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NUCLEAR
Australian government urged to act over depleted uranium weapons
Iraq is chance for U.S. to fix its relations
Questions Over Aluminum Tube Shipment
Leading Iraqi Scientist Says He Lied to U.N. Inspectors
Two Koreas Begin High-Level Nuclear Talks
US plans 'Cuba lite' blockade on North Korea
S.Korea Tells North to Scrap Nuclear Program
Revealed: the moment Bush pulled war trigger
U.S. Officials Spar Over N. Korea
The Battle Lines Start in Washington
MILITARY
GERMANY - Executive questioned on N. Korea sale
MP may be tried as traitor
Blair Urges U.S., Europe to Forge 'One Polar Power'
Halliburton: All In The Family
Shultz denies role in Bechtel's Iraq deal
U.S. troops detect lethal chemicals in drum of liquid
US Testing Chemicals Found in Northern Iraq -Report
Germany and France to water down defence plan
Iran Tries to Avoid Row with U.S. Over Iraq
Iraqis Lash Out Over Deaths at Arms Dump
U.S. Says Turks Are Smuggling Arms Into Northern Iraq City
Ties between al Qaeda, Saddam revealed
Airfield, missiles, suspects seized
An Air War of Might, Coordination and Risks
Was Tariq Aziz the coalition's mole?
CIA spirits away Aziz to secret site
Dressed Up Amid Disorder, Unarmed Officers Stand Idle
Israel to hold first issue of U.S.-backed bonds in July 2003
U.S. Wants to Keep Persian Gulf Presence
Pakistan Seizes Huge Arms Cache Near Afghan Border
Vieques ready to celebrate Navy's exit
Russia's Putin pledges stronger Tajik ties but warns of drug flow
Company Man
Cleaning House
Army shakeups clear path for Rumsfeld's vision
U.S. Wants to Keep Persian Gulf Presence
American Power Moves Beyond the Mere Super
Rulers of the air
OUT ON THE EDGE
Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies
Galloway: 'Now I'm certain ... all these documents are forged'
Galloway: I'm the victim of Blair's revenge
The spooky provenance of the smoking gun that backfired
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
It Won't Just Go Away
Explosion hits Indonesian airport
Instruction and Methods From Al Qaeda Took Root in North Iraq
ACTIVISTS
Protesting 'Patriots'
A Flashback to the 60's for an Antiwar Protester
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Australian government urged to act over depleted uranium weapons
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Australian Broadcasting
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s840836.htm
The Australian Democrats are calling on the Government to pursue an international ban on the use of depleted uranium (DU) in weaponry.
The United States admitted in March, before the war in Iraq began, that it would use ammunitions tipped with depleted uranium in combat.
Democrats defence spokesman Senator Andrew Bartlett says the Government should commit to monitoring all Australian gulf veterans over the next decades.
He says the Government should follow the UK's lead in offering troops testing for depleted uranium.
"And we think that's a clear cut first step, in the same way that Australia has said that we're not using cluster bombs, we should be similarly putting pressure such as the US and the UK to not use such damaging weaponry," he said.
"It's a simple thing to move away from depleted uranium as well," he said.
-------- europe
Iraq is chance for U.S. to fix its relations
By Louis R. Golino
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 27, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030427-84959400.htm
Winning the peace in Iraq provides policy-makers with a key opportunity to try to repair the rift in U.S.-European relations, say leading U.S. and European analysts who spoke recently at the Brookings Institution.
They added that in addition to working together to build postwar Iraq, American and European leaders should seek to develop a common approach to curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and deploy NATO peacekeepers to Iraq.
But at the same time, after the Iraq war and the rancorous diplomacy that preceded it, returning to the status quo in trans-Atlantic relations is not an option, said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Moreover, he said, both the United States and Europe must adjust to certain new realities,
The new realities include, Mr. Daalder said, the fact that "the trans-Atlantic relationship is no longer the central relationship either for Europe or for the United States."
Although there have been numerous crises in U.S.-European relations since World War II, the analysts agreed that trans-Atlantic relations reached their lowest point in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Mr. Daalder, for example, said he had never seen anything like the current rift, which he considers to be much more fundamental than previous crises in U.S.-European relations.
Growing strategic gap
Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued that the roots of today's trans-Atlantic difficulties lie in a growing strategic divergence between the two sides of the Atlantic.
Mr. Kagan said the key issue is the different ways Americans and Europeans view using force - Europe being much more reluctant to use force than the United States is. September 11, 2001, also widened the strategic gap between the two sides of the Atlantic because it was perceived differently in Europe than it was in the United States.
Europe, analysts say, does not believe that it is at war with terrorism and has not acted as decisively since September 11 to protect its homeland security as has the United States. European countries are, however, cooperating closely with Washington on counterterrorism.
In addition, during the run-up to the Iraq war, many commentators pointed out that European views on the conflict were rooted in perceptions of the unparalleled power of the United States. Many Europeans want to be close partners of the United States, while others - such as the French - think Europe should try to become a counterweight to the United States.
Mr. Kagan suggested that Europeans should not seek to counter U.S. power, an effort that will only divide and weaken them, and Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform, said the United States should not seek to divide Europe, because a weak Europe is not in American interests.
Weapons of mass destruction
Mr. Grant, who is a former defense editor of the Economist, said Europe should take weapons of mass destruction more seriously and be prepared, if necessary, to use force against states that have such capabilities.
On April 14 European Union foreign ministers for the first time discussed the issue of weapons of mass destruction and began developing a common policy on how the European Union should deal with countries that possess such weapons.
All the analysts at the Brookings forum agreed that Europe must enhance its military capabilities, and develop a strategic doctrine and shared-threat assessment.
Christoph Bertram, a well-known German foreign policy expert who is director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argued in favor of what is known in EU jargon as reinforced cooperation in the defense field.
He said the only way to start the European defense is to have France and Germany lead a group within the European Union that is likely to include many other EU countries.
European defense spending
Mr. Bertram agreed with the other speakers that Europeans must spend more on defense. He noted that Europeans spend roughly a half-billion euros a day on defense, while U.S. spending is twice that amount.
But he added that the European money is not spent well because of various redundancies within European defense industries and that to develop serious military capabilities EU members would have to pool their defense resources more effectively.
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg will hold their own defense summit in Brussels on Tuesday to develop a program similar to the one Mr. Bertram proposed.
The proposal for a core defense group has been described by some critics as a project that will divide the European Union because it involves four of the 15 member states.
In advance of the April 29 meeting, the same four countries called for substantial increases in European defense spending, particularly for modernizing equipment.
At the Brookings meeting, Mr. Grant suggested that EU nations strive to spend an average of 2.5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Some European countries spend less than 2 percent of GDP on defense.
NATO in Iraq
The Bush administration has asked NATO to consider sending peacekeeping troops to postwar Iraq.
Defense experts say there would be many benefits to a NATO deployment in Iraq. These include enabling the United States to share the burdens of postwar stabilization with its NATO allies.
A NATO role in Iraq would also help revitalize the alliance, which has been largely sidelined in the U.S.-led wars on Iraq and terrorism.
And as Mr. Daalder said at Brookings: NATO "knows how to do peacekeeping. It knows how to do stabilization. It knows it better than the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps or indeed anybody else."
Moreover, NATO has considerable experience coordinating peacekeeping missions that involve non-NATO countries, which would be useful in putting together a multinational peacekeeping force in Iraq.
Such a force is likely to be perceived by Iraqis and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world as more legitimate than a mostly U.S. military presence.
U.S. officials have also suggested that NATO might be tasked to oversee the disarmament of Iraq that the United Nations started.
France and NATO
The main obstacle to a NATO deployment in Iraq had been France's position that NATO's mandate should be limited to Europe.
France also raised objections to proposals from Germany and other alliance countries for NATO to take over the U.N.-mandated peacekeeping force in Kabul, Afghanistan, which is under German and Dutch command.
France recently dropped its opposition to NATO involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On April 16, all nineteen NATO allies agreed that beginning in August NATO will assume command of the Afghanistan mission, but the operation will not be under a NATO flag.
That will greatly improve the continuity of command arrangements for this force and will mark NATO's first deployment outside Europe. NATO is providing logistical support to the German and Dutch troops leading the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
France has recently sought to repair its badly frayed relations with the United States. For example, it has become more flexible on the issue of the role the United Nations will play in rebuilding Iraq, saying it would accept a phased-in U.N. role.
Germany and the United States
Germany has gone further than France in recent weeks to show how committed it is to repairing the rift in its relations with the Bush administration, according to news reports.
In addition, defense analysts point out that although Germany did not send any troops to Iraq, it has played an important role in that conflict, one second only to that of the Britain.
For example, Germany assigned a significant number of its police forces to protect U.S. military bases in Germany, deployed an anti-chemical-weapons unit to Kuwait, gave the United States overflight and basing rights, sent Patriot missiles and AWACS surveillance aircraft to Turkey, and might send peacekeepers to Iraq.
Germany has also said it is ready to replace Danish troops in Bosnia if the latter are deployed to Iraq as part of a Danish-led peacekeeping and stabilization force that the United States has requested, and that may also include troops from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Turkey, among other countries.
France and Germany opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq but are offering to work with the United States on the rebuilding, and political and economic reconstruction of postwar Iraq.
Both countries have also acknowledged that U.S. and coalition military forces would take the lead in the initial stabilization of postwar Iraq, as suggested by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in Brussels on April 3.
-------- germany
Questions Over Aluminum Tube Shipment
April 27, 2003
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/international/asia/27NUKE.html
HAMBURG, Germany, April 26 (Agence France-Presse) - Prosecutors in Germany confirmed today that one of the directors of a German company suspected of supplying aluminum tubes to North Korea's nuclear program had been detained for questioning.
The announcement came after the weekly magazine Der Spiegel said in its issue to be published on Monday that 24 tons of aluminum tubes, essential in the manufacture of enriched uranium, were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg in early April just as the German government vetoed the shipment.
The German government alerted the French authorities, who ordered the ship's captain to unload the containers in Egypt. The state prosecutor in the southwestern city of Stuttgart also confirmed that an investigation into a local company suspected of contravening foreign trade regulations had been opened.
-------- inspections
Leading Iraqi Scientist Says He Lied to U.N. Inspectors
April 27, 2003
The New York Times
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/international/worldspecial/27SCIE.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 26 - Nissar Hindawi, a leading figure in Iraq's biological warfare program in the 1980's, says the stories and explanations he and other scientists told the United Nations about the extent of Iraq's efforts to produce poisons and germ weapons "were all lies."
Dr. Hindawi, imprisoned during the final weeks of Saddam Hussein's rule, is now free to talk about his experiences in the program, in which he says he was forced to work from 1986 to 1989 and again sporadically until the mid-1990's.
Iraq, as it belatedly acknowledged, he says, "produced huge quantities" of liquid anthrax and botulinum toxin, which it concentrated 5 to 10 times with sulfuric acid and other preservatives.
"There were orders to destroy it," Dr. Hindawi said during interviews conducted today and on Friday. "They destroyed some - whether all or not, I can't say."
He said that while he worked in the program or was ordered to brief the inspectors on it, Iraq made 8.9 cubic meters of concentrated liquid anthrax, one of the deadliest and most durable germ weapons, and even larger quantities of botulinum toxin, one of the most lethal poisons.
Even so, he added, there is little need for concern if American military teams hunting for unconventional weapons stumble across such stockpiles. The arsenals would have degraded quickly, he maintains.
"Even if it's all kept until now, don't worry about it," he said.
In addition, he said, Iraq was never able to make dried anthrax, a medium that would have made the lethal spores far more durable and easier to disseminate. He thought he had devised a way to turn liquid anthrax into the even more lethal powder, he said, but he did not do it. "I kept the method secret," he said. "History would have cursed me."
Several United Nations inspectors questioned his assertion that Iraq had not made a powdered form of anthrax. They said that in 1989 Iraq imported two drying ovens that could have made powdered anthrax and that at least one other senior scientist in the program appeared to know the required techniques.
But Dr. Hindawi says that if Iraq made such a weapon, it did so after he left the scientific wing of the program in 1989.
Though he no longer had firsthand knowledge of the program after that, he said, he kept up on its progress through his students, some of whom stayed in the program until the war began last month. American officials are hunting for several, including Rihab Taha, the microbiologist who reportedly headed the germ weapons program and is known in the West as Dr. Death, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a senior scientist and Baath Party regional command member who is the only woman on America's most wanted list.
Although there has been no public word from American authorities on their whereabouts, Dr. Hindawi said that he had been told that both women were hiding in Syria, as other Iraqi scientists, Baath Party members and military officers are said to be. But he said he was not aware of Syrian-Iraqi cooperation on unconventional weapons. Iraqi scientists built their germ warfare program themselves, he said.
Dr. Hindawi, 61, is now in the protective custody of the Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi.
He painted a portrait of a biological warfare program that was riddled with bitter personality rivalries, sycophancy and corruption. He said he was originally dismissed in 1989 because he had personally complained to Mr. Hussein about fraud in the awarding of contracts in the program. He said Mr. Hussein appeared to agree with him, but did nothing because his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, was in charge of the program.
"He was very gentle with me," the scientist said. "He respected me."
Mr. Hussein allowed him to leave the program and return to his teaching and research post at Mustanserieh University, he said. But there was a catch: "He said, `If I need you, will you be available?' I said yes."
Nevertheless, he seemed bitter about his colleagues and former students in the program. He said he had been paid less than some of his assistants because he was not a permanent staff member and was still attached to the university.
"If you were a director's friend, you got paid more," he said. "If you were an important Baath Party figure, you got more."
Unlike the others, he said, he did not get a car, a house or land. "My salary was the lowest of any senior person in the program," he said.
Dr. Hindawi said he had had grave qualms about his work on germ warfare, despite the fact that Iraq was at war with Iran when he joined the program. He said he had never worked at his full capacity, but at 50 percent of his abilities.
He also says he secretly tried to get information about the illicit program to American authorities in 1994, an assertion that could not be confirmed today.
Some inspectors remain skeptical about whether Dr. Hindawi was really an unwilling participant in the program.
He returned to the program in a different capacity in 1992, when international inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission, or Unscom, were arriving to ensure that Iraqi officials were complying with their country's pledge to give up chemical, germ and nuclear weapons. He said military officials had asked him to tell inspectors that he was the head of a single-cell protein facility. The plant, in fact, had made botulinum toxin and anthrax.
He said he had had no choice but to lie, just as he had no choice but to work in the program. "It was that or else," he said.
Although he continued as an informal adviser, Dr. Hindawi said he was determined to try to leave Iraq for the United States, where, he said, he had spent 12 years at college and doing postgraduate work. To secure a Libyan visa, which he intended to use as a steppingstone, he said he turned over seven scientific papers to the Libyan Embassy to prove his scientific bona fides.
"The work was more than four years old," he said. "Libya didn't even have qualified high school teachers, so they could not have used the papers in a biological warfare program."
The Iraqis, contending that he was trying to share military secrets, imprisoned him for 17 months between 1997 and 1999. The only time he was permitted to leave prison was to meet with international inspectors, who kept asking to interview him.
Released in 1999, he said he had worked in his own private laboratory until he was summoned in late 2002 by Taha Yassin Ramadan, the Iraqi vice president, because a new group of inspectors asked to see him. He never met with them, he said, and he was rearrested in March.
Dr. Hindawi said he thought that his luck had finally run out when the Iraqi secret police pulled up to his laboratory on March 3, as the American-led war against Iraq was about to begin.
Accused of supporting the opposition, he was imprisoned again. "I was sure I was going to be killed," he said.
So were some of his American associates. Former international inspectors and American officials who monitor Iraq's germ weapons program said they thought that his name was on a list of scientists and others whom the government intended to eliminate in the event of war.
But the war that placed him in jeopardy ultimately saved him, Dr. Hindawi says. The officers guarding him fled when American forces cut communications between Baghdad and his jail. He hitchhiked home.
-------- korea
Two Koreas Begin High-Level Nuclear Talks
By SOO-JEONG LEE
Associated Press Writer
Apr 27, 2003 8:19 AM EDT
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOREAS_NUCLEAR?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A South Korean delegation traveled to its isolated neighbor on Sunday to insist that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Communist North Korea repeated that it would not halt its nuclear program unless the U.S. government signs a nonaggression treaty - something the Bush administration has refused to do.
The Pyongyang talks, scheduled to last until Tuesday, come amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula. The two sides met for nearly two hours Sunday.
South Korea's chief delegate, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, told North Korea that possession of nuclear weapons would be a "serious violation" of a 1992 agreement to keep the peninsula free of nuclear weapons, South Korean spokesman Shin Eun-sang said.
"We made it clear that we can never accept North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons," Shin said. "We emphasized that the North should dismantle nuclear weapons, if it had any, as well as its nuclear facilities."
North Korean negotiators did not confirm whether they had nuclear weapons, saying only they had made a "new, bold" proposal to U.S. officials during talks last week in Beijing, Shin said.
In a meeting between the United States and North Korea in Beijing last week, a senior U.S. official said North Korea claimed to have atomic weapons that it might test, sell or use, depending on U.S. actions.
In a commentary carried by North Korean radio, Pyongyang's official daily Rodong Sinmun said the North was determined to arm itself with "a physical means of deterrence" because the United States refuses to sign a nonaggression treaty.
Washington has said, however, that it would consider some sort of written assurance that it wouldn't invade.
"If Washington does not give us a legal guarantee that it will not take military actions, including use of nuclear weapons, against us, we have no other option but to do everything possible for our self-defense," Rodong said.
Seoul officials were encouraged by the North's willingness to hold the talks after canceling previous Cabinet-level meetings earlier this month. North Korea also halted a joint tourism project last week, citing fears of SARS.
But Jeong acknowledged that the talks were being held "in a very difficult situation," and that the dispute "is going to take a considerable amount of time to resolve."
President Bush spoke by telephone on Saturday with Chinese President Hu Jintao about the standoff.
He thanked Hu for the Chinese government's "full and active participation" in last week's talks with Pyongyang in Beijing, White House spokeswoman Mercedes Viana said.
In Tokyo, a senior U.S. envoy told Japanese officials on Saturday that Washington was examining a new North Korean proposal to settle the dispute.
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, but refused to discuss the details of the North Korean proposal until he consulted with officials in Washington, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
In Washington, the White House said it would confer with allies about possibly seeking U.N. sanctions against the North. Pyongyang earlier said it would consider international sanctions a "declaration of war."
The talks in Beijing were the first high-level U.S.-North Korean contact since nuclear tensions spiked in October, when Washington claimed that the North said it had a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and took steps to restart nuclear facilities frozen under the pact.
U.S. officials said North Korea told Kelly in Beijing that it had reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods - a key step in producing nuclear weapons. The claim is not backed up by U.S. intelligence, officials say.
U.S. officials have said they want the "verifiable and irreversible" elimination of the North's nuclear weapons programs. North Korea has pushed Washington for a nonaggression treaty, saying it fears a U.S. invasion.
----
US plans 'Cuba lite' blockade on North Korea
By Julian Coman in Washington
27/04/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/wkor27.xml
The Pentagon is planning a permanent selective blockade of North Korean shipping, to prevent the country's threatened export of nuclear materials to other rogue states and terrorist organisations.
The move, nicknamed "Cuba Lite" for its echoes of the tactics used during the 1963 Cuban missile crisis, is America's first reaction to last week's warning by a North Korean envoy that Pyongyang intends to "transfer" nuclear devices or other material overseas.
It is aimed at increasing pressure on the North Korean regime, and would use American ships stationed in the Pacific region, without mounting a total blockade, which Pyongyang would regard as an act of war.
The first talks between the United States and North Korea for six months broke down in Beijing last week after just two days. The North Korean official who took part in the meetings claimed that Pyongyang already had two nuclear bombs and has processed enough plutonium to create many more. He also warned that the regime might "demonstrate" its capabilities in some way.
The threat has concentrated minds at the Pentagon, where senior officials are now devising a strategy to contain North Korea without escalating to a full-scale military conflict on the Korean peninsula - which on some Washington estimates could result in a million casualties on the first day.
A senior adviser to the Pentagon told The Sunday Telegraph that attempts to export nuclear devices would now result in routine "interdiction" and seizing of ships suspected by US intelligence of carrying such material.
"It is a kind of Cuba Lite strategy," said the adviser. "It wouldn't be a total blockade. International shipping would not necessarily be blocked from going in to North Korea, but the passage of North Korean shipping would be contingent on what we knew was being carried. We have the ability to track anything going in or out of North Korean waters."
On Dec 9, US and Spanish naval vessels stopped a North Korean ship, the Sosan, as it neared Yemen carrying 15 Scud missiles and warheads. The ship was eventually allowed to pass through after assurances from the Yemeni government. Under the new plans, nuclear "spot-checks" would be more aggressively pursued closer to North Korea.
"The virtue in an 'interdiction' strategy is that it would not be formally imposed," said the adviser. "There would not be a big set-piece confrontation with the North Koreans. Instead the US would use its intelligence net and only move in when it needs to."
Another option being considered by the US is a precision strike on North Korean nuclear facilities. However, administration officials say that at present such a move would not be worth the risk of an unpredictable North Korean response.
American military movement in the region has been minimal, although reconnaissance capacities have been boosted and 24 heavy bombers have been deployed to the island of Guam.
After last week's talks, North Korea, which has demanded a written non-aggression pact with America as a condition for giving up its nuclear programme, said the US had "simply repeated hackneyed claims without setting forth any new proposals".
The Communist state's aggressive negotiating tactics have put the Bush administration in a quandary. The State Department has backed continued negotiations but has been dismayed by Kim Jong Il's intransigence.
Officials at the Pentagon, including the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, doubt the value of talks but fear the potential military cost of a war.
North Korea would be dangerously well-prepared for any conflict. More than 4,000 pieces of artillery are buried deep in the mountainous terrain to the north of the de-militarised zone that separates North and South Korea.
Hundreds of thousands of North Korean soldiers, belonging to the world's fifth-largest army, would be expected to invade Seoul within hours of an American attack. North Korea is also believed to possess chemical and biological weapons.
"This isn't Iraq and there is no serious hawk-dove divide here," said an American government official. "The doves know they are being messed around by North Korea. The hawks are not prepared to go to war any time soon. For the moment the administration is pretty unified on this."
• British officials will hold their first talks with North Korea for more than a year this week when a delegation led by the Vice-Foreign Minister, Choe Su-hon, visits London, the Foreign Office announced yesterday.
A spokesman said: "It's important to remain engaged with North Korea and we want to use every opportunity to urge them to comply with their international obligations."
----
S.Korea Tells North to Scrap Nuclear Program
April 27, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea urged the North on Sunday to give up its nuclear program after U.S. officials said the communist state told Washington it had atomic bombs and could make more.
The head of South Korea's delegation at talks in Pyongyang said the North's declared possession of nuclear weapons was a security threat that broke a 1991 nuclear-free declaration seen as a cornerstone of ties between the neighbors.
South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun underscored the U.S. demand made at talks in Beijing last week, pool reports from Pyongyang said. But North Korea's ruling party newspaper dismissed the suggestion of ditching its declared deterrent as a non-starter without a written U.S. pledge not to attack.
The United States was ``talking nonsense over the talks in Beijing that there will be no security of the system nor provision of rewards to the DPRK (North Korea) even though it gives up the 'nuclear program,''' said the daily Rodong Sinmun.
``Those who know politics and understand the reality would not have made such infantile and nonsensical remarks over the negotiation on the nuclear issue,'' it said in a commentary that did not address whether North Korea had nuclear weapons.
Rodong Sinmun repeated Pyongyang's longstanding demand for a non-aggression treaty but made no new demands.
``The DPRK will be left with no option but to do everything to defend itself unless the U.S. legally guarantees no use of arms including nukes against the DPRK,'' said the statement, published in English by the North's state-run KCNA news agency.
South Korea's Jeong said North Korea's nuclear program was ``unhelpful for inter-Korean relations,'' according to the media pool reports of his opening remarks to the North.
North Korean delegation head Kim Ryung-sung appealed to Korean unity and said ``since it's the first such talks for your new government, let both sides be wise and cooperative to produce good results,'' according the pool report.
``A BIG MISCALCULATION''
In Tokyo, Japan's defense minister said North Korea was wrong to believe announcing it had atomic weapons would ensure the survival of its system and that the United States and China would never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.
``It will be a big miscalculation if it is reckoning that remarks that it has nuclear weapons will lead to the maintenance of its regime,'' Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on a TV Asahi current affairs program.
Before leaving Seoul, Jeong said he would tell Pyongyang the stance of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's two-month-old government was ``it is unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons.''
Roh's security adviser said North Korea's admission, if true, violated a 1991 South-North Joint Declaration on Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula -- a bilateral pledge not to test, produce, receive, store, deploy or use nuclear arms.
Jeong cited that pact in rejecting Pyongyang's insistence that the nuclear issue is solely a North Korea-U.S. dispute.
``The North-South denuclearisation statement goes back 12 years, to before the issue was taken up between North Korea and the United States,'' Jeong said.
A North Korea armed with nuclear weapons would increase the threat to neighboring Japan, China and South Korea and to the 37,000 U.S. troops based in the South, and would make it trickier to craft a solution to the six-month nuclear standoff.
The crisis erupted in October, when Washington said the North had admitted to an active covert program to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear arms in addition to a plutonium program frozen under a 1994 pact with the United States.
The United States has said it will pursue a diplomatic solution despite Pyongyang's disclosure in Beijing.
While opinion among experts differs as to how far North Korea has actually taken its nuclear arms program, the outcome of the Beijing talks prompted a hardening of opinion in South Korea and calls for reconsidering Seoul's aid for the North.
Jeong gave no indication Seoul might use aid as leverage over Pyongyang. On Thursday, the South announced plans to donate corn and medicine to the impoverished and hunger-stricken North.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had put forward a bold new proposal at the Beijing talks but had heard nothing new from Washington. The ministry did not mention nuclear weapons or spell out Pyongyang's proposal.
-------- us politics
Revealed: the moment Bush pulled war trigger
By Toby Harnden, Washington
April 27 2003
The Australia Sun-Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/26/1051316050142.html
Saddam Hussein was probably severely injured and might have been killed at the start of the Iraq war, President George Bush said in a rare, in-depth interview.
The CIA, he said, was in close contact with "a guy on the ground" in Baghdad who was passing on intelligence about the dictator's movements, prompting Mr Bush to start the war 48hours early.
"They [the CIA] had a source on the ground...convinced that not only Saddam Hussein would be in the complex, but Uday and Qusay, his two sons, would be there as well."
Afterwards, the source reported that Saddam had been in the leadership compound hit by US bombs and precision-guided missiles.
"He felt like we got Saddam," Mr Bush said. "And we're trying, of course, to verify."
Saddam's death, Mr Bush suggested, would account for tactical mistakes by his regime's forces.
"It explains, for example, why dams weren't blown up or oilfields destroyed, even though we found them to be wired."
Mr Bush was reflective and relaxed in the interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC television on board Air Force One.
Mr Bush explained that he wavered over ordering the early strike against Saddam for fear of killing the Iraqi leader's family.
"I was hesitant at first, to be frank with you, because I was worried that the first pictures coming out of Iraq would be a wounded grandchild of Saddam Hussein [and that] Saddam Hussein, who was not there at the time we started making the decision, would never show up."
But the intelligence got "richer", convincing Mr Bush that Saddam would go to the complex.
"The actual moment of making that decision was a heavy moment. I then went outside and walked around the grounds, just to get a little air and collect my thoughts."
Mr Bush accepted that Iraqi resistance in the south had been unexpectedly tough.
"Shock and awe said to many people that all we've got to do is unleash some might and people will crumble. And it turns out the fighters were a lot fiercer than we thought.
"Because, for example, we didn't come north from Turkey, Saddam Hussein was able to move a lot of Special Republican Guard units and fighters from north to south. So the resistance for our troops moving south and north was significant. On the other hand, our troops handled it, handled that resistance quite well."
He had been distressed, he said, by the looting after Saddam's regime fell. "The hospitals and museum were the absolute worst part...that museum was a terrible incident.
"I couldn't agree more with people who say we're sorry that happened.
"We are, by the way, helping find treasure, restore treasure, and we'll provide all the expertise and help they need to get that museum up and running."
Mr Bush made clear he was not about to forgive President Jacques Chirac for France's opposition to the war. "I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," he said, noting that Australian Prime Minister John Howard would be a guest this week.
Asked about the role of his personal faith, Mr Bush replied: "I don't bring God into my life to be a political person; I ask God for strength and guidance.
"The decision about war and peace is a decision I made based upon what I thought were the best interests of the American people."
Mr Bush also made a joke about Iraq's information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.
"He's my man, he was great," he said. "Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic."
----
U.S. Officials Spar Over N. Korea
State Dept. Says Nuclear Claim 'Was Shared Appropriately'
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 27, 2003; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42441-2003Apr26?language=printer
President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday spoke by phone about efforts to end the North Korean crisis, including the meetings last week in Beijing at which North Korea announced it possessed nuclear weapons.
The 15-minute conversation, reported by the White House and China's Xinhua news agency, reflected the increasingly urgent diplomatic problem posed by North Korea. At the Beijing meetings, North Korea also asserted that it had nearly completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods, which experts say could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to help build several weapons.
China, as host of the meeting and a longtime supporter of North Korea, was deeply embarrassed by the revelations, Chinese analysts said. U.S. officials hope the North Korean behavior at the talks will encourage China to cooperate even more with the Bush administration in persuading the Pyongyang government to give up its nuclear programs.
Meanwhile, the reprocessing claim has ignited another battle within the administration, which is deeply split over its North Korea policy, officials said yesterday. North Korea first told State Department officials in March it had begun reprocessing the fuel rods, but the information was kept from officials in other parts of the government, officials said.
The disclosure, first reported Friday night by Reuters, has angered officials who prefer to take a hard-edged approach to North Korea. They charge that some elements of the State Department purposely did not report the claim to senior officials in the Defense Department and the National Security Council in order to avoid rupturing the Beijing talks before they began.
The announcement by North Korean officials to a pair of State Department officials that Pyongyang had begun reprocessing occurred during a meeting on March 31 at the United Nations, known as the "New York channel" for communications between Washington and Pyongyang. The purpose of the meeting was to make sure North Korea was serious about attending trilateral talks in China.
"I think heads will roll over this," one administration official said yesterday. He said prompt disclosure of this claim would have allowed the intelligence community to step up surveillance of the North Korean nuclear facilities. "North Korea for the first time ever officially communicated to the U.S. government that they were reprocessing. That that information was not shared is very disturbing," he said, adding that it possibly weakened the U.S. negotiating position at the talks.
Other U.S. officials did not learn of the North Korean assertion until April 18, days before the talks, when the North Korea news agency broadcast a statement that it had told the United States in March that it had begun reprocessing. At the time, the State Department suggested the statement was in error because of a translation mistake from the original Korean. Then, North Korea repeated it at the talks in Beijing.
"The interagency process is poisoned over this," the official said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told Reuters that in a series of meetings with the United States and others in March, North Korea made contradictory and sometimes ambiguous statements about reprocessing.
At every point, he said, the State Department went back to the intelligence agencies to check on whether the situation with North Korea's nuclear program had changed in any way, and the intelligence agencies said repeatedly they had no confirmation Pyongyang was reprocessing nuclear fuel.
"Information was shared appropriately with other agencies of the U.S. government at senior levels -- not every agency and not every person, but appropriately," Boucher said.
----
The Battle Lines Start in Washington
April 27, 2003
The New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/weekinreview/27BOXB.html
In the annals of famous "Don't Invite 'Em's" - people feuding so hotly that you would never want them together at your small dinner party - American secretaries of state and defense have always been especially prickly pairs.
Secretaries Colin L. Powell and Donald H. Rumsfeld are no exceptions. Indeed, they may be setting a new standard of sustained animosity.
Since at least the Civil War era, when Secretary of State William H. Seward was more conciliatory toward the South than other cabinet members, the feuds have usually revolved around the chief diplomat's desire for diplomacy over military confrontation. In the 1970's, during the cold war, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger tried to salvage detente with the Soviet Union and clashed with President Ford's hawkish Secretary of Defense - Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The battles continued in the Reagan era, when Secretaries of State Alexander M. Haig and George P.Shultz also had to contend with a defense secretary, Caspar W. Weinberger, who rivals said thought of himself as the guardian of the administration's hard-line foreign policy.
Under President Clinton, open feuding declined. In that era, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright broke the mold and favored more use of force than the military, in the Balkans and elsewhere.
Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Powell have fought on many fronts since they took office. Here is a look at the milestones.
North Korea In March 2001, Mr. Powell said the administration was likely to "pick up" where the Clinton administration had left off in negotiating with North Korea about its missile program. This outraged hard-liners, and President Bush himself reversed the course. More recently, Mr. Powell restarted talks with North Korea, over Pentagon objections.
China When an American spy plane was forced to land on a Chinese island in April 2001, after colliding with a Chinese jet fighter, some Pentagon officials objected to the conciliatory approach Mr. Powell took in negotiating the crew's released.
Israel and the Palestinians Mr. Rumsfeld has stressed unswerving support for the tough policies of Israel's hard-line prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Mr. Powell has championed involving the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to try to revive peace talks and lay out a timetable for reaching a settlement.
Iraq Before the war, conservative Pentagon officials resisted seeking United Nations approval for an attack on Iraq, while Mr. Powell led unsuccessful efforts to strike a bargain with France and Russia in the Security Council. Now, the Pentagon has backed its own candidates for a new Iraqi administration, but the State Department has objected.
-------- MILITARY
-------- arms sales
GERMANY - Executive questioned on N. Korea sale
Briefly
April 27, 2003
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030427-42569350.htm
HAMBURG - Prosecutors in Germany confirmed yesterday that one of the directors of a German company suspected of supplying aluminum tubes to North Korea's nuclear program has been detained for questioning.
The announcement comes after weekly magazine Der Spiegel said in its issue due to be published tomorrow that 22 tons of aluminum tubes, essential in the manufacture of enriched uranium, were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg in early April, just as the German federal government vetoed the shipment.
The German government alerted the French authorities, who ordered the ship's captain to unload the containers in Egypt.
Officially the tubes were on their way to China's Shenyang Aircraft Corp. but, according to Der Spiegel, Berlin believes that this company was a front for North Korea. The German firm's business contact was a North Korean national, it said.
-------- britain
MP may be tried as traitor
Antony Barnett and Martin Bright
Sunday April 27, 2003
The UK Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,944392,00.html
George Galloway, the anti-war Labour MP who is suing over allegations he secretly took money from Saddam Hussein, faces the prospect of a criminal prosecution for treachery.
The Observer can reveal that the Director of Public Prosecutions is considering pursuing the Glasgow politician for comments during the Iraq war when he called on British troops not to fight.
In an interview with Abu Dhabi TV during the Iraq conflict, Galloway said: 'The best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders.' Lawyers for service personnel claim his call for soldiers to dis obey what he called 'illegal orders' amount to a breach of the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934. The maximum penalty is two years in jail.
The relevant part of the Act is Section 1, which states: 'If any person maliciously and advisedly endeavours to seduce any member of His Majesty's forces from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty, he shall be guilty of an offence.' Under the terms of the Act, the word 'maliciously' means wilfully and intentionally.
Galloway dismissed attempts to prosecute him, but said: 'I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: "He incited them to disaffect."'
The lawyer spearheading the action is Justin Hugheston-Roberts, chairman of Forces Law, a nationwide group of 22 law firms which acts for service personnel and their families.
The case is being handled by Hugheston-Roberts's law firm in Wolverhampton, Rose Williams and Partners.
The last time a prosecution was brought under this law was in 1974, when a protester was charged after distributing leaflets outside Army camps urging soldiers not to accept postings to Northern Ireland.
Galloway's calls for British troops to disobey orders came during the TV interview in which he described Tony Blair and George Bush as 'wolves' for embarking on military action.
When accused of treachery, Galloway said: 'The people who have betrayed this country are those who have sold it to a foreign power and who have been the miserable surrogates of a bigger power for reasons very few people in Britain can understand.'
After Galloway made the comments on Abu Dhabi TV, Hugheston-Roberts wrote to the DPP asking him to prosecute or allow a private prosecution to be brought.
Last week the Crown Prosecution Service wrote to the lawyers requesting more information and details of the comments Galloway made.
Hugheston-Roberts has refused to reveal the identity of his clients, but said they were meeting this week to decide on the best course of action.
Hugheston-Roberts said if the CPS decided not to prosecute but gave consent for a private action, then his clients would be happy to pursue that avenue.
Human rights lawyers said last night it would be an extremely difficult case to pursue. Roger Bingham of the civil rights group Liberty said: 'Galloway's statement is an expression of opinion. We live in a free-speech, democratic society and elect MPs to speak out on national issues.'
Andrew Burgin, of the Stop the War Coalition denounced the move. He said: 'This war was immoral and illegal and should never have been fought. This proposal to prosecute is part of an ever-expanding witch-hunt against George Galloway because he was the most vocal anti-war voice.'
This latest twist comes as The Observer reveals details of a secret trip Galloway made to Morocco for the British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih, an Islamic fundamentalist who purchased a satellite phone used by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
In February 1996 Galloway flew to Morocco for a secret meeting with the then Crown Prince of Morocco to explore a deal between the Islamic Saudi dissidents in the UK and the Saudi royal family.
--------
Blair Urges U.S., Europe to Forge 'One Polar Power'
April 27, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-britain-blair.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Europe and the United States should work as ``one polar power'' to tackle the world's problems rather then bickering as they did over Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview published on Monday.
Speaking to the Financial Times newspaper, Blair said the best way to stop Washington acting unilaterally was to join forces with it rather than opposing it.
``I don't want to see a situation develop again in which either Europe or America sees a huge strategic interest at stake and we are not helping each other,'' Blair said in what the paper described as a warning to French President Jacques Chirac.
``Some want a so-called multi-polar world where you have different centers of power, and I believe will quickly develop into rival centers of power.
``And others believe, and this is my notion, that we need one polar power which encompasses a strategic partnership between Europe and America.''
``Those people who fear 'unilateralism' -- so called and in inverted commas -- in America should realize that the quickest way to get that is to set up a rival polar power to America.''
France led bitter opposition to the war in Iraq while Britain was easily Washington's closest and most important ally in the toppling of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Blair strove to reconcile the differing views in the United States and Europe but ultimately failed in his bid to get a second resolution from the United Nations Security Council sanctioning the use of force in Iraq.
While Blair insisted on the need to stand side-by-side with the United States, he also stressed the importance of Europe to Britain -- traditionally more skeptical about the drive toward European unity than many of its neighbors.
``To absence yourself from the main strategic alliance on your doorstep -- which is Europe -- would be an act of self-mutilation as a country,'' he said.
Blair told the paper it was important any new government in Baghdad had international legitimacy and said he was still convinced there were banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even though none have surfaced since the U.S.-led invasion force took control of the country.
``I don't think it in the least surprising that it is going to take some time before we assemble the evidence.''
The prime minister also touched on the nuclear stand-off between the West and North Korea following reports by U.S. officials that Pyongyang had admitted having nuclear arms.
``It is not just the U.S. and Britain that regards a nuclear capability in the hands of North Korea as a threat,'' he said. ``I think China and South Korea would say the same.
``The question is how you deal with it. And again I think we have got to offer North Korea a way out of its present situation.''
On the domestic front, Blair said he his government would not succumb to growing militancy among the country's unions -- from firefighters to railway workers to teachers.
``We will not give in in any shape or form to any resurgent trade union militancy,'' he said. ``Trade unions have really got to understand that. That is absolutely fundamental to me.
-------- business
Halliburton: All In The Family
Halliburton nearly doubled the value of federal contracts it received - from $1.2 to $2.3 billion - during the five years Cheney was its CEO.
(CBS)
April 27, 2003
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml
After dropping more than 28,000 bombs on Iraq, the United States has now begun the business of rebuilding the country.
And it promises to be quite a business. With at least $60 billion to be spent over the next three years, the Iraqi people won't be the only ones benefiting. The companies that land the biggest contracts to do the work will cash in big-time.
Given all the taxpayer money involved, you might think the process for awarding those contracts would be open and competitive. Well, so far, it has been none of the above. And the early winners in the sweepstakes to rebuild Iraq have one thing in common: lots of very close friends in very high places, correspondent Steve Kroft reports.
One is Halliburton, the Houston-based energy services and construction giant whose former CEO, Dick Cheney, is now vice president of the United States.
Even before the first shots were fired in Iraq, the Pentagon had secretly awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root a two-year, no-bid contract to put out oil well fires and to handle other unspecified duties involving war damage to the country's petroleum industry. It is worth up to $7 billion.
But Robert Andersen, chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers, says that oil field damage was much less than anticipated and Halliburton will end up collecting only a small fraction of that $7 billion. But he can't say how small a fraction or exactly what the contract covers because the mission and the contract are considered classified information.
Under normal circumstances, the Army Corps of Engineers would have been required to put the oil fire contract out for competitive bidding. But in times of emergency, when national security is involved, the government is allowed to bypass normal procedures and award contracts to a single company, without competition.
And that's exactly what happened with Halliburton.
"We are the only company in the United States that had the kind of systems in place, people in place, contracts in place, to do that kind of thing," says Chuck Dominy, Halliburton's vice president for government affairs and its chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill.
He says the Pentagon came to Halliburton because the company already had an existing contract with the Army to provide logistical support to U.S. troops all over the world.
"Let me put a face on Halliburton. It's one of the world's largest energy services companies, and it has a strong engineering and construction arm that goes with that" says Dominy.
"You'll find us in 120 countries. We've got 83,000 people on our payroll, and we're involved in a ton of different things for a lot of wonderful clients worldwide."
"They had assets prepositioned," says Anderson. "They had capability to reach out and get sub-contractors to do the various types of work that might be required in a hostile situation."
"The procurement of this particular contract was done by career civil servants, and I know that it's a perception that those at the very highest levels of the administration, Democrat and Republican, get involved in procurement issues. It can happen. But for the very most part, the procurement system is designed to keep those judgments with the career public servants."
But is political influence not unknown in the process? In this particular case, Anderson says, it was legally justified and prudent.
But not everyone thought it was prudent. Bob Grace is president of GSM Consulting, a small company in Amarillo, Texas, that has fought oil well fires all over the world. Grace worked for the Kuwait government after the first Gulf War and was in charge of firefighting strategy for the huge Bergan Oil Field, which had more than 300 fires. Last September, when it looked like there might be another Gulf war and more oil well fires, he and a lot of his friends in the industry began contacting the Pentagon and their congressmen.
"All we were trying to find out was, who do we present our credentials to," says Grace. "We just want to be able to go to somebody and say, 'Hey, here's who we are, and here's what we've done, and here's what we do.'"
"They basically told us that there wasn't going to be any oil well fires."
Grace showed 60 Minutes a letter from the Department of Defense saying: "The department is aware of a broad range of well firefighting capabilities and techniques available. However, we believe it is too early to speculate what might happen in the event that war breaks out in the region."
It was dated Dec. 30, 2002, more than a month after the Army Corps of Engineers began talking to Halliburton about putting out oil well fires in Iraq.
"You just feel like you're beating your head against the wall," says Grace. However, Andersen says the Pentagon had a very good reason for putting out that message. "The mission at that time was classified, and what we were doing to assess the possible damage and to prepare for it was classified," says Andersen. "Communications with the public had to be made with that in mind."
"I can accept confidentiality in terms of war plans and all that. But to have secrecy about Saddam Hussein blowing up oil wells, to me, is stupid," says Grace. "I mean the guy's blown up a thousand of them. So why would that be a revelation to anybody?"
But Grace says the whole point of competitive bidding is to save the taxpayers money. He believes they are getting a raw deal. "From what I've read in the papers, they're charging $50,000 a day for a five-man team. I know there are guys that are equally as well-qualified as the guys that are over there that'll do it for half that."
Grace and his friends are no match for Halliburton when it comes to landing government business. Last year alone, Halliburton and its Brown & Root subsidiary delivered $1.3 billion worth of services to the U.S. government. Much of it was for work the U.S. military used to do itself.
"You help build base camps. You provide goods, laundry, power, sewage, all the kinds of things that keep an army in place in a field operation," says Dominy.
"Young soldiers have said to me, 'If I go to war, I want to go to war with Brown & Root.'"
And they have, in places like Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo and now Iraq.
"It's a sweetheart contract," says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center For Public Integrity, a non-profit organization that investigates corruption and abuse of power by government and corporations. "There's no other word for it."
Lewis says the trend towards privatizing the military began during the first Bush administration when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense. In 1992, the Pentagon, under Cheney, commissioned the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to do a classified study on whether it was a good idea to have private contractors do more of the military's work.
"Of course, they said it's a terrific idea, and over the next eight years, Kellogg, Brown & Root and another company got 2,700 contracts worth billions of dollars," says Lewis.
"So they helped to design the architecture for privatizing a lot of what happens today in the Pentagon when we have military engagements. And two years later, when he leaves the department of defense, Cheney is CEO of Halliburton. Thank you very much. It's a nice arrangement for all concerned."
During the five years that Cheney was at Halliburton, the company nearly doubled the value of its federal contracts, and the vice president became a very rich man.
Lewis is not saying that Cheney did anything illegal. But he doesn't believe for a minute that this was all just a coincidence.
"Why would a defense secretary, former chief of staff to a president, and former member of congress with no business experience ever in his life, not for a day, why would he become the CEO of a multibillion dollar oil services company," asks Lewis
"Well, it could be related to government contracts. He was brought in to raise their government contract profile. And he did. And they ended up with billions of dollars in new contracts because they had a former defense secretary at the helm."
Cheney, Lewis says, may be an honorable and brilliant man, but "as George Washington Plunkett once said, 'I saw my ... seen my opportunities and I took them."
Both Halliburton and the Pentagon believe Lewis is insulting not only the vice president but thousands of professional civil servants who evaluate and award defense contracts based strictly on merit.
But does the fact that Cheney used to run Halliburton have any effect at all on the company getting government contracts?
"Zero," says Dominy. "I will guarantee you that. Absolutely zero impact."
"In fact, I wish I could embed [critics] in the department of defense contracting system for a week or so. Once they'd done that, they'd have religion just like I do, about how the system cannot be influenced." Dominy has been with Halliburton for seven years. Before that, he was former three-star Army general. One of his last military assignments was as a commander at the Army Corps of Engineers.
And now, the Army Corps of Engineers is also the government agency that awards contracts to companies like Halliburton.
Asked if his expertise in that area had anything to do with his employment at Halliburton, Dominy replies, "None."
But Lewis isn't surprised at all.
"Of course, he's from the Army Corps. And of course, he's a general," says Lewis. "I'm sure he and no one else at Halliburton sees the slightest thing that might look strange about that, or a little cozy maybe."
Lewis says the best example of these cozy relationships is the defense policy board, a group of high-powered civilians who advise the secretary of defense on major policy issues - like whether or not to invade Iraq. Its 30 members are a Who's Who of former senior government and military officials.
There's nothing wrong with that, but as the Center For Public Integrity recently discovered, nine of them have ties to corporations and private companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts. And that's just in the last two years.
"This is not about the revolving door, people going in and out," says Lewis. "There is no door. There's no wall. I can't tell where one stops and the other starts. I'm dead serious."
"They have classified clearances, they go to classified meetings and they're with companies getting billions of dollars in classified contracts. And their disclosures about their activities are classified. Well, isn't that what they did when they were inside the government? What's the difference, except they're in the private sector."
Richard Perle resigned as chairman of the defense policy board last month after it was disclosed that he had financial ties to several companies doing business with the Pentagon.
But Perle still sits on the board, along with former CIA director James Woolsey, who works for the consulting firm of Booz, Allen, Hamilton. The firm did nearly $700 million dollars in business with the Pentagon last year.
Another board member, retired four-star general Jack Sheehan, is now a senior vice president at the Bechtel corporation, which just won a $680 million contract to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq.
That contract was awarded by the State Department, which used to be run by George Schultz, who sits on Bechtel's board of directors.
"I'm not saying that it's illegal. These guys wrote the laws. They set up the system for themselves. Of course it's legal," says Lewis.
"It just looks like hell. It looks like you have folks feeding at the trough. And they may be doing it in red white and blue and we may be all singing the "Star Spangled Banner," but they're doing quite well."
----
Shultz denies role in Bechtel's Iraq deal
GOP insider says he 'made no calls'
Julian Guthrie,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, April 27, 2003
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/27/BA300122.DTL
Former Secretary of State George Shultz, the imposing, blue-eyed eminence grise of Republican politics, finds himself at the center of an international controversy over his support of the Iraq invasion and the role of San Francisco's Bechtel Group in postwar Iraq.
But the perennial power player -- and ex-president of the construction and engineering giant -- says that he played no part in landing Bechtel's deal to rebuild Iraq.
In an interview Wednesday at his quiet and spacious wood-paneled office at Bechtel -- three floors up from metal barricades erected to keep street level protesters at bay -- Shultz was soft-spoken and unflappable.
"I made no calls," he said. "I had no contact with the government. I had nothing to do with the contract. The bidding process was transparent. The process is a very careful one."
But the allegations don't seem to be going away.
"George Shultz has a long and deep connection to both Bechtel and the Republican Party," said Antonia Juhasz, project director of the International Forum for Globalization in San Francisco.
Shultz, who is married to San Francisco's chief of protocol, Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, and is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, is a member of Bechtel's board of directors and was president of the firm for eight years before joining the Reagan administration. The Iraq contract could be worth up to $680 million.
"This was absolutely not a transparent bidding process," Juhasz said. "It was a private request for bids put out to a handful of select companies. A more open process would have alleviated concerns of insider connections."
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and lead sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would open up the process of procuring contracts to rebuild Iraq, said: "There's a troubling pattern that's emerging here, with very influential companies and parties getting awarded contracts.
"There ought to be a public explanation of how these companies are being picked."
A New York Times column Monday began with the words, "Somewhere George Shultz is smiling." The columnist wrote that Shultz "wanted this war with Iraq.
Oh, how he wanted the war" and that "blatant warmongering followed immediately by profiteering" raises questions about why Americans were fighting and dying in Iraq.
Such statements anger Shultz, who is a veteran of World War II.
"It's so preposterous, so low," Shultz said. "I'm a soldier. I served in combat. I saw people die. War is a brutalizing thing. Anyone who's been in war is not in favor of war."
Shultz was in favor of getting rid of biological and chemical weapons that he believes Saddam Hussein possessed and of replacing a dictatorship with democracy. He said that for decades he has warned of the imminent threat of terrorists.
In words similar to those employed by President Bush to press his case for war, Shultz said stronger action was needed to deter and punish terrorists. "Violence and aggression must be met by firm resistance," Shultz said in an October 1984 speech. "Fighting terrorism will not be a clean or pleasant contest, but we have no choice."
Former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who didn't always see eye to eye with Shultz during the Reagan years, dismissed the flurry of criticism and insinuations around Shultz and the Bechtel deal.
"Any company that gets a big contract is going to face people who start searching wildly for something evil," said Weinberger, who was Bechtel's general counsel and served on the board of directors from 1975 to 1981.
"If the contract had been awarded to Halliburton, you'd have the same suspicions and noise," Weinberger said. "The subject, however, would be that the company's former chairman (Dick Cheney) is now vice president. There's a strong desire to criticize and find something that's wrong."
Weinberger, who says he is -- "sadly" -- no longer affiliated with Bechtel, believes there are only a handful of companies in the world that could rebuild Iraq.
"You want to know the motives? The government wanted the job well done. Bechtel does the job well," he said.
Bechtel, a privately held company with 47,000 employees and revenues last year of $11.6 billion, has helped build high-profile projects, including the Hoover Dam, Bay Bridge, BART, the Trans-Arabian pipeline and the Channel Tunnel between England and France.
Shultz, who served as secretary of labor and of the Treasury as well as director of the Office of Management and Budget under Richard Nixon, left the White House in 1974 to join Bechtel.
"I met Steve Bechtel Jr. when I was secretary of labor," Shultz said, wearing a natty midnight blue suit with light blue pinstripes, made up of barely legible stitched letters reading "georgeshultzgeorgeshultzgeorgeshultz."
"People were telling me that labor relations in construction were terrible, but no one had any ideas on how to fix them. At one meeting, a young man got up and said, 'I know there are problems in construction, and I know what needs to be done.' His name was Steve Bechtel. I collared him, got to know him."
Shultz's role at Bechtel today, he said, is to offer his thoughts on matters ranging from the costs of a project to the procurement of goods such as cement.
"I'm on the board," Shultz said, "so when questions come up, I reflect on them, I give advice."
E-mail Julian Guthrie at jguthrie@sfchronicle.com.
-------- chemical weapons
U.S. troops detect lethal chemicals in drum of liquid
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 27, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030427-83918938.htm
BAIJI, Iraq - Initial tests on a pile of 50-gallon drums found by U.S. troops near this small industrial town north of Baghdad came up positive for chemicals used to make weapons of mass destruction, military officials said.
"We've confirmed that we have a cyclo-sarin agent also known as CF," said Lt. Valerie Phipps, a chemical and biological weapons specialist with a reconnaissance element of the Army's 4th Infantry Division.
Tests of the fluid inside one drum, conducted by soldiers using field equipment including kits with chemical test paper, "also detected mustard [agent], and we detected another unknown agent," Lt. Phipps said.
Although military officials are waiting for more thorough tests on the fluid before calling the discovery of the 50-gallon drums a "smoking gun" for weapons of mass destruction, Lt. Phipps said that "usually, you don't get many false positives on mustard."
Lt. Col. Ted Col. Martin, the unit's commander, would not say the discovery was the evidence so eagerly sought by U.S. officials after the defeat of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But he said his soldiers "may have latched onto the fact that [Saddam] had proof-positive for weapons of mass destruction."
Lt. Phipps said her unit with the 4th Infantry's 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, was sent to secure and investigate the suspicious-looking pile of drums late Friday, after a U.S. Special Forces team discovered it near Baiji.
The town, home to one of Iraq's dozens of oil refineries, is on the western bank of the Tigris River about 20 miles north of Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussein and a known pocket of his most loyal supporters.
Before last week, no U.S. troops had operated thoroughly in the area around Baiji. Such units as the 101st Airborne Division and the Marines bypassed the town on their way to Mosul, about 80 miles to the north.
Col. Martin, commander of 1st Squadron, said his soldiers located a total of 14 of the 50-gallon drums, which appeared to have been dumped hastily and were "sitting out in the wide open." Wearing gas masks and full-body protective suits, the soldiers punched a small hole in one drum to extract and conduct tests of the fluid inside.
Col. Martin said a sarin agent combined with a mustard agent could make a "superweapon" concoction of the lethal chemicals.
The fluid "looked clear in color like water," Lt. Phipps said. She said none of the other drums was opened.
Soldiers also discovered about 100 gas masks near the 50-gallon drums and the remains of what Col. Martin said likely were two "mobile labs," which appeared to have been looted by Iraqi civilians. Several Iraqis who live nearby told soldiers through an interpreter that there were chemicals in the area, Col. Martin said.
"To me, this is a pretty significant find," he said. "This is the first time I've had a soldier in my unit who can show me a piece of paper and say, 'Hey, this is positive for cyclo-sarin.' "
U.S. military officials increasingly have felt pressure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - or at least find the agents that could be used to make chemical and biological weapons.
Not only did U.S. troops cope with the threat of being attacked by such weapons, some worried that the international community and Americans back home would criticize the military if no chemical or biological agents are discovered.
Before the war, President Bush aggressively touted the need to strip Saddam of his arsenal of chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons, which he said were hidden from United Nations weapons inspectors.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that the hunt for Saddam's arsenal of such weapons is under way at numerous sites.
"On a continuing basis, we get a report out of known sites," he said, "and it's still a long road. I mean, we're at a small fraction of the number of potential sites."
One U.S. soldier said last night that before he was deployed to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom, it had bothered him deeply to see "all those actors in Hollywood" speaking out against the war.
"Now that we're finding all these chemicals over here, we can go and shove it in their face," the soldier said.
Other soldiers interviewed last week said that though they were concerned they might not find weapons of mass destruction, they were not afraid of what it would mean for the validity of the war effort.
"There's no doubt [Saddam] had them," said Capt. Joseph W. Vongs, intelligence officer for the 4th Infantry's Aviation Brigade. "Of course, I'm concerned about how the world views the United States. If we don't find chemical weapons, yeah, it's gonna make the United States look bad."
But, Capt. Vongs added, "I don't necessarily think it would make what we've done here any less justified."
Standing last night by the pile of 50-gallon drums, Col. Martin said: "After seeing what I've seen in this country, we don't have to find weapons of mass destruction to justify this mission."
Col. Martin appeared unfazed by the notion that his cavalry squadron, known as the "Buffalo Soldiers," might be on the verge of making history. Straining his voice to be heard over the noisy chopping of Army helicopters circling in the dark overhead, he said: "This is just another recon[naissance] mission to me."
1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, was formed in 1866, when it consisted mainly of slaves freed after the Civil War. It won its nickname after battling armies of Indians in the Southwest. Indian fighters thought the hair on the heads of the freed blacks looked like Buffalo hair.
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US Testing Chemicals Found in Northern Iraq -Report
Sun April 27, 2003
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PI4U4CQVDB4E0CRBAEKSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=2636684
WASHINGTON - Initial tests have detected nerve and blistering agents in a barrel of chemicals found by U.S. forces in northern Iraq, ABC News reported.
A special forces reconnaissance team found 14 unmarked barrels, at least a dozen missiles and 150 gas masks at a site east of Baiji, 112 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Friday, ABC News said in a report on its Web site on Sunday.
A platoon of chemical weapons experts from the Army's 1-10 Cavalry was sent to the area and tests on one of the 55-gallon barrels were conducted on Saturday, it said.
"Lt. Valerie Phipps and her squad used three different methods to test liquid from one of the barrels. The preliminary tests showed it to be a mixture of three chemicals, including a nerve agent and blistering agent," ABC News said.
The United States said destroying Iraq's alleged chemical arms and other weapons of mass destruction was one of its main goals when it invaded Iraq last month. Iraq denied having such weapons.
Some chemicals previously found by U.S. forces and initially suspected of being chemical weapons materials turned out to be pesticides.
"Despite initial appearances, officials in Washington were stressing caution on the Baiji discovery, particularly in light of earlier false alarms," ABC News said.
Citing Pentagon officials, ABC News said any material found would be sent to Maryland for testing because the military does not have testing equipment in Iraq sophisticated enough to eliminate all pesticides. Such tests would take about a week.
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Germany and France to water down defence plan
By Judy Dempsey in Brussels
April 27 2003
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051389530361&p=1012571727166
France and Germany will push to water down plans for an independent European defence force at a summit in Brussels on Tuesday in an attempt to repair their relations with the US. Advertisement
The summit - called by Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian prime minister - which includes leaders from France, Germany and Luxembourg only, is widely seen by other EU governments as anti-American and anti-Nato in its timing and intentions.
It is also seen as furthering divisions in a Europe already deeply split over Iraq. The anti-war stance of France and Germany, pitted against Britain, Spain and other countries, has left the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy in tatters.
Greece, the current EU president, will not be attending Tuesday's summit, nor will Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief. And without the participation of Britain - British officials say they were not invited, adding that the summit is unnecessary - diplomats from Belgium and Luxembourg admit it will be impossible to create any credible EU defence policy and capability without London.
The Netherlands and Italy, the other two founding members of the EU, were also not invited. "This is a very wobbly summit-like gathering," said a Dutch foreign ministry official. "It is bad on timing, bad on content and bad on the participating states."
Even France and Germany have become reluctant supporters of the event, called at the height of European opposition to the Bush administration in the run-up to the war against Iraq.
But Jacques Chirac, French president, is now desperate to repair relations with Washington. Diplomats say this explains why he does not want the summit to become a forum for Nato-bashing or for a European defence policy independent of the US-led military alliance.
"Chirac wants this summit to be as unprovocative as possible," said an EU diplomat. "At the same time he wants to support the idea of a stronger European defence policy. It may be a difficult balancing act."
The original aim of the summit was to beef up EU defence to avoid member states being dragged into ad hoc "coalitions of the willing" created by the US.
Mr Verhofstadt, a staunch advocate of a strong EU defence strategy, had already told Tony Blair, British prime minister, how he wants to create a separate European military headquarters with its own planning facilities. All multinational forces in the EU would be placed under a central command. The Dutch, fervent Atlanticists, say this would lead to unnecessary duplication with Nato.
Germany has also been watering down the Belgian proposals as it seeks to rebuild its relations with Washington. Berlin has publicly rejected calls for a European army, and opposes plans for integrated military headquarters.
Mr Verhofstadt, who faces elections next month, remains the only advocate of his own plans. He wants a much stronger collective defence clause to be included in proposals drawn up by the European Convention on the future of Europe.
The draft articles on defence so far only suggest a "solidarity clause", in which a member state might be assisted if it came under a terrorist or non-state attack.
-------- iran
Iran Tries to Avoid Row with U.S. Over Iraq
April 27, 2003
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-iran-usa.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian leaders have made a flurry of comments suggesting that they are prepared to engage more constructively with their long-time arch-enemy the United States after its swift seizure of power in neighboring Iraq. Senior U.S. officials have said they hoped Iraq's defeat would persuade Iran, Syria and North Korea to give up their ambitions for weapons of mass destruction. Last year Washington tagged Iran part of an ``axis of evil'' for allegedly aiding terrorism and pursuing nuclear arms. Advertisement
``Tehran does not want confrontation and friction with America in Iraq,'' newspapers quoted conservative National Security Council Chief Hassan Rohani as saying.
``Iranian leaders know their country is under serious threat. They obviously do not want to make Washington angry,'' political analyst Saeed Leylaz told Reuters.
After staying neutral in the U.S.-led war, Tehran welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
It has denied U.S. charges that it was interfering in postwar Iraq, but has urged the United States to leave the country at once and let Iraqis decide their own future.
President Mohammad Khatami's reformist allies have long argued the Islamic Republic's national interest calls for the restoration of ties with Washington, cut after militant Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy during the 1979 revolution.
But the reformers' calls were silenced last year by the intervention of Iran's most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The hardline judiciary also declared that calling for the restoration of ties with Washington could be a crime.
Now even Iran's conservatives, who have spent more than two decades stoking enmity with the ``Great Satan,'' are trying to foster a policy of engagement and show good faith, marking a significant break with previous policy, analysts said.
``Iran's foreign policy must become more active and politically productive, otherwise tension will rise,'' newspapers quoted Mohsen Rezai, secretary-general of the influential, conservative-dominated Expediency Council, as saying.
``Iran can work with America directly... but we need a strong policy,'' he said, without going into detail.
RELIGIOUS RIVALRY REVIVED
Iran's central foreign policy goal now is trying not to bring down the wrath of Washington on its head and becoming the next target in the U.S. ``war on terror,'' analysts said.
Washington, worried by the sight of tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites demonstrating their political muscle last week in Najaf, a center of religious learning, has warned Iran not to stir up its co-religionists in Iraq.
Some 60 percent of Iraqis are Shi'ites, but Saddam Hussein, at the head of a secular regime, oppressed their religious leaders and banned their major pilgrimages. Shi'ite Iran has rejected the idea that it is interfering in Iraq by promoting a political role for Iraqi Shi'ites, and analysts say it may actually not want a rival religious state as its neighbor.
``No Iranian officials have suggested the formation of an Iranian-style government in Iraq,'' newspapers quoted Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi as saying.
Earlier this week Kharrazi told a news conference ``...we are not insisting on (the role of the Iraqi) Shi'ites...for us Shi'ites, Sunnis, Turks and Arabs are the same and everybody should play their role in a democratic Iraq.''
He also urged Washington to stop accusing Iraq's neighbors of interfering in Iraq and welcome their cooperation. ``Instead of accusing they should pay more attention and start cooperating with other countries.''
The re-emergence of Najaf in Iraq as the center of Shi'ite learning could threaten the position of the Iranian city Qom, which gained pre-eminence after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
``For a religious regime, nothing is worse than having a religious regime as a neighbor,'' said an analyst who asked not to be named. ``There will be disputes over who is the boss and who is the big brother.''
At least privately, some Iranian parliamentarians suggest a secular government for Iraq, although it is against Iranian law to advocate a secular political system for Iran itself.
``Look at what happened in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is a secular person. He respects all people's rights much better than the Taliban who said they were religious leaders,'' said one deputy who asked not to be named.
``All Iranian leaders believe a secular government will be beneficial for all Iraqis and even for Iran,'' he said.
-------- iraq
Iraqis Lash Out Over Deaths at Arms Dump
April 27, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Blasts.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Hundreds of Iraqis frantically dug through the ruins of destroyed homes and screamed at U.S. troops, blaming them for a series of explosions at a U.S.-held weapons cache that pummeled a residential area and killed at least six people.
The U.S. military blamed unknown attackers who they said fired four flares Saturday into the sprawling open dump, laden with 80 Iraqi missiles, setting off a cascade of warheads, rockets and mortars that pummeled homes for miles.
``This is the safety that Bush promised us?'' demanded Munthir Safir, the blood of his family dried on the cloth of his white caftan. Around him, wailing women collapsed over the coffins of two adults and four teenagers.
``No Saddam! No Bush! Yes to Islam!'' fist-waving men shouted. The disaster touched off protests in the stricken Zafaraniyah neighborhood and in the city center.
Hours later, smoke still surged from the blackened crater left at the missile cache. Explosives boomed, a rocket whistled and rounds popped. One unexploded missile protruded from a lawn. U.S. forces promised to send removal experts.
One American soldier suffered a broken arm in the initial attack on the depot, said Col. John Peabody, commander of U.S. Army's 11th Engineering Brigade.
In Qatar, U.S. Central Command spokesman Lt. Mark Kitchens placed blame squarely on what he called ``the despicable people'' who allegedly fired the flares.
``This is not just an attempt to disrupt the process of peace. It's a crime against the Iraqi people,'' Kitchens said.
Elsewhere on Saturday, U.S. soldiers found 14 suspicious barrels, including one that preliminary tests found could contain a mixture of nerve and blistering agents, according to ABC News. The barrels were found about 25 miles north of Saddam Hussein's home region of Tikrit in a large weapons storage area that included missiles and missile parts. ABC was escorted to the site by the U.S. military.
Previous finds of chemicals suspected of being weapons of mass destruction have turned out to be false alarms. The Pentagon said it was aware of the report but could not confirm it.
The disaster in Baghdad struck at 7:50 a.m. as residents slept or assembled bread and tea for breakfast.
Out of sight of U.S. troops at the depot, someone fired four flares over a wall around an open field where ordnance had been stored, said Sgt. 1st Class Ronald King, a witness.
Americans said some of the tactical weapons had been stored there by Saddam's regime, which had stashed such items in schools, homes and other populated areas.
The U.S. military had put some of the ordnance there itself, however, collecting abandoned Iraqi caches from around the city for later disposal, King said.
The cache included Russian-made Frog-7s and Iraq's own Al Samoud 2 -- 80 missiles in all, said Peabody, whose unit had been helping at the site.
The flares hit an ammunition pit, setting fire to wooden ammo crates, King said. In a flash, deadly remnants of Saddam's regime were pounding homes without warning. Booms rattled windows across the city.
About a mile away, a missile plowed into a dirt lane between two rows of crude two-story homes. Walls crumbled and roofs blew off, demolishing four houses. Inside one, the impact killed a 50-year-old worker, his four teenage children and his 23-year-old daughter-in-law, a new mother.
``Our house collapsed. That's all I remember,'' Mohammed Khazaal, 15, said from a hospital bed, his head wrapped in bandages and gashes across his body. A brother of the dead young woman, he had been sleeping when the missile hit.
Nearby, medical workers treated deep cuts in the legs of Zeineb Thamer, the year-old daughter of the woman who died. Blood matted Zeineb's light-brown hair. In English, the message on her T-shirt declared, ``Welcome, Little Friend.''
Peabody said 10 or more Iraqis were wounded. Two of them were said to be near death.
U.S. forces initially came under small-arms fire when they went to the scene, Peabody said. They returned fire. There was no word on further casualties.
Peabody wouldn't speculate on exactly who fired the flares. ``Somebody who does not want us to be here,'' he said.
Ultimately, Peabody said, the fallen Iraqi regime was responsible. ``We are very sorry that the practice of Saddam Hussein putting his missiles ... throughout Baghdad has resulted in this.''
In Zafaraniyah, residents described days of what appeared to be U.S.-controlled blasts at the missile dump, apparently to destroy leftover Iraqi weaponry.
Mohammed Hussein said he and some neighbors had personally visited U.S. military officers to stress that the depot was near crowded neighborhoods. American forces stopped night explosions after that, and ended the daytime ones three or four days ago, Hussein and others said.
Many Iraqis in the area, though, contended that an intentional American blast had triggered the disaster.
``Why?'' one distraught man demanded when three American soldiers went to look for missile parts in the shattered home. Responded one American: ``It's not our fault.''
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U.S. Says Turks Are Smuggling Arms Into Northern Iraq City
By DAVID ROHDE
April 27, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/international/worldspecial/27TURK.html?ei=1&en=831c605d4bdd5499&ex=1052407148&pagewanted=print&position=
KIRKUK, Iraq, April 26 - Men who identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces soldiers tried to smuggle grenades, night-vision goggles and dozens of rifles into this oil-producing city in northern Iraq this week, American military officials said today. The officials say they believe that the weapons, which were hidden in an aid convoy, were bound for ethnic Turkmens living here.
Tonight, gunfire erupted as aid was distributed at a Turkmen political office in the city. One Arab and one Turkmen were wounded, witnesses said. It was unclear what led to the shooting.
Turkey has repeatedly said it might launch a military incursion into northern Iraq, citing what it says is abuse of Turkmens by Arabs and Kurds. Turkmens make up less than 5 percent of Iraq's population.
The discovery of the smuggled arms came on Wednesday, when a Turkish aid convoy reached an American checkpoint north of the city, officials said. American soldiers, who had heard that Turkish Special Forces soldiers were trying to enter the city, questioned the men.
"They were all in civilian clothes, and they didn't produce anything that they were authorized to be in the area," an American military official said. "They identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces."
The American seized and then searched the half dozen vehicles in the convoy. They found several dozen AK-47 assault rifles and other military equipment, including a small number of American-made M-4 rifles and grenade launchers.
Night-vision goggles, radio scanners, pistols and banners and flags of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, the main Turkmen political party in Iraq, were also found. About half of the roughly two dozen men in the convoy identified themselves as Turkish Special Forces soldiers. American soldiers escorted them to the border.
Kemal Yaycili, chief of the Turkmen front's new offices in Kirkuk and nearby Mosul, said local Turkmens needed to defend themselves against "our enemies." He said that six members of the ethnic group had been killed in Kirkuk since it was captured two weeks ago and that three had been killed in Mosul.
Kurds have expelled 300 Turkmens from their homes, he said. "Really, when we feel any threat, when we feel anyone bother us from outside," Mr. Yaycili said, "we have a right to ask for help from the outside." But he added that security was improving.
Kirkuk sits on top of huge oil reserves, and Kurds and Arabs claim that 100,000 members of each of their groups were expelled from the city by Saddam Hussein's government.
American military officials who have been trying to ease tensions in Kirkuk reacted with frustration to the arms smuggling. "As we are trying to maintain stability," one said. "We don't need an outside force coming in and stirring things up."
Col. William Mayville, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which patrols Kirkuk, said he had been urging Turkmen leaders to use the fall of Mr. Hussein to begin a new chapter in their relationship with the local Kurds. "They were a group that was a minority that did suffer under Saddam Hussein," he said. "I think it's time for the Turmen here to re-evaluate their relationships."
Gular el-Nakib, a 48-year-old teacher was one of dozens of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens lounging near the city's central square tonight. "We don't want differences; we want to live happily without enemies," she said. "Our main enemy is gone."
----
Ties between al Qaeda, Saddam revealed
By Inigo Gilmore
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
April 27, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030427-87318755.htm
BAGHDAD - Iraqi intelligence documents provide fresh evidence of a direct link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's regime, including discussions of a visit by bin Laden to Iraq.
Papers found here in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service, reveal that an al Qaeda envoy was invited clandestinely to Baghdad in March 1998.
The documents show that the purpose of the meeting was to establish and maintain a relationship between Baghdad and al Qaeda based on mutual hatred of the United States and Saudi Arabia. The meeting apparently went so well that it was extended by a week and ended with arrangements being discussed for bin Laden to visit Baghdad.
The papers show that, despite denials by both sides, Saddam's regime desired to "maintain contacts" with bin Laden and al Qaeda.
The Sunday Telegraph found the file on bin Laden inside a folder lying in the rubble inside a room of the bombed intelligence headquarters. There are three pages, stapled together; two are on paper headed with the insignia and lettering of the Mukhabarat.
The file shows correspondence between Mukhabarat agencies over preparations for the visit of al Qaeda's envoy, who traveled to Iraq from Sudan, where bin Laden was based until 1996.
The documents recount what Baghdad hoped to achieve from the meeting, which took place less than five months before bin Laden was placed at the top of America's most-wanted list following the bombing of two U.S. embassies in east Africa.
Perhaps aware of the sensitive subject matter, Iraqi agents at some point clumsily attempted to mask all references to bin Laden, using white correcting fluid. When the dried fluid was carefully removed, however, the name is clearly legible three times.
The file contradicts the claims of Baghdad, bin Laden and officials of some Western governments that there was no link between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda.
One Western intelligence official described the file as "sensational," adding: "Baghdad clearly sought out the meeting. The regime would have wanted it to happen in the capital, as it's only there they would feel safe from surveillance or detection."
One paper dated Feb. 19, 1998, is marked, in handwriting, "Top Secret and Urgent." It is signed "MDA," a code name believed to be the director of an intelligence section within the Mukhabarat. It refers to the planned trip by bin Laden's unnamed envoy and arrangements for his visit.
A letter with this document says the envoy is a trusted confidant of bin Laden. It adds: "According to the above, we suggest permission to call the Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden."
Khartoum station is Iraq's intelligence office in Sudan.
The letter refers to bin Laden as an opponent of the Saudi Arabian regime and says the message to convey to him through the envoy "would relate to the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."
According to handwritten notes at the bottom of the page, the letter was passed through another director in the Mukhabarat and on to the deputy director general of the intelligence service.
It recommends that "the deputy director general bring the envoy to Iraq because we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."
The deputy director general penned his signature of approval to the document. All of the signatories use code names.
The other documents confirm that the envoy traveled from Khartoum to Baghdad in March 1998, staying at al-Mansour Melia, a first-class hotel. It mentions that his visit was extended by a week.
In notes in a margin, the name Mohammed F. Mohammed Ahmed is mentioned, but it is not clear whether this is the envoy or an agent.
Intriguingly, the Iraqis refer to sending back an oral message to bin Laden, perhaps aware of the risk of a written message being intercepted. However, the documents do not mention whether a meeting took place between bin Laden and Iraqi officials.
Over the past two weeks, the Sunday Telegraph has discovered various other intelligence files in the wrecked Mukhabarat building. They include documents revealing how Russia passed on to Iraq details of private conversations between Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, and how Germany held clandestine meetings with the Iraqi regime.
The latest revelation coincides with the arrest of Farouk Hijazi, who was captured Friday by U.S. forces in Iraq near the Syrian border. Mr. Hijazi became head of external operations for the Mukhabarat in the 1990s.
Washington says he was the link man between Iraq and al Qaeda and that he met bin Laden in Kandahar before the September 11 attacks, when he was Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.
----
Airfield, missiles, suspects seized
By Stephen Coates
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
April 27, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030427-38762485.htm
BAQUBAH, Iraq - U.S. forces seized an airfield yesterday in the northeastern Iraqi city of Baqubah near the border with Iran, along with a stash of missiles and dozens of people suspected of hiding weapons.
Officers with the 4th Infantry Division said U.S. troops detained 40 Iraqis but met no resistance as they moved into the airfield on the northern edge of the city in the early morning.
"This was not a military target, but it will most likely become a forward operating base for us where we will push logistical assets," said Lt. Col. Robert Valdivia.
Two men also were detained outside the air base after Iraqi military assault rifles were found in their van. Intelligence officers said they appeared to be arms dealers.
Some soldiers reported seeing a vehicle mounted with a heavy machine gun fleeing from a village nine miles outside the airport as the U.S. troops approached. Local residents also pointed U.S. troops to a stash of 12 missiles, which Iraqi soldiers apparently had left there several weeks ago.
Col. Valdivia said U.S. regular forces had not yet established control in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, where several paramilitary groups are believed to be competing for control.
"We did not meet any resistance, but that does not mean there are not MEK or other noncompliant forces operating here in Baqubah," he said. MEK stands for Mojahedin Khalq, or the People's Mojahedin, the main armed Iranian opposition.
Saddam Hussein sheltered the People's Mojahedin, and the U.S.-led coalition targeted its bases. However, the U.S. military says it has reached a cease-fire agreement with the group.
A spokesman for the group has said the truce agreement allows the guerrillas to keep their arms and carry on their fight against Tehran.
The Baqubah airport showed no signs of recent use but was littered with the remains of light and vintage aircraft, including helicopters bearing the Iraqi flag that were bulldozed aside to make way for U.S. tanks and fighting vehicles.
More forces from the 4th Infantry's 2nd Brigade are expected in the coming days to pour into the airfield, from where they will conduct operations throughout Diyala, between the Iranian border and the northeastern edge of Baghdad.
U.S. forces now control at least five air bases in the country. The Pentagon has denied news reports the United States is seeking a base for military operations in Iraq after an Iraqi government is established.
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An Air War of Might, Coordination and Risks
By Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 27, 2003; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42694-2003Apr26?language=printer
Several days into the war against the government of Saddam Hussein, sandstorms raged across Iraq, and thinly stretched U.S. ground forces paused in their rapid march to Baghdad. But there was no pause in the air war. On the contrary, Air Force Lt. Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley ordered a dramatic escalation in the assault on Iraqi military forces dug in south of the capital.
"We're killing the Republican Guard," Moseley said at the close of his morning briefing at the U.S. air operations center in Saudi Arabia, according to a deputy. "But I want you to kill them faster."
Moseley did not just order more attacks; he rearranged the air battle. In a risky bid to extend strike missions by making it easier for planes to refuel, he ordered tanker aircraft -- which are relatively vulnerable, because they lack their own warning radar and armaments -- to venture into Iraqi airspace, even though Iraq's dense air defense network had not been eliminated.
At the same time, he shifted large, lumbering and similarly vulnerable surveillance aircraft into Iraq. Among them were JSTARS radar planes, each equipped with a Doppler radar system capable of viewing hundreds of square miles at once -- and unaffected by blowing sand.
Information from JSTARS and other monitoring systems was relayed in minutes to target planners on the ground, who then sent attack instructions to AWACS control planes over Iraq, which in turn directed warplanes to the target. "If the Iraqis moved in a coherent formation, they were immediately detected and targeted," said Maj. Jon Prindle, a senior JSTARS director. "Most of them got destroyed."
With such imagery streaming into the air operations center, U.S. commanders "knew the layout of the Republican Guard forces better than their own division commanders did," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Dan Darnell, the center's director.
Although television cameras captured the dramatic bombardment of downtown Baghdad, Moseley's aggressive prosecution of the broader air war -- a campaign that dropped 29,000 bombs and missiles on thousands of targets in Iraq -- played out largely behind the scenes. There were several reasons for this: Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations playing host to U.S. air crews refused to accept embedded reporters, who might have conveyed a greater sense of the air strategy to American audiences; many targets were out of sight of journalists on the battlefield; and senior military officials did not discuss their strategy in public.
But in interviews over the past week, Air Force pilots and battlefield commanders described an air campaign significantly different from any the United States had waged before, one that not only featured far greater use of overhead imagery and all-weather precision munitions but that also saw an unprecedented degree of coordination between air and ground forces.
The main result was an intense, sustained air assault on Iraqi forces that cleared the way for the speedy advance of U.S. ground troops into Baghdad, followed by the sudden collapse of resistance in the Iraqi capital.
Beyond technology, the air war also stood out for the way commanders fought it, showing a willingness to take considerable risks -- risks that mirrored those taken by ground commanders, who invaded with a smaller force than traditionalists would have liked. They were emboldened in part by the fact that Iraqi air defense forces put up less of a threat than anticipated, never sending their own fighter jets aloft and keeping their targeting radars turned off to avoid being located by U.S. planes. But the Americans also had planned an aggressive campaign from the start.
Moseley credited Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's top commander, with setting the campaign's push-the-limits tone before the first bombs fell.
Franks's "guidance was to make it 'fast and final,' " Moseley said in written response to questions. "That was the mark on the wall for his commanders."
Pulling Punches
That aggressive spirit was evident from the beginning. When the air campaign kicked off in earnest on March 21, it unleashed more than 2,500 missiles and bombs across Iraq in the first 72 hours. There were 11 missions reflected in the campaign's daily blueprint, the "air tasking order." They included close air support for Special Operations Forces in southern, western and northern Iraq; suppression and destruction of Iraqi air defenses; and missions designed to keep Iraq's air force on the ground by patrolling the sky and bombing Iraqi airfields.
Nonetheless, two senior military officials acknowledged that U.S. commanders, anticipating a possible quick victory, pulled some punches in the opening days of airstrikes. In part to limit civilian casualties, about two dozen targets, mostly communication nodes and a few leadership sites, were dropped from the hit list, they said.
"There was a hope that there would be a complete and utter collapse of the regime early on," said Lt. Col. David Hathaway, deputy chief of strategy at the Combined Air Operations Center at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. "In order to let that come to fruition, they initially held back those targets."
When U.S. and British ground troops entered southern Iraq a day ahead of schedule on March 21, scores of other targets in that region also fell off the list. Hundreds of bridges, rail lines, power stations and other facilities, once considered potential targets, were spared to preserve infrastructure for a speedier postwar recovery.
This restricted approach drew criticism from some inside and outside the Air Force for weakening the impact of what was widely labeled a "shock and awe" campaign. But architects of the strategy said they believed that by focusing the first strikes on Hussein's palaces, security operations, intelligence services and Baath party buildings, the protective screen around the Iraqi leader could be removed and his downfall precipitated.
"We wanted to make it clear to the Iraqi people that we were attacking regime targets," said Col. Mace Carpenter, chief strategist at the air operations center. "We wanted them to see that we were clearly targeting those people who had been repressing them."
Targeting the Guard
Once it became clear that the initial attacks had not broken the government's will to fight, the air campaign shifted focus to Republican Guard forces, particularly the three divisions -- the Medina, Hammurabi and Nida -- arrayed south of Baghdad.
While the ground forces paused during the last week of March to refuel, refit and wait for the sandstorms to blow over, air commanders pressed the attack.
"There was no pause," said Vice Adm. Timothy Keating, who commanded naval forces in the war, including more than 250 strike aircraft flying from five aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. "The visibility was lousy and I'm sure brutal for the folks on the ground, but from the various sensors we had and the very good intelligence work done before the campaign started, it was a simple matter to continue prosecuting a certain target set -- the Republican Guard. We could tell where they were."
Lt. Col. Robert Givens, an operations officer with the 524th Fighter Squadron who was piloting an F-16, could see through the dust using an infrared scope. With coordinates provided by Army intelligence officials, he bore in on a battalion of the Medina Division about 20 miles east of Karbala, dropping 500-pound, laser-guided GBU-12 bombs on eight tanks and infantry fighting vehicles one night.
"We would set up different types of attack patterns to try to be random to defeat any enemy gunners, who were still shooting in the sandstorm, still putting up antiaircraft artillery," Givens said in a telephone interview.
The Iraqis appeared to believe the sandstorm would provide cover. For example, instead of dispersing to avoid detection, so many T-72 tanks and other armored vehicles ended up packed together tightly near Najaf that a U.S. strike took out 30 of them with four satellite-guided bombs, according to Air Force Maj. Gen. Dan Leaf, the senior air commander at the allied land forces headquarters in Kuwait.
Lt. Col. Mike Webb, an operations officer for the 190th Fighter Squadron, told how A-10 attack planes in his unit were given additional latitude to operate during the sandstorm. Normally, he said, A-10 pilots are required to identify their targets "either by eyeball -- binoculars -- or onboard sensors" before firing. But in this case, the requirement was lifted. Authorization to drop 1,000-pound CBU-87 cluster munitions -- weapons that disperse hundreds of smaller bomblets across the ground -- on Republican Guard positions came from airborne controllers, who took responsibility for assessing the potential damage to civilians.
"At any other time, that would not be standard procedure for us," Webb said.
As the weather improved, the attacks on the Republican Guard intensified, occupying more than two-thirds of the approximately 800 strike missions being flown by U.S. and allied aircraft in the war's second week. By then, U.S. forces had seized Tallil air base outside Nasiriyah and turned it into a refueling station for A-10 attack planes, providing them an extra hour over most target areas.
Aircraft flying a variety of missions over all parts of Iraq were also instructed, before returning home, to circle back over the Republican Guard divisions and unload whatever ordnance they still had on board.
Finishing the Job
Unlike the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which had distinct air and ground campaigns, this air war was designed, in Darnell's words, to stay "very tightly lashed" to the ground campaign.
To pound the Republican Guard harder, U.S. commanders had to resolve an early difficulty with what the military calls the "fire support coordination line." That is the line, demarcated ahead of advancing Army forces, that keeps U.S. warplanes from bombing too close to U.S. ground troops. But in this case, it had been set so far ahead that it was inhibiting air attacks on Iraqi fighters on whom U.S. soldiers were closing in.
When the problem became clear, Moseley arranged with Army ground commanders to allow warplanes to operate behind the line in 30-mile-by-30-mile "kill boxes" -- areas that had been identified as free of U.S. troops.
"The first few days, things were moving so fast that it was difficult to optimize the use of anything," said one senior Air Force officer who requested anonymity. "There's a price to be paid for simultaneity."
By pushing the tankers and surveillance aircraft north nearer to Baghdad starting on March 24, Moseley was extending the time that U.S. warplanes could spend over Iraq between refuelings and support advancing Army and Marine forces. Moseley himself questioned whether his gamble was paying off and queried Leaf after several days. Leaf recalled telling Moseley that the improved intelligence from the surveillance aircraft was indeed proving "worth the risk."
Moseley left the guarded security of the air operations center on April 3 and flew on a tanker mission that brought him within 60 miles of Baghdad.
"He knew he was pushing the risk envelope, and he wanted to show the folks who flew for him that he was willing to take the risk," Leaf said.
Much of the air attack on the Republican Guard by then was being watched -- and coordinated -- by soldiers and Marines on the battlefield. On April 4, for instance, as the Marines were advancing on Baghdad, a Hunter reconnaissance drone spotted a large group of Iraqi artillery and other military vehicles moving out of the capital under the cover of darkness. In the Marines' Combat Operations Center, the video stream played live on a display screen, and the officers coordinated a devastating attack on the convoy.
Lt. Col. David Pere, the senior watch officer, called out grid coordinates as other officers forwarded them either by telephone or even Internet chat rooms. A flock of F/A-18 Hornets and AV/8B Harriers raced to the scene. On the video, tiny figures could be seen running from the vehicles. At times a giant flash of light would blind the Hunter camera, and all that would be left on the highway would be smoking wreckage. On a few occasions, the initial hit was followed by repeated secondary explosions and crackling fireworks, suggesting that an ammunition truck had been struck.
A bomb-damage assessment report indicated that about 80 vehicles were destroyed in what amounted to a turkey shoot.
By April 4, U.S. Army intelligence estimated the Medina Division had been reduced to 18 percent of its full strength. The Hammurabi Division was rated at 44 percent. An Army intelligence officer, presenting these figures to unit commanders, added: "These numbers are somewhat in dispute. They may actually be lower." Battle over Baghdad
As they bore down on Republican Guard forces in the field, U.S. commanders also turned more aggressive in striking Baghdad, going after those targets that had been held back initially out of concern for avoiding civilian casualties or damaging civilian property. These included not only telephone exchanges and other communication nodes, but also Iraqi television broadcast facilities.
To provide air cover for the U.S. Army and Marine forces moving into Baghdad, air commanders had developed a special concept for close-air support in a large urban area. It involved stacking different types of warplanes with varying munitions over the city to provide multiple attack options. It also involved allowing aircraft to fly as low as they needed to identify targets and to shoot.
For the A-10s, which are equipped with 30mm Gatling guns, this meant getting down to 2,000 or 3,000 feet at times for strafing runs. Webb, the A-10 operations officer, said his aviators were "very concerned" about the lingering air defense threat in the capital, particularly from "dozens and dozens" of portable, shoulder-mounted launchers.
One shoulder-fired missile ended up downing an A-10 on April 8. Another A-10 was hit nine minutes later but managed to fly back to Kuwait. The day before, an A-10 was also struck but limped to Tallil air base.
Of 1,800 U.S. and allied aircraft, only two U.S. warplanes were lost to enemy fire: the A-10 over Baghdad and an F-15E fighter jet that went down April 7 near Tikrit north of the capital. The A-10 pilot was rescued; the two F-15E crewmen were killed.
One of the lingering mysteries is why no Iraqi warplane took to the air. Moseley suspects the Iraqi air force was intimidated by the U.S. attack, which included heavy bombing of airfields.
"We hit him pretty hard up front," Moseley said in a news conference on April 5. "So I believe that he has not flown because in their mind, they've made a calculation that they will not survive."
Correspondent Peter Baker in Iraq contributed to this report.
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Was Tariq Aziz the coalition's mole?
By Con Coughlin
27/04/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/27/waziz27.xml
Iraq's former deputy prime minister, now in US hands, was the urbane public face of the Saddam regime. But he may have helped the allies to target his ex-boss, reports Con Coughlin
Saddam Hussein's security chiefs placed members of Tariq Aziz's family under arrest shortly before the start of the war to make sure that the former Iraqi deputy prime minister did not defect to the West, The Telegraph can reveal.
Concerns about the fate of his family - in particular his eldest son - if he surrendered to coalition forces was Aziz's primary concern during the lengthy negotiations that finally resulted in his decision to give himself up at the end of last week.
"Tariq was still terrified of what the remnants of Saddam's regime would do to his family if he surrendered to us," said a Western security officer. "Even if Saddam were dead, he knew that there were still Ba'ath Party loyalists who would want to exact revenge on his family."
As part of Aziz's surrender terms, coalition commanders agreed to place the Iraqi politician's immediate family under the equivalent of protective custody to ensure that they were safe from revenge attacks by Saddam loyalists.
But yesterday the favourable surrender terms agreed between coalition commanders and Aziz prompted speculation that Saddam's trusted foreign policy adviser may in fact be the Iraqi spy who provided the intelligence responsible for the cruise missile attack on the Iraqi dictator's bunker in southern Baghdad in the opening salvoes of the conflict.
Intelligence officials have claimed that the information they received that allowed them to target Saddam's bunker came from a "senior official" within the Ba'ath regime, and as one of the leading members of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Aziz would have prior warning that Saddam was planning to hold a meeting at one of his heavily-fortified bunkers.
"You get the feeling, now that Aziz is safely in American custody, that he will be getting re-acquainted with people he has known for quite some time," said a former CIA officer who specialises in Iraq.
"The information that enabled the coalition forces to target Saddam in the opening hours of the war could only have come from someone like Aziz who had access to Saddam's inner circle."
There has been intense speculation about Saddam's fate since the attack on the bunker in the early hours of March 20. At first it was reported that Saddam had been killed in the attack, then it was suggested that he had suffered non-life threatening injuries that had been treated by a specialist team of Russian doctors.
Coalition officials appeared to confirm that Saddam had survived the initial strike when they bombed a restaurant complex in central Baghdad on April 7 at which the Iraqi dictator had been seen arriving with his younger son, Qusay, and other Ba'ath Party officials.
At the end of last week, however, President George W Bush said he believed that Saddam had either been killed or critically injured in the March 20 attack, and paid tribute to the "brave soul" who provided CentCom with the intelligence that enabled the attack to take place. Asked if the Iraqi spy was still alive, Mr Bush replied: "Yes he is. He is with us. Thank God."
Whether or not Aziz was responsible for providing intelligence about Saddam's whereabouts during the conflict, there is no doubt that the Iraqi dictator had become deeply suspicious about his deputy prime minister's intentions.
Relations between the two men had become strained in the aftermath of the Gulf war in 1991 when Saddam became concerned that Aziz, who was then his foreign minister, enjoyed too much popularity among Iraqis as a result of his well-publicised international diplomatic activities.
As the only Christian among the Sunni Muslim clique that controlled the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Aziz has always been regarded as an outsider since he came to Saddam's attention in the 1970s for his staunch anti-Communist views, which he regularly aired in the columns of al-Thawra (The Revolution), the Ba'ath Party newspaper that he edited.
In recent years Aziz had been sidelined following his appointment as deputy prime minister, although he managed to retain his position on the all-important RCC, the Ba'athists' main decision-making body.
The only reason that Aziz managed to survive this period is that Saddam continued to rely on his expertise in foreign affairs, where his urbane charm enabled him to make an impact in countries that were eager to develop lucrative trade ties with Baghdad.
In the late 1990s, when Aziz failed to persuade the United Nations to lift the sanctions imposed on Iraq at the end of the Gulf war, Saddam briefly imprisoned the politician's eldest son as punishment.
In the weeks preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam ordered the detention of several members of Aziz's family f