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NUCLEAR
Birth Defects Tied to GWS
U.S. MUST DESTROY SEVERAL SITES TO END IRAN'S NUKES
Britain Advises Iran on Nuke Inspections
Who Lost the WMD?
Israeli Likens BBC Program to Nazi Press
US seeking alliance to block weapons exports by North Korea, Iran
'North Korea could test nuke by Dec.'
N. Korea: Taking nuclear issue to UN a `prelude to war'
Rice criticises construction of Israel's security fence
When the U.S. says jump, it wants Pakistan to jump
Flier from senator angers Muslims
U.S. Lawmakers Want International Forces in Iraq
MILITARY
NATO prepares to lead Afghan force
Resurgent Taliban fighters train next generation in new style of warfare
Whispers of Genocide, and Again, Africa Suffers Alone
UK fighter jets sold into Ivory Coast war zone
US tells Taiwan to rely on itself
Bioweapon labs will bring threat of lethal viruses to urban America
Soldiers fear they're acting illegally
Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat
Lawmaker: U.K. Didn't Doctor Iraq Intel
EU stars for UK troops in Congo
BRIT TROOPS SLAM YANKS
Al-Qaeda joke shot down
Iraq's Real Weapons Threat
Paras storm town where mob killed British soldiers
Iraq's resistance war was planned
Death on the road to Basra
Once Hailed, Soldiers in Iraq Now Feel Blame at Each Step
Saddam's top aide organised suicide squads on Syria trip
American Forces Carry Out Raids in Central Iraq
Israel's Lethal Weapon of Choice
Israel Is Skeptical, but Starts Gaza Pullout in Separate Deal
Palestinian Groups Agree to Suspend Attacks Against Israel
Australia enters island war zone
Kashmir Clash Kills 12 Indian Soldiers During Visit by Premier
Fighting an Army's Empire
American death toll in Iraq passes 200
Fighting in Iraq is supposed to be over, but local moms know better
Israel cuts off ties with BBC
Arabs seen as the new villains of Hollywood
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Study: 'First Responders' Underfunded
U.S. Spending Against Terror Is Too Low, Report Warns
Report Says Security Preparedness Underfunded
In the Land of Guantánamo
OTHER
Future Dims for 'Clear Skies' Initiative
ACTIVISTS
Charges dropped against 400
Former Israeli soldiers return to occupied territories to give aid
Greens spurn Democrats, hope for another Nader run
Rage. Mistrust. Hatred. Fear. Uncle Sam's enemies within
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- depleted uranium
Birth Defects Tied to GWS
The man in the street may have heard about the deformed Iraqi children, born following the first Persian Gulf war. But Americans remain largely un aware about the shocking number of children with horrifying birth defects born to U.S. vets who returned home after the war ended in 1991.
Exclusive to American Free Press,
June 29, 2003
By Christopher J. Petherick
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_29_03/Birth_Defects_Tied/birth_defects_tied.html
American veterans of the 1991 war in Iraq, who reported suffering a wide array of debilitating illnesses now known as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), have had an alarming number of children born with severe birth defects, according to several independent researchers. The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), however, have refused to acknowledge a direct relationship between those who served in or around Iraq during the war and the increase in birth defects among their offspring.
On Jan. 17, 1991, the United States attacked Iraq to expel the country's forces from Kuwait after it was invaded in 1990. Some 697,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors participated in the war, which barely lasted a month-and-a-half.
At first, U.S. war planners were applauded for keeping U.S. casualties to a minimum. But after the war officially came to close on Feb. 28, 1991, veterans began reporting illnesses doctors were at a loss to explain.
Veterans reported suffering a wide range of symptoms, including chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headaches, memory loss, depression, un explained rashes and sleep disturbances. This wide array of ailments came to be known collectively as GWS.
Despite the evidence, the government still refuses to link the war with illnesses suffered by vets.
The VA disputes reports on GWS, saying it "is a non-scientific label that has frequently been used to describe those veterans with unexplained illnesses."
VA officials argue that veterans are actually suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, "an anxiety disorder commonly diagnosed in individuals exposed to extraordinary stress or trauma, such as that associated with military combat."
But, 12 years after the war has ended, more and more veterans have reported their illnesses getting worse. According to some independent researchers, thousands of Gulf War I vets have died from illnesses related to GWS.
It's not just veterans who are suffering from GWS. Another tragic result of the war, according to independent researchers, is the shocking number of children with severe birth defects born to Gulf War vets.
"Sixty-seven percent of babies born to the 400,000 vets who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome have birth defects," said Joyce Riley, a former nurse who flew in Iraq and the founder and spokesperson of the American Gulf War Veterans Association. "But the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs do not want America to know the number of sick, dead and deformed kids that vets are having. It's another cover-up."
Mrs. Riley served in the Gulf War as a captain in the Air Force Reserve and flew C-130 missions with a medical team in support of the war.
"A lot of the babies are being born with organs out of place-kidneys in the wrong place, hearts out of the body," Riley told AFP. "The most [common birth defect] is failure to thrive, where they could not keep weight on and just didn't make it."
Though the government refuses to acknowledge that many children of vets are suffering, Mrs. Riley says the evidence linking the ghastly birth defects to Iraq is overwhelming.
"One nurse who served over there-all three of her children were born autistic," she said. "We've also seen a lot of what is known as 'Goldenhar Syndrome,' that is where there is a missing left eye and left ear. It's very strange. A lot of people believe this has something to do with the radiological problem related to the use of depleted uranium."
"Goldenhar Syndrome is a congenital birth defect which involves deformities of the face," reports the National Craniofacial Association (NCA), a non-profit organization based in Tennessee that assists families of children born with facial deformities. "It usually affects one side of the face only. Characteristics include: a partially formed or totally absent ear; the chin may be closer to the affected ear; one corner of the mouth may be higher than the other; or a missing eye."
According to NCA, the causes of Goldenhar Syndrome are a bit of a mystery. It is not caused by anything the mother does while pregnant. However, certain factors, such as the environment, play a part.
The group is specifically looking into a link between the Gulf War and an increase in this type of birth defect.
"[T]here does seem to be an increased incidence of Goldenhar among the children of Gulf War veterans," reports NCA.
The NCA, along with the University of Texas South western Medical Center at Dallas and the Association of Birth Defect Children, Inc., have initiated a study into the relationship between Gulf War vets and Goldenhar. The groups are trying to locate all children with Goldenhar syndrome who were born subsequent to July 1, 1991, and who had a parent who served in the U.S. military between 1990 and 1991.
The reasons remain puzzling as to why so many children with birth defects have been born to veterans.
Some believe it is due to the vast number of highly toxic depleted uranium rounds fired into Iraq by U.S. forces. Others contend that it is due to the many vaccines given to troops working in the area. Still others argue that it is the result of the demolition of Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
As more veterans come forward, researchers are confident that a link will be established and GWS sufferers and their children will finally get the justice they deserve.
-------- iran
U.S. MUST DESTROY SEVERAL SITES TO END IRAN'S NUKES
Sun, 29 Jun 2003
[MENL]
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/june/06_30_1.html
WASHINGTON -- The United States must be willing to destroy a range of Iranian facilities to ensure the elimination of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
A report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy asserts that any U.S. effort to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capability would invite major retaliation from the Islamic regime. The institute said that a U.S. strike on one or two nuclear facilities would not suffice in ensuring the destruction of Iran's nuclear capability.
"Given the broad scope of the Iranian program, the United States would have to mount a comprehensive attack aimed at several key facilities in order to significantly stunt its progress," the report, entitled "Iran's Nuclear Weapons: How Might Iran Retaliate," said. "Any such operations would need to be precise and effective. Key facilities and components would need to be completely destroyed or rendered useless, and this level of damage is not always easy to achieve."
The report was referring to a series of facilities discovered over the last year secretly built by the Islamic republic. The United States has confirmed nuclear facilities at Arak, Natanz and the nuclear power plant at Bushehr.
----
Britain Advises Iran on Nuke Inspections
June 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Britain-Nuclear.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Sunday that Iran must agree to unfettered inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog if it hopes to improve trade ties with Europe.
Britain has echoed U.S. concerns that Iran might be using its civilian nuclear power program to conceal attempts to build an atomic bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is aimed at meeting its growing electricity needs and denies it is developing nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has urged Iran to sign an additional protocol to the nonproliferation treaty. Under the pact, Iran would have to accept more intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites by the U.N.'s nuclear agency without prior notice.
Straw, who is on a two-day visit to the Islamic country, said Iran's signing of the additional protocol would start to bring confidence among members of the 15-nation European Union.
``In the EU, we want to see economic cooperation ... and propose closer cooperation with Iran,'' he said. ``Progress on that depends on cooperation on human rights and the nonproliferation treaty.''
Straw said Iran should sign the protocol ``unconditionally and quickly'' and warned that the world would not be willing to work closely with Iran if it didn't.
``If the reverse happens and there is no signature, confidence will not be improved and the international community will be profoundly reluctant to lift the sanctions,'' he said at a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi.
Kharrazi said Iran was ready for talks to sign the protocol, provided that the IAEA and countries possessing nuclear technology offer to help Iran in what it says is its peaceful atomic program.
``We are ready for talks and cooperation. But Iran's transparency should be reciprocated. When Iran signs the protocol, others should also take positive steps,'' he said.
Iran has said it will sign the protocol if the IAEA provides it with advanced nuclear technology as a member state and a signatory to the nuclear treaty.
Britain and the United States severed diplomatic ties with Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, but Britain and Iran exchanged ambassadors in May 1999. This is Straw's fourth trip to Tehran in the past two years.
Iran's hard-liners on Sunday denounced Straw's visit after British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed support for the student-led protests in Iran earlier this month.
``Blair aggressively supports rioters,'' the hard-line daily Jomhuri-e-Eslami said. ``The Foreign Ministry should explain the point of dialogue with those who interfere in Iran's internal affairs.''
Kharrazi said he had expressed Iran's dissatisfaction over Blair's remarks. Straw said London would not interfere in Iran's internal affairs.
``Our position is to support the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. Future arrangements in the government in Iran is a matter for Iranian people (to decide) and we respect that,'' he said.
Straw was expected to meet with President Mohammad Khatami on Monday.
-------- iraq / inspections
Who Lost the WMD?
As the weapons hunt intensifies, so does the finger pointing. A preview of the coming battle
By MASSIMO CALABRESI AND TIMOTHY J. BURGER
Sunday, Jun. 29, 2003
TIME magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030707-461781,00.html
Meeting last month at a sweltering U.S. base outside Doha, Qatar, with his top Iraq commanders, President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.
It seems as if just about everyone has questions these days about the missing WMD. Did U.S. intelligence officials-or their civilian bosses-overstate the evidence of weapons before the war? And if some intelligence officials expressed skepticism about WMD, who ignored them? For the past several weeks, the usually lockstep Bush Administration has done its best to maintain a unified front in the face of these queries. Whenever asked, Administration officials have replied that the weapons will turn up eventually. But as the search drags on through its third largely futile month, the blame game in Washington has gone into high gear. And as Bush's allies and enemies alike on Capitol Hill begin to pick apart some 19 volumes of prewar intelligence and examine them one document at a time, the cohesive Bush team is starting to come apart. "This is a cloud hanging over their credibility, their word," Republican Senate Intelligence Committee member Chuck Hagel told abc News. Here are key questions Congress wants answered:
What Was Cheney's Role? Lawmakers who once saluted every Bush claim and command are beginning to express doubts. Two congressional panels are opening new rounds of investigations into the Administration's prewar claims about WMD. One of their immediate inquiries, sources tell Time, involves Vice President Dick Cheney's role in reviewing the intelligence before the bombing started. Cheney made repeated visits to the CIA in the prelude to the war, going over intelligence assessments with the analysts who produced them. Some Democrats say Cheney's visits may have amounted to pressure on the normally cautious agency. Cheney's defenders insist that his visits merely showed the importance of the issue and that an honest analyst wouldn't feel pressure to twist intelligence. The House intelligence committee (and possibly its Senate counterpart, sources say) plans to question the CIA analysts who briefed Cheney, and that could lead to calling Cheney's hard-line aides and perhaps the Veep himself to testify.
Is Powell Trying To Have It Both Ways? Secretary of State Colin Powell, who staked his reputation on his February declaration at the U.N. about Saddam Hussein's arms program, is also feeling the heat. Powell's aides fanned out after that performance to say the Secretary had gone to the CIA and scrubbed every piece of intelligence to make certain it was solid. But since then, little of Powell's presentation has been proved by evidence on the ground, and last week his aides were on the defensive over a memo from the State Department's intelligence bureau that questioned whether two Iraqi trailers discovered in April were mobile bioweapons labs, as Powell has asserted. Questionable intelligence that made it into Powell's February speech leaves him particularly vulnerable. Expect a push by Democrats, and perhaps some Republicans, to seek Powell's testimony too.
Will Tenet Be Left Holding the Bag? CIA Director George Tenet is faring a bit better. The House committee's top Democrat, Jane Harman, noted last week that "caveats and qualifiers" Tenet raised in prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons were "rarely included" in Administration arguments for war. After the awkward Q&A in Doha, Bush put Tenet in charge of the WMD hunt. Tenet in turn hired a former U.N. weapons inspector, David Kay, to run the search, but Tenet and Kay have a lot of ground to make up fast. Tenet, sources say, recently conceded to the House panel that the CIA should have done more to warn that finding WMD could be a drawn-out process. Tenet got a reprieve last week when an Iraqi scientist who had hidden parts and documents for nuclear-weapons production in his backyard for 12 years came forward. Tenet's usually behind-the-scenes CIA suddenly became very public in trumpeting the importance of the discovery, if only to remind people how hard illicit weapons would be to find. But Tenet's hot zone isn't Baghdad; it's Capitol Hill. He canceled testimony before the Senate committee last week, citing a schedule conflict. If he doesn't find any weapons, he needs to find a way not to be blamed.
Bush officials believe that time and history are on their side. They argue that now that Saddam is gone, Americans don't care very much about finding WMD. They also say it is only a matter of time before more evidence of weapons materials and programs emerges. And when that occurs, they contend, all their opponents will look as silly as they did when they argued that the war was going badly in its second week. "The Dems are looking for an issue, but I think they're making a mistake," says a senior Administration official.
Democrats do sense a possibly potent campaign theme, but they run the risk of appearing to politicize a sensitive national-security issue as they try to prove the Administration has a credibility gap. But Democrats are not alone in feeling as though they may have been sandbagged on the evidence before the war began. Sources say g.o.p. Senate Intelligence Committee members Olympia Snowe and Hagel have privately questioned the Administration's handling of prewar intelligence. The Republican-held House voted last week to order the CIA to report back on "lessons learned" from the buildup to war in Iraq. The House and Senate intelligence-committee leaders have agreed to coordinate their probes loosely to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. In a rare move, the House panel quietly voted on June 12 to grant all 435 Representatives access to the Iraq intelligence, although a Capitol Hill source said fewer than 10 members outside the committee had reviewed the material.
Administration officials have a further concern about where all these questions are leading. They fear that any problem with the prewar intelligence could undermine Bush's ability to continue his muscular campaign against terrorism overseas. The Administration has argued that to counter new kinds of threats posed by terrorists, rogue states and WMD, it has to be able to act pre-emptively. But pre-emption requires excellent intelligence, and the whole doctrine is undermined if the intelligence is wrong-or confected. "Intelligence takes on an even more important role than in the past because you can't wait until you see an enemy army massing anymore," says former Clinton Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg. But if WMD don't turn up and the Administration wants to act elsewhere, it may find that the enemy massing against it is public opinion at home.
-------- israel
Israeli Likens BBC Program to Nazi Press
June 29, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-BBC.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- An Israeli government official said Sunday that a BBC program charging Israel with secretly stockpiling nuclear and chemical weapons demonized Israel in a way reminiscent of anti-Semitic tracts published in Nazi Germany.
Government Press Office chief Daniel Seaman said a TV report entitled ``Israel's Secret Weapon'' was the latest in a number of programs by the British Broadcasting Corp. questioning Israel's right to exist. He declined comment on media reports that he intended to impose sanctions.
The BBC said it stood by the program.
The program, part of the ``Correspondent'' series, was aired in Britain in March but first shown in Israel on Saturday night. It cites experts as saying Israel has ``the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons ... as well as medium-range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea.''
It also says Israel has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities and used an unknown gas against Palestinians in Gaza in February 2001 that sent 180 people to the hospital with severe convulsions.
Israel at the time denied having used poison gas.
``The accusations are very reminiscent of the most horrible anti-Semitism,'' Seaman said. ``This is very reminiscent of Der Stuermer,'' he added, referring to a virulently anti-Semitic newspaper from Nazi-era Germany.
The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday that the Government Press Office intends to impose visa restrictions on BBC staff and to refuse to make officials available for BBC interviews, or to help BBC journalists facing problems with army roadblocks and airport security checks.
``Let's say that the hospitality extended by the government of Israel through the GPO is not something engraved in stone,'' Seaman said without elaborating.
BBC spokeswoman Kate Atkins said the broadcaster had not been officially informed of any pending Israeli action.
``We stand by the Correspondent program and regret any response the Israeli government might make,'' she said.
Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, but the government's public policy is purposefully vague, stating only that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, because it objects to international inspections.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the country's Dimona nuclear plant, gave pictures of what appeared to be nuclear weapons at the plant to a London newspaper. He is serving an 18-year term for treason and espionage.
Israel has fallen out with the BBC before, protesting bitterly over a June 2001 documentary in which legal experts said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should be indicted for failing to prevent the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in refugee camps during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The killings were carried out by a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel. An Israeli inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible and forced him to resign as defense minister in 1983.
``The BBC always questions and doubts Israel's integrity,'' Seaman said. ``It is always putting it in some demonic context, not as a democracy fighting for survival.''
-------- korea
US seeking alliance to block weapons exports by North Korea, Iran
Sunday June 29
(AFP)
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/030629/afp/030629123146int.html
TOKYO - The United States is seeking an international alliance to block exports of weapons of mass destruction and missiles by North Korea and Iran, it was reported here.
The report by Asahi Shimbun follows allegations that the United States may scuttle an international project to build light-water reactors in North Korea, a deal contingent on the Stalinist state's adherence to a pact freezing its nuclear arms programme.
North Korea publicly declared this month it was seeking nuclear weapons.
A senior US administration official said Washington would help establish a "voluntary alliance" of countries that would boost inspections of ships and aicraft against the hardware shipments, the Japanese daily said.
Leaders of the 11-country bloc are the United States, Japan and Australia, which met in Madrid on June 12 to plot strategies to thwart the spread of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and missile components, the influential daily quoted an unidentified official as saying.
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain have confirmed they would make best use of existing laws to intercept such exports, the official said.
The countries were to meet July 9-10 in Australia to plan better cooperation in tracking the shipments.
China and Russia, both with close links to North Korea, were to be consulted by the United States in an effort to pursue "stronger action," based on a UN resolution, to halt weapons exports, the official said.
In December, the Spanish navy stopped and searched a suspected North Korean freighter in the Mediterranean found to be carrying 15 North Korean Scud missiles to Yemen, but US forces had no legal right to seize the cargo as the ship was intercepted in international waters.
Meanwhile, US allegations over the weekend indicated Washington would suspend the nuclear reactor project, despite caution expressed by South Korea and Japan.
On Friday, US Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker said that if Pyongyang does not dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, "it is unlikely that the United States would support the completion of those reactors beyond the commitments that we've undertaken in the framework agreement."
But earlier Saturday, Asahi quoted a senior US official who said the United States would decide "on its own" whether to halt the reactor project.
Construction of the light-water reactors started in August under a 1994 "framework agreement" between Pyongyang and Washington designed to end the North's nuclear arms ambitions.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) -- which groups the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union -- was created to build the reactors, which would produce significantly less weapons-grade nuclear material than a nuclear plant constructed during the Soviet era.
"I think we have only a few months, two or three months, and then KEDO will become, essentially, history," Kenneth Quinones, a former US State Department official involved in the framework talks, said in an interview published in the Daily Yomiuri Sunday.
"The Bush administration has provided administrative support until the end of August," said Quinones, who now serves as the Korean affairs director for the non-governmental International Center in Washington.
"Once the US stops supporting KEDO, KEDO's dead."
----
'North Korea could test nuke by Dec.'
Yomiuri Shimbun
June 29, 2003
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20030629wo43.htm
Kenneth Quinones, a former North Korea analyst for the U.S. State Department during the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton, said Friday it was possible for North Korea to test a nuclear weapon by the end of this year. During an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Quinones--who was involved in negotiations that resulted in the 1994 Agreed Framework between Washington and Pyongyang--said this viewpoint is shared by officials of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Following is an excerpt of the interview:
The Yomiuri Shimbun: Could you tell us about the common viewpoint in Washington regarding the situation in North Korea?
Quinones: To the best of my knowledge, based on very well-informed Washington sources, North Korea's nuclear program is moving ahead very quickly. Basically, this means North Korea reprocessing is almost finished, or has finished. This means North Korea now has enough plutonium to make six to 10 nuclear weapons.
There is the problem of how do you know if it will work. If North Korea wants to use their nuclear weapon as negotiating leverage, they must test it. If the test works, they want us to know. Why? They want to frighten us. To make us negotiate with them.
There is the question of how can they deliver this. It is impossible for North Korea to have nuclear warheads. The technology is too sophisticated. They do not have that technology. However, it is possible to deliver a large nuclear weapon using a ship.
The only ballistic missile that works in North Korea is the Rodong--or Scud, possibly. The Rodong is designed (to hit) U.S. military bases in Japan. You are the target of the Rodongs.
North Korea cannot send nuclear weapons to the United States. The only country they can send it to besides South Korea is Japan. So you have three problems. You have abducted Japanese citizens, you have ballistic missiles and you have nuclear weapons.
This is a very difficult situation for Japan, not just Washington.
You talked about a time frame for a nuclear weapons test.
The more I talked to my friends, the more I realized that it is possible for North Korea to have a nuclear weapon by December. It is possible they'll have a test by December. There is nothing to stop North Korea from doing this.
Why do you say this?
It takes about six months to reprocess, and then about six months to make the bomb. There are two kinds of bombs North Korea could make. One is the HEU--highly enriched uranium bomb. I now understand that it takes a long time, maybe two or three years, to make enough HEU to make one nuclear weapon.
So it's not possible now for North Korea to make that kind of bomb.
On the other hand, you only need 2 or 3 kilograms of plutonium to make a nuclear weapon. They have that. It is possible that they have that technology. And it is widely known technology.
Do you believe this information is known by officials in the Bush administration?
Yes. I think the information has been studied very, very deeply for one year. And there has been very careful assessment.
Does this mean it is going to take more time for them to make a weapon small enough to mount on a ballistic missile?
I asked a specialist about that exact question: What is necessary to make a small nuclear warhead? And the answer I received was, it requires very sophisticated technology. It took the United States a very long time. We know that Pakistan does not have that capability, and because of cooperation between Pakistan and North Korea before, North Korea does not have that technology. China says it did not give it to them. Russia has not.
So it would be extremely difficult for North Korea to develop that technology by itself, and it would also require a long time. And then they would have to test. Before that, it would be simpler to just make an old-fashioned nuclear bomb. That's where North Korea is.
So if they're going to attack Japan, for instance, they're going to send a cargo ship with weapons.
It's the only way. You see, once we begin thinking that they have nuclear weapons, our thinking must change. Completely. And we begin to think about how to deal with a nuclear North Korea. How will they react, how will we react? So in some ways, (they) are in transition from conventional North Korean military power to an almost nuclear North Korean power.
Is KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) dying? Is there room for it to survive?
The Agreed Framework is dead. My friends in KEDO are looking for new jobs. The Bush administration has provided administrative support until the end of this August. Once the U.S. stops supporting KEDO, KEDO's dead.
Why? Because when KEDO was established, the United States promised North Korea that the U.S. would be the key player in KEDO. Maybe South Korea will take over KEDO, and maybe the project will continue, but not as KEDO. Japan has been put into a difficult situation. Does Japan contribute to a nuclear program in North Korea, or does Japan stop? I think we have only a few months, two or three months, and then KEDO will become essentially history.
----
N. Korea: Taking nuclear issue to UN a `prelude to war'
By The Associated Press
Sunday, June 29, 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=312394&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
SEOUL - A move by Washington to bring the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program to the United Nations will be seen as a "prelude to war," the North warned yesterday, adding it would respond with a "corresponding measure."
North Korea's official KCNA news agency did not elaborate on the corresponding measure.
The communist country has been sharpening its anti-U.S. rhetoric amid tensions over its suspected nuclear weapons development.
The United States has proposed that the Security Council issue a statement denouncing North Korea's nuclear program. Washington and its allies have been pressuring the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
The North said it would consider the introduction of the nuclear issue at the UN Security Council "as a prelude to a war and take a corresponding measure."
Washington's "intention to refer the issue to the UN can never be tolerated, as it seeks to use the UN in achieving its criminal aim to isolate and stifle" North Korea, KCNA said.
Also yesterday, KCNA released a copy of a letter from North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun to the Security Council, harshly criticizing the United States and urging the council to remain neutral on the nuclear dispute.
"It can be said that now, the United Nations is at the crossroads of whether it will maintain the international order led by the United Nations or give way to the establishment of a dangerous world order led by an individual country," the letter said.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter Friday, submitted by North Korean Ambassador Pak Gil Yon.
North Korea accuses the United States of setting off the nuclear dispute to create an excuse to invade the communist country.
The nuclear standoff flared in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret nuclear program.
U.S. officials say North Korea has told them it already possesses nuclear bombs and plans to build more, but is willing to give them up in return for security guarantees and aid.
-------- us politics
Rice criticises construction of Israel's security fence
Sunday, 29-Jun-2003
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ah/Qmideast-us-roadmap-fence.REWH_DuT.html
JERUSALEM, June 29 (AFP) - US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Sunday criticised the Israeli government's continued construction of a security fence between Israel and the West Bank, a government source said.
Speaking after a meeting with Israeli ministers in Jerusalem, Rice said Washington saw the construction of the fence as "problematic" because it would "create a fait accompli" and could be perceived as the precursor to an international border between the two territories.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the fence "had no political significance" and that it was only being built as a response to "security concerns".
Sharon stressed he would not back down on the issue, even if it caused a disagreement with Washington.
Israel began building its 350-kilometre (210 mile) security fence in June last year in a bid to keep Palestinians from entering the Jewish state to carry out attacks like suicide bombings.
Construction of the fence, which roughly follows the Green Line marking the armistice lines at the end of the 1967 war, was criticised by the UN Human Rights Commission, which said it amounted to de facto annexation of nearly seven percent of West Bank land.
But Israel defends construction of the fence, the first 145 kilometres of which is due to be completed next month, as an effective measure to stop Palestinian attackers.
"We are in favour of continuing construction of the fence, not to create a border but because it is an effective way of stopping terrorist infiltrations, " the centrist Justice Minister Tommy Lapid said after meeting Rice.
After meeting with Sharon, Rice met with members of the security cabinet, including Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rice, who arrived in the region Saturday for a lightning visit aimed at boosting the "roadmap" for peace, was also expected to meet the entire Israeli cabinet on Sunday.
She met earlier Sunday with Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayad and Sharon's top aide Dov Weisglass to discuss "civilian issues", the radio reported.
Rice met with Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Jericho on Saturday evening and extended an official White House invitation to the moderate premier.
Her visit could coincide with the announcement of an Israeli-Palestinian security deal and a three-month suspension of anti-Israeli attacks by Palestinian militant groups, although last-minute differences could delay the truce.
----
When the U.S. says jump, it wants Pakistan to jump
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
June 29, 2003
Toronto Sun
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jun29.html
Pakistan's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, was granted the honour last week of an audience at Camp David with the Great White Father. U.S. President George Bush, who three years ago couldn't even name Pakistan's leader, hailed Musharraf as a "statesman" and "friend of freedom."
Gen. Musharraf was offered a conditional $3 billion US aid package, provided: a) Congress, which hates Pakistan, approves; b) Musharraf continues to arrest Islamic militants and support the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan; c) makes no trouble with India over Kashmir; d) doesn't supply nuclear technology to North Korea.
On the last item, the same Washington "experts" who assured us Iraq was bristling with deadly weapons that could annihilate the U.S. and U.K. "in 45 minutes" now claim Pakistan aided North Korea. Pakistan denies this questionable allegation.
In a startling public insult to a "friend and ally," Bush refused Musharraf's request to release F-16 fighters bought by Pakistan in 1989. Pro-Israel members of Congress blocked delivery of the aircraft to punish Pakistan for its nuclear program. Ironically, Pakistan's inability to acquire modern warplanes to counter India's state-of-the-art French Mirage 2000s and Russian MiG-29s and SU-30s compelled Islamabad to rely ever more heavily on its nuclear forces to deter hostile India, whose powerful military seriously outnumbers and outguns Pakistan.
I've felt a certain sympathy for Gen. Musharraf, who overthrew Pakistan's inept prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, in a 1999 coup. When I interviewed Musharraf in 2000, he was truly struggling to reform Pakistan's squalid, corrupt politics. Then came 9/11. The Bush administration put a gun to Musharraf's head, ordering him to ditch Pakistan's Afghan ally, the Taliban, open Pak bases to U.S. forces, arrest anti-American militants and fire the capable nationalist officers - and close friends - who put him into power, Generals Aziz and Mahmoud.
Obey, Washington warned Islamabad, or we will foreclose your loans, impose trade sanctions, cut off spare parts, and give India a green light to go after you. Tough Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan's last military ruler, would have stood up to American bullying. Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto would have cleverly managed to somehow finesse Washington's threats. But Musharraf, with a near-bankrupt nation, and faced with what he viewed as a Hobson's choice between obedience and ruin, caved in to Washington's demands and became, overnight, its compliant servitor.
One couldn't fail to notice the contrast last week between the leaders of Pakistan and India. While Musharraf was at Camp David playing the loyal sepoy to the American Raj, India's Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee was concluding an historic strategic agreement with rival China. India finally agreed to fully recognize Chinese rule over Tibet in exchange for China's acceptance of India's rule over the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, which Delhi annexed in 1975. No mention, however, was made of Aksai Chin, the northernmost portion of divided Kashmir annexed by China.
The Indo-Chinese pact will help reduce tensions between the world's two most populous nations - both nuclear powers - over their poorly demarcated Himalayan border, which led them to war in 1962. But it will not allay Beijing's fears the U.S. is using India to threaten China, and secretly encouraging Israel to help India build its nuclear forces. Nor will it lessen the worrying nuclear arms race between the two Asian superpowers. Still, it was a major advance and an act of effective statesmanship by the old rivals.
Those who call for Tibet's freedom will be dismayed. Without Indian support and bases, no armed Tibetan independence movement can operate. Last week's agreement marks the end of any faint hope Tibet might retain its national identity and avoid being totally absorbed, as have China's other minorities, by a flood of Han Chinese immigration.
Tibet is now destined to become a theme park for foreign tourists and its former Buddhist leadership a curio from the past. I say this with heavy heart, since His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, gave me some spiritual guidance and helped inspire my book, War at the Top of the World, which deals, in part, with Tibet and the Indo-Chinese strategic rivalry.
Tibet's last chance for independence is now gone. I understand China's historic claims to Tibet, but my heart aches for its people and their gentle, gracious leader.
Before leaving the U.S., President Musharraf rightly warned Americans that terrorist attacks were largely due to smoldering political grievances around the world, and that "state terror" against Muslim peoples was being ignored or abetted by America - an obvious reference to Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir. Unfortunately, Bush was too busy trying to organize an international campaign against Hamas and Israel's other Palestinian opponents to heed Musharraf's sensible warning.
This administration has obviously learned nothing since 9/11 and still refuses to accept the painful truth that misguided U.S. foreign policies led to that attack. Or that Bush is personally stoking anti-Americanism around the globe.
Musharraf's pleas to Bush to help resolve the Kashmir dispute - the world's most dangerous crisis that risks nuclear war between India and Pakistan - were ignored.
"Take your money, go home, arrest more militants, and don't cause trouble," was Washington's sendoff message to the general.
----
Flier from senator angers Muslims
By Yvonne Abraham,
Boston Globe Staff,
6/27/2003
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/178/metro/Flier_from_senator_angers_Muslims%2B.shtml
Senator Guy W. Glodis has angered Muslims and a civil rights group over a flier he sent to fellow senators that says terrorist attacks could be deterred if convicted Muslim extremists were buried with pig entrails.
The flier, which Glodis's 39 colleagues received Wednesday, said an execution of Muslim extremists in the Philippines was ordered by General John Joseph ''Black Jack'' Pershing before World War I, in which the terrorists were shot with bullets dipped in pigs' blood, then buried with ''pigs' blood, entrails, etc.'' According to the flier, contact with the blood and entrails of pigs ''instantly barred'' Muslims from paradise, dooming them to hell. It said news of the burial deterred other terrorist attacks for ''the next forty-two years.''
''Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq,'' the flier concluded. ''The question is, where do we find another Black Jack Pershing?''
A Muslim group denounced the flier as ''slanderous garbage.'' Internet websites cast doubt on the authenticity of the killings as described in the flier, with at least one referring to the description as a fictional chain.
The Auburn Democrat would not say yesterday whether he agreed with the contents of the flier, which he circulated to his colleagues with a note that said ''thought this might be of interest to you.''
''I didn't write it,'' he said. ''I just passed it along to my colleagues. I often share news items of interest with my colleagues.''
The flier merely recounted historical fact, Glodis said, and should not have offended anyone.
''If some of my colleagues are so weak-kneed and politically correct and cannot accept historical fact, I suggest they lodge a formal complaint with the secretary of the Army,'' Glodis said.
But a national Muslim society took a different view and plans to call for Glodis's censure today.
''I am outraged and I am offended, and I think that the senator owes an apology to his Muslim constituents,'' said Raeed N. Tayeh, public affairs director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, in Washington, D.C. ''The inflammatory nature of passing this around and the recklessness with which he's done it -- he hasn't checked his history, and I think it's ludicrous.''
Islam does not teach that people would be barred from heaven by being buried with pigs, Tayeh said.
''It's a canard, it's a lie, a fable,'' he said. ''It is one of those urban legends that keeps getting passed on like a terrible chain letter. God admits people to heaven based on their actions. This is what Muslims believe.''
Tayeh said he would join local Muslims today to call on Senate President Robert E. Travaglini to censure Glodis. Travaglini's office did not return several calls requesting comment.
''This is just a sad commentary on the ignorance of people who are entrusted to represent Americans, that they would pass around such offensive, distasteful, and slanderous garbage to members of an esteemed body such as the Massachusetts Senate,'' Tayeh said.
A local civil rights leader concurred.
''It's deeply troubling,'' said Andrew Tarsy, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League's New England office. ''Discourse on difficult issues in this country requires a fundamental respect for human rights. Appeals to bigotry are not a part of the constructive discussion about the war on terrorism. His role is to lead a discussion, and that can be done without this kind of recklessness.''
Most of the senators called for comment on Glodis's mailing yesterday did not return calls, but two defended his First Amendment right to circulate it. ''I respect Guy. He is a friend, and this isn't something I would support or send out, but he has a right to do it,'' said Senate Minority Leader Brian P. Lees, an East Longmeadow Republican.
''If there was any indication that we would repeat something like that, I would never agree to anything like that, but he has a right to any opinion he wants,'' he said.
Senator Jarrett T. Barrios said he found the flier offensive, and threw it away.
''I get offensive things sent to me all the time,'' said the Cambridge Democrat.
''The First Amendment of the United States allows people to be eloquent in how they express themselves or to be troglodytes. It doesn't discriminate. Clearly, the senator is able to exercise his First Amendment rights and has chosen to do so. And I am free to throw it in the garbage.''
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 6/27/2003.
----
U.S. Lawmakers Want International Forces in Iraq
Sun June 29, 2003
By Lori Santos
(Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DY1EUFOJXU2EKCRBAEKSFEY?type=politicsNews&storyID=3007510
WASHINGTON - An international force of up to 60,000 troops is needed in Iraq to halt the continuing violence, which will escalate if left unchecked, U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden warned on Sunday.
Appearing on the "Fox News Sunday" program, the influential Democrat, on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "I think we need somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 other troops."
"I want to see French, German, I want to see Turkish patches on people's arms sitting on the street corners, standing there in Iraq," Biden said. "...We've got to get over this ideological fixation on the part of Mr. (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and (Vice President Dick) Cheney of not letting the Europeans and NATO come in."
Biden returned recently from a trip to Iraq, where steady attacks have targeted Americans since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. At least 22 Americans have been killed by hostile fire.
Sen. Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, told CBS "Face the Nation" extra troops were urgently needed.
"I don't think we have months. I think we've got weeks to turn this around," Dodd said. "And the people on the ground know it. Our military people are exhausted.
"... We need to get that second army in place over there. We need to invite others around the region as well as the world to help us do that. We're not doing that and the longer we wait, the greater risk is going to be posed by Iraq," Dodd said.
The lawmakers spoke after a week of particularly intense ambushes and hit-and-run attacks. Another explosion in Baghdad on Sunday targeted a U.S. convoy. Biden said the status of U.S. troops there was "in peril. The war is still on." He said he had been assured NATO was ready to join the U.S. and British troops in Iraq and that "NATO should be in."
The Delaware Democrat said the U.S. troops he spoke with felt shortchanged by Washington's failure "to expand this responsibility internationally. They all understand it."
"One general I spoke with said. 'Look senator, this is a fairly sophisticated group... It's the old Fedayeen, we believe, and it's the old Republican Guard and they are beginning to mobilize and organize."'
While Biden said he did not believe a coordinated central network was in place, the attacks were clearly being organized by "serious military people."
"It is increasingly becoming bolder and increasingly becoming more coordinated," he asserted. "...To the extent that we continue to try to own this all ourselves, I think, this will increase."
On ABC's "This Week," U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he also "would like to see a lot of other nations" included.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
NATO prepares to lead Afghan force
Sunday, 29-Jun-2003
by Leon Bruneau
Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/cf/Qnato-afghanistan.RRAt_DuT.html
BRUSSELS, June 29 (AFP) - NATO is preparing to take over a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan in August, amid growing calls for the mission's mandate to be extended to deal with mounting insecurity in the battle-scarred country.
The Alliance will take over the International Stabilisation Force (ISAF) in the war-scarred country, in the first "out-of-area" mission - meaning beyond its tradition European theatre of activities - in NATO's 54-year history.
But even as troops train for the August 11 handover to NATO command, calls are multiplying for the force to be extended from Kabul and its immediate surroundings to cover other parts of Afghanistan.
An extension of the force's mandate seems however unlikely any time soon, inciting NATO commanders to look at other ways to boost ISAF's influence, such as working more closely with so-called US sponsored "provincial reconstruction teams" (PRTs) some of which are already on the ground.
But some diplomats at NATO caution against "building up false hopes", while others say it is "premature" to talk about extending ISAF beyond it's current area of deployment, considering the lack of means.
NATO decided in April to take command of ISAF, which will remain under a UN mandate. The current 4,700 strong force was deployed at the end of 2001 after the fall of the Taliban to US attacks following the September 11 terrorist attacks, and is currently jointly led by Germany and the Netherlands.
In the rest of the country, the United States has about 8,500 troops under Operation Enduring Freedom.
The growing insecurity in Afghanistan was highlighted last week when a US soldier was killed and two others wounded after being attacked on patrol in Afghanistan's restive southeast region. Earlier this month several people were killed when an explosion hit an ISAF troops' bus in Kabul.
NATO's top commander in Europe, US General James Jones last week designated the commanders of the Alliance-led force as German General Goetz Gliemeroth and Canadian major-general Andrew Leslie.
Military commanders are currently battling to fill the "shortfalls" in force in time for the handover in less than a month and a half's time.
"Preparations are well underway, it is going pretty well. The problem at the moment is not the number of troops - we have them - but the logistical aspects," such as transport, said one diplomat.
At the same time, commanders acknowledge that "pressure is building up" over the issue of ISAF's mandate.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN officials as well as non-governmental organizations want the force's geographical mandate to be extended, at a time when the security situation is deteriorating on the ground.
But British General Sir Jack Deverell, in charge of planning NATO's takeover of the Afghan force, said the issue was more than about geography.
"We need to get away from the idea that Isaf's influence is simply defined by a line in the ground," he said, speaking recently at NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium.
"What we need to do is expand Karzai's area of influence and use ISAF... to help him do that," he added.
Military commanders are therefore studying ways of boosting links between ISAF and the PRTs, whose aim is to help the central government strengthen its authority in the provinces through reconstruction programmes spearheaded by the military.
"How that works is not clear," admitted Deverell.
The aim is to deploy 16 PRTs across the country. Three are already in place, in the central region of Bamyan, Kunduz in the north and Gardez in the east. Britain is also set to deploy its own troops in Mazar-i-Sharif, in the north.
For its part, the United States is trying to persuade countries notably in central Asia to take part, said one US diplomat.
----
Resurgent Taliban fighters train next generation in new style of warfare
Sunday, 29th June 2003
Scotsman
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=710862003
MULLAH Malang is waiting impatiently at his home in Pakistan, praying for his sick wife to die. The senior Taliban fighter says his presence is needed in southern Afghanistan, where a new model army of Islamic extremists is gathering following a renewed call to arms by their ousted leader Mullah Omar.
Malang's Taliban superiors have assigned him to help set up mobile training camps in the increasingly lawless border provinces. With their ranks routed and camps destroyed by American forces, the resurgent Taliban have taken to the road to train the next generation in a new style of warfare.
Instructions in suicide attacks - once the preserve of the Taliban's Arab fighters - are being adopted by native Afghanis.
New recruits are also being taught how to use dogs and donkeys fitted with explosives to attack coalition checkpoints. Turned loose nearby, the bombers wait until the animal wanders close enough to a checkpoint and the explosives are then detonated by remote control.
In an interview at an undisclosed location near Miranshah, Pakistan, Malang said he would instruct between five and eight recruits at a time as larger numbers might attract US attention. They stay no more than three days in one place.
All this spells trouble for the US, say observers, although they doubt the Taliban could engage in mass warfare to win territory.
"The Taliban are adopting new and deadly strategies," said Peshawar-based analyst Mohammad Riaz.
Shahnawaz Tanai, a former communist Afghan general now living in exile in Pakistan, added: "It is a dangerous situation. But the Taliban's guerrilla warfare lacks co-ordination and it seems unlikely they can take Kabul again."
Taliban sources say their presence in southern Afghanistan now includes more than 1,000 fighters under the command of former intelligence chief Mullah Dadullah. According to Malang, mobile training camps are operating in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Helmand and other former strongholds of the Islamic militia, where there has been a recent upsurge in violence.
Observers say the Taliban are trying to undermine the central government's authority by creating obstacles to major reconstruction projects in the south, an area many Western aid workers have fled.
Local border-town residents say leaflets announcing the formation of suicide squads to attack US forces were distributed in Afghanistan. In the first attack, a car bomb was detonated in Kabul on June 7, killing four German peacekeepers. Malang attributes the attack to Arabs and Uzbeks. Reports at the time suggested it was a co-ordinated effort by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Hizb-i Islami. Until now, suicide missions in Afghanistan have been the province of foreigners.
"We received orders from Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden to prepare ourselves for suicide attacks against Americans," said Malang. He quotes the orders as saying: "Don't hesitate to sacrifice life in the name of Allah. Carry out suicide attacks whenever there is a crowd of foreigners or their puppets."
The Taliban began planning its comeback last year in Kandahar. Then 70 or so trusted Taliban men attended a secret meeting, according to sources in the militia, where the one-legged Mullah Dadullah administered an oath and duties. This week, Mullah Omar reportedly convened a 10-man war council to lead the jihad against the infidels.
Malang, meanwhile, counts the days until he can return to guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. "Pray for my wife's death so I get liberated from worldly affairs and have no burden on my mind in the battlefield," he said. "I have pledged to sacrifice my life and go to heaven as a jihadi."
A version of this story first appeared in the Christian Science Monitor
-------- africa
Whispers of Genocide, and Again, Africa Suffers Alone
By Lynne Duke
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43548-2003Jun27?language=printer
How bad does it have to get this time? How many Africans must die before the world is moved to action?
Once again, there is bloodletting in Africa, this time in a place called Ituri, in the dense equatorial forests in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Machetes and Kalashnikovs are the preferred weapons. Ethnic rivals are the preferred victims, especially in batches and whole families. At the United Nations this spring, whispered fears of "genocide" were in the air again. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has been down this road before, warned that the pattern of killing in Ituri could presage a far more disastrous conflict. He called for a more robust U.N. peacekeeping force than the 8,700-strong contingent already in Congo, and France is now leading a supplemental emergency force of 1,400 to try to quell the Ituri violence.
President Bush will travel to the continent next month. Among his stops will be Uganda, across the border from Ituri, where Ugandan troops once patrolled and supplied arms to combatants. Bush's trip will look nice. Last Thursday, in a speech to the Corporate Council on Africa, Bush outlined a broad-brush agenda on Africa, including an end to Congo's war. "To encourage progress across all of Africa, we must build peace at the heart of Africa," he said.
But don't count on the White House to support a beefing up of the U.N.'s role in Congo. And don't expect Washington to do anything aggressive to stop the killing. That is not Washington's way -- at least when it comes to Africa.
This has happened many times before. It happened under President Clinton, when the world failed to deter genocide in Rwanda. With indignation and rhetorical flourishes, the Bush administration recently cited that episode as a cautionary tale to shame members of the U.N. Security Council reluctant to throw in their support for the war against Iraq. "From a moral point of view, as the world witnessed in Rwanda . . . , the United Nations Security Council will have failed to act once again," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. But with violence once again threatening Africa's Great Lakes region, the United States is doing just what it did in 1994 -- sitting on the sidelines.
So I wonder: Just how many dead Africans would it take for the United States to intervene? The answer may come soon if Ituri and other ethnically riven Congolese regions continue to smolder. But historically, Washington's and the rest of the world's tolerance for mass African death has been quite high.
Perhaps I sound cynical, even a bit macabre. I admit it. I am bitter. That's because I've been there. I've seen these policy failures up close. It all goes back to a place called Nyabibwe, a Zairian town caught at the fluid front lines of war, where I came to understand -- with a sting I still feel sharply today -- that the West was willing again and again to let Africans die in mass slaughters.
I was covering Africa for The Washington Post, and for several days in November 1996, armies of journalists, aid workers and U.N. personnel were vexed by the question: Where were the Rwandan war refugees? Their location and number would determine whether a U.N. peace mission would deploy to help them or would fold. The area around Nyabibwe was a logical place to look. Roughly 1.1 million people had fled to eastern Zaire after the massacres in Rwanda in 1994 and were housed in a string of 30 U.N. refugee camps along the border. Then, when war broke out in Zaire and engulfed the camps in November 1996, about 600,000 of them fled back to Rwanda. That should have left half a million, scattered by the fighting. That's what the U.N. said and what U.S. reconnaissance imagery, seen by aid groups, showed.
The aid groups were outraged, then, to hear U.S. diplomats say there were no more than 200,000 refugees left in Zaire, dispersed in relatively small groupings. Moreover, the diplomats said, those refugees who remained in Zaire had probably taken part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and were thus unworthy of being saved. This last point was hotly debated, for the refugees included huge numbers of children and elderly and throngs of people being herded through the region like human shields.
In search of the "missing" Rwandan refugees, I happened upon a blasted-to-smithereens refugee convoy at Nyabibwe, where the steady report of automatic weapons fire told us that fighting was still raging in the nearby hills. The Clinton administration's reasoning was clearly a crock, I realized. I counted 30 charred and twisted cars, trucks, buses and gas tankers choking the main road along Lake Kivu's western shore. In a region where few vehicles are ever spotted, of course reconnaissance flights would have seen all these vehicles plodding up the Kivu road. That road was lined for miles with the remnants of cooking fires and tents used by the refugees. Eyewitnesses I met on the road told me that hordes of people had moved with the convoy until forced to march off into the hills near Nyabibwe -- the same hills where I had heard the shooting.
But there would be no rescue. The peace mission was aborted. Washington won the day, leaving 500,000 Africans to their fate. Months later, hundreds of thousands of refugees started emerging from the rain forest in search of aid only to be greeted by massacres that left untold numbers dead.
The United States obviously cannot police the entire world. It cannot be expected or obligated to jump in and save the day in each and every conflict. Liberia, for example, also cries out for help. But it's the way Washington decides where to intervene, and for whom, that stirs indignation. It has become a chronic feature of U.S. policy -- dating back to the 1993 debacle that left 18 U.S. Rangers dead in Somalia -- to send no troops into harm's way in Africa. Over and over, U.S. diplomats will say that Africa, unlike the Balkans or Iraq, is not of strategic interest to the United States.
But the U.S. aversion to intervention in Africa is deeper than that; Washington has prevented other nations' troops from intervening, as well. Rwanda, where 800,000 people died, is one case. Ituri, where the peacekeeping mandate comes up for Security Council reconsideration in the coming month, could become another.
It is not a matter of asking why can't the Africans solve their own problems. It is, instead, a matter of asking: If the United States can help Kosovo Albanians, Iraqis, Bosnians, Israelis and Palestinians trying to settle their conflicts, why can't it help Africans? Many may be forgiven for believing it is about race and the lesser value that the United States places on African lives.
Even by the standards of Africa's many catastrophes, the five-year-old Congo conflict rates high in terms of the sheer numbers of casualties. The conflict -- of which Ituri is one theater of battle -- is part of a domino effect caused by Rwanda's genocide. This war started in 1998, when a rebel faction supported by Rwandan and Ugandan troops mounted a failed military push on the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Since then, the Congolese war has claimed more than 3 million lives, not just in battle, but also as a consequence of the sustained degradation in the region's quality of life. People are dying from malnutrition and from disease. In Ituri, aid groups estimate the death toll to be 50,000. The Western powers, we must surmise, find these deaths tolerable, for they have evoked no more than the usual tut-tutting and shaking of heads that accompany bad news about Africa.
So Bush, like Clinton before him, will now travel to Africa. And, like Clinton before him, Bush will break bread with President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Museveni is one of Washington's favored African leaders, in no small measure because of his leadership in bringing Uganda's stunningly high HIV-AIDS infection rate of a decade ago under control.
But Uganda has played a destructive role in the Congo crisis. The United Nations has accused the Ugandan military and business elite of plundering Congo's natural resources. Aid groups have accused Uganda, along with Rwanda, of training and arming some of the fighters now ripping the Ituri region apart. Both Uganda and Rwanda have maintained military forces in Congo-Zaire since the 1997 ouster of Mobutu Sese Seko. The withdrawal of their forces earlier this year under a Congo peace accord has bequeathed the fighting to their respective militia proxies.
That is what is fueling Ituri's violence. It is not some inevitable spasm of innate African violence, not some stereotype of darkest Africa as summoned up during Rwanda's nightmare. It is mere cause and effect, and thus highly predictable -- and preventable. Let hundreds of thousands of people die, and you can expect enmities to fester, leading to still more bouts of extreme violence.
It is a cycle that can be slowed, even broken. The combatants in the broader Congolese war already have begun negotiating a transitional government, as called for in their peace accord. But that peace process could easily be sabotaged if the Ituri conflict goes unchecked.
With a firm and consistent international commitment, plus a muscular military mandate and sufficient troop strengths, it can be done. It won't be easy, to be sure. Congo is a vast nation -- the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is a dysfunctional state, with little electrical infrastructure, a collapsed road system and a dearth of telephones in most places outside the capital. The country was picked clean under Mobutu, the infamously corrupt dictator of 32 years, and plunged into more confusion by his power-hungry successor, the late Laurent Desire Kabila. Spreading peacekeepers around such a large and problematic place would admittedly be a logistical nightmare. Yet it must be done, and more than the 8,700 troops in the international force are required. And they need more muscle; they need to be authorized to shoot to kill, as is the emergency French-led force in Ituri.
If the goal is to stabilize Congo's embattled regions, save lives and stave off more of the kind of ethnic cleansing that already has taken place, the United States needs to be more aggressively and actively engaged.
That is my wish. Now I must wait and see, again, how many Africans must die first.
Author's e-mail: dukel@washpost.com
Lynne Duke is a New York-based staff writer for the Style section. She was The Post's correspondent for southern and central Africa from 1995 to 1999 and is the author of "Mandela, Mobutu and Me; A Newswoman's African Journey" (Doubleday).
-------- arms sales
UK fighter jets sold into Ivory Coast war zone
Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
Sunday June 29, 2003
The UK Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,987215,00.html
British Customs officials are to launch an inquiry into the sale of jet fighter which look likely to be involved in military operations against civilians and rebels in one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars.
An Observer investigation has revealed a loophole allowing potentially lethal British military hardware to slip out of the country without official scrutiny, licence or control.
The sale of the two Strikemaster jets to the Ivory Coast government discloses a trail which begins with a British air display pilot and ends with a former commando in the French special forces now plying his trade as a mercenary in the war-torn state.
It will come as a further embarrassment to the Government following recent revelations of how British tanks and planes were used by the Indonesian military to suppress a popular uprising.
The Strikemaster is one of the most successful fighters made in Britain. Fitted with two machine-guns and wings designed to carry 3,000lb of bombs or rockets, it is well suited for counter-insurgency, ground attacks and advanced pilot training.
Its acrobatic displays are popular at airshows. But it is these very qualities which allowed it to be sold quietly through a Yorkshire aviation firm to Ivory Coast.
Concerns were first raised in March this year after a plane-spotter published his photograph of a Strikemaster at a Maltese airport in freshly painted Ivory Coast livery.
The Observer's subsequent investigation found that the jet had been used by its then owner, UK pilot Tom Moloney, in airshows across Europe. Because the plane had been disarmed, it was registered as a civilian plane.
Earlier this year Moloney was approached by Sheffield businessman Jurgen Morton-Hall. He told Moloney he wanted to buy his Strikemaster and another similar plane for a company which would use them for film and display work in South Africa.
Morton-Hall's client was called Strikemaster Films. But although the company has a London address it was set up specifically to buy the two fighter planes and was run by two French directors, one of them Jean-Jacques Fuentes.
Fuentes is a former pilot with the French special forces who worked for several years as a mercenary. In 1999 he was flying missions for the African intervention force, Ecomog, in Sierra Leone.
Fuentes told The Observer he had wanted the jets for film work but the deal collapsed. He was then approached by the Ivory Coast government.
He claims the aircraft will be used for reconnaissance flights and for training pilots. He insists that the planes are too old to be rearmed.
Yet it is clear the jets will be used by the military in a region facing huge unrest. According to Amnesty International, refugees from neighbouring Liberia are pouring into Ivory Coast and many are being indiscriminately killed by the military.
Despite this, the jets were sold as civilian planes without an export licence. Had Fuentes applied for a licence, the sale could have been vetoed by the Department of Trade and Industry.
A DTI spokesman said: 'These are clearly military aircraft which will be used for military operations and the seller should have obtained export licences. It is up to Customs and Excise to now investigate the transaction.'
A spokeswoman for Customs confirmed it would be looking at the case 'very thoroughly'. Molony and Morton-Hall claim they had no knowledge of the Ivory Coast deal.
Paul Eavis of the Saferworld think-tank says the case exposes a dangerous loophole.
He said: 'This case raises serious questions about how many other people might be undertaking similar activities. The Government must pursue this case and make sure this type of scandal can't happen again.'
----
US tells Taiwan to rely on itself
29 June 2003
Sunday Dawn (Pakistan)
http://www.dawn.com/2003/06/29/int16.htm
TAIPEI: The United States has told Taiwan that Taipei must be self-reliant when it comes to its national defence as it will take at least two weeks for US support to reach Taiwan if China attacks, media reported on Thursday.
Pentagon officials made the warning to a visiting Taiwan parliament delegation on Wednesday, Taiwan radio and major newspapers said on Thursday.
The delegation briefed US-based Taiwan media on their meeting with Pentagon officials at a news conference in Washington D.C.
"The two-week delay is because the US must go through its own procedure, including military deployment," lawmaker Sun Ta-chien told the news conference.
"The message is to let the Taiwan government and parliament know that in case of military conflict in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan should be prepared to handle it on its own, and not think that the US Big Brother will come and help Taiwan," China Times quoted Sun as saying.
The Taiwan delegation is led by Parliament Speaker Wang Jin-ping and consists of the parliament's National Defence Committee members.
It met with senior US defence officials at the Pentagon, including Assistant Defence Secretary for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian & Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless.
According to Wang, the US officials re-affirmed US commitment to Taiwan but expressed increased concern about China's military threat towards Taiwan.
"They warned that between 2005 and 2008, China's military modernization will reach such a stage that there will be certain changes in the military situation in the Taiwan Strait," the United Daily News quoted Wang as saying.In their discussion of Taiwan's weapons shopping list, US defence officials mentioned three priorities - PAC-3 anti-missile defence system, advanced long-range early-warning radars and the so- called C4ISR capabilities which are command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
US President George W. Bush approved an arms sale package to Taiwan in April 2001, including eight diesel submarines. But since the US has not produced diesel subs for 50 years, the US must find sources to design and build the subs.
Germany and the Netherlands have rejected the notion of making the subs for Taiwan because they have diplomatic ties with China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province. Taiwan only has four outdated subs to patrol the 120-kilometre Taiwan Strait.
The US was Taiwan's long-time ally. When it dropped Taiwan to recognize China in 1979, it signed the Taiwan Relations Act pledging to maintain cultural and trade ties with Taiwan and continue to sell defensive arms to Taiwan.
China, calling US sales an obstacle in China's reunification with Taiwan, has repeatedly demanded the US reduce and eventually end arms sales to Taiwan.-dpa
-------- biological weapons
Bioweapon labs will bring threat of lethal viruses to urban America
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
29 June 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=419946
A network of high-security laboratories for storing and investigating some of the most lethal viruses known to mankind is being built across the US, leaving communities in uproar. They not only fear the risk of the viruses escaping, but also contend that the programme, part of the $6bn (£3.5bn) Project BioShield, is a stunning case of overkill. For none of the germs to be studied is related to bioweaponry.
In the tiny town of Hamilton, Montana, campaigners worry that they will become a terrorist target if the proposed laboratory goes ahead. In New York State, congressmen have already blocked a proposal to house a laboratory on Plum Island, off Long Island. In Davis, California, home to a major branch of the state university system, activists have sued the university for failing to abide by state environmental regulations in making its application to house nasties ranging from Ebola to hanta virus and tick-borne encephalitis.
This is not just a matter of nimbyism. The protesters cannot understand why they should risk exposure to the tiny clutch of diseases requiring the construction of maximum-security "level 4" biosafety facilities - there are just five of them - when none has any known practical utility as a guerrilla weapon. The diseases the national security people are most worried about - anthrax, smallpox and plague - are either level 2 or level 3, and plenty of laboratories at those levels exist already.
"There is no benefit to our community. Not a single one," said Samantha McCarthy, who is leading efforts against the Davis biolab.
In Davis, in particular, there are serious security concerns. This is a university that managed to spread major contamination in a 1950s experiment to irradiate beavers. The clean-up is still going on. In February, a rhesus monkey used in disease experiments mysteriously disappeared from campus and has never been found. Now, the university is proposing to contract out security for the new biolab to Los Alamos, the nuclear laboratory in New Mexico embroiled in numerous security lapses - most recently when it lost what it called a "small" amount of low-grade plutonium.
According to Ms McCarthy, the biolab plan would entail the transport of highly dangerous materials in and out of town in ordinary lorries - a system that recently brought a Hazmat team out on to a road in Ohio after an explosion involving a lower-grade biological agent.
Most experts agree that the level 4 facilities would probably be pretty safe, since they are made of numerous isolation chambers that researchers would enter in moon-style protective gear. Whether they are suitable for urban areas such as Davis is a matter of debate, however. One biolab designer, Jim Orzechowski of the Canadian firm of Smith Carter Architects and Engineers, told the Los Angeles Times less than reassuringly last week: "We're getting as close to fail safe as possible. As fail safe as the space shuttle." The space shuttle has had two catastrophic failures in 17 years.
The broader question, however, is why these laboratories are being built at all. According to Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry at Rutgers University, it is a matter of crazy bureaucratic logic. Congress flooded the National Institutes of Health with so much money that the NIH simply could not work out how to spend it all on biodefence. Even if the NIH accepted every single research proposal without vetting - something it would never do - and built as many level 2 and level 3 labs as it possibly could, it still would not get through the $6bn. Only super-expensive level 4 labs can do the trick - even though they are of negligible scientific or medical value and do not cover bioweapon agents.
"Not only is this a monumental waste of money," Professor Ebright said, "but the new labs raise their own security issues. And it can't be a good idea to increase the number of people trained in handling these agents given the damage that a rogue scientist could do."
-------- britain
Soldiers fear they're acting illegally
By Trevor Royle and Neil Mackay
29 June 2003
UK Herald
http://www.sundayherald.com/34963
BRITISH soldiers fear they could be acting illegally while serving in Iraq and could face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.
Their fears are exacerbated by the row in Britain over whether or not the government exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein to persuade the nation to support military action.
Soldiers believe that if the government did lie, or misrepresent the case for war, then the occupation and any actions taken by serving soldiers in the Gulf would be illegal and could leave them open to prosecution.
British officers and squaddies are concerned that there are no clear rules of engagement for dealing with civilians and that firing on civilian rioters could see them charged with war crimes. Last week, six British soldiers were killed in Majar al-Kabir by Iraqi rioters after using baton rounds to defend themselves.
A senior military source told the Sunday Herald that British operations in Iraq were a grey area which has not been cleared up to the Army's satisfaction.
'The International Criminal Court has the power to bring to trial individual soldiers and their commanders if there is evidence that a war crime has been committed against a civilian,' the source said.
'While this is unlikely, as we have our own system of checks and balances, it does concern our guys, as it is often impossible to differentiate between armed civilians and soldiers.
'Now that we're in the peace making phase, the problems are more acute and the issue is becoming more blurred.'
His fears chime with those of Stephen Solley QC, an international human rights lawyer, who warned before the invasion of Iraq that 'no-one has made a legal case for war'.
British soldiers moved back into the town of Majar al-Kabir yesterday. Some 50 light and heavy armoured vehicles moved into the town as four attack helicopters hovered overhead. The soldiers were met by a group of Shia clerics and prominent town officials in a peaceful ceremony aimed at putting the acrimony in the past and quelling Iraqi concerns that the British planned to take revenge on the town for their comrades' deaths.
Meanwhile, two American soldiers who had been missing for a number of days from their checkpoint north of Baghdad were found dead yesterday. Their bodies were discovered 20 miles north-west of the Iraqi capital.
----
Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat
US official who identified documents incriminating Iraq as fakes says Britain must have been aware of findings
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Raymond Whitaker in London
29 June 2003
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=419982
A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme last night accused Britain and the US of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein.
The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries. When he saw similar claims in Britain's dossier on Iraq last September, he even went as far as telling CIA officials that they needed to alert their British counterparts to his investigation.
The allegation will add to the suspicions of opponents to the war that last week's row between the BBC and Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell was a sideshow to draw attention away from more serious questions about the justification for the war.
The comments of the former US diplomat appear to be at odds with those of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Appearing before a parliamentary committee last week, Mr Straw said the British intelligence community had not known of the forged documents' existence "at the time when [the September dossier] was put together".
But in his first interview on the issue, the former US diplomat told The Independent on Sunday: "It is hard for me to fathom, that as close as we are and [while] preparing for a war based on [claims about] weapons of mass destruction, that we did not share intelligence of this nature."
Asked if he felt his findings had been ignored for political reasons, he added: "It's an easy conclusion to draw." Though the official's identity is well-known in Washington - he was on the National Security Council under President Clinton - he asked that his name be withheld at this stage.
During last week's hearings by the Foreign Affairs Committee, MPs cited repeated reports that the forged documents - a letter on which the signature of Niger's president had been faked, and another carrying the signature of a man who had not held office in the country since the 1980s - had originally reached the CIA via British intelligence.
Mr Straw not only denied that the forged documents came from British sources, but said Britain's allegations about Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa came from "quite separate sources". He said he would give further details of these sources for the uranium allegation in a closed session on Friday, during which he was fiercely cross-questioned by Sir John Stanley, the committee's chief sceptic. After hearing what the Foreign Secretary had to say, the Tory MP is reported to have told Mr Straw he did not believe him.
The testimony of the former US diplomat further undermines the claims of both the British and US governments that Saddam had developed, or was developing, weapons of mass destruction.
The Niger connection became one of the most important and most controversial elements in the build-up to war, and both Britain and the US used it to claim that Iraq was "reconstituting" its nuclear programme. It later emerged that the report was based on forged letters obtained by Italian intelligence from an African diplomat. The Italians were said to have passed the letters to their British counterparts, from where they reached the CIA.
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally had the opportunity to inspect the documents, nearly a year later, they were dismissed as fakes in less than a day. Neither the US nor Britain ever gave the IAEA any other information to back up their allegations on Iraq's uranium-buying activities, despite the "separate sources" cited by Mr Straw.
In February 2002, the former diplomat - who had served as an ambassador in Africa - was approached by the CIA to carry out a "discreet" task: to investigate if it was possible that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. He said the CIA had been asked to find out in a direct request from the office of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.
During eight days in Niger he discovered it was impossible for Iraq to have been buying the quantities of uranium alleged. "My report was very unequivocal," he said. He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents.
On his return he was debriefed by the CIA. One senior CIA official has told reporters the agency's findings were distributed to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department, the FBI and the office of the Vice President on the same day in early March.
Six months later the former diplomat read in a newspaper that Britain had issued a dossier claiming Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa. He contacted officials at CIA headquarters and said they needed to clarify whether the British were referring to Niger. If so, the record needed to be corrected. He heard nothing, and in January President Bush said in his State of the Union speech that the "British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa".
The ex-diplomat says he is outraged by the way evidence gathered by the intelligence community was selectively used in Washington to support pre-determined policies and bolster a case for war.
----
Lawmaker: U.K. Didn't Doctor Iraq Intel
By ED JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
Jun 29, 2003
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRITAIN_IRAQ_FEUD?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair's office did not doctor an intelligence report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, a lawmaker involved in an official probe said Sunday.
Eric Illsley, part of a Parliamentary committee investigating the government's use of intelligence material to justify war in Iraq, said he was satisfied that Blair's communications chief, Alastair Campbell, had not tampered with the dossier.
But fellow committee member John Maples said his colleague's remarks were premature, adding the verdict may come soon. "We haven't come to any conclusions at all yet," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
In part, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee is investigating a BBC report that Blair aides redrafted a file published in September to include claims that Saddam could launch chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes' notice.
BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan said intelligence officials were unhappy with the "sexed-up" report and believed the information about the 45-minute notice came from a single, unreliable source and was incorrect.
The story prompted accusations that the government had exaggerated the scale of the Iraqi weapons threat to convince skeptical lawmakers of the necessity of war.
Government relations with the BBC have slumped to their lowest level in years, with Campbell and the corporation's director of news, Richard Sambrook, firing venomous open letters at each other.
The government is demanding an apology and neither side is backing down.
In the latest twist, Illsley, of Blair's Labor Party, told LBC radio on Sunday that he and other committee members were satisfied the dossier and the 45-minute detail were compiled by intelligence chiefs.
Countering that report, Maples told the BBC that the committee was meeting Tuesday decide its position. Blair's office declined to comment, saying it would wait for the committee's official verdict.
----
EU stars for UK troops in Congo
By Adam Lusher
29/06/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$I1J2FJKMUWUH5QFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2003/06/29/neu29.xml/
The government was accused yesterday of moving closer to joining a "Euro army" after British soldiers began an African mission under European Union command, wearing EU insignia.
Forward elements of a detachment of about 70 Royal Engineers flew to Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo last week as part of a 1,400-strong, French-led EU force, trying to restore security in the war-torn region.
Their headquarters will fly the EU flag and the British will wear Union gold stars on their uniforms.
Bernard Jenkin, the shadow defence secretary, said: "You have a single command and a single insignia - it's another step towards a Euro army, which the Government continues to deny."
Some British veterans have expressed unease about the mission - the first EU-controlled military operation outside Europe and the first without Nato support.
Major Michael Murray, 80, of the Royal Engineers Association, said: "I think the command structure has to have a British source, not an alien one, and particularly not a European one. After Iraq, things aren't very happy between the British and French."
A Ministry of Defence spokesman denied any move towards an EU army, adding: "The involvement in Congo is the type of EU mission that will probably be done in the future - a small, limited operation."
----
BRIT TROOPS SLAM YANKS
Army feud exposed by documentary
Brendan Mcginty Exclusive,
June 29, 2003
UK Sunday Mail
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13121566_method=full_siteid=86024_headline=-BRIT-TROOPS-SLAM-YANKS-name_page.html
A BRITISH Army Colonel has branded US Marines in Iraq as "idiots" and "stupid".
The outburst, to be shown on a TV documentary tonight, will fuel the simmering fued between the coalition forces.
Colonel Steve Cox, dubbed The Mayor of Umm Qasr, made the remarks after learning US Marines had arrested three innocent Iraqi civilians.
The BBC programme Fighting the War shows Cox's anger as he speaks to the camera.
The incident was over in seconds but sheds further light on the ill-feeling between the two forces.
It has come to light after intense cotroversy over the deaths of British soldiers in friendly fire incidents and American complaints about the conduct of British Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins.
The BBC followed Cox as he set up a British command centre in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr in March.
On a trip to the town's harbour, controlled by the US Marines, he discovered three prisoners he recognised after they requested help in the city.
The men had their hands bound.
But they were released and taken back to the city by Cox, the deputy commander of British 3 Commando, and his men.
In his explanation for the cameras he said: "These nobbers here, sorry these Americans, the people came down here to look for help.
"They've tied them up in the room there.
"I think one is a guy whose daughter was hit by a US bomb the day before yesterday and we have been trying to track down his daughter. These idiots would keep him here all night. Stupid."
Cox, a highly rated and popular commander, made it a priority to win the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis.
The man who he had recognised was later reunited with his missing daughter.
There had been bad blood between the two armies before and the incident gives an insight into possible ill-feeling and mistrust between the two sets of troops.
It reached new heights when complaints were made about the behaviour of Collins by an American major.
The major accused Collins, 43, of breaching of the Geneva Convention.
But supporters of Collins have pointed to the British-US feud as a possible reason for the complaint.
The document containing the complaint also highlighted anti-American feeling among British troops.
There was also a friendly fire incident in which a British soldier described the US pilot who fired as behaving like a "cowboy".
Tonight's programme also features Scottish Regiment the Black Watch as they come under enemy fire in Iraq.
It carries interviews with the regiment's commanders and soldiers as they are fired upon as they carry out a supply mission.
-------- europe
Al-Qaeda joke shot down
June 29 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/28/1056683951244.html
A Swiss air traffic controller jokingly put an "al-Qaeda" label on a French helicopter that strayed into restricted air space during the Group of Eight summit, nearly leading to a shooting down of it by the French air force.
The controller put the tag on his radar screen during the June meeting in Evian, France, on Lake Geneva. Spokesman for air traffic firm Skyguide Patrick Herr confirmed that the French military picked up the label on its own radar and immediately scrambled Mirage fighter jets. Only at the last moment did the Mirage pilots realise that it was a French transportation helicopter.
The controller has been suspended during an inquiry.
-------- iraq
Iraq's Real Weapons Threat
By Rolf Ekeus
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43468-2003Jun27?language=printer
THE HAGUE
With no weapons of mass destruction as yet found in Iraq, the political criticism directed against President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is mounting. Before the war, the two leaders publicly declared that the Iraqi regime had not only procured and produced such weapons but still retained them with the intention to use them. This was considered a good reason for a military operation against Iraq -- an outright casus belli.
A United Nations inspection team, before the war, and the U.S. military, after the war, have been searching Iraq and have not come up with anything that can remotely be called weapons of mass destruction. Is it now time to join the game of blaming Bush and Blair for an illegitimate or illegal war? Let us first consider some facts in a complicated picture.
Chemical weapons were used by Iraq in its war against Iran (1980-88). Arguably that use had a decisive effect on the outcome: It saved Iraq from being overwhelmed by a much larger Iranian army. Furthermore, Iraq made use of chemical bombs in air raids against the Kurdish civilian population in northern Iraq. Nerve gases, such as sarin, and mustard gas immediately and painfully killed many thousands of civilians. More than 100,000 later died or were crippled by the aftereffects.
These reminders illustrate that Iraq's acquisition and use of chemical weapons were carried out in pursuit of two strategic goals, namely to halt Iran's possible expansion of its sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf region and to suppress internal opposition. The war started by Iraq in 1980 was directed against its historical enemy, Iran. In strategic terms and over generations, Iraq/Mesopotamia had been positioned as a gatekeeper of the Arab nation against repeated Persian expansion westward, a threat that had become acute with the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. All the emirates and states in the gulf region, ruled by Arabs of traditionalist Sunni Muslim orientation, considered Persian nationalism and expansionism a constant problem, especially after Iran's Shiite revolution.
For Saddam Hussein, the self-styled, self-promoted defender of the Arab nation, "the Iranian beasts," to quote Tariq Aziz in a conversation with me -- not the United States or Israel -- were the eternal enemy of Iraq. With its population of more than 64 million, Iran constituted a challenge that Iraq, with its 24 million inhabitants, could not match with conventional military means. By using chemical weapons to gas and kill the "human waves" of young, poorly protected Iranian attack forces, the Iraqi army repeatedly saved itself from being overwhelmed. And thus it became conventional wisdom, nourished by the Iraqi leadership, that only nonconventional weapons could guarantee that Iraq would prevail in an armed conflict with Iran.
Regarding biological weapons, the U.N. inspection team, UNSCOM, managed after four years of investigation to confirm the existence in Iraq of a major secret biological weapons program. This led in August 1995 to the defection from Iraq of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamal, director of Iraq's WMD programs. During UNSCOM's debriefings in Iraq after the defection, Iraqi biological weapons scientists, able to speak slightly more openly than normally, explained that their secret work mainly was on assignments to find means for warfare against the Iranians.
Regarding the nuclear weapons projects, the Iraqi authorities defended their systematic violation of Iraq's obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the proposition that Iran, likewise a party to the treaty, was active in developing its own nuclear weapons. Iraq's obsession with Iran was illustrated by its air attack in 1983 on the Iranian nuclear reactors at Busher.
Even the quite remarkable missile developments in Iraq were related to Iran. Iraq succeeded in modifying and re-engineering many hundreds of the more than 800 Scud missiles bought from the Soviet Union -- increasing their range of 200-300 kilometers to 500-600 kilometers, sufficient to reach Tehran.
In sum, all four components of Iraq's prohibited and secret WMD program were motivated and inspired by its structural enmity and rivalry with Iran. Thus, during the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq did not use its readily available chemical weapons, stored in considerable quantities in southern Iraq, against the U.S.-led forces. The Iraqi leadership made clear to me that there would have been no military sense in using chemical weapons on such a fast-developing battlefield, where the enemy was highly mobile, well trained and well equipped for chemical warfare. In addition, the Iraqi willingness to use chemical weapons had been tempered by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker's promise to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that such a contingency would change the U.S. war aim from the liberation of Kuwait to regime change in Iraq.
The fact that Iraq in the recent war did not counter the coalition forces, now even better trained and equipped than last time, with chemical weapons should not have come as a surprise. The chemical weapons, like the other WMD, had been developed with another enemy in mind. But a big question remains about the puzzling absence of chemical weapons in Iraq. Detractors of Bush and Blair have tried to make political capital of the presumed discrepancy between the top-level assurances about Iraq's possession of chemical weapons (and other WMD) and the inability of invading forces to find such stocks. The criticism is a distortion and trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security.
During its war against Iran, Iraq found that chemical warfare agents, especially nerve agents such as sarin, soman, tabun and later VX, deteriorated after just a couple of weeks' storage in drums or in filled chemical warfare munitions. The reason was that the Iraqi chemists, lacking access to high-quality laboratory and production equipment, were unable to make the agents pure enough. (UNSCOM found in 1991 that the large quantities of nerve agents discovered in storage in Iraq had lost most of their lethal property and were not suitable for warfare.)
Thus the Iraqi policy after the Gulf War was to halt all production of warfare agents and to focus on design and engineering, with the purpose of activating production and shipping of warfare agents and munitions directly to the battlefield in the event of war. Many hundreds of chemical engineers and production and process engineers worked to develop nerve agents, especially VX, with the primary task being to stabilize the warfare agents in order to optimize a lasting lethal property. Such work could be blended into ordinary civilian production facilities and activities, e.g., for agricultural purposes, where batches of nerve agents could be produced during short interruptions of the production of ordinary chemicals.
This combination of researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq's chemical threat -- its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism.
The real chemical warfare threat from Iraq has had two components. One has been the capability to bring potent chemical agents to the battlefield to be used against a poorly equipped and poorly trained enemy. The other is the chance that Iraqi chemical weapons specialists would sign up with terrorist networks such as al Qaeda -- with which they are likely to have far more affinity than do the unemployed Russian scientists the United States worries about.
In this context the remnants of Iraq's biological weapons program, and specifically its now-unemployed specialists, constitute a potential threat of much the same magnitude. While biological weapons are not easily adapted for battlefield use, they are potentially the more devastating as a means for massive terrorist onslaught on civilian targets.
As with chemical weapons, Iraq's policy on biological weapons was to develop and improve the quality of the warfare agents. It is possible that Iraq, in spite of its denials, retained some anthrax in storage. But it could be more problematic and dangerous if Iraq secretly maintained a research and development capability, as well as a production capability, run by the biologists involved in its earlier programs. Again, such a complete program would in itself constitute a more important biological weapon than some stored agents of doubtful quality.
It is understandable that the U.N. inspectors and even more, the military search teams, have had difculty penetrating the sophisticated, well-rehearsedand protected WMD program in Iraq. The task was made infinitely more challenging by the fact that Iraq was, and indeed still is, a "republic of fear." Through my indirect contact with some senior Iraqi weapons scientists, I have been given to understand that the reign of terror is still in place.
Outsiders who have not dealt with Iraq cannot easily understand the extent to which the terror of the Hussein years has penetrated that unhappy nation. As long as Hussein and his sons are not apprehended or proven dead, few if any of those involved in the weapons program will provide information on their activities. The risk of terrible revenge against oneself or one's family is simply too great. The first point on a WMD agenda must be to create a safe environment free from the remnants of terror.
The chemical and biological warfare structures in Iraq constitute formidable international threats through potential links to international terrorism. Before the war these structures were also major threats against Iran and internally against Iraq's own Kurdish and Shiite populations, as well as Israel.
The Iraqi nuclear weapons projects lacked access to fissile material but were advanced with regard to weapon design. Here again, competition with Iran was a driving factor. Iran, as a major beneficiary of the fall of Hussein, has now been given an excellent opportunity to rethink its own nuclear weapons program and its other WMD activities.
The door is now open for diplomatic initiatives to remake the region into a WMD-free area and to shape a structure in the Persian Gulf of stability and security. Moreover, the defeat of the Hussein regime, a deadly opponent to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, has opened the door to a realistic and re-energized peace process in the Middle East.
This is enough to justify the international military intervention undertaken by the United States and Britain. To accept the alternative -- letting Hussein remain in power with his chemical and biological weapons capability -- would have been to tolerate a continuing destabilizing arms race in the gulf, including future nuclearization of the region, threats to the world's energy supplies, leakage of WMD technology and expertise to terrorist networks, systematic sabotage of efforts to create and sustain a process of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the continued terrorizing of the Iraqi people.
The writer was executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq from 1991 to 1997. A former Swedish ambassador to the United States, he is now chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
----
Paras storm town where mob killed British soldiers
By David Blair in Majar-al-Kabir and Philip Sherwell near Amara
29/06/2003
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/29/wirq29.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/06/29/ixportaltop.html
The roar of tank engines and the clatter of helicopters echoed across the mudhouses of Majar-al-Kabir yesterday as the British Army returned in force to the town where six soldiers died last week at the hands of an Iraqi mob.
More than 500 soldiers from 1st Bn, The Parachute Regiment, swept back to the scene of the worst attack on British forces since the invasion of Iraq began.
Operation Swordfish, as the incursion was codenamed, was an enterprise fraught with risk. Returning in strength to a town whose people had attacked British soldiers in their thousands could have stirred up a hornets' nest.
Leaving it unpatrolled, however, threatened to create a "no-go" area. British officers decided that the balance of risk favoured the hard line approach.
About 100 armoured, fighting vehicles, including Challenger 2 main battle tanks, supported the Paras as three attack helicopters, including one United States Apache, swooped low over the town 100 miles north of Basra.
Even so, the Paras wore their maroon berets instead of helmets. L/Cpl Colin Rushford, 23, from Fife in Scotland, said he did not want to "get his own back".
He said: "The guys won't let something like this get the better of them, because they are always professional at what they do."
Another Para, however, who was among those who took part in the disastrous patrol through the town's streets on Tuesday, admitted that he was angry. "You would be, if you'd been shot at the way they were," he said.
Lt Col Ronnie McCourt, a British military spokesman, said the aim of Operation Swordfish was to "re-establish our link with this town" and allow officers from the Royal Military Police to conduct a scene-of-crime investigation inside the police station where their six colleagues were killed. "We bared our teeth but were not going to bite," he said.
Crowds of bemused onlookers gathered in the shade on street corners, but there was no overt hostility. "We're sorry for the British who died and for our own dead civilians," said Dr Adil Al-Shawi, the general manager of the local hospital.
He added, however, that the townspeople were still angry about the deaths of four locals, caused by British soldiers. "They killed two civilians before anything happened. They were shooting all the time," said Dr Al-Shawi.
Similar claims were denied last week by senior British officers, who said that the troops had kept to their rules of engagement and only opened fire after coming under attack. Two local men described in Majar as innocent martyrs were actually killed after aiming Kalashnikovs at the soldiers.
Yesterday it emerged that local leaders had been consulted over Operation Swordfish and gave their approval for the British incursion.
In a statement, "To the great British people, from the Iraqi people," they thanked British soldiers for "liberating" them from Saddam Hussain's regime.
"We asked Allah to bless your, and our, dead men and we hope such a painful incident will never happen again," it read.
The Army says it is determined to hunt down those who murdered its soldiers although no retribution will be exacted against the townspeople. The investigation will focus on whether some of the men were executed after being cornered in the police station.
Four were shot in the head at close range but it is not clear whether this was during the fighting or whether the men were killed in cold blood.
The bodies of two missing American soldiers were found north of Baghdad and one soldier was killed in a grenade attack, bringing to 24 the number of Americans killed by hostile fire in Iraq since the end of the war.
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Iraq's resistance war was planned
Jason Burke, Baghdad
Sunday June 29, 2003
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,987279,00.html
The bodies of two missing American soldiers were found yesterday as news emerged that a growing campaign of Iraqi resistance to coalition occupation may have been planned before the war began.
Allied officials now believe that a document recently found in Iraq detailing an 'emergency plan' for looting and sabotage in the wake of an invasion is probably authentic. It was prepared by the Iraqi intelligence service in January and marked 'top secret'. It outlined 11 kinds of sabotage, including burning government offices, cutting power and communication lines and attacking water purification plants.
What gives the document particular credence is that it appears to match exactly the growing chaos and large number of guerrilla attacks on coalition soldiers, oil facilities and power plants.
At least 61 US troops have died in Iraq since major combat was declared to be over on 1 May, including at least 23 in attacks. The latest death came on Friday when a soldier was killed in an ambush, and another shot in the neck and critically injured. Grenades were thrown at a US convoy as it passed through the Thawra area, a poor, mainly Shia Muslim part of the capital that had been largely free of anti-American violence.
US officials dismiss their casualties as 'militarily insignificant' and point out that there are 55,000 US troops in Baghdad. But the repeated attacks damage the forces' image of invulnerability and lead to harsher security measures that risk alienating swaths of the population.
A series of major operations involving hundreds of arrests have apparently failed to quell the unrest, much of which is believed to be committed by criminals hired by wealthy former Baath Party officials. Some attacks are also sponsored, security offi cials believe, by hardline religious groups.
It is not known who was behind Friday's attack although the prime suspects are Sunni Muslims from the west of Baghdad, where resistance to the US has so far been strongest. It is possible that they chose to attack Americans in a Shia Muslim area to bolster the impression that Iraq's majority Shia population, who have hitherto been relatively supportive of the occupying forces, are joining the fight against the coalition.
The spiral of violence has also hit British troops after six military policeman were killed and eight other soldiers injured in the southern Iraqi town of Majar Kabir. Yesterday UK troops returned to the village where the men were killed after dropping leaflets promising that there would be no 'mass punishment'.
Military officials insisted they were not offering an amnesty to those who were responsible for the killings. 'The priority is to win back the hearts and minds of the people,' an Army spokesman said. 'But by doing that one of the benefits will be that hope fully we will be able to catch the people responsible. There is certainly no amnesty.'
There is still no explanation of why the RMP detachment was not assisted by the substantial British forces near by when it was surrounded by an angry mob. Sources within the RMP in the UK told The Observer they suspected that the detachment may have been short of ammunition. One soldier recently returned from Iraq said that a shortage had led to ammunition being taken from military policemen to give to frontline units.
'When I was in Kosovo we had to borrow ammo and grenades off the Para Regiment to feel as though we were suitably armed when isolated. Apparently we were "policemen not soldiers", so we weren't issued it,' one source said. 'I know from friends in the Gulf that they had had a lot of ammo withdrawn because of this attitude. It cost them their lives.'
British military officials dismissed the claims last night. 'The idea that we send anyone out without enough ammunition is simply rubbish,' one said.
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Death on the road to Basra
By Tristana Moore
BBC correspondent in Basra
Saturday, 28 June, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3025800.stm
It is another sweltering day in Iraq. The temperature gauge in our car says it is 48C outside - but our translator, Wissam, says it is far hotter than that.
The Basra Highway Basra highway: Major military route to Baghdad
We left Baghdad several hours ago. We are driving along the motorway built during Saddam Hussein's rule linking the capital with Iraq's second-largest city, Basra.
The road stretches ahead of us - a long straight line - the desert lying on either side. The only sign of life is the odd Bedouin herding his camels.
The land is arid and inhospitable. Every so often, there is a picnic stop by the side of the road. It seems incongruous in the desert.
It was indeed the body of a young boy, his blood-soaked clothes scattered across the road
We pass a number of American military convoys all heading towards Baghdad.
The Americans have set up bases along the motorway signalling the occupation is settling in. As we drive further south, Baghdad seems a world away.
It is a long journey - I feel exhausted, my cameraman is nodding off beside me.
Dark discovery
I still do not know why it caught my eye, why I looked ahead when I did - but I glimpsed a dark shape lying in the middle of the road.
The driver swerved to avoid it, braking sharply. As we passed I looked through window and caught sight of a body. Not the body of an animal, but the body of a child.
I asked the driver to stop, and we drove back. It was indeed the body of a young boy, his blood-soaked clothes scattered across the road. A few metres away, a girl is crying, screaming. She is inconsolable.
The Americans have set up bases along the motorway signalling the occupation is settling in
We see an American soldier and ask him to call for help. Ten minutes later, officers from the US Military Police turn up. In the blazing sun, a crowd is now gathering.
The girl is still crying - her name is Sabrina, she is 13 years old. She is barefoot and wears a ragged dress. She has dark eyes and long, brown hair.
She tells me how she saw her 11-year-old brother, Muhannad, had run up to an American military convoy trying to sell something to the soldiers, but was run over as he crossed the road.
The Americans did not stop.
Tension
The news of this terrible accident spreads quickly. In the distance, a group of women dressed in black are running across the desert towards the road.
The women are crying, wailing for their lost child. The men hold them back. A child beats his head on the ground until it starts bleeding. The unmistakable smell of death lingers in the air.
"Look, this is going to get tense," I overhear an American soldier telling one of his colleagues. "We have to get the body out of here."
The US soldiers look nervous. They are wearing full body armour and carry rifles ready for action.
I thought the Americans came here to protect us and give us security, instead there is death and more suffering The dead child's mother
"We can't take any chances," one soldier tells me, sweating profusely.
I engage him in conversation. He tells me he is from New York, his name is Al and he is married with three children.
"I've been in the Gulf for five months and I'm tired of all of this" he says. "We have become a target now. All I want to do is to go back to my family."
As he is talking he scans the crowd that has surrounded us. He is a worried man.
'Why?'
With grief comes anger and, soon, the young boy's relatives are hurling abuse at the Americans.
They are Shia Muslims, persecuted by Saddam Hussein. After the war, many of them welcomed the coalition forces but now they blame the Americans.
"I thought they came here to protect us and give us security," the dead boy's mother says.
Wounded child in Basra
Wounded children sway US battle for Iraqi hearts and minds "Instead there's death and more suffering."
She looks at the body of her son, which has been covered by a blanket. Tears run down her face. Another woman kneels down, she is frustrated.
"I can't understand - why has this happened?" she asks.
A few minutes later, the boy's father lifts the body into the boot of a car. The father is crying as he drives off to the hospital morgue.
My translator, Wissam, is furious.
"Why didn't the Americans stop when they saw they'd run over the child?" he asks me.
Wissam takes off his baseball cap and angrily waves his arms at the American soldiers - some of them can only be around 18. They seem too young to be here.
As we finally drive on, my mind flashes back to the image of the little boy lying in the road and his relatives weeping inconsolably with a haunting expression in their eyes.
In losing their child, they have lost their faith in the foreign faces which occupy their land.
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Once Hailed, Soldiers in Iraq Now Feel Blame at Each Step
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
June 29, 2003
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/international/worldspecial/29HEAR.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 28 - After riding into Iraq on a wave of popular euphoria, American and British forces are unexpectedly finding themselves the brunt of criticism for everything that goes wrong these days.
"We are furious about people pointing guns at us," said Hamid Hussein, 33, pushing his broken-down Volkswagen bus to the front door of his house this morning. A United States Army Humvee was parked in the middle of his street, and a soldier in the turret ordered Mr. Hussein in English to stop where he was.
If the complaint is not about security, then it is about the lack of electricity this week in Baghdad.
"Don't talk to me about Saddam Hussein," snapped Ibrahim Aullaiwi, a 46-year-old shop owner in the poor neighborhood of New Baghdad. "The Americans are in charge of everything here. They could have brought generators in here within 24 hours."
Like Mr. Aullaiwi, many residents of Baghdad seem to ignore the fact that the electricity disruption was caused at least in part by sabotage and looting. Seething in 110-degree heat without air-conditioners, fans or refrigerators, many residents were already furious about chronic power failures over the past two months.
Whether battling saboteurs or snipers, American and British occupation leaders find that the public mood has turned critical, even though countless Iraqis remain pleased that Saddam Hussein is gone and still place considerable hope in the Americans and British to improve things.
The scorn, and the risk to the Western forces, can go together. That was the case when an angry crowd in the southern town of Majar al Kabir killed six British soldiers on Tuesday, and many residents contended that the British set off the disturbance by trying to search Muslim homes, a claim the British dispute.
American soldiers sometimes infuriate Iraqis by running afoul of time-honored tradition. On Thursday, soldiers on patrol in an Army convoy here heard gunshots and rushed into a house from all sides. It turned out there was a wedding party under way, a ceremony that often occurs on Thursday evenings and is celebrated with gunfire. The Americans added to the anger among the revelers by roughly grabbing and arresting a young man who was trying to sneak off in a taxi with his gun, according to a witness.
Earlier this month when thousands of American troops raided what they believed were bases for loyalists to Saddam Hussein, provoking a lengthy firefight that killed four Iraqis, the Shiite newspaper Al Dawa described the deaths as "martyrdom."
The drumbeat of daily attacks on allied soldiers, meanwhi