiers failed to discover any explosives.
'It seems the Spanish passenger was in an abnormal mental state,' said Hussein Mahfoud, the head of Syria's civil aviation board.
The scare came a day after the Foreign Office advised Britons not to travel to Qatar because of increased tension in the Gulf region.
A second Qatari aircraft also suffered a bomb scare yesterday and was delayed in leaving the Egyptian capital Cairo after a note was discovered warning that the plane would explode. The message, discovered by cleaners on a tissue left on the plane, said: 'Bin Laden. The plane will blow up on take-off.'
But a search of the passengers and plane found no explosives and it later took off with 147 passengers on board.
· Terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network are suspected of being behind last Thursday's killing of British defence worker Richard Dent in Saudi Arabia, police sources said yesterday. A Yemeni-born man, Saud bin Ali bin Nasser, has been arrested for the shooting.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
UK 'to drop nuclear power'
By Alex Kirby Online environment correspondent
BBC News
Sunday, 23 February, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2790949.stm
The UK is to work towards radical cuts in greenhouse gases - a reduction of 60% on 1990 levels by 2050.
It aims to achieve this through more efficient energy use and greater dependence on renewable sources like wind power.
It plans to build no new nuclear power stations to replace the present generation.
The proposals have been fiercely contested between different government departments.
They are spelt out in the Energy White Paper, to be published on 24 February (Monday), which is the official response to a report on climate change by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) in 2000.
That urged a 60% cut in carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas caused by human activities, by mid-century to avoid massive climate change.
After protracted wrangling between the Treasury, the environment department, and the Department of Trade and Industry, the White Paper is expected to chart a radical course towards a low-carbon economy.
It is likely to say:
- developed countries, including the UK, should work for 60% carbon cuts by 2050
- the UK should do this by reducing demand for energy through improving the efficiency of its use (the amount of energy wasted is put at £5 billion annually)
- renewable energy use should be expanded
The White Paper will probably say coal is still important for generating power.
There will be more research into ways of storing CO2 where it cannot affect the climate, probably deep underground.
Some environmental groups say the White Paper vindicates their years of campaigning.
Bryony Worthington, of Friends of the Earth, told BBC News Online: "Politically this is quite a significant announcement. The nuclear option has been decisively kicked into touch."
But sceptics say the devil is in the detail, expecting ministers will almost certainly leave some options open.
A comprehensive review of energy policy is expected in about 2005, for a start.
And on nuclear power the government will probably say it cannot rule out a possible need one day for a new generation of power plants.
One energy analyst told BBC News Online the document would be too vague to raise real hopes.
"It'll be light on actual targets", he said.
'RENEWABLE' ELECTRICTY TARGETS
Current target: 10% of electricity to come from renewables by 2010
Likely new target: 20% renewable electricity by 2020
"It will speak much more of 'aspirations' or 'goals'. The government is backing away from targets wherever possible - that way it thinks it can't be held to account. The White Paper will be a fudge."
But while ministers may rule little out, they do appear to have ruled in an unambiguous commitment to renewable energy, to the sceptics' surprise.
Things unsaid
Late drafts of the White Paper contained no firm commitment to improve on this, probably because of Treasury objections.
But a source who has seen the version to be published has told the BBC it is expected to set a new target (though it may avoid the word itself) - 20% renewable electricity by 2020.
The government wants to focus on renewable energy instead The White Paper will not tackle aircraft carbon emissions, which are not controlled by international agreement and are a rapidly rising proportion of total emissions.
It is unlikely to say anything much about land transport, which in the UK will soon emit more CO2 than electricity generation.
But it will offer a way forward in a world of growing competition for oil and gas.
By 2010 the UK is on course to be a net fuel importer, for the first time since the industrial revolution.
-------- ACTIVISTS
To Bush, the Crowd Was a Blur
By TODD S. PURDUM
February 23, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/weekinreview/23PURD.html?ei=1&en=3e8d573c5380529b&ex=1047017042&pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON - Most politicians around the world were impressed by the scale and intensity of last weekend's global protests against a probable war with Iraq.
Not President Bush.
"Size of protest - it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group," Mr. Bush said.
Not quite.
A focus group is a handful of people, carefully culled to reflect diverse viewpoints, chosen to help politicians or companies figure out how to sell a policy or a product.
Led by a facilitator, they are poked and prodded in a private room, asked about their likes and dislikes and encouraged to speak while strategists eavesdrop behind a one-way mirror.
And while Mr. Bush may not like to acknowledge it, his administration does use focus groups, most recently to help determine how best to couch its public messages about domestic security.
The technique was developed to test the effects of Army training and propaganda films in World War II, and politicians and Hollywood studios have since perfected it into a minor art.
"I hate to see them maligned," Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and focus-group maestro, said. "They're tools. They're no replacement for leadership. But they have their place. The interesting thing is that a public demonstration is actually not a representative sample, because the protesters share the same beliefs on the issue. In many ways, focus groups are more representative of public opinion."
Focus groups are used to measure the whys behind the public's view of a given issue, while polls typically reflect the whats and how-muches. A moderator can test how audiences respond to even the smallest changes in wording or emphasis.
What President Bush doubtless meant was that confronting Iraq is necessary, whether or not that makes him popular in Paris or Peoria. But he, too, is well aware of public opinion.
"They do as much polling as the Clinton administration," said Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming. "I used to think they didn't, but they do."
Mr. Luntz said what he saw of the protests "shook me up."
"The fact that these were the biggest demonstrations in three decades does say something about underlying public opinion around the world," he said. "You can't ignore it. You don't have to accept it. You don't have to follow it. But you can't ignore it."
---
Protesters try to halt ships
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 23, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030223-32628842.htm
Environmental activists have gone beyond sign-waving and marches to protest the looming U.S.-led war against Iraq and are now seeking to interfere with the military buildup overseas.
Lead by Greenpeace, dozens of activists were arrested this week for blocking ships in two ports that were contracted by the United States to transport military equipment to the Persian Gulf, where American forces are gathering for a possible strike to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
A broad coalition of environmental groups has come together to protest military action against Iraq. Many "green" groups were prominent in the anti-war protests that occurred across the United States and the world last weekend.
On Thursday, Dutch police took 20 protesters into custody at Rotterdam Harbor in the Netherlands after the protesters blocked the cargo ship MVAS Progress from leaving the port.
Greenpeace's flagship boat, the Rainbow Warrior, with activists in inflatable boats and canoes blocked the ship for more than eight hours before tug boats could escort it to sea.
"Day and night, U.S. tanks and helicopters are being shipped to the Gulf from European ports," Greenpeace spokesman Femke Bartels said from the dock. "Greenpeace is determined to do everything it can to stop this relentless march to war."
He said that the impending military action would violate international law.
"Not only would it make the world a more volatile and dangerous place, it would also be illegal, disastrous and immoral," Mr. Bartels said.
Police authorities turned a high-powered water cannon on the protesters, who attempted to climb up the stern of the Progress, and rammed the environmentalists' inflatable boats, said one activist identified only as "Tracy," who was aboard the Rainbow Warrior.
The activist used a cell phone to give several reports on the blockade that were recorded and posted on the Greenpeace Web site.
At least two protesters jumped out of an inflatable boat after police boarded it.
"It was the first ship to leave the Netherlands, but it's probably not going to be the last. But you haven't heard the last from us either," Tracy said after the ship left port.
The actions drew criticism from members on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers said Greenpeace is protecting an enemy of the environment - Saddam, whose forces set fire to Kuwait's oil fields during the 1991 Gulf war.
Rep. Scott McInnis, Colorado Republican and chairman of the House Resources subcommittee on forests and forest health, called the fires "the largest environmental calamities in human history."
"Greenpeace's radicalism is a total disgrace," Mr. McInnis said. "They have now gone from hugging trees to hugging Saddam Hussein."
Environmentalists oppose war with Iraq and say it would be about securing America's oil supply, not preventing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction from reaching terrorists.
Members of Greenpeace, the Rukus Society, the Rainforest Action Network, Project Underground and the Earth Island Institute joined with millions on Feb. 15 around the world to protest the war.
On Monday, Greenpeace activists blocked Antwerp Harbor in Belgium as four ships were loading up military supplies and one naval ship was trying to dock.
"We were not going to let this military ship move on and load up for war without a fight," one activist said.
Police again turned water hoses on the protesters and rammed their inflatable boats.
"Once, as it came close to our boat, a man with a hook on the end of a pole jabbed the sharp end into our inflatable. Luckily, no damage was done and no one was injured," the protester said. "We stopped the military ship from loading tonight, but there will be more."
Most environmental groups so far have limited their anti-war protests to words and marches. The Rukus Society plans anti-war protest training at colleges throughout the country.
"We firmly believe direct action training is contributing to the power of the movement," the society said.
Green groups will participate in a "virtual march" on Washington on Wednesday to protest the impending war with a barrage of phone calls and faxes to members of Congress.
The protest is sponsored by the Win Without War campaign, which features actor Martin Sheen in television ads speaking out against the war.
----
Men Get Their Turn for Nude War Protest
Sunday February 23, 2003
AP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2427110,00.html
BYRON BAY, Australia - About 250 men took off their clothes Sunday and lay down to spell out the words ``Peace Man'' on a rugby field to protest the Australian government's strong support for Washington's hardline stance against Iraq.
Protest organizer Cameron Sparkes-Carroll said the protesters bared themselves to send the peace message to the Australian government, which has sent 2,000 troops to join U.S. forces preparing for a possible war in the Persian Gulf.
``Men of all shapes and sizes laid down their weapons and overcame fears of exposure to make the protest,'' Sparkes-Carroll said.
The protest follows a similar demonstration two weeks ago when about 750 women shed their clothes in protest on a hillside near the same coastal resort town of Byron Bay, 435 miles north of Sydney.
The women disrobed and lay end-to-end on a grassy knoll to form a heart shape around the words ``No War'' for an aerial photograph.
----
CBS won't forbid anti-war talk during Grammys
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 23, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030223-72704014.htm
Iraq may prove to be the big star at tonight's Grammy awards, broadcast live at 8 p.m. on CBS from Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Contrary to rumor, the network will not attempt to silence any anti-war statements from singers, songwriters, musicians and assorted artistes as they parade onstage to accept the nation's most coveted music awards.
"No one at CBS or the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has imposed restrictions on artistic expression during performances or on opinions expressed during acceptance speeches," CBS spokesman Chris Ender told The Washington Times on Friday.
"While this is first and foremost entertainment, we're also in a country built on free speech," he continued. "Sometimes it can make for some unpredictable moments."
Indeed.
Some press reports have Grammy officials bracing for anti-war invective from the honorees. The online Drudge Report said Friday that CBS executives were prepared to silence the microphones of music stars preoccupied with politics.
Pro-peace talk is particularly anticipated from singer Bruce Springsteen, nominated for five Grammys. MSNBC has described him as a "stalwart of the populist left and a rallying point for the anti-war movement."
Mr. Springsteen is not shy about expressing himself. During a recent concert in Berlin, he introduced his 1984 classic song, "Born in the USA," by telling his audience, "I wrote this song about the Vietnam War. I want to do it for you tonight for peace."
Will Mr. Springsteen politely accept his award or "share his thoughts on the approaching war?" the Los Angeles Times asked yesterday.
"The guess is here that he will comment on the nation's state. ... If Springsteen does express his views, not everyone will be pleased. Some believe award show podiums should be politics-free zones," the Times said.
Meanwhile, other musical performers have joined the high-profile celebrity race to protest looming U.S. military strikes on Iraq. Groups such as the Massachusetts-based Musicians for Peace, in fact, have been circulating a petition that "lets it be known we do not support this war. ... We are not afraid to make noise."
Tonight's Grammy awards show should have its share of dissent if Britain's Brit Awards is a predictor of such things.
Female rap singer Ms Dynamite entertained the Brit Awards audience Thursday night with a specially written anti-war song sung to "Faith," George Michael's 1987 hit.
"We've been here before, talk of violence and talk of war," she sang. "I don't wanna see children die no more. So I've gotta make a stand."
British rocker Chris Martin told the audience, "We are all going to die when George Bush has his way. But at least we are going to go out with a bang."
Meanwhile, Lee Ryan of the British band Blue has asked singers Kylie Minogue, Justin Timberlake, Pink and others to collaborate on "Stand Up As People," an anti-war tune that Mr. Ryan, 19, wrote last year.
Regardless of the political leanings of tonight's Grammy nominees, the New York City Police Department is ready. An 800-member security force will be on hand to look after the stars and glitterati.
"Police said event staff will include a number of officers working counterterrorism," Newsday reported Friday. "Among them will be highly visible 'Hercules' unit officers, equipped in protective gear and carrying submachine guns."
----
How the Protesters Mobilized
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
February 23, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/weekinreview/23JLEE.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
WASHINGTON - Before the global protests against war in Iraq last weekend, organizers were already making conference calls and passing out fliers for their next set of demonstrations, including one scheduled for next Saturday, outside the White House.
But then, the worldwide protests drew millions of people onto the streets, from San Francisco to London, and the Bush administration hit some diplomatic roadblocks. Sensing delay in White House momentum, the organizers themselves paused and decided to make a strategic move, delaying the demonstrations from March 1 until March 15. They spread the news the old-fashioned way, through alternative radio stations and word of mouth, and the instantaneous way, through Web sites and e-mail messages.
Organizing a protest is fundamentally about logistics: where do people meet, how do they get on a bus, who will order portable toilets. Obviously, the Internet, like fax machines and copiers, has made the tasks easier. Before last weekend's protests, for example, people registered online for buses to New York. And a mass e-mail notice was sent out to New York protesters, informing them about public bathrooms in Midtown Manhattan and giving them a number to call in case of arrest.
But the Internet has become more than a mere organizing tool; it has changed protests in a more fundamental way, by allowing mobilization to emerge from free-wheeling amorphous groups, rather than top-down hierarchical ones.
In the 60's, the anti-Vietnam War movement grew gradually. "It took four and a half years to multiply the size of the Vietnam protests twentyfold," said Todd Gitlin, a sociology professor at Columbia University and longtime liberal activist.
The first nationwide antiwar march in 1965 attracted about 25,000 people. By 1969, the protests had grown to half a million. But increasing the numbers required weeks and months of planning, using snail mail, phone calls and fliers.
"This time the same thing has happened in six months," Mr. Gitlin said. Even though momentum behind the demonstrations didn't grow until a month ago, after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations, more than 800,000 people turned out in 150 rallies in the United States last weekend, from 100 in Davenport, Iowa, to an estimated 350,000 in New York City. In Europe, more than 1.5 million protested.
The protests had no single identified leader and no central headquarters. Social theorists have a name for these types of decentralized networks: heterarchies. In contrast to hierarchies, with top-down structures, heterarchies are made up of previously isolated groups that can connect to one another and coordinate.
Because no central decision-making authority exists, protests can be localized and can appeal to new groups and individuals who don't live in areas where social protest information would typically reach. For example, Mothers Acting Up was started two years ago by four women around a kitchen table in Boulder, Colo., a liberal college town. But with their Internet site, www.mothersactingup.org, they have been able to reach 600 like-minded members across the country, many of whom participated in marches last week.
Technology also spreads word of rallies to countries where free expression is limited. In Singapore, where the government does not allow demonstrations at the American Embassy, cellphone text messages went out, exhorting recipients to gather at the embassy anyway. The text messages, which work like mass e-mail messaging to mobile devices, attracted at least a half-dozen placard-carrying demonstrators at the gates at the appointed time. The police rounded them up for questioning.
"Whenever a new communications technology lowers the threshold for groups to act collectively, new kinds of institutions emerge," said Howard Rheingold, the author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," which documents self-organizing and leaderless movements. "We are seeing the combination of network communications and social networks."
His book tells the story of how cellphone text messaging helped bring down Joseph Estrada, the Philippine president who was ousted after protests in 2001 over corruption. Text messaging advertised instant rallies, encouraged people to protest by wearing black and provided updates on the impeachment trial.
(In the same way, cellphone messaging is potentially alarming for the Chinese government. Officials do not have centralized control over the network and therefore cannot censor it, the way they do the Internet.)
E-mail lists have allowed individuals to create groups that defy geography and time. Thousands of people have joined hundreds of antiwar lists, and diverse streams of messages fly back and forth quickly, vastly different from the information flow in hierarchies. Since the beginning of the year, 300 messages have been posted on a popular antiwar list in Sydney, Australia, that has almost 900 members. The notes range from solicitations for donations to United Nations updates to appeals for local volunteers.
This is mass mobilization, but also nimble mobilization. Protesting a war that hasn't begun requires a constant eye on the calendar of government action. And the movement's flexibility maximizes its impact, organizers say. A protest date can easily be moved, timed to affect the latest diplomatic maneuver.
"We are trying to stay a step ahead of the administration by our planning," said Damu Smith, chairman of Black Voices for Peace, one of hundreds of groups involved in last week's demonstrations. And staying ahead of the game "is absolutely strategically central in our ability to be effective in what we are doing."
Military theorists are fond of saying that future warfare will revolve around social and communication networks. Antiwar groups have found that this is true for their work as well.
----
Pope Calls for Fast Against War in Iraq
Sun Feb 23, 2003
By FRANCES D'EMILIO,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&u=/ap/20030223/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_iraq_2&printer=1
VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II called on Catholics to fast on Ash Wednesday in the name of peace and said again on Sunday he worried a U.S.-led war against Iraq could unsettle the entire Middle East.
Looking wan and tired, John Paul opened his traditional Sunday remarks from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square by denouncing war as a way to resolve the conflict.
"We Christians in particular are called upon to be sentinels of peace," John Paul said, calling on Catholics to dedicate their fasting on Ash Wednesday, March 5, for the cause of peace.
On that day, the pope said, faithful will pray for "the conversion of hearts and the long-range vision of just decisions to resolve disputes with adequate and peaceful means."
He said that the fast, which Catholics traditionally conduct at the start of Lent to prepare themselves for Easter, is an "expression of penitence for the hate and violence which pollute human relations."
Fasting, an ancient practice shared by other religions, he said, also lets faithful "shed themselves of all arrogance."
Rainbow-hued peace banners fluttered in the crowd of tourists and pilgrims in the square. Surveys have shown Italians and many other Europeans oppose war, even if waged under the aegis of the United Nations, and earlier this month, about 1 million Italians marched through Rome to protest against the United States and its push for using military force.
"For months the international community is living in great apprehension for the danger of a war, which could unsettle the entire Middle East region and aggravate the tensions unfortunately already present in this beginning of the third millennium," the pontiff said.
"It is the duty of all believers, to whichever religion they belong, to proclaim that we can never be happy pitted one against the other; the future of humanity will never able to be secured by terrorism and by the logic of war," John Paul said.
While the pope has been hailed as a champion of peace by anti-war demonstrators ranging from environmentalists to communists, some in Italy challenged his view.
Radical Party leaders Sunday denounced what they saw as the pontiff's "equating terrorism and war, whatever war." Led by Marco Panella, the Radicals say they would like to see Saddam Hussein in exile and a democratic government under U.N. auspices to replace the Iraqi leader.
John Paul has been holding practically daily meetings with key players in the crisis over Iraq. In his latest effort, on Saturday, he met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been trying to line up support in Europe and elsewhere for Washington's insistence that military force is necessary if Baghdad doesn't quickly and completely comply with U.N. disarmament resolutions.
John Paul, 82 and struggling with Parkinson's disease and other health problems, appeared weary, his voice trailing off in the final words of his appeal, "blessed are the peacemakers," a phrase from the Gospel of Matthew.
John Paul made similar calls against conflict in the months before the 1991 Gulf War, but in this campaign, with the memory of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks making the world particularly apprehensive, he has seemed more determined than ever to do his part to persuade decision-makers against going to war.
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Janeane Garofalo: 'It Wasn't Hip' to Protest Clinton's Wars
Sunday Feb. 23, 2003
Newsmax
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/2/23/151110
Comedienne-turned-peace activist Janeane Garofalo offered a stunning admission on Sunday, explaining that she and her fellow anti-war protesters didn't stage huge demonstrations when President Clinton launched attacks on Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan and the Sudan because "it wasn't very hip" to protest the former president.
Asked by "Fox News Sunday's" Tony Snow why peace protesters like herself didn't object to Clinton's wars, Garofalo explained:
"I absolutely did. I did not support Operation Desert Fox. It's just that you didn't know me very well back then. Nobody really was interested in listening to me back then."
Then she added, by way of explaining why the anti-Clinton protests never gelled, "It wasn't very hip."
Garofalo went on to claim that Hollywood actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins led protests against Clinton's 1998 Iraq attack, saying that "there was a lot of protest, just as there was against the first Gulf War."
A Lexis-Nexis search for Dec. 1998, the month Clinton bombed the daylights out of Baghdad, failed to turn up a single report that mentioned either Sarandon or Robbins protesting the attacks.
A similar search for the month of Feb. 2003 turned up 124 reports on Sarandon protesting President Bush's Iraq policy.
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The Pope's disapproval worries Blair more than marchers
By Matthew d'Ancona
23/02/2003
UK Telegraph
http://opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/02/23/do2302.xml
It used to be the solemn practice of medieval crusaders to seek the indulgence of the Pope before they rode off on their steeds to the Holy Land. Some wrote impassioned letters to the Pontiff for the good of their souls, but many made the pilgrimage to Rome in person. Yesterday, on the eve of another mighty conflict in the sands of the Middle East, the Prime Minister was granted a private audience by John Paul II. But there was to be no indulgence - no papal imprimatur - for this Christian soldier. Mr Blair may believe that he is embarking on a "just war": the Holy Father does not.
When President Bush called the war on terrorism a "crusade" he was pilloried as a Bible-bashing redneck. It is too easily forgotten that Tony Blair deployed that word first, in a Newsweek article on the Balkan war in 1999, long before the atrocities of September 11. The Prime Minister's robust Christian convictions and his readiness to take military action have always been intimately linked in his own mind. He does not see himself as a crusader in any aggressive sense; but there is no doubt that he seeks authorisation for war, as well as personal spiritual solace, in the Gospels.
For this reason, yesterday's meeting was unique in British political history. Mr Blair is not the first prime minister to be so honoured: Churchill, for example, had an audience with Pius XII in August 1944. "Not only did the Papal Guard in all their stately array line the long series of ante-rooms and galleries through which we passed," he later recalled with relish, "but the Noble Guards, formed of representatives of the highest and most ancient families of Rome, with a magnificent medieval uniform I had never seen before, were present."
Churchill discussed the evils of Communism with the Supreme Pontiff, and as he left, quoted, with some emotion, a passage from Macaulay's essay on Ranke's History of the Papacy. But that meeting was held towards the end of a war, rather than on the eve of one. And, however moved Churchill was by the splendour of the Vatican, he did not go in search of spiritual endorsement, or to engage in theological argument. Officially, yesterday's audience was a courtesy extended privately to the Prime Minister's family by the Vatican because of Mrs Blair's devout Catholicism. In practice, it was an event crackling with doctrinal and political significance.
A"crime against humanity": those are the forthright words chosen by John Paul II to characterise the coming war with Iraq, which he told Mr Blair yesterday would create "new divisions in the world". Last weekend, His Holiness met Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's Roman Catholic deputy, while the papal envoy, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray held talks with the Iraqi dictator himself in Baghdad (Saddam ranted about the racism of the West).
The Pope was, it should not be forgotten, strongly opposed to the last Gulf War in 1991, which he foretold would have "certainly disastrous consequences". George Weigel, his most authoritative biographer, observes diplomatically that "the Vatican's performance in the Gulf War crisis between August 1990 and March 1991 did not meet the high standards set in the previous twelve years of the pontificate." Indeed not.
Yet the Pope, a veteran of the Polish wartime resistance and a lionhearted enemy of Communism, is no weak-willed peacenik. Quite the opposite, in fact: he knows better than any of the West's current crop of political leaders what war really entails. I imagine that the soft-spoken opposition of this towering figure troubles Mr Blair much more deeply than the hostility of the million or so voters who marched through London eight days ago: this weekend, there is only one Pole he is worrying about.
The extent of the Prime Minister's attraction to Roman Catholicism remains a matter of controversy. Downing Street was furious in 1998 when the Press Association revealed that he had been attending Mass at Westminster Cathedral on his own. Cardinal Hume wasn't too thrilled either by what appeared to be doctrinal dilettantism. On the Anglican side, it was claimed that the Prime Minister, as an alleged crypto-Catholic, could not make sound appointments to the episcopal bench. I recall an unswervingly Protestant minister seething to me at the time that his boss's decision to take Catholic Communion was "unconscionable": as so often over the centuries, London murmured of a "Popish plot".
Number 10 tried desperately to close the story down: one of the most menacing phone calls I have ever taken from Downing Street was from a spin doctor convinced The Sunday Telegraph was going to disclose an alleged discussion between Mr Blair and a Catholic priest. In short, I would be amazed if the Prime Minister converts to Rome while he is in office. But there is no doubt that he is powerfully drawn to the certainties and liturgy of Catholicism (and to its canon law: visitors to his study have been startled on occasion to see a well-thumbed copy of Paul VI's bull on human reproduction, Humanae Vitae). So yesterday's audience will have been freighted with personal significance for Mr Blair as a station on his own private pilgrimage.
Downing Street insists that the Prime Minister has a "clear conscience" on Iraq, and that may well be so. But that clarity has been hard won. According to one Cabinet Minister, the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time towards the end of last year wrestling with the prospect of war and convincing himself that it was just. "It was very private," the minister told me, "and very intense." The joke among his officials before Christmas was that it was easier to engage the Prime Minister's interest on the nuances of St Thomas Aquinas than on the detail of public service reform.
There has always been a strongly Christian strain in the British Labour movement, of course, but one which has emphasised the duty of the believer to avert war at almost any cost. Labour pacifism and CND have their roots in Christian socialism. The theologian to whom Mr Blair says he owes most, John MacMurray (1891-1976), offers little comfort to the politician about to commit troops to battle. "We went into war in a blaze of idealism," wrote MacMurray of his experience in the Somme and at Arras. "We learned that war was simply stupidity, destruction, waste and futility."
The Prime Minister's faith has led him to a quite different, more muscular position on the morality of conflict. "Christianity is a very tough religion," he wrote in 1993. "It is judgmental. There is right and wrong. There is good and bad." In an interview with this newspaper in 2001, he avowed his belief in "the necessity to make judgments about the human condition" and drew an explicit connection between that conviction and his conduct during the Kosovo crisis. There is, in fact, a consistent recoil from appeasement in what he has said about Christianity over the years.
When I interviewed him in 1996 on his religious beliefs, he dwelt upon Pontius Pilate as "the archetypal politician, caught on the horns of an age-old political dilemma ... his is the struggle between what is right and what is expedient that has occurred throughout history". Amongst the precedents cited by Mr Blair in that interview was the Munich Agreement - a "classic example", in Blair's own judgment, of the great ethical choices which face politicians. His point was that Chamberlain, in treating with Hitler, had chosen expediency over moral rectitude, with appalling consequences.
Mr Blair made that observation to me sprawled on an ancient sofa in the Leader of the Opposition's office at the House of Commons. He spoke with the excitement that must have filled his all-night debates as an undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, with the Australian priest Peter Thomson. It seems a very long time ago now. Could he possibly have imagined that, seven years later, he would be facing a similar decision, encouraged, as Chamberlain was by public and churchmen alike, to cut a deal with a terrible dictator? Has the image of Pilate washing his hands passed through his mind again as he has looked ahead to the gathering storm?
In the first months of the Iraqi crisis, the Prime Minister did his best to evade forthright debate on the matter. Wait and see what the United Nations resolves, he said. No decisions had been made, he insisted - even as Allied troops began to amass in the Gulf. Last weekend, however, Blair the Moralist finally emerged from behind Blair the Legalist and Blair the Diplomat.
Yes, the Prime Minister said, the proximate cause of the war, if it were fought, would be legal: Saddam's contempt for UN mandates would be the official casus belli. But there was an ethical dimension, he continued. "If the result of peace is Saddam staying in power, not disarmed, then I tell you there are consequences paid in blood for that decision too." The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and his Roman Catholic counterpart, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, parried swiftly with a joint statement questioning the "moral legitimacy" of the prospective campaign to dislodge Saddam and deploring its "unpredictable humanitarian and political consequences".
What is so depressing about this debate is its intellectual poverty. Those churchmen attacking Mr Blair over Iraq seem to do so primarily on procedural grounds. Echoing the archbishops' joint statement, Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, said on the BBC's Today programme on Thursday that the Prime Minister had not made a "morally persuasive case". The bishop went on to say, however, that if the UN passed a second resolution,"people like myself and the churches and the archbishops have to think seriously again".
So let's be clear: does this mean that what the Security Council says is somehow intrinsically "morally persuasive"? And that - in practice - Jacques Chirac now gets to decide what is a "just war", and what isn't? This is the topsy turvy logic employed by churchmen in this country, who seem to be abdicating their own responsibility to make moral decisions, expecting the Security Council to pronounce on ethical questions as the Holy See used to on behalf of all Christendom.
Interestingly, a much more vibrant debate on what constitutes a "just war" in the wake of September 11 is now under way in America. Michael Novak, the Catholic theologian, recently travelled to the Vatican to tell a sceptical audience that "a limited and carefully conducted war to bring about regime change in Iraq is, as a last resort, morally obligatory".
George Weigel, an acknowledged authority on the theology of the "just war" as well as the Pope's biographer, has argued that the development of weapons of mass destruction by rogues states linked to terrorist groups "requires us to develop and extend the just war tradition to meet the political exigencies of a new century" - namely, to encompass pre-emptive strikes.
Critical to St Augustine's theory of the "just war" is the duty to maintain the "peace of order" - the tranquilitas ordinis - and it is this which theologians such as Weigel claim is under grave threat from Iraq and other rogue states. Mr Blair, in contrast, focuses on the distinct Augustinian notion that Christian love may require force to protect the innocent. Thus, it is the neighbourly duty of the West to liberate the Iraqis from their captivity at the hands of Saddam: the war would be just because of the suffering it would end.
The Vatican is not yet convinced by any of this. Soon after the destruction of the World Trade Center, a papal spokesman speculated that the atrocity showed that "an action of active prevention" against a terrorist force could be doctrinally justified. However, Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Church's supreme doctrinal body - has since ruled with pitiless clarity that there is no basis in the Church's Catechism for the concept of "pre-emptive war".
Abstruse as this may sound, it is the sort of thing the Prime Minister thinks about all the time. Alastair Campbell has more or less banned his boss from discussing religious matters in public, but that has not diminished their importance to him by a jot, or discouraged his impressive theological literacy. Yesterday's meeting was much more than an exercise in protocol. Mr Blair let it be known in advance of the audience that he was "not going to try to change [the Pope's] mind", but we can take that claim with a pillar of salt. In every phrase, spoken and unspoken, this was an attempt by a fervently Christian politician to convince the most influential Christian leader on earth that war against Saddam is needed.
In this, the Prime Minister failed, as he must have expected he would. The Pope is not easily persuaded to alter his view. But he respects the limits of his own power, too. Paragraph 2309 of the Catholic Church's Catechism is unambiguous: "The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy [of a just war] belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good." Or to put it more crudely: if politicians want to go to war, then, in the end, it's up to them. The Prime Minister was surely deep in thought as he left the Vatican yesterday. For what His Holiness made clear to him was not only that he was wrong about Iraq, but that he was on his own. It is for the crusader-prince to decide what to do, in prayer, in silence, in the long watches of the night. That is the way of things: render unto Blair that which is Blair's.
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Just a Job: Trampling Civil Liberties in New York
Excerpts from a letter by Bethany Yarrow
Photos by Tanya Gingerich
February 23, 2003
Orion Online
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/sidebars/Patriotism/index_Yarrow.html
"Of course the people don't want war... That is understood. But... it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials, 1946 from "Nuremberg Diary," by G. M. Gilbert.
I went to the rally on February 15th in New York City. At least I tried to go. Subway service to Manhattan from Brooklyn on the "L" line had been cut, so we had to take the car over the bridge and then the 6 train to 42nd Street. We tried to make our way towards the UN, but the police, in full riot regalia, had cordoned off all entrances to the rally and would not let people east of 3rd Ave. It was my mistake to assume that, despite the new Patriot Act, we still retained the right of assembly.
With these thoughts I now find myself in the midst of tens of thousands of people who are trying to get to the rally, but we are all corralled like sheep and split up into groups of a thousand or so on each block all the way to 87th street on 2nd and 3rd avenues, looking at lines of helmeted troopers with billy clubs in their hands, protecting their barricades at each corner.
Although the streets and avenues have all been blocked, we, the penned-in protesters, are incredibly calm and non- confrontational, under the circumstances and given the fact our civil liberties have just been reduced to levels reminiscent of, oh... the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in the mid-80s. (This was confirmed by my Chilean husband, Sebastian, who was flabbergasted and outraged. It brought him back to memories of the good old days of living in a police state.)
Now there is absolutely nowhere to go, (other than west... I forgot to say that you were only allowed to move west, AWAY from the rally...) and we have been standing in the freezing cold for an hour and a half waiting for who knows what, when the police start coming at us with their horses trying to get us to clear the streets -- but now they are pushing us EAST, into their own barricades; and of course there is nowhere to move because they have blocked all the streets. So now they start backing the horses up into us, (or, I should say, me, as I am in the first row of people).
Sebastian starts screaming and grabbing at me so that I won't get trampled; my friend Tanya is terrified, but trying to take pictures for her journalism class at Columbia of the horses' rear-ends and hoofs and this blond cop, up on his steed, whose face is twisted into a knot of rage and aggression.
I'm not hurt, but Sebastian gets stepped on by the horses and is now screaming in pain; and I am in shock. The crowd starts chanting "shame, shame"... and I look into the eyes of officer D'Angelo who is all red, breathing hard and has tears in his eyes, and I say "Shame, shame on you". And he, trying not to cry, says, "It's just a job, I'm only doing my job."
So, for those of you who told me that the rally was amazing, I am glad to hear it. But on 3rd Avenue it was clear that we are no longer living in a world, or a country, at peace; and for the first time in my life I am afraid not just of war, but of my own government, for the utter disrespect of those who have their hands on the reins of power, for us -- the people they supposedly represent -- and for our basic liberties.
Call me naive, or someone who has failed to see the writing on the wall, but this is news to me. I have always taken my so-called "freedoms" for granted. At least the freedom to say what I think, go where I want, and disagree as I wish.
I'm sorry, but I was born in New York City. Mayor David Dinkins married me. The streets, the sidewalks and the very air of this city are more than just a place where I live, they are what I am. September 11th happened here, in my city, but it is no longer September 11th. And that tragedy is not, and will never be, an excuse to cordon me off like a sheep and trample me with horses.
I am furious. And I will be damned if I am going to let some failed oil executive from my alma mater change this world into an unrecognizable place of hatred and revenge. This is how 100 year wars are started, like the kind I studied in high school. And I do not want to have to one day say to my son, or daughter, "Once upon a time there was peace... before curfews, before retaliatory bombingss, before we all lived in a constant state of fear...."
The war against Iraq will not just be a war over there, it will be a war here too. And it will destroy the things we hold so dear. Especially this thing called liberty, which represents so much of what I am -- and what New York is -- embedded in its streets and sidewalks, the very smell of its air.
New Yorkers, you will know what I am talking about.
Bethany Yarrow is a singer and songwriter, living, working, and loving in New York City. Responses to Bethany's letter can be viewed at
www.bethanyyarrow.com
Photographer Tanya Gingerich studies journalism at New York's Columbia University.
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NBC News
MEET THE PRESS
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Transcript for Feb. 23
Guests:
Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Chairman, Defense Policy Board;
Representative Dennis Kucinich, (D-0hio);
Representative Richard Gephardt, (D-Mo.)Presidential Contender
MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert - NBC News
This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed. In case of doubt, please check with
MEET THE PRESS - NBC NEWS
(202)885-4598
(Sundays: (202)885-4200)
MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: What are the risks, the costs, the consequences of a war with Iraq? Should we use military force to remove Saddam Hussein? Yes, says Richard Perle, the chairman of the Pentagon Defense Policy Board. No, says Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Perle and Kucinich square off.
Then, another Democrat has formally announced for president:
(Videotape):
REP. DICK GEPHARDT, (D-MO): I'm going to fight for you and I'm going to win!
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: An exclusive Sunday morning interview with Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt.
But first, Americans and the world are increasingly debating and divided over a potential war in Iraq.
With us, two men with very different views: Richard Perle, Dennis Kucinich.
Welcome, both.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH, (D-OH): Thank you.
MR. RICHARD PERLE: Thank you.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me start, Congressman Kucinich, by showing you the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. I'll show it to you on the board: "...It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq..." October 5, 1998, that passed by a vote of 360-to-38. You voted for it. President Clinton signed it. Isn't that exactly what President Bush is trying to do?
REP. KUCINICH: Well, I want to thank you for pointing out I'm not here as a friend of Saddam Hussein. At the same time it doesn't follow that we should conduct what is, in effect, a pre-emptive war, making an effort to try to seize Iraq. I think the United Nations inspection process can work.Containment has worked. We should continue on that path. This war is not necessary and, furthermore, this administration has not made a credible case for war.
MR. RUSSERT: But the Iraq Liberation Act that you voted for says "support efforts to remove the regime." Is containment removing the regime?
REP. KUCINICH: Well, I think...
MR. RUSSERT: How would you remove Saddam Hussein?
REP. KUCINICH: I think the way that the international community can best function today is to make sure that Saddam Hussein is contained. I don't-I stand for the security of the United States. But you know-or, rather, you may know, that if the United States goes ahead and attacks Iraq, it's sure to make this country less secure. It's sure to create more terrorism in this country and make this country a focal point of terrorist attacks. That's why the code orange was brought up by the administration. I think we need to continue on the path of containment, continue on the path of inspections and avoid this war. That resolution that passed in 1998, as you know, was not a declaration of war; it was a statement of intent of the Congress to support efforts to thwart the administration of Saddam Hussein, but it wasn't a call for war against the Iraqi people.
MR. RUSSERT: It wasn't "thwart"; it was "remove the regime." Are you still in favor of removing Saddam Hussein from power?
REP. KUCINICH: Oh, Saddam Hussein should be removed from power.
MR. RUSSERT: How would you do it?
REP. KUCINICH: But not by military force.
MR. RUSSERT: How would you do it?
REP. KUCINICH: I think the way that you do it is continue to use sanctions which thwart his efforts to grow. We've contained him. He doesn't have nuclear weapons. We do not know if he has biological and chemical weapons. That's going to be up to the U.N. inspectors to be able to determine if they're usable. The idea of Saddam Hussein continuing in power is something that I think most Americans support-can be removed. The question is: What is the most effective way to thwart Hussein? And I don't believe the most effective way is war. I think that will only make him a martyr and will cause the United States to be a target of terrorist attacks.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Perle, let me show you what Hans Blix, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, said on February 14. Let's listen:
(Videotape, February 14):
DR. HANS BLIX: How much, if any, is left of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programs? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions which should have been declared and destroyed.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: The chief weapons inspector saying his inspectors have not found anything. Is that a premise to go to war?
MR. PERLE: Well, of course they haven't found anything. They don't know where to look and they can't know where to look because Saddam Hussein has had more than four years to hide things that the U.N. inspectors in 1998 documented as having been created-chemical weapons, biological weapons, a great number of military systems. Hans Blix and the inspectors are there to verify Saddam's disarmament. They're not there to scour a country the size of France, hoping that they will unearth hidden stores of these weapons. So it's not surprising that he has found nothing. In fact, Tim, the right thing for Hans Blix to have done when Saddam handed over a false declaration was to say, "There's no role for the inspectors because we are here to verify his claims to having removed the weapons and he has not explained when or how or where he removed those weapons."
MR. RUSSERT: But in terms of the world, in the court of public opinion, which amazingly, Saddam Hussein seems to have been winning in recent weeks with people in the street, millions around the world, wouldn't it be helpful if the inspectors could find some form of weapons of mass destruction to hold up and say they still have them?
MR. PERLE: I don't believe the inspectors will, and Saddam knows that. You know, from time to time, the view has been expressed that there's more cooperation now because the inspectors are being allowed to visit various sites. It all reminds me of the Red Cross, which was invited to visit one of the concentration camps in World War II at Theresienstadt. It was a complete Potemkin village. For the brief moments that the Red Cross was there inspecting, everyone was happy, there was a symphony orchestra. It was a fraud. And what we are seeing now is management by Saddam Hussein. We've heard the tapes. We've heard the Iraqis talking to each other about making sure there's nothing to be found when the inspectors arrive. It's not cooperation for the inspectors to visit these sites. It's playing right into Saddam's repeated consistent policy of deception.
MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Kucinich, let me show you Hans Blix's actual report on January 27 of this year. He went on to say: "The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized. UNMOVIC, the inspectors, however, has information that conflicts with this account." Blix went on to say: "...the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasion"-and I come back to it, referring to the Security Council- "is an important one. Iraq has declared it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which, it states, it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence of its destruction." Then Blix concluded: "The discovery of a number of 122 millimeter chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at the storage depot 170 kilometers southwest of Baghdad was much-publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past two years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions."
So, Blix is suggesting very strongly that it is his view that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction, and in fact, inspectors have found the Al-Samoud missiles, whose range is farther than Saddam agreed to in his surrender terms of 1991. Blix has said the Iraqis must destroy those missiles. If they do not destroy those missiles that have an illegal range, is that worth going to war over?
REP. KUCINICH: I think we have to take every step to make sure that Saddam Hussein is disarmed. And that's what the inspections are about. And I think that it's important for the United Nations to assert its authority in that. And I think that there may come a point where if Saddam Hussein is continuing to be non-cooperative-and the world community has to make a decision. But I would say that up to this point, that no case has been made that would justify this nation going to war against Iraq. And it has to be said, that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, to-there's no credible connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, 9/11, and there's no connection between Iraq and the anthrax attack on this country, notwithstanding the anthrax that Secretary Powell held up before the united Nations. So I don't believe that the case has been made for war. There is a case for continued inspections and U.N. involvement.
MR. RUSSERT: But the U.N. weapons inspector has said to Iraq you must destroy the Al-Samoud missiles because their range is too far, by some 140 miles. If the Iraqis refuse to do that, would you then use military force in order to make sure they did it?
REP. KUCINICH: I think that you always have to keep the option open for world security, to make sure that any nation that stands outside the world community understands that it has to conform to the requirements of security for the world. However, to automatically say that that means that you launch into a war, that doesn't follow. Diplomacy involves taking measured steps. And I think that this administration, and the United Nations, can still go quite a distance before a case can be made that there is no other option but war. I do not support war.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Perle, Mr. Kucinich raised the whole relationship of al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. No linkage to September 11 by Saddam Hussein. Vice President Cheney on this program on September 16 said Saddam was not involved on September 11. Tom Friedman in The New York Times wrote a column the other day, and let me show it to you: "I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution"-during the Vietnam War. "You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie."
Do you believe, or can you demonstrate, any sure connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda?
MR. PERLE: With all due respect to Tom Friedman and Congressman Kucinich, there is a lot of evidence of relationships between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda, a lot of evidence. We know that they have entered into agreements with one another, something that has been characterized as a non-aggression agreement, but it's really a mutual assistance agreement. We know that al-Qaeda operatives have been trained in Iraq by Iraqis. And there is still additional evidence involving meetings and arrangements and substantial numbers of operatives. So...
MR. RUSSERT: Is that in northern Iraq, which is controlled by the Kurds?
MR. PERLE: Not only in northern Iraq, the training took place at Salman Pot, a training facility in Iraq.
Could I just say that Congressman Kucinich is in danger of becoming rather like the United Nations. The United Nations has on 17 occasions demanded that Saddam Hussein give up these weapons. Congressman Kucinich signed the Iraq Liberation Act, voted for it, to which you referred. The U.N. has failed to carry forward on its own declarations, and Congressman Kucinich now is unwilling to put teeth in the resolution he signed.
The test for the United Nations, and for everyone who signed the Iraq Liberation Act, is a test of seriousness. Are these just empty words? Because if they're empty words, it's very clear. Saddam Hussein is going to remain in power. He will continue to develop weapons of mass destruction. He will continue to brutalize his own people, and pose a threat to us and the rest of the world.
REP. KUCINICH: If I may, there is no evidence that Iraq represents an imminent threat to the United States. There is plenty of evidence which suggests that if the United States attacks Iraq, that we will make this country less safe, not more safe. And if the mere non-compliance with U.N. resolutions is a cause for war, the U.N. is going to be very busy conducting war in other areas of the world. Furthermore, it must be stated, that if the possession of any weapons of mass destruction constitutes a case for war, that there are at least 12 nations that have or are trying to possession nuclear technology, 20 nations with biological weapons technology, 26 nations with chemical weapons technology, and about 17 nations with missile technology. So we have-we're in a-we live in a world of uncertainty and danger. We must make sure we do not make it more dangerous with policies when we haven't been able to make a credible case for war against Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Why is Iraq unique in your mind?
MR. PERLE: Well, Iraq is not unique, but Iraq was defeated in 1991. It entered into a cease-fire agreement in which it promised to remove the weapons of mass destruction. It has failed to do so. It is now a dozen years later and he continues to defy the United Nations. Congressman Kucinich's policy is a policy of paralysis, and it hands victory to those dictators, the Saddam Husseins of the world, who will refuse stubbornly to accept any international order. The U.N. Resolution 1441 was very clear. It gave Saddam a last chance. It said there would be serious consequences. He doesn't want serious consequences. He wants to wish and hope that somehow this will all end well if we do nothing, if we continue to be paralyzed.
REP. KUCINICH: Tim, I have to say this, that I voted on September 12 of 2001 to give the president authority to be able to respond to the attacks on this country. I think this nation has a right to defend itself, but Iraq did not attack this nation and that has to be said over and over. It did not attack this nation. And building a cause for war against Iraq is something the administration has tried to do but frankly it hasn't done it very effectively.
MR. PERLE: Excuse me, the lesson of September 11 was that you shouldn't have been voting on September 12 because we should have acted against al-Qaeda before that. We saw the camps. We heard the communications. We knew that they were planning additional acts of terror as they had undertaken previous acts of terror. And we waited. We failed to take action in a timely manner and the congressman is now saying that we have to wait.
REP. KUCINICH: Are you saying that to be critical of President Bush? Is that what you're saying?
MR. PERLE: I'm critical of the failure to recognize the threat that Osama bin Laden posed before- everything we did after September 11 could have been done before September 11. But if we had proposed doing that, I have no doubt the congressman would say, "There's no evidence. There's no imminent threat."
REP. KUCINICH: Would you attack North Korea right now? I mean, they have nuclear weapons. They're a leader. North Korea is uncertain.
MR. PERLE: I think North Korea poses another very serious challenge because if they begin to produce nuclear weapons in the facility that they promised they would not, they will have nuclear weapons available for sale, and I don't know how the congressman feels, but if we saw that the North Koreans were about to sell a nuclear weapon to suicidal terrorists who might detonate it in New York or Washington, I think we'd have to take some action, don't you?
REP. KUCINICH: Tim, I think...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you take military action if North Korea was about to sell nuclear weapons?
REP. KUCINICH: Well, actually Pakistan has sold nuclear technology against North Korea. We're not taking action against Pakistan.
MR. RUSSERT: But would you take military action against North Korea if they were selling nuclear weapons?
REP. KUCINICH: I would take military action if the United States was attacked by another nation. I will say this, though.
MR. PERLE: It's too late at that point.
REP. KUCINICH: Excuse me. I will say this, that the administration is using diplomacy to deal with North Korea. Well, it can use diplomacy to deal with Iraq since North Korea does have nuclear weapons and Iraq does not.
MR. RUSSERT: Congressman, you made a very strong charge against the administration and let me show you what you said on January 19. "Why is the Administration targeting Iraq? Oil." What do you base that on?
REP. KUCINICH: I base that on the fact that there is $5 trillion worth of oil above and in the ground in Iraq, that individuals involved in the administration have been involved in the oil industry, that the oil industry certainly would benefit from having the administration control Iraq, and that the fact is that, since no other case has been made to go to war against Iraq, for this nation to go to war against Iraq, oil represents the strongest incentive.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe the president of the United States would risk the lives of American men and women for oil?
REP. KUCINICH: I think that to answer that question would be to put a focus on a person, and I think the policy is what we have to talk about, that this policy to go against Iraq was promulgated even before 9/11, and the day after 9/11, the secretary of Defense in a meeting of the National Security Council said we could use this moment to go after Iraq, even though there was no connection. I think that when a president commits the young men and women of this country to battle, that it should only be when there is an imminent threat to this country, and that-I believe most sincerely that one of the motivating factors involved in this effort to strike against Iraq is the desire on the part of some to be able to control the oil interests in Iraq. I believe that.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Perle, there's been discussion about the role of Israel and the formulation of American foreign policy regarding Iraq. Let me show you an article from The Washington Times, written by Arnold DeBorograf: "The strategic objective is the antithesis of Middle Eastern stability. The destabilization of 'despotic regimes' comes next. In the Arab bowling alley, one ball aimed at Saddam is designed to achieve a 10-strike that would discombobulate authoritarian and/or despotic regimes in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Emirates and sheikhdoms. The ultimate phase would see Israel surrounded by democratic regimes that would provide 5 million Israelis-soon to be surrounded by 300 million Arabs-with peace and security for at least a generation. ...The roots of the overall strategy can be traced to a paper published in 1996 by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank. the document was titled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Security the Realm.' ...Israel, according to the 1996 paper, would 'shape its strategic environment,' beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein... ...Prominent American opinion-makers who are now senior members of the Bush administration participated in the discussions and the drafting that led to this 1996 blueprint."
Can you assure American viewers across our country that we're in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?
MR. PERLE: Well, first of all, the answer is absolutely yes. Those of us who believe that we should take this action if Saddam doesn't disarm-and I doubt that he's going to-believe it's in the best interests of the United States. I don't see what would be wrong with surrounding Israel with democracies; indeed, if the whole world were democratic, we'd live in a much safer international security system because democracies do not wage aggressive wars.
But please allow me to say: I find the accusation that this administration has embarked upon this policy for oil to be an outrageous, scurrilous charge for which, when you asked for the evidence, you will note there was none. There was simply the suggestion that, because there is oil in the ground and some administration officials have had connections with the oil industry in the past, therefore, it is the policy of the United States to take control of Iraqi oil. It is a lie, Congressman. It is an out and out lie. And I'm sorry to see you give credence to it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me...
REP. KUCINICH: I want to answer that. And that is that I think all over America, people are aware this administration has not made a case to go to war in Iraq. And people are asking, "Well, if America is not at threat, then what's this about?" And many people are wondering: "How did our oil get under their sand?"
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Perle, Wesley Clark, the former NATO allied commander, was on this program last week and he said this is not a necessary war, it's an elective war. And then he went on to talk about some of the things the president has to say and do in the coming weeks. Will the president, should the president, talk to the American people about what will happen inside Iraq if there is a war, with the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds? Will it come apart? What will happen in the Arab streets, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia? What will happen in Pakistan? What happens if Saddam Hussein launches a chemical weapon at Israel? What do the Israelis do? What will be the costs, the consequences, the fallout? How long will we be there? How expensive will it be? Will we be perceived as conquerors or liberators? When do you think the president should take the American people through this in an orderly and thoughtful way?
MR. PERLE: Well, I think he's done it in bits and pieces up until now. I'm sure there'll be a more comprehensive presentation, if it comes to war, on the eve of that war. Nobody can say precisely what's going to happen in the turbulence of a war, but there is a positive vision. Wes Clark is besieged by doubts and questions. He is after-running for president, so-but let me say that the positive view is that the liberation of Iraq will free the Iraqi people from what has been a nightmare and we will hear from the Iraqi people once they are liberated about what life has been like. We will also find the weapons of
mass destruction when Iraq has been liberated, so that has the potential significantly to change the climate.
MR. RUSSERT: And you're convinced we will find Saddam Hussein?
MR. PERLE: Well, I don't know whether we'll find Saddam, but if Saddam is separated from his police state, he's of no consequence. I believe that there is a very good chance that in the aftermath of Saddam's removal, we will see the beginnings of a democratic Iraq, and that has the potential to transform the thinking of people around the world about the potential for democracy, even in Arab countries where people have been disparaging of their potential for democracy.
MR. RUSSERT: Congressman, same question, do you believe the president should come forward and talk about the risks, the consequences, the challenges of a war with Iraq and the costs and how long we'll be there?
REP. KUCINICH: Well, I think it's important that he do so. When you had his former economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, stating a war could cost $200 billion, when you have Professor Nordhouse, a Yale economist, saying the cost could be anywhere from $99 billion to over a trillion dollars, I think it's important for the president to explain how he intends to meet the domestic needs of this country, for education, for health care, for repair of our infrastructure and at the same time conduct a war. I think people are going to want to know, how can we give Turkey $26 billion to buy a vote and their support when we can't meet our domestic needs?
This war will have a devastating effect on our domestic economy. It will cost us jobs; it won't gain jobs. It will hurt our ability to meet the needs of our country, and I think the president of the United States has a responsibility to tell the American people, especially since it cannot be demonstrated that Iraq represents an imminent threat to this country, why we should be willing to sacrifice not only our men and women, the treasure of our nation, but also our national economic priorities to go to war against Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, you announced you're running for the Democratic presidential nomination this week, and you made an announcement that caused a lot of eyebrows to be raised about abortion. You've been pro-life your entire career, over a 90 percent approval rating from the National Right to Life Committee, a 0 from NARL, the National Abortion Rights League, and then suddenly you announce for president and turned on a dime and said, "I'm pro-choice on this issue." This is what the National Right to Life Committee had to say: "On February 16, 2003 Mr. Kucinich announced he would henceforth protect 'abortion rights.' Clearly, Dennis Kucinich has abandoned the 'little guy'-and the 'little girl'-out of fear of the influence of extreme pro-abortion special interest groups in the Democratic Party's presidential nomination process."
If you were to change so quickly on the issue of abortion, a moral issue, why shouldn't people question whether you may change your views or Iraq for political expediency?
REP. KUCINICH: Well, first of all, Tim, I didn't change on a dime. Last year, in the last Congress, there were votes where I experienced my concern about the direction that this debate has been going. This is a very difficult issue for Americans, and I've taken a lot of time to think about it. And when I was out on the campaign trail and I was asked the question and I answered, that answer reflected years of thinking and some changes in votes that occurred over the last year. I tried to take a position which is supportive of life through supporting sex education and birth control so you don't have as many abortions and at the same time supporting prenatal care and post-natal care and child care in order to make sure life is preserved.
But I will say this, that under our Constitution, a woman does have a right to choose, and I stated that and I believe it. And I've never, Tim, I have never been for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade, even though when I was pressed about it earlier in my career. I have never taken that position, so the position I'm taking now is an expansion; it's not a reversal. It's not an attempt to, at the beginning of a presidential campaign, just flip. I made that decision long before I even thought about running for president.
MR. RUSSERT: Will you now vote to allow partial-birth abortions?
REP. KUCINICH: The vote that I took the last time was a present vote because the administration's proposition was to ignore a Supreme Court ruling. I'm going to support...
MR. RUSSERT: But the one before that was against partial-birth abortion.
REP. KUCINICH: I voted-the first vote I had, Tim, I voted to...
MR. RUSSERT: OK. Well, how will you vote now if it came for a vote?
REP. KUCINICH: Let me finish. The first vote I had, I voted to curtail it. The second time it came back, the Supreme Court had already ruled that that vote, the previous vote, was unconstitutional, that we have to regard that a woman's health must be protected. And I supported that in the Baldwin amendment, and when it came to a final vote, the Republicans basically said we don't care what the Constitution says, we're going to make sure that women have to follow what we say, regardless of whether their health is in jeopardy. So what I feel is, we need to try to reconcile this country on this issue. This is a very divisive...
MR. RUSSERT: Can a pro-life Democrat be nominated by the Democratic Party for president?
REP. KUCINICH: I think that the Democratic Party will support candidates who have the ability to be able to grow and evolve, and you can look at people who believe in what life and try to find ways of supporting their concerns, and look at people who want to support a woman's right to choose and say that their concerns can be supported, too. One of the problems in this country is that we've created a split that says we cannot reconcile people on this issue. And I think there's a way to do it, and anyone who wants to be president of the United States has to be a healer, not a divider.
MR. RUSSERT: We will be watching. Dennis Kucinich, Richard Perle, thank you very much.
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