Guten Morgen Mr. Bush - 500 Beiträge pro Seite (Seite 9)

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Defense of Your Home Is Not Terrorism, Not Even in Iraq
03.07.2003 [22:29]


Although President George W. Bush declared the U.S. military conquest of Iraq a success more than two months ago, the killing continues on a daily basis, and so do U.S. government efforts to paint a smiling face on the death, destruction, and disorder its invasion has brought to the hapless Iraqi people. According to Bush and U.S. proconsul L. Paul Bremer III, life is returning to normal in Iraq, but if a lack of electrical power, basic sanitation, and public safety is normal, then the unfortunate Iraqis must be praying for the quick advent of abnormality.

Bush vows that the continuing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq will not dissuade him from the “restoration” of the conquered country. He insists that the attackers consist only of hardcore Baathists and “terrorists.” Against these holdouts, the U.S. military commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan promises to “strike hard and with lethal force” whenever and wherever the opportunity arises to crush the opponents of the U.S. occupation.

This official characterization of the situation on the ground, however, rings increasingly hollow. Even the casual reader of news reports has learned that the huge U.S. campaigns against alleged resisters--Operation Peninsula Strike, Operation Desert Scorpion, and most recently Operation Sidewinder--amount to ill-informed, indiscriminate efforts marked more by overwhelming military force and massive firepower than by genuine understanding of the actual situation. Equipped only with sledge hammers, the Americans are now trying to perform brain surgery, and they are not having much success.

How could it be otherwise? U.S. soldiers are neither trained nor inclined to act as police. They know nothing about how to investigate crime, identify proper suspects, and apprehend them without wreaking enormous harm on innocent bystanders. In Iraq the Americans operate under the tremendous handicap of not understanding either the language or the customs of the people they seek to control. Nor are the U.S. troops a corps of architects, construction engineers, public health experts, and social workers. They are trained killers. To expect them to “reconstruct” Iraq is silly. The army`s job is to destroy, not to build.

Placed in an untenable position, the troops now patrol Iraqi cities and maintain checkpoints on the streets, making themselves targets of opportunity for any Iraqi who chooses to attack them. Obviously, Iraq is flush with military rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and other weapons, and men trained to use them. In this hostile and dangerous situation, U.S. troops naturally get itchy trigger fingers. Sweltering miserably in their body armor, they become more inclined, as the New York Times` Edmund L. Andrews reported on July 2, “to shoot first and ask questions later.”

Andrews also notes that the frequent U.S. shootings and other assaults on Iraqis are “leaving a trail of bitterness, confusion and hunger for revenge.” How could they fail to do so? In recent incidents a multitude of innocent people have been mistakenly targeted, hit by stray bullets, and harmed by explosions and fires. In a village north of Baghdad, for example, a family of shepherds was shot by U.S. tanks. Elsewhere, a family was killed while working to extinguish fires that U.S. flares had started in a wheat field.

Traffic checkpoints in the cities provide venues for recurrent incidents of trigger-happy soldiers loosing their firepower on--well, who`s to say who the targeted persons are? U.S. Army Major Scott Slaten, a public affairs officer, declares that the drivers running checkpoints are “usually criminals, Baathists, or people fleeing crimes who didn`t think they would get caught,” but how can the frightened young corporal at a checkpoint possibly know the character or intentions of the driver he guns down in an instant reaction?

We`re not exactly dealing with due process when a nervous soldier lets loose a burst from a heavy machine gun, as one did recently in a Baghdad incident that an Iraqi witness described by saying “They killed innocent people for nothing.” Witnesses said no signs ordered drivers to stop, and drivers easily might have missed or misunderstood the soldiers who waved them down from the roadside. In another recent checkpoint incident, witnesses said the car had stopped before a U.S. soldier fired on it with a heavy machine gun, wounding its elderly driver as well as the occupants of a nearby vehicle hit by stray bullets. Machine guns and densely occupied urban areas make a lethal combination.

Americans puzzled by why conditions won`t settle down in Iraq seem mesmerized by official U.S. propaganda depicting the conquest and occupation of the country as a “liberation.” To solve this puzzle, we need only to turn the situation around in our own minds. Imagine that the Iraqi army now controls your town. Imagine that from time to time for no apparent reason, they burst into homes, kicking, clubbing, and shooting the occupants and hauling some off as captives to unknown destinations for unknown reasons. Imagine that the Iraqis passing by your home train their tank cannons on it, that the Iraqis on the streets aim their automatic rifles at you and your children as you go about your shopping. Imagine that from time to time they shoot a 12-year-old child foolish enough to peer at them at the wrong time in the wrong place. Imagine that when you and your neighbors peacefully protest their actions, they sometimes fire wildly into the crowd of demonstrators and the adjacent buildings. Think about all these sorts of horrors, which now compose day-to-day life for the Iraqi people, and put yourself in their place.

Then ask yourself: when you choose to fight back against the foreigners` brutal occupation of your country, your city, and your neighborhood, to resist the desecration of your place of worship, to seek revenge for the arbitrary slaughter of your loved ones, does anyone have the right to call you a terrorist?

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute and editor of The Independent Review. Among Dr. Higgs’s books are Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government and Arms, Politics and the Economy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030702Higgs.html

http://www.independent.org/tii/tii_info/advisors.html

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Das ist der Vorfall # 996 bei Reuters. Gibt es jetzt Ärger mit den Türken. In den Nachrichten erzählte man eben, die Soldaten sollten einen kurdischen Gouverneur ermorden.
Die Büchse ist geöffnet.

Blast Kills 7 Iraqi Police, Turks Angry Over Troops
Sat July 5, 2003 09:40 AM ET




By Andrew Gray
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An explosion outside a police station killed seven recruits to a U.S.-backed Iraqi police force on Saturday and wounded dozens of others in a town west of Baghdad, police officers said.

Washington also faced angry accusations from Ankara on Saturday that U.S. forces had detained Turkish troops in northern Iraq in an "ugly incident." The Turkish prime minister demanded the soldiers` immediate release.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad had no comment.

In Ramadi, scene of the deadly attack, a local police chief blamed supporters of Saddam Hussein. A recorded message broadcast on Friday purportedly from the ousted leader called on Iraqis to fight the U.S.-led occupation of their country.

Pools of blood were still on the street and pavement near the police station in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, hours after the explosion late on Saturday morning.

The attack was the latest in a spate of increasingly bold attempts to scupper Washington`s plans for post-war Iraq. U.S. troops are being attacked on a daily basis, although their commanders say only a small minority of Iraqis are to blame.

"Seven police recruits died and 20 are critically wounded," deputy chief of Ramadi`s police, Abdullah Shihan, told Reuters. He blamed "mercenaries who aim at destabilizing the security of this city."

The town is in a mainly Sunni Muslim region north and west of Baghdad which was long a bastion of support for Saddam, himself a Sunni. It has been the scene of many recent attacks on U.S. troops.

Some residents and police said the blast was a result of a roadside bomb while others said it was a rocket-propelled grenade or an artillery shell.

Dozens more were lightly to moderately wounded, Shihan said. Jaadan Mohammad, Ramadi`s chief of police, said he believed Saddam loyalists were behind the attack.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he had similar casualty figures to those given by Iraqi police.

Hostile fire has killed 26 American soldiers in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Six British soldiers have been killed in the same period.

A spokesman for Iraq`s U.S.-led administration dismissed suggestions the most recent attack put the occupying coalition in an increasingly desperate situation.

"It`s an actually an indication that those who are rejecting freedom and democracy in Iraq are becoming increasingly desperate," he said.

ANKARA`S ANGER

In Ankara, a government source said 11 or more Turkish soldiers stationed in northern Iraq had been held by U.S. forces on Friday afternoon. Ankara had made "forceful representations" to Washington.

"Our foreign minister has spoken with the U.S. secretary of state... We demanded their immediate release, they said they are safe," Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.

"They are talking about an event with the municipality in Kirkuk. There is nothing about this that could be approved of or looked upon positively. It`s a totally ugly incident, it`s something that shouldn`t have happened."

Turkey`s Hurriyet newspaper said the Turkish soldiers were accused of planning an attack on a regional Kurdish governor. Government sources were unable to confirm this detail.

Turkey has long expressed fears that Kurds in northern Iraq may try to forge an independent state. Ankara fears this could reignite a separatist rebellion in its mainly Kurdish southeast that resulted in some 30,000 deaths in the 1980s and 1990s.

A few thousand Turkish troops are stationed inside northern Iraq in pursuit of Turkish Kurdish guerrillas.

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Die zwei Seiten

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Es sollte nicht vergessen werden, dass jeden Tag im Irak auch Iraker Sterben.


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http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm

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The sultan of spin

July 5 2003

Tony Blair`s flack has shoved the British PM out of the firing line by making a target of himself, writes Peter Fray.


It`s not hard to see why Tony Blair`s communications director, Alastair Campbell, is regarded as Labour`s master of spin. In what may yet become his swansong, Campbell has single-handedly managed to bury coverage of his boss`s alleged use of dodgy information about Iraq under an irresistible, bitter and very public feud with the BBC.

By heaping scorn on the BBC`s supposed anti-war agenda, and questioning the bona fides of the reporter who first suggested Blair`s office had "sexed up" intelligence documents on weapons of mass destruction, Campbell has made the story the story - and not, for the time being, the Iraqi war.

He may have broken one of the first rules of spin - that is, never become the story - but by sheer force of personality and a fair amount of bullying he has made the BBC`s credibility the focus of public debate, not Blair`s.

On Monday morning, a Labour-dominated parliamentary committee which has been investigating Blair`s justification for the war - particularly claims his office used doctored intelligence data - is widely tipped to clear the Prime Minister of any wrongdoing. Such a finding would be in no small part due to Campbell`s unprecedented, incredible, table-thumping, finger-jabbing denial and counter-attack on the BBC when he gave evidence to the committee, and in a subsequent volcanic performance on Britain`s Channel 4.

By demanding the BBC apologise over its "lies" on Iraq, Campbell has turned the traditional put-up or shut-up political tactic on its head. For several days now, the pressure to justify itself has been on the BBC, not No.10 Downing Street. Not that the BBC has been scared of the fight. The corporation`s director-general, Greg Dyke, a Labour appointment, has backed the reporter at the centre of the row, the defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, and the BBC`s reporting of the war.


Dyke has staked his organisation`s credibility on the row with No.10 and authorised his head of news, Richard Sambrook, to complain that Downing Street has been trying for months to "intimidate" the corporation over its coverage of the campaign in Iraq.

What started as a row about a story has become a broader debate about the BBC`s direction, its ethics and, with the corporation`s public funding coming up for scrutiny in the next two years, the future financial security of one of the world`s great broadcasters.

For his part, Gilligan is threatening to sue a junior minister, Phil Woolas, for suggesting he misled the foreign affairs committee in his own evidence to it.

Within the corporation, most staffers are behind Gilligan and Dyke. A BBC staffer, who declined to be named, told the Herald

that Campbell`s attack had prompted a "sense of outrage".

"We may not know all the ins and outs, but we trust that he [Gilligan] has got it right, and that`s reflected by the complete backing of the bosses," the source said.

On a separate front, the BBC has this week also found itself charged by the Israeli Government of being guilty of a sustained anti-Semitic campaign over its reporting of Israel`s own weapons of mass destruction program. The BBC has denied the charges.

Back at Westminster, much will depend on how the committee frames its conclusions about Blair`s use of intelligence material, especially the claim that Saddam Hussein was able to mobilise WMDs within 45 minutes.

It has emerged that Campbell was intimately involved in drafting and redrafting the September dossier with the head of the government`s joint intelligence committee, John Scarlett. But no evidence has yet come to light that he inserted the 45-minute claim, as the BBC story said.

While Blair and Campbell may be cleared by the foreign affairs committee of any wrongdoing, reports suggest No.10 will be accused of deliberately hampering the committee`s investigations - and given a severe dressing down. But that will be seen as little more than a slap on the wrist, a points victory for Campbell, and a real-time headache for the BBC.

It may also be the cue for Campbell to leave Blair`s side on a high and follow his partner, Fiona Millar, who is vacating her job as Cherie Blair`s press minder. Both were harmed by the furore over Cherie Blair`s flat fiasco with the Australian con man Peter Foster last year, when her initial lack of frankness about her relationship with Foster exposed No.10`s press machine as out of the loop.

Speculation persists in Westminster that Campbell`s performance to the committee was, as one Labour backbencher told the Herald, "all part of his exit strategy".

In the lead-up to the committee`s report, Campbell has called for a truce with the BBC, arguing in a letter to Sambrook that there was "little purpose in continuing our exchanges" before Monday. Undaunted, the corporation has reportedly submitted to the committee a detailed analysis and rebuttal of Campbell`s evidence. It says Gilligan`s source was "well placed" and credible.

For the BBC, the row is likely to sully relations with the Government until there is a change of key personalities, possibly at both organisations. But whether Campbell goes or stays, he will be able to claim that, for a couple of weeks, he put whole new slant on a war which - much to the British Government`s distress - is beginning to look like a Vietnam in the desert.


This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179160543.html

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Bush Has Chance to Prove US Commitment to Africa

Business Day (Johannesburg)
NEWS
July 3, 2003
Posted to the web July 3, 2003

By Mills Soko
Johannesburg

AS EXCITEMENT builds up ahead of the visit to Africa by US President George Bush, it is worth asking if there is cause to be sanguine about his much-vaunted foreign policy foray into the continent.

A brief reminder of the Bush administration`s track record in global affairs is required. It has presided over a unilateral abandonment of the Kyoto protocols on climate change; a slapping of 30% tariffs on imported steel; an implementation of the most generous subsidy scheme for its farmers in US history; and a shredding of arms control treaties.

By waging war against Iraq without United Nations authority, it has mortally damaged the edifice of multilateral global governance that underpinned the post-1945 settlement.

The fallout from the Iraq war has heightened tensions not only between the US and the European Union (EU), but also between industrialised and developing countries.

The use by US and EU leaders of the recent Group of Eight summit in Evian to settle geopolitical scores, rather than declare an irrevocable commitment to the success of the current Doha round of trade talks, has underlined starkly a paucity of visionary global leadership.

And the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, coupled with revelations that the US and British governments doctored intelligence reports to justify military action against Iraq, can only accentuate the animosity of the international community, especially the Arab world, towards these countries` foreign policies.

In sum, under the Bush administration the world has become extremely dangerous and unstable.

Given this grim backdrop to the US international agenda, cynics can be forgiven for dismissing Bush`s visit as yet another vacuous African safari.

For it is Africa that stands to lose most from the present US-sponsored world dispensation. If Bush wants to be regarded as a true friend of Africa he must use his visit to tackle at least three pressing continental problems caused by his government`s policies.

First, he must commit his administration to the abolition of US agricultural subsidies that continue to undercut African trade. By caving in to excessively parochial national interests, the US, like the EU, has lost an opportunity to help Africa trade its way out of poverty.

Take, for instance, the case of hefty subsidies enjoyed by US cotton farmers. The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development says these subsidies threaten to wipe out the livelihoods of 10-million west Africans reliant on cotton production. At 4bn, US cotton subsidies alone surpass by 60% the gross domestic product of Burkina Faso.

The steady collapse in world prices induced by subsidisation has reversed the sterling success achieved by poor west and central African countries to make their cotton industries among the most competitive in the world.

Thanks to subsidies, in the past four years the region recorded a 31% decrease in export revenue even though its production rose by 14%.

It is estimated that the decline in cotton prices has cost west Africa about $200m, far in excess of what it receives in US aid and debt relief.

Second, Bush must put pressure on US pharmaceutical companies to work towards a positive solution to the wrangle over access by poor countries to life-saving drugs.

Although the US administration deserves praise for its pledge to spend 15bn in five years to combat AIDS in Africa, this laudable initiative runs the risk of being negated by the current stalemate in public health talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

At the behest of its powerful domestic pharmaceutical industry, the US government has foiled a deal designed to make much-needed medicines available in poor countries.

This action flies in the face of a commitment made by rich countries at Doha in 2001 to make the addressing of public health problems in developing countries a key priority.

Third, he must use the authority of his office to restore confidence to the troubled Doha round of trade talks. This means committing his country to multilateralism and broad-based international economic development.

It was the vision of post-war US policymakers that laid the foundations of an international economy based on open and integrated markets. This thinking has informed, to varying degrees, the approach of successive US presidents to global economic problems.

By generously providing access to its vast market, the US has always taken the lead in championing the integration of developing economies into the multilateral economic regime.

Sadly, under the Bush administration this practice has been severely eroded; pandering to myopic national interests has become the norm rather than the exception. Unsurprisingly, this has cast doubts on the prospects of the forthcoming WTO ministerial meeting in Cancún, Mexico.

Failure to end the Doha talks successfully will have dire consequences for the world economy. More significantly, it will reinforce the marginalisation of poor African countries in the global trading system on which they rely for their economic welfare.

By his leadership Bush can help Africa avert such a dire possibility. But only if he refrains from allowing the White House to be held to ransom by isolationist and protectionist interests within and outside his government.

Bush`s African visit provides him with an auspicious opportunity to demonstrate unequivocally to African leaders that the continent matters to US foreign economic policy. Will he rise to the challenge?

Soko is a doctoral candidate in the politics and international studies department at the University of Warwick.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200307030106.html


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Copyright © 2003 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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[/url]

Für alle, die aus den USA ungekürzte Informationen haben wollen.
Stream-Videos ungekürzt von vielen politischen Ereignissen

http://www.cspan.org/


Man braucht viel Zeit.

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Week of June 20 - 27
Listen to the entire show
Introduction and a look back at this week`s press


Fred Abrahams on Fallujah
What really happened in the Iraqi city of Fallujah at the end of April when 20 Iraqi civilians were killed by American troops? U.S. reports feature the troops claiming they were fired on first, as well as the Iraqis saying no shots were fired at the Americans. CounterSpin will speak with Fred Abrahams, the co-author of a new in-depth Human Rights Watch report about the shootings in Fallujah.

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McGuire Gibson on Museum Looting
The looting and destruction of Baghdad`s antiquities museum was widely reported back in April. But recent follow-up reports in the media suggest that it was much ado about nothing, since only a handful of items are still missing. One newspaper even called the looting story "the mother of all media myths." But some experts say the media are still getting the story wrong. CounterSpin will talk to University of Chicago archaeology professor McGuire Gibson, who was in Iraq in May to assess the damage.

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http://www.webactive.com/page/120


Counterspin is a production of the media watch group FAIR, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. For more information, visit the FAIR Web site www.fair.org.

For archive shows prior to June 2003, visit http://archive.webactive.com/cspin/cspinarch.html.

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The truth will be as elusive as Saddam
Why did Britain go to war with Iraq? Don`t look for a conclusive verdict from our enfeebled parliamentary interrogators

Andrew Rawnsley, political journalist of the year
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

At ten o`clock tomorrow morning, a group of backbenchers will blink under the spotlight. Rarely has the work of a parliamentary committee been of such potentially great importance on such a grave matter of such high public interest. So much expectation attends these MPs. Which is doomed for so much disappointment when they formally deliver themselves of an inconclusive and partial verdict which has been much pre-spun.

Those seeking the full, penetrating truth about why Tony Blair took Britain to war in Iraq will not find it in the report to be published tomorrow by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Any idea that all of its members might strive to be fearless scourers out of the truth has been mocked by the leaking of their deliberations and their evidence, unprecedented in its shamelessness. What might have been a source of at least some enlightenment has already been reduced to a punctured political football.

This is not to say that the committee members are bad fellows, nor that they entirely wasted their time. The interviews of those few witnesses they managed to see may have lacked the rigour of the best courtrooms, but they did allow the ventilation of some of the arguments about the build up to the most contentious war since the British fought the Boers. For Clare Short, it was a platform to scatter-blast her accusations of deception against Mr Blair. For Robin Cook, it was an opportunity to detail his more forensic case.

Jack Straw, shuddering quaintly about `a complete Horlicks`, provided a taste of the private seething within the Foreign Office about some of the dodgy propagandising by Downing Street. The committee got a slightly longer witness list than Tony Blair had originally intended.

His director of communications, a title that does scant justice to the power of Alastair Campbell, finally emerged before them for fear that staying away would go worse for him than turning up. A win for the committee was stolen back by Number 10 as Mr Campbell deftly turned their interrogation into his showboat. The Spanish Inquisition it wasn`t.

The title of the committee`s inquiry - `The Decision To Go To War In Iraq` - suggests a scope which is sweeping. The actual product will be narrow. It rushed at the job, taking just six days of evidence. It focused its inquiries on one aspect of one area - the `45-minute` claim - to the exclusion of many other vital topics.

Here are some of the large questions about the war that the committee cannot answer because it did not make a start on asking the questions. Exactly when did Tony Blair promise George Bush that he would commit British forces to the war? Why did British diplomacy fail to secure the second resolution at the United Nations which the Prime Minister had previously staked so much on? Was the Cabinet fully informed and consulted at all times? Were the intelligence assessments of Saddam Hussein`s arsenal wrong? Why did the Prime Minister choose to believe the most frightening warnings? Why was there such scant preparation for handling the post-war situation in Iraq? Tony Blair`s revelation, made to our political editor in today`s The Observer , that he expected the war to last 125 days is more illuminating than any new fact established by the committee.

I could fill the rest of this column with questions about the war. So, I`m sure, could you. I was glad - and I remain so - that the vile dictatorship of Saddam Hussein was terminated. I want these questions answered, as do so many other people, because there is no profounder decision a leader can make than to take his country into war. Even the Government should want these questions answered, the better to understand what it did and why.

Unprobed, these burning issues of contention will not be resolved tomorrow. That the MPs could not interrogate many of the principal actors is not their fault. The key American players - Bush, Cheney, Pow ell and Rumsfeld - were not available as witnesses. Less excusably, neither were crucial British decision-makers. The committee interviewed a former intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister of Australia, but was not allowed to get its hands on the intelligence advisers to the British Prime Minister.

The heads of MI5 and MI6 will give evidence, but to a separate inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee, a body which meets in secret, is appointed by the Prime Minister, and reports to him. I`m not among those who say that this automatically means they have to be a bunch of stooges. But how searching that interrogation will be we can never know because we will never be able to see it.

There was no good reason why the Foreign Affairs Select Committee should not have been allowed to take evidence from Sir David Manning, the principal adviser on foreign affairs to the Prime Minister, or from Jonathan Powell, the Chief of Staff at Number 10. No reason other than that Downing Street didn`t want to let MPs get at two men who could have told us much.

The most gaping lacuna of the parliamentary investigative effort is the refusal of the Prime Minister to present himself and the chairman of the JIC for examination. No detective could regard his inquiries as complete until he had been able to question such vital witnesses.

It has become a cliché of political commentary - but a cliché worth repeating all the same because it remains so true - that British parliamentary committees are pathetic shadows of their congressional counterparts. Where the American committees can demand witnesses, British committees have to beg.

Where the findings of British committees can be shrugged off by government, the reports of American committees command attention. Where the American committees are tooled up with attorneys, the British have to rely on the variable wits of backbench MPs.

In a reflection of the relative strength of the two allies during the conflict itself, we are likely to learn more about why Britain went to war from the investigations the other side of the Atlantic than we will from the efforts of our own parliamentarians.

The Government and the intelligence services have successfully kept their secrets from MPs and from the public. This may not suit Downing Street as much as it might think. Tony Blair would evidently like to put the furore about those damned elusive weapons of mass destruction to bed. He wants to move the public mind away from doubts about how the Government sold the war and back on to the domestic agenda.

Having not wanted an inquiry by the Foreign Affairs committee, Number 10 now hopes that its report will bring closure to the debate. A senior adviser to the Prime Minister tells me that, after a few days of further flurry, they expect interest `to fall away`.

The trouble is that a line cannot be drawn by a committee that hasn`t got to the bottom of the issues. Even in the territory where it chose to concentrate - the use of intelligence material to make the case that Saddam was a menace - its verdict will be self-admittedly incomplete. To arrive at a definitive account of how the Government processed intelligence for public consumption, the MPs would have to be able to compare all the raw intelligence with what was published by Number 10.

The MPs would need to see not just a letter served up to them in order to exculpate Alastair Campbell. They would need sight of all the paperwork that trafficked around Whitehall during the intense weeks which built up to war. The MPs will criticise the Government for denying them access to crucial papers, even though this complaint confirms that their conclusions will lack the authority of completeness.

How and why Tony Blair put his country on the road to war will remain enveloped in as many mists as the present whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. These mysteries are too well-guarded to be unlocked by the feeble penetrative powers of a British parliamentary committee which could not get at the witnesses to the truth, let alone extract it from them.

[e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Observer Comment Extra
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Alastair, God and the Devil
Terry Jones
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The Devil wants to know how he can improve his image in the world. So he goes to Alastair Campbell.

"Simple," says Tony Blair`s communications maestro, "All you`ve got to do is demonstrate that it`s not you who is the root of all evil but God."

"I`m never going to be able to persuade people to believe that," replies the Devil. "Look at all the great things he`s given them. And everybody knows he tells the truth."

"Leave it to me," says Alastair Campbell

So Alastair Campbell rings up God and says: "Hi, God!"

"Don`t you `Hi God!` me, you two-timing weasel-mouthed fabricator of pork pies!"

"God! I`m ringing you on behalf of the Devil. He says you`ve been running him down in public recently."

"Right!" says God. "He`s a bad lot, that Devil. He goes round telling lies and starting wars. Look at this latest business in Iraq."

"Now, you can`t blame the Devil for that," says Alastair Campbell. "Everyone knows it was Saddam Hussein`s fault. He was a threat to world peace."

"Come on!" says God, "You don`t believe that!"

"What I believe doesn`t matter. Can you prove it was the devil`s doing?"

"Sure!" says God. "He got the American people to believe Saddam Hussein was somehow responsible for September 11 and he got the British to believe Saddam was about to bomb them. He made it all up."

"Are you sure?" asks Alastair Campbell.

"Well, of course he made it all up. September 11th was Osama Bin Laden`s doing and he hates Saddam Hussein. Saddam may be a nasty piece of work but he had nothing to do with flying planes into the World Trade Centre.

"As for Saddam being about to attack the UK - that`s the most ludicrous proposition I`ve ever heard. What possible reason could he have had for bombing the UK? Military advantage? Economic advantage? Political advantage? Territorial advantage? Come on! You know it`s ridiculous! And even if he had had a motive, he could have been sure he`d be wiped off the face of the earth as a result."

So Alastair Campbell goes back to the Devil and tells him what God said.

"It`s all true," moans the Devil. "I did all those things. You know God tells the truth. It`s so unfair - God`s omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent, and I`m just the devil. I always lose out."

"OK," says Alaister Campbell, "Leave it to me."

So Alastair Campbell issues a statement accusing God of lying by saying that the Devil had made up the story about Saddam Hussein being able to bomb the UK within 45 minutes. "The devil didn`t make that bit up," says Alastair Campbell "He had it from the Security Services."

God is beside himself with rage. He calls in his lawyers and tells them to sue Alastair Campbell, but the lawyers say they`re too scared of Alastair Campbell.

Meanwhile Alastair Campbell allows a document to be leaked proving that the Devil was merely repeating what the Security Services told him about the 45 minutes.

An almighty row blows up, in which Alastair Campbell attacks God for lying, for misleading the British public and for bringing religion into disrepute.

The 45 minutes becomes the big issue. Was God lying when he said the Devil insisted on including the 45 minutes? Or did the Devil insist on including it against the wishes of the Security Services?

It`s all totally irrelevant to whether or not Saddam Hussein bombed the Twin Towers or was a threat to the UK, but now nobody can thiink about anything else. In the end, God rings up the Devil.

"I`m sorry, God," whines the Devil. "It`s not my fault."

"Shut up!" says God. "You`re fired!"

"Don`t say that!" says the Devil. "Who are you going to get to do all the stuff I have to do?"

"Alastair Campbell," says God. "I`m very impressed with the way he`s handled this whole thing."

"God!" says the Devil. "You`re wicked!"


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Comment
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Why did we really go to war with Iraq?
Just what was the intelligence that led us into conflict? Only an independent judicial inquiry can get answers, argues Menzies Campbell

Menzies Campbell
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The parallel inquiries of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee have inevitably assumed a higher profile against the backdrop of continuing unrest and violence in Iraq. But is their scrutiny enough to assuage concerns over why Britain went to war with Iraq? Will they be enough to rebuild the fractured trust between the Government and so many of the British people?

There are rumours that the Foreign Affairs Committee may split along party lines on the issues which have engaged Alastair Campbell and the BBC. If it does so, it will inevitably undermine the effectiveness of its report and its conclusions but the whole process of scrutiny will be even more damaged if the committee has allowed itself to be diverted from its proper task.

Long before the publication of the September document, members of the intelligence services were letting it be known to friendly journalists of their discomfort about the way in which they believed their product was being handled by the Government. Intelligence is rarely unequivocal. It comes with qualifications and health warnings. It is not the stuff of soundbites. Its value depends on the patterns which it creates and the way in which it is analysed and interpreted.

The Government now admits that its February document was a mistake, a `Horlicks` in the Foreign Secretary`s dismissive description. But this was no mere error of process to be easily explained away. It was an issue of substance at a time when military action to some at least had become inevitable. It was influential. It was designed to be influential. Why else was it published?

The Government has held up its hands in surrender but the Foreign Affairs Committee should be slow to accept its plea in mitigation. It was not at the time a matter of life and death but the actions which followed it rapidly became so. The Prime Minister relied upon it in the House of Commons. Any division of opinion or complacency by the Foreign Affairs Committee on this matter would be inexplicable.

The real question about the 45-minute claim in the September document is not when or by whom it was inserted but rather was it true? Ministers are being disingenuous in downplaying the 45 minutes as unimportant. It was for example clearly relevant to the claim that United Kingdom forces in Cyprus might be at risk from Saddam`s chemical or biological weapons which Ministers made at the time. It was part of a tapestry of information designed to demonstrate that containment and deterrent were no longer enough. It went right to the heart of the Government`s case that urgency with dealing with Saddam Hussein was essential.

If the Foreign Affairs Committee has not had access to all the material from which this detailed assertion of a 45-minute deployment was derived it will have been prevented from making an informed judgment. If it has not been given unfettered access to material in general, it is hard to see how it can have come to any realistic answer to the central question of whether the intelligence justified the war.

Some are now pinning their hopes on the Intelligence and Security Committee, whose annual report was debated in the Commons on Thursday. Collectively and individually its members enjoy higher security clearance than anyone else. They have not been slow to criticise the Government over the quality of Foreign Office warnings before the explosion in Bali. Their individual independence is not in doubt. But they are constrained in what they can publish by having to submit their report to Number 10 for approval.

The Intelligence and Security Committee is perfectly capable of normal scrutiny of the security services. But these are not normal times. Going to war is not normal. Going to war on controversial intelligence is not normal. More than a million people from all political parties and from none on the streets of London was not normal.

What is needed of the inquiry answerable not to Parliament and the Prime Minister but to the public, an inquiry which has unfettered access, an inquiry which will concentrate on sources - not those of Mr Andrew Gilligan but the sources which persuaded Mr Blair and his Government that war against Iraq was not only `the right thing to do` but the only thing to do - an inquiry headed by a senior member of the judiciary and independent of politics and politicians, is the best way to resolve what are rapidly becoming issues of trust.

It looks as if we are in for a long haul in Iraq. There will be costs to be met in both financial and human terms for years to come. Shouldn`t we know whether the decision to become so deeply engaged was justified?


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003


Iraq: the human toll

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,992590,00.…
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,992577…

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America is a harsher place
Hillary Clinton makes a compelling case for why Britain shouldn`t treat with American conservatism

Will Hutton
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The British are gradually being educated about America. President Bush`s decision to try six suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, including two Britons, in a secret military tribunal that could lead to their execution is so obviously self-defeating that both Right and Left are united in their criticism.

Surely the US realises that it must be on the side of law even against terrorism; surely it must see that if convictions and executions follow from a process in which the military is judge, prosecution and jury, every mad criticism of it will seem justified. Even the doe-eyed innocents of the Government are beginning to realise what they`re up against.

America is poorly understood in Britain. Above all, we don`t understand the American Right - its roots, reflex reactions, ambitions and the profundity of its ideology. It`s been a commonplace for too long that Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same and that their differences are minuscule. It is a view that has even been held in parts of the US, though with ever decreasing conviction as events unfold.

The truth is that there is a fundamental fissure. There is the pro-federal tradition - a golden thread that runs from the founding fathers, through Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy and Johnson to Bill Clinton. And there is the anti-federal tradition that crystallised in the south during the American Civil War and which runs as an equally golden thread through the key twentieth-century figures of the American Right - William Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and now George Bush.

It is the quintessential American conflict, fuelled by visceral emotions over race, sexuality and gender. On the one hand, there is a belief in the power of government and rationality to improve the lot of all Americans. On the other, there is a belief in the rawest system of individual penalties and rewards to create a conservative concept of good Christian character - vast incomes for the entrepreneurial, vicious punishment for the antisocial. Nothing should be allowed to inhibit the prosecution of these allegedly natural instincts.

This is the yeast of American politics, to which 11 September has given a new twist, and against which Guantanamo Bay will play out. If Bush gives ground on this, he will have compromised the very essence of what it means to be an American conservative, a political mistake as epic as his father`s reversal on his famous promise not to increase taxes.

It is also, as I watched Bill and Hillary Clinton expertly work Kensington Palace`s Orangery at her book launch in London last week, why these two trigger so much enmity from the US Right. For all their evident flaws, they remain the best, most charismatic exponents of the federalist, pro-government tradition in the US. They find the words best to express it and can build the coalitions to make it happen even in an US not beset by recession or war. And they can do it even when the Conservatives hold so many aces - from cash to pure mendacity.

As you read Hillary Clinton`s account of her years in the White House in her autobiography, Living History , you get a handle on why she didn`t leave her husband, despite betrayal and what she describes as her singular loneliness as the Lewinsky affair broke. It was too big a prize to offer her elemental enemies and the tradition which she represents was too important to her.

The whole apparatus of the Starr inquiry, which tried to capitalise on Bill Clinton`s infidelity, turning it into charges of criminality and attempted impeachment, had its roots in what she herself described a vast right-wing conspiracy. It is that same network and culture that is now animating American foreign policy and the choices made in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

It is the other big book just published on Clinton`s presidency - Sidney Blumenthal`s The Clinton Wars - that gets to the heart of this network and tries to locate the Clinton presidency in the pantheon of the US`s progressive tradition. I defy anybody to finish it and not be per suaded that Blumenthal has a powerful case; it is a primer on the politics, networks and processes of the American Right. I would like to make it a compulsory part of Messrs Blair, Straw, Hoon and Blunkett`s reading list this summer. If they knew what they were dealing with, they would be more wary about signing the one-sided extradition treaty with the US - America can extradite our nationals with no due legal process in Britain but not the other way round.

And surely Geoff Hoon would not be so ready to reform the command structures of our armed forces so they can be more easily commanded by American officers, as he recently proposed. This would be an extraordinary proposal in normal times; in today`s context, it is barely credible. Britain has to keep some reserve in our association with conservative America.

Blumenthal`s account is no snow job. He is clear-sighted and harsh about Clinton`s political misjudgments, whether over health care or gays in the military. Nor does he forgive Clinton`s sexual adventures. But his blow-by-blow account of how the Right exploited any innuendo, regardless of the truth, to undermine a Democratic presidency is singularly revealing, as is the uncritical complicity of too much of the American media. America`s best lawyers spent $60 million to uncover not a shred of bad practice in the Whitewater affair.

Starr, as Blumenthal lethally reveals, was no impartial prosecutor but a conservative partisan. In Britain, we have no notion of politics prosecuted like this.

While it may be true that the Clinton legacy, for all Blumenthal`s efforts at talking it up, has not proved very enduring and was contingent on an economic boom that was only partly of Clinton`s making, none the less there were substantial social gains in what has suddenly become a very cold climate. Clinton, we can be sure, would not be presiding over military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. It`s only when you witness the American Right in its full majesty that you recognise Clinton`s achievement.

The reception of the two books has been warm, warmer than either author might have expected. Blumenthal, in particular, has triggered an urgent debate about why the American media treated what we now know as lies as reportable facts or `allegations`, putting his critics on the defensive. Meanwhile, Howard Dean has emerged as front runner for the Democratic nomination as an unapologetic critic of Iraq.

`The Clinton Wars` are transmuting into a wider and bitter conflict over how America should be governed and its relationship with the rest of the world. Britain should be neutral in this internal battle. The calamity of our recent diplomacy is that we find ourselves on the side of the conservatives, a mistake that will cost us dear.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush blushes at teen nudist camps
Richard Luscombe in Miami
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

Florida`s politicians are planning a cover-up as a furore grows about the existence of nudist summer camps for teenage children across America.

State Governor Jeb Bush, President George Bush`s brother, promised last week to launch an investigation into whether illegal or inappropriate activity had taken place at the camps, designed for children aged 11 to 18.

Now one Republican in Florida`s House of Representatives wants to make it illegal for children to be naked outdoors without their parents being present.

`When we`re dealing with children, we have to make sure we protect them from negative exposure,` said John Quinones, who represents Kissimmee, where one of the state`s largest nudist camps is based.

The controversy over children stripping off in the presence of adult strangers has grown since the New York Times highlighted the popularity of the summer camps.

Organisers insist the children`s welfare and safety is their top priority and that 24-hour security guards are on duty to protect them from unwanted attention.

The assurances did not satisfy Florida Congressman Mark Foley, who wrote to Bush and State Attorney-General Charles Crist claiming the children were being exploited and demanding an investigation.

`I am also deeply troubled that these camps are businesses specifically exploiting nudity among minor children to make money,` he said.

Supporters of naturism suggest Foley`s motivation is a desire to find a `family values` issue in his campaign to win a seat in the US Senate.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Intelligence chief accuses Blair of `credibility gap` over WMD
By Paul Lashmar, Andy McSmith and James Morrison
06 July 2003


Iraq`s missing weapons of mass destruction are opening a dangerous "credibility gap" between the Government and the public, a former intelligence chief has warned.

The remarks by Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of the joint intelligence committee, suggest that even if Downing Street wins its row with the BBC, questions about the origins of the Iraq war will remain unanswered.

Dame Pauline, who is also a BBC governor, suggested as long as coalition forces fail to uncover chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, questions will be asked about why troops were sent to war. "If you tell people you are going to war because there is an imminent threat to national security, and then in the aftermath nothing is found, it opens up a credibility gap of a kind which is dangerous in a democracy," she said in an interview with BBC News 24.

"It is hard to sustain the thesis that Iraq was weaponised at operational readiness as we were led to believe."

Other comments by Dame Pauline will reinforce the belief No 10 is winning its dispute with the BBC over its coverage of the controversy. A report by the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee tomorrow is expected to say it has found no evidence to support the BBC`s claim that Downing Street officials tampered with intelligence reports to mislead the public over the scale of the threat.

Committee members have been shown documents supporting evidence given in public by the Prime Minister`s director of communications, Alastair Campbell, who vehemently insisted that government dossiers setting out the case against Saddam Hussein accurately reflected what the Government had been told by intelligence services.

He has demanded that the BBC apologises for a report by Andrew Gilligan, its defence correspondent, who claimed on the Today programme that senior intelligence officers were angry over the way their reports had been "sexed up" by Downing Street.

Greg Dyke, the BBC`s director general, and senior executives will appear before an emergency meeting of BBC governors today to defend the broadcast, which has created one of the most serious disputes with any government in the corporation`s history.

Dame Pauline is the only one of the governors with direct knowledge of the intelligence community. A career diplomat, she chaired the joint intelligence committee between 1993 and 1994.

The interview, broadcast on Friday evening, suggests that she thinks the problem was in the information given to No 10 by the intelligence services, rather than in how it was used when the dossiers were being compiled. She criticised the decision by the Government to give prominence to an uncorroborated intelligence report that Iraq had weapons that could be activated in 45 minutes. She said that this "blew out of proportion" the threat posed by Iraq`s weaponry.

She said: "It was an important argument underlying the thesis that there was a threat so imminent that it was right to act on it. But the intelligence community is standing behind that. You come back to questions about the basis of their information rather than the Government`s presentation. I don`t think the Government was consciously abusing it."

BBC news executives plan to publish a history of the dispute. An executive said: "Alastair will come out with some version of events to say: `I was right all along`. He will construct the most aggressive soundbite he can. We are not going to let him misrepresent our argument."
6 July 2003 10:19

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Die London Times

July 06, 2003

Profile: Silvio Berlusconi
Shutup-a your face – I’m running Europe now



Silvio Berlusconi’s wheeze was inspired: world leaders at the G8 summit in Genoa two years ago would stroll down a walkway lined with lemon trees. But there was a hitch: it was not the lemon-bearing season. Simple, decreed the Italian prime minister — sew lemons to the trees.
Instead of scented bowers, all too often the media tycoon and buccaneering self-made billionaire has found his path strewn with banana skins. With no apprenticeship in a conventional political party he has never acquired the veneer of diplomacy.

There was the tumult that Berlusconi stirred shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, when he said people in the West had to be aware of the “superiority of our civilisation” over Islam, which was “1,400 years behind”. Commenting on Arab indignation, the newspaper La Repubblica said he had made the country “an ideal target for reprisal”.

All this was water off Berlusconi’s well-tailored back. With a fortune estimated at £4 billion, control of more than 90% of Italian television output and three newspapers loyal to him, he could afford to say “sorry” with a pearly smile.

However, last week he managed to launch Italy’s six-month presidency of the European Union by creating a stink that went round the world. Breaking a cardinal rule known as “Don’t mention the war”, he compared a heckling German MEP with a Nazi concentration camp guard. Mercifully, Berlusconi stopped short of performing a Basil Fawlty goose-step.

He was to plead provocation and claim that his remark was “ironic”. It was: the MEP shares a surname with the fictional German guard Hans Schultz in the television sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, which is being remade in Italy. Berlusconi suggested that the MEP should audition for the role. This context was lost in the diplomatic uproar and he was forced to express “regret” to Berlin.

In his defence, Berlusconi is proud of his family’s strong anti-Nazi record. His campaign literature describes how his father, a wartime soldier, escaped to Switzerland after the allied invasion of Italy in 1943 when the Germans were intimidating Italian troops.

Berlusconi’s mother, left to cope with her children and two elderly relatives, confronted an SS official who was rounding up Jewish women. “Everyone was paralysed with fear except my mother,” he recalled as an eyewitness.

“She went up to the official and screamed: ‘Go away, say you didn’t see anyone here’.

“The incredulous German pointed his rifle at her and said, ‘Shut up or I will kill you’. But she had the courage to carry on. She said, ‘Look around you: if you shoot me, you won’t leave here alive’.” Seeing the angry crowd the German departed, leaving the Jewish women behind.

For Berlusconi’s enemies, however, last week’s episode at the European parliament in Strasbourg proved the entrepreneur, 66, unfit to lead the EU. It came soon after the spectacle of the Italian prime minister aggressively defending himself in court against corruption charges while a law was being rammed through parliament to afford him immunity from prosecution.

Mercurial, short, balding and nicknamed the Cavalier, Berlusconi has an obsession with personal hygiene that extends to his staff, who must be perfectly groomed, perfumed and white-toothed. “Your breath smells; I can recommend a good dentist,” he told a shocked Italian ambassador.

Known also as the Great Seducer, Berlusconi has a reputation as a ladies’ man, which is no crime in Italy. Last summer he was photographed with his attractive personal secretary on a yacht in Sardinia after his second wife, Veronica, provoked comment by failing to join him at their villa on the island.

She was rumoured to be having an affair with Massimo Cacciari, a former mayor of Venice and her husband’s political opponent, which was denied. Berlusconi stunned Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish PM, by remarking that the Dane should meet his wife because he was “better looking than Cacciari”.

Berlusconi appears genuinely to believe he was chosen to lead Italy to greatness. Convinced by his own propaganda, which is hymned by his media stable, he claims to be driven by “the knowledge that only I can turn this country around”. Critics say he is a megalomaniac.

Despite his overweening manner, and worrying conflicts of interest, Italians have voted him into office twice. He now controls a fractious coalition that includes former Christian Democrats, post-fascists and members of the xenophobic Northern League.

Yet he is popular with the man in the street. The reasons are manifold. Italians do not share our hang-ups over success. Like Gianni Agnelli, the flamboyant and recently deceased head of Fiat, Berlusconi epitomises the fabulous lifestyle to which they aspire. Such men are classed in a different league — they are achievers, exemplars of Italy’s post-war economic miracle. The old style politicians are blamed for the country’s failures: the state’s notorious inefficiency and international weakness.

The owner of three national television channels, the football club AC Milan, the Mondadori publishing house and Publitalia, which controls most television advertising, Berlusconi is seen as an ordinary man who has transcended his plebeian roots and earned the right to his sumptuous 17th-century palazzo in the heart of Rome.

He has yachts, a mansion in Bermuda, three young children by Veronica, as well as a son and daughter from his first marriage who help run his companies.

His biting and sexually explicit sense of humour is reported to have caused a strained atmosphere during a private dinner for King Juan Carlos of Spain last year. To journalists who ask embarrassing questions he is apt to demand: “Do you want to be beaten up now, or shall I wait for you outside?”

If Berlusconi has cut a few corners, what businessman has not, many Italians shrug. He has even succeeded in persuading them that he is the victim of persecution by the “red togas” of the politicised judiciary. His recent appearance in a Milan court was to answer accusations of bribing judges in the 1980s to sway a contested corporate takeover battle, which he denies.

Born in Milan in 1936, the eldest of three children, he was the son of a bank official. How much of his shrouded early history has been reshaped into a media production is uncertain, but a story about him charging money to do other children’s homework has echoes of the young Winston Churchill.

To finance his course in law at Milan University, he sold vacuum cleaners door to door and worked as a singer on summer cruise ships with his own band. Grasping the opportunities of booming 1960s Italy, his first career was in property development when he set up Edilnord to build homes for a young and newly affluent middle class.

The first building block in his media empire was the Milan cable station Telemilana. Showing nifty footwork by getting around regulations, he created a network of local stations covering almost the whole country, which appeared to operate as a simultaneous national service (he had identical videotapes delivered by motorbike to each station).

Berlusconi’s alliance in the 1980s with Bettino Craxi, the Socialist prime minister, was crucial. But in 1992 the old political order dominated by the Christian Democrats and the Communist party was swept away and Craxi along with it. Berlusconi decided to fill the vacuum on the centre-right. He called his party Forza Italia, or “Go, Italy”, a football chant and was brilliantly successful, winning the election in 1994. Despite losing to his old enemy Romano Prodi in 1996, he won by a landslide two years ago.

Tony Blair has found a useful ally in a leader who favours America and free trade — and no deference to Brussels — which makes Berlusconi a hate figure in Europe.

Berlusconi’s dream is that Italy’s presidency will culminate in a new Treaty of Rome, successor to the one in 1948 that ushered in the European Community. But his revived enmity with Prodi, now president of the European commission, could make that unlikely.

The row over his Nazi remarks simmers on: when in Rome a bit of horseplay is amusing, but clowning on the international stage is not.

The Cavalier’s appeal may be waning, but he is looking to the future. He has built a mausoleum in the grounds of his estate outside Milan. Inspired by an Etruscan necropolis, it contains 36 burial slots reserved for his family, business friends and political partners. Nobody can say Berlusconi doesn’t enjoy a joke.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-736087,00.html

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Abdul Basir was held in the prison in Pul-i-Charkhi, Afghanistan, from 1980 to 1989. He returned recently for the first time since his release.
July 6, 2003
Afghan Prison to Reopen Despite Memories of Its Brutal Past
By CARLOTTA GALL


UL-I-CHARKHI, Afghanistan — It is the one Afghan reconstruction project that President Hamid Karzai did not want to touch. When officials put papers in front of him last year to authorize the refurbishment of Pul-i-Charkhi prison, on the eastern edge of Kabul, he said he could not bring himself to do it and told them to get someone else to sign.

Pul-i-Charkhi is one of the blackest holes in the last quarter-century of Afghanistan`s war-torn history. During the years of Soviet and Communist control, hundreds of thousands of prisoners passed through the solid stone walls and into the dark concrete cells, and unknown thousands never came out alive, victims of nightly executions on the military range beyond the prison walls.

The prison was built in the 1970`s but gained notoriety after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and the Afghan secret service, modeled after the K.G.B., began its work under Najibullah, the Afghan intelligence chief who later became president. When anti-Communist mujahedeen overthrew the Najibullah government in 1992, thousands of political prisoners were freed and Pul-i-Charkhi stood empty until the Taliban took power in 1995 and began to fill it again.

Today, Pul-i-Charkhi stands silent, emptied for the last time when the Taliban fled Kabul in November 2001, during the American-led war, and the prisoners broke out and fled. A few guards are still posted on the gate of the outer walls, which are thick and handsome like those of a medieval fortress. Inside, the main block is of Soviet design, a hulking, sinister, four-story slab of concrete with long, narrow barred windows. Now, despite Mr. Karzai`s repugnance, the prison is going to take in prisoners again. The governor and guards are reluctant to discuss the prison`s past but promise that the new government will observe human rights and that there will be no political prisoners.

During the decade-long Soviet occupation, the prison, built to hold 45,000, was heaving with as many as 170,000 prisoners, according to one former inmate. Among them were people who are now serving in the government, including Taj Muhammad Wardak, who was imprisoned here for a year and a half and has since served as governor of Paktia Province and interior minister.

Academics and intellectuals were imprisoned too, along with nationalists, Maoists and members of rival Communist parties. Muhammad Yunus Akbari, Afghanistan`s only nuclear scientist, was brought here by the Soviets in the early 1980`s and later executed.

Abdul Basir, now 49, was imprisoned from 1980 to 1989. A member of the anti-Soviet mujahedeen, he was arrested at his home in Kabul one night, interrogated by Russians, tortured with electric shocks in an intelligence service jail, and then sentenced to 20 years in Pul-i-Charkhi.

In June, Mr. Basir returned to the prison for the first time since his release. "I was nervous and my heart was beating hard," he said afterward. "It`s 14 years ago that I was released and I prayed that I would never have to come back."

He walked through the big laundry room, where washing machines stand abandoned and in disrepair, and the metal workshop, now completely gutted, where inmates had made bed frames. "Coming back reminds you of friends who entered here but never came out," he said.

He looked out through the bars into the central exercise yard where relatives sat under tent awnings during family visits. "I remember the last time I saw my mother here," he said. "She came nine times during my first year here, but then she fell sick and I never saw her again."

But Mr. Basir was lucky because he avoided the call in the evenings that the prisoners soon learned was the roster for the firing squad.

"They would name people, calling them to put on their civilian clothes," he said. "It was clear to everyone that they were going to their deaths. If they said, `Fetch your bedclothes,` it meant you were going for sentencing; if they said, `Fetch your civilian clothes and bedclothes,` it meant you were going for interrogation and release. If they said, `Just civilian clothes,` it meant death."

"Twenty or so people would be called, three or four times a week, sometimes every day," he said. But there was one terrible time — in 1982, when mujahedeen attacks were increasing, and there were hundreds of arrests and rumors of a coup. Some 1,500 people were called in one night, he recalled.

"As they were taken out of the prison, they were shouting, `God is great,` and everyone could hear," he said. "The authorities put on music very loud on the speakers. It was Afghan folk music to drown out their voices."

Slowly, through the grapevine, the prisoners learned that up on the firing range — now used by the new Afghan national army — earthmovers had dug big pits, and the prisoners were shot or simply thrown in and covered with dirt.

During Mr. Basir`s visit here, his bitter memories — of the beatings, the shortage of food, the cramming of 300 men into a wire cage, bouts of solitary confinement and sitting on a permanently wet floor — brought him into tense arguments with prison officials. Zahiruddin Zahir, the prison`s general commander, and his deputy, Muhammad Tawab, were trained before the Communist era but they served in the prison system throughout the Soviet occupation, although not at Pul-i-Charkhi.

Mr. Zahir looked with disdain at the former prisoner, and he grew uncomfortable at questions about the prison in Communist times. "Our policy has completely changed from the past," he said, adding that he wants a system that respects human rights and would like to organize a re-education program for criminals and Taliban supporters.

"We want to take those people who have been deceived by different groups, put them here, train them under good conditions and return them to society as good men," he said.

He said the solitary confinement cells would never be used again, but he made a case for repairing the prison and reopening the workshops. It would take $8 million, he said.

Some work has already started. The government has begun renovating a wing that had served as the reception block for detainees. In addition, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which is in charge of a $6 million program for penitentiary and judicial reform in Afghanistan, is providing $200,000 to build a kitchen and an office and to repair the sanitation and water facilities.

The first 50 prisoners were about to arrive, and eventually 400 would be held here, Mr. Zahir said. Most of them would be moved from grim police cells in central Kabul.

But, like Mr. Karzai, international donors do not want to touch the main prison, said Adam Bouloukos, deputy representative of the United Nations drug and crime office, not only because of its reputation but because the whole idea of a massive central prison does not meet international standards of justice.

"It`s never going to happen," Mr. Bouloukos said. "They will never find $15 million to make it a modern, high-standard prison. And if you end up with 50,000 people imprisoned on the edge of Kabul, then the U.N. will have failed in its reforms."

Mr. Basir said the best thing about his visit was to see that there were no prisoners in Pul-i-Charkhi.

"The U.N. and international community must supervise it," he warned. "Our people have strong prejudices and if there is no international supervision, they will treat the prisoners badly."





Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 6, 2003
From Cyborg to Governor?
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY




CHAPPAQUA, N.Y.

For the past few weeks, one of the most popular topics on cable TV`s political slugfests has been the possibility that one of the world`s biggest — in every sense — movie stars will very soon become the next governor of California. No one knows whether the drive to recall the Democratic incumbent, Gray Davis, will succeed; no one knows whether the Republican star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, will actually run for the office; and no one has the faintest idea what sort of governor Mr. Schwarzenegger, who spent the first half of his life to date as a professional bodybuilder and the second half as the implacable hero (usually) of kick-butt action pictures, might be.

Since the potential candidate has absolutely no record of public service, the voters of the Golden State will inevitably judge him to a great extent by his work in the private sector: i.e., his screen image. Which, for two decades, has been that of a rugged, can-do kind of guy, with an all too literal take-no-prisoners style. (The body counts in pictures like "Commando" and "Predator" are staggering.) In the movie that made him a superstar, "The Terminator" (1984), Arnold — we`re all on a first-name basis with him — played a murderous cyborg bent on eliminating troublesome humans from the face of the earth, but he hasn`t played a bad guy since. (His campy performance as Mr. Freeze in "Batman and Robin" doesn`t count.) He cannily switched sides for "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991), and in the current "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," he`s once again batting cleanup for the home team, delivering the clutch hit for humanity in what looks like our last turn at bat.

Tempting though it may be to project the qualities of a Governor Schwarzenegger from the screen behavior of Arnold the star, the movies don`t supply many clues. We have to assume that his solutions to the real problems of California will not take the form, as they generally do in his films, of strapping on a small arsenal`s worth of automatic weaponry and blowing stuff up. (It`s amusing, however, to think of him dealing with the State Legislature as he does with a roomful of unruly toddlers in "Kindergarten Cop": planting his feet, taking a deep breath, and screaming, "Shut up!")

But Mr. Schwarzenegger`s films can tell us what kind of candidate he`d be. Looked at in a certain way, his entire movie career could be seen as a stealth political campaign. (We ticket-buyers have provided billions of dollars of contributions.) His action pictures have emphasized his "leadership" qualities; his occasional comedies — the dismal likes of "Twins" and "Junior" — show his "warm, human" side; and whatever the genre, he`s always scrupulous about staying on message. He has also, over the years, managed to work up an impressive set of slogans and catch-phrases, at least two of which — "Hasta la vista, baby" and (more shakily) "No problemo" — appear to be aimed at his state`s all-important Latino vote. A line from the perhaps prophetically titled "Running Man" — "I`m not into politics, I`m into survival" — seems tailor-made for California`s current, dire fiscal situation. And his signature phrase, "I`ll be back," should do nicely for the re-election bid.

Arnold will need every one of those slogans because, despite his box-office receipts, he`s a tough sell as a "compassionate conservative" sort of Republican (the only kind, presumably, that Democratic California would elect). He`s a huge, alarmingly powerful Austrian-American who, even when he`s saving the world from killer machines ("T2," "T3`), a voracious alien ("Predator"), Colombian terrorists ("Collateral Damage"), Satan ("End of Days") or reality TV ("The Running Man"), looks as if he might still enjoy kicking sand in the face of the odd 98-pound weakling.

Despite our recent taste for stern, belligerent machismo in our political figures, we`re still at least a little ambivalent about naked exercises of power, and on screen Mr. Schwarzenegger has used his strength more nakedly than most. I think it`s safe to say that if Arnold were to be elected governor, he would be the first holder of high office in the history of the Republic whose bare buttocks have been seen by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

In body-conscious California, of course, physical exhibitionism isn`t necessarily a liability. Mr. Schwarzenegger first attracted serious attention from Hollywood with a charismatic performance as himself in the 1977 bodybuilding documentary "Pumping Iron," in which he displayed, in addition to rippling, oiled abs and pecs, a sort of charming unself-consciousness about flaunting his strength. Charming up to a point. The smiling gamesmanship he practices on his less intelligent rivals for the Mr. Olympia title is a bit unsavory, and it`s more than slightly disconcerting to hear a young man with a German accent say, as Mr. Schwarzenegger does: "I was always dreaming about very powerful people — dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years, or even, like Jesus, be for thousands of years remembered."

O.K., maybe it`s a tad unfair to throw that 26-year-old quote in the face of the no doubt wiser, mellower Arnold Schwarzenegger who might soon be evicting Gray Davis from the governor`s mansion. But it`s also unfair for a candidate to expect voters to punch a chad for him just because they like the kind of two-fisted Messiah he has impersonated on screen for the past 20 years — perhaps even with a view to the very prize that now appears to be within his reach.

A conspiracy theorist might ponder the significance of the presence, in no fewer than two Schwarzenegger films, of the pre-gubernatorial Jesse Ventura; or of the fact that Mr. Schwarzenegger is, at 55, exactly the age Ronald Reagan was when that actor was elected governor of California, in 1966. And does anybody remember the name of Arnold`s character in "Predator"? It was Dutch.

As Judgment — sorry, Election — Day approaches, and Mr. Schwarzenegger, now busy pressing media flesh on behalf of "T3" and screening the picture for our beleaguered troops in Iraq, remains coy about both his intentions and his policies, California`s electorate has little to go on beyond such signs and portents. Republicans may see him as the Second Coming of the Great Communicator. Democrats may worry that they`re right. (What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Sacramento to be born?) And Mr. Schwarzenegger himself may begin to fear that not even "True Lies" and "Conan the Barbarian" can guarantee that he will be for thousands of years remembered, like Jesus.

All we can be sure of is that if Arnold does decide to run, taking positions on the issues will be no problemo. Look at "Pumping Iron," look at any of his superhero incarnations on the silver screen, and you`ll see that he has, and has always had, what it takes to succeed in politics. The man knows how to strike a pose.



Thomas L. Friedman is on vacation. Terrence Rafferty is author of ‘‘The Thing Happens: Ten Years of Writing About the Movies.’’



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

July 6, 2003
Ritalin for America
By MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

My mind was wandering the other day when I saw a TV ad that said I should see a mental health professional if my mind was wandering.

The ad said I might have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I did have a friend who got a diagnosis of A.A.D.D. His wife had complained he wasn`t paying enough attention to her and sent him to a doctor, who prescribed Ritalin for spousal attention deficit disorder. My friend lost weight, became more focused on his work and left his complaining wife.

The law of unintended side effects.

Ritalin abuse is rampant with children, as well as teenagers and college students, who like the extra stamina to study for exams, lose weight, ramp up performance to get in an Ivy League college or stay awake while getting drunk. When I grew up, there was no Ritalin; just a big nun with a ruler, warning you not to be "dreamy" or "a bold, brazen piece."

If you think about it, a lot of characters in literature probably had A.A.D.D. If Biff had been on Ritalin, he could have passed those math tests, and Willy Loman would not have got into the despondence that led to his fatal car crash. This gives new meaning to the maternal admonition, "Attention must be paid."

And what about Wile E. Coyote? That is one distracted doggie.

I went online to take "Dr. Grohol`s Psych Central Adult A.D.D. Quiz." The questionnaire asked if "My moods have high and lows." Well, yes.

It asked if "I am distressed by the disorganized way my brain works." You bet.

Reading over the questions, I realized America has A.A.D.D. The country has always had a pinball attention span, even before the Internet and cable TV accelerated it.

The New Republic recently dubbed this "historical attention deficit disorder," when a country gets distracted from focusing on any one place for very long. Our scattered consciousness is the reason we`re so bad at empire, too impatient to hang around hot climes trying to force cold natives to like us.

Let`s apply the A.A.D.D. quiz to our fidgety president and his foreign policy team:

"I find my mind wandering from tasks that are uninteresting or difficult." (Like nation building, which we said we`d never do but are muddling through now, with no coherent strategy, in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and soon in Liberia.)

"I say things without thinking and later regret having said them." (Such as declaring we have "prevailed" in Iraq two months before the commander there admits, "We`re still at war." Or bubbling about the statue of Saddam falling and then months later posting a $25 million bounty on the real Saddam`s head. Or saying Saddam had W.M.D.`s that posed an imminent threat to us and then failing to find a single warhead. Or saying we`d already found the weapons when all we`d found was some trashed trailer. Or saying we`d get Osama "dead or alive" and Al Qaeda was "on the run.")

"I make quick decisions without thinking enough about their possible bad results." (Such as how our troops will be targets in hostile, dangerous territory, stuck there for years sorting out tribal and sectarian warfare.)

"I have a quick temper, a short fuse." (Like the president, taunting the Iraqi militants, saying, "Bring `em on." Shouldn`t that sort of trash talking be reserved for football and Schwarzenegger sequels?

"I have trouble planning in what order to do a series of tasks or activities." (Such as threatening to rumble with North Korea and Iran while we`re still prone to stumble in Afghanistan and Iraq.)

"In group activities it is hard for me to wait my turn." (Why wait for the pansy allies, even if you`ll need their help after?)

"I usually work on more than one project at a time, and fail to finish many of them." (Yes. Al Qaeda is recrudescing. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is coming back, warlords rule and the vice and virtue police are at it again. Iran and North Korea are defying us. Saddam is still lurking, even as we struggle in Iraq to get the lights on, the oil industry up and the violence down. We say everything is O.K. while the senators who went to Iraq last week say we`re stretched thin in the face of more and more attacks by Saddam loyalists.

Yep. These guys definitely have E.A.D.D. — Empire Attention Deficit Disorder.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

[Joerver]

[goldmist]

Hi Joerver ,

hier ein schönes Foto von einer Demo in Philadelphia

von letzter woche:




das zeigt dass noch nicht alle Amis braindead sind

trotz massiver rundumdieuhr progaganda

gibt es noch eine menge leute die ihren Humor und ihre

widerstand nicht aufgegeben haben ...

[goldmist]

............................





....................

[goldmist]

Kein wunder das Bush seinen geplanten auftritt in Philadelphia zur feierlichen eröffnung des 4. july abgesagt
hat :

alle fotos der letzten zwei postings von mir, sind von der demo in Philadelphia von diesem Tag
July 4th Protest Drives President Bush Out of Philadelphia
05.07.2003 [07:11]


President George W. Bush dropped plans to come to Philadelphia on July 4th. He was invited to dedicate the new and controversial National Constitution Center in Philadelphia during its scheduled July 4th opening celebration, and expectation was high he would come. The Constitution Center has been mired in controversy for being built on the graves of slaves. Plans are in place for a national protest against US policies at home and abroad to coincide with Bush`s visit. Instead of facing thousands of protesters, Bush has chosen to spend the July 4th holiday speaking to uniformed troops at a US military base.

The coalition of National and Philadelphia-area organizations planning a major protest demonstration on July 4th within a block of the Constitution Center sees the Bush decision as a victory.

"A military base is probably the only place Bush thinks he can go to avoid massive protest. But what he has to know is that veterans and military families are participating in the protests here, joining thousands of others in opposition to his plans for endless war, occupation, and other policies at home and abroad," said Phoebe Jones Schellenberg of the Global Women`s Strike, a spokesperson for the protest. "People of color, women and children, and other grassroots people pay the highest price for—and are the first to speak out—against priorities that lavish funding on bombing people in other countries while depriving people in Philadelphia, around the country and around the world not only of civil rights, but of even basic resources to survive, sustain and develop."

The protest—titled Stop US Wars At Home And Abroad—will form at 8:30 a.m. on July 4th in Franklin Square at Seventh and Race Streets for a rally to begin at 9 a.m. At noon, there will be a march passing by a number of important sites in the Independence Park area. There will be a closing event back at Franklin Square starting at 2 p.m. The Constitution Center is located at Sixth and Race Streets.

On February 15th, 10,000 Philadelphians marched against the War on Iraq as part of a worldwide movement of tens of millions of people. That movement is still alive. As the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the blatant US military occupation regime and the growing quagmire of night street attacks on US troops in Iraq are making evident, the February 15th international movement was correct: the invasion of Iraq was about US strategic military control of the Middle East along with the US addiction to oil. And as is becoming embarrassingly clear, it was a war sold with lies.

The war was supposedly about military "facts on the ground," but when it came to informing the American people about the need for the war, "truth" was irrelevant. The same level of mendacity is evident in the selling of the administration`s destructive economic and social agenda. It is a scandal.

The July 4th protest is being held to call attention to all this. It is not a protest against the civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution`s Bill Of Rights; on the contrary, it is a protest against turning the document into a Disney-like tourist trap while, under a veil of secrecy, the Bush administration chips away at those liberties and tries to destroy the legacy of the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement.

"The real dedication to freedom on July 4th lies with those who continue to resist Bush`s war policies," said Robert Smith, director of the Brandywine Peace Community. "Enough of cruise missiles at the expense of funding for human needs. Enough of legislation like the USA Patriot Act that put a match to our civil liberties."

The July 4th Mobilization specifically calls for an end to the occupation of Iraq and a return of our troops; an end to preemptive and unilateral military invasions, or economic sanctions like those used to cripple Iraq in the 12 years leading up to the invasion, killing a half million Iraqi children. The protest calls for funding for healthcare, housing, welfare, veterans` benefits, and other social programs at home, environmental protection, independent AIDS research not controlled by the pharmaceutical industry, living wage jobs programs, and a major campaign to improve our education systems so they benefit all who live in the US. Instead of getting sucked into the hoopla of a new Constitution Center, we need to repeal the USA Patriot Act and restore full civil liberties in America for citizens and for immigrants.

In the days before and after July 4th, there will be a number of associated events in and around the Independence Park area. For this information and other details of the July 4th events, go to the July 4th Mobilization website at www.justiceinjuly.org. A complete list of the many diverse national and Philadelphia-area organizations endorsing this protest can be found on the website.

http://www.justiceinjuly.org/press_release_0613.html

[Joerver]

Goldmist
Bush wollte zuerst zum 4.Juli nach Philadelphia gehen wegen seiner Rede zum Unabhängigkeitstag. Da aber dort Proteste erwartet wurden, ist er nach Ohio gegangen in ein Militär Camp. So wurde es in der Presse berichtet.

[Joerver]

Crackdown Urged for Iranian Group on U.S. Terrorist List

Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page A03


For a group officially designated by both the Bush and Clinton administrations as a "foreign terrorist organization," the People`s Mujaheddin of Iran has been remarkably active in the United States.

Other groups on the State Department`s terrorism list -- such as al Qaeda and Hamas -- have been relentlessly hunted down, their assets confiscated, their supporters thrown into jail. By contrast, the Iranian group has established a substantial political presence in Washington -- lobbying Congress, holding news conferences and raising funds to finance an armed uprising against the Islamic government in Tehran.

Outraged by what they see as gaping inconsistencies in the government`s anti-terrorism policies, State Department officials are pushing for the freezing of the group`s financial assets and the closure of its Washington office. Their stance has been bolstered by a major crackdown against the Mujaheddin in Europe and a federal appeals court decision upholding the group`s designation as a terrorist organization.

"The government is looking at the activities of this group in the U.S., and will be taking appropriate action," said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council. He referred questions about the timing and nature of such actions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment.

The People`s Mujaheddin has long been the focus of controversy inside and outside the U.S. government, with some accusing the group of terrorism, including the murder of U.S. citizens, and others arguing that its goal is the overthrow of the world`s leading terrorist state. The debate has come to a head as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the seizure by the U.S. Army of the main Mujaheddin training camp, which was established with financial and logistical support from the government of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Together with its affiliated organizations, the group claims tens of thousands of supporters worldwide, many of them fanatically loyal to the organization`s husband-and-wife leadership, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. After the French police raided the group`s headquarters outside Paris last month, and arrested Maryam Rajavi, two Mujaheddin supporters burned themselves to death in violent protests. A French court ordered Rajavi`s release last week.

Critics depict the Mujaheddin as a terrorist, cultlike organization that has escaped prosecution in the United States only because it is seen in some quarters as a useful pressure point against Tehran. Supporters argue that the group was placed on the State Department`s terrorism list in 1997 as a concession to the Iranian government when the Clinton administration was exploring prospects for a restoration of diplomatic relations.

Either way, the Mujaheddin has become a prime example of the politicization of the State Department`s terrorism list, illustrating how political considerations can help determine whether an armed resistance group is labeled a foreign terrorist organization.

"The Mujaheddin are bad guys, and they deserve to be on the list," said Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The U.S. has to be consistent, and if we are begging Iran to stop supporting international terrorism, we shouldn`t be dealing with people they consider terrorists."

"Their status should be reexamined," said Raymond Tanter, who served on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration. "I have seen no evidence that justifies them being on the list, in the sense of the deliberate targeting of civilians for political gain."

Within the government, the fight to declare the People`s Mujaheddin a terrorist organization has been led by the State Department`s Near East bureau, which has also argued the case for dialogue with Tehran, and the counterterrorism bureau, which is responsible for drawing up the terrorism list. Some Pentagon officials, by contrast, have argued that the group is engaged in legitimate armed resistance against a dictatorial, anti-American government.

In the initial aftermath of the victory over Hussein, the U.S. military in Iraq seemed inclined to treat the group as a potential ally. Under instructions from the White House, the Pentagon reversed its position and surrounded Mujaheddin training camps. Under the terms of the ceasefire, some 5,000 Mujaheddin fighters surrendered an arsenal of heavy weapons, including 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers and 250 artillery pieces, in addition to 10,000 small arms.

A senior Pentagon official, Douglas Feith, told reporters in Washington that the Mujaheddin was being treated as "a terrorist organization."

Fusing Marxist and Islamic ideologies, the People`s Mujaheddin traces its origins back to the early 1960s as an armed opposition movement to the shah of Iran. According to the State Department, the group killed several U.S. military personnel and U.S. defense contractors during the 1970s, and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the Islamic revolution. The group split with the Islamic government shortly afterward and launched a new assassination campaign in 1981, using suicide bomb tactics to target senior clerics and government officials.

In 1991, according to the State Department, the Mujaheddin assisted the Hussein government in Iraq in suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings. More recently, the group has been involved in mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids on Iranian military outposts and government buildings near the border. French officials have accused the Mujaheddin of preparing attacks on Iranian embassies in Europe.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, Washington spokesman for the Mujaheddin`s political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, described the terrorist allegations as "ridiculous and unfounded." He said that the Mujaheddin had cooperated with U.S. forces in Iraq and supplied "valuable information" to Washington about Iranian nuclear programs, and was "the biggest defender of democracy, human rights, and religious tolerance" in Iran.

"U.S. policymakers have to decide which side they want to be on in Iran -- the side of the people or the side of the ayatollahs," said Jafarzadeh, who operates from an office in the National Press Building in the District.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the government is required to freeze funds of foreign terrorist organizations and can also deny visas to their supporters. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled there was "sufficient" evidence in the public record to support the State Department`s contention that the Mujaheddin engaged in "terrorist acts." The State Department maintains that the "National Council" is simply an alias for the Mujaheddin.

Lawyers for the National Council say they plan further appeals.

The government is already engaged in a long-running legal battle with Mujaheddin supporters in California. According to investigators, the group raised between $5,000 and $10,000 a day from travelers at Los Angeles International Airport for victims of the Iranian government, money that was then laundered through an auto-parts business in Dubai and used to buy weapons. A U.S. district judge threw out the case last July, on the grounds that the State Department had failed to give the Mujaheddin a fair hearing, but the government has appealed the ruling.

Support for the People`s Mujaheddin appears to be cooling on Capitol Hill, the focus of an intense lobbying campaign by the group. The group`s most prominent supporter, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), issued a news release last November saying that 150 House members had signed a statement describing the Mujaheddin as a "legitimate resistance movement." But her office declined to provide a detailed list of the signatories, and at least one congressman, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), has told the Hill newspaper that he was duped into expressing support for the group.

The Mujaheddin have "virtually no support" inside Iran, according to Ervand Abrahamian, a history professor at Baruch College and author of the most detailed study of the group. He said the organization had degenerated into a tightknit cult dedicated to studying the thought of Massoud Rajavi, as interpreted by his wife, Maryam.

Ideologically, said Abrahamian, the Mujaheddin have reached "a dead end. . . . The last thing young Iranians are interested in these days is revolutionary Islam, martyrdom and Saddam Hussein."


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

Standards for Detainees


Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page B06


FIGHTING THE WAR on terrorism has forced the government to confront profoundly vexing questions concerning the people it captures. Are al Qaeda members criminals who should be prosecuted, members of a strange species of foreign army, or somehow both? And if, as U.S. authorities quickly concluded, they are both, when should they be treated as criminals in civilian courts, when should they go before military tribunals and when should they be held with no trial at all and under what circumstances? We would have hoped that nearly two years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration would have made a stab at addressing these questions. And in a sense, it has: It is claiming the authority to unilaterally decide how any captive is legally designated and held -- and to unilaterally change that designation at any time. This system is convenient for the government, offering all of the legitimacy the criminal justice system can confer without any of its discipline. As a legal regime, however, it is unacceptable.

Consider, for example, the disparity between the way the government handled its two big recent terrorism arrests. The Justice Department reached a plea deal with a man named Iyman Faris, a naturalized American truck driver living in Ohio who looked into destroying the Brooklyn Bridge and conducting an attack in Washington on behalf of al Qaeda. Mr. Faris was prosecuted in federal court in Virginia. Federal court, however, was too good for a Qatari student named Ali S. Marri. Like Mr. Faris, Mr. Marri is a suspected al Qaeda operative; he arrived in this country the day before the 9/11 attacks. And like Mr. Faris, he was initially prosecuted using the normal criminal system for lying to the FBI and for credit card fraud. But last week, less than a month before his trial was to start, the Justice Department dropped charges against him, and President Bush redesignated him as an "enemy combatant." His new status allowed the government to whisk him off to a military brig, where he can now be held indefinitely and interrogated. The government can charge him at its leisure in a military tribunal -- if it chooses to. Why the difference? The answer has nothing to do with any recognizable legal principle. The government`s position, after all, is that either man could be dumped into either system. The real distinction seems to be that Mr. Faris agreed to cooperate, while Mr. Marri was going to trial and so could not be interrogated for intelligence.

We are not opposed to treating certain al Qaeda prisoners as enemy combatants. The laws of war recognize that governments capture enemy fighters during wartime and keep them locked up -- though the Geneva Conventions mandate procedures that the administration has unwisely failed to follow strictly. The dangers -- both to national security and to civil liberties -- of trying some al Qaeda suspects in federal court are sufficient that some may have to be removed to military custody, as we have urged in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui. But there has to be some principle that guides these decisions -- other than what move best serves the government`s interests at any given moment. Otherwise the law becomes a mere instrument of arbitrary state power, not a predictable system of ordered liberty. Among other dangers, the threat of designation as an "enemy combatant" -- and the consequent indefinite detention -- can too easily become a club to threaten defendants who will not plead guilty or cooperate.

More broadly, there has to be some publicly defined process for handling enemy combatants, so that the status is not simply a legal black hole. In a conventional war, enemy fighters are held until the combatant states negotiate a peace, at which point they are repatriated. But this war may never end, and if it does, it will not be with a peace treaty between the United States and al Qaeda. The laws of war provide an incomplete framework for handling the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the administration is going to have to fill in the gaps. Yet even after being spurred on by complaints from allied governments, it has sent home only about 40 detainees, it has charged none before tribunals and it has not begun to specify what it will do in the long run with those it does not charge but deems too dangerous to repatriate. President Bush last week designated six unnamed detainees as eligible for trial before tribunals, and this is a positive sign. But the administration needs to develop clear standards governing both the legal designation of detainees and what happens to those placed beyond the reach of conventional American law.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Cherchez de Gaulle -- But Not in France


By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page B07


And now a few words from the man who best personifies the edgy quality of life in the dawn of the 21st century. My candidate for Mr. Zeitgeist is speaking about the United Nations:

My country "will not at any price accept that a collection of states more or less totalitarian and professional at dictatorship, a collection of new states more or less responsible, more or less consistent, dictate its law to us. The United Nations is a derisory tribune for sensational speech-making, overbidding and the worst kind of threat-making."

Nope. That`s not George W. Bush saying what he would if he could. It was Charles de Gaulle four decades ago, enraged at efforts at the United Nations to interfere with France`s "sovereign" colonial policies.

But the excerpt makes my point: It is only a small stretch to look at Bush and perhaps British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the last Gaullists of world leadership, however inadvertent or unacceptable the comparison may be for them and for a French nation that will no doubt be horrified by the notion.

Dead more than 32 years, de Gaulle nonetheless seems present -- and in unconscious political vogue -- in Washington, London, Berlin and elsewhere in an era when many nation-states are reassessing their headlong rush down the paths of globalization. Increasingly they return to national strength and national glory as the protectors of all that is good and valuable. That is the purest definition of Gaullism I can devise.

For better and for worse, most key international transactions today have become bilateral affairs. Don Rumsfeld`s Pentagon and France`s Foreign Ministry work separately but equally industriously to bypass NATO and enlist allies individually. The United States signs bilateral commercial accords that suggest an absence of interest in stumbling global trade talks. From trade to defense, the world is witnessing a renationalization of strategy and tactics in important areas.

Would this have happened if 19 Arab fanatics had not flown jetliners into Manhattan skyscrapers and the Pentagon to provoke the war on global terror? Mais oui, I can hear the general of all the French saying in exasperation. You Anglo-Americans never listen and never pay attention to history`s big trends. (Or to history at all, he would probably mutter.)

Supersized Gaullist attitudes on nationalism seem to come naturally to Texans. Consider this as well: De Gaulle once described his role as a national psychiatrist, dealing with France`s traumas of defeat in World War II and loss of a colonial empire. Bush post-9/11 has been cast in the same psychically healing role, if on a different scale.

Moreover, the needs of the war on global terrorism have at least initially amplified and accelerated the decline in importance of international and regional organizations that de Gaulle derided. National police and intelligence exchanges between Washington and Paris -- supremely bilateral matters -- have actually improved while the diplomats argued over Iraq and multipolarity.

In London, Blair has built his opposition to a federal constitution for the expanding European Union around de Gaulle`s phrase describing a Europe that is run by its national governments -- "a Europe of countries" -- and not run by Brussels. Blair manifests in his leadership style de Gaulle`s stubbornness, confidence in his own world vision and willingness to lecture his country on its shortcomings, even at his own political peril.

Paradoxically, it is in Paris that Gaullism seems in decline as an operational doctrine today. President Jacques Chirac`s foreign policy was recently described sympathetically by the daily Le Monde as "dedicated to multilateralism, the defense of the United Nations, especially against the unilateral use of force . . . and constructing a multipolar world in which Europe can hold its own with the United States." That`s right -- Europe, not France.

De Gaulle biographer Jean Lacouture points up the contrast through a delicious imaginary dialogue between de Gaulle and Chirac published in the summer issue of the French quarterly Le Débat.

You did well to oppose American hegemony and the ill-conceived "crusade" against Iraq, de Gaulle says to Chirac, but you missed an essential point: "When I withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in 1966, I made a point of not breaking with the alliance itself." In Lacouture`s text, de Gaulle suggests that each time he underlined his prickly determination to act independently, he consciously reinforced cooperation with Washington on other issues. He found ways to underscore his commitment to the alliance of free countries facing Soviet totalitarianism.

"An audacious strategy must rely on prudent tactics," de Gaulle`s ghost says. Good advice from beyond the tomb to the hyperactive multilateralists in Paris and the neo-Gaullists of Washington as they sort out a topsy-turvy relationship desperately in need of equilibrium.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

Neuer Ärger zwischen Türkei und USA


Die Festnahme türkischer Soldaten durch amerikanische GI´s im Irak hat zu schweren Verstimmungen im türkisch-amerikanischen Verhältnis geführt. Der türkische Ministerpräsident Recep Taiyyp Erdogan bezeichnete den Vorfall als "abstoßend" und berief in der vergangenen Nacht eine Krisensitzung ein. Heute nachmittag will Erdogan mit dem amerikanischen Vize-Präsidenten Dick Cheney telefonieren.

Auslöser der Krise ist ein Bericht der türkischen Zeitung "Hürriyet" vom Samstag. Danach haben amerikanische Soldaten in der kurdischen Stadt Suleimanijah mindestens elf türkische Elitesoldaten festgenommen. Sie würden verdächtigt, einen Anschlag auf den kurdischen Gouverneur in Kirkuk geplant zu haben, so "Hürriyet". Etwa hundert US-Soldaten hätten ein Büro der türkischen Spezialeinheiten gestürmt, die Telefonverbindungen gekappt und die Soldaten sowie sechs Angestellte festgenommen, berichtete die Zeitung weiter.

USA bestätigen Festnahme
Aus den USA wurden die Festnahmen inzwischen bestätigt. Die staatliche türkische Nachrichtenagentur Anadolu meldet unter Berufung auf US-Militärkreise, es handele sich bei den Festgenommenen nicht um elf, sondern sogar um 24 Soldaten, deren Nationalität noch nicht abschließend geklärt sei. Sie seien nach Bagdad gebracht worden.


Anadolu berichtet weiter, der amerikanische Außenminister Colin Powell habe seinen türkischen Amtskollegen Abdullah Gül angerufen, um ihn über den Vorfall zu informieren. Nach dem Telefonat sagte Gül, bisher sei noch keiner der Festgenommenen freigelassen worden. Den Vorwurf der Amerikaner, die türkischen Soldaten hätten einen Anschlag auf den kurdischen Gouverneur in Kirkuk geplant, bezeichnete Gül als "Dummheit". Eine ranghohe türkische Delegation habe sich auf den Weg nach Suleimanijah gemacht, um die Angelegenheit zu prüfen, sagte der türkische Außenminister weiter.

Türkisch-amerikanisches Verhältnis seit Irak-Krieg belastet
Die Türkei hat einige tausend Soldaten im Nord-Irak stationiert, um kurdische Rebellen aus dem Südosten der Türkei zu bekämpfen, die das Gebiet als Rückzugsraum nutzen. Die von den USA unterstützen Kurden beherrschen den Nord-Irak seit dem Krieg 1991 und fordern einen Abzug der türkischen Truppen. Das Verhältnis zwischen den Nato-Partnern USA und Türkei ist seit dem Irak-Krieg im Frühjahr belastet. Die Türkei hatte den USA die Stationierung von mehr als 60.000 US-Soldaten im Grenzgebiet zum Irak verwehrt und damit Pläne zum Aufbau einer Nordfront durchkreuzt.


Stand: 06.07.2003 11:45 Uhr

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IRAQ


Exorcising the Ghosts of a Nation
By Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, who serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch, recently returned from a trip to Iraq with Save the Children.

July 6, 2003

BASRA, Iraq — At the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where civilization began, men fish from small boats and boys swim in polluted brown waters. When Saddam Hussein was in power, the story goes, there were no fish in the river. It is said Hussein put something in the water to poison them because he did not like the predominantly Shiite people of Basra.

On one of the river banks is the home of Ali Hassan Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," the king of spades in the Defense Intelligence Agency`s most-wanted deck of cards. In the days of Hussein, the ace of spades, and Chemical Ali, people say the boys would have been shot had they swum so near this house.

People here also say that if someone`s car broke down in front of the security headquarters or in front of Hussein`s palace, he too would have been shot. Hussein reportedly had visited his palace in Basra only twice since 1980, yet in that palace, as in all his estimated 70 others in Iraq, it is said cooks used to prepare meals for him and his entourage twice a day in case he showed up — hundreds of meals no one else was allowed to eat.

Although Hussein seldom appeared in Basra, the fear of him abides. Throughout Iraq, this fear is distilled into stories and myths that may or may not be true but are made more vivid because Iraqis have been cut off from the outside world for two decades. Satellite TV, satellite phones, the Internet — all were all forbidden under Hussein. One story has it that 14 people were executed simply because they were found with satellite phones.

Omar, a driver and translator in Baghdad, said he was imprisoned for having a satellite dish. He was kept, with 27 others, for six months in a cell measuring 6 1/2 by 10 feet. "But I didn`t have a satellite dish," he protested. "Finally, I was fined [thousands of dollars] and told I must turn in my satellite dish. `I don`t have a satellite dish,` I told them again, and they put me back in prison. Then my mother got a cousin to go out and buy a satellite dish on the black market, and I turned it in. `See, we knew you had a satellite dish,` they said."

Stories like Omar`s are now being told and retold all over the country as Iraqis disgorge the history they have had to repress. The worst of this history is literally being dug up. Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, is helping to document the mass graves. The organization recently released a report on graves near al-Mahawil military base, one behind an abandoned brick factory and another in an open field, where more than 2,000 people were executed and buried by the Iraqi government in the aftermath of the Shiite uprising in the south in 1991.

"The graves were not difficult to find," Bouckaert said. "I went into villages, and the shepherds and other villagers and farmers knew where the graves were and took me there. I would estimate there are as many as 300,000 people in mass graves all over Iraq. But we need help on forensics to protect the evidence crucial to future trials of the people responsible [The sites] are important not only for evidence but also for the Iraqis who want to identify and finally bury their relatives."

Bouckaert tells of one gravedigger in Baghdad who gave him a list of 1,000 people he had buried. "The Mukhabarat [secret police] dropped off the bodies at his office. He kept a secret notebook of the people with their identification bands and the location of where he had buried them. The cause of death was listed as `trauma due to execution.` "

This reminder of Hussein`s wrath, along with the belief among Iraqis that he is still alive and that his security forces and the Fedayeen militia did and continue to do much of the looting, haunts people and undermines their confidence in the future.

"It is hard to trust. We don`t know who is still working for Saddam," said Abdul, an accountant who registers internally displaced people for a humanitarian aid agency. "So we try to protect ourselves through our tribes. We have watches at night. I am assigned one hour with four other people. We carry guns and protect 16 buildings where other people from our tribe live."

Before peace can settle on Iraq, the ghosts of the past need to be laid to rest. The stories need to be told, the facts documented, the atrocities recorded and justice administered.

Last week, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, convened in Baghdad the first Iraqi workshop on human rights. The workshop included 60 participants, the majority of them Iraqi human rights activists, lawyers and judges from around the country, as well as 10 international experts, to decide how best to address the horrors of the past. At the conclusion, the group was asked to take this discussion into the community.

The good news from Iraq is the emergence of local human rights organizations and new newspapers, although many are in need of technical assistance. The bad news is the continuing lack of working communications systems, which has made it difficult for Iraqis to have a national dialogue. Iraq remains sealed off. As the country struggles to settle its past and lay the foundation for its future, it needs working telephones and wider access to the Internet, as well as television and radio. A system of justice must be established to hold accountable the guilty.

But the most urgent need is that Hussein be found, for it is said that he is playing with his own deck of cards.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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A New Nuclear Age
Planners design technology to withstand the apocalypse
By William M. Arkin
William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: [e-mail].

July 6, 2003

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. — The Pentagon`s Nuclear Posture Review, approved by President Bush in January 2002, outlined steps the U.S. should take to ensure its future ability to "defeat any aggressor." Included was a mandate for an "assured, survivable and enduring" communications network, one that would remain functional even after a full-scale nuclear attack.

Defense Department documents recently made available to the Los Angeles Times describe how the government is now moving ahead with a number of new programs toward that end, including a $200-million, eight-year effort to expand and streamline nuclear war planning. Concurrently, the same commercial technologies used in wireless communications and personal computing are being enlisted to achieve a long-standing nuclear war fighter`s dream: systems able to operate even during a protracted nuclear war.

According to classified and unclassified briefing and contracting documents, the modernization efforts seek to make existing nuclear war planning systems "more flexible and adaptable on all fronts." The new focus increases the "number of threat countries" included in nuclear war planning and expands the types of targets to be considered. The plans also envision an expanded role for both special operations and cyber- warfare in the event of a full-scale nuclear war. New software tools are being developed to speed up the time it takes U.S. Strategic Command to prepare nuclear options for the president, the secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In May, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems and Lockheed Martin Mission Systems were awarded contracts to begin designing the new planning tools envisioned in the Nuclear Posture Review. According to military documents, they are needed because "the current process has no growth capability to handle the increasing target requests, which are projected to grow tenfold by 2007."

When the eight-year program is complete, key nuclear commanders and civilian decision-makers will not only have a "point-and-click" interface for planning nuclear war; they will also have a new array of specially configured laptops, cell phones and other electronic gear to streamline a variety of tasks.

New communications systems aimed at maintaining presidential control over nuclear forces are also being developed and deployed. The most important, known by the acronym GEMS, will modernize the current systems that handle transmission of nuclear "go codes," or orders from the president to launch a nuclear attack. The update will allow for greater capacity and quicker transmission of information and intelligence.

Utilizing highly automated systems and new, higher-bandwidth satellites, military planners expect to be able to still function even after a nuclear attack. The systems will incorporate such things as secure video teleconferencing and voice recognition software to ensure security. A constellation of up to five advanced satellites costing more than $400 million apiece will be launched into orbit beginning in 2006 to enable secure communications between the president and the country`s nuclear forces.

The expanded communications systems will have both fixed and mobile communications terminals in at least 31 states and seven foreign countries, as well as at numerous classified sites, according to military documents. Terminals will be placed in military headquarters, at missile launch sites, on bombers and other aircraft supporting nuclear warfare and on submarines and support ships. When fully operational in 2010, the system will provide "survivable" terminals to connect underground nuclear command centers and nuclear forces. Even the paging devices of bomber crews on nuclear alert will be connected to the system.

But the real innovation is the 69 "transportable terminals" small enough to be set up, operated and maintained by one person. These communications terminals will be designed to "reliably operate in pre- through post-nuclear environments," according to an official "statement of objectives" for the project. A December 2002 "operational requirements document" outlines how, as tension levels increase, mobile support teams would be sent with these terminals to secret locations. In the event of nuclear war, the mobile teams would restaff command posts, bombers and tankers. They would rendezvous with submarines and transport new nuclear weapons to surviving units capable of delivering them.

The new systems are just one part of the military`s implementation of the more aggressive nuclear war strategies laid out in the Nuclear Posture Review. In June 2002, the Navy and the Air Force rolled out a new system that would allow for the reception of emergency messages during or after a nuclear attack even if other communications systems had failed. Because the system operates on a low frequency, it is slow, but that also means it isn`t subject to the same disruptions from electromagnetic pulses that could interrupt most other systems after a nuclear explosion.

Some of the technology that will soon be employed in implementing the Nuclear Posture Review`s mandates is not new. One system, designed to allow the transmission of encoded "emergency actions messages," employs new Windows-like software and "open architecture networking." It initially came into use in August 2001, and proved so valuable on and after Sept. 11 that the Air Force notified the defense industry last month that it is looking at procuring an additional 200 or more of the systems in the future.

Sept. 11 also served as the spark for communications network improvements at the presidential level. The White House has initiated a highly classified "Pioneer" project to resolve deficiencies in presidential communications revealed after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. "The events of Sept. 11, 2001, illustrate the need to improve our national command and control architecture," Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., commander of Strategic Command, told Congress in April. Military planners and government agencies, he added, were working to craft a new national system to rectify the problems.

The military is clearly moving quickly to implement the Nuclear Posture Review`s recommendations. Some of the upgrades are no-brainers: If we are going to possess nuclear weapons, the need to maintain civilian communications with nuclear forces even in the most catastrophic circumstances is indisputable. The new technologies will enable greater mobility and faster decision making. Let`s hope that in doing so, they don`t also increase the likelihood that the U.S. will initiate a nuclear war.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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EUGENICS


Excavate the Past to Make Amends for an Old Sin
By Tony Platt
Tony Platt, emeritus professor of social work at Cal State Sacramento, is a member of the editorial board of Social Justice and author of books and articles on U.S. history and social policy.

July 6, 2003

BERKELEY — Since spring 2002, state governments in Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina and South Carolina have published apologies to tens of thousands of patients, mostly poor women, who were sterilized against their will in state hospitals between the early 1900s and the late 1960s. In March 2003, California Gov. Gray Davis and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer expressed contrition for the injustices committed in the name of "race betterment." Now, the California Senate is considering a resolution, written by Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), which "expresses profound regret over the state`s past role in the eugenics movement" and "urges every citizen of the state to become familiar with the history of the eugenics movement, in the hope that a more educated and tolerant populace will reject any similar abhorrent pseudoscientific movement should it arise in the future." What might such a history lesson teach us?

First, the eugenics movement, which emerged in Europe and the United States around the turn of the last century, was designed, in the words of one of its founders, Francis Galton, to give "the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable." Supporters of eugenics promoted "Anglo-Saxon" societies as the engine of modern civilization and advocated policies of apartheid in order to protect the "well born" from contamination by the poor, the mentally ill and other races. "The Negro lacks in his germ plasm excellence of some qualities which [whites] possess," concluded a popular 1926 California eugenics textbook, "and which are essential for success in competition with the civilizations of the white races at the present day." The movement also targeted poor whites, especially in rural areas, on the grounds that they constituted a distinct and "degenerate" racial typology.

Under California`s sterilization laws, at least 20,000 Californians in state hospitals and prisons had been involuntarily sterilized by 1964. In the 1910s and 1920s, men were as likely as women to be sterilized, but by the 1940s restrictions on reproductive choice were aimed at women. For eugenicists, sterilization was primarily a way to cleanse the body politic of racial and sexual impurities.

Grounds for sterilization included such vague classifications as "feeblemindedness," "idiocy," "excessive masturbation," "immorality" and "hereditary degeneracy." Under the leadership of Fred O. Butler, superintendent of the Sonoma State Home (formerly the California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children), patients were not typically paroled to their families unless they were sterilized before their release. "Dr. Butler has always had a strong weapon to use in getting consents for sterilization," Paul Popenoe of Pasadena`s Human Betterment Foundation wrote to eugenicist John Randolph Haynes in 1930, "by telling the relatives that the patient could not leave without sterilization."

But sterilization represented only a small part of the campaign for "national regeneration." Eugenics was also a cultural vehicle for expressing anxiety about the "degeneration" of middle-class "Aryans," perceived as resulting from a declining birthrate and, in the words of a leading California eugenicist, the "evil of crossbreeding." Eugenicists strongly supported limits on immigration from non-European countries and restrictions on welfare benefits to poor families. As Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, a founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California, stated in 1929, the Mexican is "eugenically as low-powered as the Negro. He not only does not understand health rules: being a superstitious savage, he resists them."

Proponents of eugenics were not obscure cranks but the best and brightest civic reformers and professional leaders. Goethe, who campaigned against Latin American immigration and for sterilization of the "socially unfit," has a public park named after him at Cal State Sacramento. In Southern California, the Human Betterment Foundation enjoyed the active support of banker Henry Robinson, as well as social scientist William Munro and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Millikan, all of whom also served on the board of trustees of San Marino`s Huntington Library, one of the country`s most exclusive archives. Others actively involved in eugenics crusades included Stanford University`s President David Starr Jordan, Los Angeles Times Publisher Harry Chandler, welfare administrator Rabbi Rudolph Coffee and Haynes, a Progressive reformer and a member of the University of California Board of Regents.

Under the leadership of these notables, California led the nation not only in forced sterilizations but also in providing scientific and educational support for Adolf Hitler`s regime. In 1935, Goethe praised the Human Betterment Foundation for effectively "shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler " A year later, he acknowledged the United States and Germany as leaders in eugenics ("two stupendous forward movements") but complained that "even California`s quarter century record has, in two years, been outdistanced by Germany." About the same time, California eugenicist Paul Popenoe asked one of his Nazi counterparts for information about sterilization policies in Germany in order to make sure that "conditions in Germany are not misunderstood or misrepresented."

Not only did California eugenicists know about Nazi efforts to use sterilization as a method of "race hygiene" aimed at Jews and other "non-Aryans," they also approved efforts to stop miscegenation and increase the birthrate of the "Northern European type of family." The chilling words of Haynes anticipated the Nazi regime`s murder of 100,000 mentally ill patients: "There are thousands of hopelessly insane in California, the condition of those minds is such that death would be a merciful release. How long will it be before society will see the criminality of using its efforts to keep alive these idiots, hopelessly insane, and murderous degenerates Of course the passing of these people should be painless and without warning. They should go to sleep at night without any intimation of what was coming and never awake."

Although much is known about Haynes, Goethe and other supporters of eugenics, we have little information about the actual number of forced sterilizations that took place in California. Moreover, the voices of the thousands of women and men who were subjected to eugenic experimentation are still hidden from history. An official apology to anonymous victims is the beginning of a process of accountability. But to excavate the Golden State`s tragedies requires full disclosure of government records and an awareness that the past weighs heavily on the present. As we now grapple with how to regulate technologies promising to solve global problems of disease and malnutrition, it is important to remember the legacy of eugenics: in the name of "human betterment," scientific ideas and practices can be used to promote and reproduce extraordinary injustice and barbarity.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Question authority
Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, July 6, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/06/ED1…


London -- IT IS ALL well and good for the prime minister of the United Kingdom to spend precious hours preparing to do battle at Question Time in the House of Commons, as he is the head of government of a little country. The president of the United States, however, is the leader of the free world and does not have the time to spare.

That`s how the argument goes, anyway. I should know -- I`ve used it.

But in an age when voters are cynical and apathetic, engaging political debate could provide a tonic. Face-to-face exchanges, in lieu of 30-second TV spots, would force politicians to flesh out policy differences instead of pitching a simple slogan. Why not a U.S. version of Question Time?

The Prime Minister`s Question Time evolved, in part, because British government is not dependent on a separation of powers. (Unlike the United States, where the executive and legislative branches are separate, members of Parliament serve in the prime minister`s Cabinet, hence his obligation to address their questions.) Still, there is nothing to stop a U.S. president from addressing a rival branch of government.

Except, maybe, training. One big obstacle here, noted Steven F. Hayward, author of "Churchill on Leadership," is that in America, "We don`t generate politicians who are as skilled at give and take as the British are."

This is especially true of President Bush, who has succeeded wildly because he`s a skillful behind-the-scenes player, not because he`s a great debater.

The U.K.`s Question Time does put the prime minister in the glare of the public spotlight. But then, the P.M. is always in the spotlight. At least during Question Time, he gets to share the heat with his opposition. When the opposition is solid, the executive benefits. (British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, has been foiled in his desire to convert the British pound to the euro -- a contentious issue that most Britons oppose.) When the opposition isn`t solid, the P.M. is the winner. (Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith hasn`t made big gains in popularity with his cheap shots at Blair on the war in Iraq.)

Blair is suffering a crisis of confidence among British voters, many of whom opposed the war. Blair however has effectively used Question Time to demonstrate his abilities as a leader by clearly not ducking responsibility for that unpopular decision. In comparison, Blair`s critics look like weasels.

Sort of like Democrats who voted for the Bush policy on Iraq, only to snipe at Bush as U.S. forces faced inevitable problems.

A U.S. president wouldn`t have to adhere to the British model, where the prime minister confronts members of Parliament most Wednesdays when the House of Commons is in session. Neither Bush -- nor any other American president -- would have the time to prep for a 30-minute Q&A on a near-weekly basis. But a U.S. president could go before Congress from time to time to answer questions when he or she is trying to push through dicey legislation. Bush, for example, could have discussed the prescription drug plan or taken on the mealy-mouthed Democrats about what should happen in Iraq.

Americans, some say, may not react well to the rowdiness of a Question Time.

"There`s no decorum" in the U.K.`s Question Time, noted Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. It would be "offensive" to see members of Congress jeer at an American president as members of Parliament jeer at Blair.

Well, Stern has a point. It`s more accepted in this country for opponents to trash a president behind his back. Confronting a president on substantive disagreement, then giving the president the opportunity to respond, well, in America, that`s just not cricket.

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at [e-mail].

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Ex-US-Botschafter: Irak-Geheimdienstbericht wurde übertrieben

Zuletzt aktualisiert: 06 July 2003 04:55 CEST Drucken Sie diesen Artikel

New York (Reuters) - Die USA haben einem ehemaligen Botschafter des Landes zufolge einen Geheimdienstbericht zum Irak übertrieben, um die Bedrohung durch das Land hochzuspielen.
Ex-Botschafter Joseph Wilson berief sich bei seinem am Sonntag in der US-Zeitung "New York Times" geäußerten Vorwurf auf seine Überprüfung eines Berichts über den Ankauf von Uran durch den Irak im Februar 2002. Er habe damals eine Woche lang für den US-Geheimdienst im afrikanischen Niger recherchiert und mit Vertretern der Regierung und aus dem Atomgeschäft gesprochen. "Es hat nicht lange gedauert festzustellen, dass es in hohem Maße zweifelhaft war, dass ein solcher Handel jemals stattgefunden hat", schrieb Wilson.

Im Januar 2003 habe US-Präsident George W. Bush jedoch "die Vorwürfe wiederholt, der Irak habe sich in Afrika um den Kauf von Uran bemüht", schrieb Wilson weiter. "Falls der Präsident damit auf Niger Bezug nahm, dann basierte die Schlussfolgerung nicht auf den Fakten, die ich kannte." Wenn die Bush-Regierung seine in Niger gesammelten Informationen ignoriert habe, "weil sie nicht in bestimmte Vorstellungen vom Irak passten, dann kann berechtigterweise gesagt werden, dass wir unter falschen Voraussetzungen in den Krieg gezogen sind", folgerte Wilson.

In den USA und in Großbritannien haben sich Kritik und Zweifel an den Darstellungen der Regierungen einer Bedrohung durch den Irak in den vergangenen Wochen verschärft. Beide Staaten hatten sich unter anderem auf den Geheimdienstbericht zum versuchten Uran-Kauf berufen. Wilson zufolge basierte er auf gefälschten Briefen, die der italienische Geheimdienst von einem afrikanischen Diplomat erhalten habe. Die Vorwürfe seien dann offenbar an den britischen Geheimdienst und dann an die CIA weitergereicht worden. Der Bericht war auch von der Internationalen Atomenergiebehörde (IAEA) als falsch zurückgewiesen worden.

Wilson war von 1992 bis 1995 Botschafter der USA im afrikanischen Gabun und war unter Bushs Vorgänger Bill Clinton im Nationalen Sicherheitsrat der USA mit für die Afrika-Politik zuständig.

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The Price On Bush`s Head




A successful war against Iraq couldn`t guarantee his father a second term as US president so, with more than $400 million set aside to fund his re-election campaign, George W Bush isn`t taking any chances
By Ian Bell



BACK in the halcyon days when Richard Milhous Nixon was preparing his war on the constitution of the United States, loyal Republicans created a campaign group to preserve the American way and keep their man in office. The Committee to Re-Elect the President, as it was known, had several notable features aside from its interesting acronym (Creep), many of them involving novel ways to break the law. It had, nevertheless, one overriding purpose: to raise money, lots of money, clean or not. Creep was immodestly successful.
Money is the tainted blood product of the American body politic, after all. Every one knows it. No-one gets to be president unless he is a millionaire many times over or happens to be friendly with several multi-millionaires. No-one has a political profile without being able to buy the advertising that will accuse the opposition of buying their way to office. A Senate seat these days costs $5 million minimum. So what`s a poor Texas boy to do?
If the faux-Texan boy is George W Bush, the first answer to the question is to stop being poor or avoid that unAmerican disease in the first place. The second answer is to raise so much money from people with cause to be grateful for a Bush presidency as to render every possible opponent dirt-poor by comparison. In some quarters in the US this is known, these days, as `market democracy`.
Thus, in order to win the presidency in 2000, Bush spent in the region of $100m. This time around, simply to win his way through the primaries -- where he will meet no Republican opposition -- Bush-Cheney 04 Inc. is shooting for $170m. Then, with next year`s August party convention out of the way, the real presidential campaign -- and fund-raising -- can begin. That, it is thought, should amount to around $250m and change.
For the purposes of comparison, Bill Clinton and the challenger Bob Dole together spent $232m on the presidential race in 1996, and even that `achievement` was hugely controversial. Bush`s fund-raising target for the primaries, meanwhile, exceeds the inflation-adjusted total spent collectively by Reagan (1980 and 1984); Bush senior (1988 and 1992) and Dole (1996). Junior, just to show he means business, has also already raised more than the nine declared Democratic candidates for the presidency put together.
It`s not hard to see how. The Bush campaign aimed to have $20m in the bag by last month, when it was obliged to file a quarterly return with the Federal Election Commission. By the middle of June it had already raised $12m and some of its staff members thought $27m could be a reasonable final figure for the quarter. The week before last, Bush picked up $4.1m at a New York banquet; shortly before that jamboree he had hit his many good friends in Washington for $3.5m at a similar event. Last weekend, San Francisco and Los Angeles between them yielded $5m. Had you been so inclined, a 20-second chance to have your picture taken with the president would have cost you $20,000; the buffet itself was a mere $2000 a head.
America has laws about such things, of course. The main campaign finance law rules that a presidential candidate is only entitled to matching federal funds if he or she accepts strict spending limits. Bush has responded, now as in 2000, by declining this munificent offer: he won`t take a cent in public money and the public, in return, won`t try to tell him how much he can raise from his corporate donors. These Bush `Pioneers` will this year pledge to give at least $200,000 apiece, and will consider the fee a bargain.
Corrupt? Some of us would find it hard to come up with a better word. Nevertheless, Bush`s loyal spokesman, Ari Fleischer, recently chose to put a different interpret-ation on such transactions.
`I think the amount of money that can-didates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country,` said Ari. `The President is proud to have the support of the American people, and the American people will ultimately be the ones who decide how much funding goes to any Democrat or any Republican.`
In the case of Bush, the `American people` in question tend to be executives from the oil, gas, electricity and nuclear industries. They tend to be defence contractors, bankers, big accountancy firms, agri - business, telecoms bosses, leaders in private medicine, pharmaceuticals, mining, chemicals, timber and real estate. They tend to come from companies still winning government contracts even while enjoying the offshore tax havens Bush has declined to assault, or benefiting from the loosening of environmental regulations over which he has presided. They tend to be plain old rich folk thankful for all the new tax cuts their president has delivered. And they tend, invariably, to be the lobbyists and fixers who make all these fruitful relationships possible.
To a European, from a continent where corruption is scarcely unknown, the problems raised by all of this are obvious: it reeks. In modern neo-conservative America, however, there is no shortage of sober intellectual justification for a system that scars politics, disillusions a huge majority of voters, and resists all serious reform. Take this statement from the website of the Cato Institute (motto: `Individual Liberty, Limited Government, Free Markets and Peace`), a `policy-making` think-tank:
`The right to spend money on politics, including the right to contribute to campaigns, is protected by the First Amendment ... Campaign finance regulation is not about `reform` or ethics. New restrictions on spending will only help those already in power by making it harder to challenge them.`
From this distance, it may not appear self-evident that George Bush needs much help. Then again, Bill Clinton made it absurdly easy for his successor. When Bubba was in need of funds, a mere cup of coffee with the president could run you to $50,000. Bush-Cheney 04 Inc. has yet to put a price on that treat, but having set the most recent precedent, Democrats are in no position to make a fuss. They are in this too.
Nineteen of the Bush `Rangers` in 2000 -- that is, those who forked out at least $100,000 -- later became US ambassadors. The biggest spender among them -- Ron Weiser, a real-estate bigwig from Michigan -- got Slovakia for only $588,309, lucky man. But this year even a `leadership luncheon` with Karl Rove, Bush`s spooky senior political adviser, will involve a minimum donation of $50,000. The figures, clearly, are absurd, monstrous. So why does Bush -- still high in the polls, facing no obviously plausible Democratic challenger -- feel the need for such a huge amount of money?
According to Scott Reed, a Republican `consultant`, the idea is to `overwhelm the Democrats, to demoralise them, and to create this sense of inevitability that Bush cannot be beaten`. Bush senior took a second term for granted after his easy victory in the first Gulf war; Junior is taking no such chances.
It may turn out to be the smart bet. If Iraq`s now-legendary WMD fail to put in an appearance soon, things could start to become very sticky indeed, even in the patriotic USA. If American voters stumble upon the conclusion that they were led into war on the basis of shameless hokum and crude lies, things could even become serious. The economy, meanwhile, still stubbornly refuses to stage a solid and lasting recovery. And September 11, for all its resonance, will not underwrite the President`s political authority forever.
Bush is shopping early; buying his election now. After all, the Democrats would do the same, given the chance. And who could long withstand that tidal wave of Republican money?
The electorate might. The candidate, so transparent in the business of patronage, of favours for favours and bribes for bribes, may yet find himself exceeding the public`s threshold of tolerance. Naked corruption is not an attractive sight at any time. It goes down especially badly in a country besotted with its own virtue. Disgust, history suggests, is a potent thing in American politics. Government by the people for the people has been put on the auction block, awaiting the highest bidder, and the reaction will come.
Besides, Bush has just led his country into a hugely dangerous conflict in order, so he said, to defend democracy. As Americans, surveying their tainted electoral process, might begin to ask: what democracy, exactly?

06 July 2003

http://www.sundayherald.com/35020

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Die amerikanischen Juden sind lange nicht so konservativ, wie uns manche glauben lassen.

Jewish Voters Standing By Their Party, Analysis Says

By Thomas B. Edsall
Sunday, July 6, 2003; Page A05


There is good news for Democrats concerned that President Bush has been making inroads with Jewish voters: They remain decisively more Democratic than the rest of the electorate and far less supportive of the Bush administration, according to an analysis by the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC).

Combining data from five national surveys taken by the independent Ipsos/Cook Political Report Poll between January 2002 and March 2003, the NJDC found that while "46 percent of all Americans would definitely vote for Bush, only 25 percent of American Jews would do so."

The NJDC findings show that "American Jews remain strongly Democratic -- 64 percent describing themselves as Democrats, and 26 percent as Republicans," compared with the electorate as a whole, which is evenly split. About 64 percent of Jews would like to see Democrats retake control of Congress, while 24 percent want to see the GOP retain control, compared with the electorate which, again, is split almost evenly, according to the NJDC analysis.

"For many months, there has been a drumbeat of suggestions that American Jews are tilting to the right. Finally, we have clear and reliable data, and it gives the lie to the oft-repeated myth," said NJDC executive director Ira N. Forman. "It is particularly striking that after September 11th, a war against terrorism and military intervention in Iraq -- at a time when the president`s approval numbers have been so high among Americans in general -- that his approval ratings among American Jews have been so mediocre."

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, dismissed the data, noting that even if accepted as accurate, the data show higher support for the GOP among Jewish voters than in past years.

Candidates in Name Only


There are those who say politics is a closed business, reserved for the wealthy, well-bred and well-connected. But those people obviously aren`t on the Libertarian Party`s mailing list.

The group sent e-mail last week to 47,000 people, asking them to run for office in this year`s elections. "We are seriously asking you to run for office as a Libertarian candidate," the email says. "If you agree to run, we`ll tell you which offices are available and help you become a candidate quickly and easily."

The group has just a few requests ("the minimum we need of a candidate"):

1. "If the media calls, return their call promptly. . . . "

2. "Answer the questionnaires that you`ll receive from various political and community groups. . . . "

3. "Attend any candidate forums you are invited to, or at least respond with regrets if you cannot attend."

4. "Have a quality photo taken to provide to any media who may call."

5. "Finally, comply with the contribution filing requirements and campaign ethics rules."

But what if we can`t win? What if we don`t know anything about politics?

"Winning isn`t the only reason to run," the e-mail advises. "Time after time, we see that the more candidates a state runs, the more media they get, the better the average vote for all of their candidates and, most importantly, the more Libertarians they elect."

"You will greatly help our effort even if your campaign activities are limited to little more than getting your name on the ballot," the note says.

GOP Urges Clinton to Return to Paris


Apparently Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is not supposed to take a July 4 holiday break from work. That, at least, is the view of the New York Republican Party chairman, Alexander Treadwell. He said Clinton, who is traveling through Europe promoting her new book, should be listening to folks in Paris, N.Y., instead of Paris, France. Treadwell, the Associated Press reported, said the promotional events for Clinton`s memoir "Living History" are detracting from her work as the junior senator from New York. Congress is in recess for the week of July 4. Clinton has scheduled stops in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

A Clinton spokeswoman responded by saying the GOP should stop questioning the patriotism of fellow Americans.

Political researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Turks held over Iraq murder plot
By Ed O`Loughlin, Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
July 7 2003

The arrest of a group of Turkish special forces soldiers in northern Iraq by United States troops at the weekend hints at potential new instability in the north even as coalition forces come under daily attacks in the region around Baghdad.

According to a report in the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet, about 100 US troops raided a "facility" used by Turkish forces in Sulaimaniya and arrested 11 Turkish special forces on Friday afternoon.

The paper said the US troops had accused the 11 of plotting to murder the mayor of the nearby city of Kirkuk.

Yesterday the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, said that the captured Turkish soldiers had been taken to Baghdad, where some of them were released.

The incident has further strained already difficult relations between the US and Turkey, which were badly damaged by Ankara`s last-minute refusal to allow its long-time NATO ally to use its territory as a base for the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Erdogan called the arrests an "ugly incident" and demanded the immediate release of all the detainees. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, dismissed as nonsense the allegation that Turkish troops were plotting attacks inside Iraq.

"None of it is believable," he said. "Turkey is working for Iraq`s stability, not to destabilise Iraq."

US military authorities in Iraq confirmed yesterday that US forces had detained several soldiers they believed to be Turkish but gave little detail. Reuters reported that when asked about the accusations yesterday, a US military official said: "There was a raid. The US military is still trying to determine their ethnicity, but they are probably Turkish."

Turkey once claimed the region, and in recent years it has kept several thousand troops inside northern Iraq to fight ethnic Kurdish guerillas seeking an autonomous homeland in south-eastern Turkey.

The Turkish presence also serves to discourage Iraqi Kurds from turning their own autonomous zone into a fully independent state - something that Turkey fears could serve as a bad precedent for its own Kurdish minority.

As US, British and Australian forces prepared to attack Iraq earlier this year, Turkey at one point threatened to mount its own invasion to defend its interests in the north.

Held back by US pressure, the Turks were particularly angry when Iraqi Kurdish forces seized the city of Kirkuk.

Not only is it home to a large ethnic Turkish community, but Ankara fears its rich oil fields could be used to fund a breakaway Kurdish state.

It is unclear whether the 11 Turkish soldiers arrested on Friday were from the Kirkuk monitor group or from the regular units stationed just inside Iraq. In April several Turkish soldiers in plain clothes were arrested by US forces.

On Saturday a British freelance journalist was shot dead outside the Iraqi national museum in Baghdad, the first killing of a foreign journalist since the US President, George Bush, declared the war over on May 1.


This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/06/1057430078651.html

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Iraq Policy Is Broken. Fix It.
The administration’s problem is that calling on NATO means bringing France and Germany back into the fold. My suggestion: get over it.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/935250.asp?0dm=s14Bk

NEWSWEEK


July 14 issue — We’re utterly surprised,” a senior U.N. diplomat told me. “We thought that after the war, the United States would try to dump Iraq on the world’s lap and the rest of the world would object, saying, ‘This is your mess, you clean it up.’ The opposite is happening. The rest of the world is saying, ‘We’re willing to help,’ but Washington is determined to run Iraq itself.” And what are we getting for this privilege? The vast majority of the costs, for starters.
MOST ESTIMATES SUGGEST that Iraq is now costing U.S. taxpayers $4 billion a month. The gush of oil revenues is going to take much longer than expected. Meanwhile the country is in worse shape than almost anyone predicted. If past experience with nation-building is any guide, aid levels will need to rise significantly to achieve success.
The military situation is even more difficult. Right now, more than a third of active-duty U.S. Army forces are deployed in and around Iraq—180,000 out of 480,000. Without a serious change of strategy, this is not sustainable for more than a year.
And what if current levels are not enough? President Bush tells us that we have the forces needed to maintain order in Iraq. But in Bosnia and Kosovo, NATO deployed significantly larger forces per capita—and those were situations where the fighting had actually stopped. Gen. Eric Shinseki’s original estimate that at least 200,000 troops would be needed to administer Iraq looks increasingly closer to the mark, at least in this early phase.
The solution is obvious: internationalize the occupation. The Pentagon claims it already is—by getting troops from various Coalition partners. Here is what that means: Britain, Poland and maybe India will each lead a division. But few countries have active, well-trained troops in the numbers needed. So the British division will include troops from seven countries, sometimes just a few hundred. (The Czech contribution is 650.) The Polish division will have only 2,300 Polish troops, the rest coming from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. Even so, the division will be a small one, about 9,000 (as opposed to 15,000, which is more the norm). I’m not a military expert, but can this work as a fighting force?

There is one group of nations with large numbers of well-trained troops, experienced in peacekeeping and in working with the United States Army. It’s called NATO. The problem for the Bush administration is that calling on NATO means bringing France and Germany back into the fold. My suggestion: get over it. Even for NATO countries, sending large numbers of troops is not going to be easy. Besides, without NATO at the core, the Coalition of Iraq forces will be constantly changing, an ad hoc group with no experience working together.
But we will still need more troops. In order to get other countries—perhaps Muslim countries—to participate, Washington should give the United Nations a more central role. (Alternatively, create a multinational body specifically for the reconstruction of Iraq, blessed by the United Nations, with many foreign faces.) In virtually every negotiation the administration has had for more troops, countries have expressed a strong preference to be part of a U.N. mission rather than a U.S. mission. In India right now, the government is keen to send a division to northern Iraq, but it knows that it will pay a political price without U.N. cover.
The enormous economic advantages of a more multinational process are also obvious. The European Union and Japan, the two donors with big aid budgets, are far more likely to put large sums of money into a U.N. operation than a U.S. occupation. The United States pays about 20 percent of the combined military and administrative costs in Kosovo. If the costs stay in the range of $50 billion for this first year in Iraq, help would be nice.
And what would we lose? Washington would still maintain effective control because it is the dominant military force on the ground. In Afghanistan, where the United States runs the military and the United Nations the administrative side, no one doubts where the power lies.

Today the United States gets to decide which Shiite leader will be mayor of Najaf—thereby annoying 100 other contenders. Meanwhile the United Nations distributes food, water and medicine. Why is this such a great deal for America? Why not mix it up so that the political decisions are made by an international group? And why not have the United States more involved in relief work?
From the start, internationalizing the Iraq operation has seemed such an obvious solution. But the Bush administration has not adopted it because it holds a whole series of prejudices about the United Nations, nation-building, the French, the Germans and multilateral organizations. In clinging on to ideological fixations, the administration is risking its most important foreign-policy project.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write to the author at www.fareedzakaria.com.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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Soldier Dies in Latest Attack on U.S. in Iraq
Sun July 06, 2003 03:06 PM ET


By Andrew Gray
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier in Iraq to build ties with the community died after he was shot at Baghdad University on Sunday in the latest in a string of increasingly bold attacks on occupying forces.

Washington was also grappling with anger from Turkey after detaining troops belonging to its NATO ally in northern Iraq. Diplomats said there was evidence they were plotting to kill a Kurdish governor but Turkey has rejected the charge.

Turkey said on Sunday it expected the soldiers to be released shortly, after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan received assurances from Vice President Dick Cheney during a telephone conversation.

The dispute threatened to undermine efforts to improve ties between the allies after relations soured following Turkey`s refusal to allow U.S. troops to stage attacks on neighboring Iraq from Turkish soil during the war.

The U.S. military said the victim of Sunday`s shooting in Iraq was one of its Civil Affairs soldiers, who wear regular combat gear but specialize in helping with community projects.

Students said he had been inside the university campus in the south of the city, and that a U.S. military helicopter had taken him to hospital. U.S. troops sealed off the campus.

One student, Abdullah Saad, said he saw the soldier on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. He received a "hostile" gunshot wound and died later of his injuries, the military said.

On Saturday a British freelance cameraman, Richard Wild, was also shot dead at close range in central Baghdad, and seven recruits to a U.S.-backed local police force were killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Ramadi, west of the capital.

U.S. and British troops have come under attack almost daily since toppling Saddam Hussein and his Baath party government on April 9. Commanders say the frequency of the violence has remained fairly constant but that it has become deadlier.

Twenty-seven U.S. and six British soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Many more have been wounded.

ODDS GROWING THAT SADDAM STILL ALIVE

A taped message purporting to be from Saddam aired on Arab television on Friday told Iraqis to rally behind the resistance to American occupation, increasing pressure on Iraq`s occupiers to find Iraq`s deposed leader in hopes of quelling the violence.

"We have to kill or capture Saddam and his two sons," U.S. Republican Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Sunday.

"It is a big-ticket item for us if we`re going to eliminate the fear and be successful over the next 100 days with all the attacks against Americans," he said.

Roberts said U.S. intelligence reports indicated there was about a 70/30 chance that Saddam was still alive, up from 50/50 previously.

Troops concluded Operation Desert Sidewinder, a week-long crackdown on armed resistance, on Saturday having detained 282 former Baath party loyalists and subversives and seized 96 AK-47 rifles, 217 rocket-propelled grenades and other arms, a military statement said.

Most violence against U.S. forces has taken place in Baghdad and Sunni Muslim areas north and west of the capital which were strongholds of support for Saddam, himself a Sunni.

But the detention of Turkish soldiers underscored that the Kurdish-dominated north also remains volatile.

Turkey says 11 soldiers were among 24 people detained in northern Iraq on Friday and taken to Baghdad. The U.S. military has said several soldiers thought to be Turks were in custody after a raid in northern Iraq.

"Turkish and U.S. military authorities in the region will discuss the issue in the coming hours. Following that, it`s expected special forces personnel will be returned to the Turkish side in Sulaimaniya," a statement from Erdogan`s office said after he spoke with Cheney on Sunday.

A few thousand Turkish soldiers are inside northern Iraq in pursuit of Turkish Kurdish guerrillas who waged a separatist campaign in the 1980s and 1990s in southeastern Turkey.


A U.S. First Marine Expeditionay Force soldier patrols at sunset near a branch of the Euphrates river at Babylon Camp, July 5, 2003. Around 15,000 soldiers of thr First Marine Expeditionary Force are based at Babylon camp next to the Babylon ruins, 100km south of Baghdad . REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

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Fear Factory
The Bush administration`s dangerous manufacturing of post-9-11 dread

By Jim McDermott
Web Exclusive: 7.1.03


Long before I was elected to Congress, I served as a U.S. Navy Medical Corps psychiatrist at the Long Beach Naval Station, home of the 7th Fleet. I treated the walking wounded of the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970. Our brave troops, who endured lies from our leaders in addition to the usual horrors of war, suffered from fear, anger, sleep disorders and depression, among other things. These symptoms came to be known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

On September 11, Americans suffered a horrible trauma, and we still suffer from the psychological fallout of the terrorist attacks. The administration`s calculated campaign to raise and maintain fear and anxiety in America has been an effective tool in prolonging the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by 9-11. As the Bush administration builds its military presence in the Middle East, it is upping the psychological ante here at home.

The deputies of the Bush Terror Posse -- Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft -- are conducting a deliberate campaign to frighten us. One facet of the campaign has, over the last 18 months, persuaded large portions of the population to rush to the stores for water, food, plastic sheeting and, of course, duct tape. The threats of impending danger are on record for the future, the administration seems to be saying. When something happens, you won`t be able to say we didn`t warn you.

This is just the latest and most egregious step in a fear campaign designed to prepare Americans to do whatever the administration wants us to do.

Here`s how it works: Throw a hundred claims against the wall and poll every night to see what sticks. Leak stories that are later discredited. Get a graduate student`s dissertation and plagiarize it. Lift paragraphs from a war-industry magazine. Every so often, raise the danger level to code "yellow" or "orange." Give the people a rest. Then start all over again. Mix it all up and put an official seal on it. Now it seems true, despite the skepticism of intelligence professionals.

We have been inundated with fables, lies and half-truths. Remember the 33 pounds of "weapons-grade uranium" being smuggled in a taxi from Turkey to Iraq? A few days later, it turned out to be about 3 ounces of nonradioactive metal. And then there is smallpox: The administration is encouraging vaccinations, but it`s only in parentheses that it adds that there is "no imminent threat" of a smallpox attack. There is no clear reason for this focus on smallpox, except to ratchet up the level of anxiety.

Our leaders have worked hard to keep the anxiety level up so that the public will forget about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda (who were they again?). Instead, in Iraq, we focused on an impaired dictator of a country with a deteriorated infrastructure and a destroyed economy.

This kind of tactic was described by Hermann Goering, who said at the Nuremberg trials, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

What are the next steps? Let`s look to history for a clue.

In 1941 we rounded up Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. Then we offered them the opportunity to volunteer for the armed services where, because of their valor, the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most decorated combat units in World War II. We have since paid a price in shame for indefensible actions our government took against these citizens out of suspicion and manufactured fear.

And now? The Bush Terror Posse already has required 18-to-45-year-old noncitizen males from Arab and predominantly Muslim countries to register with the U.S. government. If another terrorist attack should occur, don`t be surprised if Bush and Co. issue orders to round up these men and intern them. Details leaked about the proposed Patriot Act II do nothing to reassure us about the future of civil liberties for our citizens, much less for legal aliens who live here.

I`m not sure how much more of this our country can take. Memories of conversations with veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder haunt me. I know I`m not alone: I`ve talked with other veterans who have had recent flare-ups. The nightmares are coming back.

Lately, I think often of FDR`s admonition, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Americans may have nothing to fear but the fearmongers themselves.

Jim McDermott is a Democratic congressman from Washington State`s 7th District.

Jim McDermott

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/07/mcdermott-j-07-0…

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George, Would You PLEASE Shut Up!
by W. David Jenkins III July 4, 2003


All right already, that is more than enough! What the hell were you thinking? Were you thinking? Have you completely lost your mind? Is there anybody out there keeping an eye on you, kid? I really hate to rant but I just can`t let this go.


July 2 - "There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation." - Reuters
July 3 - A day after President Bush asserted that coalition forces in Iraq were prepared to deal with any security threat; American troops came under attack again today, with 10 soldiers wounded in three separate incidents. - New York Times
George, the macho routine - and I do mean "routine" - has got to go. The fact that we have kids getting killed because you lied is a travesty in and of itself. Now, once again, you start up the he-man schtick and people start getting hurt - and worse. Haven`t you or any of your people learned a damned thing?

"Bring them on?"

Exactly what is your problem?

Are you bothered by the fact that you were not man enough to actually serve when it was your turn? Are you making up for the fact that you couldn`t even fulfill your cushy assignment back in the early `70s because you were a blooming mess and couldn`t pass a urine test? What, now you feel the need to talk tough so nobody will question what an actual coward you are? You are a coward, George. We saw that long before 9/11.

Your cowardice is the reason for what we now know as "First Amendment Zones." You know those heavily policed, barricaded, way-out-of-the-way places for people who voice their accurate opinions of you. They`re usually placed so far away from where you appear that you can be assured you`ll never see or hear any dissent.

And we all know why.

Because you`re afraid of confrontation in any form. You`ve been a scaredy-cat since you stole office! Hiding under canopies and limiting access by the press as well as those who abhor you and know you for the fake that you are. George W. Bush, you have given birth to a new phrase!

"He-Man in Hiding!"

We all learned - well, most of us did - what a pathetic excuse for a "president" you are when you did the old "dead or alive" nonsense when it came to Osama bin Laden. "Smoke `em out," you said. Mister big man.

Well, President Bounty Hunter, where the hell is he?

Hasn`t it ever dawned on you that if you hadn`t instructed people like John O`Neill to lay off investigating bin Laden prior to the attack, none of that 9/11 stuff would have happened? Is that why you`re hiding over 800 pages of the investigative report by the Senate?

So, Mister Dead-or-Alive…where the hell is Osama?

Oh, you thought we forgot?

Y`know, George, it takes more than just talk to make you a man. It takes more than just talk to make you a leader. Sure, you have the ever-obedient sheep in the liberal media who are stretching things to the max to make you look good. Lucky for you, most of the people who rely on American media for their information are idiots who actually think that that aircraft carrier landing was something to be admired. You need to remember one thing, George.

The world is not your Congress.

Just because most of the representatives in both Houses believed every lie you told doesn`t make everybody else just as compliant. Just because the lap dogs at Fox "News" wet themselves every time they mention your name doesn`t mean the rest of the world community - including many of us here at home - buy your carefully manufactured machismo. Your testosterone complex is trying our patience and - worst of all - killing people who have ten times more cajones than you could ever hope to have.

For Chrissakes, George, you didn`t even have the balls (excuse me) to land in Iraq a few weeks ago. No, you did a fly-over. At least your puppy, Tony Blair, had it in him to walk among the people in Basra. But you? You pathetic chicken. You ran and hid like you did on 9/11, Mr. Tough Guy. You are an embarrassment - and worst of all - you`re a dangerous embarrassment. Your bravado is killing people.

"Bring them on!"

You pompous S.O.B. - you spoiled little chicken "stuff" brat. Please, please, please, shut your stupid mouth! Your cowardice is killing Americans. And Iraqis. Your big, stupid mouth is not helping the huge mess your lies have created! The world is not Old West Texas. You`re not even Texas! Every time you open your big mouth either somebody gets killed or wounded or the stock market falls. Your big mouth just got ten people wounded! There`s no telling what your oral nonsense will produce tomorrow.

Shut up, George! You`re killing people, you coward!


*******

Hey guys, I don`t know about you but I feel a heck of a lot better now - at least I can breathe. And breathing always allows me to be a little creative.

A few months ago, Americans were told to buy mass quantities of duct tape to protect themselves from those who would do them harm. I know there just have to be many, many rolls of duct tape out there that have gone un-used. And…

I have a great idea.

The next time George W. Bush decides it`s time to get macho, somebody - please - oh please, grab a roll of that duct tape and wrap it around his whole head. You`ll save a life and protect our national security.

It`s the patriotic thing to do, the only thing to do.



Copyright 2001-2003 AmericaHeldHostile.com. All rights reserved.
http://www.americaheldhostile.com/ed070403-1.shtml

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Zum Mitsingen. Sag mir wo die Blumen sind?

http://www.prairiehome.org/performances/20030628/ram_files/1…


Where are all the Democrats,
Long time passing,
Where are all the Democrats,
Long time ago,
Are they writing their memoirs
And learning how to play guitars
Or did they go to France
To buy a pair of pants.

Where are all the journalists,
Long time passing,
Where are all the journalists,
Long time ago,
Are they having too much fun
Embedded down in Washington,
When will they look around
And see what`s going down?

Where are all the weapons of
Mass destruction?
Where are all the weapons that
Drove us to war?
They are hidden in Iraq
Down the street around the block
We searched in May and June
We`ll find them pretty soon.

Where are the Republicans,
We are all okay.
We are all Republicans
In the U.S.A.
We`re happy in the G.O.P.
Where the food and drinks are free
We `re doing really fine
Here in the summertime.


© Garrison Keillor 2003
http://www.prairiehome.org/performances/20030628/democrats.s…

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Published on July 4, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Independence Day Revisited or Tail of Two Dogs
by David Rabin

Gather round, all ye conspiracy addicts and other interested parties, and listen to a July 4th tale that should be setting-off some serious fireworks, if only folks were paying attention. Mind you, we don`t have a smoking firearm here, nor are we likely to ever have one. But indulge us in this round of substantiated speculation.

On or about Independence Day, 2002, things were getting rather nasty for President Bush. If you remember, enormous scandals at Enron, WorldCom et. al. were grabbing headlines. Bush was beginning to get tarred. The Washington press corps was finally recovering from its post-9-11 servility. The question was (and, for that matter, still is), why should Bush, a former Harken Energy officer, a man implicated in an insider trading scheme four times the size of Martha Stewart`s boo-boo, be trusted to ride in on a white horse and protect us all from evil corporate dirty-doers?

The New York Time`s Paul Krugman poised the question on July 2nd. By July 8th, Bush was badgered with Harken queries at one of his rare press conferences. A Nexus search reveals that, during the week of July 6th., about 300 major news stories and opinion pieces were generated in the U.S. media on either the Bush-Harken issue or the questionable actions of Dick Cheney during his tenure as C.E.O. at Halliburton. Not a happy time for the White House, and a November election was looming.

What to do? It`s clear from innumerable sources that Bush and his cronies wanted to go after Iraq from way back, that 9-11 provided the opportunity, that once the Taliban was thrown out of power in Afghanistan, the propaganda mill, with virtually no evidence, could wrap Saddam in 9-11 finery. Crank it up in September, just in time to scare the be-jesus out of every Joe six- pack and soccer mom on election day in 2002. You ideally don`t want to start any earlier than that. As Andrew Card, Bush`s chief of staff, said last summer, you don`t begin a sales campaign in August.

But then those pesky Enron/WorldCom irritants forced the issue, so the White House appears to have sped-up its scheme by wagging-the-dog on July 4th. That`s when the Pentagon leaked its Iraq war plans to the New York Times. Although some say the spill was done by those opposed to a war, Bush and company clearly had ample motivation to distract the public from the burgeoning corporate tempests. They had a long lineage of switcher-roos to draw on: the Monica-gate Iraq attack by Clinton in `98 and Reagan`s invasion of Grenada in 1983, close on the heels of the massacre of some 240 Marines in Beirut, to mention just two examples.

The leak, along with a few other choice moves, seems to have worked like a charm. Soon after July 4th, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz visited Ankora to talk turkey about invasion plans, and Tony Blair was invited to Camp David to meet Bush and discuss war strategy. By the end of July, the Bush-Harken stories were down to a trickle, apparently drowned out by the growing title wave of pieces on a possible invasion of Iraq. Nexus shows us that while there were a small number of stories on a possible U.S. attack on Iraq before July, by early August there were close to 300. By the middle of September, the number more than doubled. It can be argued that Bush-Harken stories would have died anyway, that correlation is not necessarily causation. But Bush certainly had a motive to up-the-anti on Iraq.

Nor is this discussion idle historical chatter, bent on remembering Bush`s purely political/electoral expediency in going to war, something that`s been lost in all the clammer about wmd, oil, lucrative contracts for friends, smashing support for the Palestinians, reconfiguring the Middle East, getting revenge for Poppy, etc.

Our wagging dog could take another bow (wow!). The president is increasingly weakened by awol wmd in Iraq, along with growing numbers of body bags and a failed occupation. Add in the other occupational mess in Afghanistan, a stagnant U.S. economy, an enormous deficit, sinking state budgets, and you`ve got trouble in (Potomac) River City.

If you were George Bush, or more accurately, Karl Rove, what would you do? Changing the subject worked beautifully last year. Why not try it again? Let`s pick on another Axis of Evil country, or perhaps go out and actually arrest/kill Osama-Been-Forgotten. With all that intelligence at their disposal, they have to know where some guy hooked up to a dialysis machine is hiding out. Or why not make an early announcement of Condi Rice as your 2004 running-mate. That would really confuse everybody. They just need to decide which bone to pull out of the bag and when to wag it. Wait till September 2004? Maybe sooner if things get too shaky? Stay tuned.

Who knows? Maybe Bush`s opponents can start chatting this up, something they were, for the most part, too afraid to do last year. Then perhaps we can declare some real independence on November 2, 2004.

###
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0704-10.htm

[Joerver]

Declaring My Independence from the Bush Administration
July 4, 2003
By Ed Hanratty

Mr. Bush: I am not, nor have I ever been a big fan of yours. As a matter of fact, I voted with the majority of voters against you when you ran for office in 2000. However, by hook or by crook (and yes, the pun was intended) you are now the sitting Commander in Chief, regardless of how illegitimate I think you are. As an American citizen, that means you are my Commander in Chief as well. My tax dollars fund your salary. My tax dollars fund your cronyism. And my tax dollars fund your deployment of my fellow citizens to all corners of the world.

And, as you`re fond of saying, make no mistake - even though I vehemently disagree with your maniacal and haphazard foreign policy, I want nothing less than the safest of situations for all of the boys and girls serving you over there. They are brave and noble for their service, but this does not give you the license to use them as replaceable resources, or pawns in your game. They`re people George, not toys. They chose to serve. They didn`t chose to play hide and seek from the Texas Air National Guard.

Which brings me to my point. Where do you get off telling the world that the US is well equipped to handle continued and expanded Iraqi uprisings against your occupation, so "Bring them on." Bring them on? Are you kidding me? Openly daring an enemy force to try and remove the US presence in their homeland? What Dungeons and Dragons strategy guide did Karl Rove mistake for The Art of War?

You can not be serious. Not only is this yet another embarrassment that Americans will have to deal with, but it`s also incredibly dangerous.

I don`t care what context you meant this in. I don`t care if you were misunderstood. I heard that it "sounds worse than it really is." Do you think Al Jazeera or Abu Dhabi is going to make such a disclaimer? Do you think that the insurgents and others who wish harm to America are going to say "well, he didn`t mean it that way." No. You`re adding fuel to an already raging fire. You put our troops in a very difficult position. Over two hundred soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq in less than four months. You`ve put them directly in harm`s way, even though your motivations for doing so were suspect to most of the world. And you continue to do so by egging on those who consider the occupying force to be "the enemy."

George, do you realize that the perception of the American soldier in the Middle East is vastly different than the perception that we get from FOX News? They don`t have an "America`s Bravest Wall" in Baghdad. They don`t broadcast welcome home parades in Damascus. You will not find many yellow ribbons donning palm trees in Gaza City. They don`t like us George. They think we`re arrogant. Wherever would they get such an idea?

I`ll tell you what will be broadcast over and over again in the Middle East though: "Bring them on". And you know what George? They`re going to put a spin on it so fine that Bill O`Reilly will be greener than the Jolly Giant with envy.

I`m sure it`s been hard enough to explain the previous two hundred deaths to the American people, and more importantly, the families of those killed in combat. But how are you going to explain them now? It`s no longer "Private Williams died to liberate an oppressed people." Now the explanation is "Private Williams died because I dared the enemy to bring it!" Doesn`t jive well, does it George?

You`re not the one on the front lines. You never were. Neither was I, but I didn`t send them over there so Halliburton could make a fat profit. Jenna and Barbara aren`t over there, neither is your nephew George P. Bush (the one your father introduced to Ronnie Reagan as "the little brown one"). You remain the safest person in America. We`d all love to have our undisclosed secure locations to run to, especially when you refuse to fund First Responders. But we can`t and the troops in Iraq can`t. So don`t make their job any harder than you already have, okay? Thank you.

Furthermore, if I send you a thesaurus, will you promise me that you`ll read it? The next time you throw a dinner party at $2,000 a pop, can you pocket a little bit for yourself and enroll in finishing school? Not only is your demeanor crude and elementary, it`s an insulting embarrassment. I understand that grades and studies were never as important as Jim Beam and the white stuff. I know that it was much more fun to get loaded and do figure-8`s in Kennebunkport than it was to study for the SAT. I know that big words may at times make you insecure. But do you have to digress to such playground bully language?

I`m going to let you in on a little secret here George. Those of us who don`t live with our parents, watch professional wrestling, and possess Yosemite Sam mud-flaps, think you`re pretty damn stupid. I don`t know who you`re trying to impress. "Evil Doers." "Dead or Alive." "Freedom Loving People." "Misunderestimate." You think this is decorum befitting a President? Have you ever heard of dignity, or grace, or even common decency? You may think that this is the "way to the common man`s heart," and to some people, you may be right. But you know what there George, I don`t believe the Framers ever envisioned a "common man" being President. It`s an exceptional job that requires an exceptional person. You`re a mediocre man doing a deplorable job.

Let me clue you in on the common man while we`re on the subject George. The common man may be a C student, but he doesn`t get into Yale University. The common man does not graduate from school and have an oil business waiting there for him to run into the ground. The common man doesn`t summer in Kennebunkport. The common man has earned just about every dollar he has ever had. The common man doesn`t get to take a nap during the workday. The common man can`t collect $2,000 from people to hear him speak like a common man. The common man knows what it`s like to struggle.

Many common men and women think that they can ease their struggles by enlisting to serve you, George. But then you just turn around and dare the enemy to bring it on. You should be ashamed of yourself.


Ed Hanratty can be reached at [e-mail]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/07/04_decla…

[Joerver]

Governors back BBC in row over Iraq dossier
Jackie Ashley, Michael White and Matt Wells
Monday July 7, 2003
The Guardian

The BBC`s governors sought to gain the upper hand in the Iraq war dossier row last night with a pugilistic statement demanding that Downing Street retract its claims of bias against the corporation`s journalism.

After two weeks in which the BBC has appeared to be on the back foot, the corporation`s governing body turned the tables on No 10 and delivered an unexpectedly robust defence of the story at the centre of the dispute.

Hours before the foreign affairs select committee is due to publish its report on the affair, the governors maintained it was "in the public interest" to report the claim by an intelligence source that Downing Street exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction.

In a Guardian interview today, the former Commons leader Robin Cook makes a withering attack on Tony Blair`s credibility, and says the key dossier justifying war was inaccurate.

He accuses Alastair Campbell, director of communications at Downing Street, of using his row with the BBC as a "red herring" to distract attention from the real issues.

After a two-hour meeting with BBC director general Greg Dyke and his news executives, the governors insisted Mr Campbell retract his claims that the BBC`s coverage of the war on Iraq was biased. They "emphatically rejected" suggestions that the corporation had an anti-war agenda.

The governors appeared to place themselves in a highly sensitive position: they are also the arbiters of complaints against the corporation, and could be accused of prejudging the issue.

Nevertheless, they backed the Radio 4 reporter Andrew Gilligan, his editors at the Today programme and managers at BBC News, saying they had not broken the corporation`s guidelines by reporting claims of a single, unnamed intelligence source that Downing Street had "sexed up" a dossier that put the case for the war.

In a statement read out at Broadcasting House in central London by Gavyn Davies, the New Labour economist who chairs the BBC governors, the governors said: "The board reiterates that the BBC`s overall coverage of the war, and the political issues surrounding it, has been entirely impartial, and it emphatically rejects Mr Campbell`s claim that large parts of the BBC had an agenda against the war.

"We call on Mr Campbell to withdraw these allegations of bias against the BBC and its journalists." The governors noted that another story on BBC2`s Newsnight made similar claims, but had not been criticised, indicating their support for the view that Downing Street was pursuing a vendetta against Mr Gilligan.

"The board is satisfied that it was in the public interest to broadcast Mr Gilligan`s story, given the information which was available to BBC News at the time. We believe it would not have been in the public interest to have suppressed the stories on either the Today programme or Newsnight."

But the governors criticised Today for not keeping a clear enough account of its dealings with the Ministry of Defence the night before the story was broadcast on May 29.

They said No 10 should have been contacted for a response, although they noted that the defence minister, Adam Ingram, gave a detailed rebuttal on the Today programme 90 minutes after the story was first aired.

"We are wholly satisfied that BBC journalists and their managers sought to maintain impartiality and accuracy during this episode," the governors said in the statement issued after a two-hour meeting last night.

Executives at BBC News were delighted with the strongly worded defence, and the sharp attack on Mr Campbell.

The director of news, Richard Sambrook, had earlier told colleagues he would resign if he failed to get the governors` backing.

Downing Street last night said it was "saddened that the BBC continues to defend the indefensible".

The statement added: "Over a month later, the BBC still haven`t answered the question, do they believe those allegations to be true, or false, yes or no?"

Today, as the Commons foreign affairs select committee prepares to publish its report on the intelligence background to the war, Mr Cook says of Mr Campbell in an interview with the Guardian: "He has handled the last two weeks brilliantly, in that he has managed to convince half the media that the foreign affairs inquiry is into the origins of his war with Andrew Gilligan, not into the war with Iraq."

He is also critical of the September dossier. "There aren`t any weapons ready for use in 45 minutes; there was no uranium. There were no chemical production factories rebuilt; there was no nuclear weapons programme."

At last night`s meeting, the governors listened to an impassioned justification of the BBC`s actions from Mr Sambrook and another from Mr Dyke, who was reported to be taking a "do or die" attitude towards the need to preserve the corporation`s reputation for independence.

But the governors accepted the need to tighten rules on the freelance activities of BBC journalists: a Mail on Sunday story by Mr Gilligan went further than his BBC reports.

Mr Dyke briefed the governors, whose deputy chairman is a former Tory cabinet minister, Richard Ryder, on his planned response to today`s report from the select committee, chaired by the veteran Labour lawyer Donald Anderson.

The report is expected to acquit Mr Campbell on the main charge relating to the 45-minute timetable, inserted into the report on the advice of a single high-level Iraqi source. But it will be critical of him and Mr Blair in other respects.

Mr Blair yesterday rallied to Mr Campbell`s side in an Observer interview.

"There couldn`t be a more serious charge, that I ordered our troops into conflict on the basis of intelligence evidence that I falsified," he said.

"I take it as about as serious an attack on my integrity as there could possibly be. The charge is untrue and I hope they will accept that."

The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, told BBC1`s Breakfast With Frost: "It`s a great pity that Greg is digging, or appears to be digging himself in."

But she said the row would not affect the renegotiation of the BBC`s royal charter, which is due for renewal by 2006.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

It`s a charade and we all know it
The government is only harming itself in its battle with the BBC

Peter Preston
Monday July 7, 2003
The Guardian

Nobody (wails a baleful Silvio Berlusconi) understands irony any longer. Nobody pauses to scowl, and then smile. Well - huff-puff! - maybe not at a dodgy Italian prime minister, pumping out propaganda through television channels he happens to own. How slimy; how shameful; how un-BBC. And then we fall flat in a puddle of irony, too.

Occasionally, at some international conference or other, a journalist from benighted areas where independent public broadcasting is nigh on impossible will sidle up and ask you how the BBC does it. What embedded safeguards keep its truth-telling alive, maintain its reporting quality? Questions courting bemusement - and disappointment. Look, you reply, there are no such safeguards. Indeed, with a spin of the fact box, just the reverse. Nothing is safe.

Consider the actual situation. This corporation is superintended by its governors. They are appointed by the government of the day. New Labour. So is the chairman of the governors - currently Gavyn Davies, a rich merchant banker who gave Tony Blair oodles of his own boodle in order that he might become lord of Downing Street (and whose wife is Gordon Brown`s right-hand woman).

But remember, you add, that these governors really only exercise strategic control. The practical day-to-day powerhouse is the director-general. He`s appointed by the governors (appointed by Tony Blair) and he happens to be Greg Dyke, a rich ex-ITV executive who gave more oodles of boodle to the Blair campaign. Just one darned coincidence after another, eh?

And, in case there`s any doubt where influence lies, remember that No 10 keeps its own hammerlock on royal charter renewals, so everything from the licence fee down - which means the very survival of the organisation - is decided at regular intervals behind closed political doors. Beads of sweat for 2006 are already apparent. The governors themselves may not make it through to 2007 if many in Whitehall have their way. The BBC could instead come under Ofcom - another regulatory board set up by (yes!) that same old government and PM. What goes around, comes around. Nod-nod, wink-wink.

At which point, I have to report, the innocent questioner looks deeply perplexed. If Mr Berlusconi were to operate a so-called system like this, he`d be howled down by more than German MEPs. It`s an obvious sieve for sleazebags. It`s opaque and odoriferous. So watch who wilts when Tony Blair`s own communications director lays into BBC "lies". Watch the bough break when Blair himself claims "an attack on my integrity as serious as it could possibly be".

But the good news, thus far, is that everything you`d hope would happen has happened. The BBC has declined to be intimidated. Mr director-general Dyke has stood unflinchingly, even cheerily, by his men. The governors, however anxious, must clearly realise there`s more than Tony Blair`s "integrity" at stake here. And we can all see - to use another Blair word - who`s being "absurd". For the real secret of the BBC`s truth-telling and international reputation does not lie in any half-baked statute. It`s there in the culture of the place, in tradition, in the way generations of staff see their duty and role. It is a force of nature by now, more influential or crucial than any politically implanted chairman or DG. Has Greg "gone native"? No, he`s just a solid citizen who knows what has to be done when Campbell push comes to Blair shove. His role is cast. He - and Gavyn - have a greater integrity to defend.

The most ridiculous thing about the current debacle is that Downing Street - for all its vaunted PR skills - does not see the irony lapping round its knee caps. Is today`s foreign affairs select committee report in any sense definitive? How can it be? The committee didn`t get near most of the papers or most of the vital witnesses. BBC chaps, it seems, got their briefing direct from Dearlove of MI6: mere MPs aren`t allowed to call Sir Richard to their chamber. Everybody, meanwhile, stands by their men. Tony Blair stands by Alastair Campbell, who stands by the anonymous apparatchik who put the plagiarised dodge in February`s dossier; the Beeb stands by the "senior and credible" MI6 operative who thought Cynical Ali was too close to the dossier production industry.

So now, rather unexpectedly, we have a harsh test of Downing Street`s once and continuing nous. Mr Blair and Mr Campbell have a problem. It isn`t whether or not the intelligence facts which led to war were sexed up or pleaded a headache. It is that the facts themselves - in or out of any passing dossier - look frailer by the minute. Who cares about integrity when gullibility and credulity come higher up the charge sheet? Such charges can, for a while, be deflected by florid forays against a BBC reporter for Today. But it`s a charade, and we all know it. No 10 and Vauxhall Cross carry on sniping as usual off the record. Nobody looks for the sexed-up mole, in case they find him. Nobody doubts that the prime minister got genuinely het up about BBC coverage during the war - but, for heaven`s sake, he`s not a Signor Blairlusconi.

There should be an ongoing debate about the BBC`s remit (and safeguards) for the years after 2006. There are issues to be sorted and changes of good governance on the agenda. But all of that will be lost if this "war" goes on, month after month, edgy year after year, all suggested reform made to look like retribution and threat. Crazed politicians on the vengeance trail? There`s an election winner - for irony-lovers everywhere.

[e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Experts grow more sceptical about extent of threat posed by Saddam before war
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,993007,00…
Britain `knew uranium claims were false`

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,12123,993017,00…
Interview

One stark truth: Blair was wrong and must admit it now

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,11660,9929…

[Joerver]

Bush in Africa
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oil and terrorism drive the presidential tour
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday July 7, 2003
The Guardian

President Bush`s trip to Africa this week signals a recent strategic decision to increase America`s military presence to bolster what Washington now sees as two important national interests on the continent - the supply of oil and the struggle against terrorism.

On the eve of departure, General James Jones, the commander of the US European command with responsibility for African operations, said the US was trying to negotiate the long-term use of a "family" of military bases across the continent.

This would include big installations for up to 5,000-strong brigades "that could be robustly used for a significant military presence," Gen Jones told the New York Times. It would also involve smaller, lightly equipped bases available in times of crisis to special forces or marines.

The bases would not only be established in north African states such as Algeria, where Islamic extremism is already a potent force, but also in sub-Saharan African nations such as Mali.

Gen Jones has also predicted a much bigger role for the navy and marines in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.

"The carrier battle groups of the future may not spend six months in the Mediterranean sea, but I`ll bet they`ll spend half the time going down the west coast of Africa," he told journalists.

The new bases are being described as temporary, but in reality, once built they are likely to become part of the African landscape. The US base in Djibouti, home to about 1,500 marines and special forces troops, has already emerged as one of the impoverished country`s biggest employers and it is still growing.

The Djibouti base is in striking distance of Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, all seen as possible havens for al-Qaida. But bases in West Africa and an enhanced naval presence in the Gulf of Guinea would be primarily designed to safeguard an increasingly important source of oil.

The US is currently importing 1.5m barrels a day from West Africa, about the same as imports from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile the US has so far invested $10bn (£6bn) in the West African oil fields this year. The US department of energy expects African oil imports to reach 770m barrels a year, and US investment in the oil fields to exceed $10bn a year.

At a meeting organised last month by the Corporate Council on Africa, a senior CIA official, David Gordon, predicted that over the next decade African oil would be potentially more important to the US than Russia or the Caucasus. According to other participants at the meeting, he went on to warn however that over the following decade the oil industry ran the risk of imploding as a result of the region`s inherent instability, unless the US did more to prop it up.

In a report to Congress last year, an advisory panel including Pentagon officials recommended greater military cooperation with oil states.

The panel, known as the African Oil Policy Initiative Group, said it considered "the Gulf of Guinea oil basin of West Africa, with greater western and southern Africa and its attendant market of 250 million people located astride key sea lanes of communication, as a vital interest in US national security calculations".

The report advised setting up a "unified command" for Africa, which would play a similar oversight role to central command in the Middle East.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Attacks Kill 3 U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad

Monday July 7, 2003 7:59 AM


By JIM KRANE

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Two American soldiers were killed in separate attacks on their convoys in the Iraqi capital, the military said Monday, and a third U.S. soldier was fatally shot while waiting to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University.

Also, four U.S. soldiers were wounded after attackers fired a rocket propelled grenade at their convoy in the restive town of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, late Sunday, the military said. One Iraqi suspect was killed and another wounded in the attack.

The wave attacks come as U.S. troops on patrol and Iraqi police and civilians perceived to be working with the occupying forces are being targeted for daily assaults by insurgents.

The first soldier died in a firefight late Sunday after two armed assailants opened fire on his convoy, said Sgt. Patrick Compton, a spokesman for the military. The soldiers responded with fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding the other. The wounded suspect was taken into custody.

In the second convoy attack in Baghdad, insurgents threw a homemade bomb at a U.S. vehicle early Monday morning, killing a soldier. Both of the dead American soldiers were from the Army`s 1st Armored Division, the Germany-based division which is charged with occupying Baghdad. They were in different convoys.

In the third attack, an assailant shot and killed a U.S. soldier waiting to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University at midday Sunday, firing once from close range. The style was coldly similar to the killing of a young British freelance cameraman, who was shot in the head outside a Baghdad museum on Saturday.

The point-blank shooting of the unarmed reporter and a grenade attack on a U.N. compound raised concern that Iraq`s worsening insurgency - until now targeting only coalition troops and Iraqis accused of U.S. collaboration - will spread to Westerners in general and those seen as cooperating with occupation forces.

On Saturday, a bomb blast in the western town of Ramadi killed seven Iraqi police recruits as they graduated from a U.S.-taught training course. Dozens more were injured.

U.S. Army Maj. William Thurmond said it was too early to tell whether a pattern was emerging that would suggest insurgents are targeting foreign civilians, but he said such a strategy could thwart news gathering and humanitarian relief efforts.

``Hopefully they`re isolated events and we won`t have to face them in the future,`` Thurmond said. ``It might work to the advantage of someone who`s trying to fight the coalition.``

The killing of the television cameraman, 24-year-old Richard Wild, occurred around midday, while the victim was carrying no apparent sign that he was a reporter.

Wild, who arrived in the country two weeks ago aiming to be a war correspondent, was killed by a single pistol shot fired into the base of his skull from close range, colleagues said. The assailant fled into the crowd and was not apprehended.

The U.S. soldier killed Sunday at Baghdad University also was shot at close range. The soldier from the Army`s 1st Armored Division was evacuated to a combat support hospital after the midday shooting. He died later, the U.S. military said.

In a similar incident, an assailant with a pistol shot and critically injured a U.S. soldier in the neck on June 27 as he shopped on a Baghdad street.

On Saturday, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the United Nation`s International Organization for Migration office in Mosul, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad. The grenade slammed into a wall and damaged several cars, said Hamid Abdel-Jabar, a spokesman for the U.N. special representative in Iraq.

``There`s no place for that in any civilized part of the world,`` Thurmond said. ``As soon as we get hold of them, they`re gone. We`ll find them. We`ll attack them. And if necessary we`ll kill them.``

Meanwhile, the United States agreed Sunday to release 11 Turkish special forces detained during a raid in northern Iraq - ending a standoff that strained efforts by the NATO allies to repair relations frayed over the Iraq war, a Turkish official said.

The Turkish soldiers will spend the night at a guest house in Baghdad and will be handed over to Turkish officials in Sulaymaniyah ``at daylight`` Monday, the high-level government official said on condition of anonymity.

The announcement came after Turkey`s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Vice President Dick Cheney for about half an hour on the phone Sunday.

Also in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Turks and Turkish army officers suggested a local U.S. military commander overstepped his authority in ordering the raid. A Turkish paper said the raid came amid reports that Turks were planning to kill an unnamed senior Iraqi official in Kirkuk. Gul has denied any Turkish plot.

In other news:

- An Australian NBC News sound engineer, Jeremy Little, died Sunday at a military hospital in Germany from complications following surgery for wounds he suffered June 29 in a grenade attack in Fallujah, NBC News said. Little, 27, was wounded when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the military vehicle in which he was riding.

- A group calling itself Wakefulness and Holy War claimed responsibility on Sunday for attacks on U.S. troops in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim-dominated town 35 miles west of Baghdad. ``We are carrying out operations against the American occupation here in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities,`` said the statement, released on Iran-financed al-Alam TV in Baghdad. ``Saddam and America are two faces of the same coin.``

- The military announced the end of a seven-day sweep dubbed Sidewinder, in which 30 Iraqis were killed and 282 detained, while 28 U.S. soldiers were wounded. The military said it confiscated ammunition stocks and hundreds of weapons.







Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Bush takes on the role of peacemaker in a continent tormented by poverty and despair
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
07 July 2003


For five days at least, the man of war will become a man of peace. President George Bush is going to Africa this week not to issue ultimatums or to rally American troops. Yes, American soldiers may set foot on African soil, but if they arrive in Liberia they will do so as peace-makers, not as invaders - a symbol of a belated American concern in a continent tormented by poverty and despair.

Astonishingly, this is the first extended visit to sub-Saharan Africa by a Republican president. In the same way as everything else that is organised by the most image-obsessed White House, the visit has been minutely choreographed. Mr Bush is studiously avoiding crisis points including Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo and, of course, Liberia.

The five countries he will visit are Africa`s better advertisements: stable and democratic Senegal, post-apartheid South Africa, economically dynamic Botswana, and Uganda, with its impressive record in tackling HIV/Aids, before wrapping up his trip in Nigeria, which is certainly corrupt and violent but whose population and oil wealth make it, with South Africa, an indispensable African superpower.

But, at every stop, unpleasant realities will loom large.

In South Africa, Mr Bush will lean on the President, Thabo Mbeki, to step up the pressure on Zimbabwe`s President, Robert Mugabe, to change his ways. When he goes to Kampala, Mr Bush will have to set aside mutual congratulations over the fight against Aids to tackle President Yoweri Museveni on Uganda`s backing for some of the most vicious militias involved in the Congo.

In Nigeria, the crisis in Liberia will top the agenda. Nigeria`s President, Olusegun Obansanjo, was in Monrovia yesterday to offer the Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, an asylum deal that would clear the way for the dispatch of US peace-keepers. Meanwhile, Mr Bush has bought himself a little time by sending specialists to "assess" how the US could best intervene to restore order, while Mr Taylor decides if he will meet the White House`s demand that he step down.

Ahead of the trip, the message in Washington has been upbeat. Officials reel off Mr Bush`s various moves to help Africa - the $15bn (£9bn) package to fight Aids unveiled in his State of the Union message in January, the $10bn Millennium Challenge Account supposed to boost US aid to countries that promote democracy and the market economy, and his initiative to help education across the continent.

But scratch a little deeper and the reality is less impressive. The pledged Aids money, which theoretically triples US resources committed to tackling the disease, has not been properly funded by Congress. For all the promise of the Millennium Account, US-Africa trade fell by 15 per cent last year, while US aid to the continent is down by 6 per cent this year, the Congressional Research Service shows.

Brandishing the Aids initiative, the Bush administration likes to maintain that the US, not Europe, is leading the campaign to help Africa. It rails at Europe for the iniquities of the Common Agricultural Policy and its hostility to GM foods. The truth is Washington is at least as guilty of thwarting African development, with farm subsidies (including $3bn to prop up uncompetitive American cotton producers) that make it virtually impossible for African countries to export agricultural goods to the US.

For a decade (since the disastrous 1993 humanitarian mission to Somalia), the US has regarded involvement in Africa with the deepest suspicion. In 1994, to its abiding shame, the Clinton administration refused to intervene to halt the unfolding genocide in Rwanda, and thereafter America`s deeds have rarely matched its words.

By and large, the dirty work has been left to the main former colonial powers, Britain and France. While campaigning for the presidency in 2000, Mr Bush declared frankly that Africa "doesn`t fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them", and no one disagreed. So why should a five-day whistle-stop tour make any difference? The answer to that - as to so many others - is 11 September, 2001. In the fight against terrorism, which Mr Bush has made the centrepiece of his presidency, Africa has become a vital part of the chessboard. It was the August 1998 attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that made Osama bin Laden a household name, and even before that he had been operating out of Sudan.

Today, al-Qa`ida is entrenched in the Horn of Africa, a region at the centre of the "arc of instability" stretching across the Arab world into Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from where it may have plotted the 2002 terrorist attacks in Kenya. And just suppose Niger really had been selling uranium to Iraq? As Afghanistan and Somalia have shown, terrorists thrive off failed states.

Africa has more than its share of the latter and Aids could add to their number. That is the political menace of the disease, beyond the human tragedy. For governments and societies already weak and vulnerable, Aids could be the tipping point into anarchy.

And if the US is ever to reduce the dependence on imported Middle Eastern oil that locks Washington into the turbulent politics of the Gulf, Africa is an unavoidable alternative. Suddenly, a stable and more prosperous Africa fits in to America`s national strategic interests.

But this time, Washington`s habitual quick fix of military intervention is all but irrelevant. About a thousand US peace-keepers in Liberia may be a symbol of good American intentions, but Liberia is the tiniest fragment of Africa.

Under its new doctrine of forward defence, the US is looking for permanent bases on the continent - but these would be garrisons in the campaign against terror, not the guarantors of a 21st-century Marshall Plan for Africa. Mr Bush`s trip is a spectacular gesture in the direction of a region desperately looking to the US for help. But Africa will not be remade overnight.
7 July 2003 10:02


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 7, 2003
Turkey Says U.S. Has Agreed to Free 11 Soldiers
By DEXTER FILKINS with DOUGLAS JEHL


ISTANBUL, July 6 — A senior Turkish official said today that American forces in Iraq had agreed to release 11 Turkish soldiers held in an unusual diplomatic standoff, even as American officials accused the soldiers of plotting to kill an American-backed Iraqi official.

The Turkish official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Turkish soldiers, who have been in American custody along with at least a dozen other people since Friday, were to be taken to a guest house in Baghdad and flown to the northern Iraqi town of Sulaimaniya Monday morning.

An American diplomat reached in Ankara, the Turkish capital, and State Department officials in Washington said they could not confirm the release. But a State Department official said the two sides were trying to arrange a speedy release, while beginning what the official said would be a joint American-Turkish investigation into the Turkish troops` activities in Iraq and their detention.

The Turkish official`s statement followed a telephone conversation tonight between Turkey`s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Vice President Dick Cheney.

If the Turkish troops are released, it would end a confrontation in which the NATO allies clashed over what appear to be their divergent interests in northern Iraq.

The detention of Turkish soldiers by American forces in Iraq occurred on Friday, when the Americans raided at least one compound held by members of the Turkish special forces in Sulaimaniya. The incident unfolded against a backdrop of growing American frustration with the role of Turkish forces operating in northern Iraq.

Although the Turkish government declined to take part in the American-led invasion of Iraq, it has been sending troops into northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, largely to pursue Kurdish guerrillas there.

American officials have complained recently about the Turkish forces in the region, and particularly about the fact that the Turks are not part of the American-led alliance and hence not bound by American orders.

The incident appears to have further damaged the American-Turkish relationship, which came under strain earlier this year when the Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used as a springboard for a northern front against Saddam Hussein`s government.

Turkey`s leaders vehemently denounced the detention of their troops and demanded their immediate release. Today, Turkish demonstrators marched outside the United States Embassy in Ankara and the American Consulate in Istanbul. Privately, Turkish officials said the American raid, and the heavy-handed way in which they said it was carried out, had caused lasting damage to the American-Turkish relationship.

The Turkish press roundly criticized the detentions as well, and carried unsubstantiated reports that the Americans had handcuffed and hooded the Turkish soldiers in the manner of Al Qaeda suspects. "The Ugly American," boomed the headline in Milliyet, a Turkish daily newspaper.

But today, senior American officials cast the incident in a different light, saying the Turkish soldiers appeared to have been involved in a plot to assassinate an American-backed Iraqi official.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior Defense Department official said the soldiers who stormed the Turkish compound in Sulaimaniya on Friday were "acting on intelligence about possible illicit activities that were being planned against municipal officials in the region."

A senior American military official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed this account, saying the plot appeared to be aimed at the governor of Kirkuk, a nearby city.

The assertion by American officials that Turkish soldiers may have been plotting to undermine the American occupation is bound to have an incendiary effect here.

A Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet, had reported on Friday that the Americans were acting to stave off a possible assassination of the Kirkuk governor, but senior Turkish officials rejected the allegation.

Turkish troops have been operating in northern Iraq over the last decade against Kurdish guerrillas waging a separatist struggle in southeastern Turkey. More than 30,000 Turkish nationals, mostly Kurds, have died in that conflict.

Turkey`s government is determined to prevent the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq, as well as any revival of the separatist movement in Turkey. In the prelude to the war and in the weeks since it formally ended, the Ankara government has also expressed an interest in protecting the Turkoman minority in the region.

Much about the American raid in northern Iraq, and what the Turkish soldiers were doing there, remained murky today. The American officials said the Turkish soldiers were among 24 people detained. The identities of the others were unknown; Turkish officials said they were Iraqis.

Both of the American officials characterized the Turkish presence in the region as very suspicious. They said the Turks had not coordinated their activities with the Americans in the area.

"I don`t know that they had a legitimate purpose for being there, and if there was, why wasn`t it coordinated with coalition forces in the region?" the Defense Department official said before the release of the Turkish soldiers was announced. "We`re trying to determine what they were doing, and why they were there, and whether or not they were up to something inappropriate."

In the weeks since the fall of Mr. Hussein`s government, Turkish soldiers have been acting in support of the Turkomans in the region. In Kirkuk, where the Turkish soldiers are suspected of plotting against the governor, a significant Turkoman population lives side by side with the Kurds, who constitute a majority in northern Iraq. The governor in Kirkuk is Kurdish.

The state-run Anatolia News Agency in Turkey reported today that Turkish officials visiting a compound raided by the Americans had determined that $106,000 had been taken from a steel safe, along with about 30 M-16 and AK-47 rifles.

The Defense Department officials suggested that the American troops did not know there were Turks in the compound in Sulaimaniya until after they raided it.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 7, 2003
President Bush`s Africa Trip

American presidents do not travel to Africa often. President Bush`s five-day, five-nation visit, starting today, marks a significant step in America`s deepening relations with the continent. For too long, Washington and other Western capitals treated Africa as if it were condemned to war, poverty and preventable epidemics. Mr. Bush understands that Africans are entitled to a better future, and that America can help them achieve it.

Turning that vision into reality will take more than whirlwind tours and inspiring speeches. Mr. Bush must press Congress to provide ample financing for his multiyear AIDS and development initiatives. He should also speak plainly with African leaders about steps they themselves need to take. More than 11 percent of the world`s people live in sub-Saharan Africa. Their future depends on how well their countries handle the intertwined problems of H.I.V.-AIDS, ethnic and civil conflict, corrupt and abusive government and economic growth too feeble to provide jobs for rising populations. In each of the countries Mr. Bush is visiting — Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria — one or more of these issues belongs high on the agenda.

Senegal is a strong democracy, though plagued by a low-grade separatist insurgency in the Casamance region. Despite this, Senegal has set a healthy example in a deeply troubled neighborhood and has participated in efforts to negotiate peace in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia.

South Africa has one of the continent`s most developed economies and biggest H.I.V.-AIDS problems. President Thabo Mbeki is sub-Saharan Africa`s most prestigious leader. But his failure to confront the AIDS pandemic has caused public health damage at home and hurt efforts elsewhere to overcome the stigmatization that undermines effective prevention and treatment. If Mr. Bush can persuade Mr. Mbeki to follow a more enlightened course, America`s AIDS assistance programs will save more lives. Mr. Mbeki has also failed to do all he should to help resolve the crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has clung to power through repression and fraud.

Botswana is blessed with mineral wealth, a relatively small population, vigorous democracy and enlightened environmental policies. But it is cursed with Africa`s highest H.I.V. infection rate, with two of five adults affected. In contrast to Mr. Mbeki, President Festus Mogae has worked hard to contain the disease. Even more energetic steps could be taken, modeled on the anti-AIDS campaign led by Uganda`s president, Yoweri Museveni. By mentioning AIDS in almost every speech and carrying the campaign into every village, Mr. Museveni has gone far to destigmatize the disease. That has helped reduce the infection rate by two-thirds, a remarkable life-saving achievement. Mr. Museveni`s leadership would be far more impressive if he permitted opposition parties and free elections, a point Mr. Bush should insist on.

The Bush visit concludes in Africa`s most populous country, Nigeria. President Olusegun Obasanjo has been a consistent opponent of military dictatorship, but his first term as an elected civilian ruler was extremely disappointing. He has failed to crack down on corruption and army human rights abuses, neglected the economy and done little to heal dangerous religious and ethnic divisions. Now Mr. Obasanjo has become actively involved in efforts to bring peace and a transitional administration to Liberia. Yesterday the Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, said he would accept Nigeria`s offer of safe haven. Mr. Bush needs to tell Mr. Obasanjo that he would be a more credible advocate of good governance abroad if he did more to practice it at home.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 7, 2003
Nixon on Bush
By WILLIAM SAFIRE


Reached by cellphone in purgatory, where he is still being cleansed of his sin of imposing wage and price controls, Richard Nixon agreed to give his former speechwriter an analysis of the political strategy of the present occupant of the Oval Office.

Q: With unemployment rising and the federal deficit ballooning — and all the Democratic candidates accusing him of having gone to war under false pretenses — how come Bush`s approval rating hasn`t nose-dived?

RN: Because he keeps his eye on the ball in center court. He`s a war president fighting a popular war and doesn`t let anybody forget he`s winning. Afghanistan and Iraq are the first two battles in that war on terror. The more the elites here and in Europe holler, the solider the Bush support gets.

Q: But he`s obviously moving to the political center, with his prescription drug entitlement and his education spending and the billions for AIDS in Africa — and he even liked the court`s split decision on affirmative action. What`s going to happen to his core support?

RN: Your conservative base will forgive you all kinds of liberal lurching if they know you`re reliable on the one big thing. Look at me — I gave the lefties the first real school desegregation, funded the arts, offered a guaranteed annual wage, went for all that environmental garbage. And members of my political base never worried — hell, they helped re-elect me in a landslide — because they knew I always had my eye on one great crusade: anti-Communism.

Q: And the equivalent for Bush is his pursuit of Al Qaeda? You think that`s what is keeping together the social conservatives, the economic conservatives, the libertarian fringe, all of us?

RN: You`ve been too long at The Times, Bill. Taking charge of the world will dominate the center, intimidate all but the looniest left and keep him high in the polls. But the way Bush protects his base on the right — the voters he can never afford to lose — is to continually hammer away on tax cuts.

Q: That would appeal to the business types, and the upper middle class in suburbia, but what attraction does a tax cut have for the religious right? What`s it got to do with abortion, with same-sex marriage and all the social issues that turn out the troops?

RN: Tax cuts and terrorism — and his just not being Clinton — will keep `em in line. Add to that the evangelicals` love affair with Israel, where George W. is a world apart from his old man. And toss in some faith-based programs that don`t cost much but show his heart`s in the right place. Cut the death tax and dividend tax and jack up the child credit this year, and campaign next year on making them permanent, and Bush is home free.

Q: But won`t that cause a huge deficit and scare the economic conservatives?

RN: Let me say this about that. When the jobless rate is going up, to hell with the deficit. I take a class here from John Maynard Keynes, who`s dead in the long run, just like he said. What will the Democrats do, try to raise taxes just before the election? Never happen. And whenever the economy turns, Bush can say his tax cuts did it.

Q: What`s your media advice to Bush?

RN: Continue with no formal press conferences; he`s killed that tradition and you guys have given up nagging. Come the late fall, he should make a big vision speech at some dramatic occasion like Saddam`s funeral, or Bin Laden`s, or a Middle East breakthrough, or some love fest with Blair and Chirac and Schröder and the new Iraqi leader.

Q: What`s the theme?

RN: Invite the world to join the U.S. in seeking a new generation of freedom. Not just anti-terror, but pro-democracy. Refine the white paper on pre-emption, which is just a response to a present danger, and think big, as Woodrow Wilson did: explore the criteria for constructive intervention and the limits of tyrannical sovereignty. Get the grand design from Rummy and Cheney — they started out with me, you know.

Q: You`re fading, but quickly — what`s your reading of the Democratic field?

RN: Kerry can`t smile and Lieberman smiles too much. Gephardt has no eyebrows and Edwards comes across as tricky. Dean would be a godsend for us, blowing his cool in debate. Joe Biden would give Bush the most trouble, but he`s waiting too long. Gotta run to Keynes`s class. Where`s the damn button to turn this thing off?



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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The first letters from Briton facing the death penalty at Camp X-Ray

http://www.sundayherald.com/35128


By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot



THEY are the first letters to see the outside world from the 21st century`s Devil`s Island -- the US military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
These 10 letters in neat, cramped handwriting from Moazzam Begg to his family back home in suburban Birmingham tell exactly what life is like inside the world`s most feared prison -- Camp X-Ray.

Begg, who is 35, has been detained without charge since January 2001, has faced gruelling interrogations, been denied access to lawyers, confined in brutal conditions and now awaits a military tribunal which could well result in a short trip to a custom-built death house for execution.

On Thursday, 4 July (American Independence Day and the day before Begg`s birthday), President Bush ordered that Begg and five other men, including another Briton -- Feroz Abbasi, 23, from London -- would be the first detainees to face military tribunals.

Washington is now facing international criticism over its use of military tribunals which are held in secret and presided over by high-ranking US soldiers. There is no guaranteed right to appeal.

Detainees are kept in wood and steel mesh cages, partially exposed to the elements. The world was shocked when the first pictures of Camp X-Ray emerged, showing detainees bound hand and foot and wearing blacked-out goggles. Some were stretchered into the camp, which has been labelled degrading and inhuman.

Begg, detainee number JJJEEHH 160, says in his letters that he mostly writes at night, `which is usually when I cannot sleep because of thinking and worrying all the time, and the heat and the bright lights`. He has four children by his Palestinian wife, Sally. His youngest son Ibrahim was born while he was in custody.

In one letter to his wife, Begg writes: `These past few weeks have been more depressing than usual, especially since the birth of our son ... time is dragging on so slowly ... I still don`t know what will happen with me, where I will go and when -- even after all this time. There is nothing here to do to occupy time, except read the Koran .

`There are many rules here which do not make the wait any easier. The food has been the same for five and half months and most of the time I am hungry. I miss your cooking so much.`

Under what appear to be the black lines of a US military censor`s pen can be read the words: `I realise I am paying a big price for all the times I have been ungrateful in general and to you in particular.` The letter then ends: `The most difficult thing in my life is being away from you and the kids, and being patient. I miss you and love you so much.`

Begg`s father, Azmat, insists his son is not a terrorist. Ironically, Begg, who owned a bookshop in Birmingham, spent his formative years at a Jewish school and still has many Jewish friends. According to Azmat, a retired bank manager, his son was moved by the plight of the Afghani people and in 2001 travelled to Kabul with his family to start a school for basic education and provide water pumps.

When the allied attack on Afghanistan began in October 2001, Begg and his family moved to Islamabad in Pakistan for safety. It was there that he was seized in January 2002 by Pakistani police and CIA officers, bundled into a back of a car and taken back to Kabul, where he was held in a windowless cellar at Bagram airbase for nearly a year. His family insist it`s a case of mistaken identity. Intelligence agents targeted Begg because his name appears on a photo-copy of a money transfer found in an al-Qaeda training camp.

Begg maintains his innocence in his letters home, saying: `I believe that there has been a gross violation of my human rights, particularly to that right of freedom and innocence until proven guilty. After all this time I still don`t know what crime I am supposed to have committed, for which not only I, but my wife and children should continually suffer for as a result.

`I am in a state of desperation and am beginning to lose the fight against depression and hopelessness .`

All of Begg`s letters show that he rarely gets correspondence from his family, although he writes to them regularly. He continually blames `the system` for preventing him getting details about his legal status, his family and the outside world. One letter begins: `I wrote to mum in July. I am not entirely surprised if you never received it, or even if you will get this one -- but here goes anyway.`

In that letter he writes : `I am afraid that I spend much time sleeping -- often getting bored from just sitting or lying down.` To counter the boredom, he reads the Koran, saying: `I am also trying to to memorise the whole of the largest chapter.`

Although he appears reluctant to worry his family, he does write about some of the more unpleasant aspects of life in Camp X-Ray. `The camel spider is the only 10-legged spider in the world, and, I believe, it is not an arachnid (technically not a spider). But it grows to bigger than the human hand-size, moves like a race-car and has a bite that causes flesh to decay if untreated. In the summer there were plenty here, running into cells and climbing over people; one person was bitten and had to be treated. Apart from that there is the usual melee of scorpions, beetles, mice and other insects.`

Another letter states: `My routine is extremely mono-tonous ... Conversation with others is severely restricted but I do talk often to the guards.`

In the same letter, however, he shows that he still has a sense of humour in a sly side-swipe at his US captors: `I had a discussion recently with someone about the USA`s contribution to civilisation (after talking about Ancient Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China). I pondered for many hours, then came up with the answer: peanut butter (both smooth and crunchy) ... I have that every now and then and it tastes fairly good!`

Another letter describes how he has been given books to read, including the biography of Malcolm X, Black Hawk Down (the story of America`s botched military involvement in Somalia), Churchill`s life and books on the US Civil War, Vietnam and the War of Independence -- `which`, Begg adds sarcastically, `they won by sheer luck`.

Other letters are more poig-nant, with Begg asking his brothers to care for his wife and children -- who are now back in Britain -- and ensure they do well at school. `Please help them in whatever way you can ... Don`t let my children want for anything due to any financial problems.

`This is the hardest test I have had to face in my life,` he tells his father, `and I hope I have not caused you too much distress, but I will pass this test by the will of Allah and your prayers.`

His last letter in January this year ends: `I don`t know what is going on about my case, but I think it won`t be resolved any time shortly. I am mostly kept in the dark and nobody seems to know. Please write back.`

Begg`s father Azmat, who proudly recounts the fact that all his family served in the British army, says his grandchildren are distraught at their father`s disappearance.

Azmat and the rest of the family have been refused visas to travel to America in order to ask questions about their son`s case. He also accused the Foreign Office of failing to help.

` I feel now he will comply with whatever he is told,` said Azmat. `In his most recent letter he said that he will `make a decision which will affect the entire family`. We cannot guess what he means, but I am afraid he could do anything -- he has nothing in him left.`

06 July 2003

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In Postwar Iraq, the Battle Widens
Recent Attacks on U.S. Forces Raise Concerns of a Guerrilla Conflict

By Thomas E. Ricks and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 7, 2003; Page A01


Recent Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops have demonstrated a new tactical sophistication and coordination that raise the specter of the U.S. occupation force becoming enmeshed in a full-blown guerrilla war, military experts said yesterday. The new approaches employed in the Iraqi attacks last week are provoking concern among some that what once was seen as a mopping-up operation against the dying remnants of a deposed government is instead becoming a widening battle against a growing and organized force that could keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops busy for months.

Pentagon officials continue to insist that the U.S. military is not caught in an anti-guerrilla campaign in Iraq, that the fighting still is limited mainly to the Sunni heartland northwest of Baghdad and that progress is being made elsewhere in the country. "There`s been an awful lot of work done," Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told "Fox News Sunday" in an interview taped last week. "A lot of the country is relatively stable."

But a growing number of military specialists, and some lawmakers, are voicing concern about trends in Iraq. There is even some quiet worry at the Pentagon, where some officers contend privately that the size of the U.S. deployment in Iraq -- now about 150,000 troops -- is inadequate for force protection, much less for peacekeeping. The Army staff is reexamining force requirements and looking again at the numbers generated in the months before the war, said a senior officer who asked not to be named.

"If you talk to the guys in Iraq, they will tell you that it`s urban combat over there," the officer said. "They all are saying, `What we have is not enough to keep the peace.` "

"In Iraq," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the intelligence committee, said on CNN`s "Late Edition" yesterday, "we`re now fighting an anti-guerrilla . . . effort."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said: "Our troops are stretched very, very thin. We should ask other countries" to send troops, including Germany, France, India and Egypt.

"It is an absolute mystery to me" that NATO has not been asked to authorize the deployment of member forces in Iraq, Levin, who just returned from a three-day visit to Iraq, said yesterday on NBC`s "Meet the Press." Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) noted, however, that the administration anticipates "30,000 troops from other nations will be involved before year`s end."

But it is not clear that those foreign troops will be forthcoming in the numbers expected, especially if fighting in Iraq intensifies.

"The increasing enemy activity in Iraq is very unsettling," said retired Marine Lt. Col. John Poole, a specialist in small-unit infantry tactics. "It could mean that the situation has started to escalate into a guerrilla war."

Retired Army Col. Richard Dunn, a former head of the Army`s internal think tank, agreed, saying, "I`d like to be wrong on this, but we may be seeing a classic insurgency situation developing." At the same time, he said, it is possible that "we may just be seeing a surge of activity that they`re unable to sustain."

Last week, 45 armed men began a concentrated assault against a U.S. convoy north of Baghdad. And attacks in the capital appear to be more effective.

In one incident, an Iraqi stood up in a moving car and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Army Humvee. In addition, snipers have been hitting troops in Baghdad. Over the weekend, one 1st Armored Division soldier guarding the National Museum was shot and killed, and another died in a similar attack at Baghdad University, in a neighborhood that had been considered quiet.

With the two weekend deaths, the U.S. toll grew to 209, including 70 troops killed since President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1.

Overall, say some U.S. soldiers at fixed points such as road checkpoints and outposts, the attacks on them are far more widespread and persistent than is reflected in the casualty figures.

In contrast to the head-on charges that some Iraqi fighters launched against U.S. tanks in the war, the attacks now tend to focus on more vulnerable parts of the military, such as isolated checkpoints and slow-moving convoys, and not against strengths, such as armored units.

In another worrisome development, Iraqis who are working with the U.S. occupation force are being targeted. Most recently, on Saturday, seven new police officers who were graduating from a training academy were killed by a bomb.

Roberts, who just returned from a congressional trip to Iraq, said it is essential for the U.S. effort to capture or kill deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "Not only is he aiming at Americans, but now he is aiming at Iraqis who will cooperate," Roberts said. "So it`s a big-ticket item for us. . . . The next hundred days are very, very critical."

In addition, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, said on CNN`s "Late Edition" that on the trip to Iraq, U.S. commanders indicated they were seeing the beginnings of regional coordination in the attacks on U.S. soldiers.

The increase in the use of mortars in recent attacks is especially troubling, military experts noted, because it indicates a previously unseen level of organization in the Iraqi resistance. Unlike more portable arms such as AK-47 rifles, mortars are heavy weapons that need to be stored, moved, fired, then broken down and quickly moved again. Military organizations using mortars tend to operate in teams of at least 10, noted one specialist in infantry tactics. "That means a leader and a plan," he said.

In addition, mortars are particularly effective weapons for small bands fighting larger units in static positions, as in the case of a July 3 attack on a 4th Infantry Division logistics post near the town of Balad that wounded 16 soldiers. The origin of mortar fire can be difficult to pinpoint because their tubes fire in a high arc rather than on a level trajectory, as tanks and rifles do. The spray of shrapnel from just a few shells can cause dozens of casualties.

"Pre-registered mortars and long-range sniper fire are among the easiest ways to inflict casualties," said Poole, who wrote "Phantom Soldier: The Enemy`s Answer to U.S. Firepower" and several other texts on infantry tactics.

Poole says he worries that the aim of the Iraqi attacks is not to defeat U.S. forces as much as it is to provoke them. He says the Iraqi intent is to wage a war of attrition, causing enough casualties that U.S. commanders "use an increasingly heavy hand." In that way, the U.S. forces "will automatically alienate the local populace."

Similarly, retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, an expert on counter-insurgency tactics, also saw a danger in the United States acting in a manner that would erode popular Iraqi support and broaden the Iraqi resistance. The aim of Iraqi fighters, he suggested, is "to get our folks to overreact and foment a popular uprising by some incident that we create by the overreaction."

Those concerns elevate the issue of U.S. soldiers` morale -- which anecdotally appears to be low among some members of the 3rd Infantry Division and also among some reservists -- from a relatively minor "quality of life" problem to a major military issue because it can affect the battle for "the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.

Soldiers who are unhappy and think only about leaving can easily lose control of the tactical situation, one infantry expert said. "If you act sullen or afraid or mean, it`s hard to claim we are liberators," he said. "That causes the Iraqis to react."

There generally are three key measures of military operations: duration, intensity and scope. It now appears that the U.S. military -- and just about everybody else -- miscalculated on the first two parameters: the postwar fighting is lasting longer than was generally expected, and it is becoming more intense, not less. About 28 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq in June, more than twice the death toll for May. Many of those casualties occurred in vehicle accidents, but soldiers in Iraq say that even those crashes are attributable in part to the fighting, because Humvee drivers often travel at unsafe speeds to lessen the chance of being ambushed.

The third measure, scope, is murkier. Officials and experts are debating whether the war is expanding geographically and demographically, from just Sunnis and Hussein`s Baath Party diehards to others, such as Shiites and Islamic extremists and the average Iraqi on the street.

Assessing this aspect of the fighting is made more difficult because U.S. tactics have not been static either. In late April and early May, the main U.S. force in Baghdad, the 3rd Infantry Division, was hunkered down in combat positions and rarely conducted foot patrols in the capital. In late May, the 1st Armored Division replaced the 3rd Infantry as the main peacekeeping force in the city and "flooded the zone" with patrols, notably increasing the sense of security in the city. Then, in June, the United States began a series of offensives against resistance fighters in the hardcore "Sunni triangle" northwest of Baghdad.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Myers contended in the Fox interview that the war is not expanding and that almost all the fighting is still taking place in that triangle. "In the north and in the south, the situation is basically stable," he said. "In the Sunni areas -- Baghdad, Tikrit, down to Ar Ramadi, sort of a triangle there -- that`s where 90 percent of the incidents are."

In stressing that the threat is not monolithic, Myers gave a detailed account of exactly who may be trying to undermine the U.S. mission. He said five threats included remnants of Hussein`s government and military, foreign fighters, a fundamentalist group know as Ansar al-Islam, criminals released from jail and Sunni extremists. Although U.S. officials had previously described Ansar al-Islam as mostly defeated, Myers said, "their presence is, we think, growing inside Iraq and has to be dealt with."

Dunn, the former Army strategist, said he is encouraged by recent U.S. actions. "The key is to build an indigenous security capability that will eventually eliminate the guerilla`s ability to force the population to support him," he said. At the same time, he said, while building local security, it is necessary for U.S. forces to attack the resistance to keep it off balance. "We see our forces doing exactly that right now," he said.

But there remains a nagging concern among experts that some of today`s problems stem from the relatively small size of the U.S. and British invasion force in March and from other aspects of the war. In an analysis released over the weekend, Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Middle Eastern militaries at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, faulted not the war plan but the planning for what followed. "The problem is that two months after a great military victory, the U.S. and its allies have done far too little to win the peace," he said.

Chandrasekaran reported from Baghdad, Ricks from Washington. Staff writer R. Jeffrey Smith in Washington contributed to this report.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Many Iraqis Fear Hussein Is Plotting Return to Power


By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 7, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, July 6 -- The graffiti extolling former president Saddam Hussein went up a few nights ago, scrawled in black and red paint throughout Baghdad`s Adhamiyah neighborhood. The wall of a girls` school promised that "Saddam the hero will be back." The side of a shop proclaimed that "Saddam is still our leader."

Although residents eagerly painted over slogans praising Hussein in the days after his government fell, they said no one dared to remove the latest messages. "His people have come back," said Sarmed Ahmed, the owner of a music shop in the neighborhood. "Everyone is too scared."

After weeks of jubilation over Hussein`s ouster -- during which people here blithely lampooned him, toppled his statues and seized offices of his once-ruling Baath Party -- many Iraqis have become increasingly spooked that the former dictator and his loyalists are plotting a return to power. That concern has escalated in recent days with the release of a recorded message purportedly from Hussein as well as a surge in violent attacks against both U.S. troops and Iraqis who have cooperated with U.S. forces.

The recording and the attacks have unnerved not just U.S. soldiers but also ordinary Iraqis. The incidents, particularly the killing on Saturday of seven Iraqi police cadets who had participated in a U.S. training program, have led some here to start changing their behavior -- and their assumptions about the future.

"When the American soldiers first came to Baghdad, we thought we would never hear from Saddam again. We thought he would be killed or he would flee the country," said Abdelrahim Warid, the owner of a small shop selling canned drinks and packaged foods. Now we know he is in our midst -- and that is very dangerous for us."

The belief that Hussein`s supporters are gaining ground has revived some of the fear that paralyzed discourse in this country for the 24 years he was president. Instead of lambasting Hussein to strangers as they did just a few weeks ago, Iraqis have become more reluctant to criticize him in public, out of concern that he might return or that his supporters might overhear and seek revenge.

In conversations with a score of merchants, students, former government workers and other ordinary Iraqis over the past two days, almost all said they were pleased that Hussein was toppled. But most refused to allow their full names to be associated with any comments critical of the former president.

"You can`t speak now, just like you couldn`t speak during Saddam`s time," said a math teacher who would identify himself by only his first name, Rami, which "would not be enough for them to catch me."

Another man, a student named Khalid, refused to speak about Hussein in front of his friends. "Things are getting worse, not better," he said. "Everyone is afraid."

Some Iraqis said recent attacks against people who have been working with U.S. troops and the U.S.-led civilian occupation authority have further stoked public anxieties and prompted some to question whether they should continue cooperating with Americans.

The bomb explosion Saturday that killed the seven police officers in the town of Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, also wounded 40 people. Two weeks ago, the director of electricity distribution for the western half of Baghdad -- a woman who had worked extensively with U.S. officials trying to increase Iraq`s power supply -- was killed in her home. A day later, two electric workers were killed by a bomb placed on a highway median near Baghdad.

"We`re now in a very dangerous position," said an Iraqi police officer standing guard outside a police station in central Baghdad today. The officer, who asked that his name not be used, was posted in front of a row of razor wire, dirt-filled barricades and large metal objects intended to prevent cars from crashing through the front gate -- all of which were installed to protect U.S. military police officers inside.

"If somebody comes by and shoots at the station, like they have done elsewhere, the Americans will be protected, but we are exposed," the officer said. "We don`t even have [bulletproof] vests."

Some electric workers are afraid to leave their offices, said Ghalib Bakr, the manager of electricity distribution for western Baghdad. "The Baathists view us as collaborators with the Americans," he said. "I tell my staff that`s not true, that we`re working for the Iraqi people, not the Americans. But what can you do? They`re afraid."

The growing number of attacks on U.S. forces has also disquieted some Iraqis, who worry that rising casualty figures will prompt President Bush to start withdrawing troops before Hussein is caught and fighters loyal to him are rounded up.

"Inside every one of us there is the fear of what will happen if the American people start pushing their government because they are losing so many soldiers every day," said Fadhil Majid, an employee at a bridal shop in the Adhamiyah neighborhood. "If they decide to withdraw, what will happen to us? Saddam is still free. With all the [militiamen] around, what kind of life will we have?"

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said over the weekend that "every [piece of] evidence" U.S. officials possessed suggested that Hussein was not in charge of the armed resistance. He called Iraqis attacking U.S. forces "a small group of desperate men" who "do not pose a strategic threat to the Iraqi people or to the coalition." But Bremer said in a recent interview that the capture of Hussein, or confirmation of his death, is essential to squelching the resistance and generating confidence among Iraqis.

"It certainly would be helpful to know that he was dead or to capture him, because there is this kind of evil suspicion that is certainly being promoted by Baathists that `we`re going to come back someday,` " he said. "This obviously puts a damper on people cooperating with us. It makes people nervous about their general security. If we can once and for all confirm he`s dead, or capture him, it takes the air out of that balloon."

With Hussein`s fate uncertain, many Iraqis said they were not sure whether to count him out -- or to wait for his reemergence. "Saddam is like a ghost in the heart of the country," said Tariq Mohammed, an unemployed former soldier. "We thought he was gone, but now he`s back."

Majid, the bridal shop employee, said many people in his neighborhood had become more enamored of Hussein as their expectations of the U.S. occupation -- particularly the restoration of electricity, the creation of jobs and the formation of a new government -- went unfulfilled. "Everyone is very frustrated now," he said as he paced between mannequins clad in sequined white dresses. "To them, Saddam is the solution. They don`t think about all the evil things he has done."

Even so, he and others maintained that despite scenes of Iraqi crowds stoning U.S. military vehicles and cheering after soldiers are attacked, most Baghdad residents do not want Hussein to return to power. The animosity toward U.S. forces, they said, reflects displeasure with the U.S. occupation, not a desire for a return to dictatorial rule.

But each day that Hussein remains on the run, Majid said, is another day for him to rebuild support and scare the Iraqi people. "We hope the Americans catch him soon," he said. "Only then will there be stability."

Then, after walking around the store to make sure no one was listening, he ventured another thought: "You know, if he comes back, he won`t just be the old Saddam," he said. "He`ll be 10 times the Saddam we knew."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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from the July 07, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0707/p03s01-usec.html

Will Bush ratings follow slumping economy?
The nation`s jobless rate last week rose to its highest level in nine years, raising pressure on the President.
By Ron Scherer Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK - President Bush faces a new political danger in the last place he wanted: the economy.

In the first major economic news since the passage of his tax cut, the nation`s unemployment rate has surged to 6.4 percent, a nine-year high, and a level that causes newspaper headlines to swell.

The latest numbers are the highest of the President`s term and may make it more difficult for him to continue to blame former President Clinton for the economic downturn.

Unless the economy improves, Bush will have to run on a record of losing jobs - so far 2.5 million. That would give him the dubious distinction of being behind only Herbert Hoover in terms of job losses. Even the divided Democrats are quickly homing in on the economy, and their constant harping could prod voters to forget the quick war in Iraq or other foreign incursions. "He remains quite vulnerable on the economy," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

This is not to say Bush is in immediate risk of losing his job. He remains a popular president, and despite the bad news on jobs, economists are still sticking to forecasts of better growth in the second half of this year, which they expect will be stimulated by the President`s tax cuts, as well as continued low interest rates. A Wall Street Journal survey last week found economists are predicting a 3.5 percent annual growth rate in the third quarter and 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter. "That`s probably enough growth to keep the jobs picture stable," says John Silvia, chief economist at First Union Bank in Charlotte.

Unrealized expectations
Stability, however, is not what the President had in mind when he campaigned for the tax cut. The President`s Council of Economic Advisors estimated that Bush`s Jobs and Growth Plan would create 1.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004. "I don`t think it will pan out at this point," says Mr. Silvia. "That`s the kind of number that comes back to haunt you."

The White House, for its part, says that once the tax cuts kick in, the economy will start to move forward. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao says the higher unemployment rate is a sign that more people are looking for work - largely because they think there are more jobs.

The political effect of the economy on Bush`s popularity has been negligible: Bush`s approval rating on the economy is lower than his overall rating, but still decent. And despite Democrats` attacks, the economy hasn`t really hurt him overall, but this could change.

High unemployment numbers are "bad news for the White House," says Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Report. "What we`ve seen is that [Bush`s] efforts on the economy are drawing more criticism - in spite of the fact that Congress has approved the tax bill." However Mr. Doherty says the economy could be worse. "The only thing that tempers it is the stock market, which has shown a lot of strength lately."

Much of that strength is based on Wall Street`s expectation that the economy will improve in the second half of this year. After the unemployment numbers came out last Thursday, however, the market fell as traders began reassessing the country`s economic prospects. "These numbers say the underlying economy is still weak," says Martin Mauro, an economist at Merrill Lynch. This weakness may mean Merrill Lynch will lower its estimate of economic growth for the year.

Until last week, Bush was able to avoid criticism about the economy by focusing public attention on other areas, such as the war on terror and conflict in Iraq. "That consumes some of the public attention and deflects it away from the economy," says Mr. Buchanan.

Bush has managed to keep people from growing even more restive by continually pointing to a "flurry of activity," such as the three tax cuts he`s pushed through, adds Buchanan. "He`s been getting credit from the financial press, from Wall Street, and from people on Main Street, for trying - for going overboard not to seem not to care, as his father sometimes seemed not to care," says Buchanan. "He`s made it clear that he`s willing to do whatever he can."

But the President`s ability to deflect attention from the sagging economy may be diminishing. Congress is unlikely to pass more tax cuts before next year`s election. "This was the President`s last use of fiscal policy," says Bob Brusca, chief economist at Native American Securities. "He has taken his last fiscal bullet and shot an innocent bystander."

Slow going expected
Most of the economic numbers released this month are not expected to be much better. The nation`s gross domestic product (GDP) probably grew at a lowly 1.2 percent rate in the second quarter. And July unemployment probably won`t improve because it will reflect layoffs of government workers from cash-poor state and municipalities. "I think the attention is being shifted from geopolitical to pocketbook issues," says Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo Banks in Minneapolis.

Over the next several months, the public will also hear more about natural gas shortages. The Department of Energy will soon release recommendations on ways to prevent higher prices and potential shortages this winter. They could advise people to cut back on their use of air conditioning this summer.

And economists don`t expect a major pickup in the economy - such as a return to 5 percent growth rates - any time soon. Mr. Silvia attributes this to structural changes reverberating through the economy. Now, when demand picks up, many companies will meet it by boosting productivity instead of hiring workers.

There is some evidence of this in the latest unemployment report. High school and college graduates are having a lot of trouble finding work. The unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds is now 19.8 percent, up from 18.5 percent last month. "It probably doesn`t matter for Bush," says Sohn. "If [teenagers] vote, they probably won`t vote for him anyway."

However Doherty says the public is waiting to see how the economy develops. "If things don`t get better, obviously we could see more middling ratings for Bush," he says. "If things get worse, then he`s got a real problem."

• Staff writer Liz Marlantes contributed to this article from Washington.



www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

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July 07, 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-737769,00.html
MPs` report on Iraq: the conclusions in full
The conclusions and recommendations of the Foreign Affairs Committee report The Decision To Go To War In Iraq



1. We conclude that it appears likely that there was only limited access to reliable human intelligence in Iraq, and that as a consequence the United Kingdom may have been heavily reliant on US technical intelligence, on defectors and on exiles with an agenda of their own.

2. We conclude that the March 2002 assessment of Iraq`s WMD was not "suppressed", as was alleged, but that its publication was delayed as part an iterative process of updating and amendment, which culminated in the September dossier.

3. We conclude that it is too soon to tell whether the Government`s assertions on Iraq`s chemical and biological weapons will be borne out.

However, we have no doubt that the threat posed to United Kingdom forces was genuinely perceived as a real and present danger and that the steps taken to protect them taken were justified by the information available at the time

4. We recommend that, in its response to this report, the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq`s chemical and biological weapons programmes, in the light of subsequent events.

5. We recommend that, in its response to this report, the Government give its current assessment of the status of the Al Samoud 2 missile infrastructure.

We further recommend that, in its response to this report, the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq`s ballistic missile programme generally, and the retained al-Hussein missiles in particular, in the light of subsequent events.

6. We conclude that the accuracy of most of the claims in relation to Iraq`s nuclear weapons programme can only be judged once the Survey Group has gained access to the relevant scientists and documentation.

7. We recommend that the Foreign Secretary provide the Committee with the date on which the British intelligence community were first informed by the CIA that forged documentation in relation to Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger existed, as soon as he has found this out.

8. We conclude that it is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged, but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence.

The assertion "... that Iraq sought the supply of significant amounts of uranium from Africa..." should have been qualified to reflect the uncertainty.

We recommend that the Government explain on what evidence it relied for its judgment in September 2002 that Iraq had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

We further recommend that, in its response to this Report, the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq`s attempts to procure uranium from Africa, in the light of subsequent events.

9. We conclude that the 45 minutes claim did not warrant the prominence given to it in the dossier, because it was based on intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source. We recommend that the Government explain why the claim was given such prominence.

10. We further recommend that, in its response to this Report, the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about the 45 minutes claim, in the light of subsequent events.

11. We conclude that Alastair Campbell did not play any role in the inclusion of the 45 minutes claim in the September dossier.

12. We conclude that it was wrong for Alastair Campbell or any Special Adviser to have chaired a meeting on an intelligence matter, and we recommend that this practice cease.

13. We conclude that, on the basis of the evidence available to us, Alastair Campbell did not exert or seek to exert improper influence on the drafting of the September dossier.

14. We conclude that the claims made in the September dossier were, in all probability, well-founded on the basis of the intelligence then available, although, as we have already stated, we have concerns about the emphasis given to some of them.

We further conclude that, in the absence of reliable evidence that intelligence personnel have either complained about or sought to distance themselves from the content of the dossier, allegations of politically inspired meddling cannot credibly be established.

15. We conclude that, without access to the intelligence or to those who handled it, we cannot know if it was in any respect faulty or misinterpreted.

Although without the Foreign Secretary`s degree of knowledge, we share his confidence in the men and women who serve in the agencies.

16. We conclude that the language used in the September dossier was in places more assertive than that traditionally used in intelligence documents. We believe that there is much value in retaining the measured and even cautious tones which have been the hallmark of intelligence assessments and we recommend that this approach be retained.

17. We conclude that continuing disquiet and unease about the claims made in the September dossier are unlikely to be dispelled unless more evidence of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programmes comes to light.

18. We conclude that the degree of autonomy given to the Iraqi Communications Group chaired by Alastair Campbell and the Coalition Information Centre which reported to him, as well as the lack of procedural accountability, were contributory factors to the affair of the `dodgy dossier`.

19. The Committee also concludes that the process of compiling the February dossier should have been more openly disclosed to Parliament.

20. We recommend that the Government offer every assistance to Mr Marashi in tracing his relatives in Iraq.

21. We conclude that the effect of the February dossier was almost wholly counter-productive. By producing such a document the Government undermined the credibility of their case for war and of the other documents which were part of it.

22. We further conclude that, by referring to the document on the floor of the House as "further intelligence", the Prime Minister - who had not been informed of its provenance, doubts about which only came to light several days later - misrepresented its status and thus inadvertently made a bad situation worse.

23. We conclude that it is wholly unacceptable for the Government to plagiarise work without attribution and to amend it without either highlighting the amendments or gaining the assent of the original author.

We further conclude that it was fundamentally wrong to allow such a document to be presented to Parliament and made widely available without ministerial oversight.

24. We recommend that any paper presented to Parliament - whether laid on the Table, made available in the Vote Office or placed in the Library - for the purpose of explaining the Government`s foreign policy be signed off by a FCO Minister.

We further recommend that any FCO document presented to Parliament which draws on unofficial sources should include full transparency of sources, and attribution where appropriate.

25. We recommend that there should be clarity over which Department has lead responsibility for groups such as the CIC. That Department should then be accountable to the relevant select committee. This would avoid the situation where nobody is prepared to take responsibility for certain inter-departmental groups.

26. We recommend that Andrew Gilligan`s alleged contacts be thoroughly investigated. We further recommend that the Government review links between the security and intelligence agencies, the media and Parliament and the rules which apply to them.

27. We conclude that the continuing independence and impartiality of the Joint Intelligence Committee is of utmost importance. We recommend that Ministers bear in mind at all times the importance of ensuring that the JIC is free of all political pressure.28. We recommend that the Intelligence and Security Committee be reconstituted as a select committee of the House of Commons.

29. We conclude that continued refusal by Ministers to allow this committee access to intelligence papers and personnel, on this inquiry and more generally, is hampering it in the work which Parliament has asked it to carry out.

30. We recommend that the Government accept the principle that it should be prepared to accede to requests from the Foreign Affairs Committee for access to intelligence, when the Committee can demonstrate that it is of key importance to a specific inquiry it is conducting and unless there are genuine concerns for national security.

We further recommend that, in cases where access is refused, full reasons should be given.

31. We conclude that the September dossier was probably as complete and accurate as the Joint Intelligence Committee could make it, consistent with protecting sources, but that it contained undue emphases for a document of its kind.

We further conclude that the jury is still out on the accuracy of the September dossier until substantial evidence of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction, or of their destruction, is found.

32. We conclude that the February dossier was badly handled and was misrepresented as to its provenance and was thus counter-productive. The furore over the process by which the document was assembled and published diverted attention from its substance. This was deeply unfortunate, because the information it contained was important.

33. Consistent with the conclusions reached elsewhere in this Report, we conclude that Ministers did not mislead Parliament.

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Key Shiites Divided on Iraq Rule
Leaders of the Muslim sect that is a religious majority in the country resist a U.S. proposal.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer

July 7, 2003

NAJAF, Iraq -- The U.S.-led administration`s plan to begin handing over political power to Iraqis will be tested above all in Najaf`s cobbled alleys, crowded with turbaned Muslim clerics and lined with religious bookstores.

Today, seven key Iraqi political leaders are expected to meet hundreds of miles from here in northern Iraq to decide whether to join a U.S.-proposed governing council. The one organization whose membership is crucial to the council but still deeply in doubt is the Najaf-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which represents many Shiites. Their faith, the dominant branch of Islam in Iraq, was brutally repressed under Saddam Hussein.

"This is a determining meeting because the original seven are getting together to decide whether they can be part of it," said Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. special representative in Iraq. "For the Shia, all the Shia players — there is a will, a determination, to make sure that this time they won`t get a rough deal."

The U.S.-led occupation authority can`t afford to ignore Shiite religious leaders, in part because they have broad popular support in southern Iraq, which is almost entirely Shiite. At least until recently, the region has been relatively friendly to American and British soldiers.

Shiites, who represent about 60% of Iraq`s population, are anything but a monolithic group. Shiites can be found who are secular or religious, intellectuals or laborers, sympathetic to the American-led coalition or resentful of its failure to bring change and political power more rapidly.

Bringing influential religious Shiites on board has proved difficult and is potentially troublesome for the Americans. Shiite religious leaders are expected to push hard for a constitution that designates Islam as the state religion, and they might attempt to make Iraq an Islamic state.

Although many Iraqi religious Shiites reject the idea of rebuilding their country in the image of Iran, where an even larger proportion of the population is Shiite, the Iranian influence is strong — especially in southern Iraq.

Affinity With Iran

Najaf, one of the holiest cities in the Shiite world, radiates outward from a richly inlaid central shrine and mosque to Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, who Shiites believe was Muhammad`s rightful heir. Surrounding the mosque complex is a rambling souk where street vendors do a brisk business in posters of Shiite religious leaders, among them Iran`s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The nearby streets are busy with Iranian pilgrims, many of whom cannot speak Arabic and can be seen puzzling over shop signs like any other foreigners.

Western policymakers in Iraq are split over the degree of Iranian influence. Some high-ranking diplomats in the U.S.-led administration believe the more extreme Iranian elements are being kept in check, but others seem fearful of Iran`s clout. One U.S. official in Iraq recently described the Shiite south as "the new front line in the war with Iran."

The greatest uncertainty for the moment may be the status of the Badr Brigade, a militia controlled by Iran that is loosely associated with the Supreme Council. However, there appears to be a fairly widespread belief that the Shiites will lean more toward London and Washington than Tehran.

"I`ve been encouraged that Shia leaders by and large are moderate; they advocate the separation of religion and state and are resistant to the Iranian influence," said Ambassador John Sawers, the top British diplomat who works for L. Paul Bremer III, the American director of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Of the seven groups that are meeting today in northern Iraq, only the Supreme Council has a religious basis. Others, such as Ahmad Chalabi`s Iraqi National Congress, are secular, or in the case of the two main Kurdish parties, defined by ethnicity.

The groups were largely formed in exile from Hussein`s Iraq, but soon after the war their leaders returned and most have been working with the U.S.-led administration to create an interim Iraqi government until a constitution is written and elections are held. That process is expected to take roughly a year — a couple of months to form a constitutional council, eight months to draft the constitution and another couple of months to hold elections, according to a senior official in the occupation authority.

The authority has been struggling to ensure that at least one member of the governing council would be recognizable to religious Shiites.

"We`ve had to work hardest with the Supreme Council," said a senior official in the U.S.-led administration.

The Supreme Council`s key demands are that Shiites be represented on the political council roughly in proportion to their numbers in the population, and that the council have real powers, said Ammar Hakim, the nephew of, and chief spokesman for, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr Hakim, the religious leader of the Supreme Council.

"We are looking at the responsibilities of this council and whether it will have a serious role," Ammar Hakim said.

In the last couple of weeks, several salvos from Shiite clerics appear to have been sent as signals that the religious Shiites are not confident that Bremer`s administration has heard their demands.

The broadly popular Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, known for keeping a distance from political matters, issued a fatwa, or edict, last week, condemning proposals for a constitutional council by the administration, which had implied initially that it would play a key role in picking the members of a constitutional council.

"The [U.S.-led authorities] do not have any power to appoint members of the constitution drafting committee. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the council will draft a constitution that is in harmony with the highest interests of the Iraqi people and will represent their national identity, the basic pillars of which are the true Islamic religion and the noble social values," Sistani said in the fatwa.

He called on "all believers to demand" that the constitution be put to a vote.

De Mello said the composition of the constitutional council, and the charter itself, are perhaps more important to the Shiites and Kurds than the political council because both see the constitution as the only way to guarantee their rights in Iraq in the long term.

"They want to be sure that their voice will be heard," he said.

Group Oppression

The Shiites and Kurds essentially had minority status under Hussein`s reign, despite the Shiites` large numbers — a perpetuation of a centuries-long pattern in which Shiites have often found themselves on the losing end of battles for power. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Shiites, with encouragement from the United States, led an unsuccessful uprising against Hussein. Tens of thousands of Shiites are believed to have been slaughtered, many of them buried to this day in mass graves. Today, southern Iraq feels in large part like a region in mourning, interspersed with killing fields.

Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council, gave several interviews last week in which he suggested that he was frustrated with how slowly the Americans were moving to hand over power to Iraqis, and even grumbled that the Shiites` peaceful approach would not last forever.

Increasingly, the United Nations has been playing a crucial role behind the scenes in finding language and formulations everyone can agree on.

The U.N. pushed to change the panel`s name from the political council to the governing council to suggest the eventual growth of the government itself. U.N. diplomats also pushed to have the council appoint interim ministers rather than senior advisors, so that their responsibilities would be closer to those of an executive body than a merely advisory one.

American and British diplomats are now emphasizing that Iraqi representatives will attend meetings of international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.

Agreement is not yet final, but American and British diplomats say Shiites will have a majority of the seats on the governing council, although many of its 25 to 30 members will not be religious Shiites. They also appear to be moving to give Iraqis far greater representation on the constitutional council and leaving it for them to decide whether to have the document approved in a referendum.

Even so, it is far from clear that the Shiites will be satisfied. Already there are some Shiite groups that feel left out, among them followers of Muqtader Sadr, a cleric with a talent for rallying the uneducated masses.

No one from the occupation authority has visited him — a mistake in the eyes of some experts, who say he is too unpredictable to be left completely outside the fold.

At Friday prayers in Thawra, the squalid Baghdad neighborhood where Sadr has a large network of supporters, tens of thousands of believers gather every week, chanting anti-American slogans with increasing frequency.

"No to Saddam! No to America!" they shout.

Last week, clerics there told believers to hold off on jihad, or holy war. But the sermon, delivered to 10,000 believers in a vast open street, seemed calculated to rouse angry passions.

"Do you believe America wants an independent Iraq? Do you believe America will give you the country that you want? Don`t answer that question, we all know the answer," said Hassan Zurgani, one of the clerics. "The people who jumped up and down like monkeys in front of Saddam are the same people who are supporting the Americans."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-…

Interim City Council to Debut in Baghdad
The body has no power to write laws or set budgets but will serve as the voice of ordinary Iraqis in dealings with U.S.-led authorities.
By Hector Tobar
Times Staff Writer

July 7, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- In occupied Iraq, the signature of L. Paul Bremer III is the law. According to Coalition Provisional Authority Regulation No. 1, as published in Vol. 44 of the Official Gazette of Iraq, the decrees of the U.S. administrator enter into effect the moment he signs them.

Today, however, a new "interim Baghdad City Council," as it is known by the U.S.-led administration, will meet for the first time. The assembly is the fruit of an ongoing experiment in American-style local democracy led by U.S. military officers such as Army Col. J.D. Johnson.

Johnson has spent several weeks meeting with local leaders in Baghdad — some picked by U.S. officers, others chosen in rowdy and enthusiastic neighborhood assemblies.

Together, the Iraqis, the colonel and other U.S. military and civilian officials have formed 88 neighborhood "advisory councils." The neighborhood councils in turn elected the members of nine district councils, who then elected the members of the Baghdad City Council.

The councils will not have the power to write laws or set budgets but will be the voice of ordinary Iraqis in dealings with U.S.-led authorities.

"In any process like the one we are beginning now, the most difficult thing is to begin," Johnson told the two dozen members of the Karada District Council, representing several Baghdad neighborhoods.

"We have no phone system, no media which makes it very difficult to organize our meetings," the Oklahoman told the Iraqis through an interpreter at a gathering Saturday evening. "But there is a burning desire to move on and establish a government."

Johnson sat at the head of a long table, presiding over an assembly of local leaders as diverse as any in this suffering, war-torn country — a woman wearing traditional head covering, a dentist and an engineer in button-down shirts, three tribal sheiks in robes and a Muslim cleric in a white turban.

Occupation officials acknowledge that not many Iraqis know the councils even exist. Indeed, at the Karada district meeting, the only audience consisted of an American reporter, his translator and a dozen sleep-deprived U.S. soldiers.

In general, American-created institutions and decrees here are greeted with varying degrees of suspicion and indifference.

"What is the mechanism for choosing the members of the council?" one reporter from the nascent Iraqi press asked coalition officials at a recent news conference. "How are they appointed? Are they just a pretty covering for the Iraqi people while they wait for a real government?"

Nonetheless, more than 600 Baghdad residents have stepped forward to become members of the neighborhood, district and city councils. Many appear to be savoring their first taste of democratic rules and procedures.

"I hope I can help the people of Karada and all its neighborhoods," Sabah Mohammed Ali Jumah said in a brief speech to his fellow members of the district council, a pitch to be elected the council`s chairman.

"I worked for the Ministry of Oil starting in 1958, but I was fired in 1979 after I quarreled with the minister," Jumah went on. "I was head of the association of Iraqi engineers in Basra. I hope you will be satisfied with my qualifications."

Jumah was elected vice chairman. The man he defeated in the race joined in the applause at the announcement of the result.

For the U.S. officials involved in the project, such small scenes of citizen participation are gratifying. "This has been a bottom-up governance program," said Andrew Morrison, deputy civil administrator for Baghdad. "It`s involved thousands of residents of Baghdad."

Morrison and other U.S. officials take pains to specify that the councils will not be a government: They are an idea conceived by outsiders.

Iraqis will have to pick their own forms of government, Morrison said.

The interim councils will provide advice to the civilian and military authorities, Morrison said, "so we have a sense of what the people`s needs are and their suggestions as to how we can solve their problems."

Nevertheless, the Americans involved in the project clearly see another element of their mission: passing on the basic values of their 2-century-old democracy.

"We`re here to understand the democratic process and to discuss the matters that are important to the baladiya," Johnson told the Karada District Council, using the Arabic word for district. "This is the last time I will chair your meeting. From now on, the chairman you elect will run the meeting and will be responsible for the agenda."

The council elected its chairman and vice chairman. But there was a tie in the vote for an alternate to the City Council.

"It is not necessary to ask the American officer what to do next," the council member counting the votes said in Arabic. "We will simply vote again and choose between these two who are tied."

After the vote was completed, Johnson turned to the issue of neighborhood security and Iraqi complaints about abuses by U.S. troops during house searches for weapons. Would the members of the council, he asked, be willing to accompany the U.S. forces on the searches?

No, definitely not, council member Daffer Kadder said.

"For the time being, the Iraqi people think that every Iraqi who works with the Americans is a traitor or a spy," Kadder said. The presence of a council member standing beside American troops would only reinforce this idea, Kadder said.

The colonel dropped the idea.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-…
COLUMN ONE



Fixing a Ringing Failure
The man charged with reviving Iraq`s ravaged phone system applies the resourcefulness he honed at his Internet start-up.
By Terry McDermott
Times Staff Writer

July 7, 2003

BAGHDAD -- Everything is broken. The capital, with its tangles of razor wire, tank traps and the occasional roadside husk of a burned-out Oldsmobile, has a kind of post-apocalyptic, Mad Max quality to it.

Trash floats down sidewalks on a dust-dry southern wind, and almost nothing seems to work the way it should. Traffic, the most visible malady in a city of many, has come completely unhinged. There appears to be a lone traffic signal functioning in all of Baghdad, and everyone, accustomed by now to the absence of traffic controls, ignores it; cars go every which way. Four-lane roads might have vehicles going in five different directions. Even freeway entrances and exits have become two-way roads.

In this dim picture, there are the rarest rays of optimism. At some of the worst intersections, volunteer traffic directors show up out of nowhere to keep things crawling.

Then there`s the scene at a little strip mall on 28th of April Boulevard, just down from Sinak Bridge. The mall itself is a drab, brown, stucco building differentiated from the million or so other drab, brown, stucco buildings in the city only by the massive twin-columned water tower in the middle of its small plaza. There`s a beauty parlor, a wedding planner, the Maruma Coofe Shoop and the Sahraya CD store blasting "choobi" dance music over the plaza, where dozens of people loiter in the shade of the water tower, smoking Viceroys and Marlboro Lights.

Every once in a while, the people — like flocks of pigeons readying for flight — flap to attention as a medium-sized middle-aged man comes roaring through, trailed by half a dozen others with notepads and clipboards. Shakir Abdulla, who was trained as an atmospheric physicist, creates his own weather as he rolls by.

At rest, Abdulla is an uninspiring sight. He has graying hair, a graying mustache and plain steel-rimmed spectacles. He typically wears gray slacks and subdued, checked shirts, untucked, behind which is a physique that testifies to a desk-bound past.

A couple of things do stand out: He is seldom without his worry beads, which he works at warp speed, and he carries a little cell phone the size of a cigarette lighter.

Beyond the phone`s elegance, the fact that it actually works — this in a country that two months ago didn`t have a single working cell phone — testifies to his importance.

The Man in Charge

Two weeks ago, the Americans who are now running Iraq put Abdulla in charge of Iraq`s entire telecommunications infrastructure — all telephone, Internet and cellular communications. The people in the plaza are his employees.

They have jobs, salaries and an eagerness to go to work. What they don`t have at the moment is a place to work. Or even sit. They come to the mall because that`s where Abdulla set up shop when the Telecommunications Ministry building was decommissioned by the war.

Its employees have scattered throughout Baghdad. Some are working in a train station, others a technical institute and the few who can squeeze in, here at the mall.

Abdulla himself takes meetings all over — sitting at a small table upstairs in the old auditorium of the Iraqi Social Club, standing in a tiny office down the hall, walking through the plaza.

Before the war, the government ran all Internet service in the country. Abdulla was in charge of it, and most of the people in the mall plaza are among about 250 people who worked for him before the war. Iraq`s Internet service was a satellite-based system, and its main land station, atop the Telecommunications Ministry, was taken out in the first days of the war. Two backup stations were also damaged.

That wasn`t the worst of it. In the prolonged looting spree that followed the war, Abdulla estimates, $10 million worth of his telecommunications gear was lost.

"We managed to save some equipment by asking employees to take it home with them," he said. "Everything that wasn`t secured was stolen."

Abdulla`s people scavenged enough parts from the three wounded land stations to hack together one functioning unit, and last week Internet access was made available again throughout Iraq. They`ve restarted three of the 60-odd prewar Internet cafes.

Abdulla has also thrown open the access business, inviting private competitors to use his rebuilt infrastructure. Unfortunately, for most people, Internet access, public or private, depends on the telephone, and the country`s phone system is in even worse shape than the Internet system. For months, no one has seemed able to do anything about it.

"There are people who can work like this," he said, implying that there are many who can`t make small miracles happen without the requisite infrastructure.

Because he is one of those who can, Abdulla went from running what was in effect an Internet start-up to trying to start up a whole sector of the government.

The Internet company`s prewar income finances its services now. United States authorities are funding the rest of the ministry, largely through Iraqi oil revenue.

Almost half of the country`s land-line phones aren`t working, Abdulla said. Most of those that are working are limited to local calls.

Billing System Collapsed



Some exchanges can receive international calls, but almost no one can make them because the billing system has collapsed. In Baghdad, the seat of government and the commercial center, people in many neighborhoods can`t even call next door.

It`s hard to appreciate the effect the loss of telephone service can have in a more or less modern metropolis. Getting even simple things accomplished can involve an arduous and endless round of cross-town commutes. This adds up to a tremendous waste of time and — even in a country where gasoline costs a mere 40 cents a gallon — money. The Iraqi economy, after a 35-year experiment in rigid state control, needs no help being inefficient.

So far, there has been little in the way of actual equipment delivered by the American overseers, Abdulla said.

"They are very cooperative, very nice people, but we didn`t get any hard things from them," he said.

Repairing the telephone exchanges and building a new cellular system are, theoretically, not daunting tasks. The bombed-out exchanges can be worked around, and a skeletal wireless system is being installed.

"It is not only a technical problem," Abdulla said. "Technically, it`s not very difficult. The difficulty is to have security. This is the most important issue."

As in much of the country, the level of security fluctuates dramatically. Recently, a telecom employee was shot and killed in downtown Baghdad.

"The level of security in this case was zero," Abdulla said dryly.

Physical security of equipment is also critical. Because the Iraqi electrical power grid is in even worse condition than the telephone grid, most phone exchanges are powered by on-site generators. Several have been stolen, Abdulla said.

Last week, a pair of telecommunications employees were discovered to be stealing and selling telephone cables at exorbitant rates. They are also accused of tapping into dozens of conversations and blackmailing people with the information they learned.

Like many Iraqis, Abdulla cannot understand how the governing U.S.-led occupation authority has allowed things to crumble so utterly.

"The coalition has a responsibility to create security. They created the situation that eliminated it," he said. "They must replace it."

An equal challenge is getting the rest of the bureaucracy up to his speed.

"As an Internet company, we have been working very well, but as a ministry...." His voice trails off and his eyebrows lift, admitting a degree of exasperation. He had earlier referred some questions to a deputy director, a man who used to be one of his bosses. He said: "You did not find him, right? Neither can I."

The oddity of the situation is further emphasized by the respective working conditions of Abdulla and his top subordinates.

Abdulla, the boss, is here in his strip mall, where anyone could walk up and talk to him. The subordinates work — when they do — in the newly reconstituted, heavily guarded, barbed-wired, watchtowered, sandbagged ministry headquarters, where U.S. Army guards prohibit entry to anyone without a badge.

Abdulla is a 35-year civil servant, and he takes the habits of his colleagues in stride.

Faced with a severe shortage of space, Abdulla set up a rotation in which the men would come to work two days a week and the women one. Instead, many of the employees come every day and do their work, like Abdulla, standing up.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Lies and half truths on Iraqi streets complicate America`s mission
STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, July 6, 2003
©2003 Associated Press

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/20…


(07-06) 22:47 PDT TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) --

Zionists are spreading drugs and prostitution, they say, and Americans -- not Saddam Hussein loyalists -- bombed a procession of U.S.-trained police cadets. U.S. occupiers also are withholding electricity on purpose, the story goes.

Lies and half-truths -- readily believed by a nation of people who learned long ago to be skeptical of rulers` motives -- are complicating America`s mission in Iraq, fueling anti-U.S. sentiment as troops struggle to quell a growing uprising.

"They want to destabilize Iraq," said Ali Mohammed Said, a 26-year-old law school graduate who blamed U.S. soldiers for a blast on Saturday that targeted a graduation parade of U.S.-trained police cadets in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. Seven were killed.

"They want to drive a wedge between us so we fight each other while they stand by and watch," he said.

U.S. officials dismiss such claims as absurd. The Ramadi blast, the say, was the work of pro-Saddam insurgents. The American-led provisional administration is using radio waves, newsletters and a planned TV station to dispel the rumors.

After an Iraqi newspaper ran a story claiming that U.S. Marines raped a young girl and left her for dead, U.S. officials persuaded the publisher to run a retraction and fire the offending reporter.

When a newspaper reported that American night vision equipment can be used to see through women`s clothing, U.S. civil affairs troops visited the editors personally to let them look through the goggles.

Despite these efforts, Iraqis, who grew up on a steady diet of anti-American rhetoric, are being bombarded by a fresh wave of disinformation, much of it coming from an explosion of new newspapers. The country now has about 150 newspapers, up from 14 before the war.

Some of the claims are breathtaking:

* The Assaah newspaper on Saturday claimed that the Israeli government ordered the modification of its export laws to flood Iraqi markets with Israeli goods. The paper urged Iraqis to carefully check Taiwanese or Chinese-made appliances for hidden Stars of David.

* The same paper recently reported that American helicopters swooped down on construction stores in the southern city of Nasiriyah to steal building supplies.

* Word is traveling on Iraqi streets that U.S. patrols are blaring messages from loudspeakers telling people they won`t have electricity until attacks on Americans stop.

* A shadowy Iraqi group calling itself "Wakefullness and Holy War" issued a statement on Iranian TV claiming responsibility for recent attacks and announcing that Jews have arrived in Baghdad to spread "sex, prostitution and drugs among young people."

Many of the claims provoke a visceral reaction among Iraqis, especially when they relate to women`s modesty and Zionism. Newspaper articles appear daily claiming that Jews are buying up property in Baghdad and other cities in order to turn Iraq into another Palestine.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, has declared that newspapers can print what they wish as long as they do not incite violence.

"The way we counter this is not by muzzling them but by reaching out to them and trying to get them to talk to us directly," said Maj. William Thurmond, a coalition spokesman. "From my perspective, the best weapon against mistruth is the truth."

Sometimes, though, the truth is as uncomfortable as a lie.

An Associated Press photographer recently witnessed a U.S. soldier at a checkpoint taking $600 from the glove compartment of an Iraqi driver. Alerted to the offense, his sergeant searched his pockets, found the money and returned it to the driver in full view of an Iraqi crowd.

The incident, which also appeared on Al-Jazeera Arabic television, is being talked about throughout Iraq.

Thurmond acknowledged that one or two unfortunate incidents, even if uncommon, "could undermine the good will that we`re trying to establish here."

"Every soldier is an ambassador for the coalition," he said.

In Saddam`s hometown of Tikrit, resident after resident complains bitterly about U.S. raids on their homes. They say troops steal money and valuables and mistreat detainees.

"They take the children too. Little boys, like him," said 40-year-old Tikrit resident Adnan Flayeh, pointing to a child standing beside him.

"Maybe they are Jews," said Jabber Rajab, 50, a retired officer in Saddam`s disbanded army. "Their first aim is to break the nose of every Arab leader."

U.S. troops raid homes throughout Iraq to stem an insurgency that is seeing daily ambushes on soldiers and threatening to overshadow efforts to rebuild the country.

For Iraq`s U.S. occupiers, winning the propaganda war may be as important as winning the military war, especially if the violence feeds off the rumors.

Those efforts suffered a setback last week, when an explosion at a mosque killed 10 people in the restive town of Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad.

Residents of the neighborhood insisted a U.S. aircraft fired a missile into the mosque`s courtyard, destroying a shack where a local cleric was giving Quran lessons.

"First I saw a green laser pointing on Sheikh Leith`s room from two cars. Then the cars drove away and the plane dropped the bomb," said 73-year-old resident Abdullah Jassem Ensayif.

U.S. Central Command said the explosion was "apparently related to a bomb manufacturing class that was being taught inside the mosque."

Maj. Geoffery Watson, the intelligence officer for the 3rd Infantry Division`s 2nd Brigade, appeared to contradict the Centcom account when he told reporters in Fallujah that he knew of no intelligence on the ground pointing to a bomb-making class.

Sifting through stories to find the truth is no easy task in postwar Iraq.

Asked about the mosque blast, Hilal Abed Saleh, a 35-year-old car mechanic in Fallujah, said: "I don`t know what happened. I can`t repeat the lies of others because I know God is watching."

©2003 Associated Press

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The Madness Of King George
VIEW FROM THE LEFT
Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate
Monday, July 7, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/sorensen/



Folks, our God-fearing president, George W. Bush, who claims to start every morning on his knees praying, now says that he gets his orders from God Himself.

I kid you not.

I refer you to June 24 article by Arnon Regular in Ha`aretz, an Israeli newspaper. In the last paragraph of that article there`s a Bush quote as related by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Here, according to Abbas and Ha`aretz, is what Bush said:

God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you can help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.

That quote doesn`t make clear whether God issues direct orders to Bush, or whether they discuss things first. but I`d guess discussions. It`s hard to imagine God deciding anything of importance without without first getting input from Bush.

Over the years I`ve met a handful of people who regularly talk with God, but they usually do so only when they`re off their medications.

Those who get instructions directly from the Almighty are twice blessed: They get their orders from the Highest Authority, and the orders are always to do what they would have done anyway.

Getting direct orders from God makes a president`s life simpler. If God has spoken, the president doesn`t have to observe the niceties with which presidents usually contend, things like getting congressional approval or United Nations agreement.

Bush`s very own personal God connection explains a lot of things. Like Bush`s disinterest in global warming.

Why should our duly elected president concern himself with global warming when God Himself has said, "Don`t worry, be happy"?

Do you see how it works? With God in your corner, it matters not what you do, because God will protect you.

OK, I`ve been shilly-shallying around here, hesitant to come right out and say what I think, but I`m becoming convinced that our president, the man with his finger on the nuclear trigger, is a bona fide nutcase.

I really do. For him to say God told him to strike al-Qaida is just nutso. For him to say God told him to strike at Saddam, ditto. This guy is not dealing with a full deck.

To me, Bush`s sanity has been suspect for a long time. He does so many things that defy logic, like his infamous tax cuts, approved by a thoroughly cowed Congress.

It doesn`t make sense to reduce your income while increasing your spending and plunging into massive debt.

His blithe attitude toward the public debt he is creating indicates a failure to grasp reality.

His cavalier entry into two wars within two years, in total disregard of world opinion on the second one, indicates a man who just doesn`t care what anyone thinks. Now that his ill-planned schemes in Afghanistan and Iraq are coming apart, I sense a bit of panic in the man.

Bush knew what everyone knew, that our armies could conquer. But he had no idea whether they, or anyone, could maintain a peace in nations as splintered as Afghanistan and Iraq. They can`t. They`re not trained for that. That`s not their mission.

Bush is a good salesman, which is almost certainly why his father`s friends chose him to be the front man for the Republican Party. He`s a charmer, no doubt of that. Because of his sales ability, he was able to convince most Americans that war with Iraq was a necessity.

But America needs more than a slick salesman to lead the world. We need, at the very least, a man with mental stability. We don`t have that with Bush. His rapid rise to power, without truly earning it as most presidents before him have done, has gone to his head.

So what we have in the White House today is a megalomaniac with a messianic complex, a man who believes that he and he alone can resolve the world`s problems.

"I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East," he said. I, I, I, I, I! With Bush it`s always "I." In a job that requires great humility, we have an egomaniac.

I don`t expect many people to agree with my armchair psychoanalysis of a man I`ve never met. We don`t like to admit that important people are crazy, or even that our relatives are crazy. Typically, we overlook their bizarre behavior until it gets so bizarre we can`t ignore it anymore.

So, all I ask is that you pay attention. A man who claims to get orders from God, and who creates world-shaking events on the basis of those "orders," needs watching.

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and liberal iconoclast. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at [e-mail].

©2003 SF Gate

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Da wurde über die Kurden gelacht, die ihre geplünderten Sachen erst mal nach Hause gefahren haben.

Sunday, Jul. 06, 2003
Grounding Planes the Wrong Way
Coalition troops looted and vandalized the Iraqi airport that now must be rebuilt
By SIMON ROBINSON/BAGHDAD
Much has been written about how Iraqis complicated the task of rebuilding their country by looting it after Saddam Hussein`s regime fell. In the case of the international airport outside Baghdad, however, the theft and vandalism were conducted largely by victorious American troops, according to U.S. officials, Iraqi Airways staff members and other airport workers. The troops, they say, stole duty-free items, needlessly shot up the airport and trashed five serviceable Boeing airplanes. "I don`t want to detract from all the great work that`s going into getting the airport running again," says Lieut. John Welsh, the Army civil-affairs officer charged with bringing the airport back into operation. "But you`ve got to ask, If this could have been avoided, did we shoot ourselves in the foot here?"

What was then called Saddam International Airport fell to soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division on April 3. For the next two weeks, airport workers say, soldiers sleeping in the airport`s main terminal helped themselves to items in the duty-free shop, including alcohol, cassettes, perfume, cigarettes and expensive watches. Welsh, who arrived in Iraq in late April, was so alarmed by the thievery that he rounded up a group of Iraqi airport employees to help him clean out the shop and its storage area. He locked everything in two containers and turned them over to the shop`s owner.

"The man had tears in his eyes when I showed him what we had saved," says Welsh. "He thought he`d lost everything."

Coalition soldiers also vandalized the airport, American sources say. A boardroom table that Welsh and Iraqi civil-aviation authority officials sat around in early May was, a week later, a pile of glass and splintered wood. Terminal windows were smashed, and almost every door in the building was broken, says Welsh. A TIME photographer who flew out of the airport on April 12 saw wrecked furniture and English-language graffiti throughout the airport office building as well as a sign warning that soldiers caught vandalizing or looting would be court-martialed. "There was no chance this was done by Iraqis" before the airport fell, says a senior Pentagon official. "The airport was secure when this was done." Iraqi airport staff concede that some of the damage was inflicted by Iraqi exiles attached to the Army, but these Iraqis too were under American control.

The airplanes suffered the greatest damage. Of the 10 Iraqi Airways jets on the tarmac when the airport fell, a U.S. inspection in early May found that five were serviceable: three 727s, a 747 and a 737. Over the next few weeks, U.S. soldiers looking for comfortable seats and souvenirs ripped out many of the planes` fittings, slashed seats, damaged cockpit equipment and popped out every windshield. "It`s unlikely any of the planes will fly again," says Welsh, a reservist who works for the aviation firm Pratt & Whitney as a quality-control liaison officer to Boeing.

U.S. estimates of the cost of the damage and theft begin at a few million dollars and go as high as $100 million. Airport workers say even now air conditioners and other equipment are regularly stolen. "Soldiers do this stuff all the time, everywhere. It`s warfare," says a U.S. military official. "But the conflict was over when this was done. These are just bored soldiers." Says Welsh: "If we`re here to rebuild the country, then anything we break we have to fix. We need to train these guys to go from shoot-it-up to securing infrastructure. Otherwise we`re just making more work for ourselves. And we have to pay for it."




Copyright © 2003 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Privacy Policy
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,463062,00.…

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Bush`s Africa fan club is hard to find

07.07.2003 - 03:30
By Nicholas Kotch

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela doesn`t like his politics, he has ended the career of Liberian President Charles Taylor, but
Zimbabwe`s opposition is pinning hopes on him.

George W. Bush, tough-talking leader of the world`s strongest nation, is stirring some powerful emotions in Africa, the world`s poorest
continent.

Fear and loathing seem to be high on the list.

Some are lying low during this week`s African tour by Bush and his posse of top officials and secret service agents. Taylor was hoping, in
vain, not to catch the Texan`s eye.

But before Bush set off on his first African safari, it looked like Taylor was ready to obey his order to leave office in the broken West African
state founded by freed American slaves in 1847.

Bush has Zimbabwe`s President Robert Mugabe in his sights, too, along with Muslims suspected of aiding the al Qaeda network from
Africa and governments who think the writ of the nascent International Criminal Court should extend to cover U.S. citizens abroad.

There are people in Africa who have an open mind about Bush`s visit and think the continent has much to gain from his presidency. But they
are not that easy to find.

"UNPOPULARITY IS UNDENIABLE"

The continent`s most famous son, former South African president Nelson Mandela, has arranged his diary to be abroad and unavailable
throughout the Bush tour.

Mandela`s repeated and personal attacks on Bush, over Iraq in particular, would have rendered any meeting pointless.

"The unpopularity of Bush is undeniable -- all the public opinion polls show that. But the reality is more complex," said John Stremlau, an
American professor at South Africa`s Witwatersrand University.

Those who swim against the popular tide say Africans have got it wrong about Bush, fooled by his cowboy manner and still angered by his
decision to wage war against Saddam Hussein`s Iraq without the rest of the world`s consent.

But the minority camp points to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), opening U.S. markets to selected countries; to the $15
billion dollars (9 billion pounds) earmarked to help fight AIDS over the next five years; and to $100 million to strengthen the anti-terror
defences of vulnerable African states.

"It`s true that he`s come up with a lot more initiatives for Africa than Clinton did," said Ross Herbert, an American at the South African
Institute of International Affairs.

Bill Clinton, Bush`s predecessor in the White House, visited Africa in 1998 and 2000 and generally enjoyed an excellent press and warm
relations with heads of state.

By contrast, the Bush programme in Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria will lack Clintonesque "grip-and-grin" contact
with ordinary people.

Instead, some analysts think, Bush is getting to grips with the big issues of security, poverty, trade and AIDS.

"Clinton talks the talk but he doesn`t walk the walk very far. Bush is a more forthright straight-shooter. On balance for Africa it looks like Bush
may be turning out to be better," Stremlau said.

OIL AND TERROR

A rethink under the Bush administration has hoisted Africa a few rungs higher on the ladder of U.S. strategic interests.

Oil lies at the heart of that re-assessment because of risks to traditional U.S. supplies from the Gulf and Middle East. Analysts say Africa`s
share of U.S. oil imports has grown to some 17 percent and may climb to 25 percent.

Concern in Washington that al Qaeda-style networks are taking root, at least in East Africa, may account for the sudden upsurge in interest
in the continent`s well-being, sceptics say.

Whatever the motivation for the largesse, many of the humanitarian agencies working in Africa are deeply mistrustful of the Bush
administration.

"The benefits of AGOA are dwarfed by the impact of U.S. agricultural dumping," the British-based charity Oxfam said in a statement ahead
of his July 7-12 trip.

African human rights groups oppose the tactics used by Washington to pressure governments into exempting American citizens from
prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

The government in Senegal, Bush`s first stop and a relative model of democracy, was at first too embarrassed to admit it had signed such
a waiver on the eve of his arrival.

Yet some rights activists are simultaneously urging Bush to use muscle for selected causes. They want him to deploy troops in Liberia and
to force Mugabe to step down in Zimbabwe where the main opposition party is sending emissaries to try meet Bush`s entourage.

Mandela leads the Africans whose main problem with Bush is his hostility to all things multilateral. Understandably, support for the United
Nations is intense on a continent which is overwhelmingly composed of small, weak states.

http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?section=int&p…

[Joerver]

Sunday | July 06, 2003

Why the US is losing a man a day
By Steve Gilliard

What goes unsaid in the wider media, but is clearly apparent, is that the follow on force we so desperately need in Iraq is nothing like the force that is there now. It`s pretty obvious that no one is talking about the reason US troops are vunerable to daily attacks.

We are fighting an enemy which fights in small groups and merges in and out of the background of the population.

A 2003 US Armored division is perhaps the most powerful fighting force on earth. There are few enemies which can withstand it`s combined arms force for long. Against a conventional force, the US is likely to dominate. But with our current force in Iraq, we cannot win and we cannot control the country.

1)Misusing special forces

We have no supermen. Special Forces and their cousins, Delta Force/Dev Group (the Navy`s version of Delta), are extremely well-trained men, but they cannot perform miracles.

The ideal situation would be to use Special Forces to train local forces and do occasional patrols. Not running around the country, playing commando and hunting for WMD which clearly exist, if at all, in very limited numbers. Special ops can only work with the cooperation with locals to be effective. Without them, they are very vunerable to assault, as the ambush of a Task Force 20 convoy shows.

They also stick out. With civilian clothes and M-4`s draped across their chests, they basically wear a sign which says "follow me, I`m a special operator." Even when they don`t. their formation signs, insignia and movements inform the average Iraqi soldier/guerrilla that these guys are not regular soldiers.

The problem with special ops is that they work best when no one can tell they`ve been there. The longer they operate, the more likely they are going to be spotted. Unless they devise cloaks of invisibility, their safe houses are observed, their vehicles tagged. Why? Because they`re white men, extremely fit and armed with unusual weapons. Even if they dressed as Iraqis, their homes would still be noticed by the fact they came and went as they chose.

When encamped, their vehicles are logged in and out.

In short, while they may have some chance at surprise, they are unlikely to maintain that surprise. They also do not enhance the security because so many detailed to direct action and observation missions. Special Forces work best when they are in theater for a short period of time, work with locals, and are used for clearly defined missions. Units like Task Force 20 and the 75th Exploitation Group drain these resources, limit local commanders flexibility, and take expensive, highly trained resources and squirrel them away.

What needs to be understood is that SO has its limits. You cannot run effective special ops without solid intelligence. We have the same informers Saddam used and they are doing a miserable job.

2) Our intelligence in Iraq is abysmal

The Iraqi guerrillas are protected by the populace and for all our efforts we do not know who they are or where they come from. They may have some idea in CENTCOM, but the fact is that the US is facing an enemy which can vaporize, turn solid within minutes, then return to vapor. We don`t know who they are, or who supports them, and all Viceroy Jerry and his men can say are "Saddam remnants". Ok, so the Shias are tolerating Baathists?

We have Predators which fly day and night over Iraq, but they can`t stop a man with a Tokarev pistol and a friendly crowd. And it`s not like they`re using an obscure strategy, they are shoving away the people from the US and making the US paranoid about even the most innocent, normal encounter. Buy a soda, you may get shot.

We conduct raids which round up small numbers of men at great expense. It isn`t cheap to send a battalion to round up three guys in their sleep. We arrest a few hundred people, run them through the system, get a little intel for a lot of anger and get hit harder the next night.

The idea that foreign volunteers can roam around Iraq and not stick out should also be of concern. While the CIA may be trying to penetrate these networks, the fact is that they should be sore thumbs and they aren`t. It is fair to say that our intelligence in Iraq was and is incredibly bad and has not improved. No one says the obvious, we have miserable intel in Iraq. No WMD, no Saddam, no clear picture of the guerrilla forces we`re facing, who are being resupplied by any wacko who hates Americans and wants to kill a few.

3)Too loud, too noisy, too big

The US can be heard the minute they mount up. The Brads, the Blackhawks, they all announce themselves. Any halfwit guerrilla with a watcher and a cellphone knows the US is coming before they come. Because we have so many heavy divisions in Iraq, we have to parcel them out in a way which rips apart their combat power. Placing a Brad on a street corner is waste of money and time and makes it a target. How do you do patrols in an M113. The US needs what it doesn`t have, light infantry to present a presence. Because the Iraqi military dissolved, US forces are forced to place themselves in situations which will get them killed. Like the bitter MP sergeant who found himself stuck in a Baghdad police station, his presence makes him a target.

The lack of Iraqi helpers forces the US to be an overt presence, thus driving the occupation and presenting many, many targets for angry Iraqis and jihadis.

4) Misusing regular forces

American paratroopers facing a line of protesting Iraqis. Engineers and artillerymen on patrol and trying to run small towns. A lack of competence and Arabic language skills all around. Well-meaning, but clueless soldiers doing their best, but which is not nearly good enough.

Colbert is one of the few Marines who continue to follow the war`s progress on the BBC each day. When the BBC runs a report of a U.S. Army unit that accidentally fired on civilians, he stands up, outraged, and walks past his fellow Marines dozing on the concrete. "They are screwing this up," he says. "Those idiots. Don`t they realize the world already hates us?"

"Relax, Devil Dog," Espera says, calling him by the universal Marine nickname. "The only thing we have to worry about are the fucking do-gooders."

The problem is that the whole thing is ad hoc, and the Iraqis need the expertise of professionals. Having mechanized infantrymen act as police who can`t speak the language makes them targets. Until and unless we can get trained civilian advisors on the ground, who can speak Arabic, the occupation is little more than a guerrilla war and enforced poverty.

And our allies seem to have their own agendas

5) The locals do not support us

Instead of cultivating the Shia, we raid SCIRI`s offices, try to manipulate Sistani into a defacto ally and ignore Badr. Does the CPA and CENTCOM think that the guerrillas are just Saddam lackies and no one will oppose them? Everyone has a gun. A Baathist can be shot down as easily as a stray dog. While they wait for their water to not make them ill and to have reasonable amounts of power, a significant minority is aiding the guerrillas and even more are turning their backs when they strike.

Random mobs steal and loot from US vehicles after attacks and do nothing to stop those who shoot Americans . They have no stake in our survival, if nothing else. The random attacks on those working with the CPA have provoked no great outcry from clerics of any persuasion. Instead, they have to bite their tongues to prevent the anti-American sermon of the week. And now Sistani issues a fatwa to declare no one should be appointed by the US. It is clear appointees have a short life span ahead of them.

Relying on the exiles was a brutal, near fatal, mistake. Chalabi, when not called a crook by his fellow Iraqis, is unknown. The rest are resented as having avoided suffering under Saddam. They don`t represent the Iraqi people and have less insight than we need them to have.

Hostility has many guises. Inaction as well as action. Letting a man die while you do nothing is just as hostile as ignoring the man who shoots him and only a little less hostile than killing him yourself.

Posted July 06, 2003 05:50 PM | Trackback (3) | Temp Comments (89)

http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003288.html#003288

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ON ELECTION DAY 2004, HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF YOUR VOTE IS PROPERLY COUNTED?
ANSWER: YOU WON’T
Rep. Rush Holt Introduces Legislation to Require All Voting Machines To Produce A Voter-Verified Paper Trail



Washington, DC – Rep. Rush Holt today responded to the growing chorus of concern from election reform specialists and computer security experts about the integrity of future elections by introducing reform legislation, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. The measure would require all voting machines to produce an actual paper record by 2004 that voters can view to check the accuracy of their votes and that election officials can use to verify votes in the event of a computer malfunction, hacking, or other irregularity. Experts often refer to this paper record as a “voter-verified paper trail.”



“We cannot afford nor can we permit another major assault on the integrity of the American electoral process,” said Rep. Rush Holt. “Imagine it’s Election Day 2004. You enter your local polling place and go to cast your vote on a brand new “touch screen” voting machine. The screen says your vote has been counted. As you exit the voting booth, however, you begin to wonder. How do I know if the machine actually recorded my vote? The fact is, you don’t.”



Last October, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), groundbreaking election reform legislation that is currently helping states throughout the country replace antiquated and unreliable punch card and butterfly ballot voting systems. HAVA, however, is having an unintended consequence. It is fueling a rush by states and localities to purchase computer-voting systems that suffer from a serious flaw; voters and election officials have no way of knowing whether the computers are counting votes properly. Hundreds of nationally renowned computer scientists, including internationally renowned expert David Dill of Stanford University, consider a voter-verified paper trial to be a critical safeguard for the accuracy, integrity and security of computer-assisted elections.



“Voting should not be an act of blind faith. It should be an act of record,” said Rep Rush Holt. “But current law does nothing to protect the integrity of our elections against computer malfunction, computer hackers, or any other potential irregularities.”



There have already been several examples of computer error in elections. In the 2002 election, brand new computer voting systems used in Florida lost over 100,000 votes due to a software error. Errors and irregularities were also reported in New Jersey, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, and at least 10 other states.



“A recount requires that there be a reliable record to check,” said Holt. “Without an actual paper record that each voter can confidentially inspect, faulty or hacked computer systems will simply spit out the same faulty or hacked result. Every vote in every election matters. We can and should do this in time for the 2004 federal election.”



Key provisions of The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 include:



1) Requires all voting systems to produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits and recounts. For those using the increasingly popular ATM-like “DRE”(Direct Recording Electronic) machines, this requirement means the DRE would print a receipt that each voter would verify as accurate and deposit into a lockbox for later use in a recount. States would have until November 2003 to request additional funds to meet this requirement.



2) Bans the use of undisclosed software and wireless communications devices in voting systems.



3) Requires all voting systems to meet these requirements in time for the general election in November 2004. Jurisdictions that feel their new computer systems may not be able to meet this deadline may use an existing paper system as an interim measure (at federal expense) in the November 2004 election.



4) Requires that electronic voting system be provided for persons with disabilities by January 1, 2006 -- one year earlier than currently required by HAVA. Like the voting machines for non-disabled voters, those used by disabled voters must also provide a mechanism for voter-verification, though not necessarily a paper trail. Jurisdictions unable to meet this requirement by the deadline must give disabled voters the option to use the interim paper system with the assistance of an aide of their choosing.



5) Requires mandatory surprise recounts in 0.5% of domestic jurisdictions and 0.5% of overseas jurisdictions.

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996

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Der 2. Weltkrieg Tag für Tag. Mit vielen Komentaren.

Project 60: A Day-by-Day Diary of WWII

Remembering the First Fight Against Fascism

http://bartcop.com/430712.htm
Beispiel heute vor 60 Jahren.

July 7, 1943 - The Kursk battles rage on

In the north, Model’s forces concentrated their attacks in the area around Ponyri. 18th Panzer and 292nd Infantry Divisions hit the 307th Rifle division and were initially repulsed. A full day of heavy fighting in the village saw sections of the town change hands several times. By the end of the day, the town was split between the two combatants. Meanwhile, the 41st Panzer Corps struck toward Ol’Khovatka, an area surrounded by dominant high ground, only to be met by elements of the 2nd Tank Army. Both sides suffered serious losses and neither gained their objectives in the stallmate.

In the south, Army Detachment Kempf continued to make modest headway against the 7th Guard Army. Four additional infantry divisions were assigned to shore up the Soviet positions. On the other (western) flank, 48th Panzer Corps was attempting to move forward only to be confronted by large tank formations Vatutuin was hoping to attack with. A large salient had developed between 2nd SS Panzer Corps right (east) and AG Kempf’s left (west) flank. 3rd SS Panzer was dispatched to guard that vulnerable position, leaving only the 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Divisions for attacks. Because of the serious resistance on the road to Oboian, these formations redirected to the northeast and advanced, making modest progress, toward Prokorovka.

Over the battlefield, the air battle became desperate. German forces were concentrating on their ground support efforts and the Red Air Force had recovered from their initial trouncing at the optining of the offensive to contest the Germans. The Soviet fighter sweeps took a serious toll on the bomb laden German planes.

In other war news …

The Battle of the South Atlantic continues as German submarine U-185 sinks three merchant ships off the coast of Brazil.

Australian forces capture Observation Hill near Mubo in New Guinea.

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Global Eye -- Dark Passage

By Chris Floyd
Not since "Mein Kampf" has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow.

Adolf Hitler clearly spelled out his plans to destroy the Jews and launch wars of conquest to secure German domination of world affairs in his 1925 book, long before he ever assumed power. Despite the zigzags of rhetoric he later employed, the various PR spins and temporary justifications offered for this or that particular policy, any attentive reader of his vile regurgitation could have divined his intentions as he drove his country -- and the world -- to murderous upheaval.

Similarly -- in method, if not entirely in substance -- the Bush Regime`s foreign policy is also being carried out according to a strict blueprint written years ago, then renewed a few months before the Regime was installed in power by the judicial coup of December 2000.

The first version, mentioned in passing here last week, was drafted by a team operating under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. It set out a new doctrine for U.S. power in the 21st century, an aggressive, unilateral approach that would secure American domination of world affairs -- "by force if necessary," as one of the acolytes put it.

When the Dominators were temporarily ousted from government after 1992, they continued their strategic planning with funding from the military-energy-security apparatus and right-wing foundations. This culminated in a new group, the aptly-named Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Members included hard-right players like Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad (now "special envoy" to the satrapy of Afghanistan) and other empire aspirants currently perched in the upper reaches of government power.

In September 2000, PNAC updated the original Cheney plan in a published report, "Strengthening America`s Defenses." In this and related documents, the earlier precepts were reiterated and refined. The plans called for unprecedented hikes in military spending, the plantation of American bases in Central Asia and the Middle East, the toppling of recalcitrant regimes, the militarization of outer space, the abrogation of international treaties, the willingness to use nuclear weapons and control of the world`s energy resources.

And the present course of action was clearly set forth: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

But Iraq is just a stepping stone. Iran is next -- indeed, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the PNAC team say that Iran is "perhaps a far greater threat" to U.S. oil hegemony. Other nations will follow, including Russia and China. In one way or another -- by military means or economic dominance, by conquest, alliance or silent acquiescence -- they must all be brought to heel, forcibly prevented from "challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

These texts spring from the Dominators` quasi-religious cult of "American exceptionalism," the belief in the unique and utter goodness of the American soul -- embodied chiefly by the nation`s moneyed elite, of course -- and the irredeemable, metaphysical evil of all those who would oppose or criticize the elite`s righteous (and conveniently self-serving) policies.

Anyone still "puzzled" over the Bush Regime`s behavior need only look to these documents for enlightenment. They have long been available to the media -- which accepted Bush`s transparent campaign lies about a "more humble foreign policy" at face value -- but have only now started attracting wider notice, in the New Yorker magazine this spring, and this week in the Glasgow Sunday Herald.

The documents explain America`s relentless march across Afghanistan, Central Asia and soon into the Middle East. They explain the Bush Regime`s otherwise unfathomable rejection of international law, its fanatical devotion to so-called missile defense, its gargantuan increases in military spending -- even its antediluvian energy policy, which mandates the continued primacy of oil and gas in the world economy. (They can`t conquer the sun or monopolize the wind, so there`s no profit, no leverage for personal gain and geopolitical power in pursuing viable alternatives to oil.) The Sept. 11 attacks gave the Regime a pretext for greatly accelerating this published program of global dominance, but they would have pursued it in any case.

So there will be war: either soon, after the November mid-term elections, or -- in the unlikely event that Iraq`s offer of inspections is accepted -- then later, after some "provocation" or "obstruction," no doubt in good time before the 2004 presidential vote. The purse-lipped rhetoric about "liberation" and "moral clarity" is just so much desert sand being thrown in our eyes. Backstage, the Bush Regime is playing Mafia-style hardball, warning reluctant allies to get on board now or else miss out on their cut of the loot when America -- not a "democratic Iraq" -- divvies up Saddam`s oil fields: a shakedown detailed this week by the Economist, among many others.

The Dominators dream of empire. Not only will it extend their temporal power, they believe it will also give them immortality. One of their chief gurus, Reaganite firebreather Michael Ledeen, says that if the Dominators reject "clever diplomacy" and "just wage total war" to subjugate the Middle East, "our children will sing great songs about us years from now." This madness, this bin Laden-like megalomania, is now driving the hijacked American republic -- and the world -- to murderous upheaval.

It`s all there in the text, set down in black and white.

Read it and weep.

"Bush Planned Iraq `Regime Change` Before Becoming President,"
Glasgow Sunday Herald, Sept. 15, 2002

"Foreign Policy Blueprint,"
TomPaine.com, March 2002

"US and the Triumph of Unilateralism,"
Asia Times, Sept. 10, 2002

"George Bush and the World,"
New York Review of Books, Sept. 26, 2002 issue

"The Next World Order,"
The New Yorker, March 25, 2002

"Saddam in the Crosshairs,"
Village Voice, Nov. 21-27, 2001

"Rebuilding America`s Defenses,"
Project for a New Century, September 2000

"Statement of Principles,"
Project for a New American Century, June 3, 1997

"Fortunes of war await Bush`s circle after attacks on Iraq,"
The Independent (UK), Sept. 15, 2002

"Don`t Mention the O-Word,"
The Economist, Sept. 12, 2002

"Backing on Iraq? Let`s Make a Deal,"
Los Angeles Times, Sept. 13, 2002

"In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil is a Key Issue,"
Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2002

"Cronies in Arms,"
New York Times, Sept. 17, 2002

Questions That Won`t Be Asked About Iraq,"
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Republican, Texas, Sept. 10, 2002

Bombs Will Deepen Iraq`s Nightmare: An Iraqi Dissident Speaks,"
The Guardian, Sept. 17, 2002

Looking War in the Face,"
Boston Globe, Sept. 10, 2002

"Iraqgate,"
Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1993

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article2326.htm

http://informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

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America keen to exploit boom in Africa’s black gold
From Michael Dynes in Johannesburg



07/07/03: (The Times: UK) ALTHOUGH billed as an attempt to extend the hand of friendship to a neglected continent, President Bush’s five nation African safari is widely being seen as an effort to ensure US access to Africa’s burgeoning pot of black gold.
Sub-Saharan Africa is enjoying an unprecedented oil exploration and production boom that is expected to transform the region from a modest producer to a key supplier over the next decade.

US attention has focused on the Atlantic waters of the Gulf of Guinea states — Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola and São Tomé.

As head of a task force on future oil supplies, Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, predicted two years ago that the region would become the fastest-growing source of energy for America. But the scale of the region’s untapped resources has taken everyone by surprise.

The US already imports about 15 per cent of its annual oil requirements from the Gulf of Guinea. This is expected to exceed 25 per cent by 2015, significantly reducing America’s dependence on the volatile Middle East.

US imports from Angola alone rose to $3.2 billion (£1.9 billion) in 2002, up from $2.3 billion in 1998. Angola produces 900,000 barrels of oil a day and is expected to exceed 1.6 million barrels a day at its peak. Some analysts predict that the Gulf of Guinea states are likely to earn about $200 billion while the boom lasts.

Foreign oil companies are pouring billions of dollars into new exploration and production projects, which will see oil extraction double. More than $50 billion has been earmarked for new development schemes, making it the single largest investment in the continent’s history. But there is mounting concern that America’s scramble for Africa’s resources will lead to an increase in the corruption and mismanagement that has afflicted the continent.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a Baltimore think-tank, has issed a blunt warning that the Bush Administration’s new-found interest in Africa is far from charitable.

In its report, Bottom of the Barrel, CRS said that petro- dollars had not helped developing countries in the past.

“Angola used them to fight a three-decade-long civil war, and in Nigeria they supported one military dictator after another,” Ian Gary, the report’s author, said.

CRS has been campaigning for greater transparency in the international oil industry in an effort to stamp out corruption and ensure that oil revenues are used to improve the lives of impoverished Africans, the bulk of whom live on less than $1 a day.

During his visit, Mr Bush is expected to emphasise American support for good governance and respect for human rights. But CRS doubts that such values will be allowed to get in the way of US strategic issues.

“The US has identified increasing African oil imports as an issue of national security and has used diplomacy to court African producers regardless of their record on transparency, democracy, or human rights,” Mr Gary said


(C) Copyright Times: UK.

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Bush And Busher: What IS His Problem?

According to Matthijs van Boxsel, author of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF STUPIDITY, "stupidity is not the same as a lack of intelligence...`It`s a quality all its own. It`s unwitting self-destruction, the ability to act against one`s best wishes...It`s a typical human talent." Perhaps that begins to explain George W. Bush. As Mark Crispin Miller writes in THE BUSH DYSLEXICON:

"Our president is not an imbecile but an operator just as canny as he is hard-hearted--which is to say that he`s extraordinarily shrewd....As Bush himself has often said--it suits a politician to have everybody thinking he`s a dunce, especially if he wants to do things his way. The satire that sells him short, therefore, can only work to his advantage, by blinding us to his team`s big-time plans and causing us to overlook his own prodigious skill at propaganda." (pp.2-3)

Miller goes on to write that Bush`s "gross illiteracy" is often used as a focal topic to cover his more telling failures: "his neglected military service, his many shady business dealings, or his close ties to the likes of Representative Tom DeLay."

But none of this means that Bush is not stupid in van Boxsel`s sense: one whose actions appear self-destructive or , to be more specific to Bush`s case, one whose actions, both at home and abroad, are, much too often, not in the best interests of our nation. Where does Bush`s national self-destructiveness, his willingness to destroy nearly 65 years of national social betterment, come from? Maureen Dowd thinks it`s Bush`s Attention Deficit Disorder.

Just as Bush`s illiteracy reflects the illiteracy of the common man, so, too, does Bush`s ADD reflect the mental problems inherent in our dysfunctional society. Dowd reminds us that The New Republic "recently dubbed this "historical attention deficit disorder," when a country gets distracted from focusing on any one place for very long. Our scattered consciousness is the reason we`re so bad at empire, too impatient to hang around hot climes trying to force cold natives to like us." Dowd believes that Bush is our ADD model par excellence, pointing out how our foreign policy mirrors symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder:

*I find my mind wandering from tasks that are uninteresting or difficult
*I say things without thinking and later regret having said them."
*I make quick decisions without thinking enough about their possible bad results
*I have a quick temper, a short fuse
*I have trouble planning in what order to do a series of tasks or activities
*"In group activities it is hard for me to wait my turn."
*I usually work on more than one project at a time, and fail to finish many of them."

While Dowd couches her criticism of Bush in her usual ironic tone, the same point was made without humor during the presidential campaign by Gail Sheehy for Vanity Fair, documenting symptoms of both dyslexia and ADD found in the Bush family. She wasn`t alone, as you can see on our BUSH AND DYSLEXIA page. Here`s what we wrote in 2000:

"It`s not just that Bush begins to lose focus earlier than most administrators in high pressure jobs, but his language breaks down and he sometimes becomes incomprehensible. When reporters began writing about his language difficulties after the New Hampshire primaries, excuses were made by both Bush spinners and sympathetic reporters that he only made his language gaffes late in the day. Then it was late in the day and early in the morning. After that it was late in the day, early in the morning, and when under pressure. Then Bush began to schmooze with reporters on his plane and we were given stories that he didn`t sleep well on the road and missed the comfort of his Austin bed. All of these explanations are true, but they don`t really get to the heart of the matter. Bush appears to be incapable of working long, hard, pressure-filled days, the kind of days common to the presidency, without suffering a loss of attention and an inability to clearly communicate. Can we afford a president who works a six hour day and devotes little of those hours to "studying specific issues or working on executive matters"? Bush may want to do more, but his language and attention problems appear to prevent him from doing more."

We don`t think the conclusions we arrived at in 2000 are any different than the conclusions we arrive at today, except that Bush has chosen to attempt to work long days under pressure, resulting in the behavior that Dowd has pointed out above. We don`t think such self-destructive behavior is in the best interest of our nation. In fact, we think it`s stupid.

--Jerry Politex, 07.07.03

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Der Bloke von der BBC
Der Streit über die Irak-Berichterstattung der BBC zeigt vor allem, wie souverän deren Chef Greg Dyke inzwischen ist
Der gestrige Montag dürfte mal wieder so ganz nach seinem Geschmack gewesen sein: Teilbestätigung der BBC-Berichterstattung über die Kontroverse, wie schlagkräftig die irakische Armee wirklich war. Und gleichzeitig die Auszeichnung als wichtigster Medienmensch des Landes im "Guardian Media 100-Ranking". Greg Dyke, der charismatische Generaldirektor der British Broadcasting Corporation, ist auf dem Höhepunkt seiner Karriere angekommen.

Dabei hat sich Dyke eine für deutsche Intendanten undenkbare Souveränität im Umgang mit den politisch Mächtigen bewahrt. Denn eigentlich gehört er fest zum Lager von New Labour und Tony Blair: Seine Spenden an die Partei und für die Wahlkampagnen des heutigen Premierministers hätten 2000 noch fast seine Wahl zum Director General platzen lassen. Damals galt Greg Dyke, der in den 80er-Jahren selbst für die Labour Party in die Politik ziehen wollte, auch vielen in der BBC als zu regierungsfreundlich und "Cheerleader" von Tony Blair.

Heute steht Dyke voll hinter seinen Redaktionen und für die Unabhängigkeit der Berichterstattung. Und auch die zweite Befürchtung, der im privaten Fernsehen mächtig gewordene Milliardär könne die ehrwürdige Institution BBC in seichten Tiefflug übergehen lassen, ist nicht mehr haltbar: Das wichtigste TV-Programm, BBC 1, führt die Quotenliste an - und plant demnächst eine Ballettübertragung zur Hauptsendezeit.

Doch das britische Establishment nöckelt weiter. Denn Dyke gehört einfach nicht dazu. Weder die Eliteschmieden Eton noch Rugby zieren den Lebenslauf des Versicherungsmakler-Sohnes. Ein ganz schnödes Gymnasium hat Dyke besucht, ist dann Lokalzeitungsjournalist geworden und erst spät Student - nicht in Oxford, sondern im nordenglischen York.

Seine Managementlaufbahn begann zwar bei einer britischen Institution - aber mit einem Rausschmiss: Ganze vier Monate hielt Dyke bei einem Junior-Managementkurs vom Marks & Spencer durch. Nach dem Studium war Dyke sogar richtig arbeitslos, verdingte sich beim Privatsender LWT und gab dem Kanal und sich durch die Figur "Roland Rat" endgültig ein rattiges Image: Für seichte Unterhaltung stand er nun, allerdings äußerst erfolgreiche seichte Unterhaltung: Als der Sender später verkauft wurde, machte dies Dyke zum Millionär. Auch in seinem nächsten Job als Chef von Pearson Television drehte sich alles um "Light Entertainment" - man produzierte u. a. "Baywatch" und weltweit erfolgreiche Gameshows von der Stange.

So ein "hands-on bloke", ein zupackender Kerl und bekennender Fußballverrückter, übernahm nun die BBC. Angst habe er da keine, verriet Dyke bei seinem letzten Auftritt für Pearson 1999 beim Kölner Medienforum. Schließlich müsse bei der BBC mal wieder jemand ran, der nicht lange fackle und auch unangenehme Wahrheiten ausspreche. Angst, so Dyke, habe er nur, dass die englische Elf bei der Europameisterschaft im nächsten Jahr wieder vor Deutschland ausscheide. Und bei der BBC gab es schon gleich nach Dykes Amtsantritt rote Karten, die die Mitarbeiter bei nicht enden wollenden Meetings und Besprechungen einfach hochhalten sollten: "Cut the crap - make it happen" stand darauf, "hör auf mit dem Scheiß, tu lieber was."
" STEFFEN GRIMBERG

taz Nr. 7098 vom 8.7.2003, Seite 13, 110 Zeilen (Portrait), STEFFEN GRIMBERG

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US-Militärprozesse gegen Briten

Gesteh oder stirb!

Im Herbst sollen sich zwei Briten vor US-Militärgerichten wegen ihrer angeblichen Unterstützung des Terrornetzwerks al-Qaida verantworten. Offenbar werden sie dort nur eine Chance haben: Sie legen ein umfassendes Geständnis ab und akzeptieren 20 Jahre Haft. Denn bei einem Schuldspruch würde ihnen die Hinrichtung drohen.


Hamburg - Diese nicht wirklich attraktiven Alternativen sollen den Druck auf die Gefangenen erhöhen, berichtet die britische Zeitung "Observer" unter Berufung auf amerikanische Justizkreise. Angesichts ihrer drohenden Exekution, hofft man offenbar, werden sich die Briten schon auf ein Maximum an Kooperation einlassen.

Doch diese Strategie scheint nun auch für die Vereinigten Staaten ein Spiel mit dem Feuer zu werden. Denn mit ihrem treusten Verbündeten bahnt sich wegen diesem eigenwilligen Umgang mit Recht und Gerechtigkeit ein handfester Streit an: Dem Pressebericht zufolge will sich der britische Außenminister Jack Straw bei seinem US-Kollegen Colin Powell energisch für die Überstellung der beiden Briten an die heimische Justiz einsetzen. Mit dem Protest auf höchster Ebene wolle er für "normale Prozessbedingungen" sorgen, heißt es weiter.

Bislang verliefen alle britischen Initiativen zur Verbesserung der Situation ihrer in Guantanamo Bay inhaftierten Staatsbürger im kubanischen Sand. Immerhin kann sich Straw nach Angaben des "Observer" diesmal aber auch auf die Unterstützung seines Kabinettskollegen David Blunkett verlassen, dem das Innenministerium untersteht.

Zweifel an der Legitimität der Prozesse

Anwälte, die die Interessen des 35 Jahre alten Moazzam Begg aus Birmingham und des 23-jährigen Feroz Abbasi aus London, vertreten, bezweifeln vehement die Legitimität der geplanten Prozesse. Im Gegensatz zu Straw und Blunkett halten sie allerdings auch nichts davon, Begg und Abbasi vor ein britisches Gericht zu stellen.

Denn eigentlich habe man gegen die Inhaftierten nichts in der Hand: Schließlich sei jegliches Geständnis, dass ohne Beistand eines Anwalts entstanden ist, international und national wertlos, sagt etwa Gareth Peirce, die sich für Begg einsetzt.

Begg verbrachte ein Jahr auf dem US-Luftwaffenstützpunkt im afghanischen Bagram und sitzt nun seit sechs Monaten in dem Hochsicherheitsgefängnis der amerikanischen Streitkräfte auf Kuba. Seit seiner Verhaftung habe Begg keinen Anwalt zu Gesicht bekommen, sagt Peirce. Und diese Missachtung jeglicher rechtsstaatlicher Standards sei auf einer britischen Polizeiwache noch nicht einmal eine Stunde lang legitim.

"Das wird offensichtlich ein Känguru-Prozess"

Stephen Jakobi von der englischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung Fair Trails Abroad ("Faire Verfahren im Ausland"), kritisiert vor allem, dass das US-Verteidigungsministerium die Verantwortung für die Prozesse übernehmen soll.

Er ist davon überzeugt, dass dort offensichtlich die Gewaltenteilung ausgehebelt werden soll. Schließlich soll das Ministerium zugleich als Staatsanwalt, Richter und Verteidiger fungieren. Zudem soll die Behörde auch noch die Regeln des Prozesses selbst bestimmen können. Durch dieses Hin- und Hergehoppel innerhalb ein und derselben Stelle wird das "ein Känguru-Prozess", prophezeit Jakobi.

Mit international gültigen rechtsstaatlichen Prinzipien wird es also schwer. Aber auch die amerikanischen Erfahrungen mit dieser Art von außerordentlichen Militärprozessen liegen mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert zurück: Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg richteten sie sich gegen deutsche und japanische Kriegsverbrecher.

Nachdem die Pläne für die neuen Militärprozesse bekannt wurden, protestierte die Menschenrechtsorganisation Amnesty International umgehend gegen das Vorhaben. Die Verfahren gegen die ersten sechs Inhaftierten sei ein Rückschritt für die Menschenrechte. Zudem bedauerte die Organisation zutiefst, dass George W. Bush "sein Land einen Schritt weiter in die Richtung einer Prozessführung bringt, die grundlegende Rechtsstandards missachtet."

Wegen der Angelegenheit setzte die britische Sektion von Amnesty International am Montag eine Sondersitzung an.



© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2003

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

The Madness of King George
July 5, 2003
By a_random_joel

Commercials suck. Especially badly produced ones. Armed with the remote control, most Americans have liberated themselves from the tedious chore of having to sit through them. Poorly produced movies are even worse. Fire up the VCR and give American Ninja a spin. Even 80`s "blockbusters" such as Red Dawn or Rambo show their age and qualify for the "cheesy" label these days.

So why do Americans continue to rally around a President who has been reduced to nothing more than cheesy sound bites? Even Reagan was capable of eliciting warmth, and injecting substance into his speeches. His policies may have been questionable, but at least he gave the impression that he genuinely cared. Charisma, diplomacy, chivalry and presentability - like it or not, these were components that Reagan displayed.

This new kid, Dubya, is something completely different. This is 80`s cheesy action-adventure shlockfest gone wild. Case in point: "Bring them on." Knowing that our military continues to face guerilla attacks on a daily basis, and that widows and fatherless children have already been a tragic circumstance in our Iraq escapade, Mr. Bush thinks that offering a Clint Eastwood, smart-ass swagger is the appropriate response from the Leader of the Free World. Perhaps this was a necessary skill when leading the cheerleading corps at Yale, when the worst that could happen to a gridiron warrior is perhaps a blown out knee. But when our troops come under the fire of RPGs and AK-47s on a daily basis, the Commander-in-Chief, who is ultimately responsible for their lives, dare not be insensitive to their families, nor provocative to the enemy. Especially from halfway around the world, under the careful watch of our Secret Service men.

This is nothing new for Dubya. Some of us have been keen to this pattern of bluster and bullshit ever since before Dubya became President. The only thing bigger than a Texas bullshitter is a bullshitter who claims to be from Texas. For example, on May 1st, 2003, under a banner that said "Mission Accomplished", Bush said, "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on." There are three glorious deceptions here; a veritable bullshit trifecta, if you will.

First, the image of our ace Top Gun President with his tailhook landing, a la Bill Pullman taking on the aliens in Independence Day. Noting that Mr. Bush has never accounted for a missing year in the Texas Air National Guard, and that he is a self-proclaimed reformed alcoholic, a more appropriate comparison would be to the pilot Ted Striker from Airplane! Remember, the guy with the "drinking problem?" Secondly, the presentation of our "victory" - that the war is over. Two months after this announcement, combat continues, soldiers still die, and guerillas are still "bringing it on." Finally, there is the perpetuation of the lie that connects Iraq with September 11th.

Speaking of trifectas and September 11th, I am reminded of another careless remark Mr. Bush rattled off. "And so we have a temporary deficit in our budget, because we are at war, we`re recovering, our economy is recovering, and we`ve had a national emergency. Never did I dream we`d have the trifecta." Now for those of you who are not familiar with gambling lingo, a trifecta involves a method of betting that requires an extreme amount of luck. Mr. Bush offered this remark as a "joke." I wonder if the people who have felt the effects of this trifecta, those who have lost jobs and money and are still waiting for the imminent recovery, and those who lost their lives or loved ones on September 11th, appreciate Mr. Bush`s luck, or think that his joke was very funny.

The gambling jokes did not stop there, however. In his build up for war in Iraq, as he tried to present a case which to this day has not been made that Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction posed a direct and imminent threat to the United States, the hustler told the country, "Yes, we`ll call for the vote: No matter what the whip count is, we`ll call for a vote. It`s time for people to show their cards." Of course, after finding out that not enough support existed on the U.N. Security Council for a second resolution (gee, I wonder why?) the cards were never asked to be shown. When called on his bluff, even with a stacked deck, Mr. Bush ended up folding.

September 11th provided additional material for Mr. Bush to showcase his bravado. After the attacks were attributed to Osama Bin Laden, Bush this time playing the Texas cowboy said, "All I`m doing is remembering. When I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the Old West a wanted poster. It said, `Wanted: Dead or Alive.`" Well sheriff, we`re still waiting. But, it gets better. At Ground Zero, to a crowd of workers chanting "USA! USA!" Bush through a bullhorn vowed, "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

This was this President`s defining moment according to the press. Unfortunately, I was reminded more of Hulk Hogan taking on the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. Such displays of "patriotism" may be enough to send shivers down the spine of a ten year old, but I’m a big boy now, and actions speak louder than words. Do I love my country any less? No, in fact, it is because I do love my country that I do not want to see the Presidency reduced to a cookie-cutter cartoon caricature.

The insensitivity of such remarks is truly the most frightening aspect. For all the nonsense about how insincere Clinton was when he "felt our pain," at least he made the effort. Check the insight and sensitivity in this Bush gem quoted after a suicide attack in Israel: "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive."

Self-promoting, pat-self-on-the-back, my way or the highway bluster tainted with used car salesman deceptions, and more one-liners than Henny Youngman. Cheer him well America. Whether playing cowboy, combat pilot, championship golfer, high roller or President, he`s got his lines down, sort of. Bush has shown himself to be no more responsible for the results of the lines he delivers than an actor in a commercial or a cheesy movie is responsible for real world events.

For the Reformer with Results, the Results are in. Osama Bin Laden? Mullah Omar? Saddam Hussein? Weapons of Mass Destruction? Ken Lay? Economic Recovery? American respect and credibility? All are MIA. In light of this, one more Bush nugget of wisdom comes to mind:

"There`s an old saying in Tennessee - I know it`s in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can`t get fooled again."

Indeed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/07/05_madne…

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editorial | Posted July 2, 2003

Billionaires for Bush

I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money...and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money. --Senator Boies Penrose (R-Pa.), 1896

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eorge W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Laura Bush have been darting across the country these past few weeks raising money for Bush-Cheney `04 Inc. Bush, who broke all precedent in his 2000 bid by opting out of the presidential public-financing system and the spending limits it imposes, is once again pushing the envelope--and the corporate execs, lobbyists and wealthy individuals he has enriched are sending envelopes back, stuffed with checks. His operatives say he hopes to raise $170 million for next year`s primaries--an obscene amount, since he will have no Republican challenger and his Democratic opponents will be held to a $45 million spending ceiling. But they`re deliberately lowballing his total. Given the $101 million he raised in 1999-2000 and the unwise doubling (by the reform-hungry McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan squad) of the individual donation limit to $2,000, Bush starts with a potential funding base of $200 million or more.

Nothing like this has happened since the robber barons and the trusts united behind William McKinley`s 1896 campaign. Back then, Senator Mark Hanna, chairman of the Republican National Committee, invented the first truly national campaign fundraising machine, setting precise assessments for contributions from banks and other businesses that feared Democrat William Jennings Bryan`s populism. Hanna, who famously quipped, "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can`t remember what the second one is," raised $6 million to $7 million for McKinley, which in today`s dollars would be about $150 million. By comparison, the reform group Public Campaign points out that Bush`s $200 million will be more than all the private money raised by the Republican presidential nominees since Watergate, adjusted for inflation. It`s not for nothing that Karl Rove describes Mark Hanna as his political hero.

So what? says the corporate right. As the President`s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said, "I think the amount of money that candidates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country." The issue, however, isn`t just how much money a candidate raises but where it comes from and how it skews the candidate pool and the political debate. Bush`s money machine--as we went to press he was on track to garner more in a few weeks than all nine Democratic candidates raised in the first three months of the year--is a measure of his popularity only among people who can afford to write $1,000 or $2,000 checks. That group is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the population, and far wealthier, whiter, older and more likely to be male than the general population. America`s financial elite is well represented in this "donor class," and its interests in tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks are given disproportionate attention because of its contributions.

There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to expose Bush`s special-interest fundraising, as groups like the Reform Voter Project have already begun to do--for example, with an ad linking the millions Bush has received from air polluters with the rise in asthma attacks among children. The connections between his policies and his special-interest contributors could be Bush`s Achilles heel. The second is to insist that the Democratic presidential candidates talk about how they would fix the ailing presidential public financing system. Arizona`s and Maine`s clean elections systems offer hopeful models in which more than half the current elected officials, including Arizona`s governor, received full public funding in exchange for abiding by strict spending limits and raising no private funds. Under these systems, once a candidate qualifies by collecting a large number of small contributions there is no more debilitating money chase and no more wooing of the wealthiest. Instead, candidates get to spend their time talking to average voters and addressing their concerns. Cynics and pessimists might say that such reforms will never spread (though versions have been recently passed in North Carolina and New Mexico). They would do well to recall the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century, which was spurred by the excesses of the Penroses and Hannas, and take heart for the battles ahead.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030721&s=editors

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Das große Schweigen

Auch Briten droht auf Guantánamo die Hinrichtung, und der diskrete Einspruch Londons kümmert die USA wenig

Von Peter Nonnenmacher (London)

In Downing Street könnte man eine Feder zu Boden fallen hören: So still ist es in Sachen Delta Camp geworden. Während die US-Amerikaner die ersten Militärprozesse gegen ihre Spezial-Gefangenen in Guantánamo Bay vorbereiten und sich in der britischen Bevölkerung immer mehr Widerspruch zu Wort meldet, meidet die Regierungszentrale tunlichst eine Stellungnahme zu der brisanten Entwicklung.

Zwar hat am Wochenende Baronin Symons vom britischen Außenministerium ihren Landsleuten versichert, dass die Regierung Blair "ganz energische Diskussionen" mit der US-Administration führen werde, was Guantánamo Bay angehe. Britische Einwände gegen das US-Vorgehen würden "auf höchster Ebene angesprochen", gelobte die Staatssekretärin: Letztlich sei es "aber leider so, dass ich die juristischen Verfahrensweisen in den USA auch nicht ändern kann".

Von der Forderung ihres Ressortleiters Jack Straw im vorigen Jahr, britische Guantánamo-Häftlinge müssten in Großbritannien vor Gericht gestellt werden - und zwar vor ordentliche Strafgerichte, nicht vor Militärtribunale -, ist keine Rede mehr. Wieder einmal hat die Rücksichtslosigkeit des großen Partners dem europäischen Top-Verbündeten die Sprache verschlagen. Seit vergangenen Freitag das Pentagon ein Militärgerichtsverfahren gegen sechs Guantánamo-Häftlinge ankündigte, von denen zwei über britische Pässe verfügen, hat sich in Downing Street das Schweigen in dem Maße verdichtet, in dem die Empörung britischer Juristen, Bürgerrechtler, Moslems und liberaler Zeitungen lauter und lauter geworden ist.

Kein Zweifel - Premierminister Tony Blair sitzt in der Klemme, was die beiden Briten angeht, denen schlimmstenfalls die Todesstrafe droht. Bei allen Anfechtungen daheim hat Blair an seiner Partnerschaft mit Washington, von Afghanistan bis Irak, eisern festgehalten. Verteidigungsminister Geoff Hoon hat er vor kurzem erst erklären lassen, dass Britannien sich einen Krieg ohne Beistand der USA praktisch nicht vorstellen könne. Innenminister David Blunkett hat er vermelden lassen, dass die Briten mit den USA fürs Jahr 2005 eine "Anti-Terror-Selbstschutzaktion" planten, wie sie die Welt noch nicht gesehen habe. Blair plant derweil, in der zweiten Julihälfte nach Washington zu reisen, um sich als erster amtierender britischer Regierungschef der Geschichte eine Gold-Medaille des US-Kongresses um den Hals hängen zu lassen und vor beiden Häusern des Kongresses zu sprechen. In dieser Situation muss es ihm widerstreben, dem US-Präsidenten und mehrfachen Kriegsgefährten George W. Bush in aller Öffentlichkeit an den Karren zu fahren.

Andererseits weiß Blair natürlich um die starken Gefühle im eigenen Lager, was Guantánamo anbelangt. Bei vielen Abgeordneten, die noch immer Aufklärung über die nicht gefundenen Massenvernichtungswaffen Saddam Husseins verlangen, rührt der US-Beschluss zu den Delta-Prozessen jetzt jede Menge neuer Empörung auf. Wenn Blair "auch nur einen Rest von Anstand im Leibe" habe, müsse er sich Bush nunmehr entgegenstellen, meinen Labour-Parlamentarier. "Die vorgeschlagenen Tribunale haben keinerlei legale Basis", murrt auch der außenpolitische Sprecher der Liberaldemokraten, Menzies Campbell. Selbst das rechte Massenblatt Daily Mail fragte jetzt provozierend: "Warum müssen wir eigentlich vor den Yanks am Boden kriechen?"

Einig sind sich Politiker und Presse in Großbritannien darüber, dass die geplanten Prozesse internationalen Rechtsnormen geradezu Hohn sprechen. Während schon Status und Behandlung der mittlerweile rund 680 Häftlinge, von denen neun britische Staatsbürger sein sollen, heftige Kritik an den USA auslösten, sind die Pläne zur Aburteilung der Betreffenden geradezu auf ungläubiges Staunen gestoßen.

Dass die vermeintlichen Terroristen vom Pentagon angeklagt, vom Pentagon verteidigt und vom Pentagon verurteilt werden sollen; dass sie sich vom Pentagon belauschen lassen müssen, wenn sie mit ihren Verteidigern sprechen; dass sie von "geheimen" Teilen ihres Verfahrens ausgeschlossen werden können; dass zusätzliche, privat bezahlte Rechtsanwälte sich vom Pentagon überprüfen lassen müssen und jederzeit vom Pentagon abgesetzt werden können; dass gegen Urteile (auch Todesurteile) keine Berufung eingelegt werden kann; und dass selbst bei einem Freispruch die Freigesprochenen als "gefährliche Kombattanden" weiter unbegrenzt in Haft gehalten werden können - das alles lässt Vertreter der britischen Justiz fassungslos die Perücken schütteln. Die geplanten Guantánamo-Prozesse verstießen "gegen jede Regel des internationalen Rechts", meint etwa der Vorsitzende der englischen Anwaltschaft, Matthias Kelly. Als "Femegericht" bezeichnet Stephen Jacobi von der Organisation "Gerechte Auslands-Verfahren" die Militärtribunale, bei denen "das US-Verteidigungsministerium sich zum Ankläger, zum Richter und zum Verteidiger aufgeschwungen und gleichzeitig die Verfahrensweise vorgegeben hat".

"Unglaublich" findet die prominente Anwältin Gareth Pierce es, dass den Angeklagten "Geständnisse" zur Last gelegt werden sollten, die ihnen in anderthalb Jahren "brutaler" Einzelhaft, ohne jeglichen Zugang zu Rechtsvertretern, abgepresst worden seien: "Wären sie auf einer britischen Polizeiwache auch nur eine Stunde lang so behandelt worden, wären alle Beweise vor Gericht unzulässig." Das Ganze sei "eine Travestie", die an "die frühere Gerichtsbarkeit in Irak" erinnere, stimmt Pierce` Kollegin Louise Christian zu: "Wir sind schockiert darüber, dass die britische Regierung so etwas zulässt."


Christian und Pierce, die sich der beiden in Frage stehenden Guantánamo-Briten angenommen haben, halten es jedenfalls für ausgeschlossen, dass dem 23-jährigen Londoner Feroz Abbasi und dem 35-jährigen Moazzam Begg aus Birmingham ein faires Verfahren zuteil werden könnte. Schon die Entführung Beggs aus Islamabad im Februar 2002, durch CIA-Agenten und pakistanische Polizei, sehen die Anwältinnen als "typisch" für das Rechtsverständnis der "Siegermacht" an.
Tatsächlich, meinen sie und Moazzam Beggs Vater Azmat, sei der ehemalige Birminghamer Buchhändler, der 2001 mit Frau und drei Kindern nach Afghanistan zog, angeblich um eine Dorfschule für Unbemittelte aufbauen zu helfen, Opfer einer fatalen Verwechslung geworden. Der Name Moazzam Begg fand sich offenbar auf der in einem Al-Qaeda-Camp gefundenen Fotokopie einer Geldanweisung. "Ich weiß, dass Moazzam unschuldig ist", sagt sein Vater Azmat, ein pensionierter Bankangestellter und Mitglied der Liberaldemokratischen Partei in Birmingham. "Sollte es aber irgendwelche Beweise dafür geben, dass er etwas Unrechtes getan hat, dann sollte er hier in Britannien vor Gericht gestellt werden - und nicht vor ein geheimes Militärgericht, in einem fremden Land."

Leider, meint Azmat Begg, habe die britische Regierung bislang in dieser Frage "keinen Deut geholfen" - Premier Blair scheine "Amerika nicht verärgern zu wollen". Auch die Anrufung britischer Gerichte hat den Angehörigen nichts genutzt. Eine Verpflichtung der Londoner Regierung, in Washington vorstellig zu werden, gebe es nicht, entschied jüngst ein britischer Richter; auch könne sich die britische Justiz nicht in US-Angelegenheiten einmischen. Wie viel Druck London - hinter den Kulissen - wirklich auf Washington ausübt, und wie viel Einfluss die Briten letztlich auf die Weltmacht haben, darüber gehen die Meinungen im Königreich auseinander. Peinlich berührt musste die Blair-Regierung dieser Tage einräumen, dass sie keine Ahnung habe, was aus 4000 irakischen Kriegsgefangenen geworden sei, die britische Truppen in Irak an amerikanische Einheiten übergeben hatten.

Dabei, meint der liberale Observer, komme den Briten, als engstem Verbündeten der USA und einzigem echten Mitstreiter in Irak und Afghanistan, eine besondere Verantwortung in Sachen Guantánamo zu. "Moralische Führungsqualitäten" müsse Blair hier beweisen - und vom großen Alliierten "verlangen, dass er unverzüglich, mit Blick auf alle Guantánamo-Gefangenen, einem international akzeptablen Rechtsverfahren zustimmt".

[Joerver]

Murdered at the museum
He was a talented but inexperienced young journalist who was determined to tell the untold story of postwar Iraq. But on Saturday morning Richard Wild was shot dead outside Baghdad museum. Libby Brooks talks to his friends and discovers a calm and lovable young man, who was always last to leave the party

Libby Brooks
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

Sitting in the lounge of Baghdad`s Palestine hotel last week, in the company of six veteran war correspondents, the 24-year-old novice reporter Richard Wild was understandably overawed. "He seemed quite quiet," recalls Jason Burke, the Observer`s chief reporter, and one of the group. "But we talked about how things were going, and from the small number of contacts he had he seemed to be doing well. He didn`t ask me for any help, which impressed me. He wasn`t in the business of free-loading."

He last saw the young freelance on Friday morning, when he dropped off a tape for Burke to pass on to Channel 4 on his return to the UK. "He was very excited about a visit he`d made to a Palestinian refugee camp in the city. He`d filmed the whole thing himself, and he thought it was going to be his big break."

Wild was shot dead outside Baghdad`s natural history museum on Saturday morning, as he stood on a traffic island trying to hire a taxi. His killer approached through a crowd of students, drew out a pistol and fired it into the base of his skull, before fleeing in the confusion that followed. It remains unclear whether Wild was targeted because he was a reporter, although he was not carrying his video camera at the time.

He is the 17th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the conflict began, and the first to die since US forces entered the capital in April, sparking a growing wave of guerrilla resistance. On Sunday his parents Robin and Daphne spoke of their vain attempts to stop him from making the trip. "The whole family tried their utmost to stop him going. But they seem to take least notice of their parents."

His mother said that she thought the venture foolhardy. It is certainly the case that freelancers, working alone, are always at a disadvantage without the backup and staff of an international news agency. And it remains uncertain whether Wild`s inexperience rendered him especially vulnerable.

His Cambridge University graduation portrait shows a broad and handsome young man with blond curls and a steady gaze. Educated at Sedbergh boarding school and Sandhurst, and a keen rugby player and rower while at university, one might initially assume that Wild was of a particular mould, and dismiss his determination to report on the reconstruction of Iraq with no previous experience as the actions of someone with more privilege than sense. It was suggested in some reports that Wild had been unwise in his conduct around Baghdad, and that his newly cropped hairstyle and height may have led his attacker to mistake him for an American soldier.

But yesterday a more complex picture emerged as friends described an individual passionately committed to telling the story of Iraq beyond the notional cessation of hostilities, hungry for experience but as professional as he knew how to be, as seasoned a clubber as he was a sportsman, a young man who appreciated the privileges that he had been granted, but was not defined by them.

After completing an MPhil in medieval history at Jesus College, Cambridge, Wild worked briefly as a banker and as an art curator, before moving into journalism. His fascination with the power of the visual image to inform and evoke had begun long before - as a student he would wander around Cambridge photographing odd scenes, and he later won a local photography competition with his portrait of a Brixton street preacher. In television journalism he seemed to find a connection between this and his equal intellectual passion for getting to the heart of an issue.

James Bays, defence and foreign affairs correspondent for Channel Five, arranged a work experience placement at ITN for Wild, who was one of his younger sister`s best friends. He shone and ITN took him on on a six-month contract. "You could tell this was someone a bit better and brighter than most. He had this very easy manner that seemed laid-back, but at the same time the moment you asked him something he knew all about it. This was a guy that stood out and you genuinely had a strong feeling that he would go all the way." Bays remembers a young man determined to do everything he could to learn more about the profession, begging spare cameras to experiment with at weekends, and devouring books of reportage.

Working as a picture researcher, it was Wild`s job to log all the images that came into ITN throughout the war, and it was then, believes television producer Yasmin Hai, that he became locked into the story to the extent that he was determined to get to Iraq himself. Hai became friendly with Wild when they worked together on the Channel 4 programme The True Face of War, which looked beyond the Gameboy imagery of the conflict and addressed questions of censorship and appropriate reporting. Hai was alerted to Wild when she came across an article written by him in the Observer, in which he discussed his experience of processing war footage for ITN.

"When we met I was immediately struck by him. I thought he was amazing. He was ambitious but also very sensitive in the way that he dealt with projects. Even though he was new to the job, we were so struck by his professionalism that the office joke soon became that one day he would be running ITN," she says.

Wild told Hai about his plans to go to Iraq. "I`ve known many young journalists over the years who travel to dangerous foreign areas to seek out their fortunes, and I usually wonder what that person has to offer. But Richard was different. I could really imagine him having something to contribute, and I could sense he was burning to get out there. I think he got locked into the Iraq story and was hoping to fill the vacuum left by the bigger agencies as they pulled out.

"He was really positive and optimistic about the trip. He was so entrepreneurial that he`d already secured some commissions. I rarely come across someone like him who you felt would really add to the way we tell a story. He was so vivid. I know that people say this after a death. But I think a lot of people recognised early on that there was something very special about him."

If Wild was single-minded in his pursuit of his passion, it was not to the exclusion of all else. Prodigious as his talents may have been, his greatest gift seems to have been for friendship. "For us his overriding trait was his infectious calm," says Toby Fisher, Wild`s flatmate and close friend. "He was a wonderful listener and had an uncanny ability to make others feel comfortable. He was the most popular of all our friends. He would welcome everyone and always see the best in them.

"But he wasn`t so loved simply because he was kind. He was also supremely cool and very funny. He wasn`t simply the posh public school boy who`d been to Sandhurst. He was the guy all the boys wanted to be and all the girls wanted to be with."

Fisher insists that, despite his friend`s apparent indecision over career path, he had found his calling in journalism. "He was certain that he wanted to report on foreign conflicts. His aims were clear - he wanted to report from the Iraqi perspective. He was in touch with Iraqi exiles in London, and writers and reconstruction groups in Iraq. He passionately wanted to tell the story that the mainstream news companies were ignoring." Fisher also insists that Wild was pleased to be going out to the country independently, and that he wasn`t unprepared. "He was a risk-taker," he adds, "and that was what made him such a compelling character."

His friend Jenny Kleeman recalls Wild as a student and notes his ability to span a wide range of friendship groups. "He was into everything. He took a lots of photographs, he was in plays, he wrote articles for the university paper. He went to college events, he went clubbing, he was always the last person standing at parties. He had an incredible energy about him."

"There was nothing that he couldn`t do," concurs Christopher Hirst, headmaster of Sedbergh school in Cumbria, where Wild eventually became head boy. "He was a model pupil. The boys looked up to him, and he was on very good terms with the members of staff." Rosamond McKitterick, professor of medieval history at Jesus College, likewise remembers an able student with an original and inquiring mind. "It`s a terrible waste. He was a lovely boy. He was so full of zest. He always wanted to get to the heart of things. And he was always great fun."

Jason Burke first encountered Wild a few months ago, when he approached the award-winning journalist for guidance about foreign reporting. "He wanted to know what I thought of him going to Baghdad to freelance. He was keen but not overly gung-ho." Burke recommended that he gain some experience on a local paper in the UK first before attempting to string from a foreign country. Burke himself arrived in Baghdad two weeks ago. "I was there for about three days when I get a phone call from the hotel lobby. It was Wild. The first thing I said to him was, `So I see you didn`t follow my advice then`."

"He wasn`t a specialist by any means," says Burke, "but he was approaching it in as professional a manner as someone could with that level of experience. It`s not half as dangerous as it sounds, and that day we met we were talking about how little we felt threatened as journalists. I had no sense that he was taking risks. There was nothing in his behaviour or demeanour that he was irresponsible."

Theo Youngstein bought his friend a pint at his leaving drink two weeks ago. "A lot of his friends didn`t want him to go but he was following a dream. I think we all responded to the news with a mixture of disbelief and anger. I still haven`t really got my head around the fact that he`s dead.

"Only 12 days ago I was sitting in a pub on Portobello Road with him. He was nervous, but he wasn`t the kind of guy to chicken out of something. He was more anxious about not having commissions than about his safety. He was an inspirational friend and he`ll be really really missed."

As news of Wild`s death filtered across his wide network of friends, groups came together to share memories of the most popular person they knew. Last night, a larger gathering was planned at his shared house in south-east London. But the last one standing at parties was elsewhere.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

War and Westminster
MPs put government under fire on Iraq

Leader
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

Forget Alastair Campbell for now. And put Andrew Gilligan to one side as well. Neither of them is the big issue. Yesterday`s foreign affairs select committee report is above all an advance for parliamentary accountability over British foreign policy. Mr Campbell`s stand-off with the BBC can dominate the headlines, but it is not the true focus of the report itself. That focus is indicated by the report`s own title: The Decision to Go to War in Iraq. As its first sentence says, the decision to commit armed forces to war is the most momentous that any leader can take. In the past, parliament never had a role in such decisions. That changed in 2003, when Britain only went to war in Iraq after a vote by MPs. Now the war is over, parliament is pressing its advantage further. The select committee report is another important first - a sceptical public probe into the heart of the most important decision that can be taken in public policy. As it makes clear at the end of its report, the committee now wants wider and stronger powers to go further. This is as it should be.

Overall, the committee has done a good job, given the limits of its powers and the tight time constraints. It is misleading to depict the report as having been written on strict party lines. Most of it was agreed on a non-partisan basis. Several key votes saw both the Labour and the Conservative groups on the committee divided. One vote, on the important conclusion in paragraph 100 criticising the "more assertive" language in the government`s September dossier, involved a tripartisan alliance voting down an all-Labour minority. The only big issue where the partisan divide was strict was over the Andrew Gilligan allegations that Mr Campbell "sexed up" the September dossier (and even here there is considerable convergence between the rival drafts). An important dispute, to be sure, but in the wider context it is a much less important argument than whether the government`s case for war was reliable and truthful in the first place.

And here, crucially, the overall tone of the report is overwhelmingly sceptical. It is full of distancing and cautious phrases. If the report had really been written by Blairite clones, they would not have employed the language that the committee adopts. On the September dossier, for example, the MPs conclude that the jury is still out - a subversive claim. On the dossier`s famous "45 minutes" claim, the MPs say this did not warrant the prominence it received. Else where, the MPs damn the dossier for its undue emphases and for its excessively assertive language. The dossier`s claim that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger in order to help build a nuclear weapon is trashed (as it has been by the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson). February`s "dodgy dossier" is even more savagely treated. It is dismissed as almost wholly counterproductive. The MPs say the way it was compiled was unacceptable; the upshot was to undermine the government`s case for war and to misrepresent it to MPs. Mr Campbell may have apologised for the document, but the new report emphasises the scale of the damage that it created.

Forget any idea that this report is the work of political patsies. On the contrary, the committee (and its clerk) has compiled a report which promises much future grief for officials from Downing Street, the Foreign Office and from the security and intelligence services. None of these groups is entirely exonerated by the report, even if some of them will be able to cite specific passages which clear them on particular charges. Overall, yesterday`s report underlines just how desperately hard the government struggled to make its case for going to war in Iraq alongside the United States. It struggled in the face of the public. It struggled in the face of the facts. And it struggled in the face of considerable scepticism inside government and Whitehall. It struggled for a very good reason: because the case was not - and is still not - convincing.

Which brings us to the Campbell-Gilligan dispute. At paragraph 77 in the report, Mr Campbell gets the sexing-up acquittal for which he has so loudly campaigned over the past few weeks. But he should be careful about pushing for his pound of Mr Gilligan`s flesh from the BBC. Though there are lessons from this episode for journalists, there are at least as many lessons for the government. Judged as a whole, the report is leery about many of Mr Campbell`s interventions in the drive towards war in Iraq. It is sharply critical of the way he operates within Whitehall. The report is a very substantial achievement. It contains many challenges for ministers to answer - challenges that will continue to mount the longer that the essential prewar case against Iraq remains unproven. Any ministers who claim this report is a vindication of the government`s policy over the decision to go to war in Iraq are deluding themselves, the public, or both. Perhaps not for the first time, either.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Our fake patriots
Britain is fast becoming Bush`s doormat - so why isn`t the British right saying a word?

George Monbiot
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

The prediction was not hard to make. If Britain kept supporting the US government as it trampled the sovereignty of other nations, before long it would come to threaten our own. But few guessed that this would happen so soon.

Long ago, Britain informally surrendered much of its determination of foreign policy to the United States. We have sent our soldiers to die for that country in two recent wars, and our politicians to lie for it. But now the British government is going much further. It is ceding control to the US over two of the principal instruments of national self-determination: judicial authority and military policy. The mystery is not that this is happening. The mystery is that those who have sought to persuade us that they are the guardians of national sovereignty are either failing to respond or demanding only that Britain becomes the doormat on which the US government can wipe its bloodstained boots.

A month ago we discovered that our home secretary had secretly concluded an extradition treaty with the US that permits the superpower to extract British nationals without presenting evidence before a court. Britain acquires no such rights in the US. The response from the rightwing press was a thunderous silence. Last week, we learnt that two British citizens held in the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay will be denied a fair trial, that they may stay in prison even if they are found innocent, and that they will not be returned to Britain to serve their sentences. There were a couple of muted squeaks in the patriotic papers, offset by an article in the Sunday Telegraph which sought to justify the US action on the grounds that one of the men had been arrested before. The story was spoilt somewhat by the fact that he had been released without charge.

But by far the most significant event passed without comment. Two weeks ago, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the Royal United Services Institute that he intends to restructure the British armed forces. As "it is highly unlikely that the United Kingdom would be engaged in large-scale combat operations without the United States", the armed forces must now be "structured and equipped" to meet the demands of the wars fought by our ally. Our military, in other words, will become functionally subordinate to that of another nation. The only published response from the right that I can find came from Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative defence spokesman. "The real question he must answer," Jenkin rumbled, "is how he can deliver more with underlying defence spending running behind the total inherited from the previous Conservative government." For the party of national sovereignty, there is no question of whether; simply of how.

Let us imagine for a moment the response of the patriots, had these assaults on our independence been attempted by or on behalf of the European Union. No, let`s not imagine it, let`s read it. In April, the Daily Telegraph pointed out that a few hundred men under the command of the EU had been deployed in Macedonia. This, it feared, could represent the beginning of a European army. Blair, it demanded, "must logically reject the plans for both political and military union". The Sun was terser. "The new army will need a flag," it said. "How about a white one?" But when Hoon raises the white flag and hands over not a distant possibility of cooperation, but our entire armed forces to another country, the patriots are silent. Why is it that the right has chosen to blind itself to what is happening? And what does it take to persuade it that the greatest threat to national sovereignty in Britain is not the European Union, but the United States?

The double standards are baffling. A few months ago, Paul Johnson, ancient custodian of our independence, wrote in the Spectator that the world "needs hero states, to look up to, to appeal to, to encourage and to follow". A sole superpower, he argued, "is a much safer and more responsible step towards world order than a corrupt pandemonium like the UN or a rapacious and blind bureaucracy like the EU." It is better, in other words, to humbly obey another country than to participate, with negotiating rights and voting powers, in a system of regional or global governance. This notion reflects the creed of the Tory party, some of whose members have been flirting with the idea of leaving the EU and joining the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The difference between the two, of course, is that if we joined the FTAA we would have to accept the outcome of negotiations in which we took no part.

It is the conceit of rightwing commentators that those who contest the surrender of British sovereignty to the US do so not because they are concerned about national self-determination, but because they hate the Americans. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking. On February 4, Michael Gove, in the Times, wrote an article headlined "The `68 reasons why Germany will always fail: Gerhard Schröder`s nation has not enjoyed a single success in 10 years", in which he raved about "a historic weakness in the German character" and the "anti-liberal" urge of the German people to follow "a special path, a Sonderweg". Three weeks later he wrote another piece, headlined "Stop the war! Give up bashing the Yanks", in which he claimed that "In defining whether Britain is, or should be, closer in sympathy to the US than the continent, a host of prejudices is unleashed."

So why is it deemed by the right to be patriotic both to oppose the EU and to appease the US? Why has the old reactionary motto "my country, right or wrong" been so smoothly replaced with another one: "their country, right or wrong"? Why does the British right now believe it has a God-given duty to defend someone else`s empire?

I think the first thing we must recognise is that the "patriotism" that informs the attacks on the EU is fake. The newspapers that are responsible for most of the hysteria about straight bananas and regulated sausages are owned and run by a Canadian (Conrad Black) and an Australian with American citizenship (Rupert Murdoch). These men seem to care nothing for the "British values" their papers claim to defend. Their conglomerates are based in North America, and they have much less of a presence in continental Europe. They would appear, therefore, to possess a powerful incentive for dragging Britain away from the EU, and handing it, alive and kicking, to the US.

American empire, unlike European convergence, is also unequivocally a project of the right; it establishes the political and economic space in which men like Murdoch and Black can work without impediment. But perhaps most importantly, our fake patriots know where real power lies. Having located it, they wish to appease it. For the very reason that the United States is a greater threat to our sovereignty than the European Union, they will not stand up to it.

· George Monbiot`s book The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order is published by Flamingo.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[LostLilith]

IRAQ WAR INTELLIGENCE
MoveOn Bulletin
Friday, July 4, 2003
Noah T. Winer, Editor
[e-mail]
Subscribe online at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking here:
http://moveon.org/s?i=1493-2803939-3wMl72nUi6dX5wlkmIkWag

------------------------------

GRASSROOTS INTERVIEW WITH REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN
U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman (Democrat-California) has long supported crucial health and environmental protection initiatives, including universal health insurance and the 1990 Clean Air Act. Since 2001, he has opposed efforts by the Bush administration to block congressional oversight and roll back health and environmental laws. Active in investigations of White House ties to Enron, Waxman fought for disclosure of the energy industry lobbyists who shaped the Bush-Cheney energy plan.

Rep. Waxman is in an interesting position: he voted for the Iraq war resolution in an effort to force a consensus in the United Nations, and has since become sharply critical of the intelligence the Bush administration relied upon in making its case for war. His letter to President Bush on this matter is included in this week`s bulletin.

Rep. Waxman will respond to five of the top questions posed by MoveOn members. Post your questions by Tuesday, July 8 at:
http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=259

------------------------------

CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. One Link
3. Niger Forgeries
4. Misrepresentation
5. Powell and Blix Have Their Doubts
6. Intelligence Sources
7. Impeachment
8. British and U.S. Inquiries
9. Ends Justify the Means
10. Misleader
11. Credits
12. About the Bulletin


------------------------------

INTRODUCTION
Arguing for the necessity of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush and other administration officials cited intelligence that Saddam Hussein`s government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Not only had Iraq manufactured chemical and biological weapons, the administration contended, they had attempted to obtain materials for nuclear weaponry. In one address, Bush said: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Yet more than two months after Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, no WMDs have been found. While he still insists such weapons will be discovered, evidence mounts that his administration`s drive for war was based on forged, inaccurate, and deliberately misconstrued intelligence.

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ONE LINK
No time for more? Read the New York Times` Paul Krugman on the Bush administration`s "denial and deception" to justify war in Iraq and why Congress won`t confront these distortions.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0624-04.htm

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NIGER FORGERIES
During the build-up to war, British and U.S. officials cited letters indicating Iraq had attempted to obtain nuclear material from the central African country of Niger. On March 7, shortly before the war began, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared the documents had proven to be forgeries.
http://www.moveon.org/r?457

The C.I.A. had debunked the Niger documents long before Bush began using them as evidence. The agency urged the State Department not to cite the forged letters when challenging Iraq`s weapons declaration in December.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-12-niger-usa…

In a March 17 letter to President Bush, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman called upon the President to explain the situation. As he said, "The two most obvious explanations -- knowing deception or unfathomable incompetence -- both have immediate and serious implications."
http://www.house.gov/waxman/text/admin_iraq_march_17_let.htm

Rep. Waxman has prepared two excellent factsheets: "The Bush Administration`s Use of the Forged Iraq Nuclear Evidence" and "What Intelligence Officials Knew about the Forged Iraq Nuclear Evidence."
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_nuclear_ev…

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MISREPRESENTATION
The Observer reports that the two vehicles Bush and Blair claim are mobile biological weapons labs are probably used to produce hydrogen for artillery balloons.
http://www.moveon.org/r?458

A memo from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity to President Bush: "What is at play here is a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions."
http://truthout.org/docs_03/050503D.shtml

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POWELL AND BLIX HAVE THEIR DOUBTS
"[U.S. Secretary of State Colin] Powell`s team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq`s banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, U.S. News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: `I`m not reading this. This is bullshit,` according to the magazine."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,968581,00.html

UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who retired on Monday: "It is sort of fascinating that you can have 100 percent certainty about weapons of mass destruction and zero certainty of about where they are."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0623-10.htm

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INTELLIGENCE SOURCES
>From the Washington Post:
"A still-classified national intelligence report circulating within the Bush administration...portrayed a far less clear picture about the link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by the president...."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19822-2003Jun21

"In this report we present the publicly available data that U.S. and UK leaders chose to ignore in the pre-war debate.... The reason those now searching for weapons are finding only traces, remnants, and precursors is that previous policies of sanctions and UN weapons inspection and destruction actually worked."
http://www.fourthfreedom.org/php/t-d-index.php?hinc=Unproven…

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on Rumsfeld`s new Office of Special Plans. Populated with associates of the Project for the New American Century, "the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon`s own Defense Intelligence Agency...as President Bush`s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq`s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda."
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

>From The New Republic:
A former staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted, "People [kept] telling you first that things weren`t right, weird things going on, different people saying, `There`s so much pressure, you know, they keep telling us, go back and find the right answer,` things like that."
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis06300…

------------------------------

IMPEACHMENT
John Dean, President Nixon`s White House counsel, says the case for impeachment would be easy legally, but impossible politically:
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be `a high crime` under the Constitution`s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony `to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.`"
http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html

A superb interview with Dean from BuzzFlash:
"Impeachment is a political proceeding, of quasi-legal nature. Republicans are not going to impeach their president. To the contrary, it is very clear they would defend him."
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/06/17_dean.html

------------------------------

BRITISH AND U.S. INQUIRIES
In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Tony Blair is under fire for his dossier alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. An inquiry underway in the Parliament has heard devastating testimony from former foreign secretary Robin Cook and former international development secretary Clare Short, both of whom resigned over Blair`s claim that Iraq was a "clear and serious threat."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,987816,00.…

An Associated Press report on the Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration`s handling of pre-war intelligence.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0626-10.htm

------------------------------

ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS
>From the Village Voice:
"New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman shrugged off WMD hype as a necessary selling technique for Bush, arguing that we hit Hussein `because we could` and that what matters is whether we succeed at building a `progressive Arab regime.` In other words, the ends justify the means."
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0325/cotts.php

------------------------------

MISLEADER
As regular Bulletin readers may know, the Bulletin topics aren`t necessarily part of current MoveOn campaigns. The issue of Iraq war intelligence, however, is the focus of MoveOn`s "Misleader" advertising campaign. Sign the petition to demand that Congress establish an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate and hold the President and his officials accountable if they manipulated or fabricated intelligence to justify taking the country to war.
http://www.moveon.org/distortion/

------------------------------

CREDITS
Research team:
Leah Appet, Russ Juskalian, Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, Janelle Miau, Sarah Parady, Kim Plofker, and Jesse Rhodes.

Editing team:
David Taub Bancroft, Nancy Evans, Judy Green, and Rita Weinstein.

------------------------------

[Joerver]

Blair has run out of steam - it`s time for him to quit
All leaders eventually lose the power to enthuse. This one is no exception

Hugo Young
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair is facing a crisis of credibility not on one front but two. They are his most punishing challenges in six years. He makes the big one sound like the BBC, and the weapons of mass destruction, and the unforgivable attacks on his integrity, concerning which a bloody battle will now unfold that has no winner. It matters deeply, for nothing is more important than the truth about why a country went to war. But it may not matter to so many people as much as the other erosion of belief. This is the existential crisis of a party leader who needs to face the unthinkable fact that he may have stayed too long.

Last week he almost began to admit it. For observers of Blair`s usual verbal certainties, his admission that he has been getting the words wrong all these years was a startling flash. Targets? Delivery? Hell, these don`t seem to be doing the trick, he said. What, Patricia Hewitt chimed in, are we really all about? The question goes deeper than words. A third term looms, and the high command seems to have no idea what to do to make it mean something. They yearn for radical renewal, yet the only reliable route towards it, I expect, is too radical to contemplate.

This is not a new problem. It lives deep in the ecology of our politics. Few postwar British governments have lasted more than six years. In those that have (Macmillan, Thatcher, as well, you may forget, as Major), the second half has been more vacant than the first. Young`s law perhaps: second halves always fade. Third terms slide towards inanition, or degrade into corruption and chaos. Labour never had the chance to test this experience: Blair`s term is about to break the Labour record. In the 20th century, the longest Labour term was Attlee`s fragmented 1945-51. But the phenomenon is systemic.

It is also mutual between governors and the governed. Both sides run out of steam. Successful government depends on a kind of shared galvanism lasting for as long as possible. In that time the skill of any prime minister lies in extending the life of public optimism, before it is clouded by the cynicism that inevitably waits on policy failures. And all policies, as is well known, are at some stage perceived to fail. This is the stage that Blairism, after doing its six years, now confronts, as its thinkers reveal, with their puzzled cries about where things have gone wrong, and the voters echo with their withdrawal from the game.

Another political leader anticipated the limited life-cycle of his value to his country. The Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, after winning two elections and holding the job for eight years, has declined to fight next year`s contest. Before he ran for the first time in 1996, he pledged himself to no more than two terms, and he has resisted all pressure from an anxious party to change his mind. This was partly in response to the particular Spanish scandal as perceived in his predecessor, the socialist Felipe Gonzalez, hanging on for 13 years. But it registered an important truth about politics in general. A leader who is thinking about his country, not himself, knows he has a limited amount to give.

There is certain to come a time when what he has to give is gone. It is always fair to ask when that time has been reached, though history makes a decent case for the bell that starts tolling around the six-year mark. Why not now for Tony Blair?

This is not the context in which the "Will Blair quit?" question is discussed in conventional society. We are not talking Granita restaurant deals, or machismo over the euro. Maybe we are getting away from the psychobabble that keeps the Blair-Brown relationship in place as the defining factor in the Labour party. Certainly I am reaching out beyond the question - the life-or-death question for 400 professional politicians - of which leader would best help them hold their seats, for there can be little doubt Blair would continue to keep most of them in situ.

But the question of what else this leader is any longer for has become a good one. His unique contribution to political renewal is already made. He has shot his wad on New Labour, and exhausted his ability to say anything new about it. He admits he cannot figure out a galvanic third-term programme except more of the same, which is failing to inspire his activists or reignite a trace of the national excitement that fired the country six years ago. None of which is surprising - but all of which marks a tipping point from leader-as-navigator to leader-as-man-of-self-pleasuring- hubris, in it because he likes the job, especially perhaps its international aspect, and thinks nobody else could do it: the trap that Aznar, with prescient self-discipline, chose to avoid. The question is more urgent because of the state of the Conservative party.

Alternating governments are the classic source of renewal in parliamentary systems, but only the most stubborn Tory fantasist could read into a handful of recent polls the imminent prospect of the logjam being broken by Iain Duncan Smith. So, short of a hung parliament with the Lib Dems becoming the overflowing vessel for discontent they have never been before, renewal can come only from within Labour itself. And if the renewalists are serious, they need to recognise that the passage of time has begun to make Blair the problem not the solution.

It is not so much that a Brown party - and it surely would be Brown`s - would change direction. But in this presidential era, the country is ready for a new voice. The language, the chemistry, some of the priorities and, crucially, the hope of voters would be shaken out of the groove. This is a rut where Blairism, with its intensely personal claims on ownership, shows signs of reaching the end of its natural life as anything much better than a tolerable but increasingly monotonous status quo that its progenitors, by their own admission, now struggle to find the words to bring to life.

The issue of longevity crosses the political map. Blair`s two most problematic global partners offer a contrast. Like French leaders before him, Jacques Chirac is a lifer. Minister, mayor, prime minister, president, he has been the public man in perpetuity, and for the last 35 years has not had to spend a single night in a house or bed he owned. George Bush exists in a system that recognises the finite limit in which one man can be of real use to his country.

History points the same way for Britain. Three-term leaders outlive their usefulness, and Tony Blair is no different. People might have different reasons to be pleased to see him go, notably his terrifying faith in personal moral crusades as George Bush`s henchman. But that would not be the big reason. The big one is the need to re-enliven sterile, thankless government. All Blair passion spent, someone else deserves a turn.

· [e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Kommentar über Schröder

Modernise or die

The future has more rights than the past, and with an ageing population and new forms of employment it is time to rethink the welfare state

Gerhard Schröder
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,993464,00.htm…

[Joerver]

US arrest of soldiers infuriates Turkey
Explosives find suggests Ankara wants to destabilise Kurdish Iraq

Michael Howard in Sulaimaniya and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

The Turkish army chief of staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, frustrated by the waning Turkish influence in northern Iraq, vented his fury at the US yesterday, declaring a "crisis of confidence" between the two countries.

His outburst in Ankara came after 11 Turkish commandos were arrested by US soldiers during a weekend raid.

Newspaper headlines in Turkey condemned the US forces as "Rambos" and "ugly Americans".

Gen Ozkok added: "We attach great importance to Turkish-American diplomatic and armed forces` relations."

The commandos were returned to Turkey yesterday after a half-hour telephone conversation between the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

A Kurdish intelligence official claimed that the Turkish soldiers had been linked to a plot to assassinate the newly elected governor of Kirkuk to destabilise the region so that Turkish forces would be needed to restore order.

American soldiers seized 15kg of explosives, sniper rifles, grenades and maps of Kirkuk, with circles drawn around positions near the governor`s building when they raided Turkish offices in Sulaimaniya.

The episode has stirred old Washington resentment at Turkey`s refusal to support the war and roused new concern about its designs on Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq.

Although Turkey has had troops in northern Iraq since the 1990s to pursue Turkish Kurdish separatists, its anti-war stand has denied it a place in America`s calculations for post-war Iraq. This irks the Turkish army, which would like to create a 12-mile buffer zone inside Iraq and have free rein to operate against Turkish Kurdish separatists in the area.

Since the war Turkish forces have infiltrated northern Iraq on three previous occasions.

"The Turks are showing that they have an interest up there, and one way or another they are going to maintain a watch," said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq expert at the National Defence University in Washington DC.

Postwar Kirkuk has been a relative success story. The governor, Abdulrahman Mustafa, a Kurd, was elected head of a multi-ethnic governing council two months ago.

"Ankara has repeatedly sought to exploit what it calls abuse of Turkomens by Arabs and Kurds in the city," the Kurdish official said.

Feridun Abdul Qadir, the interior minister in the Kurdish regional government in Sulaimaniya, said: "The Kurds and Turkomens of Kirkuk enjoy good relations. They don`t need outside forces coming in and stirring things up."

In April US soldiers in Kirkuk intercepted a Turkish special forces unit trying to smuggle arms into the city.

Colonel William Mayville, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which controls Kirkuk, said he had been working with local communities to ease tension.

Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator in Iraq, said last week that he was concerned about external interference in Iraqi affairs.

· Three US soldiers have been killed in incidents in Baghdad in 24 hours. Four others were wounded in a grenade attack on their convoy in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.


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`The right man in the right place`
Yesterday he took over from good ol` boy Tommy Franks. But unlike his predecessor, John Abizaid is an intellectual - of Arab descent. Julian Borger on the new head of central command in Iraq

Julian Borger
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

When John Abizaid was a teenage Arab-American growing up in a small dusty town on the edge of California`s Sierra Nevada mountains, he used to draw imaginary nations in his geography exercise book and name them "Abizaidland".

Abizaidland came into existence yesterday, when the 51-year-old army officer from Coleville was sworn in as General Tommy Franks` successor at central command, running military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the Middle East. Washington now has a civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, in place in Baghdad, and there are plans to set up an interim Iraqi administration at some point this month. But beneath the gloss, there are few illusions. Abizaidland is going to be a nasty and brutish place. American and British troops are under constant attack in an escalating guerrilla conflict, and the US military under General Abizaid`s command is going to run the country for the foreseeable future.

Given this miserable reality, the officer known to his West Point classmates as the "Mad Arab" is widely considered the best man the Pentagon could possibly dream of to do the job. He is a combat hero whose exploits have become the stuff of Hollywood movies. He is deeply respected by his troops, and - unusually for senior army officers - manages to get on well with the irascible defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Just as importantly, he speaks fluent Arabic, spent two years studying at the University of Jordan in Amman, and holds a masters degree in Middle East politics from Harvard.

"For once, we`ve got exactly the right man in the right place at the right time," says Judith Kipper, a Middle East analyst and a frequent critic of the Bush administration`s Middle East policy.

In the surprisingly catty back-biting world at the intersection of politics and the military in Washington, the mere mention of Abizaid`s name triggers nothing but superlatives. "He is the most outstanding officer on active duty in the United States army today," says Bill Nash, Abizaid`s former commanding general from his peacekeeping days in Bosnia, who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In military circles he is celebrated for his actions in the Grenada invasion, when the company of elite army rangers under his command was given the task of seizing an airfield at a place called Point Salines. Cuban troops had blocked the runways with wrecked vehicles, so Abizaid ordered one of his sergeants to jump-start a bulldozer and drive towards the barricade, absorbing Cuban gunfire while the Rangers followed in its wake. The action was later portrayed in the film Heartbreak Ridge, with Clint Eastwood playing the Abizaid role. The self-effacing general himself claims never to have seen the movie.

Abizaid`s intellectual credentials are also unusual among career army officers, but they represent the very opposite end of the scale from his predecessor. Franks is the ultimate good ol` boy from Midland, Texas, who passes his spare time tapping his toes to country music and watching DVDs of Eddie Murphy comedies. He was prepared to go through the diplomatic niceties required of the Centcom commander, but did it with gritted teeth, regaling fellow Americans with tales of how Arab notables had held his hand or even laid a hand on his knee while in conversation.

Abizaid is a far better representative of the understanding and inclusive America that Washington is urgently attempting to portray in the Middle East. His grandparents came from an old Christian family in southern Lebanon and emigrated to California in search of a better economic future. The Lebanese American community on the US West Coast is one of the most prosperous in the nation but the Abizaid family fared less well. John`s mother died when he was young, and his father, a mechanic, was also chronically ill. He took the family from San Francisco to Coleville in part because he thought the mountain air would be kinder to his health.

The future ruler of Abizaidland was a force of nature from an early age. He was his school football team`s star quarterback and repeatedly top of his class academically. Under his picture in the school yearbook, the 17-year-old wrote with chilling prescience: "A thousand soldiers are easily got, but a single general is hard to find."

John Baxter, one of his classmates, says: "He always had a plan in the back of his mind of what he wanted to do - and that was to achieve in the military. And we all thought `general`. And he just went on like a tank and went in that direction and he didn`t let anybody or anything get in his way."

Abizaid went straight to West Point where once again his potential stood out. The entry against his name at the military academy`s yearbook reads: "The `Mad Arab` came from the deserts of the West to become a star-man."

The "Mad Arab" nickname was just West Point locker-room slang. Abizaid was the archetypal all-American cadet, and did not speak Arabic as a child. He only decided to learn his forefathers` language after the 1973 oil crisis made it clear that the Middle East was going to be pivotal to US national security interests throughout the modern era.

He spent two years on a scholarship at the University of Jordan in Amman, learning Arabic and working on a thesis which he later finished at Harvard. He was in Amman during one of the most turbulent eras in Jordanian history, and the university was frequently closed down by student unrest. Abizaid used the time to go out into the desert with Jordanian special forces.

He also has personal experience in Iraq. Towards the end of the first Gulf war he was dropped into the north to help create a safe haven for Kurds, pushing Iraqi troops out of the region, and separating the Kurdish factions. The experience at least prepared him for some of the problems he is going to face in his new job. Writing about that period later, he said, "the problem shifted from confrontation with the Iraqis to that of keeping the Iraqis separated from armed Kurdish groups and preventing various hostile Kurdish groups from engaging each other."

Arab diplomats in Washington say they are delighted that the man performing what is probably the most powerful job in the Middle East has such a profound understanding of the Arab world. But they also point out that for all his sensitivity, he will also be leading an occupation force in Iraq, implementing US policy which is anathema to most Arabs.

His Arab antecedents may help him to a certain extent but that background is Christian, not Muslim. And even the Christian Arabs in his family village in Lebanon distanced themselves from Abizaid when they heard about his new job.

Abizaid will also have to overcome his distaste for the media. He has turned down all media requests for interviews and had to be pushed out in front of the press in Qatar during the Gulf war. He sparred with Arab journalists there, denouncing as "disgusting" al-Jazeera`s use of pictures of captured American soldiers. His claim to "love the Arab world" fell on hostile ears.

He has a near impossible task, at the command of a coalition force running a deeply divided and mostly hostile nation, where American soldiers are being criticised for being remote when they patrol in tanks, and then shot in the head when they mingle with the local population.

"I think the military is being put in an untenable position," Kipper says. "It`s not a job for a soldier. The big question is why this administration didn`t have a constabulary force on standby ready to go in there from day one."

More importantly, Abizaid is being sent in to command an occupation, the fundamental legitimacy of which is eroding with every day that goes by without trace of weapons of mass destruction. The general went as far as any senior serving officer to admit as much when he gave testimony to the Senate armed services committee. He told the senators: "Intelligence was the most accurate that I have ever seen on the tactical level, probably the best I have ever seen on the operational level, and perplexingly incomplete on the strategic level with regard to weapons of mass destruction."

Within the limits of Washington language, "perplexingly incomplete" means plain wrong. He is also thought to share the common perception among most army generals that the force sent in to Iraq was just too small to do the job asked of it, if not for the actual battle, then certainly for the aftermath.

Abizaid`s first task will be to plead with the Pentagon and US allies for more troops to keep a lid on the growing anti-occupation insurgency. That will not be easy. Rumsfeld is out to prove that modern wars can be won without multiple heavy infantry divisions. Recent reports from Bremer`s office in Baghdad that more troops were needed were angrily rejected by Rumsfeld`s office. Meanwhile offers of forces from America`s allies have fallen woefully short of target, and even eager friends such as Poland, who are willing to send soldiers into harm`s way, want the US to pay for it.

Abizaid at least has a head start on his fellow army officers in this regard, having avoided a direct clash with Rumsfeld during the war. But that relationship can only become more strained as the pressures on the new commander increase, and clash with the administration`s horror at giving the impression that American troops have been sent into a quagmire. For the next year, at the very least, Abizaidland is going to be a lousy place to live.


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MPs` fury at secret US trials of `terror` Britons
Geneva convention breached, claims minister

Nicholas Watt and Vikram Dodd
Tuesday July 8, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair is facing the most serious crisis in his relations with George Bush after ministers criticised the president for ruling that two Britons are to stand trial before a military court which can order executions.

Amid rising anger across the political spectrum, the Foreign Office minister Chris Mullin yesterday all but accused the US of breaching the Geneva convention as he expressed "strong reservations" about the secretive trial.

To ram home his message, Mr Mullin took the rare step of announcing that he would pass on copies of furious exchanges in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon to the US ambassador, William Farish.

Mr Mullin spoke out after Washington announced last week that President Bush had "designated" Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi to face trial before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Mr Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London, and Mr Begg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, have been held for 18 months without charge or access to a lawyer.

The two men face a trial where US military officers will serve as judge, jury and prosecution. The men can nominate their defence lawyer, but the lawyers have to get special US clearance.

In an emergency Commons statement, Mr Mullin let rip at the US. "We have strong reservations about the military commission," he told MPs.

He added: "We have raised and will continue to raise these reservations energetically with the US."

Mr Mullin indicated that the US was in breach of the Geneva convention.

Asked whether Britain accepted that the convention does not apply to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Mr Mullin said: "It is something we have discussed with the US, and frankly we disagree with them about it."

Mr Mullin, who made his name campaigning for the victims of injustice in Britain, warned that Britain would not tolerate the imposition of the death penalty.

"The US is aware of our fundamental opposition to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.

"If there is any question that the death penalty might be sought in these cases we would raise the strongest possible objections."

The outspoken government assault on the US came as the mother of one of the detainees met the Foreign Office minister, Lady Symons.

Zumrati Juma, mother of Feroz Abbasi, left the Foreign Office in tears after the meeting.

Mrs Juma and her lawyer Louise Christian tabled a series of demands including a call for Britain to increase the vehemence of its protests about the detention of its citizens, and about the fairness of any trial they may face.

Ms Christian said: "Private representations and diplomacy have not worked. Governments that have made formal protests, like Pakistan, have got a better deal. We are fearful that Feroz will be bullied into a plea bargain."

Within hours of the meeting, Mr Mullin launched his attack on the US. But he warned that "megaphone diplomacy" would be counter-productive.

His remarks came as MPs from all sides of the house lined up to condemn the Americans.

Geraint Davies, Labour MP for Croydon Central, protested at the "stark choice" faced by his constituent Feroz Abbasi - either to plead guilty and serve 20 years or plead not guilty and face an "unfair" trial.

"Will you make every effort to ensure the repatriation of my constituent and a fair trial in Britain, so that this kangaroo court does not proceed in Guantanamo Bay that could well end up with the killing of my constituent?" Mr Davies asked.

Mr Mullin replied: "You can rest assured, we are going to take a close interest in the wel fare of your constituent."

Douglas Hogg, the former Tory cabinet minister who secured the emergency Commons statement, condemned the US plan as "wrong, potentially unjust and gravely damaging to the Americans` reputation".

Nicholas Soames, the former Tory former defence minister, said: "All America`s friends, while understanding the very difficult and sensitive issues that surround these matters, nevertheless regret deeply the harm that is being done to America`s cause by their behaviour in this matter."

Mr Mullin said: "I certainly will pass that on.

"In fact, I shall pass on to the American ambassador the record of our exchanges this afternoon so the Americans can see for themselves how strongly members of this house feel."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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The phoney war
Reports by Andrew Grice and Ben Russell
08 July 2003


1. Iraq`s weapons

Serious doubts were raised yesterday about whether Saddam Hussein possessed the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on which Tony Blair and George Bush rested their case for war in Iraq.

In a damaging finding for Mr Blair, an inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee concluded that "the jury is still out" on the accuracy of the Government`s dossier on Iraq`s weapons, issued last September.

The MPs warned: "Continuing disquiet and unease about the claims made in the September dossier are unlikely to be dispelled unless more evidence of Iraq`s WMD programmes comes to light."

The committee challenged the Government, which must respond in detail to the report in two months, to say whether it still believed the document was accurate "in the light of subsequent events" - the failure yet to find WMD.

Although Mr Blair believes evidence that Saddam possessed WMD will be found, senior MPs warned that time was running out. Sir John Stanley, a Tory member of the committee, said: "The longer the period during which no WMD are found on the scale indicated in that September dossier, the longer the period when there is also no evidence that such weapons have been destroyed, the greater is going to be the concern - not only in this committee and in Parliament but also among the British people."

Writing in The Independent today, Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, says the Government`s alarmist claims in the run-up to the war now appear in conflict with post-war reality. He says: "We have not found any of the chemical weapons factories which we were assured were rebuilt. We have not traced the nuclear weapons programme which we were assured had been restarted. And we have not uncovered any weapons of mass destruction, never mind any within a 45-minute drive of the artillery units."

Mr Cook warns the Government not to make the security services the "fall guys" for the failure to find WMD by blaming poor intelligence. He says: "It was not the intelligence agencies who took the decision to go to war. The decision was that of the Prime Minister and it was he who used intelligence to justify the case for war."

Yesterday, a Ministry of Defence report on the early lessons from the Iraq conflict admitted that Saddam`s regime was "a very difficult intelligence target with few sources of information".

The MPs` committee also raised doubts about the quality of intelligence material, saying: "It appears likely that there was only limited access to reliable human intelligence in Iraq, and ... the UK may have been heavily reliant on US intelligence, on defectors and on exiles with an agenda of their own."

Q: How long can we wait for evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? And if none is found, will the Government admit the basis for war was flawed?

2. Alastair Campbell and the BBC

Many Labour MPs believe that the war of words between the Government and the BBC diverted the Foreign Affairs Select Committee`s inquiry - and the media coverage of it - away from the "real issue" of whether Iraq possessed WMD.

By persuading Tony Blair to allow him to give evidence to the MPs, Alastair Campbell, the director of strategy and communications, pictured, became the focus of the inquiry, and the dispute became the most serious between the BBC and a government. Without the row, yesterday`s report by the MPs would have been seen as critical of the Government.

Graham Allen, a Labour MP, said: "Alastair Campbell brilliantly diverted MPs and the media by throwing the media pack the bone of the BBC. Now everyone must try to get back to the real agenda and pursue the big questions - why did the UK go to war?"

The committee said too much prominence was given to the warning in the Government`s dossier issued in September that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes. But it cleared Mr Campbell of the allegation made by Andrew Gilligan, above right, the BBC`s defence correspondent, that he "sexed up" the dossier. It found Mr Campbell "did not play any role in the inclusion of the 45-minutes claim" and "did not exert or seek to exert improper influence" on the September dossier.

That allowed Mr Campbell to claim victory, but it was not total. The MPs were split on party lines, with three Tories, one Liberal Democrat and one Labour MP saying the committee should not reach a verdict on the BBC dispute.

Although Downing Street sought to lower the temperature last night, the BBC rejected Mr Campbell`s demand for it to say its original claim was wrong. The MPs` criticism of the "45-minute" claim justified the story, it said. The MPs also challenged the Government to say if it still believed the claim was justified.

The report failed to break the deadlock between the two sides. Although the Government will be relieved at the findings, the dispute has left a bitter taste for some. John Grogan, Labour MP for Selby and chairman of the all-party parliamentary BBC group, has called on the Government to stop pursuing the issue. "This row is now doing far more harm to the Government than it is to the BBC," he said.

Q: What was the basis for the claim that Saddam could deploy weapons "within 45 minutes"? And did Alastair Campbell pick a fight with the BBC as a diversionary tactic?

3. Niger and the `sale of uranium`

Tony Blair was under increasing pressure last night to justify the Government`s controversial claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from the African state of Niger.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee said that it was "puzzled" by the Government`s insistence that it stood by the claims, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dismissed the allegations as based on crude forgeries. Previously undisclosed documents from the Foreign Office, handed to the Commons inquiry, acknowledged that some of the documents passed to the IAEA were forgeries but said that they had not originated in Britain.

Questioned about the claim in the Commons a month ago, Mr Blair replied: "Until we investigate properly, we are simply not in a position to say whether that is so."

Yesterday the Government stuck to its line that its September dossier was accurate, with the Foreign Office insisting that its information came from more than one source, and was received after the visit of a former United States diplomat to Niger to investigate the claims.

But Joseph Wilson, who was asked by the CIA to investigate sales of uranium from Niger to Iraq, said on Sunday it was almost certain that British and American leaders knew they were circulating false reports.

"That information was erroneous and they knew about it well ahead both of the publication of the White Paper and the President`s State of the Union address," Mr Wilson told NBC television.

Yesterday the committee of MPs said it was "very odd indeed" that ministers were still reviewing the evidence about Saddam`s alleged dealings with Niger despite the Government`s insistence that it did not base its claims on documents now known to be false.

The MPs challenged the Government to explain the evidence for its allegations, and declare whether it still believed the claims to be accurate.

Q: As the Government still maintains that Saddam was seeking uranium from Niger, when will it produce the evidence to support the allegations?

4. The dossier

Iain Duncan Smith increased the pressure on Tony Blair last night to apologise for misleading Parliament over the provenance of the "dodgy dossier".

The Conservative leader called on Mr Blair to make an urgent statement to correct his claim to MPs that the February dossier represented "further intelligence".

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee heavily criticised Mr Blair, saying he "misrepresented" the dossier, which was largely plagiarised from academic articles on the internet. Alastair Campbell was attacked for not asking vital questions on the origins of the document.

It was revealed during their inquiry that 90 per cent of the document had been lifted from published papers, a mistake condemned as "wholly unacceptable".

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has acknowledged the affair was a "complete Horlicks", while Downing Street and Mr Campbell have admitted that mistakes were made. Mr Duncan Smith told Mr Blair in a letter: "The select committee report is clear and explicit in stating that when referring to the dossier you `misrepresented its status`. Consequently, you gave an inaccurate impression of the dossier to both Parliament and the British people."

He called for an independent inquiry into the affair. He added: "It is in your interest to clear up the confusion and immediately take the appropriate action against those persons responsible for you committing the serious mistake of misinterpreting intelligence in Parliament."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, also called for Mr Blair to apologise for "unwittingly" misleading Parliament.

Q: Will Tony Blair now apologise for the "dodgy" dossier? And, as this was the first time Britain has gone to war on the basis of intelligence, will there now be a judicial inquiry?

5. The legal basis for war

Tony Blair, senior ministers and loyal backbenchers have deployed a host of reasons to justify the war alongside the prime case for disarming Saddam Hussein.

Mr Blair used the failing authority of the United Nations as a key argument for taking action to prevent Saddam`s defiance of weapons inspectors.

However, he was left a severe political and legal problem when he failed to obtain a second resolution finally and unequivocally authorising force.

The Attorney General provided the ultimate legal basis for British involvement in the war in advice to the Cabinet in March. His advice was crucial after the threatened French veto ended hopes of gaining full international backing for war.

Lord Goldsmith based his advice to the Cabinet on the force of successive UN Security Council resolutions, based on the terms of the ceasefire after the 1991 Gulf War.

His one-page legal opinion argued that Saddam was in material breach of Security Council resolution 1441 because he failed to co-operate with weapons inspectors. That, he said, triggered the justification for the use of force passed in Security Council resolution 687 after the 1991 Gulf War.

Despite widespread suspicions that regime change was the ultimate aim of the growing confrontation with Iraq, Mr Blair consistently shied away from advocating the toppling of Saddam as a major war aim, except if it was necessary to secure disarmament. The distinction was crucial, because while acting in self-defence to neutralise a threat or imposing the will of the UN could be declared legal, simply intervening to topple a foreign leader could not.

Mr Blair insisted that he was acting through the UN to preserve the unity of the international community. However, Clare Short, the former secretary of state for international development, challenged that claim, accusing the Prime Minister of agreeing a secret pact with George Bush to go to war by the spring.

But Mr Blair linked Saddam with the threat of terrorism and suggested links with al-Qa`ida before the war. Mr Blair told Labour`s Welsh conference in February: "I tell you it is fear, not the fear that Saddam is about to launch a strike on a British town or city ... but the fear that one day these new threats of weapons of mass destruction, rogue states and international terrorism combine to deliver a catastrophe."

In March he told MPs: "Do not be in any doubt at all - Iraq has been supporting terrorist groups. For example, Iraq is offering money to the families of suicide bombers whose purpose is to wreck any chance of progress in the Middle East."

Before and after the war, ministers stressed the human rights abuses and tyrannical nature of the regime. The Government`s publication of a dossier on Saddam`s human rights abuses was widely condemned as opportunistic. But the Government encouraged the work of the Labour backbencher Ann Clwyd, who has been a staunch campaigner against human rights abuses in Iraq. She was instrumental in briefing Labour MPs before the vote on war in March.

Last week Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, pointed to the removal of Saddam and his regime`s support for Palestinian terrorism as a significant encouragement to the Middle East peace protest.

A group of 16 senior Labour backbenchers also justified backing war by declaring that "removing Saddam Hussein was not only morally justified, it has also provided an opportunity to resolve some of the most intractable problems of the Middle East."

Q: Was Mr Blair`s primary aim regime change? Did he use WMD `evidence` as an `honourable deception` as Clare Short says? So was this war illegal? If so, will Tony Blair resign?
8 July 2003 09:22


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 08, 2003

Voters losing faith in Blair over Iraq war
By Peter Riddell and Philip Webster

Trust in Prime Minister slides as dossier row with BBC rages


PUBLIC support for the war in Iraq and trust in Tony Blair have fallen sharply over the past month with the killing of British and American troops and the row over the Government’s dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons, an opinion poll for The Times finds today.

The Populus survey found that more than half of voters would not trust the Prime Minister further than they could throw him and that people no longer regard him as more honest than most politicians. Both Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy were rated more highly on trust and honesty.

There is also a striking drop in the number of people who believe that it was right to go to war — from a peak of 64 per cent in April, 58 per cent last month to 47 per cent now. The number saying it was wrong has risen sharply to 45 per cent, from 34 per cent last month and 24 per cent in April.

The findings will add to the pressure on Mr Blair as he prepares to appear before MPs today to defend his handling of pre-war Iraqi intelligence. Yesterday the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found that a government dossier on Iraq last September gave “undue prominence” to the claim that Saddam could launch chemical or biological weapons at 45 minutes’ notice. It also concluded that Mr Blair “inadvertently” misrepresented a second report — the so-called dodgy dossier — in February.

It did clear Alastair Campbell, the Downing Street communications director, of calling for the September report to be embellished — but only on the casting vote of the Labour chairman, and the row between No 10 and the BBC over its claim that Mr Campbell had asked for the dossier to be “sexed up” continued unabated.

Mr Campbell said that his demand for an apology stood and the BBC made plain that it had no intention of giving one.

There were hints in government and BBC circles last night that the source of the “sexing up” report was close to being unmasked and The Times has been told by a senior government insider that he is thought to be a London-based Foreign Office official who is not a member of the intelligence agencies.

BBC sources have said privately that the debate would be transformed if the source were named, but government insiders say that there are fears within the corporation that its case would be weakened if he were unmasked. One said: “If the name of this guy comes out, it will show what a lot of nonsense this has been.”

Both sides of the argument seized on parts of yesterday’s select committee report to claim victory. Downing Street officials demanded that the BBC should “set the record straight” by acknowledging that it had been wrong, while the BBC claimed that its decision to broadcast its allegations had been vindicated.

Mr Campbell said: “It goes without saying that our demand for an apology still stands. The evidence is so overwhelming that the BBC story was wrong that we should not even have to ask. Also, the reality is that nobody can force them to.” Mr Blair, who is exasperated by the amount of time ministers and officials have spent countering the BBC story, will also repeat the demand that the BBC should admit that it was wrong when he appears before the Commons Liaison Committee of select committee chairmen this morning.

But the corporation said: “The BBC believes today’s report from the foreign affairs committee justifies its decision to broadcast the Today programme story of May 29 and the Newsnight story of June 2 and shows that both were in the public interest.

“In particular, we believe the decision to highlight the circumstances surrounding the 45-minute claim has been vindicated. It is because of BBC journalism that the problems surrounding the 45-minute claim have come to light and been given proper public attention.”

Mr Duncan Smith meanwhile seized on the committee’s conclusions on the February dossier to ask Mr Blair to apologise for misleading the Commons. He said the Prime Minister should correct the record in accordance with the ministerial code which states that it is of “paramount importance” that ministers correct “any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity”.

He said: “You must outline specifically why such a serious mistake occurred and deal appropriately with those responsible for the final compilation and publication of the dossier.”

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, said the case for an independent inquiry into the Government’s use of pre-war intelligence was overwhelming: “We still do not know whether the intelligence, upon which major decisions were taken, was flawed. It is time we found out.”

The picture was further confused when Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, published his first report on the “lessons learnt” from the Iraq conflict.

It said that while coalition commanders had believed the Iraqis may have been willing to use weapons of mass destruction, it was unclear whether they were actually able to deploy them. “It was judged that the regime might use theatre ballistic missiles and possibly weapons of mass destruction if it could make the capabilities available for operational use and secure the obedience of subordinate commanders,” the report said.



Populus — which found that Labour still had a small lead over the Conservatives with 36 per cent support to the Tories’ 34 and the Liberal Democrats’ 21 — interviewed a random sample of 1,000 adults by telephone between July 4 and 6. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results weighted to be representative of all adults.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-738580,00.html

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July 08, 2003

US offers reward for assassins of ‘collaborators’
From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad



IRAQIS are being offered thousands of dollars in rewards to identify the gangs of Saddam Hussein supporters who are trying to frighten recruits off joining the new police force.
Many officers are having second thoughts about working for the US-sponsored force after a spate of bomb and gun attacks. Saddam loyalists are said to be threatening the families of new recruits, saying that anyone linked to what they call “collaborators” will be murdered.

Such tactics are also being successfully deployed against power-grid workers, civil servants, teachers and other groups co-operating with the US-led administration, forcing many to abandon their posts.

Anxious to bolster morale in his fledgling police force, Bernard Kerik, the former New York Police Commissioner, said that his reward programme was intended to show that “it’s time for the Iraqis to stand up and go after these people”.

Faced with rising violence from what are proving to be well-organised insurgent groups, the NYPD veteran is offering $2,500 (£1,700) in cash for the capture of anyone involved in attacks on local officers and US troops.

Nervous newcomers to the force are, however, sceptical that this is the answer to stopping the murderous assaults on them.

Officers on routine duties, such as manning a checkpoint, betray fear in their every move. At one roadblock on a main highway into Baghdad yesterday, one new recruit was so petrified that he could barely speak. His eyes darted constantly from one side of the road to the other, his finger was curled tightly around the trigger of his automatic rifle and the sweat ran down his face in rivulets as he described how he and other recruits believed that they were now the main targets for Saddam’s assassins.

Murdering an Iraqi policeman still does not attract the same headlines as shooting a British or American soldier, unless it is an incident such as the weekend booby-trap explosion in Ramadi, in which seven recruits died and a dozen more were injured as they were about to graduate from their US-run training school. Days later the bloodstains are still smeared across the pavement, where the young patrol was cut to pieces by a remote-control device detonated as the recruits marched back to their police station on Saturday.

Survivors helped to bury the dead and wondered aloud when the next attack would come in the town 60 miles west of the capital, a stronghold for diehard Saddam elements.

Most Iraqis are appalled at the spate of killings, but say that they are as powerless to stop Saddam’s agents now as they were when he was in power.

Hamdoun Alayan, 22, wonders whether he should give up his job before he becomes the next victim of Saddam’s killers. “My family are proud of me for trying to do something to help my country, but they ask me if it is worth my life,” he said. At least 15 Iraqi officers have been killed in the past three weeks, while many more have reportedly received death threats.

Officer Alayan said: “I’m not working for America. This is for Iraq as the quicker we can take over all the security duties, the sooner the US troops will disappear from our streets.”

In his audiotaped message last week, Saddam threatened more attacks on “collaborators”. Resistance groups know that the most effective way of derailing US efforts to establish law and order is to scare off the US-trained local security force.

The officers have no body armour nor helmets, no radios and not enough guns for all of them to carry one on duty. With no effective courts and too few officers, senior figures such as Captain Thamir Karim accept that the police are struggling to gain the respect of their countrymen.

“Too often we are seen as doing the Americans’ dirty work. We take the risk of searching cars while the Americans stay in the safety of their armoured vehicles,” he said. “We are not America’s puppets and yet we are losing more men, killed by our brothers.”

The Iraqi Police Force is a mixture of new recruits from Iraq’s vast pool of unemployed and officers who served during Saddam’s time but were vetted and regarded as “suitable” to continue in their jobs. So far there are fewer than 4,000 police officers in a country of 26 million.

Captain Leithi Hothayer says that officers are paid around $120 a month, but are already asking for a pay rise. Cradling his automatic rifle across his chest, he said: “We know the gunmen want us to run away. They want security to break down. But we won’t give up.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-738392,00.html

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July 8, 2003
Bush Claim on Iraq Had Flawed Origin, White House Says
By DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, July 7 — The White House acknowledged for the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa.

The White House statement appeared to undercut one of the key pieces of evidence that President Bush and his aides had cited to back their claims made prior to launching an attack against Iraq in March that Mr. Hussein was "reconstituting" his nuclear weapons program. Those claims added urgency to the White House case that military action to depose Mr. Hussein needed to be taken quickly, and could not await further inspections of the country or additional resolutions at the United Nations.

The acknowledgment came after a day of questions — and sometimes contradictory answers from White House officials — about an article published on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on Sunday by Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger, in West Africa, last year to investigate reports of the attempted purchase. He reported back that the intelligence was likely fraudulent, a warning that White House officials say never reached them.

"There is other reporting to suggest that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa," the statement said. "However, the information is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that attempts were in fact made."

In other words, said one senior official, "we couldn`t prove it, and it might in fact be wrong."

Separately tonight, The Washington Post quoted an unidentifed senior administration official as declaring that "knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq`s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." Some administration officials have expressed similar sentiments in interviews in the past two weeks.

Asked about the statement early today, before President Bush departed for a six-day tour of Africa, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said, "There is zero, nada, nothing new here." He said that "we`ve long acknowledged" that information on the attempted purchases from Niger "did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect."

But in public, administration officials have defended the president`s statement in the State of Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

While Mr. Bush cited the British report, seemingly giving the account the credibility of coming from a non-American intelligence service, Britain itself relied in part on information provided by the C.I.A., American and British officials have said.

But today a report from a parliamentary committee that conducted an investigation into the British assertions also questioned the credibility of what the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair had published.

The committee went on to say that Mr. Blair`s government had asserted it had other evidence of Iraqi attempts to procure uranium. But eight months later the government still had not told Parliament what that other information was.

While Mr. Bush quoted the British report, his statement was apparently primarily based on American intelligence — a classified "National Intelligence Estimate" published in October of last year that also identified two other countries, Congo and Somalia, where Iraq had sought the material, in addition to Niger.

But many analysts did not believe those reports at the time, and were shocked to hear the president make such a flat, declarative statement.

Asked about the accuracy of the president`s statement this morning, Mr. Fleischer said, "We see nothing that would dissuade us from the president`s broader statement." But when pressed, he said he would clarify the issue later today.

Tonight, after Air Force One had departed, White House officials issued a statement in Mr. Fleischer`s name that made clear that they no longer stood behind Mr. Bush`s statement.

How Mr. Bush`s statement made it into last January`s State of the Union address is still unclear. No one involved in drafting the speech will say who put the phrase in, or whether it was drawn from the classified intelligence estimate.

That document contained a footnote — in a separate section of the report, on another subject — noting that State Department experts were doubtful of the claims that Mr. Hussein had sought uranium.

If the intelligence was true, it would have buttressed statements by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that Saddam Hussein was actively seeking a nuclear weapon, and could build one in a year or less if he obtained enough nuclear material.

In early March, before the invasion of Iraq began, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismissed the uranium reports about Niger, noting that they were based on forged documents.

In an interview late last month, a senior administration official said that the news of the fraud was not brought to the attention of the White House until after Mr. Bush had spoken.

But even then, White House officials made no effort to correct the president`s remarks. Indeed, as recently as a few weeks ago they were arguing that Mr. Bush had quite deliberately avoided mentioning Niger, and noted that he had spoken more generally about efforts to obtain "yellowcake," the substance from which uranium is extracted, from African nations.

Tonight`s statement, though, calls even those reports into question. In interviews in recent days, a number of administration officials have conceded that Mr. Bush never should have made the claims, given the weakness of the case. One senior official said that the uranium purchases were "only one small part" of a broader effort to reconstitute the nuclear program, and that Mr. Bush probably should have dwelled on others.

White House officials would not say, however, how the statement was approved. They have suggested that the Central Intelligence Agency approved the wording, though the C.I.A. has said none of its senior leaders had reviewed it. Other key members of the administration said the information was discounted early on, and that by the time the president delivered the State of the Union address, there were widespread questions about the quality of the intelligence.

"We only found that out later," said one official involved in the speech.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 8, 2003
Iraqis Will Join Governing Council U.S. Is Setting Up
By PATRICK E. TYLER


SALAHUDDIN, Iraq, July 7 — Warning that increasing violence is rallying the remnants of Saddam Hussein`s government, the main Iraqi political groups that supported the United States and Britain in toppling the Iraqi president said today that they would join the first postwar interim government later this month and press for greater powers under the occupation authority.

The groups` decision marks the final stage of a two-month-long exercise in brinkmanship between former Iraqi opposition leaders and L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, over how much power and authority the Iraqi leadership body will be given.

In Baghdad, Shiite Muslim tribes from central and southern Iraq met for the first time to discuss how they, as the country`s religious majority, could help create a united Iraqi nation.

Also today, United States officials announced a plan to overhaul Iraqi financial institutions. They appointed a central bank chief, Faleh Salman, and took steps to give the bank autonomy from the country`s political leaders. Starting in October, officials said, a new currency will replace the old dinar with Saddam Hussein`s image on it.

It appears, though, that American officials may retain veto power over monetary policy and other decisions.

At the same time, several prominent members of the former opposition forces, including Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, and Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, said they were urging United States military commanders in Iraq to allow the creation of an Iraqi national security force to help thwart attacks that are destabilizing the country.

"We always told the Americans that the most difficult stage would be after the war and that it is not good for them to be in the forefront," Mr. Barzani said after the daylong session in this city in northeastern Iraq.

"They should keep their distance," he added, "and support Iraqi forces as they try to solve the problems themselves."

The Iraqi political figures say they have support for the force from Gen. John P. Abizaid, who is taking over the United States Central Command from Gen. Tommy R. Franks, and from Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense.

The United States is training a police force for Iraq and a future army, but there is no third force, a Central Command official said tonight.

The force, its proponents said, would be a paramilitary army trained and equipped by the United States on a crash basis to confront the remnants of Mr. Hussein`s Baathist government, which are believed to be responsible for killing 29 American soldiers since May 1.

Mr. Bremer swept aside plans made in May by his predecessor, the retired lieutenant general Jay Garner, to turn over significant powers to an Iraqi provisional government.

The United Nations resolution that recognizes the United States and Britain as occupying powers in Iraq calls for a swift transition to Iraqi rule, but Mr. Bremer initially said he preferred to appoint an advisory "political council" of Iraqis, taking a year or two to create a constitution and hold popular elections.

Today`s decision comes as Mr. Bremer faces increasing pressure to put an Iraqi government in place to deal with a host of issues. Among them are the deteriorating security situation, in which guerrilla attacks on American convoys and bases have caused concern in the Bush administration about whether plans to build a new Iraqi state are working. Three Americans were killed on Sunday in separate attacks.

In negotiations with Iraqi leaders in the last several weeks, Mr. Bremer made a number of concessions, most prominently that they would have a governing role under the authority of the occupation powers. He promised, Iraqi political leaders say, to grant extensive powers to an Iraqi interim government, which will appoint and supervise an Iraqi council of ministers, set oil and other economic policies, issue a new currency, draft a budget and send ambassadors out into the world.

Mr. Bremer has even designated the former Ministry of Military Industries building in central Baghdad as the future home of the interim government, so it will have offices separate from the occupation authorities.

In another symbolic gesture, Mr. Bremer began calling the new Iraqi ruling body a governing council, instead of a political council, in public statements in the last two weeks.

It is expected to declare itself a leadership body later this month, after weeks of negotiations aimed at making it appear that its 25 to 30 members "emerged" after "consultations" among prominent Iraqi political figures and were not directly appointed by Mr. Bremer.

This fig leaf has apparently transformed attitudes among former Iraqi opposition figures, who were eager to take part in rebuilding the country, but fearful of risking their credibility with constituents.

"We need an Iraqi government, and we think now that the Americans realize that Iraqis are the only ones with the experience for maintaining security, administration and for filling the political vacuum," said Adel Abdul-Mahdi, whose grandfather served in the first Iraqi government in the 1920`s and who now represents Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim`s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

One of Ayatollah Hakim`s representatives made it clear last month that the group would not work with a "political council" that Mr. Bremer appointed. Other opposition figures made similar statements, saying they would boycott any interim administration that made them appear to be "lackeys" of the occupation powers.

Shiite leaders in southern Iraq have been particularly critical of Mr. Bremer`s reluctance to grant Iraqis a significant role in transitional governance. Their frustration built to the point where Iraq`s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a religious edict, or fatwa, demanding that Iraqis elect a constitutional drafting committee.

"Sistani`s support is essential for the constitutional process," Mr. Chalabi said.

In a joint statement issued today, the seven members of the "leadership council" of the former Iraqi opposition indicated that their negotiations with Mr. Bremer were not yet concluded.

"The meeting welcomed the formation of a governing council, considering it a step in the right direction toward the formation of a provisional government," the statement said. Several Iraqis who attended the meeting today said that a decision had been made that they would serve on the governing council, but that negotiations continued on who would serve with them.

Mr. Bremer clearly has put forward his own slate of candidates, including Adnan Pachachi, 80, the elder statesman of Iraq`s diplomatic corps, and Dr. Lena Abboud, 28, a gynecologist who was part of a delegation of Iraqi women who met with Mr. Bremer during his first month in Baghdad.

Representatives of Iraq`s tribal groups, along with Turkmen and Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, are also expected to join the roster.

Mr. Pachachi said in an interview in Baghdad during the weekend that Mr. Bremer had agreed that a majority of the governing council members would need to be Shiites, to reflect their 60 percent majority of Iraq`s population.

"There needs to be a Shiite majority, if for no other reason than to avoid criticism, since the Shiites have been the most deprived of their rights," Mr. Pachachi said.

Today, Mr. Barzani expressed satisfaction in the new formulation. He and another Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, are Washington`s closest allies among the former Iraqi opposition groups.

"Now the governing council will have real power and authority and there will be no puppets," Mr. Barzani said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 8, 2003
Iran Confirms Test of Missile That Is Able to Hit Israel
By NAZILA FATHI


EHRAN, July 7 — Iran has successfully conducted the final test of a midrange missile, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry here confirmed today.

The missile, called Shahab-3, was first tested in 1998 and has a range of 806 to 930 miles, which means it can reach Israel and American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

The spokesman, Hamidreza Assefi, was responding to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week, which said the test had been carried out just over a week before.

"Apparently, the Israelis are late in getting the information," Mr. Assefi said at the Iranian Foreign Ministry`s weekly news briefing. "The test took place several weeks ago, and it was a final test before delivering the missile to the armed forces. It was within the same range that we had declared before."

Iran contends that the missile relies entirely on Iranian expertise, but it is widely believed that the Shahab, or shooting star in Persian, employs North Korean technology. The United States Department of State imposed penalties on a North Korean company and five Chinese companies last week, saying they sold missile technology to Iran.

"We are very concerned, especially since we know that Iran is seeking to acquire the nuclear weapon," an Israeli government spokesman, Avi Pazner, said immediately after the Iranian confirmation, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.

"The combination of Shahab-3 and the nuclear weapon would be a very serious threat on the stability of the region," he added, according to the report.

The United States said today that it had "very serious concerns" about Iran`s missile programs and that it viewed them as a threat to the region and to American interests. But American officials said that the latest test flight was one of several in recent years and that it was not a particular surprise.

"We have long had very serious concerns about Iranian missile programs," said Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman. He said the United States had noted Iran`s efforts to develop its missile abilities for nearly two decades.

He said that the missile program was "a threat to the region and a threat to U.S. interests in the region" but that it would be addressed with diplomatic, political and economic pressure with "like-minded countries" along with other Iranian activities, including its nuclear weapons program.

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran had secretly processed nuclear material. Iran has denied those accusations, insisting that its nuclear research is meant only for peaceful purposes like energy.

Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain, during a visit to Iran last month, said the European Union would cut trade ties with Tehran if it refused to open its sites to inspections.

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is scheduled to visit Iran on Wednesday. He is expected to urge the Iranians to sign a protocol that would allow the agency`s inspectors to make surprise visits to nuclear sites and to take samples.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Zainab Muhammad Mohyialdeen works as a translator for allied forces but does not tell other Iraqis because she is "sure I will be killed."
July 8, 2003
Iraqis Keep Working for Allies, but Danger Makes Them Fearful
By SHAILA K. DEWAN


AGHDAD, Iraq, July 7 — On the way to and from work, the pass that identifies Zainab Muhammad Mohyialdeen as a translator for an American Army brigade is stashed in her purse. To the cabdrivers who drop her at the palace gates, she says, she denies that she is on the military payroll. If the neighbors ask, her mother says her daughter is visiting relatives for the day.

"There are some people who look for those who are working with the Americans," said Ms. Mohyialdeen, a smiling 28-year-old wearing shimmering makeup and a head scarf. "If they know, those people, I`m sure I will be killed."

Ms. Mohyialdeen does not exaggerate. In recent days, it has become all too clear that allied soldiers are not the only targets of grenade attacks, sniper fire and ambushes. Anyone who works for or with the allied forces is in jeopardy. Iraqi translators have been the victims of sniper attacks, the homes of professors helping to restore the university system have come under fire, and two days ago, a bomb exploded in Ramadi, northwest of Baghdad, killing seven young Iraqi police recruits.

Police stations have been attacked by grenades and drive-by shooters, particularly in the north of Baghdad, said Lt. Michael Stadnyk, the intelligence officer for the support squad of the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. He said that he had not tracked the number of attacks, but that "I know they`re happening, and I know they`re ongoing."

But if the attacks are intended to fray the fragile trust between Iraqis and those who have come to help them, interviews with about a dozen Iraqis who work with Americans suggest that they are not succeeding. The Iraqis said people harassed them, accused them of treason and sent them death threats. But none said they would quit. "It will never stop me because I trust myself, and I trust God." Ms. Mohyialdeen said. "I want to help my country to make a new life, to get human rights, and also to get modern life, especially because we are a rich country."

"Whenever I go out on patrol, I start praying," she said.

Most workers said they would keep their jobs because they viewed the Americans as a positive force for Iraq. But there were corollary reasons, like the sheer need for a job in a country that does not have many.

Abduljaber Khudari, 40, was a police warrant officer for 24 years, but said he thought twice before taking his old job back when the American-led authorities were rebuilding the police force. Friends and neighbors warned him, he said, that he would be seen as a collaborator with the occupation. But Mr. Khudari has six children, ages 6 to 18. "I was hesitating at first, but later on I decided to rejoin the service," he said. "I needed the job."

Mr. Khudari, who now earns $60 a month, sat in the yard of the Khalamiyah police station in central Baghdad, a place teeming with construction workers, American military police officers and Iraqi police officers in various stages of uniform. His fellow officers crowded around, telling stories of a colonel they knew in a small town north of Baghdad who had been ambushed on the road.

Mr. Khudari said he found a threatening letter in his yard one morning — a letter he said many police officers had received. It stressed that Saddam Hussein`s Republican Guard and his intelligence services had not joined forces with the allied forces. "Leave the coalition forces, or else you will regret it," the letter read, according to Mr. Khudari. It was signed "Iraqi Liberation Army (Muhammad`s Army)."

Mr. Khudari tore the letter to pieces. "At first I wanted to quit," he said. "But I knew it was a terrorist act, so I wanted to continue."

He said that at the time, things at the station were so chaotic that he had not told the Americans about the threat. He told neighbors that he had quit his job, and now takes his uniform off before going home.

"I am still afraid," he added, before a translator came to call him for duty. "I don`t have a gun. I am mostly afraid for my family."

Even shopkeepers who do business with soldiers have become targets. In Tikrit recently, anti-allied graffiti appeared near a site where a grenade was planted inside the Saeef Sho Shop for electronic equipment and satellite dishes. Muhammad Hashm, the proprietor`s brother, said: "If they are great fighters, they should go fight the Americans, not the shop owners. Heroes know who to fight and where to fight."

People interviewed offered a variety of explanations for the intimidation. Some blamed members of Mr. Hussein`s Baath Party who had lost privileges. Others said it was religious fanatics, or even thieves who wanted lawlessness to continue. Still others said their jobs made them the object of envy, especially to people who come to military installations to ask for employment or help.

"The psychological reason for this is jealousy, and the other is the falsely patriotic people," said Asad F. Jasim, 30, a former poetry professor who now works as an interpreter for the First Armored Division. "If they were really patriotic, they would have protected the Iraqi people from the massacres of Saddam."

Because of the threats to translators, Mr. Jasim`s commander gave him a bulletproof vest and large Army goggles to disguise his face. "I`ve lost two friends who were translators in the last week," he said.

When asked why he continues, he echoed many others, saying: "I believe in fate. I welcome fate whenever it comes."

Many said most Iraqis are happy to see them and welcoming to the troops. Some have even found that working for Americans confers status. Mukhlis Tooma, a translator for a unit commanded by Capt. Thomas Hough, said the troops had helped his neighborhood find cheap, scarce diesel to run its generator. "They think I own the captain," he boasted.

Iraqi employees often find themselves relaying unpopular policies from the new foreign occupiers. At the Baghdad airport, one translator was punched in the face on Sunday when he told a man to stand back while his car was searched.

Lt. John Walsh, who is coordinating the effort to reopen the airport, sat having tea with employees on airport grounds. What was once a checkpoint to keep residents from entering the airfield has been left there to protect them, he said.

The employees said they were not fazed by hostility when they went to town to shop or eat. But Lieutenant Walsh said: "It scares me, the looks and the stares. It`s not friendly."

One manager, who, out of fear, would give his name only as Nasir, said there was no choice but to work with the occupying forces. "For the life we`ve been dreaming of, we must sacrifice," he said.


The Saeef Sho store in Tikrit, which sold electronic equipment to American soldiers, was reduced to rubble by a grenade attack.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 8, 2003
In Blair We Trust
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


LONDON


One of the saddest results of our war in Iraq is that it may finish off Tony Blair before Saddam Hussein.

Everywhere I go in Britain, people dismiss Mr. Blair as President Bush`s poodle. Mr. Blair`s Labor Party has fallen behind the Conservatives in the latest poll, for only the second time in 11 years. "The Iraq critics think that the prime minister has betrayed his country to a Texas gunslinger," William Rees-Mogg noted in The Times of London.

So it`ll sound foolish when I suggest that President Bush should study Mr. Blair and learn a few things. But on the other hand, everybody likes Mr. Blair but the Brits.

A poll by the Pew Research Center found that Mr. Blair was the world leader Americans trusted most (Mr. Bush ranked second), respected by 83 percent of Americans, and he was also highly esteemed in countries as diverse as Australia and Nigeria. More interesting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair took very similar positions over the last couple of years, and both exaggerated the Iraqi threat — and yet Mr. Blair is perhaps the leading statesman in the world today and Mr. Bush is regarded by much of the globe as a dimwitted cowboy. Or, as an Oxford don put it to me after perhaps too much sherry, "a buffoon."

The main reason is that the White House overdosed on moral clarity.

Mr. Bush always exudes a sense that the issues are crystal clear and that anyone who disagrees with him is playing political games. This fervor worked fine in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and in proper doses, moral clarity is admirable. But too much hobbles policy-making and insults our intelligence.

Mr. Blair stands with Mr. Bush on Iraq but acknowledges the complexity of the issues.

"Yes, there are countries that disagree with what we are doing; I mean, there`s no point in hiding it — there`s been a division," Mr. Blair told reporters at Camp David early in the war, when the two leaders were asked about opposition to the war among allies. But Mr. Bush gave no ground, saying: "We`ve got a huge coalition. . . . I`m very pleased with the size of our coalition."

Mr. Blair met Pope John Paul II and the archbishop of Canterbury to discuss their opposition to the war. But President Bush refused to discuss objections to the war with the head of the National Council of Churches or even the head of his own church, the United Methodists.

Political insults are a traditional British sport (Churchill famously described his rival Clement Atlee as a sheep in sheep`s clothing, and as a modest man with much to be modest about). But Mr. Blair dignifies his opponents by grappling with their arguments in a way that helps preserve civility — and that we Americans can learn from.

Mr. Bush is not the dummy his critics perceive. My take is that he`s very bright in a street-smarts way: he`s witty and has a great memory for faces, and his old girlfriends speak more highly of him than many women do of their husbands. But he`s also less interested in ideas than perhaps anybody I`ve ever interviewed, and his intelligence is all practical and not a bit intellectual. Nuance isn`t his natural state, and yet he gives us glimmers to show he can achieve it.

The last time Mr. Bush seemed genuinely to wrestle with an issue was the summer of 2001, when he acknowledged the toughness of the stem cell debate. He showed an impressive willingness to puzzle through stem cell policy and seek a compromise.

If Mr. Bush had pursued that same model of policy-making into Iraq, then we would not have alienated our allies or bungled postwar planning because of rosy assumptions.

In 1979, James Fallows wrote a legendary critique of President Jimmy Carter`s "Passionless Presidency." He argued that Mr. Carter was a smart, decent man who excelled in details but catastrophically lacked a sweeping vision to inspire the country and animate his presidency.

Well, now we`ve got a Passionate Presidency. But it`s so focused on big-picture ideological campaigns that it doesn`t bother with details (like what we will do with Iraq after we`ve conquered it). Mr. Blair offers a third way — passion tethered to practicality, idealism without ideologues.

Given that Mr. Blair might end up with time on his hands, perhaps Mr. Bush could hire him as an adviser.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
This Presidential Africa Visit Takes A Different Route


By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A14


DAKAR, Senegal, July 7 -- The president of the United States visits the old slave house on Goree Island here in Dakar and outlines a happy future for Africa. He goes on safari in Botswana and celebrates that country`s relative successes. And he pays a visit to the presidents of Uganda and South Africa, praising the triumph of black South Africans over apartheid.

Sounds like the African trip President Bush begins Tuesday? Perhaps -- but it actually describes President Bill Clinton`s 1998 trip to Africa. Bush`s five-day, five-country tour will take him to four of the countries Clinton visited -- of the nearly 50 in sub-Saharan Africa. He is scheduled to make remarks in the same parking lot at the same Botswana reserve that Clinton used for that purpose; he`ll also ride down the Bill Clinton Highway in Nigeria, visit the hotel in Entebbe, Uganda, that has a Clinton Pavilion and Clinton Imperial Suite from his predecessor`s trip. Like Clinton, Bush will discuss foreign aid, food shortages, regional security and democracy.

Yet a comparison of the two presidential trips to Africa, similar as they are in itinerary, also shows the vastly different styles of the two men -- and the radical changes that have occurred in world affairs, and in Africa, over the past five years.

Clinton`s visit, against the backdrop of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was meant to celebrate Africa`s emergence from oppression. Bush`s visit comes as the United States ponders sending U.S. troops to Liberia, AIDS in Africa has mushroomed into a catastrophe and the overriding mission of the White House is fighting terrorism.

The personal style of Bush could hardly differ more from his predecessor`s. While Clinton took 11 days to see six countries, Bush is taking five days to see five. Clinton spent the better part of two days on safari; Bush will dispense with the safari in one hour.

Clinton visited Nelson Mandela`s old jail cell on Robben Island and toured the memorial in Soweto to a boy killed by police. Bush will visit only Pretoria, associated in many South African minds with the white minority that ruled the country until a decade ago. While Bush will emphasize the importance of sexual abstinence in preventing AIDS, Clinton`s trip included an event highlighting the problem of female genital mutilation.

Clinton`s trip showed that president`s many appetites. He was observed chewing a cigar and beating an African drum in his Dakar hotel room after a federal judge threw out the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. He tried everything on a safari buffet that included zebra and crocodile and enjoyed a sumptuous state dinner at a mountain vineyard outside Cape Town. He brought along 40 non-administration guests, including some contributors, on what the GOP called a "fundraising safari." And he gave aides heartburn with his off-the-cuff musings about slavery.

Bush`s visit, by contrast, will show his penchant for order and discipline. He is taking few guests. His visits to Botswana and Uganda are tightly scheduled day trips. And there are few opportunities for leisure or for fielding questions.

So, too, do the two trips highlight the difference in worldviews of the two U.S. leaders. Clinton spent his African voyage regularly expressing contrition for America`s past, saying it was "wrong" to receive slaves and regretting the "sin of neglect" of Africa. Appearing with Mandela, Clinton avoided points of friction between the two.

Bush, as is his custom, will have some tough talk for Africa. He will be furthering his spat with the European Union over genetically altered crops; Bush says Europe`s ban of such foods is worsening starvation in Africa. And he plans to make an AIDS speech in South Africa, perceived by some as a slight directed at President Thabo Mbeki, who has tried to minimize the seriousness of the threat.

Bush can potentially deliver more than Clinton did. At the time of his visit, Clinton was hobbled by scandal; Bush is untainted and leading a unified Republican government. He will be able to boast about two significant aid programs for Africa, including a $15 billion AIDS initiative.

AIDS will dominate Bush`s trip in a way it did not consume Clinton`s -- reflecting the plunging life expectancy as the disease spreads; South Africa`s average lifespan of 53 years is expected to drop to 41 years by 2010. Although Bush is not planning to visit Liberia, a decision to send U.S. peacekeepers there could overshadow his trip.

Finally, the specter of terrorism will color Bush`s trip far more than it did Clinton`s pre-Sept. 11, 2001, journey. Bush will talk about the subject often, and it is reflected in his itinerary. When Clinton visited Ghana, he faced a crowd of hundreds of thousands and was at one point rushed by the group. (Today, about 50 protesters shouted, "George Bush, assassin, George Bush, criminal," as they marched through rush-hour traffic here in Dakar.)

Bush will have no such exposure to the masses. Plans to visit Kenya -- plagued by terrorism threats -- were dropped, and the visit to Abuja, Nigeria, could be canceled if violence persists.

Terrorism will infuse Bush`s speech opening his trip Tuesday in Dakar and closing his trip Saturday in Abuja. In between, he will visit a military health training facility in South Africa, praise the country`s role in creating regional stability and discuss his plan to give $100 million to help five vulnerable African countries fight terrorists. Two weeks ago, Bush said his "first great goal" for Africa is peace and security, ahead of health and economic growth -- a ranking reflecting the changes since the relatively carefree Clinton trip.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Urban Combat Frustrates Army
Attackers in Baghdad Using Cover of Crowds, Buildings

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, July 7 -- As attacks on occupation forces in Iraq escalate, assailants in Baghdad have used the capital`s bustling crowds, tall buildings and busy streets as avenues for surprise strikes and easy escapes -- elements of urban warfare that U.S. troops managed to avoid during the military campaign to topple the government of Saddam Hussein.

On Sunday, a U.S. soldier was fatally shot in the neck outside a packed cafeteria at Baghdad University by a man who disappeared into a throng of students. On Thursday night, a soldier poking out of the hatch of an armored vehicle was killed by a sniper perched in an eight-story building across the street. And 10 days ago, a civil affairs soldier walking along a sidewalk was gunned down by an assailant who had appeared from -- and then disappeared back into -- a swarm of shoppers.

"When you`re in the middle of a city, it`s impossible to tell friend from foe," said Sgt. Lawrence Adams of the 1st Armored Division, whose field artillery unit has been attacked seven times since it arrived in Baghdad in early May to patrol a two-square-mile sector along the Tigris River. The incidents included mortar fire from a nearby neighborhood, a drive-by shooting, a rocket-propelled grenade launched from a bus stop and hand grenades tossed at soldiers` Humvees as they drove through a congested market.

The daily attacks that use the urban landscape for concealment and flight have frustrated and frightened U.S. forces in Baghdad, many of whom have to drive through the city in open-sided Humvees, stand in front of government buildings and walk through public places every day. On a mission to restore public order and rebuild a war-scarred nation, soldiers regard themselves as particularly vulnerable to resistance fighters who take advantage of the fact that not all U.S. troops are hunkered down in sandbagged bases or driven around in armored vehicles.

"If we have to be peacekeepers here, we`re going to be exposed to all kinds of attacks," said a military police officer. "Sure, we have our flak jackets and our helmets -- and we`re always on the lookout for suspicious activity. But the depressing thing is that there`s not a whole lot we really can do about those guys who are determined to try to kill us."

U.S. military commanders had hoped to avoid urban combat in the earliest days of the war and relied on airstrikes and a strategy of drawing the Iraqi army outside this sprawling city of 5 million people. But since Hussein`s government collapsed and the war was declared over, unpredictable guerrilla-style attacks against U.S. troops have escalated.

The death of Pfc. Edward J. Herrgott of Shakopee, Minn., illustrates the everyday dangers confronting U.S. troops. On Thursday evening, Herrgott was manning the gunner`s hatch of an M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle parked in front of the entrance to the Baghdad Museum, facing an eight-story building that has stores on the first two floors and an abandoned parking lot on the upper floors. Around 8:30 p.m., as the sun was setting but there was still enough light to spot a target, a sniper fired three rounds at the Bradley, killing Herrgott, said Habib Saleh, a guard at the shopping center who witnessed the shooting.

"They should be somewhere else," Saleh said of the soldiers at the museum, which houses unremarkable wax figures in displays that depict life in Baghdad a century ago. "It`s not safe where they are."

The day after the shooting, members of Herrgott`s unit stood behind the Bradley, nervously scanning the parking lot every few minutes. When a visitor approached on the sidewalk, they refused to talk, saying that walking toward a nearby razor-wire barricade would put them at risk.

But one of the soldiers, who would not provide his name, shouted that the troops in front of the museum had been shot at before. "This happens all the time," he growled.

Although no soldiers from Adams`s unit -- Alpha Battery of the 4-27th Field Artillery -- have been killed, none of the unit`s attackers has been apprehended either. "If we`ve got somebody firing at us from a bus stop across the street, you can`t automatically open fire on them," said Adams, 46, of Kansas City, Mo. "And you don`t always want to chase them in a Humvee."

On Sunday night, a U.S. soldier was killed in Baghdad`s Adhamiyah neighborhood after he and other soldiers pursued two gunmen who had ambushed a patrol, military officials here said. A few hours later, insurgents threw a homemade bomb at a U.S. convoy in northern Baghdad, killing another soldier, the officials said.

Those two fatalities brought to 30 the number of U.S. military personnel killed by hostile action since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. U.S. officials blame the attacks on fighters still loyal to Hussein, Islamic extremists and others disgruntled with the occupation of their country.

The attackers have become bolder, often striking in broad daylight. At the same time, they have become more selective in their targeting. Instead of attacking large, armed convoys, they now plant homemade bombs along streets where foot soldiers frequently patrol, attack convoys of light vehicles and catch victims off-guard with random, point-blank shootings in public places.

"We`re hit more now that the war is pretty much over," said Spec. Justin Keeney, 22, of Oregon City, Ore., who drives a heavy equipment truck between Baghdad and military encampments northwest of the city. "When we haul tanks or artillery, they don`t mess with us. If we have engineering equipment, we get lit up. It`s almost guaranteed."

Pfc. Kyle Clark, 20, of Kent, Wash., a gunner on a military police Humvee who patrols Baghdad, said his unit was "shot at two times in the last two days." In one instance, a sniper fired from a school. Soldiers returned fire, then cordoned off the area around the school, but the assailant leaped over a wall and escaped, Clark said.

"Two or three weeks ago, we used to be hit only at night," said Spec. Heath Montensen, 28, a driver with the 11th Transportation Company who travels throughout the area northwest of Baghdad. "Now we get hit during the day."

Such urban combat not only poses an immediate threat to soldiers` lives, it has the potential to stir resentment toward occupation forces at a time when the U.S. government is attempting to focus attention on its efforts to rebuild Iraq. The deaths of innocent civilians trapped in crossfire or explosions have inflamed emotions among Iraqis who question the ability of the troops to bring stability to the country and have undermined support among those who have chosen to work with the occupiers.

When a bomb exploded in the median strip of busy Haifa Street on Thursday, killing two Iraqis and injuring 12, angry residents held U.S. troops responsible for all the deaths and injuries, even those caused by the Iraqi-laid bomb rather than the spray of bullets that American troops fired in response.

"I blame the Americans," said Ahmed Midhat, 12, whose legs were shredded by flying shards of metal from the explosive device. "You know why? The Americans started to shoot randomly."

Many soldiers say they are not surprised by the increasing attacks or the displays of anger among Iraqis.

"They`re getting tired of us," said Spec. James McNeely, 48, a member of the D.C. National Guard`s 547th Transportation Company. "Wouldn`t you be mad if they invaded your country?"

McNeely said his unit has had little chance to interact with Iraqis or play a part in the nation-building operations that Washington hopes will win the support of Iraqis.

"We`re just trying to survive, trying to make our lives a little more pleasant," he said during a stop at a roadside vendor to buy soft drinks for the men on his truck before heading into the military compound at Baghdad`s international airport.

For others, the attacks have become not only frightening, but disheartening.

"We get so much resistance, we hear so much about different military people getting killed, it seems like people don`t want to be helped," said Spec. Julian Snelling, 21, of Fredericksburg, Va., a member of the 307th Military Police Company. "Many Iraqis love us, but the bad apples alter your thinking."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, in Tokyo last week to promote "Terminator 3," won`t say whether he`ll run for governor of California if Gray Davis is recalled. (Koji Sasahara -- AP)
Die Welt wird immer verückter.

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Political Muscle
When It Comes to a Possible Run for Governor, Arnold Is Acting Coy

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page C01


WESTWOOD, Calif.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is out promoting his new movie, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." He is attacking his publicity regimen -- Leno, Howard Stern, "Good Morning America" -- with customary discipline.

He is not interested in discussing whether he`ll run for governor of California. "Arnold is staying on message, and the message is T-3," says George Gorton, a Republican consultant who is advising Schwarzenegger on matters that are, right now, not on message.

But politics is following Arnold everywhere. There are "Arnold for Governor" signs outside the "T-3" premiere, at which Arnold toothy-grins from the red carpet. A few nights earlier on Leno, Snoop Dogg had christened him "Notorious G.O.P." "I would love to be governor of California," Arnold himself says in the current Esquire.

Cynics might say -- and God save cynics in Dreamland -- that Arnold Schwarzenegger, 55, is attempting to exploit interest in his potential candidacy to promote his movie. Or exploit his "T-3" promotional efforts to promote his campaign. Either way, by coincidence or calculation, Schwarzenegger is starring in this summer`s biggest cross-promotional blockbuster.

He is a muscular man of monomaniacal focus. In the 1975 cult documentary "Pumping Iron," Schwarzenegger boasts of how he didn`t return home to Austria after his father died because he feared it would interfere with his bodybuilding workouts. The Mr. Olympia competition was just a few months away -- just as California might be a few months and a few thousand signatures away from firing its Democratic governor, Gray Davis, in an unprecedented recall initiative.

But again, Schwarzenegger, who is married to Kennedy cousin Maria Shriver, is not discussing politics. Not until he`s finished promoting "T-3," which sold an estimated $44 million in tickets over the weekend. Not now, not publicly and not for this article, for which he declined to comment.

Which is something of a True Lie, because Arnold, in fact, is talking endlessly about politics. Others are bringing up the topic and he hardly shies from it.

"You will be the next governor of California. . . . We will help," Howard Stern told Schwarzenegger on his radio show recently. "I`ll get you in office. But I need to be invited to the mansion."

"There is no mansion in Sacramento," Schwarzenegger said.

"Then I need to videotape you and Maria having sex," Stern said. "I need some sort of perverted payment."

One gets the feeling this could be more fun than, say, the Lieberman campaign.

A Lift From Fans
Arnold`s celebrity muscle is unquestioned, though the degree to which that translates to electoral success is not. Outside the "T-3" premiere at the Mann Village Theatre here, Amanda Wight would seem the passionate embodiment of his appeal. She drove two hours from Bakersfield to catch a glimpse. She is a big fan of Arnold and a non-fan of Davis. If only she were old enough to vote (she`s 17).

Across the street, Brent Seguine, who is old enough to vote, is bemoaning the mess his home state faces. It needs Arnold, he says, now more than ever, and he would absolutely support him if he ever ran for governor -- of New Jersey.

Seguine, the comptroller of a chemical company, has been here for an hour and a half. He is standing a few feet from a "Terminate Gray" sign that`s been discarded against the wall of an ice cream shop. He is with his friend James Scott, a registered nurse in a Hooters cap. They met through the Three Stooges Fan Club.

"I can`t vote for Arnold for governor," says Scott, who`s from Illinois, "so I`ll wait for him to run for president." He is told that Schwarzenegger was born in Austria and thus is constitutionally barred from the presidency. Regardless, both Scott and Seguine agree that Arnold`s candidacy would thrive among Three Stooges fans.

And bodybuilders. "They are Arnold`s most fervent supporters," says Gorton, the consultant. "When Arnold walks into a gym, these guys come up to him and tell their stories. They`ll say, `I used to be a 90-pound weakling, but then I read your book and saw your video and whatever.` Arnold`s like a god to these people. I`m not saying you could win an election on that, but . . . "

It`s a start: weight lifters, teenagers, out-of-state Three Stooges fans, Stern and Snoop -- the beginnings of a political base.

One of the sweetest parts about a Schwarzenegger candidacy is listening to political pros discuss his prospects. "He clearly has to run as Kindergarten Cop, not as the Terminator," says Phil Trounstine, director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. Trounstine, a former press secretary to Davis and political reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, says the candidate would need to project a kinder, softer image that would appeal to soccer moms and dads.

Schwarzenegger`s violent record on celluloid won`t hurt him if he runs, says Republican consultant Don Sipple. "If he played a well-known serial killer character it might be a problem," Sipple says. For instance, Anthony Hopkins, of "Silence of the Lambs" fame, might struggle to expand his base beyond cannibals.

The Plot Thickens
The basic plotline of Total Recall 2 begins with an aptly-named protagonist, Gray Davis, whose approval ratings have plunged to 21 percent. He finds himself in a death match with a $38 billion budget deficit, a hostile legislature and a recall campaign that`s become increasingly viable.

By California law, a governor can be subject to a recall vote if opponents gather the signatures of a certain percentage of registered voters based on turnout in the previous election -- 897,158 in this case. Recall organizers say they have submitted close to 400,000 signatures to election officials and say they have hundreds of thousands more waiting to be processed.

The recall campaign is being driven and funded by Rep. Darrell Issa, a two-term Republican from the San Diego area who made his fortune selling car alarms. Issa, who has said he would like to succeed Davis, has put more than $1 million into the campaign, which Davis has called "partisan mischief."

But if recall supporters turn in the required number of signatures by next week, the state could hold a special election this fall.

A recall of Davis "looks almost certain at this point," says Richard Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles. In addition to Issa, Los Angeles businessman Bill Simon, whom Davis beat last November, might run if Davis is recalled. So might Riordan, but only if Schwarzenegger, whom he calls a close friend, does not. For now, a host of well-known Democrats -- including Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- say they have no plans to run on a recall ballot. Neither will actor, director and Democratic activist Rob Reiner, denying Californians a coveted Meathead vs. Terminator scenario.

A recall ballot would include two straightforward questions: Should the governor be recalled? And if he is, who should replace him? A recall campaign could be an ideal portal into elective politics for Schwarzenegger. The campaign would be quick and wide-open, the kind that rewards name recognition. It would spare him the grind and scrutiny of a long campaign.

Schwarzenegger has been active in Republican circles for years. He has stumped for numerous Republican candidates and chaired President George H.W. Bush`s council on physical fitness. He toyed with the idea of opposing Davis in 2002, which amounted to nothing more than a great slogan: T2 in `02.

His most sustained and visible foray came last year, when he led a ballot initiative to ensure some state funding for before- and after-school programs that would provide tutoring, sports and other activities. His work on Proposition 49 -- which involved fundraising and a regimen of speeches across the state -- was lauded by people in both parties. Opponents said the measure would come at the expense of more pressing educational needs. Proposition 49 passed easily.

Schwarzenegger`s positions on the issues are not widely known. But he is commonly described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, a supporter of abortion rights, adoption by gay and lesbian parents and, at least off-screen, a ban on assault weapons.

Once people get to know Schwarzenegger, Gorton says, "once they see that he`s not some thug in a leather jacket," they will warm to him even more. Gorton, who ran the Proposition 49 campaign, is eating lunch at Schatzi on Main, Schwarzenegger`s restaurant in Santa Monica, whose menu fuses California salads with Austrian staples such as bratwurst and Wiener schnitzel. Upstairs his office, which includes a special room for mementos of his Austrian youth.

Gorton has canceled two vacations this summer and is getting about 15 calls a day from the media about Arnold`s political plans. Schwarzenegger is compassionate, philanthropic and civic-minded, Gorton says. He is eager to help his community, to work for children and give back to his adopted country. He also has a gift for oil painting, Gorton says, "although very few people know this."

In "Pumping Iron," the then-gaptoothed Schwarzenegger spoke of his fascination with dictators. "I look down on people who are waiting, who are helpless," Schwarzenegger said, as quoted by writer Wendy Leigh in "Arnold," an unauthorized biography written in 1990. "I like people who think there is more to life than eating and going to the toilet."

At minimum, Arnold is 6-2 and 220 pounds, a man of supreme balance, proportion and symmetry -- the tenets he preached as a bodybuilder. People underestimate his mind -- the musclehead stigma -- which Schwarzenegger rather enjoys.

Still, Schwarzenegger is hardly a let`s-prove-`em-wrong type. One of the guiding objectives of his life is to have fun. "The first 10 times I saw Arnold, he told me to relax and lighten up," Gorton says. "This is someone who loves to have a good time."

It`s not clear why anyone`s idea of a good time would include a $38 billion budget deficit, a contentious legislature and a state credit rating that`s plummeting toward junk-bond status. There`s also the question of whether Arnold would withstand the shoot`em-up rigors of a statewide campaign, even a short one. "He has been involved with ballot initiatives in the past, but that`s the political equivalent of a B or C movie," says Democratic consultant Kam Kuwata. "But a campaign for the governor of California is huge. It`s a blockbuster." Kuwata is not involved in the recall campaign.

It could be a big-screen fantasy, the mid-career amusement for a pumped-up icon (although increasingly flabby, judging by a photo in the latest People magazine). Schwarzenegger wouldn`t be the first celebrity to flirt with running for office (see Warren Beatty, Charles Barkley, Cybill Shepherd). At the very least, if Arnold elects not to flex his twitchy political muscle this time around, maybe he`ll sell some "T-3" tickets during the run-up.

At worst, he runs and loses, gets the electoral equivalent of sand kicked in his face by a puny-necked Bill Simon or Darrell Issa. He says "Hasta la vista, baby!" to politics. And he moves on to Terminators 4 and 5.

"He`ll just go back to being Arnold Schwarzenegger," Gorton says. "And really, how bad could that be?"




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Facing Reality in Iraq




Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A16


MOST OF IRAQ is stable, and most Iraqis continue to cooperate with the U.S. mission in the hope that it will succeed in passing power to a representative government. But in military terms, the postwar situation is getting worse rather than better. Enemy forces, concentrated in areas north and west of Baghdad where support for the old regime was strongest, have grown bolder and more effective by the week, and Saddam Hussein himself apparently managed to smuggle a defiant message to the al-Jazeera network in time for the Fourth of July. While their degree of organization and connections with the former dictator are debatable, the militants pose a clear strategic threat to the U.S. mission beyond the painful cost in lives they are exacting. The danger is that they will succeed in triggering a broader guerrilla war against U.S. troops fed not just by loyalty to the Baath Party but also by popular discontent with American occupation -- a war that could destabilize Iraq and the region around it. To head off that threat, the Bush administration needs to act decisively and soon.

The first step toward regaining the initiative would be full acceptance by the administration of the fact that more resources are needed -- more money, more civilian administrators and more troops. Assertions by Washington-based Pentagon officials that the current force is large enough don`t square with reports from the field, which depict a steadily mounting conflict as well as sinking morale among some U.S. units exhausted after months of hard duty. Nor are the Pentagon`s reports about the recruitment of allied forces encouraging: Though 70 nations have been contacted, only about 10 have made concrete commitments, and the number of non-U.S. troops is due to rise only from 12,000 to 20,000 by the end of summer. The poor support is a direct result of the administration`s poor diplomacy, both before and after the war -- and, in particular, its insistence on monopolizing control over Iraq while mostly excluding the United Nations. India and Pakistan, for example, are reluctant to deploy troops under U.S. rather than U.N. command, and European countries have been slower to supply aid and advisers who could be assisting with reconstruction.

The only way to bolster U.S. forces without dispatching still more American soldiers and reservists is for the Bush administration to formally seek assistance from the United Nations and NATO -- and, in doing so, patch its relations with France, Germany and other allies that opposed the war. That would open the way not only to greater numbers of allied troops but also to more help in such tasks as training Iraqi police forces and restoring power and other vital services in cities. Internationalizing the occupation would deflect growing Iraqi fears that the United States plans to rule the country indefinitely. Meanwhile, the administration could seek explicit U.N. and allied support for a detailed plan to return Iraq to self-government. The sketchy current scheme, under which U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is to appoint an interim council and convene a convention to write a new constitution, is opposed by key Shiite leaders and might increase rather than assuage Iraqi dissatisfaction.

While reaching out to U.S. allies, President Bush also needs to speak more clearly about Iraq to the American people. Last week he finally acknowledged that rebuilding Iraq would be "a massive and long-term undertaking," but his shallow "bring `em on" taunt to the militants merely underlined his failure to clearly explain the objectives of U.S. forces and how long it may take to achieve them. Americans are now dying in Iraq at the rate of nearly one per day. Mr. Bush needs to tell the country why that sacrifice is necessary -- and what he will do to mitigate the threat.



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Euro-Sluggishness


By David Ignatius

Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A17


HELSINKI -- Ask Jorma Ollila, the chief executive of Nokia, for his feel of the global economy these days, and he mentions only one soft spot -- his home base of Europe.

"The real weak point is Europe, where growth has really stalled," Ollila says in an interview here. Growth in Germany is zero, at best, and in France is only slightly better, he notes. "There is no sense of where growth could come from in Europe."

The United States and China, by contrast, are growing solidly, Ollila`s order book tells him. Even after the SARS crisis, he expects China -- where Nokia makes nearly a quarter of its phones -- to grow at a 7.5 percent rate this year. As for America, he says, "it really is the hope on the horizon."

Ollila`s worries about Europe are telling. For if there`s any company that sees the world whole, it`s probably Nokia, whose ubiquitous cellular phones have become symbols of globalization around the planet.

"Does it take a crisis to make the policy changes that would help Europe restore its competitiveness?" asks Ollila. That same gloomy view was shared by many of the prominent CEOs and officials who gathered here last weekend for a conference on European business leadership. Summing up the bleak mood was the theme for one panel: "Is Euro-sclerosis back?"

At a time when many Americans -- worried about terrorism and Iraq -- are questioning their own country`s strengths, it was bracing to encounter a good dose of Old World envy. The Europeans wanted to know how they could emulate America`s research universities, its flexible labor markets, its ability to attract and absorb talented immigrants.

One explanation for Europe`s woes is that it simply doesn`t work hard enough to compete. A panelist noted that because of their long vacations and generous holidays, Europeans on average work 30 percent less per year than Americans do. Hours worked per person are 15 percent to 20 percent less than in the States, he said.

A study cited by Martin Wolf of the Financial Times showed that while the percentage of the population that is working increased sharply in the United States between 1960 and 2002, it actually declined in the euro-zone countries. Remarkably, a smaller percentage is working there today than 40 years ago. Perhaps that`s progress.

The core problem with the European economy, most here agreed, is labor-market inflexibility: Thanks to powerful unions, wages are high. But there is little incentive to create new jobs in Europe, so high unemployment persists. The United States, in contrast, has flexible wages and low unemployment.

"Europe is losing the competitiveness game," Ollila told the group. "We Europeans have to change our view of the world -- and act accordingly. . . . We don`t need new studies or committees. We simply need action."

On every European executive`s wish list would be reform of product, labor and capital markets. Red tape and rigidity in all three impose unnecessarily high costs on European businesses. Executives also worry about Europe`s failure to match rising U.S. productivity. Some European unions are still strong enough to block the adoption of labor-saving technologies, which reduces the incentive to innovate.

How has Nokia prospered in such an infertile landscape? My explanation would be that the company is tight at the core -- with most top positions still filled by Finns -- while remaining very loose and open to change at its edges.

"The fundamental pressures that have driven globalization haven`t changed and won`t," Ollila told me. Nokia`s secret, he said, is that "companies that can manage locally and have local sensitivity and responsiveness will succeed."

It`s no surprise that this gathering of CEOs wishes Europe could be more like America -- especially in its labor-market flexibility. But one senses a broader frustration developing in countries such as Germany, where the traditional social-democratic consensus may be eroding. As German workers begin to see, for example, that their pensions may be threatened by slow growth, they may be willing to consider less restrictive economic policies.

A more diverse group of Europeans than this might well respond: What`s so great about work? Why not trade a few percentage points of growth for a better life? Why not assign an economic value to leisure, to better evaluate the choices Europe has made?

A case in point: A French publisher named Odile Jacob admonishes me that her business has never been so good since her nation adopted the 35-hour week. People finally have time to read.

In America, I want to caution her, a 35-hour week would just mean more television watching -- and more people taking second jobs to get ahead.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Bush in Afrika

Onkel George verteilt Geschenke

Von Dominik Baur

George W. Bush entwickelt sich zum Außenpolitiker. Nach seinem überraschend starken Engagement im Nahen Osten wendet er sich nun der nächsten Krisenregion zu. Als erster republikanischer US-Präsident besucht er Schwarzafrika - und verteilt dort großzügig Milliardengeschenke. Kritiker sprechen von Heuchelei.

"Ich denke, es ist wichtig, vor dem Ende meiner ersten Amtszeit auf den Kontinent zu reisen, um die Bedeutung Afrikas für die Außenpolitik meiner Regierung zu demonstrieren", begründete Bush die Reise vor dem Abflug. Gestern machte der US-Präsident sich auf den Weg.

Fünf Tage, fünf Länder: Senegal, Südafrika, Botswana, Uganda und Nigeria - eine bunte Mischung hat sich der US-Präsident für seine Reise vorgenommen. Der Rundtrip beginnt dort, wo für viele Afrikaner zwischen dem 16. und dem 19. Jahrhundert ein Leben in Freiheit endete: Wie schon Vorgänger Bill Clinton 1998 besucht Bush die Insel Gorée vor der Küste Senegals. Von hier aus wurden schätzungsweise elf Millionen Sklaven nach Amerika verschifft - "Amerikas Geburtsfehler", wie Condoleezza Rice, die schwarze Sicherheitsberaterin des Präsidenten, betont. "Wir versuchen seither mit den Folgen umzugehen und eine Versöhnung herbeizuführen."

Mit einer Entschuldigung Bushs freilich rechnet niemand. Sie wäre zu gefährlich, könnte sie doch enorme Forderungen nach Entschädigungen nach sich ziehen. Die Schuldfrage sei schließlich nicht so einfach, erklärt Rice die vorsichtigen Formulierungen. Danach wird Bush noch Südafrika und Nigeria, die beiden größten und wichtigsten Länder des Kontinents, und Botswana und Uganda. Mit Senegal, der ältesten Demokratie Westafrikas, und Botswana wählte das Weiße Haus zwei relativ stabile Musterstaaten, die auf besonders großzügige Finanzspritzen aus Washington hoffen dürfen.

Die Wahl des fünften Reiseziels, Ugandas, dagegen stößt wegen der zweifelhaften Rolle des Regimes von Yoweri Museveni im Kongokonflikt bei vielen auf Unverständnis. Für Stefan Mair, Afrika-Experte der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, beispielsweise passt Uganda "als ein Land, das im Kongo-Konflikt eine höchst problematische Rolle gespielt hat, dort Milizen aufgerüstet und Ressourcen ausgebeutet hat und auch innenpolitisch einen sehr schwierigen Weg geht, nicht in die Reihe afrikanischer Länder, die es zu besuchen gilt". Aber Museveni sei in den letzten zehn Jahren nun mal der wichtigste strategische Partner der USA in Ostafrika gewesen. Dafür wolle sich der US-Präsident jetzt offenbar erkenntlich zeigen. Außerdem gilt das Land vorbildlich im Kampf gegen Aids, einem der Hauptthemen der Bush-Reise.

Aids, Terrorismus und Wirtschaft

Warum plötzlich Afrika? George W. Bush galt bislang nicht als besonders reiselustig. Vor seinem Amtsantritt meinte der US-Präsident noch: "Afrika mag wichtig sein, aber es passt nicht in unsere nationalen strategischen Interessen." Woher der Sinneswandel? Nach Meinung Mairs hat der Afrika-Trip vor allem symbolischen Wert: "Bush will ein Signal setzen, dass sich die Bush-Regierung nicht nur mit den Iraks, den Nordkoreas und den al-Qaidas beschäftigt, sondern auch Verantwortung darüber hinaus wahrnehmen will." Schließlich habe sich jede amerikanische Regierung bislang immer des Vorwurfs erwehren müssen, sie vernachlässige Afrika.

Aids, Terrorismus und Wirtschaft - das sind die drei Themen, die im Mittelpunkt der Reise stehen, mit der Bush auch dem Gipfel der Afrikanischen Union in Mosambik die Show stiehlt. Der US-Präsident ist überzeugt davon, dass der Kontinent eine zentrale Rolle bei der Bekämpfung des Terrorismus spielt. So gelten Somalia und der Sudan aber auch viele andere Länder als neue Rückzugsgebiete für die Qaida. Kenia, Dschibuti, Äthiopien, Tansania und Uganda will Bush mit einem 100-Millionen-Dollar-Hilfspaket bei der Terrorbekämpfung unter die Arme greifen.

Aber auch in Sachen Aids kommt der hohe Staatsgast nicht mit leeren Händen. Im Mai schon hatte er ein Gesetz unterzeichnet, das für den von der Immunschwächekrankheit am meisten getroffenen Kontinent in den nächsten fünf Jahren drei Milliarden Dollar jährlich zur Bekämpfung der Seuche zur Verfügung stellt. Darüber hinaus will der Präsident im gleichen Zeitraum 600 Millionen Dollar für Alphabetisierungs- und andere Bildungsprogramme stiften. Im Rahmen des aufs Anderthalbfache aufgestockten "Millenium Challenge Account" schließlich sollen Staaten beim Kampf gegen Korruption und politischen Reformen unterstützt werden.

Natürlich bleiben auch eigene wirtschaftliche Interessen nicht unberücksichtigt. Dabei geht es wieder mal ums Öl. Vor allem in Nigeria wird Bush deutlich machen, dass er afrikanischen Ländern künftig eine wichtigere Rolle bei der Versorgung der Vereinigten Staaten mit Öl beimisst. Die neuen Handelspartner sollen ein Gegengewicht zur Opec bilden.

Hilfe, Imagepflege oder Heuchelei?

Die Ankündigungen des US-Präsidenten klingen hochtrabend. "Wir glauben, dass dies ein Jahrzehnt beispielloser Fortschritte für Freiheit, Hoffnung, Heilung und Frieden auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent sein kann" sagte Bush jüngst. Mit der Freundschaft der Vereinigten Staaten werde Afrika aufsteigen und wachsen. Bush möchte das ramponierte Image der Vereinigten Staaten in Afrika wieder etwas aufpolieren.

Antiamerikanismus hat auf dem Kontinent schließlich eine lange Tradition. Das Bild des amerikanischen Imperialisten, der vor allem an der Ausbeutung der Rohstoffe in Afrika interessiert ist, sei schon lange vorherrschend, erklärt Mair, obwohl die Amerika-skeptische Haltung bei weitem nicht so politisch aufgeladen sei wie beispielsweise in einigen islamischen Länder. Deshalb ist der Afrika-Trip natürlich auch eine Charme-Offensive. "Es ist sehr wichtig für Amerika", plauderte Bush vor seiner Abreise auf CNN, "der Welt nicht nur seine Muskeln zu zeigen, sondern auch sein Herz."

Herzlichkeit allein freilich wird den Afrikanern nicht genügen. Die Milliardengeschenke, die Bush im Gepäck hat, müssten erst einmal von Kongress bewilligt werden, rügen Kritiker. Der jedoch zeigt sich noch skeptisch angesichts der hohen Summen. Und selbst wenn Bush die Hilfe durchboxt, sei sie heuchlerisch. Denn auf der anderen Seite ruinierten die USA durch hohe Agrarsubventionen die afrikanischen Bauern und verhinderten auf Druck der Pharma-Industrie, dass afrikanische Staaten Aids-Medikamente günstig selbst herstellen können.




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© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2003

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Three U.S. Soldiers Wounded in Separate Blasts
Tue July 8, 2003 05:34 AM ET




KHAN DHARI, Iraq (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in two separate blasts in central Iraq on Tuesday, with no sign of let-up in a guerrilla campaign against U.S. occupation forces in the Sunni Muslim heartland.
Reuters reporter Daniel Trotta, embedded with U.S. forces, said an anti-tank mine exploded under a Bradley fighting vehicle traveling in a convoy in the town of Khan Dhari, 30 km (20 miles) west of Baghdad, wounding the driver.

Trotta, who was with the convoy, said a Humvee military vehicle and a truck had apparently driven over the mine without triggering it.

"When the Bradley drove over it, it blew up, wounding the driver," Trotta said. "The hull of the vehicle was split and the engine was spewing oil."

The driver, Specialist Justine Howard from Georgia, was wounded in the back.

"I feel very lucky, scared too," Howard told Reuters as he was being taken in a Humvee to a medical facility.

The convoy was hit around 12.30 p.m. (0830 GMT). It was delivering water into the town, Trotta said. Other convoys had brought other essential goods.

In an earlier incident, two U.S. soldiers were slightly wounded when an explosion damaged their Humvee vehicle on the outskirts of Baghdad, a U.S. military officer said.

An explosive device blew up as the Humvee drove on Highway Eight between Baghdad and the international airport at around 9.30 a.m. (0530 GMT), Major Ed Bohnemann told Reuters on the scene.

He described the injuries of the two soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division as light.

The Humvee had its trunk blackened and blown off.

U.S. convoys traveling on Highway Eight have come under attack several times since the toppling of President Saddam Hussein three months ago.

"We`ve actually found some (explosive devices) in the past couple of days and caught them before they blew up," Bohnemann said.

In a separate incident, a U.S. military base near the town of Balad, 90 km (60 miles) north of the capital, came under mortar attack shortly before midnight on Monday for the second time in less than a week, a U.S. spokeswoman said.

There were no American casualties, she said, adding that 12 suspects had been arrested over the attack. A similar attack last week wounded 16 soldiers.

Twenty-nine U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1. (Additional reporting by Andrew Gray)

Werden die USA im Irak auch bald Mauern bauen?

A Palestinian drives a donkey and cart in front of a concrete wall, built by the Israeli army to prevent militants slipping into nearby Israel, in the West Bank city of Qalqilya July 7, 2003. Palestinian security forces have said they had detained an 18-year-old woman in the Gaza Strip who was planning a suicide bombing in Israel, an attack that could have wrecked a truce bolstering a Middle East peace plan. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

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A U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter patrols above the site where a U.S. Humvee vehicle was destroyed in an explosion on Baghdad`s airport road, July 8, 2003. Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in two separate blasts Tuesday. Photo by Faleh Kheiber/Reuters

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-…

Occupation`s Ordeals Ravage Iraqi Psyche
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer

July 8, 2003

BAGHDAD -- Iraqis think of it as the social security office. And as the court of civil complaints and the central police station. It also goes by the generic name "the Authority." A single American soldier was on duty at its side gate, sitting on a chair behind spools of barbed wire.

Ikbal Abbas Muhsen, a onetime employee of the Youth Ministry, called out to the soldier. "I need to talk to the general!" she said in Arabic. She had come to ask for her job back from the people now ruling Iraq: the U.S. officials installed at Saddam Hussein`s old Republican Palace.

Muhsen had dressed in a black jacket for the occasion. The soldier, sitting a dozen feet away, seemed unaware of her presence.

"How am I supposed to live without work?" she shouted. "I am taking Valium! Five pills a day to be able to sleep!"

Mascara-tinged tears ran down her cheeks. "You Americans gave opportunity only to the looters. We, the educated, are destroyed. Why don`t the men in charge come to meet us?"

Nearly three months ago, the Americans arrived in this capital with promises of a new and better Iraq. Today, there is still no Iraqi government. Basic services work only falteringly. For many Iraqis, each new day of occupation ratchets up feelings of powerlessness, anxiety and humiliation.

A fiercely proud people, Iraqis feel that they are losing face in the Arab world. The Arabic word used to describe their circumstances — ihtilal, or occupation — has for decades been associated in the region`s media with the stateless Palestinians.

Unable to communicate with English speakers, most Iraqis worry about the foreigners` intentions. And even some who have long-standing friendships with Americans speak darkly about what will happen if the occupation drags on.

"Even if I joined the resistance, I don`t think I could kill an American soldier," said Wamidh Nadhmi, who for years entertained U.S. reporters in his Baghdad home with quiet, cautious criticism of Hussein`s regime. "I`m an old man, a political scientist. I don`t think I could pull the trigger."

But the thought has crossed his mind, he said. It is an irrational response to an irrational situation.

"There are three primary causes of stress: loss, change and threat," said Buthanina Hilo, dean of the psychology department at Baghdad University. The fall of Hussein and the arrival of the Americans have brought all three, she said.

Untold numbers of Iraqis have been thrown out of work by the war and its aftermath, losing their incomes and sense of purpose. The totalitarian discipline of Hussein`s regime has been replaced by widespread crime and the uncertainty of American rule. Amid the dislocations of war, American bombs and bullets have been responsible for civilian as well as military casualties, and the lethal skirmishes show little sign of abating.

A particularly bitter pill to swallow is that heavily armed, non-Muslim soldiers occupy hundreds of checkpoints and roadside posts. Made tense by repeated ambushes, the Americans are a menacing presence to many ordinary Iraqis.

"The majority of people are trying to accept the fact that the Americans came here to rid us of Saddam Hussein," Hilo said. "But all of this change, so quickly, keeps people in a state of high anxiety. They worry how long the Americans will stay. They feel frustrated."

In Iraq`s diverse society, not everyone is losing patience with the Americans. Those who were most victimized by the regime — the Kurds in the north, many Shiite Muslims of the south — seem to be willing to cut the occupation authorities more slack.

"The Americans did a very good thing when they crushed Saddam for the Iraqis," said Khither Jaafar, a member of the political bureau of the Al Dawa Party.

That Shiite party was outlawed during Hussein`s time, and the walls of its Baghdad headquarters are lined with the pictures and names of its militants who were killed by the regime. Jaafar said his group is willing to wait for an Iraqi government.

But he too sounded a note of caution.

"The Iraqis expect the Americans to fulfill their promises," he said. "The Americans can be good friends with the Iraqi people. Or they can be enemies. It will be they who decide."

Under Siege Again

The copy of the Koran written in Hussein`s blood is gone now from a mosque in western Baghdad, taken away by members of the regime as U.S. troops approached the city.

The imam, Ihsarim Hassan, wants it made clear that his mosque no longer has the name Hussein gave it in honor of the 1991 Persian Gulf War: the Mother of All Battles Mosque. "It is now the Mother of Villages Mosque," Hassan said. Here, as elsewhere, people want to break with the past.

U.S. troops made that possible. But those same troops entered the mosque in the days after the regime fell, searching for weapons. "They did not respect God`s house," the imam said. "They entered our mosque with weapons."

The Americans took several of the mosque`s guards as prisoners, he said, then pointed a gun at the imam`s chest when he came to the soldiers` base to plead for the guards` freedom.

"They called me an Ali Baba," a thief, Hassan said. Telling this story, he felt compelled to add, "I have a PhD in Islamic theology."

The sense of grievance against the Americans is perhaps strongest among Sunni Muslims such as Hassan. They are a minority but had dominated Hussein`s government.

"When we see [the American troops] in the streets, we feel sad, our hearts ache," the imam said. "Not because we see the Americans as bad people, but because they came here as invaders and occupiers."

As he spoke, a burly aide sitting at his side began to weep.

"God says, `Do not feel intimidated, do not feel sad,` " the imam continued. "You will triumph if you believe....` I am very sure that this situation will not last long, because Iraqis are characterized by their honor and bravery. They will not tolerate it very long."

Thalib Mahedi, dean of the sociology department at Baghdad University, said the occupation has provoked a range of emotions and suspicions among a people conditioned to feel they are under siege.

Iraqi history is marked by long periods of occupation. "Here we say Iraqis are people of two minds, because we are always caught between the Persians and the Turks," Mahedi said. Now there are soldiers from the United States and Britain.

"Some Iraqis consider it a humiliation, especially the religious people," he said. "The people who worked for the government and in politics feel the Americans have come to take their own positions."

The sense of distrust is fueled by the language barrier, he said.

"Of course I feel afraid of the American soldier. He is armed with dangerous weapons. He might take me for an enemy. If I make a gesture to salute him," Mahedi said, raising his arm in a half-wave, "he might take it as an insult."

Future Shock

Iraqis, Mahedi said, are also experiencing what the writer Alvin Toffler called future shock, the mass disorientation that comes from the too-quick appearance of the new and incomprehensible.

Suddenly they are surrounded by representatives of a country that is not only technologically more advanced than their own, but has more relaxed, modern notions about relations between the sexes.

At the Muhsin Mosque in the impoverished Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, home to Shiites who suffered greatly under Hussein`s regime, the presence of so many American men in the community is seen as a threat to tradition.

"Women should not go out to the market among men during these hard times," an imam told his followers during prayers recently. "It is sad enough that the coalition forces have to be there to maintain order. And because of this, we have our women mingling with non-Muslims, with Americans. This is wrong. This is dishonorable to us."

All government authority in Iraq now emanates from the U.S. military. American officials are working to create local advisory councils elected by neighborhood groups. But, as their name suggests, the councils` only power will be to make recommendations to the Americans.

Until an Iraqi government is created, Iraqis will probably continue to gather outside the headquarters of what is officially known as the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Hamed Jawad, standing at the gate one recent afternoon, said his brother was arrested by soldiers eight days earlier after threatening a doctor at a Baghdad hospital. His family had not heard from him since.

Aided by an English-speaking reporter, Jawad, former Youth Ministry worker Muhsen and the others gathered at the gate finally got the attention of the American soldier. He disappeared and returned with an Arabic interpreter.

"We are closed now," the interpreter said. "Come back in the morning."

"We already came in the morning!" Jawad shouted back. "It`s all lies."

Similar frustrations boil over across Iraq in countless encounters and confrontations. New graffiti in Baghdad — in Arabic and English — calls for an end to the occupation.

One recent Friday evening, two American Humvees rolled slowly past a market in the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. A well-dressed Iraqi who had just driven up in a Volvo stood in front of the market and looked at the troops with anger.

"Come on! Let`s take them out!" he told a group of men nearby. "I have a rifle. You have one. Look at them," he said in Arabic, gesturing at the soldiers. "They`re just a bunch of kids."

The moment passed. None of the Iraqis did anything more than stare at the Americans. The Humvees drove safely away.

Times special correspondent Said Al-Rifai in Baghdad contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-africa8…
EDITORIAL
a d v e r t i s e m e n t




A Keener Focus on Africa

July 8, 2003

Africa "doesn`t fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them," George W. Bush declared three years ago as he campaigned for the White House. His five-day, five-nation African tour, which began Monday, shows just how much the president`s perspective has changed.

In meetings Wednesday with South African President Thabo Mbeki and Friday with Uganda`s president, Yoweri Museveni, Bush plans to discuss his administration`s pledge of $15 billion for a global campaign against HIV and AIDS over the next five years. Most of the money would go to Africa, where HIV prevalence rates in most nations are steady or rising. In Uganda, at least, rates are falling, largely because Museveni has led an outspoken public education campaign against AIDS.

Bush should publicly praise the Ugandan president`s leadership in battling one of the most devastating of the continent`s many scourges and privately prod South Africa`s chief for his reluctance to do more. Mbeki surely must see that Museveni`s head-on approach makes more sense than an Africa shrugging in acceptance of millions of AIDS deaths, millions of AIDS orphans and billions of dollars in HIV-care costs and lost economic promise.

As for Bush, he can`t deliver the full amount proposed for the anti-AIDS campaign because Congress has yet to appropriate the money. So far, the legislators have allocated only $450 million for fiscal year 2004.

Critics of the administration — and wary Africans — would be wrong to cynically dismiss the president`s proposal as a ploy to win Africa`s support for the war against terror. With Al Qaeda entrenched in the Horn of Africa and Islamic extremism on the rise among African Muslims, clearly national security is involved, but increasing aid to Africa is also a moral imperative.

This kind of help — dealing concretely with AIDS prevention and care for the HIV-infected — lets the United States show the international community its compassionate side. America is more than just a global cop all too ready to intervene militarily, as seems the case in Liberia.

This is not to dismiss legitimate questions some legislators have raised about details of administration plans. Bush, for instance, proposes to distribute some of the anti-AIDS money via a "Millennium Challenge Account." It would limit the U.S. to helping nations that meet the administration`s economic, social and political standards. Some legislators understandably want Bush officials to explain why this approach won`t give short-shrift to those with HIV who, through no fault of their own, live in nations that don`t meet administration ideals.

Legislators can fine-tune the initiative. But the anti-AIDS campaign addresses a dire need and has strategic and humanitarian importance. It deserves better funding.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer8…
COMMENTARY




A Diplomat`s Undiplomatic Truth: They Lied
Robert Scheer

July 8, 2003

They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn`t left in one of Saddam Hussein`s palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney`s office.

Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document — now known to be a crude forgery — that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either.

What is startling in Wilson`s account, however, is that the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the vice president`s office were all informed that the Niger-Iraq connection was phony. No one in the chain of command disputed that this "evidence" of Iraq`s revised nuclear weapons program was a hoax.

Yet, nearly a year after Wilson reported back the facts to Cheney and the U.S. security apparatus, Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union speech, invoked the fraudulent Iraq-Africa uranium connection as a major justification for rushing the nation to war: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." What the president did not say was that the British were relying on their intelligence white paper, which was based on the same false information that Wilson and the U.S. ambassador to Niger had already debunked. "That information was erroneous, and they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the president`s State of the Union address," Wilson said Sunday on "Meet the Press."

Although a British Parliament report released Monday exonerated the Blair government of deliberate distortion to justify invading Iraq, it urged the foreign secretary to come clean as to when British officials were first told that the Iraq-Niger allegation was based on forged documents. The report noted: "It is very odd indeed" that the British government has still not come up with any other evidence to support its contention about an Iraq-Niger connection.

Nor has the U.S. administration told its public why it ignored the disclaimers from its own intelligence sources. In order to believe that our president was not lying to us, we must believe that this information did not find its way through Cheney`s office to the Oval Office.

In media interviews, Wilson said it was the vice president`s questioning that pushed the CIA to try to find a credible Iraqi nuclear threat after that agency had determined there wasn`t one. "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq`s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," Wilson wrote in an Op-Ed article in Sunday`s New York Times. "A legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses."

In a Washington Post interview, Wilson added, "It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs the question, what else are they lying about?" Those are the carefully chosen words of a 23-year career diplomat who, as the top U.S. official in Baghdad in 1990, was praised by then-President George H.W. Bush for his role as the last American to confront Hussein face to face after the dictator invaded Kuwait. In a cable to Baghdad, the president told Wilson: "What you are doing day in and day out under the most trying conditions is truly inspiring. Keep fighting the good fight."

As Wilson observed wryly, "I guess he didn`t realize that one of these days I would carry that fight against his son`s administration." And that fight remains the good fight. This is not some minor dispute over a footnote to history but rather raises the possibility of one of the most egregious misrepresentations by a U.S. administration. What could be more cynical and impeachable than fabricating a threat of rogue nations or terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons and using that to sell a war?

"There is no greater threat that we face as a nation," Wilson told NBC, "than the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of nonstate actors or international terrorists. And if we`ve prosecuted a war for reasons other than that, using weapons of mass destruction as cover for that, then I think we`ve done a great disservice to the weapons-of-mass-destruction threat."

The world is outraged at this pattern of lies used to justify the Iraq invasion, but the U.S. public still seems numb to the dangers of government by deceit.

Indeed, Nixon speechwriter William Safire this week in his column channeled the voice of his former boss to reassure Republicans that the public easily could be conned through the next election.

Perhaps, and far be it for me to lecture either Safire or a reincarnated Nixon as to the ease of deceiving the electorate, but as we learned from the Nixon disgrace, lies have a way of unraveling, and the truth will out, even if it`s after the next election.




Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Terror tribunals miss justice for all

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

The president of the United States has authorized the convening of military tribunals in the cases of six foreign nationals. We are not being told their names, where they are being held, with what crimes they are being charged or even where the trials will take place.

And America presumes to teach the world about liberty and justice for all?

The defendants will, according to Georgetown University law professor David Cole, be prosecuted, defended and judged by their captor, with no right to see the evidence against them and no right to confidential attorney-client communications.

There will be no jury in the usual sense. The three to seven commissioned officers who will sit on the tribunal will serve as both judge and jury and convict on any but capital crimes with a two-thirds majority and determine guilt on the lesser standard of a mere preponderance of the evidence. The defense attorneys will be U.S. military officers. There can be no appeal to any civilian court, foreign or domestic. And even if acquitted, there is no guarantee a defendant will go free.

The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged constitutional authority for such tribunals in time of war, but Congress has not made a formal declaration of war, so the very legal foundation for such proceedings is fragile.

Secret trials devoid of so many venerable protections for the accused appeared abhorrent in the abstract, and look to be no less as they move to the concrete.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/129837_tribunaled.html

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ALL WAR ALL THE TIME
The military game has changed, and the U.S. isn`t ready
William S. Lind
Sunday, July 6, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…


Every year, the grand old man of the conservative movement, William F. Buckley, hosts a dinner in Washington for other leading conservatives where one key issue is discussed. This year, it was the neo-cons` push to create an American world empire. One of the leading neo-conservatives made the usual pro- empire pitch: Empire is inevitable, we have to make the world safe for democracy, no one can stop us, etc.

A cultural conservative, who wants America to be a republic, not an empire, asked a question: "What is your answer to Fourth Generation Warfare?" No one around the table had ever heard of it -- despite the fact that American soldiers are fighting one Fourth Generation war in Afghanistan, facing another one in Iraq, and getting involved in a third in the Philippines.

Fourth Generation War is the fourth major "turning" in the nature of war in the modern period, the time since the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years` War in 1648 and gave the state a monopoly on war, first in Europe, and then, as European power spread, throughout the world.

Before that treaty, many different entities fought wars. Families fought wars, tribes fought wars, cities fought wars. So did races and religions, business enterprises (the Grimaldis, who still rule Monaco, got their start renting out war galleys), social classes (knights and samurai), gangs (usually made up of unemployed soldiers). The state itself was a newcomer.

First Generation War, which lasted from 1648 to around the time of the American Civil War, was fought by state armies using line and column tactics --

think of the typical battle in the time of the American Revolution or Napoleon. The battlefield was orderly, more or less, and it gave rise to a military culture of order. Most of the things that distinguish "military" from "civilian" -- uniforms, saluting, promotion systems -- come from the First Generation and are intended to reinforce the culture of order.

Starting in the mid-19th century, with the development of mass armies and weapons such as machine guns and quick-firing artillery, the order of the battlefield began to break down. The result was the central problem that has faced state armies ever since: the growing contradiction between the disorderly battlefield and a military culture of order.

Two solutions emerged, both in World War I: The Second Generation of modern war, which was developed by the French army, and Third Generation Warfare, which was developed by the German army.

Second Generation Warfare relies on firepower to cause attrition; it is war by body count. In the French army in World War I, the firepower came mostly from artillery. In the American military today, the firepower increasingly comes from aircraft and missiles, but the goal is still victory through attrition. The U.S. Army learned Second Generation War from the French during and after World War I, and it remains the American way of war. New technology, in Donald Rumsfeld`s strategy, is used, not to move beyond this Second Generation of war, but to make it more efficient or more "precise." The B-2 Stealth bomber and the Predator attack drone are good examples.

Third Generation Warfare was a German product, with roots going back to the Scharnhorst reforms in the Prussian army that followed Prussia`s defeat by Napoleon. It is fought more in time than in place. Speed, not firepower, is its main weapon, and firepower is used to create opportunities for maneuver rather than merely to run up the body count. (General Heinz Guderian, who created the Panzer division in the 1930s and led Germany`s brilliant campaign against France in 1940, often told his men, "We are not a killing machine.")

Fourth Generation War, which is now killing a few more American soldiers every day in Iraq, marks the end of the state`s monopoly on war.

All around the world, state militaries are facing nonstate opponents, groups such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. Almost everywhere, the state is losing. Hezbollah defeated the Israelis in Lebanon, and Hamas has been doing the same in the West Bank. Russia`s war in Chechnya is not going well. Nor is ours in Afghanistan. Far from securing the Afghan countryside, the United States and other state armed forces are losing control of Kabul.

President Bush`s proclamation of victory in Iraq is looking more than slightly premature. The pace of fighting there is picking up, not slowing down,

as American troops face Baathists, gangs of looters, Shiites, Arab fedayeen (who are still coming into Iraq to fight us), Wahabi mujahedeen, and so on. Because these enemies are not states, they have nothing we can bomb, no tanks we can take out, no capital we can occupy. And each one is a Hydra: Every time we kill an enemy, we recruit more.

It is not just conservatives in Washington who do not understand the kind of war we are now engaged in. No one in Washington does. Certainly the Pentagon does not. The high-tech weapons on which it lavishes billions are completely irrelevant to Fourth Generation War. A joke in Israel puts it well: Why does Israel need its own spy satellites? So it can see a 12-year-old Palestinian boy picking up a stone.

Nineteenth Century war scholar Carl von Clausewitz wrote:

"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and Commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking: neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into,

something that is alien to nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive . . ."

Today, Washington is not even asking this question. It simply assumes that in its quest for world empire, it will fight only states. As the old saying goes, assume makes an ass of you and me.

William S. Lind is a center director at the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank. He writes and lectures internationally on military theory and doctrine.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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ALL WAR ALL THE TIME
The battle on terrorism is an excuse to make fighting permanent
Robert Higgs
Sunday, July 6, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…


I`ll concede that having a permanent war might seem an odd thing to want, but let`s put aside the "why" question for the time being, accepting that you wouldn`t want it unless you stood to gain something important from it. If, however, for reasons you found adequate, you did want to have a permanent war, what would you need in order to make such a policy viable in a democratic society such as the United States?

First, you would need that society to have a dominant ideology -- a widely shared belief system about social and political relations -- within which having a permanent war seems to be a desirable policy, given the ideology`s own content and the pertinent facts accepted by its adherents. Something like American jingo-patriotism cum anti-communism might turn the trick.

It worked pretty well during the nearly half-century of the Cold War. The beauty of anti-communism as a covering ideology was that it could serve to justify a wide variety of politically expedient actions both here and abroad. The Commies, you`ll recall, were everywhere: not just in Moscow and Sevastopol,

but maybe in Minneapolis and San Francisco. We had to stay alert; we could never let down our guard, anywhere.

Second, you would need periodic crises, because without them the public becomes complacent, unafraid, and hence unwilling to bear the heavy burdens that they must bear if the government is to carry on a permanent war. As Sen. Arthur Vandenberg told Harry Truman in 1947 at the outset of the Cold War, gaining public support for a perpetual global campaign requires that the government "scare hell out of the American people."

Each crisis piques the people`s insecurities and renders them once again disposed to pay the designated price, whether it takes the form of their treasure, their liberties or their young people`s blood. Something like the (alleged) missile gap, the (alleged) Gulf of Tonkin attacks on U.S. naval vessels, or the (actual!) hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran will do nicely, at least for a while. Crises by their very nature eventually recede, and new ones must come along -- or be made to come along -- to serve the current need.

Third, you would need some politically powerful groups whose members stand to gain substantially from a permanent war in terms of achieving their urgent personal and group objectives. Call me crass, but I`ve noticed that few people will stay engaged for long unless there`s "something in it for them."

During the Cold War, the conglomeration of personally interested parties consisted of those who form the military-industrial-congressional complex. The generals and admirals thrived by commanding a large armed force sustained by a lavish budget. The big defense contractors enjoyed ample returns at minimal risk (because they could expect that, should they screw up too royally, a bailout would be forthcoming). Members of Congress who belonged to the military oversight and appropriations committees could parlay their positions into campaign contributions and various sorts of income in kind.

Presiding over the entire complex, of course, the president, his National Security Council, and their many subordinates, advisers, consultants, and hangers-on enjoyed the political advantages associated with control of a great nation`s diplomatic and military affairs -- not to speak of the sheer joy that certain people get from wielding or influencing great power.

No conspiracy here, of course, just a lot of people fitting into their niches, doing well while proclaiming that they were doing good (recall the ideology and the crisis elements). All seeking only to serve the common public interest. Absolutely.

The foregoing observations have been widely accepted by several generations of students of the Cold War. Yet now, you may protest, the Cold War is over, the USSR nonexistent, the menace of communism kaput. Under post-Cold War conditions, how can we have a permanent war? Well, all we need to do is to replace the missing piece.

If the ideology of anti-communism can no longer serve to justify a permanent war, let us put in its place the overarching rationale of a "war on terrorism." In fact, this substitution of what President Bush repeatedly calls "a new kind of war" amounts to an improvement for the leading actors, because whereas the Cold War could not be sustained once the USSR had imploded and international communism had toppled into the dustbin of history, a war on terrorism, with all its associated benefits, can go on forever.

After all, so long as the president says he has intelligence information to the effect that "they" are still out there conspiring to kill us all, who are we to dispute that the threat exists and must be met? The smoke had scarcely cleared at Ground Zero when Vice President Dick Cheney declared on Oct. 19, 2001, that the war on terrorism "may never end. It`s the new normalcy."

Just as during the Cold War hardly any American ever laid eyes on an honest- to-God Commie, although nearly everybody believed that the Commies were lurking far and wide, so now we may all suppose that anyone, anywhere might be a lethal terrorist in possession of a suitcase nuke or a jug of anthrax spores.

Indeed, current airport-security measures are premised on precisely such a belief -- otherwise it makes no sense to strip-search Grandma at Dulles International Airport.

Potential terrorists are "out there," no doubt, in the wonderful world of Islam, an arc that stretches from Morocco across North Africa, the Middle East,

and Southwest Asia to Malaysia, Indonesia and Mindanao, not to mention London,

Amsterdam and Hamburg. And that`s good, because it means that U.S. leaders must bring the entire outside world into compliance with their stipulated rules of engagement for the war on terrorism. It`s a fine thing to dominate the world, an even finer thing to do so righteously.

Better yet, the potential omnipresence of the terrorists justifies U.S. leaders in their efforts to supercharge the surveillance-and-police state here at home, with the USA Patriot Act, the revival of the FBI`s COINTELPRO activities, and all the rest. Adios, Bill of Rights. The merest babe should understand that these new powers will be turned to other political purposes that have nothing whatever to do with terrorism. Indeed, they have been already. As the New York Times reported on May 5, "The Justice Department has begun using its expanded counterterrorism powers to seize millions of dollars from foreign banks that do business in the United States" and "most of the seizures have involved fraud and money-laundering investigations unrelated to terrorism."

The war-on-terrorism rationale has proved congenial to the American public, who have swallowed bogus government assurances that the so-called war is making them more secure. Much of this acceptance springs, no doubt, from the shock that many Americans experienced when the terrorist attacks of September 11 proved so devastating. Ever alert, the president`s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, asked the National Security Council immediately afterward "to think seriously about "how you capitalize on these opportunities" to fundamentally change American doctrine and the shape of the world in the wake of September 11.

The president`s most powerful and influential subordinates -- Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and their coterie -- then set in motion a series of actions (and a flood of disinformation) to seize the day, measures that culminated in the military invasion and conquest first of Afghanistan and then of Iraq, among many other things.

Likewise, the military component of the military-industrial complex has entered into fat city. During fiscal year 2000, before Bush had taken office, Department of Defense outlays amounted to $281 billion. Just four years later, assuming that Congress gives the president what he has requested for fiscal year 2004, the department`s budget will be at least $399 billion -- an increase of 42 percent.

No wonder the generals and admirals are dancing in the corridors at the Pentagon: all this loot, and wartime citations and promotions to boot!

The flush times for the officer corps have spilled over handsomely onto the big arms contractors, whose share prices have been bucking the trend of the continuing stock-market meltdown nicely during the past couple of years. With only a single exception, all the major weapons systems have survived funding threats, and their manufacturers can look forward to decades of well-paid repose as they supply models B, C, D, and so forth, as well as all the remunerative maintenance and repairs, operational training, software upgrades, and related goods and services for their Cold War-type weaponry in search of an suitable enemy. In the immortal words of Boeing vice president Harry Stonecipher, "The purse is now open."

Amid the all-around rejoicing, however, the power elite appreciate that nearly two years have elapsed since Sept. 11, 2001, and the public`s panic has begun to subside. That won`t do. Accordingly, earlier this month, the government released a report that there is a "high probability" of an al Qaeda attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years.

So there you have it: The war on terrorism -- the new permanent war -- is a winner. The president loves it. The military brass loves it. The bigwigs at Boeing and Lockheed love it. We all love it.

Except, perhaps, that odd citizen who wonders whether, all things considered, having a permanent war is truly a good idea for the beleaguered U. S. economy and for the liberties of the American people.

Robert Higgs is senior fellow at the Independent Institute. His books include "Crisis and Leviathan" and "Arms, Politics and the Economy."

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Was sind schon ein paar italienische Gockel gegen einen aufrechten Neocon.

MSNBC Fires Host Savage for Wishing AIDS on Caller
Mon July 7, 2003 06:34 PM ET




By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cable news channel MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage after the controversial talk show host wished AIDS on a caller whom he dismissed as "one of the sodomites."

Savage had been under fire from gay rights groups since February when the network announced it had hired the conservative commentator to host a TV version of his popular talk radio show.

Saturday`s episode of "The Savage Nation," his 15th since the program`s debut in March, featured Savage discussing air travel with callers.

One caller began discussing his experiences, and after an unintelligible part of the call, Savage asked him "So are you one of those sodomists?"

When the caller said, "Yes I am," Savage, reclining in a chair with his arms folded and wearing dark sunglasses, responded, "Oh, you`re one of the sodomites! You should only get AIDS and die, you pig!" in a clip of the show hosted on the Web site of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

An MSNBC representative was not immediately available to comment, but a source familiar with the matter confirmed that the show had been canceled.

GLAAD, which from the start campaigned against MSNBC`s hiring of Savage, cheered the cancellation.

"Michael Savage`s latest rant made the clearest possible case for why this kind of behavior has no place on any reputable news network," GLAAD spokeswoman Cathy Renna said in a statement.

In addition to his radio and TV show, Savage founded the Paul Revere Society, which advocates closing the U.S. borders, eliminating bilingual education and ending affirmative action programs.

A message left at a number listed for the Paul Revere Society in the northern California city of Mill Valley was not immediately returned.

Savage, who according to his biography on a network Web site holds a doctorate in epidemiology and nutrition science, hosted his unabashedly conservative show from the well-known liberal bastion of San Francisco.

A network source said the show had averaged 347,000 viewers through its first 14 airings, not including three weekends when the show was preempted by news coverage. It had aired Saturdays at 5 p.m. ET.

Savage was hired around the time the network canceled liberal talk-show host Phil Donahue, who in turn reportedly accused MSNBC of trying to "outfox Fox," a reference to Fox News Channel, often characterized as being conservative.

MSNBC is a partnership of the NBC unit of General Electric Co. and Microsoft Corp.

[Joerver]

The Late, Great, American Republic:
A Report from Mid-Century -- 2050

By Nigel Doowrite, as told to Ernest Partridge
Co-Editor, "The Crisis Papers."
July 7, 2003

A note from the “real” author: The following is an imaginary essay by an Oxford University historian at mid-21st century. It assumes a continuation of current political and economic trends set in motion by the Bush Administration. With a sudden and early awakening of sanity amongst the public, the media and the elites, which catalyzes effective dissent, protest and reform, a far different future might be realized. In our next essay, we will project such a better-case scenario. (Ernest Partridge).


Who could have imagined, at the turn of this century, how quickly and completely the American republic would collapse? Historically, the decline and fall of great empires normally takes place over decades, and in the case of Rome, over several centuries. The disintegration of the United States took place in just a few brief years.

At the close of the twentieth century, the United States was at peace and enjoying one of the most sustained and productive periods of prosperity in its history – a prosperity that favourably affected all segments of society. President Clinton, though mercilessly harassed by his political opponents, was highly esteemed by heads of state and ordinary citizens throughout the world. The United States, despite its manifest faults, was widely admired and envied by free peoples everywhere.

It was, to put it simply, a great time to be an American.

And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

The American economy collapsed and the American leadership, unlike the Roosevelt administration during the great depression of the 1930s, lacked the insight and will, and the federal treasury lacked the funds, to effect a rescue. The admirable American system of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties, of a free and diverse press, of free enterprise and economic opportunity, and of popularly elected government was, by the close of the first decade, replaced by a despotic oligarchy in total control of the permanently ruling Republican party. Finally, the United States, through a unilateral abrogation of its treaty obligations and a series of aggressive wars, was transformed from "the leader of the free world” into a rogue state. As we all know, the community of nations responded to the new threat of American economic imperialism by forming the alliances that are today the dominant world powers: the Eurasian Union and Islamia.

Distrusted and isolated from the global community, the United States withdrew into itself to become the pitiful and impoverished third-world despotism that it is today.

The forces set in motion during the illegitimate Presidency of George W. Bush that led to this decline and fall were plain for all to see, and amazingly, however outrageous and contrary to the most fundamental American political traditions, they were not effectively resisted. When the American public came face-to-face with the dreadful consequences of these regressive and despotic forces, it was too late to resist and turn back. The fate of the American republic was sealed.


The American Economy

Late in the twentieth century, twenty percent of the private wealth in the United States was owned by the top one percent of the population. At the turn of the century, that share had doubled. Then, with abolition of dividend, capital gains and estate taxes, the flow of national wealth to the very few accelerated, so that in 2012, midway through the Jeb Bush administration, eighty percent of the national wealth was in the hands of the top one percent.

Of course, by that time, the United States was in the depths of The Great Depression. By the beginning of George Bush’s second administration, the unemployment rate was above ten percent and rising, eventually to reach one-third of the work force when his younger brother succeeded him in 2009. Compounding that disaster was the retirement of the “baby boom” generation, which found that the Social Security and Medicare funds which they had confidently expected, had been exhausted. Those retirees who could not be cared for by their children often ended up in the streets, for the only remaining social services – “faith-based” agencies supported by federal funds – were overwhelmed and willing only to accept devout members of their various (usually evangelical) denominations.

The primary cause of the depression was compellingly obvious: with the wealth of the nation withdrawn from the population at large, there was little disposable income remaining to feed the cash-flow of commerce. First the “expendable” industries – amusements, recreational vehicles, resorts, automobiles – were bankrupted and their employees discharged, causing the succeeding dominoes to fall and leading to the downward spiral of depression.

Prominent so-called “conservative” theoreticians in the first decade, such as Grover Norquist, with the full support of the George Bush administration, called for the virtual elimination of all government services and functions, federal, state, and municipal, with the exception of the military and “Homeland Security” which soon evolved into the Federal Police. Of course, the obvious fact that no civilized and industrialised nation has ever functioned without a central government, did not concern these theoreticians. Consumed by dogma, they had no inclination to be “confused by the facts.” And so, their stated objective of “drowning the government in the bathtub” and “bankrupting” state governments was achieved, with disastrous results.

The public schools and universities closed and, unable to afford the tuition of the remaining private schools, most of the children were deprived of an education. Similarly, private college and university enrollments plummeted. Literacy rates fell and the pool of trained and resourceful workers evaporated. Attempts to privatise the infrastructure – roads, bridges, electrical grids, pipelines, etc. – failed dismally, and with the governments bankrupt, no funds were available to bail them out. And so, these facilities fell into useless ruin, which further crippled the national economy.

Due to widespread evictions, single-family homes and apartments became crowded communes when only the combined resources of three and four families could pay the utilities, rents and mortgages. And these were the lucky ones, as millions of Americans were forced to live on the streets or in tent cities.

The United States of America, once the powerhouse of the world economy, was headed hell-bent toward the third-world status that it has today.


The World Economy

When the United States was the predominant economic power in the world, economic policy-makers used to say that when the US sneezes the world gets a cold, and when the US gets a cold, the world gets pneumonia. So when the US economy collapsed in 2006, this had serious global repercussions. And yet, to the amazement of all, the world economy fared far better than expected. By employing the sort of cooperative and collective policy and planning despised by the American “conservatives,” and free of interference by American corporations, the global economy soon recovered and went on to prosper.

The greatest shock to the world economy was the sudden announcement by President Jeb Bush that the United States would no longer honor its three trillion-dollar foreign debt. A resulting collapse of the world economy was averted when the leading governments of the industrial nations agreed together to absorb the debt – a policy that accelerated the emergence of the Eurasian Union.

With the American credit-rating thus reduced to zero, the United States was effectively isolated from the world economy. The Americans then discovered that they were in desperate need of raw materials that were unavailable within their borders. The world at large, on the other hand, enjoyed resource-independence from the Americans. The Americans suffered most acutely from the severe shortage of petroleum, upon which their once-thriving agricultural industry depended. And so the spectre of famine, unimaginable in the previous century, haunted the unfortunate Americans. (See “The Oil Trap”)

In the 20th Century, America’s primary contribution to the world economy was its advanced technology, as young students from around the world flocked to its excellent universities to acquire advanced degrees and to engage in cutting-edge research and development. With the closing of the public education system and the end of federal research funding (except, of course, for the military), superior centers of scientific and technological research appeared in Europe and Asia. First to depart was bio-medical research, severely crippled by the United States ban on stem-cell research. But this was only part of the story. The manifest contempt for science by the Bushes and their corporate and fundamentalist supporters accelerated the demise of the scientific and technological pre-eminence of the United States.

Finally, with the United States government in the complete control of the petroleum industry, the Bushes had no inclination whatever to build a bridge to the post-petroleum age – with predictable and disastrous results. In stark contrast, the Eurasian Union clearly foresaw the coming emergency, and made massive preparations for it. Thus, in Eurasia today, the remaining petroleum reserves are being properly utilised for their petrochemicals, while the combination of biomass, solar, nuclear fusion and other sources, and the hydrogen fuels produced thereby, offer abundant energy to the peoples of Eurasia and Islamia. The United States, with no exportable commodities or technologies of any worth, and bankrupted by the tax policies of the George and Jeb Bush Administrations, is unable to enjoy the advantages of these innovations, except, of course, out of the largesse of humanitarian aid from Eurasia.


The New Despotism

The American democracy died with the invention and complete implementation of paper-less computer voting. But this was a coup-de-grace, delivered to a body politic critically injured by the rigging of the 2000 Florida presidential election, engineered by Jeb Bush and his accomplices, and the subsequent vote of five Republican operatives on the Supreme Court in the notorious ruling, Bush v. Gore. The winner of the 2000 election, Al Gore, meekly acceded to this judicial coup d’etat, and the public followed his lead.

Encouraged, if astonished, by this passivity of the public and the “opposition” party, the victorious George Bush administration proceeded to snuff out the civil liberties of the American people, until the final lights went out halfway through the Jeb Bush administration. This twilight of the American democracy was accelerated by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 upon New York City and Washington, DC, whereby a stunned public and Congress accepted without protest a draconian attack on the Bill of Rights, cynically named the USA PATRIOT Act.

Soon after the re-election of George Bush in 2004, and the “uncovering” by the CIA and FBI of an alleged plot by al Qaeda to set off a nuclear device in New York Harbor, “Patriot Act II” was enacted by the Republican Congress. With this, habeas corpus, and the constitutional rights of citizens to open trials by juries, access to counsel, were all suspended. On the assumption that “you are either for us or against us,” as articulated by George Bush soon after the September 2001 attacks, critics of the government were regarded as “traitors.” Mere hours before their intended arrests, dissenters Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman esca[ed to Canada and thence to the faculties of Oxford and Cambridge. Democratic presidential aspirants Howard Dean, John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich were not so lucky, and have not been heard from since their disappearance in the summer of 2004.

Quite possibly these dissenters joined millions of others in the Alaskan Gulag, perchance to work in the oil fields of ANWR and Prudhoe Bay. Or perhaps they were impressed along with the millions of the unemployed to toil as farm laborers when, due to the acute petroleum shortages, the farm machinery was shut down and it became impossible to transport sufficient food for the starving masses in the inner cities. “You work or you starve,” was the stark choice given to the unfortunate unemployed. Sadly, many who remained in the cities did, in fact, starve or, weakened by malnutrition, fell victim to the great plagues of the "twenty-teens."

Despite these catastrophes, the Republicans have been the sole ruling party in the United States throughout the 21st century to this date. Typical Congresses have contained about 80% Republican seats. The Democrats exist at the sufferance of the Republicans, as unpersuasive “window dressing” to preserve at least the appearance of democracy. Republicans congressmen who show any independent tendencies are generally marked by the Party bosses for defeat in primary elections, or in the general elections by designated and compliant Democrats.

Observers from abroad regard American elections with the same contempt as historians show toward “elections” in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Informal polls (conducted with great difficulty and at great risk) show a residual opposition to the Republicans, and often an overwhelming majority preference for the Democrats. But no matter. The official results issuing from the paperless voting machines are uniformly just what the Administration desires. As always, the voting machines are manufactured, and the secret software codes are written, by corporations completely controlled by the Republicans (as, indeed, are all corporations). Exit polling is banned. Advance polling by organisations such as Gallup accurately predict the final results. But, of course, the Gallup organisation was acquired in 2006 by the Murdock corporation.

Ninety percent of the media are owned by the three interlocking corporations of “The First Amendment Consortium.” The remaining ten percent are licensed by the federal government. Independent newspapers or magazines that dare to criticise the government are soon absorbed in “hostile takeovers” by the Consortium. Of course, independent broadcast media no longer exist in the United States.

In 2005, Rupert Murdock acquired full ownership of the Internet, whereupon dissenting (“unpatriotic”) websites were banished from the Net.

A tragedy, to be sure, but not unforeseen. As early as 2003, the journey toward this dreadful destination was well-embarked. The stolen 2000 Presidential election, well known to those who cared to study it, was two years in the past. The PATRIOT Act had been enacted and several American citizens were being held incommunicado, in violation of the Constitutional rights. The use of paperless computer ballot machines was widespread and growing. The FCC successfully ruled in favour of media conglomeration, and dissenting liberal opinions were severely restricted on television, and virtually non-existent on the radio.

Finding no resistance, the triumphant Republicans proceeded, and by unopposed increments, destroyed the American democracy.


The New World Order

A fundamental rule of politics, well-known to Aristotle and political philosophers since, asserts that alliances are formed out of the shared perception of a common threat. Thus, in the mid-twentieth century, the United States, England and the Soviet Union joined forces against Nazi Germany. Following the defeat of Germany, that alliance fell apart, as the NATO alliance arose to meet the Soviet threat.

The unification of the Eurasian continent, long assumed to be a fantasy, was brought about by the shared perception of a threat by the “rogue” American imperialists. The American neo-conservatives could not have been clearer in their intention that the United States would go it alone in the world. Following their statement of this intention in such documents as the “Project for the New American Century,” the George Bush administration proceeded to follow this guideline to the letter, abrogating treaties at will, invading defenseless countries on patently false pretenses, and in general earning for itself the fear and contempt of the global community.

In the face of this, the once-inconceivable unification of the nations of Europe and Asia became an inevitability.

Similarly, following the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, and thence of Iran in the spring of 2004, the Islamic nations united to form the Federation of Islamia, which now stretches from the Atlantic, across north Africa, all the way to Indonesia. The unity of Islamia was enhanced by the expulsion of the American forces from Iraq in 2005, followed by the establishment of a Shi’ite Islamic republic. As in neighboring Iran, Iraq suffered through a period of fundamentalist repression, until the fanaticism consumed itself and was replaced by a moderate semi-democratic government. So it has been throughout Islamia, as the member states, faced with a choice between religious fundamentalism and technical-economic development, have chosen the latter option.

The overwhelming American military, the budget for which, at the turn of the century, almost equaled the sum of all other military budgets combined, proved to be of little use to the United States. Nuclear blackmail would not work since, of course, the Eurasia was also a nuclear power. And as Viet Nam and Iraq proved, the strategically astute response to a technologically overwhelming force is to absorb the force and then to bleed it white with a thousand cuts. (The Russians used the strategy successfully against Napoleon and Hitler. The Americans, typically, learned nothing whatever from this history).

Furthermore, the Eurasians and Islamics wisely understood that even if the an opposing nation’s military is invincible, it does not follow that the nation itself is invincible. It might be vanquished non-militarily. And this, of course, is exactly what happened. The United States, starved of resources and credits, weakened internally by the fiscal insanity of the Bush brothers, blinded by dogma to the insights of science and scholarship, collapsed from within. (See “The Vulnerable Giant").

After their military had suffered several defeats in Islamia, the United States withdrew, whereupon the military was put to use by the Department of Homeland Security to put down insurrections, to protect the few oligarchs in their gated communities, and to keep the masses confined to their gated ghettos in the inner cities. In this capacity, aircraft carriers, submarines and ICBMs proved to be of little use.

And so, the world beyond the shores of the United States has gone on to an era of prosperity and enlightenment which the Americans cannot share – excepting, of course, those fortunate American who manage to escape from the despotic Republican regime and are welcomed immigrants to the Global community.

The growing community of American expatriates, who have contributed so generously to world science, scholarship, literature, art, industry, and culture, have also brought to our world the vivid memory of the magnificence of the first two centuries of the American Republic – and the undying aspiration for its restoration in that once-blessed land.

In the American Diaspora, the spirit of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Roosevelt survives and flourishes.

May it soon return to its home.



Copyright 2003, by Ernest Partridge

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SERVICEMAN`S MOTHER QUESTIONING SON`S ROLE IN IRAQI COMBAT ZONE
By Bill Gallagher
"Bring `em on." -- President George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

DETROIT -- It`s stunning that a president of the United States could publicly utter such an intemperate and reckless remark. George W. Bush, drunk with Texas machismo, and showing the gracelessness that always lurks in his character, issued that taunt to Iraqi militants who are daily attacking and killing U.S. troops.

The president made the unscripted remark as he was showing his irritation with a reporter`s question about U.S. troop strength and the scant cooperation from other nations in trying to maintain order in Iraq.

Jabbing his right hand in the air with juvenile bravado, Bush screeched in that irritating twang, more fit for a Western movie than the world stage, "There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring `em on. We`ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." He bragged, like John Wayne risen, that U.S. forces are "plenty tough" to deal with any threat.

The president then licked his lips with the smug assurance of a frat boy showing the world how tough he is. The flippant, immature "bring `em on" remark finally got the usually timid Democrats to actually criticize the popular president.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) told the Washington Post, "I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let alone the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops." The senator added Bush`s words were "tantamount to inciting and inviting more attacks against U.S. forces."

Rep. Richard Gephardt, a presidential candidate who supported the Iraq war, said he`d heard "enough of the phony macho rhetoric." Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and also a presidential hopeful, said Bush`s words "showed tremendous insensitivity to the dangers" the troops face.

Bush spokesman Ari "I`ll say anything" Fleischer, defending his boss, said the president was not "inviting" attacks, just showing his confidence in the men and women of our military.

The following day, 10 more American soldiers were wounded in attacks in occupied Iraq, and the chaos, confusion and danger show no sign of letting up.

American troops are increasingly demoralized and fatigued as they go about their difficult duties in the insufferable heat, living in constant fear of sniper attacks, and still with no indication how long they will serve as the street police in this highly volatile situation.

Last week, I wrote about the mess in Iraq, the quagmire we`re in, and the Bush administration`s failure to establish civil order in the post-Saddam nation. The situation clearly shows that, if we had a plan at all, it`s not working.

I got a fair amount of e-mail, including the usual rants from the dittoheads who are shocked that there is a non-Rush view of the world.

I got several kind notes from folks from bastions of clear thinking, like Niagara Falls, of course, and also Boston, San Francisco, Ann Arbor and Manhattan. But one e-mail right from the heartland of America really stood out.

It was from a little town in Indiana, and the writer thanked me for "calling it like it is," and added, "I hope articles like yours can rally the American people to hold Bush and Co. accountable for their lies and deceptions."

The writer (I`ll just call her Carol) says her "frustration level is at an all-time high." Her concern about the dangerous, interminable occupation in Iraq is deeply personal. Her son is with the 3rd Infantry Division over there, and she has no idea when he`ll get home.

Carol calls Rumsfeld`s office every day to complain about the situation, and in May she wrote President Bush and let him have it for suggesting the war was essentially finished.

"As I watched the footage of your landing on the U.S.S. Lincoln last week and listened to the speech about major combat being over, I found myself nauseated. While your political theatrics are being launched in hopes of getting the popularity polls up, my son is still in danger in Baghdad. Your feeble attempt at camaraderie with returning soldiers was patronizing, in my opinion."

Carol didn`t miss the irony of Bush`s flight suit fashion show. She reminded him of his year-plus absence from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. In those days, George W. wasn`t challenging Ho Chi Minh to "bring `em on." He was hiding in some redneck bar in Alabama, working on the congressional campaigning of one of his daddy`s pals.

Carol calls that absence from duty "desertion," and tells the president, "My son will come back a 20-year-old combat veteran. Do not even pretend to have any regard for what he and his comrades have been through -- the sights, the smells, the sounds they will have etched forever in their memories."

Carol blasted Bush for slashing health care and benefits for veterans, while painting himself the champion of the armed forces. She knows how money drives everything the Bush administration touches, especially as it relates to favored companies.

"You will close your eyes at night and see $$$ as you reap the `back door benefits` of all the corporations making millions off the war. My son will most likely see images of mangled bodies, wounded children and major destruction. Where were your priorities? Bechtel, Carlyle, Halliburton -- I guess there is no profit in humanitarian relief."

The soldier`s mother tells Bush what he doesn`t hear from his handlers in the White House or at the military bases he likes to visit. "People in the U.S. are guilty of misplaced trust -- in their political leaders and the media. Misguided ignorance may have put you in office, but my hope is that the American public begins to see itself as responsible for searching out the truth of the war in Iraq and the lies and manipulation we are being subjected to, while covert agendas are being carried out by our government leaders."

While the troops suffer in Iraq, the president and vice president are on the biggest and most obscene grab for campaign cash in American political history. They expect to rake in a staggering $170 million before the primary season. That`s especially interesting since the incumbent president will face no primary opposition. The Republicans will use the money to try to get the least-threatening Democrat nominated, and then march through the general election with the largest campaign war chest ever.

Carol is on to that, too, and how corrupting it is for the nation. She tells Bush, "Political policy seems to be dictated by those with power and big pocketbooks. We don`t even have a democracy here anymore, how can we help Iraq to create a democratic society?"

I say too, "Bring `em on." Bring on the simple truths so well understood and bravely said by a worried mother from Indiana who loves her son and her country, but fears what George W. Bush is doing to our nation.

Carol does not believe patriotism is blindly wrapping herself in the flag and saying the commander in chief can do no wrong. She wrote Bush what he should read more often. "I am an American, proudly supporting the men and women who are [serving] and have served this country, but I will no longer cower to the fallacy that I must support my president as well."

The president doesn`t respond to her letters. He`s too macho for that.

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher123.html

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Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is [e-mail].
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com July 8 2003

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Under Iraq
Issue of 2003-07-14
Posted 2003-07-07
This week in the magazine, John Cassidy writes about the controversy surrounding the fate of Iraq`s oil reserves, which may be the world`s largest. Here Cassidy discusses with The New Yorker`s Amy Davidson the role of Iraqi oil in politics, business, and war.

AMY DAVIDSON: In your piece, you cite a statement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the decision to remove Saddam Hussein had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing." Iraq has the world`s second-largest proven reserves. Who owns all of that oil? And who controls it?

JOHN CASSIDY: The Iraqi people own Iraq`s oil. Since the Baath Party nationalized the oil industry, in the early nineteen-seventies, throwing out the Iraq Petroleum Company, a Western-backed consortium that previously ran the oil industry, the Iraq National Oil Company has controlled the oil fields. Of course, since the invasion, there hasn`t been a proper legal system in Iraq, so all forms of ownership are in doubt, to some extent. But the British and American governments have repeatedly stated that a representative Iraqi government, whenever such a thing is formed, will ultimately determine what happens to Iraq`s oil. So it seems that Iraq`s occupiers have recognized the ownership rights of the Iraqi people—at least, in principal. As for control, the occupying authority is currently in over-all command of everything in Iraq, including the oil industry. But on a day-to-day basis the Ministry of Oil, which oversees the Iraq National Oil Company and its subsidiaries, is still running the industry, under the supervision of Task Force Rio, a joint military-civilian operation that the Pentagon set up.

In your article, you look at the history of oil in Iraq going back almost a century. How does the early involvement of foreign powers and corporations in Iraqi oil play into the situation today?

It matters in a lot of ways. To start with the prosaic, quite a bit of the oil industry infrastructure dates back to 1912. For example, when I visited the Basra refinery and the headquarters of the Northern Oil Company, in Kirkuk, I was struck by the colonial look of both places. They were brick buildings constructed in the English style, with handsome gardens. Similarly, most of the senior Iraqi executives I interviewed were educated in Britain.

On the other hand, Iraq is a country with strong nationalist sentiments, and many Iraqis suspect that the invasion was primarily an attempt to reëstablish Western control over the oil industry. Given the history that I outline in the piece, this is hardly surprising. For much of the twentieth century, Western oil companies made a lot of money in Iraq and paid the Iraqi government a pittance in return. This was imperialism in the raw, and Iraqis are not ready to forget it. In fact, it is impossible to understand what is happening in Iraq now without taking account of the country`s colonial heritage—a heritage in which oil is key.

What do Iraqis want done with the oil industry?

Most of the Iraqis I spoke with were connected to the oil industry. Almost all of them said that the Iraqi government should continue to run the industry, but they also seemed open to the idea of partnerships and joint ventures with foreign firms. You have to understand that the managers of the industry are well educated, experienced, and proud. They believe that they have already demonstrated the capacity to run the industry capably, and most foreign oil experts would agree with that assessment. In the past twenty-five years, the industry has survived three wars and a decade of U.N. sanctions. Despite this history, on the eve of the war, Iraq`s oil industry was producing about two and a half million barrels a day.

As for the Iraqi people at large, most of them just want a fair shake from the oil revenues. During the nineteen-seventies, the Baathists did a pretty good job of using the oil money to develop the economy and to provide the populace with health care and education. But once Saddam Hussein made the decision to invade Iran, in 1980, a lot of the oil money was diverted to military uses. Most people would be happy to see a return to the policies of the seventies, but it`s not clear if that will happen. Of course, at the moment, not very much is clear.

Can the interim authority, under Paul Bremer, carry out its plans now, or is the security situation still too unstable?

As far as the oil industry is concerned, the instability has had a major impact. Back in April, on the day Baghdad fell, Vice-President Dick Cheney that said Iraqi oil production could reach three million barrels a day by the end of the year. Three months later, production is still stuck below one million barrels a day, and the main reason is the rampant looting and disorder that struck the industry in the weeks after the war ended. Even now, pipelines are being blown up, plants are being looted, and oil is being stolen. Some progress is being made—production is creeping up in most parts of the country, and Iraq has recently exported a little oil—but it is a lot slower than the American and British governments hoped for.

How much has looting endangered the long-term prospects of the oil industry?

Good question. It is important to distinguish between the short term and the long term. In the short term, as I just said, the looting has had a major impact. The problem is that the oil industry is integrated. If one installation is looted—say, a pumping station—that impacts other plants in the area. In the south, for example, production of crude oil and gasoline has been held back partly because a single water-treatment plant near Basra was destroyed.

In the long term, however, the looting will not have much of an impact on the industry`s immense potential. Even the most determined looters cannot get at the oil that is still buried underground, and there is an awful lot of it. That fact, by itself, indicates that the long-term prospects of the industry are very good.

You mentioned that you interviewed a lot of Iraqis who work in the petroleum industry. Did you get the sense that they believed that the Americans and the British had their best interests at heart?

Very difficult to say. Some did. The two executives from the Northern Oil Company, whom I write about at the end of the piece, seemed genuinely hopeful about the future. They believed that Saddam was an ignorant brute, who channelled a lot of oil money to himself and his cronies, and they were delighted to see him go. Inevitably, however, there is a lot of suspicion among ordinary Iraqis about the invaders` true motives. If I had to characterize the attitude of the country as a whole, I would say that the Iraqis initially adopted a wait-and-see attitude. They were glad to see Saddam overthrown, and they were willing to give the Americans and the British the benefit of the doubt. But the failure to restore basic services, such as electricity and telephone service, in many areas has had an extremely adverse impact on popular attitudes. Many people suspect that the occupiers are deliberately keeping the country in a state of disorder and chaos, so they can use it as an excuse to avoid handing over power to an Iraqi government.

How compromised are Iraq`s oil-industry professionals by their past association with Saddam Hussein`s regime?

Some are seriously compromised, but most of them have already quit or been fired. Everybody knows that under Saddam`s regime any senior public official had to get along with his or her ultimate bosses in the Baath Party. It wasn`t a viable option to declare, "I don`t like Saddam, therefore I refuse to have anything to do with the Baathists." Having said that, it is all a matter of degrees. Some oil-industry officials joined the party and were cheerleaders for Saddam. When I went to the Ministry of Oil, I saw some people demonstrating against senior Baathists, but Thamir Ghadhban, the new Oil Minister, wasn`t on their list. The same seems to be true in the provinces. Most of the senior people are career oilmen who did what they had to do to survive. Moreover, it was the American military that appointed the heads of the Northern Oil Company and the Southern Oil Company, so the Pentagon`s Coalition Provisional Authority can hardly turn around now and say that they`re getting rid of them.

Have any Iraqi dissidents or exiles emerged to take a leadership role in the oil industry? Do any even have the expertise to do so?

Not yet. Before the war started, the Pentagon and the State Department gathered a group of Iraqi exiles, most of whom used to work in the oil industry, and asked them to come up with some recommendations for the future. The group met a few times and came up with a report, but once the war started events took on a momentum of their own, and not much has been heard of the exiles. The one place they may reappear is on a supervisory committee to the Ministry of Oil, which Philip Carroll, a former head of Royal Dutch/Shell`s American operations, is setting up. Carroll has been in Baghdad since early May as the U.S. government`s adviser to the Iraqi oil industry. He has already named two Iraqi exiles as members of the committee, but it is too early to say how much power they will have. The same applies to Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, whom the Pentagon flew to Iraq during the war. The I.N.C. has come up with a list of recommendations for the oil industry, some of which I detail in my piece, but nobody knows what role, if any, Chalabi will have in a future government. His reputation has been damaged by reports of his involvement in a Jordanian banking scandal, and the occupying forces have disarmed some of his men, who previously were walking around toting AK-47s.

There was an idea before the war that Iraq would be able to pay for its own reconstruction through oil revenues. Is that proving to be realistic?

That depends on how quickly the oil revenues come onstream. If the current situation continues, there won`t be much in the way of oil revenues, and there probably won`t be much reconstruction, either. British and American officials on the ground are already said to be arguing about whether the occupying authority should start investing in reconstruction—things like power stations and dams—before the oil revenues start to flow in big amounts. The British want to start spending money now; the Americans don`t. Since this is basically an American show, I predict that the chances of large-scale reconstruction beginning anytime soon are slim.

Looking further ahead, much depends on the Ministry of Oil`s plans to expand capacity. If things go well, and Iraq manages to raise its daily production to six million barrels by 2010, then the oil industry would generate about fifty billion dollars a year, which is a considerable sum. But even that shouldn`t be exaggerated. There are about twenty-five million Iraqis now, and by 2010 there will probably be thirty million. As I point out in the piece, fifty billion dollars divided among thirty million people is roughly five dollars a day. Oil alone isn`t going to turn Iraq into a rich country.

One question that you bring up in your piece is whether Iraq`s oil industry ought to be privatized. Obviously, privatization is a larger and quite controversial issue, related to that of globalization. Is Iraq likely to become a focal point for that debate?

The Bush Administration is not revealing what, if anything, it plans to do with the Iraqi oil industry in the long term. All it will say is that the future Iraqi government will make the decisions. However, some people in Washington are pushing for privatization. Earlier this year, a couple of economists from the Heritage Foundation published a paper advocating the splitting up of the Iraqi oil industry, followed by a stock-market flotation, along Russian lines. When I spoke to Philip Carroll about this, he knocked down the idea, saying that the Russian model, which led to a small group of oligarchs taking over the entire industry, wasn`t one to emulate.

In a broader sense, though, what happens in Iraq is sure to stimulate debate between the pro-globalization and the anti-globalization forces. If the occupiers push ahead and administer a stiff dose of free-market economics to Iraq, the same debates that took place in post-Communist Russia will return, with some of the same characters. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, has given the conservatives some grounds for encouragement by advocating an aggressive program of privatization (although Bremer didn`t specifically mention the oil industry). Conversely, Carroll`s statements to me, which I report in the piece, will provide some encouragement to the moderates and the liberals who think that the last thing Iraq needs is a dose of "shock therapy."

Might the U.S. persuade the new Iraqi government to leave OPEC?

Certainly, some people in Europe and the Arab world have suspected that getting Iraq out of OPEC might be part of the Bush Administration`s agenda. But when I spoke to Carroll he said categorically that Iraq would not be leaving OPEC in the near future, certainly not before a representative government is formed. As for the long term, he repeated the mantra that this is an issue for the Iraqis to decide. When I pressed him on his personal views, he said that he believed it would be in Iraq`s best interest to stay in OPEC. So, if Carroll has anything to do with it, and he is a representative of the President, Iraq will not be leaving OPEC.

Did your trip to Iraq leave you with any sense of optimism about the future, if not of the oil industry then of the country as a whole?

"Optimism" is a difficult word to apply to Iraq at the moment. The British and American invaders clearly took on a much greater challenge than they anticipated, and so far they haven`t reacted to this discovery very impressively. The Iraqi people seem to be getting increasingly disillusioned with what is happening, which is not a good thing.

However, I did see some encouraging things. Most of the Iraqis I met were friendly and open. Apart from a few minor incidents, I didn`t encounter much hostility. (Of course, I am a journalist, not a soldier.)

Many people seemed delighted to see the back of Saddam and his cronies. Within the oil industry, Americans, Britons, and Iraqis appeared to be coöperating and working together, if not amicably then, at least, on speaking terms. Despite all the looting and sabotage, oil production is creeping up slowly. When I arrived in Iraq, in early May, the industry was producing about two hundred and fifty thousand barrels of oil a day. Now it is up to about eight hundred thousand barrels.

I think my over-all impression is that Iraq is a country with the potential to do very well or very badly. There are a lot of able people, there is a strong history of trade and commerce, and, of course, there is the oil. But there is also a resentment of Western imperialism, which is based on Iraq`s history, and a history of mutual suspicion (and worse) between Arab and Kurd and between Sunni and Shiite. Overcoming these challenges to transform Iraq into a stable, prosperous country represents an enormous challenge. One of the Iraqis I met said to me, "We need a MacArthur or a Marshall." I think they might need a MacArthur and a Marshall to help them survive the next few years, but even that won`t be enough. They also need a George Washington or a Franklin D. Roosevelt; a great Iraqi to emerge and unite the country behind a progressive, forward-looking government in its time of need. But it`s just as likely that they will get a Milosevic, a Khomeini, or another Saddam.

http://newyorker.com/online/content/?030714on_onlineonly02

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Das ist ich weiß nicht der wievielte Bericht in den US-Zeitungen über den Love Bug und die Endgültige Einstellung der Produktion.



It`s Time to Say Adios to Beetle `Love Bug`
Tue July 8, 2003 09:34 AM ET




By Elizabeth Fullerton
PUEBLA, Mexico (Reuters) - The end is nearing for the old Volkswagen Beetle, the much-loved Love Bug which will shortly go the way of other flower power-era icons like kaftans and The Doors.

On Thursday, Volkswagen`s plant in Mexico -- the only one in the world which still makes the old-style Beetle -- launches one last retro edition of the plucky bug before bringing down the curtain on nearly 70 years of history.

The "people`s car" that was first commissioned by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and went on to become a symbol of the hippie revolution will almost certainly be put to rest for good by the end of the month, according to the company.

"There has never been a car like it, but I don`t think production will go on beyond" the end of July, said Christine Kuhlmeyer, head of corporate communication at Volkswagen in Mexico.

From Iceland to Malaysia, the original Beetle has attracted devoted fans like no other car. A redesigned, sleeker version called the New Beetle was launched in 1998 but at a price of $20,000 to $25,000 is no longer an everyman`s car.

George Memetov, who started up the Classic Beetle Club in the Belarus capital Minsk, considers owners of the original air-cooled, rear-engine vehicle to be a special breed.

"It`s a certain type of person who drives a Beetle. All people who have Beetles are very open to ideas; they love life," he told Reuters by telephone.

For the 300 Mexicans who work on the Beetle production line at the plant in the central Mexican state of Puebla, it will be like parting with a member of the family. The factory will continue producing the New Beetle.

"It`s a jewel for me. The little bug has given my family prosperity," said Armando Pasillas, 60, who has worked for 37 years on the Beetle, which has been made in Mexico since 1964.

"I like seeing them in the street because I know they have all passed through my hands," he said. "I`ve left part of my life here," he added.

In 1996, Mexico became the last country to produce the old Beetle and since 1998 the car has only been sold in Mexico. The Volkswagen plant in Puebla is also the only one worldwide to produce the New Beetle and that is mainly for export.

Beetle fans on the Internet swap tales of wacky stunts like successfully "sailing" across New York harbor in a Beetle fitted with a propeller in 1960.

Another Web site recounts how by tampering with the Beetle`s fuel tank, East Germans made enough space to hide a person and that way managed to sneak around 50 people to the other side of the Berlin Wall before its fall in 1989.

A BREED APART

The Love Bug was conceived in the early 1930s out of Hitler`s desire to produce a cheap, durable Volkswagen (literally "people`s car" in German) for the German family.

The chubby, curvy little car took off after World War II, quickly becoming a symbol of the German economic miracle.

As its popularity spread, the Beetle became the car of choice of the rebellious post-war generation in the United States and Europe, for whom it represented freedom from the tight social restrictions of the time.

The Beetle sealed its cult status as the star of Disney`s series of Herbie films, such as "Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo."

In Mexico alone, there are 90 fan clubs and around 1.5 million Beetles in circulation.

In Mexico City, the bug, or "vocho" as it is known locally, is a stalwart. Painted white and green, it is the standard model used by taxi drivers to crawl through heavy traffic.

U.S. fan Rick Mortensen was so taken with the curvy car that in 1985 he started the Bug-O-Rama, an annual race and get-together for Beetle fans in Phoenix, Arizona.

Beetle owner Paul Cahill holds the record for the longest ownership of one car, according to the Guinness Book of Records. He bought a bug in 1961 in Australia and has driven it every day since then, clocking up 310,700 miles.

But all good things must come to an end. And when sales almost halved from 2000 to 2002 to 24,500 cars, Volkswagen decided to pull the plug on the legend.

New technology spawned a range of compact, efficient and fast cars like the Fiat Uno and Ford Fiesta that edged the Beetle out of the market.

"At the end of the day, it`s the customer who decides," said Volkswagen`s Kuhlmeyer.

A decision by Mexico City`s government to only give out future permits to taxis with four-doors helped seal the two-door bug`s fate.

In its heyday, over 1 million Beetles were produced annually worldwide. Yet over the course of the years, the bug`s basic design hardly changed.

"One thing is sure: the Beetle never will disappear from the roads of our planet and, above all, it never will disappear from the hearts of millions of people all over the world," said Italian fan Mattia Zamana.

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Do you think the new tax cut law will – or will not – help your family’s financial situation?


http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr030708.asp



Across political party identification, a majority of the American public has a favorable opinion of Arnold Schwarzenegger.



Next, we`d like to get your overall opinion of some people in the entertainment field. As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people -- or if you have never heard of them. How about Arnold Schwarzenegger?


"Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think it applies or doesn`t apply to George W. Bush. How about [see below]?"
Has a clear plan for solving this country`s problems"
.............Applies.... Doesn`tApply....... NoOpinion
.......................%........ %.......... %

6/03............... 50........ 47.......... 3

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http://www.fr-aktuell.de/ressorts/nachrichten_und_politik/in…" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.fr-aktuell.de/ressorts/nachrichten_und_politik/in…
[/b]
"Bush hat der Dritten Welt den dritten Weltkrieg erklärt"

Die südafrikanische Anti-Kriegs-Koalition über den US-Präsidenten, neue Kolonialisten und alte Verhaltensweisen

US-Präsident George W. Bush ist nach Ansicht des Südafrikaners Salim Vally ein Kriegsverbrecher. Der Sprecher der Anti-Kriegs-Koalition, die sich kurz vor dem US-Angriff auf Irak gebildet hat und inzwischen 300 Organisationen zählt, vergleicht Bushs Reise nach Afrika mit dem Vorgehen der alten Kolonialherren.[/b] Die Anti-Kriegs-Koalition hat für den heutigen Mittwoch in Pretoria zu einer Großdemonstration gegen die US-Regierung aufgerufen. Mit Salim Vally sprach FR-Korrespondent Johannes Dieterich.


Frankfurter Rundschau: George W. Bush, der mächtigste Mann der Welt, ist in Afrika. Freut Sie das?

Salim Vally: Absolut nicht. George W. Bush ist eine Bedrohung der Menschheit und des gesamten Planeten. Er hat sein Volk und die Welt mit der Behauptung betrogen, wegen Massenvernichtungsmitteln gegen Irak in den Krieg zu ziehen. Heute wissen wir, dass es die gar nicht gab: Bush selbst ist das Massenvernichtungsmittel. Er muss vor ein Kriegsverbrechertribunal gestellt werden.

Bush kommt aber mit Geschenken nach Afrika, beispielsweise einen 15 Milliarden Dollar fassenden Topf zur Bekämpfung der Aids-Pandemie.

Das ist bloße Augenwischerei. Die Auszahlung ist an zahllose Bedingungen geknüpft, und der Chef der Stiftung ist ein Ex-Direktor des Pharmakonzerns Eli Lilly, der wiederum zu Bushs großzügigsten Unterstützern im Wahlkampf zählte. Wäre es Bush Ernst mit dem Kampf gegen Aids, würde er die Herstellung von billigen generischen Aids-Medikamenten ermöglichen. Genau das verhindert er jedoch. Er kommt nach Afrika, um die Interessen der amerikanischen Geschäftswelt durchzusetzen.

Er will aber auch den Handel zwischen den USA und Afrika ankurbeln.

Die von Bush anvisierten Handelsbeziehungen nützen vor allem den US-Firmen. Sie kommen in den Genuss der völligen Handelsliberalisierung, während die afrikanischen Staaten Bedingungen erfüllen müssen, um in den Kreis der bevorzugten Staaten aufgenommen zu werden. Dieselbe Heuchelei erleben wir im Agrarbereich: Bush behauptet, mit genmanipuliertem Saatgut den afrikanischen Landwirten helfen zu wollen, entzieht ihnen in Wahrheit jedoch mit der massiven Subventionierung der US-Farmer die Lebensgrundlage. Wie früher die Missionare und Kolonialisten kommt Bush unter der Flagge nach Afrika, die Errungenschaft der westlichen Zivilisation zu bringen. In Wirklichkeit aber hat er der Dritten Welt den dritten Weltkrieg erklärt.

Kann es sich Afrika überhaupt leisten, der Supermacht die kalte Schulter zu zeigen?

Wir sind mit Millionen von Menschen auf der ganzen Welt der Überzeugung, dass wir Prinzipien und nicht in erster Linie dem Profit zu folgen haben. Während des Anti-Apartheidskampfes haben wir hier in Südafrika zu Wirtschaftssanktionen aufgerufen, obwohl das unsere eigenen Leute schädigte. Wir müssen Bush stoppen, sonst wird die Welt immer gefährlicher.

Ihre eigene Regierung hat Bush aber herzlich willkommen geheißen.

Die Regierung ja, aber nicht die große Mehrheit der Bevölkerung. Wir haben Präsident Thabo Mbeki aufgefordert, sich nicht kaufen oder einschüchtern zu lassen. Unglücklicherweise folgt seine Regierung jedoch dem neoliberalen Modell der USA - mit verheerenden Konsequenzen: Die Arbeitslosigkeit nimmt zu, und der Graben zwischen arm und reich wird immer tiefer. Jetzt soll hier auch noch ein Anti-Terrorgesetz nach dem Vorbild des "Patriotischen Gesetzes" in den USA verabschiedet werden - ein weiteres Indiz dafür, wie Bush die Welt beherrscht und ruiniert.

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U.S. Toll in Iraq Nears Gulf War Numbers

Tuesday July 8, 2003 8:49 PM


By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon on Tuesday raised its count of Americans killed by hostile fire in Iraq since the war began in March to 143, a figure that approaches the 147 killed in the 1991 Gulf War.

When President Bush declared major combat operations had ended on May 1, the number killed in action stood at 114. Since then, guerrilla-style attacks have taken another 29 American lives, and Bush as well as U.S. military commanders have said the war is not yet over.

``Rough road behind, rough road ahead,`` Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces in the war, said Monday at a ceremony in which he handed over command of the operation to Gen. John Abizaid.

In the latest slayings, a roadside bomb killed one soldier traveling in an Army convoy Monday, and on Sunday night an American was shot to death in a Baghdad gun battle. Also Sunday, a U.S. soldier was shot and killed at close range while drinking a soda at Baghdad University.

In recent weeks, resistance forces have launched about a dozen attacks a day on American troops. Pentagon officials say the attacks are coming from a variety of anti-occupation forces, including former Baath Party members, paramilitaries, non-Iraqi fighters and remnants of Saddam Hussein`s security forces.

The total number of Americans who have died in Iraq since the conflict began March 20 stands at 211, according to the Pentagon`s count. That number includes 68 deaths in accidents and other non-hostile circumstances. About two-thirds of the non-hostile deaths have come since May 1.

In the 1991 war, 147 were killed by hostile fire. The war began Jan. 17 and ended with a cease-fire on Feb. 28. There also were 235 non-hostile deaths, including a number of soldiers who died during the U.S. buildup in Saudi Arabia and others who died in Kuwait after the fighting ended.

In the current war in Iraq, the 211 deaths include 122 from the Army, 80 from the Marine Corps, five from the Air Force and four from the Navy.

^---

On the Net:

The Defense Department:http://www.defenselink.mil

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The lost decade
They were promised a brighter future, but in the 1990s the world`s poor fell further behind

Larry Elliott, economics editor
Wednesday July 9, 2003
The Guardian

The widening gulf between the global haves and have-nots was starkly revealed last night when the United Nations announced that while the United States was booming in the 1990s more than 50 countries suffered falling living standards.

The UN`s annual human development report charted increasing poverty for more than a quarter of the world`s countries, where a lethal combination of famine, HIV/Aids, conflict and failed economic policies have turned the clock back.

Highlighting the setbacks endured by sub-Saharan Africa and the nations that emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war, the UN called for urgent action to meet its millennium development goals for 2015. These include a halving of the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, a two-thirds drop in mortality for the under fives, universal primary education and a halving of those without access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation.

The report said the 1990s had seen a drop from 30% to 23% in the number of people globally living on less than a dollar a day, but the improvement had largely been the result of the progress in China and India, the world`s two most populous countries.

Despite some sporadic successes such as Ghana and Senegal, there was little hope of Africa meeting the UN`s 2015 development goals; on current trends it would be 2147 before the poorest countries in the poorest continent halved poverty and 2165 before child mortality was cut by two thirds. Thirty of the 34 countries classified by the UN as "low human development" are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Taking issue with those who have argued that the "tough love" policies of the past two decades have spawned the growth of a new global middle class, the report says the world became ever more divided between the super-rich and the desperately poor.

The richest 1% of the world`s population (around 60 million) now receive as much income as the poorest 57%, while the income of the richest 25 million Americans is the equivalent of that of almost 2 billion of the world`s poorest people. In 1820, western Europe`s per capita income was three times that of Africa`s; by the 1990s it was more than 13 times as high.

In Norway, top of the UN`s league table for human development, life expectancy at birth is 78.7 years, there is 100% literacy and annual income is just under $30,000 (about £18,200). At the other end of the scale, a newborn child in Sierra Leone will be lucky to reach its 35th birthday, has a two in three chance of growing up illiterate and would have an income of $470 a year.

Overall human development, measured by the UN as an amalgam of income, life expectancy and literacy, fell in 21 countries during the 1990s. By contrast, only four countries suffered falling human development in the 1980s.

"Though average incomes have risen and fallen over time, human development has historically shown sustained improvement, especially when measured by the human development index. But the 1990s saw unprecedented stagnation, with the HDI falling in 21 countries.

"Much of the decline in the 1990s can be traced to the spread of HIV/AIDS, which lowered life expectancies, and to a collapse in incomes, particularly in the commonwealth of independent states."

The UN said the events of September 11 had created a "genuine consensus" that poverty was the world`s problem, but urged the west to abandon the one-size-fits-all liberalisation agenda foisted on poor nations.

Mark Malloch-Brown, administrator of the UN development programme, said many countries in Africa and Latin America held up as examples of how to kick-start development were among the stragglers in the global economy.

"The poster children of the 1990s are among those who didn`t do terribly well. There are structural restraints on development. Market reforms are not enough. You can`t just liberalise; you need an interventionist strategy."

The report added that: "Over the past 20 years too much development thinking and practice have confused market-based economic growth with laissez faire."

The west needed to tear down trade barriers, dismantle its lavish subsidy regimes, provide deeper debt relief and double aid from $50bn to $100bn a year. This would provide the resources for investment in the building blocks of development - health, education, clean water and rural roads.

"Poor countries cannot afford to wait until they are wealthy before they invest in their people", said Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Kofi Annan on the UN millennium development goals.

Economic growth alone would not rescue the world from poverty, the report said. "Without addressing issues like malnutrition and illiteracy that are both causes and symptoms of poverty, the goals will not be met. The statistics today are shaming: more than 13 million children have died through diarrhoeal disease in the past decade. Each year, over half a million women, one for every minute of the day, die in pregnancy and childbirth. More than 800 million suffer from malnutrition."

It added: "For many countries the 1990s were a decade of despair. Some 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990. In 21, a larger proportion is going hungry. In 14, more children are dying before age five. In 12, primary school enrolments are shrinking. In 34, life expectancy has fallen. Such reversals in survival were previously rare."

Matthew Lockwood, head of UK Advocacy Team, ActionAid, said: "The shocking truth is that the poor are getting poorer.

"Leaders, in rich and poor countries alike, are not taking poverty seriously enough. You don`t solve this problem by making the leaders of poor countries accountable to their rich-country counterparts. They need to be accountable to their own citizens. Poor people must have a voice."

Where living standards fell between 1990 and 2001

Angola

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Brunei Darussalam

Bulgaria

Burundi

Cameroon

Central African Republic

Chad

Comoros

Congo

Congo, Dem. Rep. of the

Djibouti

Ecuador

Gabon

Georgia

Guinea-Bissau

Haiti

Jamaica

Kazakhstan

Kenya

Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan

Latvia

Lithuania

Macedonia, TFYR

Madagascar

Marshall Islands

Micronesia, Fed. Sts.

Moldova, Rep. of

Mongolia

Nicaragua

Niger

Nigeria

Occupied Palestinian Territory

Paraguay

Romania

Russian Federation

Rwanda

Sao Tome and Principe

Saudi Arabia

Sierra Leone

Solomon Islands

Tajikistan

Togo

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

Uzbekistan

Vanuatu

Venezuela

Zambia

Zimbabwe


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Is Niger the smoking gun?
Blair under fire as White House rejects British intelligence claiming Iraq tried to buy uranium
By Ben Russell and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
09 July 2003


The White House has dealt a devastating blow to Tony Blair by rejecting as flawed British claims that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy uranium from Africa to restart his nuclear weapons programme.

The Bush administration was in full retreat yesterday with officials admitting that the allegation should not have been included in President George Bush`s State of the Union address. The American admission represented the first serious split between London and Washington over the case against Saddam and exploded into a full-scale row in Westminster as Mr Blair told senior MPs that the Government was standing by its story.

Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers demanded that Mr Blair release the intelligence behind the allegation to an independent inquiry.

In his address to Congress in January, Mr Bush said: "The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

But a statement approved by the White House on Monday said: "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq`s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech. There is other reporting to suggest that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa. However, the information is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that attempts were in fact made."

"In other words," a White House official told The New York Times, "we couldn`t prove it and it might in fact be wrong."

The White House climbdown followed a sceptical report from the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and claims from the retired US ambassador Joseph Wilson that the allegations of a link between Niger and Saddam were false. He had been sent to Niger by the CIA to investigate possible links nine months before Mr Bush`s address.

Mr Wilson first made his claims anonymously in The Independent on Sunday 10 days ago. He repeated the claims in The New York Times at the weekend in a signed article. "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq`s nuclear weapons programme was twisted,"he said.

Monday was the first time the US had admitted publicly that key "evidence" backing the claim that Iraq was trying to "reconstitute its nuclear weapons programme" was false. The threat of Saddam acquiring nuclear weapons became central to the British and American governments` case for war. Tony Blair told MPs in September that Saddam was "actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability".

Mr Blair said yesterday the intelligence services were standing by their allegation that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium, despite a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in March dismissing the claims as based on crude forgeries. Questioned on the Niger affair by the Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Blair said the claims were based on multiple sources and did not rely on the forged documents obtained by the IAEA.

He said: "There was an historic link between Niger and Iraq. In the 1980s Iraq purchased somewhere in the region of 200 tons of uranium from Niger. The evidence that we had that the Iraqi government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from these so-called forged documents. They came from separate intelligence."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, renewed his call for an independent inquiry. He said: "Once again, the Prime Minister is making assertions about contested intelligence assessments. The Niger documents are known to have been falsified, yet Tony Blair continues to insist the intelligence was accurate. The Bush administration now appears to be backing away from these claims. Once again it raises the question: did we go to war on a false premise?"

Michael Ancram, the shadow Foreign Secretary, added: "The only way that Tony Blair can establish the veracity of such intelligence information ... is to allow it to be examined in the context of an independent judicial inquiry. Given the total distrust of anything the Prime Minister says, it is vital for the re-establishment of the credibility of the intelligence services that this process is now undertaken."

Questioned in the Commons yesterday, Jack Straw said: "The information which was included in the dossier and assessed as reliable relating to the purchase of uranium - not that they had purchased it but Iraq had sought to purchase it - was based on sources quite separate than those based on the forged documents."

Mystery still surrounds the original source of the claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Foreign Office officials have admitted that it was passed on by a foreign intelligence service but insist that it fitted a pattern of evidence that Saddam was trying to revive his nuclear weapons programme.

Ministers have confirmed that they have not passed information on Niger to the IAEA, despite a commitment to co-operate with the nuclear weapons inspectorate.

The Government received a boost in its dispute with the BBC over a report claiming Downing Street "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction with a claim that they could be deployed within 45 minutes. An official at the Ministry of Defence admitted meeting the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan a week before the claim was broadcast but denied making any comment on No 10`s involvement.
9 July 2003 09:09


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 9, 2003
9/11 Commission Says U.S. Agencies Slow Its Inquiry
By PHILIP SHENON


ASHINGTON, July 8 — The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony.

The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, with the commission`s chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.

In what they acknowledged was an effort to bring public pressure on the White House to meet the panel`s demands for classified information, the commission`s Republican chairman and Democratic vice chairman released a statement, declaring that they had received only a small part of the millions of sensitive government documents they have requested from the executive branch.

While praising President Bush and top aides for their personal commitment to the panel`s work, the commission`s leaders — the chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former Democratic member of the House from Indiana — said that federal agencies under Mr. Bush`s control were not cooperating quickly or fully.

"The administration underestimated the scale of the commission`s work and the full breadth of support required," they said. "The coming weeks will determine whether we will be able to do our job within the time allotted. The task in front of us is monumental."

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said today in response to the statement from the panel, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: "The president is committed to ensuring that the commission has all the information it needs. The president has directed federal agencies to cooperate and to do so quickly."

Under the law creating the bipartisan, 10-member panel last year, the commission, which met for the first time in January, is required to complete its investigation by next May. "While thousands of documents are flowing in — some in boxes and some digitized — most of the documents we need are still to come," the statement said. "Time is slipping by."

The criticism today from Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton clearly took senior administration officials by surprise and brought a fresh round of attacks on the White House from Congressional Democrats who have said that the administration is trying to stonewall a politically damaging inquiry.

Although the White House had initially opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate intelligence and law-enforcement failures before the 2001 terrorist strikes, the administration eventually came around to support the move, and it has repeatedly pledged full cooperation.

The White House chose Mr. Kean to lead the investigation after its first choice, Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state, resigned from the post rather than release a list of clients of his consulting firm. Mr. Hamilton was named vice chairman by Congressional Democrats after their first choice, George J. Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic majority leader, resigned when questions were raised about similar conflicts of interest.

In their statement, Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton said that the "problems that have arisen so far with the Department of Defense are becoming particularly serious." They noted that the Pentagon had not responded to a series of requests for evidence from several Defense Department agencies, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is responsible for guarding American airspace from terrorist attack.

"Delays are lengthening and agency points of contact have so far been unable to resolve them," the statement said. "In the last few days, we have been assured that the department`s leaders will address these concerns. We look forward to seeing the results."

Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton suggested that the Justice Department was behind a directive barring intelligence officials from being interviewed by the panel without the presence of agency colleagues.

At a news conference, Mr. Kean described the presence of "minders" at the interviews as a form of intimidation. "I think the commission feels unanimously that it`s some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either work for or works for your agency," he said. "You might get less testimony than you would."

"We would rather interview these people without minders or without agency people there," he said.

In their written statement, the panel`s leaders said that the Justice Department had been "unable to resolve important issues related" to the commission`s access to evidence and testimony from the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person facing trial in an American court for conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A Defense Department spokeswoman said tonight that the department would have no immediate response to the criticism.

A Justice Department spokesman, Mark Corallo, said that his department remained "committed to assisting the commission`s important work on behalf of the United States." Mr. Corallo added, however, that "assembling the enormous amount of information requested takes significant manpower and time to accomplish."

He defended the administration`s requirement that witnesses be present when some executive branch officials are interviewed by the panel. "In any investigation in which federal employees are interviewed, it is standard practice to have another agency representative present for the benefit of the witnesses and to help facilitate the investigation," he said.

Although their intent today was clearly to create discomfort at the White House, Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton said repeatedly that they were optimistic that the panel could complete its work on time and that it would offer the most complete account available of the events that led to the terrorist attacks.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Sheik Dari Hamis al-Dari, in white robe, listening to complaints and concerns from constituents in his post as leader of the Abu Ghraib town council.
July 9, 2003
For a Town Council in Iraq, Many Queries, Few Answers
By AMY WALDMAN


ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, July 5 — On a recent morning, the Abu Ghraib town council was hearing the usual litany of complaints, offering its usual mix of help and, mostly, impotence in return. Overhead, a fan turned, but the air did not.

The constituents` woes came down to the essentials. They had no power, and thus no clean water — could they get generators? They had no security — could they get weapons permits?

If anyone could help them, it should have been the man at the center of the scene, Dari Hamis al-Dari. In April, he was selected by the local tribes to lead Iraq`s first freely formed town council after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Since then, he has sat at a desk in a white robe and headdress, in a room lined with men in tribal robes and Western dress all looking to him for answers. He has not had many.

Mr. Dari could do nothing for the man who, lacking electricity, stayed up all night fanning a sick child, nothing for the 5-year-old child who was left legless by unexploded ordnance that detonated, a sight that caused him to weep. He could do nothing for the multitudes complaining of cars, weapons or relatives taken by American forces, other than give their names to the Americans. He could do nothing for those lacking drinking water or waiting for food rations.

"What do you tell the people — have more patience?" he asked rhetorically. "Till when?"

If America has natural allies in Iraq, they are men like Mr. Dari. He attended the American Jesuit school in Baghdad, then university in Frankfurt. He has lived in Europe and speaks excellent English. He maintained his independence throughout Mr. Hussein`s rule, shunning the material blandishments with which Mr. Hussein bought the loyalty of many tribal sheiks.

A part-time farmer and businessman, he is a member of the sizable Zobaa tribe, which his brother leads. He welcomed the Americans and has worked closely with their military commanders in his area.

So the impatience creeping into his voice and the frustration lining his handsome face bode poorly for the fate of the American-led occupation here — even if American officials succeed in drawing Iraqis into a new national leadership. There is no indication that Mr. Dari, who is 64, would turn on the Americans. He is simply losing faith in them.

"Conditions have never been worse," he said bluntly. "We`ve never been through such a long bad period."

Abu Ghraib — a largely agricultural area just west of Baghdad that is also home to Iraq`s most notorious prison — has had only one to three hours of power a day in recent weeks. Drinking water cannot be pumped without electricity, so people take water from dirty canals.

The food ration system that functioned smoothly under Saddam Hussein is breaking down, out here at least. Trucks leave Baghdad laden with food, but it mysteriously gets offloaded at markets along the way.

Crime, rare under the old government, is rampant. Mr. Dari`s car was taken from him at gunpoint in Baghdad recently. Four of his council members have been the victims of carjacking attempts. And while the criminals are well-armed, the Americans are disarming the victims, taking weapons while the weapons licenses they insist on are in short supply.

"People here feel naked without their pistols," Mr. Dari said, putting his own in a holster.

In a time of rising discontent, Mr. Dari is the buffer between occupier and occupied. It is a role that, historically, has earned little appreciation. Recent attacks on Iraqis cooperating with the Americans suggest that this chapter will be no different.

"We are stuck between the Americans and our people," Mr. Dari said of the council, which sits, for no salary, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. "And there were so many promises from one side."

Some people are calling the council members "America lovers" and traitors, he said, because they are working with the Americans.

"He`s caught in the middle," one of his American partners, Lt. Col. Jeff Ingram of the First Armored Division, acknowledged. "He defends us a lot."

These days, Mr. Dari is warning the Americans more than he is defending them. When he first met with them, he said, he told them that they did not have much time to meet people`s expectations. That time is almost up, he believes.

"I`m not threatening you with another Vietnam — God forbid," he said. "I`m just trying to get help for the people before something happens."

Something is already happening, of course. Out here, as across much of Iraq, the attacks on Americans are stepping up. Colonel Ingram said his company is being attacked at least once a day, fortunately by men who are not very good shots.

Colonel Ingram blames the Iraqis for most of the area`s problems, saying it is they who have torn down the power lines he fixed, they who are robbing one another. "The U.S. is not the problem, it`s the solution," he said.

But he too wonders about the slow pace of rebuilding. "I would have expected the U.S., the biggest country in the world, to say here`s the water purification system, here`s the big generator," he said.

As of the other day, neither Mr. Dari nor Colonel Ingram had ever had any contact with the American-led civilian administration ostensibly governing Iraq, although Mr. Dari oversees an area that is home to 900,000 people.

So they soldier on alone, often seeking progress in vain. The council tried to distribute generators found at a Republican Guard camp to villages, but found that many of the village "representatives" were driving out of the camp and selling the generators. Others were being set upon by angry mobs wanting the generators for themselves.

American soldiers were deployed to keep order, but in the heat and chaos their tempers frayed. They broke windshields and cursed at Iraqis, further shrinking the reservoir of good will.

Mr. Dari said he received 10 to 12 complaints a day about weapons, cars or relatives taken by the Americans. One man came to report that American soldiers had taken away his deaf relative a month ago for having a picture of Saddam Hussein in his house, and that he had not been seen since. Officials from an Islamic charity said the Americans had confiscated their car and raided their office — then left both unsecured, giving looters free rein.

Then there are the small problems. The woman who is illegally squatting in a government building (American soldiers told Mr. Dari they could not evict her unless she threatened someone; property rights were not in their "purview.") The two council members whom the council dismissed for corruption. The effort to find the American commander with the authority to sign a contract for garbage collection.

Mr. Dari is just old enough to remember when the British had an air base just west of here. They told Iraqis they had come to liberate them from the Ottomans, he recalled, and they stayed 40 years.

"I hope history isn`t repeating itself," he said, and pressed his temples as if hoping to make the impatient men at both elbows disappear.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 9, 2003
Bush Charge on Iraq Arms Had Doubters, House Told
By DAVID E. SANGER and CARL HULSE


WASHINGTON, July 8 — The State Department told a Congressional committee today that seven days after President Bush gave his State of the Union address, in which he charged that Saddam Hussein was trying to purchase uranium in Africa, American diplomats warned the International Atomic Energy Agency that the United States could not confirm the reports.

The State Department letter, provided to Representative Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, confirms that there were deep misgivings in the government about some intelligence Mr. Bush cited in his January speech.

On Monday the White House said for the first time that the evidence that Iraq sought nuclear fuel in Africa was not credible enough, and should not have been included in the president`s remarks.

Nonetheless, White House officials declined today to reveal how the charge made it into Mr. Bush`s speech. And they argued, in further statements that went beyond those issued from Air Force One on Monday, that the uranium issue was one of many pieces of evidence indicating that Iraq was seeking to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.

The White House acknowledgment that it had used flawed intelligence came nearly six months after the speech, and after weeks of arguments here and in Britain over the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Today it touched off a new series of accusations between Democrats and Republicans over whether the administration had deliberately skewed the evidence, or, as the Democrats argued, withheld information that would have cast doubt on the intelligence.

Democrats seized on the admission as new justification for a full-scale investigation.

"It`s a recognition that we were provided faulty information," Tom Daschle, the senate Democratic leader, told reporters. "And I think it`s all the more reason why a full investigation of all of the facts surrounding this situation be undertaken, the sooner the better."

Republicans said the White House had been "forthright" in making the admission and they pointed to the risks of using intelligence from other nations. Mr. Bush had cited British intelligence reports on the uranium, but that report was at least in part based on American reports.

"Obviously, when you use foreign intelligence, you — we don`t have necessarily as much confidence or as much reliability as you do your own," said Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate. "It has since turned out to be, at least according to the reports that have been just released, not true. The president stepped forward and said so. I think that`s all you can expect."

The State Department`s letter came in response to a statement provided to Mr. Waxman by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations body that monitors nuclear activity. The agency said it had sought information in December to back up American charges that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium in Niger.

The initial intelligence was provided to Congress in late October. But it was not until Feb. 4, a week after Mr. Bush spoke, that the administration provided documents to the I.A.E.A. to back up its charges.

The I.A.E.A. quickly concluded that the documents the United States had turned over to support Mr. Bush`s claims were fraudulent. But even in turning over the material, the State Department told the organization, "We cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims."

That statement appears to show that serious doubts about the intelligence were present early on, but Mr. Bush also cited other evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program.

Michael N. Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said today, "The documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger were not the sole basis for the line in the president`s State of the Union speech that referred to recent Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa."

He said that at the time a "national intelligence estimate" cited "attempts by Iraq to acquire uranium from several countries in Africa," adding, "We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged."

Mr. Bush never mentioned Niger by name in his speech. But without the Niger evidence, the argument that Iraq was intent on getting uranium from Africa did not hold up.

Mr. Anton noted today that "other reporting that suggested that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Africa is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that such attempts were in fact made.

"Because of this lack of specificity," he continued, "this reporting alone did not rise to the level of inclusion in a presidential speech. That said, the issue of Iraq`s attempts to acquire uranium from abroad was not an element underpinning the judgment reached by most intelligence agencies that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

That judgment was highly controversial, with the State Department`s intelligence unit and the Energy Department arguing that the evidence was murky at best. Republicans, however, insisted today that if the president made a very public mistake, it was not a consequential one.

"It`s very easy to pick one little flaw here or one little flaw there," said Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the second-ranking Republican leader in the House of Representatives. "The overall reason we went into Iraq was sound and morally sound. And it`s not just because somebody forged or a made a mistake on whether Saddam Hussein was looking for nuclear material from Niger or whatever."



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July 9, 2003
Wrestling for the Truth of 9/11

The Bush administration, long allergic to the idea of investigating the government`s failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is now doing its best to bury the national commission that was created to review Washington`s conduct. That was made plain yesterday in a muted way by Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor, and Lee Hamilton, the former congressman, who are directing the inquiry. When these seasoned, mild-mannered men start complaining that the administration is trying to intimidate the commission, the country had better take notice.

In a status report on its work, the commission said various agencies — particularly the Pentagon and the Justice Department — were blocking requests for vital information and resources. Acting more like the Soviet Kremlin than the American government, the administration has insisted that monitors from various agencies attend debriefings of key officials by investigators. Mr. Kean is quite correct in objecting to this as a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. Meanwhile, the clock is running for the commission to complete a full report to the nation by next May.

Too polite to use the word "stonewalling," the bipartisan commission nevertheless warned the nation that thus far the administration had "underestimated the scale of the commission`s work and the full breadth of support required."

The White House has repeatedly pledged cooperation while stressing the delicacy of protecting classified secrets. There are techniques and precedents for the commission to be extended access to critical information without compromising security. Two serious areas of dispute that should be quickly settled in the commission`s favor are access to the minutes of National Security Council meetings and to the daily briefing memorandums prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for President Bush.

Mr. Kean assumed the chairmanship after questions were raised about potential conflicts of interest for the White House`s initial choice, Henry Kissinger. "The coming weeks will determine whether we will be able to do our job," the commission warned in prodding the administration to protect the nation`s future security as passionately as it clings to its past secrets.



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Mit den Kurden wird es noch viel Ärger geben besonders in Bezug auf die Nachbarländer.

July 9, 2003
What Iraq Needs Now
By JALAL TALABANI and MASSOUD BARZANI


ERBIL, Iraq


Some day, we Iraqis hope to celebrate an Independence Day like the one Americans have just observed. But for the near future we face the challenge of translating liberation into democracy — a goal we Kurds will push for even more diligently now that we have agreed to join the interim Iraqi administration that will be formed this month. To that end, we will work closely with the United States to establish security, revive the economy and build a democratic culture.

Our aims may appear optimistic with American and British forces struggling to establish order and restore public services in some areas of Iraq. Yet the picture is not quite as grim as some claim. The assaults on American soldiers are not "resistance to foreign occupation." Rather, they are acts of terrorism by the Baathist remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime. These remnants are so reviled in Iraq that they have had to resort to foreign volunteers, for few Iraqis will take up arms on their behalf.

Since they lack the support of the people, the Baathists will be defeated — a process that can be accelerated if we establish a national security force. That would be one major step toward making Iraq safer.

But another security problem, widespread looting, requires more than just better policing. The looting has its roots in economic problems. Iraq`s economy is largely moribund. The wages paid by the coalition are often not enough to make ends meet. Exporting oil will help, but what Iraq really needs is comprehensive economic reforms to encourage investment. We applaud the moves, announced this week by American officials, to create a new Iraqi currency and restructure the central bank, as a welcome start to such reforms.

One simple way to improve the economy in our part of Iraq, Kurdistan, is to ensure that the Kurds receive the money allocated to them by the United Nations oil-for-food program. It is a scandal that $4 billion destined for the Kurds sits, unused, in a United Nations-controlled French bank account because of past obstruction by Saddam Hussein and the present incompetence of the United Nations bureaucracy. The delays by the United Nations are particularly frustrating because of rules that require the money to go into a general Iraqi development fund if it isn`t spent by October. We have repeatedly sought assurances from the coalition that this money will not be lost to Iraqi Kurdistan. So far, the coalition response has been unclear.

Let us be clear, however. We are not seeking lavish handouts from American taxpayers or the international community — we are asking only for what is rightfully ours. And any perception that the Kurds, the United States` closest ally in Iraq, are being let down will dishearten the many other Iraqis who want to work with the United States.

Not releasing that money also means not addressing a critical issue of justice — reversing decades of ethnic cleansing that has forced close to one million people in Iraqi Kurdistan from their homes. Just a small fraction of the oil-for-food money would finance the return of many of those who were evicted, and pay for the decent resettlement of the Arabs who took over their land. Thus far we have averted the chaos of a flood of displaced families trying to return home by counseling patience to the Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrian Christians who were forced out. This patience, however, is not infinite. In the coming months we want to work with the coalition to set up a fair, transparent mechanism to allow these people to come home.

Thus far, the coalition has taken important steps toward promoting democracy. But aspects of the overall strategy remain vague. What Iraqis have learned from their encounters with American soldiers and officials is that they seek to democratize, not to dominate. While we are working with L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, to set up constitutional councils to initiate the political process, we need to mark out a clear path toward national elections and representative government, so that Iraqis have some sense of certainty about their political future. One positive development is that the main Iraqi political groups have been able to reach consensus on the next stage of self-governance in Iraq.

Also crucial to realizing President Bush`s vision of a democratic Iraq is his, and our, belief in a federal Iraq. For too long, both Baathist and Arab nationalist regimes held Iraq together by brute force. That is no longer an option. Iraq was a state imposed upon its inhabitants, a country whose preservation has cost too many lives. The new Iraq has to be different, a democratically created state that reflects the will of its peoples and accommodates their diversity. For that reason, and with United States backing, we advocate a federal system of government. Iraqi federalism will of course differ from that of the United States, but the fundamental principle will be the same: a balanced system of government with considerable local autonomy and a sovereign, federal center.

Democracy in Iraq will take time to establish itself. For more than three decades, Iraqis endured a regime that carried out genocide, including the anti-Kurdish Anfal campaign of 1987-88, which littered the country with mass graves and "disappeared" hundreds of thousands. Iraq was a society where the faintest hint of dissent could lead to a death sentence, as the Kurds gassed in Halabja discovered.

The first building blocks of Iraqi federalism and democracy have already been laid in Iraqi Kurdistan. Thanks to protection from American and British air power, facilitated by Turkey, Kurds have had 12 years of a sometimes faltering, but ultimately hopeful, experiment in self-rule, openness and pluralism. With continued help from the United States, and with our work on the interim Iraqi administration, what has become known as the Kurdish experiment in democracy can be a model for all of Iraq.


Jalal Talabani is secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Massoud Barzani is president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.



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July 9, 2003
A Rich Nation, a Poor Continent
By JEFFREY D. SACHS


At a time when President Bush has lavished billions of dollars in tax cuts on the richest Americans, his trip to Africa presents him with the perfect opportunity to call on them to take some responsibility for the dire state of the world`s poorest citizens. According to a recent report from the Internal Revenue Service, some 400 super-rich Americans had an average income of nearly $174 million each, or a combined income of $69 billion, in 2000. Incredibly, that`s more than the combined incomes of the 166 million people living in four of the countries that the president is visiting this week: Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda and Botswana. America`s richest individuals could actually change the course of Africa`s history, and the president — who has stressed the importance of personal responsibility — should urge them to do so.

If President Bush gets beyond the typical rhetoric concerning the plight of Africans, he`ll discover that poverty throughout the continent is a matter of life and death — indeed, mainly death. While the average life expectancy in the United States is now 77 years, it is less than 50 years in most of Africa, and less than 40 years in some of the AIDS-ravaged countries. Until the pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other killer diseases are brought under control in Africa, economic development and political stability will remain crippled. A breakthrough on disease control, conversely, would help to unleash a virtuous circle of rising productivity, better education, lower fertility rates — and then lead to further increases in health and prosperity.

Yet Africa`s poverty makes this an unbeatable problem without more help from the United States and other wealthy countries. In the United States, annual public spending on health care averages about $2,000 per person, according to the World Health Organization. In Africa, public health spending is around $10 per person per year — not enough to keep the population alive. Countries throughout Africa are desperately trying to do more, but simply can`t afford to when their citizens` incomes average less than $1 per day, and when their struggling governments must repay foreign debts to rich nations instead of tending to their sick and dying.

Two years ago the World Health Organization`s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, which I headed, made a stunning finding: If rich countries contributed a total of around $25 billion per year, the increased investments in disease prevention and treatment could prevent around eight million deaths each year in poor countries throughout the world. The United States` share would be around $8 billion, given the size of its economy in relation to other donors. Most of this money is needed in Africa, where the countries are among the poorest and the disease burden is the highest.

Projected spending by the United States on global health in the fiscal year 2004, even with the president`s new AIDS initiative, is roughly $2 billion, or one-fourth of what`s needed from us. More money could, among other things, keep AIDS patients alive through antiretroviral therapy, help mothers survive the complications of childbirth and prevent hundreds of thousands of children from dying from malaria and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Here`s where America`s richest 400 could change history. In 1995, the top 400 income earners paid almost 30 percent of their incomes in taxes. After the Bush tax cuts and other factors, the proportion will be less than 18 percent. Suppose the super-rich applied their tax savings toward Africa`s survival. That extra 10 percent of income — which translates to nearly $7 billion based on the incomes in 2000 — would provide a huge chunk of the $8 billion that the United States should contribute to the global health care effort. This money could readily and reliably be given to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which could then put it to spectacular use in saving those eight million lives each year. For individuals who already have all the earthly possessions that can possibly be amassed, could there be a better way to give meaning to vast wealth?

The notion that the super-rich might voluntarily rise to the occasion is not preposterous, especially if President Bush encouraged them to do so. Bill Gates has brilliantly blazed the way with a donation of more than $20 billion directed mainly at international public health. And many of the super-rich opposed the recent tax cuts, saying the needs of the poor were too great.

Of course, it`s strange to rely on only the goodwill of a few hundred super-rich people to save the lives of millions of the poor. All Americans need to share responsibility for such an effort, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also for practical public health reasons. Yet given the huge tax cuts that have gone to the wealthiest Americans, the moral and practical obligations facing them are greater than ever.


Our world is dangerously out of kilter when a few hundred people in the United States command more income than 166 million people in Africa — with millions of the poor dying each year as a result of their impoverishment. Perhaps most remarkable of all is that such bald facts are rarely noticed in this country. President Bush`s trip to Africa should open our eyes to these realities, as well as to the possibilities they raise to help ease the pain in the world.



Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 9, 2003
Incredible Shrinking Y
By MAUREEN DOWD


Why, oh Y, are men so insecure?

The darlings have been fretting for some years now that they may be rendered unnecessary if women get financial and biological independence, learning how to reproduce and refinance without them. What if nature played a cruel trick and demoted men, so they had to be judged merely by their appearance, pliability and talent for gazing raptly at the opposite sex, no matter how bored?

New research on the Y chromosome shows that my jittery male friends are not paranoid; they are in an evolutionary shame spiral.

As Nicholas Wade wrote in The Times: "Although most men are unaware of the peril, the Y chromosome has been shedding genes furiously over the course of evolutionary time, and it is now a fraction of the size of its partner, the X chromosome. . . . The decay of the Y stems from the fact that it is forbidden to enjoy the principal advantage of sex, which is, of course, for each member of a pair of chromosomes to swap matching pieces of DNA with its partner."

Mr. Wade said that biologists in Cambridge, Mass., had made a remarkable discovery: "Denied the benefits of recombining with the X, the Y recombines with itself."

The ultimate guys` night out. Simply put, the Y chromosome figured out a Herculean way to save itself from extinction by making an incredibly difficult hairpin turn and swapping molecular material with itself.

Self-love as a survival mechanism: the unflinching narcissism of men may send women into despair at times, but it has saved their sex for the next 5 million or 10 million years.

But, according to Olivia Judson, science`s answer to the sensual British cook Nigella Lawson, men may need more than narcissism to survive.

Dr. Judson, a 33-year-old evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London who has written a book about animals in a Dear Abby style, or Deer Abby, under the pen name Dr. Tatiana, says the worm has turned. "For a long time, it was assumed that promiscuity was good for males and bad for females in terms of the number of kids they could have," she explains. "But it wasn`t until 1988 that it really started to become evident that females were benefiting from having sex with lots of males, with more promiscuous females having more and healthier offspring."

In her book, Dr. Judson writes about powerful babes, noting that females in more than 80 species, like praying mantises, have been caught devouring their lovers before, during or after mating. "I`m particularly fond," she told me, "of the green spoon worm. . . . The male is 200,000 times smaller, effectively a little parasite who lives in her reproductive tract, fertilizing her eggs and regurgitating sperm through his mouth."

And then there`s the tiny female midge, who plunges her proboscis into the male midge`s head during procreation. As Dr. Judson told the journalist Ken Ringle, "Her spittle turns his innards to soup, which she slurps up, drinking until she`s sucked him dry."

The Economist recently reported on a variation of the creepy-crawly girl-eats-boy love stories. The male orb-weaving spider kills himself before the female has a chance to. Biologists now believe that the male orb-weaver dies when he turns himself into a plug to prevent other males from copulating, thus ensuring his genes are more likely to live on.

In a new book called "Y: The Descent of Men," Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College in London, says males, always a genetic "parasite," have devolved to become the "second sex."

The news that Dolly the sheep had been cloned without masculine aid sent a frisson through the Y populace, he writes, because men began to fear that science would cause nature to return to its original, feminine state and men would fade from view.

The Y chromosome, "a mere remnant of its once mighty structure," is worried about size. "Men are wilting away," Dr. Jones writes. "From sperm count to social status and from fertilization to death, as civilization advances, those who bear Y chromosomes are in relative decline."

Perhaps that`s why men are adapting, becoming more passive and turning into "metrosexuals," the new term for straight men who are feminized, with a taste for facials, grooming products and home design.

Better to be an X chromosome than an ex-chromosome.







Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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An Iraqi girl with a toy pistol approaches U.S. soldiers as they examine the crater created by an explosion at the foot of a bridge in Baghdad.
washingtonpost.com
Attack on Bridge Part of Perilous Routine for Troops
Non-Fatal Strikes in Iraq Rattle GIs but Go Uncounted

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 9, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, July 8 -- The combat engineers inside the tan Humvees had traversed the Wedding Island Bridge dozens of times to fetch their translator. It was a routine trip, soldiers in the unit said. Cross the narrow bridge. Pick him up. Drive back over the bridge to complete their assignment for the day.

But today, as they headed onto the bridge at 9:10 a.m., the lead Humvee encountered what has become another routine for U.S. forces in this simmering city. A bone-rattling explosion punched the vehicle several feet into the air and spewed an orange fireball and a cloud of black smoke.

The Humvee fell back to the bridge, its left wheels touching down and bouncing back up before the right side, propelled higher by the blast, smashed into the ground. Shrapnel and flying asphalt shattered the windshield and dented the vehicle`s body.

After the Humvee stopped, the driver appeared to pause for a split second before restarting the engine and flooring the accelerator, swerving to the left and right as he sped off the bridge and veered onto a connecting road.

The explosion, which military investigators say they believe was caused by a land mine planted on the side of the bridge, was witnessed by a Washington Post correspondent who was less than 30 yards away, driving onto the bridge and toward the Humvee. Although none of the Humvee`s occupants was killed, the incident illustrated how resistance attacks have become an everyday occurrence for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Because the blast did not result in a death or serious injury, it was not mentioned to reporters by the U.S. military`s public information office. But military officials acknowledged that such non-fatal attacks are more widespread than daily casualty figures reflect.

"It`s becoming routine," a U.S. military official said. "It`s no longer a few isolated incidents."

Such incidents are of growing concern to military commanders, who express fear that assailants will learn from their failures and improve their tactics. Military officials also are worried that a barrage of non-fatal attacks -- estimated by officials at more than a dozen a day in Baghdad -- will sap troop morale and cause people to reevaluate official pronouncements that armed resistance to the U.S. occupation is small and militarily insignificant.

Three other incidents today wounded seven U.S. soldiers, the military said.

In Baghdad, two were wounded in another land mine attack, a military spokesman said, and two more were hurt when insurgents dropped a homemade bomb from a bridge onto a passing military convoy.

In the city of Kirkuk, about 150 miles north of the capital, assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a military convoy, wounding three servicemen. Military officials said soldiers in the convoy returned fire, but it was not immediately known if there were Iraqi casualties.

The Associated Press reported that three Iraqis, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed by U.S. soldiers returning fire after a grenade attack on a police station in a Baghdad suburb. In addition, U.S. Central Command reported that a soldier attached to the 101st Airborne Division died Monday of a gunshot wound suffered in a non-combat incident.

Just who planted the mine on the Wedding Island Bridge remains a mystery. Also unknown is whether the device was triggered by remote control or was placed so it would be triggered by a vehicle crossing the bridge. If it was not remotely detonated, it could suggest that the soldiers` routine was observed and the mine was embedded in the median with the belief that the next vehicle to cross the concrete structure would be a Humvee.

Though vehicle traffic over the bridge is light, the area is far from abandoned. This morning, a dozen children were playing along the embankment, running into a dry creek that feeds into the nearby Tigris River. Kebab vendors were setting up their roadside stalls, and workers were building a new fence.

None of them said they saw who buried the mine. And even if they did, several said, they would not identify the person to U.S. forces.

"This kind of attack is good for the Iraqi people," insisted Khudier Abbas, 39, a food vendor along the Tigris. "The Americans have been here for four months. What have they done for us?"

He stuck his hand into his pocket and fished out some candy -- a piece of yellow butterscotch and pink bubblegum. "This is all the Americans have given me," he said with a harrumph. "They think this will make us happy?"

The soldiers in the Humvees were members of the 40th Engineer Battalion of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Army`s 1st Armored Division. The unit, which is based in Germany, has been blowing up unused Iraqi weapons and ammunition.

Their translator, Hassan Hamrun, a lanky man with a wide-brimmed hat who was traveling in the second Humvee, said he suspected one of his neighbors might have been involved.

The neighbor, whom Hamrun did not identify, was active in former president Saddam Hussein`s intelligence service and bragged about his friendship with Hussein`s elder son, Uday, Hamrun said. In recent days, Hamrun said, his neighbor had threatened to attack Americans and Iraqis cooperating with U.S. forces.

This morning, he said, the neighbor was not in his house. "It is very suspicious," Hamrun said.

Vexed by the increasing attacks on military personnel, the U.S.-led occupation authority said it would offer a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone who shoots at or kills a foreign soldier or Iraqi policeman.

"I urge the Iraqi people to come forward to take these people off the streets of the country," said Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who is in charge of Baghdad`s police force.

Last week, the occupation authority offered a $25 million reward for the capture of Hussein or confirmation of his death.

Arab television channels today broadcasted what they said was a new audiotape made by Hussein. The voice in the recording could not be confirmed as that of Hussein, but people familiar with his voice said it sounded authentic. On Monday, CIA analysts said another tape broadcast by the al-Jazeera satellite news channel was most likely made by Hussein.

"Returning to covert attacks is the appropriate means for resistance," said the voice on one of the tapes, which was broadcast by Lebanon`s al Hayat-LBC channel. "Your main mission, Iraqis, is to evict the invaders from Iraqi territory."

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq, insisted Hussein`s "days in Iraq are finished."

"He may be alive, but he is not coming back," Bremer said at a news conference. "I think the noose is going to tighten around his neck."

But Bremer acknowledged that the release of additional tapes purportedly from Hussein could encourage attacks on U.S. forces. The fact that Hussein has not been captured or killed, he said, "gives these die-hard elements the opportunity to say to other people that Saddam is going to come back."

Bremer said the recent attacks on U.S. forces, while conducted with "considerable professionalism," do not appear to be coordinated by one person or group. "There is no central command and control."

He said the fatal, point-blank shooting of a soldier on Sunday at Baghdad University was the eighth incident that involved a shot to the neck area, above the soldier`s flak jacket but below the helmet.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Afghans Attack Pakistani Embassy
Border Clashes Increase Tension

By April Witt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2003; Page A22


KABUL, Afghanistan, July 8 -- A mob of several hundred protesters stormed the Pakistan Embassy today, breaking windows, ransacking offices, smashing computers and forcing Pakistani diplomats to hide in the basement, officials and witnesses reported.

The Pakistani ambassador, Rustam Shah Mohmand, promptly closed the embassy in protest. He suggested that Afghan President Hamid Karzai incited the action in a recent speech. Mohmand demanded to know why the Afghan government failed to protect the embassy and its workers.

The attack took place during the second day of demonstrations in Kabul against recent border clashes with Pakistani troops, who some Afghans have accused of making frequent cross-border incursions.

The ambassador said that about 500 protesters attacked the embassy at about 9:30 a.m. Some demonstrators knocked down a stone wall behind the embassy with a sledgehammer while others broke open the metal front gates.

Once inside the compound, the mob smashed embassy vehicles and broke most of the windows in the two-story building by throwing rocks. About 100 people entered the main building to ransack offices, including the ambassador`s office, witnesses said.

Rather than halting the attackers when they approached the embassy, Afghan guards posted at the gate helped protesters enter the walled compound, Mohmand said.

"We hold the Afghan government squarely responsible, not only for negligence but for stage-managing this show," Mohmand said during a news conference held in a wrecked embassy office .

Karzai condemned the attack and promised to compensate Pakistan for the damages.

"The people who did that are not the enemies of Pakistan. In fact, they are the enemies of Afghanistan," Karzai said during a news conference at the presidential palace. "These are, in fact, the enemies of friendship and brotherhood of Pakistan and Afghanistan. These are the enemies of the welfare of the people of Afghanistan."

The already strained relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan eroded further over the weekend with mutual charges about border clashes. Meanwhile, Karzai and Pakistan`s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, have criticized each other.

During a recent trip to Europe, Musharraf was quoted as having questioned Karzai`s influence outside Kabul, the capital . He also chided the Afghan government for not representing all ethnic groups.

Karzai responded with a speech Sunday night, in which he quoted a well-known saying in the Afghan Dari language, suggesting that anyone who didn`t understand his bravery could learn about it on the battlefield.

That speech set the stage for the attack on the embassy, Mohmand charged.

"Where was the Afghan government?" Mohmand said, after he led journalists on a tour of the shattered embassy. "Where were the security forces? Efforts should have been made to protect us. . . . This violates the Geneva Convention."

Kabul`s police chief, Basir Salangi, said in an interview that his men were outnumbered and unable to stop the mob.

"We had 40 police there, and there were thousands of demonstrators," he said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Friday | July 04, 2003

It`s worse than it seems
By Steve Gilliard

The look on Donald Rumsfeld`s face lately has not been a happy one. As the Bush Administration and its defenders try to pretend that the war in Iraq is not going badly, the reality is that things are getting worse with little hope for a solution in the near future.

Viceroy Jerry has asked for 50,000 troops to maintain his rule. There`s one small problem with that. There aren`t 50K to give. The US military is nearly at the end of it`s deployable strength and needs to withdraw the 3ID as soon as possible.

Let`s look at the numbers:

So far deployed to Iraq are the elements of seven of the US`s 10 active duty combat divisions, making up half the combat power of the US Army. Only the First Cavalry Division is fully deployable from the US. Bosnia is now being covered by National Guard combat battalions and Kosovo was supposed to be covered by units now in Iraq.

Then there are our committments in Korea, Afghanistan and other sundry places.

Michael O`Hanlon argues that we desperately need help from our allies to relieve the burden in Iraq.

OK, now didn`t we disregard our allies sane, rational, and logical suggestions about how to deal with Iraq? Now, we expect Japanese and Korean troops, forget French and German to help us out?

It`s time for a reality check:

No country is going to send their troops to be bullet sponges. Kill 25 Dutch troopers and their parliament will flip out. Everyone wants to be peacekeepers. There is no peace to keep in Iraq. There is war, one which the foot patrol and not the Bradley should dominate. Foreign governments are selling peacekeeping as a way to get close to the US while limiting the outrage which will follow if their troops come under attack.

The French and Germans already have committments. They have absolutely no reason to join in a US venture when their voices would be muted at best. The Congressmen and pundits who expect them to step in to save us in Iraq are wishing for an unlikely thing. The political opposition to the war remains and the idea of French troops dying to control Arabs, in a country pushing 10 percent Muslim and with bitter memories of Algeria, is unacceptable.

The idea of South Korea, where opposition to the US is intense, and Japan, which would face a constitutional crisis in deploying armed peacekeepers overseas, sending troops to Iraq is just as unlikely. The motley bag of troops that we can expect, most of which will rely on the US for funding, don`t bring Arabic fluency, and will have strict, secret orders on what to do and not do in regards to combat.

Time and again, the Bush Administration was told: you need allies, you need help. They refused it, again and again. Now, Bremer, in his best Westmoreland circa 1966 mode, is begging for more men. He can`t have them. Politically, it would be devestating, and tactically, it would only provide more targets without providing the security he needs to provide.

Our intelligence in Iraq is abysmal. CENTCOM officials are either lying or genuinely stating that they have no clue as to who we are fighting. I have no idea what is more frightening. But to not know who the enemy is after three months is amazing, and not in the good, naked woman on the bed way. It`s clear that this resistance goes way beyond anything Saddam and his cronies could have cooked up. Because while the Baathists are taking their shots. average Iraqis are turning their backs. Some clearly are afraid of retribution, but there are many more who react with glee at every attack.

We are rounding up people in their sleep and taking 10 AK`s in battalion and brigade sized sweeps. Use the combat power of a US battalion to grab, what, five sleepy guys and their rifles and the attacks grow? There may be up to one million potential guerrillas and supporters. Not only that, but the kids are tossing rocks and laughing at our wounded and dead. We are losing the population more and more each day.

The fatal error of Bush`s "Bring `em On" comment is that besides its cheap talk and bully posturing, is that it isn`t true. We cannot handle what they`re throwing at us. We don`t know who they are and we aren`t killing them in number. They wound and kill Americans every day and escape. They aren`t being killed.

Every US unit is under daily observation. They cannot move, cannot buy a DVD, without people noticing and recording it. The Iraqis are passing information to the guerrillas without pause. Foreign volunteers are flooding into Iraq as they did in Spain in 1936. They have over 135,000 American targets and a friendly population to work with. Unlike Afghanistan where Arab volunteers were pointed out by the locals to the Americans.

The request for troops is a political minefield and one which places the Army at it`s limits. The war was supposed to be over, 50,000 men getting their Iraqi visas puts that to the lie once and for all. It would awaken opposition to the war and not solve the problem.

Keep in mind that the Sunnis and the limited guerrilla war has already taxed the US Army to it`s limits. A Shia rebellion would make the country ungovernable without using much greater levels of force and that presents a political conundrum. While some on the left expect the worst out of the Bush Administration, the reality is this: killing Shias, be they civilians or guerrillas, would delegitimize our occupation beyond redemption. To fill new graves with Shias would be beyond explaination. To vicitimize Saddam`s vicitims would be politically unacceptable.

Yet, to flee from Iraq, would be such a significant defeat, that there is no way that Bush could expect to be reelected and probably would join Lyndon Johnson in not running for a second term during wartime. All talk, from Dean to Hegel, about staying in Iraq "until the job is done" relies on one factor: Shia cooperation. With it, no Sunni rebellion can last for long. Without it, no Sunni rebellion can be repressed for long. Unless we make a deal with the Shias to offer them political power, they will eventually have to join the Sunnis in guerrilla war. As it stands, the resistance to the US is spreading in the Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad.

To do so, however, would create a Shia fundamentalist state in some form. That is also unacceptable. It would place pro-Iranian clerics, Sadr, Hakim and Sistani, in charge of Iraq. Which might or might not result in a subsequent civil war. But it would clearly not be the pro-Western democracy pushed by the PNAC crowd. Israel would not be getting their cheap Iraqi oil and US bases would be out of the question.

It is an ugly series of choices, easily predicted but ignored. The Shia will determine what happens in Iraq regardless of our desires and will. The Army is stretched to the limits with no clear source of more troops. And there are no simple answers to any of this. Bring it on? We have brought it on, more than we can handle without grim choices.

Posted July 04, 2003 01:11 AM | Trackback (4) | Temp Comment (0)
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MAD AS HELL

CHERI DELBROCCO

WMDs LOCATED!

I am happy to announce the WMD’s have been located. For months, we have been told WMD’s are out there. Because of WMD’s, our troops are still suffering casualties daily in Iraq. According to George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condeleeza Rice, WMD’s pose a great threat to the world. Imagine how surprising it is to learn the WMD’s have been prolifterating right here in the good old U.S. of A.

Such weapons include psychological, political, and propagandizing devices. Those who launch the attacks know thousands could become more hopeless and apathetic, but their fundamental motive is to strike constant and continued fear and panic in millions of Americans. In an effort to better inform readers on the threat to America, this Weapons of Mass Deception Guideline is being offered.

“Perpetual War Makes Us Safer” Mindcontrol

History: Since September 11, 2001, we have been told by George W. Bush that we are at war, and that being at war will bring freedom and peace to the world.

Weapons: Exploitation of 9/11, the American flag, fundamentalist Christianity, the Republican Party

Delivery System: Media outlets- especially television news ; AM talk radio- especially Rush Limbaugh; most members of Congress; the White House

Symptoms: Certitude, intolerance, banal speeches, right wing punditry passed as objective journalism, failure of public to express dissent due to fear of being called unAmerican.

Treatment: Perpetual War mindcontrol often takes months or years to take its toll. Voters often cannot pinpoint it right away, because many elected officials publicly claim to oppose it, but eventually captitulate to the will and wishes of George W. Bush by refusing to stand up to his wrongheaded ideas of pre-emptive and ceaseless military invasion.

During the Presidential debates of 2000, George W. Bush said, “ I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.” Shock and awe.


“It’s Not the Economy, It’s the War, Stupid” Germfare

History: For three years, we been told by Bush, the economy is getting better and will rebound soon. We have been told the largest tax cut in the history of our nation will benefit working middle-class Americans and that another interest rate cut will stimulate the economy.

We have been told the record number of personal bankruptcies do not matter and that the corporate criminals who blew our pension plans will be be punished. We have been told the growing unemployment rate is only a temporary problem. Blah blah blah blah blah.


Weapons: Distortion of Facts about who is benefitting from tax cuts, attempts to privatize retirement accounts, social security, and the healthcare system.

Delivery System: Alan Greenspan; The Wall Street Journal; MSNBC; Financial Talking Heads on television networks; the Republican Party; George W. Bush

Symptoms: Unemployment rates at a 9 year high, government surpluses lost to skyrocketing debt, elimination of taxes on corporations and wealthiest Americans, scamming of retirement funds, corporate criminal corruption with no penalties, millions with no healthcare or access to prescription drugs.

Treatment: Making the next generation as poor as church mice will not be an easy problem to solve. Driving this country further into debt by financing war without end, and tax cuts for only the wealthiest, is hard to treat, as long as Republicans are in power. The best treatment will be to elect leaders who want peace and prosperity for all Americans.


“United We Stand” Propaganda Warfare

History: The first use of propaganda warfare took place in 2000 after George W. Bush was selected by the Supreme Court justices who had been appointed by his father. The American public was told he was elected by voters, although all the votes were never counted.

Weapons: Complicity by media to allow fabrications, exagerrations, and cover ups of facts regarding corruption and deception by this government.

Delivery System: Most media outlets; the Republican Party; Ari Fleischer; the entire Bush cabinet, George W. Bush.

Symptoms: Confusion, Distrust, Apathy, Hopelessness

Treatment: Turn off and tune out. Question the Bush administration and start asking why the right wingers who voted for him say dissenters are un-American, un-patriotic, or un-Christian.

Register to vote and get facts on all candidates running for the Presidency.

By using Weapons of Mass Deception, the Bush administration has managed to tank the economy, put government into debt for generations, run roughshod over two centuries of civil liberities, and launch unending global war. This has happened in less than 30 months.
The American public should enact an Emergency Alert System that will be activated by all voters at the direction of the White House and Congress. It should be sent out to a national network of grassroots efforts coast to coast. Action should be taken immediately so that the Weapons of Mass Deception are detonated immediately.

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The Price On Bush`s Head




A successful war against Iraq couldn`t guarantee his father a second term as US president so, with more than $400 million set aside to fund his re-election campaign, George W Bush isn`t taking any chances
By Ian Bell



BACK in the halcyon days when Richard Milhous Nixon was preparing his war on the constitution of the United States, loyal Republicans created a campaign group to preserve the American way and keep their man in office. The Committee to Re-Elect the President, as it was known, had several notable features aside from its interesting acronym (Creep), many of them involving novel ways to break the law. It had, nevertheless, one overriding purpose: to raise money, lots of money, clean or not. Creep was immodestly successful.
Money is the tainted blood product of the American body politic, after all. Every one knows it. No-one gets to be president unless he is a millionaire many times over or happens to be friendly with several multi-millionaires. No-one has a political profile without being able to buy the advertising that will accuse the opposition of buying their way to office. A Senate seat these days costs $5 million minimum. So what`s a poor Texas boy to do?
If the faux-Texan boy is George W Bush, the first answer to the question is to stop being poor or avoid that unAmerican disease in the first place. The second answer is to raise so much money from people with cause to be grateful for a Bush presidency as to render every possible opponent dirt-poor by comparison. In some quarters in the US this is known, these days, as `market democracy`.
Thus, in order to win the presidency in 2000, Bush spent in the region of $100m. This time around, simply to win his way through the primaries -- where he will meet no Republican opposition -- Bush-Cheney 04 Inc. is shooting for $170m. Then, with next year`s August party convention out of the way, the real presidential campaign -- and fund-raising -- can begin. That, it is thought, should amount to around $250m and change.
For the purposes of comparison, Bill Clinton and the challenger Bob Dole together spent $232m on the presidential race in 1996, and even that `achievement` was hugely controversial. Bush`s fund-raising target for the primaries, meanwhile, exceeds the inflation-adjusted total spent collectively by Reagan (1980 and 1984); Bush senior (1988 and 1992) and Dole (1996). Junior, just to show he means business, has also already raised more than the nine declared Democratic candidates for the presidency put together.
It`s not hard to see how. The Bush campaign aimed to have $20m in the bag by last month, when it was obliged to file a quarterly return with the Federal Election Commission. By the middle of June it had already raised $12m and some of its staff members thought $27m could be a reasonable final figure for the quarter. The week before last, Bush picked up $4.1m at a New York banquet; shortly before that jamboree he had hit his many good friends in Washington for $3.5m at a similar event. Last weekend, San Francisco and Los Angeles between them yielded $5m. Had you been so inclined, a 20-second chance to have your picture taken with the president would have cost you $20,000; the buffet itself was a mere $2000 a head.
America has laws about such things, of course. The main campaign finance law rules that a presidential candidate is only entitled to matching federal funds if he or she accepts strict spending limits. Bush has responded, now as in 2000, by declining this munificent offer: he won`t take a cent in public money and the public, in return, won`t try to tell him how much he can raise from his corporate donors. These Bush `Pioneers` will this year pledge to give at least $200,000 apiece, and will consider the fee a bargain.
Corrupt? Some of us would find it hard to come up with a better word. Nevertheless, Bush`s loyal spokesman, Ari Fleischer, recently chose to put a different interpret-ation on such transactions.
`I think the amount of money that can-didates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country,` said Ari. `The President is proud to have the support of the American people, and the American people will ultimately be the ones who decide how much funding goes to any Democrat or any Republican.`
In the case of Bush, the `American people` in question tend to be executives from the oil, gas, electricity and nuclear industries. They tend to be defence contractors, bankers, big accountancy firms, agri - business, telecoms bosses, leaders in private medicine, pharmaceuticals, mining, chemicals, timber and real estate. They tend to come from companies still winning government contracts even while enjoying the offshore tax havens Bush has declined to assault, or benefiting from the loosening of environmental regulations over which he has presided. They tend to be plain old rich folk thankful for all the new tax cuts their president has delivered. And they tend, invariably, to be the lobbyists and fixers who make all these fruitful relationships possible.
To a European, from a continent where corruption is scarcely unknown, the problems raised by all of this are obvious: it reeks. In modern neo-conservative America, however, there is no shortage of sober intellectual justification for a system that scars politics, disillusions a huge majority of voters, and resists all serious reform. Take this statement from the website of the Cato Institute (motto: `Individual Liberty, Limited Government, Free Markets and Peace`), a `policy-making` think-tank:
`The right to spend money on politics, including the right to contribute to campaigns, is protected by the First Amendment ... Campaign finance regulation is not about `reform` or ethics. New restrictions on spending will only help those already in power by making it harder to challenge them.`
From this distance, it may not appear self-evident that George Bush needs much help. Then again, Bill Clinton made it absurdly easy for his successor. When Bubba was in need of funds, a mere cup of coffee with the president could run you to $50,000. Bush-Cheney 04 Inc. has yet to put a price on that treat, but having set the most recent precedent, Democrats are in no position to make a fuss. They are in this too.
Nineteen of the Bush `Rangers` in 2000 -- that is, those who forked out at least $100,000 -- later became US ambassadors. The biggest spender among them -- Ron Weiser, a real-estate bigwig from Michigan -- got Slovakia for only $588,309, lucky man. But this year even a `leadership luncheon` with Karl Rove, Bush`s spooky senior political adviser, will involve a minimum donation of $50,000. The figures, clearly, are absurd, monstrous. So why does Bush -- still high in the polls, facing no obviously plausible Democratic challenger -- feel the need for such a huge amount of money?
According to Scott Reed, a Republican `consultant`, the idea is to `overwhelm the Democrats, to demoralise them, and to create this sense of inevitability that Bush cannot be beaten`. Bush senior took a second term for granted after his easy victory in the first Gulf war; Junior is taking no such chances.
It may turn out to be the smart bet. If Iraq`s now-legendary WMD fail to put in an appearance soon, things could start to become very sticky indeed, even in the patriotic USA. If American voters stumble upon the conclusion that they were led into war on the basis of shameless hokum and crude lies, things could even become serious. The economy, meanwhile, still stubbornly refuses to stage a solid and lasting recovery. And September 11, for all its resonance, will not underwrite the President`s political authority forever.
Bush is shopping early; buying his election now. After all, the Democrats would do the same, given the chance. And who could long withstand that tidal wave of Republican money?
The electorate might. The candidate, so transparent in the business of patronage, of favours for favours and bribes for bribes, may yet find himself exceeding the public`s threshold of tolerance. Naked corruption is not an attractive sight at any time. It goes down especially badly in a country besotted with its own virtue. Disgust, history suggests, is a potent thing in American politics. Government by the people for the people has been put on the auction block, awaiting the highest bidder, and the reaction will come.
Besides, Bush has just led his country into a hugely dangerous conflict in order, so he said, to defend democracy. As Americans, surveying their tainted electoral process, might begin to ask: what democracy, exactly?

06 July 2003

http://www.sundayherald.com/35020

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America is a harsher place
Hillary Clinton makes a compelling case for why Britain shouldn`t treat with American conservatism

Will Hutton
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The British are gradually being educated about America. President Bush`s decision to try six suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, including two Britons, in a secret military tribunal that could lead to their execution is so obviously self-defeating that both Right and Left are united in their criticism.

Surely the US realises that it must be on the side of law even against terrorism; surely it must see that if convictions and executions follow from a process in which the military is judge, prosecution and jury, every mad criticism of it will seem justified. Even the doe-eyed innocents of the Government are beginning to realise what they`re up against.

America is poorly understood in Britain. Above all, we don`t understand the American Right - its roots, reflex reactions, ambitions and the profundity of its ideology. It`s been a commonplace for too long that Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same and that their differences are minuscule. It is a view that has even been held in parts of the US, though with ever decreasing conviction as events unfold.

The truth is that there is a fundamental fissure. There is the pro-federal tradition - a golden thread that runs from the founding fathers, through Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy and Johnson to Bill Clinton. And there is the anti-federal tradition that crystallised in the south during the American Civil War and which runs as an equally golden thread through the key twentieth-century figures of the American Right - William Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and now George Bush.

It is the quintessential American conflict, fuelled by visceral emotions over race, sexuality and gender. On the one hand, there is a belief in the power of government and rationality to improve the lot of all Americans. On the other, there is a belief in the rawest system of individual penalties and rewards to create a conservative concept of good Christian character - vast incomes for the entrepreneurial, vicious punishment for the antisocial. Nothing should be allowed to inhibit the prosecution of these allegedly natural instincts.

This is the yeast of American politics, to which 11 September has given a new twist, and against which Guantanamo Bay will play out. If Bush gives ground on this, he will have compromised the very essence of what it means to be an American conservative, a political mistake as epic as his father`s reversal on his famous promise not to increase taxes.

It is also, as I watched Bill and Hillary Clinton expertly work Kensington Palace`s Orangery at her book launch in London last week, why these two trigger so much enmity from the US Right. For all their evident flaws, they remain the best, most charismatic exponents of the federalist, pro-government tradition in the US. They find the words best to express it and can build the coalitions to make it happen even in an US not beset by recession or war. And they can do it even when the Conservatives hold so many aces - from cash to pure mendacity.

As you read Hillary Clinton`s account of her years in the White House in her autobiography, Living History , you get a handle on why she didn`t leave her husband, despite betrayal and what she describes as her singular loneliness as the Lewinsky affair broke. It was too big a prize to offer her elemental enemies and the tradition which she represents was too important to her.

The whole apparatus of the Starr inquiry, which tried to capitalise on Bill Clinton`s infidelity, turning it into charges of criminality and attempted impeachment, had its roots in what she herself described a vast right-wing conspiracy. It is that same network and culture that is now animating American foreign policy and the choices made in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

It is the other big book just published on Clinton`s presidency - Sidney Blumenthal`s The Clinton Wars - that gets to the heart of this network and tries to locate the Clinton presidency in the pantheon of the US`s progressive tradition. I defy anybody to finish it and not be per suaded that Blumenthal has a powerful case; it is a primer on the politics, networks and processes of the American Right. I would like to make it a compulsory part of Messrs Blair, Straw, Hoon and Blunkett`s reading list this summer. If they knew what they were dealing with, they would be more wary about signing the one-sided extradition treaty with the US - America can extradite our nationals with no due legal process in Britain but not the other way round.

And surely Geoff Hoon would not be so ready to reform the command structures of our armed forces so they can be more easily commanded by American officers, as he recently proposed. This would be an extraordinary proposal in normal times; in today`s context, it is barely credible. Britain has to keep some reserve in our association with conservative America.

Blumenthal`s account is no snow job. He is clear-sighted and harsh about Clinton`s political misjudgments, whether over health care or gays in the military. Nor does he forgive Clinton`s sexual adventures. But his blow-by-blow account of how the Right exploited any innuendo, regardless of the truth, to undermine a Democratic presidency is singularly revealing, as is the uncritical complicity of too much of the American media. America`s best lawyers spent $60 million to uncover not a shred of bad practice in the Whitewater affair.

Starr, as Blumenthal lethally reveals, was no impartial prosecutor but a conservative partisan. In Britain, we have no notion of politics prosecuted like this.

While it may be true that the Clinton legacy, for all Blumenthal`s efforts at talking it up, has not proved very enduring and was contingent on an economic boom that was only partly of Clinton`s making, none the less there were substantial social gains in what has suddenly become a very cold climate. Clinton, we can be sure, would not be presiding over military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. It`s only when you witness the American Right in its full majesty that you recognise Clinton`s achievement.

The reception of the two books has been warm, warmer than either author might have expected. Blumenthal, in particular, has triggered an urgent debate about why the American media treated what we now know as lies as reportable facts or `allegations`, putting his critics on the defensive. Meanwhile, Howard Dean has emerged as front runner for the Democratic nomination as an unapologetic critic of Iraq.

`The Clinton Wars` are transmuting into a wider and bitter conflict over how America should be governed and its relationship with the rest of the world. Britain should be neutral in this internal battle. The calamity of our recent diplomacy is that we find ourselves on the side of the conservatives, a mistake that will cost us dear.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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July 09, 2003

Why Blair can`t issue the Mother of All Apologies
Simon Jenkins



Play for time. Delay, bob, weave. Leave the opponent no chink, never retreat, feint, jab, deflect blame, force the enemy into error, deny non-existent accusations with passion. Never apologise. The arts of political spin are as old as Demosthenes. But they have rarely been deployed more effectively than by the present British Prime Minister, as witnessed before the Commons Liaison Committee yesterday.
Tony Blair’s subject was his abiding obsession, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Not for him the “Pentagon-lite” gambit, the pretence that they no longer matter, that real men shoot first and summon lawyers afterwards. Mr Blair is a lawyer. For him, Saddam’s arsenals remain the casus belli in Iraq because that is what international law requires. They must exist. They do exist. They are fragments of the True Cross, sacred relics of Mr Blair’s holy global empire. Believe in them and you shall be saved.

Britain is only beginning to see the measure of this leader. Accuse Mr Blair of claiming two plus two equals five and he will slay you. He was misheard ... five was just a ballpark figure ... adding one to four is standard legal practice. He will protest that the Joint Intelligence Committee had double-sourced the five, while both the twos were dodgy. A Downing Street maths czar is in place and we should shut up until he reports. It is Mr Blair’s belief, indeed his passionate conviction, that time would prove two plus two equals five. Anything else is frankly, honestly ... you know ... preposterous.

Common sense holds that looming over Mr Blair’s sleep must soon be the Mother of All Apologies. The apology is not for invading Iraq but for his stated reason for invading, for a truly historic deception of the Labour Party and the public. In which case, his wisest course might be to keep the doctrine of atonement on the backburner. Yet he unleashes his aide, Alastair Campbell, to taunt the BBC and demand an apology from it for some detailed inaccuracy about the preparation of intelligence dossiers. Mr Blair thus turns a pinprick into a knife fight.

In the light of last night’s statement by the Ministry of Defence, the BBC made a tactical error. It should have issued a modest “Berlusconi” apology for so upsetting Mr Campbell. It should have admitted a failure of anonymous source vetting and banned its reporters from “sexing up” their scoops for the tabloid press. Having removed that mote from its own eye, the corporation could have turned its opticians on the beam in Mr Blair’s, his unleashing of his two mountains of Iraqi-weapons tosh last September and February. Instead, the BBC allowed Downing Street to keep to its chosen agenda of BBC-bashing. It also gave the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee cover for partially exonerating the Government.

Apology is the new political cult. To public figures it is a talisman of failure, an invitation to self-mutilation. To the media an apology is the equivalent of a hanging at Tyburn. Apology makes no difference to the facts of a case. It respects some concept of guilt and innocence but is rarely seen with its philosophical partner, forgiveness. To a politician this is dangerous. The apologiser may not be trusted again. Once guilt is admitted, closure may require resignation. Small wonder politicians share the instincts of lawyers: never apologise. Mr Blair yesterday did not allow a smidgeon of doubt to show in front of the jury. Even the slightest apology would have implied guilt.

In politics, apologies are clearly for wimps. I demand no “apology” from the dupes who claimed last year to “know” of Saddam’s imminent threat to the West, who claimed to know that he “must be neutralised” before he could suddenly unleash chemical warheads on Israel and Cyprus. I demand no apology from those who ridiculed the UN weapons inspectors or spread patent nonsense about Niger uranium deals, satellite-detected weapons dumps and “known” links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.

The world has for a decade been crowded with disorientated Cold Warriors in search of someone to bomb. They have arms programmes to justify. They have think-tank contracts to protect. They have terrorist threats to hype because the big money these days is in security. Foreign policy has become tabloid, dumb. It is shrill not because the stakes are so high but because, since the end of the nuclear menace, they are so low.

One-time peaceniks now bask in Mr Blair’s blandishments. Peter Hain, of all people, dismissed anti-war demonstrators as so much rabble. Clare Short defended cluster bombs. On Monday a former civil rights enthusiast now minister, Chris Mullin, wriggled and squirmed to support the Guantanamo Bay imprisonments, the first case in modern history of a British government refusing its citizens defence against a foreign kangaroo court. It is horrible to see what ambition does to a man.

The Iraq imbroglio is now imposing a huge burden on the consciences of many of Mr Blair’s colleagues. But to Mr Blair it is open and shut. He remains adamant that a military threat from Saddam Hussein to the British people justified his decision to invade Iraq last March — and he accepts that only that threat was legal justification. He yesterday half-distanced himself from some of his intelligence, by references to “intelligence at the time”. But unlike his radio spokesmen, he did not dodge the question. The evil of a regime and the virtues of removing it may be benefits of invasion. They could not legitimise it, whatever Americans say. To some of Mr Blair’s friends the September dossier might wisely be left gathering dust on the shelf of history. To Mr Blair it remains Holy Writ.

It is to Mr Blair’s credit — and his risk — that he regards validating that dossier as essential. Pressed time and again, he did not say that the weapons issue was dead or trivial, or that we should concentrate on lauding the freedom of the grateful people of Iraq. That may be a line adopted by his fans, and by sceptics who would rather concentrate on how to get out of Iraq than on why we got in. To Mr Blair that is dishonest. He had put the case and now the case must be proved.

My guess is that Mr Blair will try to leave this file open. Half the world’s press have found no weapons. A top Pentagon team found no weapons. Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, does not believe there are any weapons. Mr Blair ignores them all. He is awaiting his latest Godot, the Iraq Survey Group which, he admits, has “barely started work”. Anything for the Prime Minister is better than a return of the UN inspection team. They are experts. They threaten to expose the September dossier, expose the failures of British Intelligence and bring closure and thus shame to this whole issue.

Mr Blair will not give up because he cannot. He will forever have a George Smiley on this case. Whatever he finds, a rusty rocket case, a suspect caravan, a can of baking powder, a bit of old tubing, will acquire iconic status. In old age, I suspect we shall still see Mr Blair, perhaps in flares and beads, wandering Glastonbury Tor with a metal detector, muttering “weapons of mass destruction”.

From the moment that Mr and Mrs Blair dined with Bill and Hillary Clinton at the Pont de la Tour restaurant in 1997 and fell in love with the American presidency, the path to British compliance in the conquest of Iraq was inevitable. Britain under Mr Blair would follow Washington wherever its interventionist zeal might take it. There would be none of Harold Wilson’s measured distancing from America during Vietnam. There would be none of Ronald Reagan’s measured distancing from London during the Falklands War — when there was no nonsense about standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” against naked aggression by an evil dictator.

Mr Blair bought into sanctions against Iraq. He bought into containment. He bought into the bombing of Baghdad. He bought into the humiliation of UN weapons inspection and the rush to war. He bought this much of the American ticket. Yet Mr Blair refuses to join America in holding that invasion needs no further legitimacy and its justification no proof.

The Prime Minister is a legal perfectionist. He will make no Mother of All Apologies. There will be no “closure” on weapons of mass destruction. They will be found in Iraq if Hell has to freeze over first. Mr Blair knows something nobody else knows.


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US repeats Vietnam-era arrogance


By Derrick Z. Jackson, 7/9/2003

ITH ATTACKS continuing to claim the lives of US soldiers, a reporter last week asked President Bush what the White House was doing to get France, Germany, and Russia to join the American occupation of Iraq. Bush did not discuss France, Germany, or Russia. He chose to brag that he was the fastest gun in Western civilization.


``There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us,`` Bush said. ``My answer is, bring `em on! We`ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. Of course we want other countries to help us ... but we`ve got plenty tough force there right now to make sure the situation is secure.... The enemy shouldn`t make any mistake about it. We will deal with them harshly if they continue to try to bring harm to the Iraqi people.``

Echoing Bush was General Tommy Franks, who just retired as the commander of the invasion of Iraq. Franks told ABC`s ``Good Morning America,`` ``The fact is, wherever we find criminals, death squads, and so forth who are anxious to do damage to this country and to peace-loving countries around the world, I absolutely agree with the president of the United States: Bring `em on!``

Such arrogance harkens back to Vietnam and the observation of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 that Americans were ``strange liberators.`` We say we are there to liberate the people, but then we turn around and try and taunt Saddam`s remnants out of the saloon so they can all show off in high noon showdowns - wild firefights that are sure to result in yet more civilian deaths. We bragged ourselves literally to death four decades ago. According to King in his speech ``A Time to Break Silence``:

``It should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America`s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over....

``As I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula.... They must see Americans as strange liberators.... Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not `ready` for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long....

``The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs.... They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees.

``They wander into the hospitals with at least 20 casualties from American firepower for one `Vietcong`-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them - mostly children. They wander into towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers....

``We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation`s only non-Communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators!

``Now there is little left to build on - save bitterness.... If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony, and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play....

``If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.``

Derrick Z. Jackson`s e-mail address is [e-mail].

This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 7/9/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/190/oped/US_repeats_Vietna…

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Americans More Critical of Bush`s Efforts at Home, More Anxious Over Situation in Iraq
Dem Candidates Stir Little Enthusiasm

Viele Tabellen:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=187



Released: July 8, 2003


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Summary of Findings

As presidential campaign activities start to pick up steam, President Bush is facing increasing public criticism of his efforts to deal with domestic issues and greater wariness of the military situation in Iraq. At the same time, his potential Democratic rivals show little early appeal and the Democratic party has lost significant ground on health care, an issue on which the party has pinned great hopes for 2004.

Discontent with President Bush`s efforts to revive the economy has risen sharply, from 53% in May to 62% in the current survey. In addition, fully seven-in-ten (72%) believe the president is not making a strong enough effort to deal with growing health care problems in this country. Bush`s overall job performance rating of 60% is down 14 points from its post-Iraq war peak (74%).

Americans also are taking an increasingly negative view of the U.S. military operation in Iraq. Fewer than a quarter (23%) say the U.S. military effort there is going "very well," far fewer than the percentage who expressed that view throughout the war. Despite this growing concern, two-thirds (66%) favor a major U.S. commitment to rebuild Iraq and establish a stable government there. About the same number (67%) continue to back the decision to go to war in Iraq, down slightly from early and mid-April (74%).

There are no signs that the public`s unease over developments at home and abroad are providing the Democrats with much political momentum. In fact, the Democratic Party is losing its historic advantage over the Republicans on health care. By 38%-31%, the public favors the Democrats as the party best able to reform the health care system. That is the smallest edge the Democrats have held on this measure since October 1994 (41%-34%), after the demise of the Clinton administration`s controversial national health care proposal.

Changing partisan evaluations come at time when somewhat more Americans report having trouble paying for health care costs than was the case in the mid-1990s. Nearly half of all Americans (49%) say they have experienced problems with affording health care or maintaining health insurance coverage, up from 45% in 1994.

The latest nationwide poll of 1,201 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds tempered enthusiasm for a Bush second term; 63% say there is a "good" or "some" chance they will vote for the president next fall. That is somewhat less than the number who said they would consider voting for then-Gov. Bush in June 1999 (69%), mostly because views of Bush have become much more polarized politically. But the field of Democratic candidates generates much less interest than did the field of candidates four years ago. So far, none of the nine candidates gets a majority saying they would consider voting for them (among voters familiar with the candidates). The same is true for non-candidates Al Gore and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Four years ago, candidates in both parties attracted far more voter interest. On the Republican side, solid majorities said there was at least some chance they would vote for Bush (69%), Elizabeth Dole (61%), and Sen. John McCain (55%), who had relatively little name recognition at the time. Among Democrats, majorities said they would consider voting for Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, who also was not very well known (54% Gore, 53% Bradley).

The current survey finds little in the way of Clinton nostalgia. Bill Clinton`s presidency continues to divide the public ­ about half (49%) say he will be remembered as one of the "very best" presidents or at least better than most, while nearly the same number (46%) believe history`s judgment will not be favorable. That division has persisted since 1999. And despite brisk sales for Hillary Clinton`s memoirs, fewer than one-in-ten (8%) say they are very closely following news reports on the book, which is by far the lowest interest measured for any story this month.


Evaluations of Military Effort Decline

The ongoing violence in Iraq and rising number of U.S. casualties have taken a toll on public perceptions of the military conflict. Not only do fewer than a quarter of Americans (23%) have a very positive impression of how things are going, but nearly as many (21%) say the military operation is not going well. During the war, no more than 10% took a negative view of the military situation in Iraq.

Perceptions of the military effort, as well overall attitudes toward Iraq, remain highly partisan. Nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats say the military effort is going very well (34% vs. 18%). But members of both parties have a far less positive impression of progress in the military operation than they did in the war`s final phase (April 8-16). At that point, 77% of Republicans and 47% of Democrats said the military effort was going very well.

Two-thirds of Americans (67%) think it was the right decision to go to war in Iraq, down somewhat from the end of the war (74%). Roughly nine-in-ten Republicans (88%) continue to back that decision, compared with fewer than half of Democrats (48%), down from 59% in the April 8-16 survey.

There is less partisan division over a U.S. commitment to rebuild Iraq. Majorities of Republicans (76%) and Democrats (60%) support a major American effort to rebuild Iraq and establish a stable government there. But only about half (47%) of those who think things are currently going poorly in Iraq (a group that is mostly comprised of Democrats and independents) favors a major U.S. commitment to rebuild the country, compared with nearly three-quarters (74%) of those who say things are going very well or fairly well.


No Democratic Frontrunner

At this early stage of the presidential campaign, name recognition is crucially important. Sen. Joe Lieberman and Rep. Dick Gephardt are the best known candidates, among all voters as well as among Democrats and those who lean Democratic (80% of Democratic voters say they have heard of Lieberman, 70% Gephardt). But none of the Democratic candidates garners a level of enthusiasm that sets them apart from the field.

Gephardt, Sen. John Kerry and Lieberman have the most potential support among Democratic voters. Two-thirds (66%) of those who have heard of Gephardt say they would consider voting for him. Kerry and Lieberman receive comparable levels of support (65% and 62%, respectively).

While Sen. John Edwards is less familiar, 59% of Democratic voters who have heard of Edwards say there is at least some chance they would vote for him. Slightly fewer say the same about Howard Dean (53%), Sen. Bob Graham (47%) and Carol Moseley Braun (46%).

In addition to being known by just 20% of Democrats, Rep. Dennis Kucinich`s appeal is also narrower than most other candidates ­ more say there is no chance they would vote for him (45%) as say there is a chance (40%). Al Sharpton is far more familiar (67% know his name), but has even more limited appeal. Fully 70% of Democrats say there is no chance they would vote for Sharpton, more than say this about George W. Bush.


Non-Candidates: Gore and Clinton

Al Gore, who declared late last year that he would not be a candidate in 2004, attracts the most potential support among Democrats. Three-quarters of Democrats say there is at least some chance they would vote for Gore, and 42% say there is a good chance they would vote for the former vice president. Gore drew comparable interest among Democrats four years ago. In June 1999, 78% of Democratic voters said they would consider voting for Gore.

Roughly two-thirds of Democratic voters (68%) say there is at least some chance they would vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton, who also has indicated she is not running next year. While Gore and Clinton demonstrate strength among Democrats, both continue to be polarizing political figures. When the views of all voters are considered, eight-in-ten Republicans (82%) and about half of independents (47%) say there is no chance they would vote for Gore. Slightly more Republicans and independents have ruled out voting for Sen. Clinton (84% of Republicans, 55% of independents).


No Clinton Nostalgia

The public remains evenly divided in its assessment of President Bill Clinton`s performance while in office, and this view has remained unchanged over the past four years. Overall, 49% say he will be remembered as either one of the "very best" presidents (14%) or "better than most" (35%), while 46% say he will turn out to be "not as good as most" (28%) or "definitely worse than most" (18%).

These current views of Clinton`s presidency are virtually identical to measures taken in surveys dating back to 1999, indicating that the public`s perceptions of Clinton were locked in before he left office. And not surprisingly, there is a sharp partisan and racial gap in evaluations of the Clinton presidency. Three-quarters of Democrats (76%) believe Clinton will be regarded at least as one of the better presidents, while about as many Republicans (75%) think his performance was sub-par. And while most whites (54%) think Clinton was not as good as or worse than most others, fully 87% of blacks believe Clinton was better than most (43%) or one of the very best (44%) presidents.


No Decline in Health Care Problems

The survey finds nearly four-in-ten (37%) saying that the topic of problems in the health care system comes up frequently in conversations with family and friends, and another 31% say they talk about it occasionally. (This survey was largely completed before passage June 27 of legislation providing a prescription drug benefit as part of Medicare.)

This indicator of concern falls somewhat below the levels recorded in March 1994 during the debate over the health care reform proposals of the Clinton administration. At that time, 48% said problems with the system came up frequently in conversations, with another 29% saying they talked about it occasionally.

Even though problems with the health care system are not as topical today as in the midst of discussion about Clinton`s efforts to reform the system in 1994, the number of people reporting individual problems with the system in the past year is at least as high as it was nine years ago. Overall, 49% report they have encountered at least one of four different problems over the past year ­ trouble affording health care, having coverage dropped or denied, or staying in a job just to keep coverage ­ compared with 45% in 1994.

In addition, 35% of Americans say they have had "great difficulty" paying for prescription drugs, a measure that was not part of the 1994 survey. The more general problem of inability to afford the cost of necessary medical care (34%) is mentioned nearly as often, and is up somewhat compared with 1994 (when 29% cited it). Nearly one-quarter (24%) say they have stayed in a job they did not like just to keep the health insurance coverage (compared with 21% in 1994).

Other problems included being refused coverage because of preexisting conditions (12%) and being dropped from or refused coverage by a plan (10%). The percentage of people who report keeping a job just to maintain coverage and who say they have been refused coverage has not declined in the past nine years, despite enactment in 1996 of a law aimed at making it easier for people who change jobs to maintain their health insurance.


More Blacks Report Problems

While problems with the health care system have increased modestly compared with eight years ago, the most notable change since 1994 is which Americans report troubles with the system. African-Americans, Democrats and people with annual household incomes of below $30,000 are now much more likely to say they are experiencing such problems.

Notably, nearly seven-in-ten African-Americans (69%) now say they are experiencing at least one of four problems related to paying for and maintaining health coverage (difficulty affording health care, refused coverage, refused because of pre-existing condition, or stayed at a job to maintain coverage). In 1994, fewer than half of African-Americans reported at least one of these problems (46%).

By comparison, the percentage of whites who report experiencing problems with the health care system has not increased significantly since 1994 (46% now, 44% then).

Affording health care, in particular, has become a more prevalent problem among African-Americans. In 1994, blacks were only four percentage points more likely than whites to say they had great difficulty affording needed care (33% for blacks, 29% for whites). Today the gap is 21% (53% for blacks, 32% for whites).

The racial differences contribute to a political gap in the number reporting problems with the health care system. In 1994, Democrats and Republicans reported similar experiences: overall, 39% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats had at least one problem. Today, there is a much bigger difference: 41% of Republicans report at least one problem, but 58% of Democrats do. The change is especially notable in difficulty affording health care: 26% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats reported this problem in 1994; today, 28% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats say they have trouble affording care.

As was the case in 1994, Americans age 65 and older are far less likely to report problems with the health care system than are younger Americans. Roughly a third of seniors (32%) say they have experienced one or more problems with the system, compared with majorities in other age groups. And just a quarter of seniors report trouble affording general health care costs, compared with 36% of people under age 65.

In addition, people age 65 and older are no more likely than younger Americans to report problems in affording prescription drugs. About three-in-ten seniors (31%) say they have had great difficulty in affording prescription drugs in the past year. That compares with 36% of those under age 65.


Modest Dem Edge on Reforming Health Care

Despite President Bush`s strong push for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, 72% of the public say he could be doing more to deal with health care problems in America. While Democrats (at 88%) overwhelmingly feel this way, even a majority of Republicans agree (52%). Although most seniors think the president could be doing more, they are not as negative as younger Americans are about his effort on the issue: 32% of those age 65 and older say he is doing enough, compared with 20% of those younger than 65.

Yet the Democratic party is not benefitting from the concerns of the public on this issue. The poll finds that the Democrats hold only a slight edge over the Republicans as the party the public trusts to reform the U.S. health care system: 38% pick the Democrats, 31% pick the Republicans. During the 1990s, Democrats typically posted much larger leads on this issue. In September 1998, 43% preferred Democrats to reform the health care system, compared with 31% who favored Republicans. Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly favor their own party on the issue, while independents favor the Democratic party by 32%-22%.


Little Change in Views on Homosexuality

The public remains divided over whether homosexuality should be accepted by society. While 47% say homosexuality is "a way of life that should be accepted by society," nearly as many (45%) believe that it is a way of life that "should be discouraged by society." (This question was asked as part of separate survey of 1,000 Americans, conducted June 4-8, which will be released later this summer.)

Attitudes on this issue have changed little in recent years. Since 1994, between 46% and 50% of Americans have supported societal acceptance of homosexuality. Opposition to that view has ranged from 50% (in 1997) to 41% in 2000.

There are major religious, political and demographic differences in these attitudes. Nearly two-thirds of Catholics (65%) and almost half of white mainline Protestants (49%) support societal acceptance of homosexuality compared with just 22% of white evangelical Protestants. Majorities of Democrats (57%) and independents (52%) believe society should accept homosexuality, but only 37% of Republicans agree.

Age also is a significant factor in opinion on homosexuality. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) under 30 endorse societal acceptance of homosexuality; fewer than half in other age groups agree. Among those age 65 and older, nearly twice as many say society should discourage homosexuality as believe it should be accepted (57% vs. 29%).


Iraq Again Tops News Index

Public interest in developments in Iraq has declined somewhat since June, but that story continues to lead the news interest index. Nearly four-in-ten Americans (37%) say they followed news about Iraq very closely, down from 46% in June. In May, 63% of Americans paid very close attention to news reports about Iraq.

Nearly three-in-ten (28%) paid very close attention to a related story ­ the controversy over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. About as many Americans (27%) followed reports on violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

About one-in-five Americans (22%) followed news on the murder of Laci Peterson very closely. Interest in that story has declined since May, when 31% followed that case very closely. And just 8% of Americans paid very close attention to the publication of Sen. Clinton`s memoirs. Even among Democrats, this attracted by far the lowest level interest of any story this month (13% very closely). Republicans and independents showed even less interest (6% of Republicans, 5% of independents).

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-pris…
THE WORLD

Justice System Wins Few Hearts, Minds
Many Iraqi detainees are held in harsh conditions without due process guarantees. U.S. says the `deficiencies` are temporary.
By Héctor Tobar
Times Staff Writer

July 9, 2003

BAGHDAD — As far as his family and friends know, Ahmed Bailasani is still sleeping on the sandy ground near Baghdad`s international airport, surrounded by U.S. troops and strands of barbed wire, a prisoner of the American authorities.

His friends — thrown into custody with him and later released — last saw the 50-something professor at "Camp Cropper" a month ago.

They and other former prisoners describe a sprawling facility where more than 1,000 Iraqi men sit and sleep under tent canopies in the open air, receiving a single meal per day. A few weeks ago, the detainees staged a one-day hunger strike to protest the conditions, former prisoners say.

The detainees are a mish-mash of men arrested in raids on suspected guerrilla safe houses, others caught up in neighborhood weapons searches, curfew violators and men suspected of armed robbery and other crimes.

Across Iraq, about 3,000 men are being held without formal charges in high-security facilities sealed off from public scrutiny, provoking criticism from human rights groups and fueling resentment against the U.S. occupation.

Two weeks after Bailasani`s detention in May, students and colleagues at the Islamic college where he teaches staged a protest seeking his release and an explanation of the charges he faces.

"He is at the airport prison, as far as we know — maybe," said Mohammed Abed Kubaisi, dean of the Islamic College at Baghdad University. "We tried to see him at the airport, but they stopped us at the military checkpoint" three miles away.

`Short-Term Problems`

Officials with the U.S.-led occupation acknowledge they face "serious short-term problems" in housing the prisoners, providing them with legal representation and ensuring that those charged with crimes receive speedy trials.

"We`ve recognized the deficiencies and are working to correct them," one senior official said. "For 35 years, there were massive violations of human rights. The current situation is an immense relief. Twenty-five million people are breathing easier."

Under international law and edicts issued by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator here, Iraqi criminal law remains in effect — except those provisions that compromise the security of coalition troops. U.S. officials say the Geneva Convention allows occupying powers to suspend some civil liberties.

Last week, Amnesty International issued a report calling on the occupation authority to "ensure humane treatment and access to justice" for the detainees. The report said the watchdog group had received repeated accounts of mistreatment of detainees, including beatings and a lack of water and toilet facilities at detention centers.

Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross said they had been granted access to "several thousand" detainees and had discussed conditions with U.S. authorities.

The Iraqi legal system, which could process those arrested for crimes covered by local penal codes, is barely functioning. Coalition officials said last week that two criminal courts are operating in Baghdad, a city of 5 million people. But at one of them, judges have processed only 12 defendants since reopening a month ago.

"We work on the cases which are referred to us by the coalition forces," Judge Ibrahim Hindami said. "We have no say on what the coalition forces do."

Several thousand soldiers captured before President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1 have been released. But many of the hundreds of people detained since then in U.S. raids against suspected guerrilla fighters are being tagged as prisoners of war and mixed with criminal suspects, according to interviewed detainees.

The absence of a system for providing information to the Iraqi public about detainees, as well as Iraqi abhorrence of some basic elements of American police and military procedure — handcuffing suspects, taking property as evidence — has helped erode much of the goodwill many felt toward U.S. forces.

Bailasani was taken away in a May 21 raid on the Baghdad offices of the Islamic Kurdistan Party, a legal group.

Friends and colleagues say they are perplexed by his arrest and detention — others held with him were released. He is not a party member.

"He had just come to visit us when the American soldiers arrived and surrounded this place," said Arselan Sattar, director of the Baghdad office of the party, which was founded as an underground movement opposing Saddam Hussein`s regime. After the dictator`s fall, the party established the office to take part in the negotiations in the capital over a future Iraqi government.

The soldiers fanned out throughout the building, apparently searching for weapons, Sattar said. They arrested Bailasani plus Sattar and half a dozen other party members and security guards.

For the next nine days, Sattar wore a tag that the soldiers had attached to his clothing — a Defense Department form labeled "Enemy Prisoner of War." It listed his name and time of detention. Under "circumstances of capture," one GI scribbled: "Raid on Fedayeen safe house," referring to paramilitary groups loyal to Hussein.

Claim of Humiliation

The soldiers led Sattar, Bailasani and the others out in handcuffs, their heads covered in hoods and their mouths taped shut, Sattar said. Bailasani`s turban was yanked off his head, and his cleric`s robes were ripped to shreds.

"They humiliated the professor," Sattar said. "When we said we were hot, they poured water on us as if we were animals."

Sattar was interrogated by a soldier who said the party offices had been under surveillance and had raised suspicions because of the large number of visitors.

"I explained to him that we are new to this neighborhood, that no one knows us, and it is the custom for people to come and pay their respects," Sattar said. Eventually, he was taken to the airport. The holding facility was so crowded that some of the prisoners didn`t fit under the tents and were exposed to the baking summer sun.

"We cut pieces of the tent and put them together with food cartons to make beds," Sattar said. He added that he saw children as young as 12. He was assigned a number: 7,981.

Student Ali Wahed, 22, was arrested about a week later and also taken to Camp Cropper. He was prisoner No. 9,307. He had been arrested at the mosque where he is a guard.

"First they told us we were a criminal gang," Wahed said. The soldiers said Wahed and the other mosque guards had robbed a neighbor`s house. Wahed said he was beaten, handcuffed and dragged along the ground by the soldiers.

He, too, said he received a single meal a day at the airport prison. "It was very hot," Wahed said. "There is nothing to do but sleep."

At one point, he was taken from the airport to another camp, where they brought an Iraqi woman to see him.

"She told them I was not one of the robbers," Wahed said. Some time later, back at the airport facility, "a woman soldier started to call out numbers. She called my number and many others. Some went to Basra, some to another prison. I was set free."

A senior official with the occupation authority said it was working to close Camp Cropper and move the prisoners to other facilities — an effort hampered by the looting of many Iraqi prisons when Hussein fell.

The official added that the administration here would also work to grant family members access to the prisoners "in a few weeks` time."

The official said the Geneva Convention allows occupying armies to deny prisoners visitation rights under emergency circumstances.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

The End Of The Deep End
The swimming pool as you know it is no more, and the childhood rite of passage will never be the same
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, July 9, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/


So it`s not exactly the end of the divine luminous world and it`s not exactly as bitterly dire as BushCo smirkingly reaming this nation and gutting schools and the economy and the environment and sex and joy, all slathered with his bald-faced lies about war. No, it`s not quite as bad as that.

And sure it might be only a small tragic shift, but if you`re anywhere over 20 and grew up in just about any worthy suburban American town and endured anything resembling a worthy American childhood, the deep end of the swimming pool probably meant something to you, as a kid.

Something mysterious. Something scary. Something foreboding and scary and magnificent, because when you were about six years old the deep end very much represented that sudden slap of terrifying summertime anxiety -- particularly if you were new to swimming, new to the pool`s otherworldly challenges, its beckoning aura of happy splish-splash impending doom.

It was powerful. It was magic and dark and transformative and the deep end was that area of the pool you ventured into extremely tentatively, excitedly, all about that rush of delicious fear and desire and quiet panic and determination. You know, just like life.

The deep end was, of course, the place to face your demons. To test your mettle, your fortitude, your burgeoning superhero powers, to see if you could dog-paddle sufficiently frantically all the way to the opposite edge without drowning and when you made it you felt this crazy rush of pride and love and power, your little heart beating like a crazy techno remix because you were now strong. You were godlike. You were the water-bound Thwarter of Death. You were six years old.

Here`s why you should care: The deep end is vanishing. Maybe you didn`t know this. Cities are filling them in, hotels are redesigning their outdoor amenities, backyard-pool manufacturers are no longer building pools with areas deeper than five feet.

Too much danger, they say. Too many broken necks and screaming kids and drowned people and lawsuits, they say. Aquatics tastes have changed, they say.

Bah, we say. This is a significant tragedy. This is yet another shift in our increasingly panicky and trepidatious culture toward further sanitizing the world, stripping it of all edge and menace and wonder and vital rites of passage and what`s next, the end of lawn darts? The demise of the wicked-cool playground, full of looming monkey bars and dramatic swing sets and huge metal slides? The end of the manual-clutch transmission, fer chrissakes? Whoops, too late.

The deep end is, of course, the metaphor to end all metaphors. There is quite possibly no more perfectly apt allegory for life and experience and growing up, and we are blindly wiping it out because we are increasingly terrified of anything we can`t completely control and sanitize and buffer for easier swallowing. Hey, just like BushCo!

There will be no more diving. There will be no more diving boards. There will be no more tossing the quarter over your shoulder into the silent toxically chlorinated depths and then excitedly diving down down down into the void and grabbing that shiny prize and emerging from the water like Jacques Cousteau with evidence of the lost riches of Atlantis. All day long, over and over and over. But no more.

There will be no more comments like, "Man is he ever off the deep end" or "The deep end is only for big kids, honey" or "That`s not a deep end -- that`s my sister." You get the idea.

It is an indelible rite of passage. It is glorious accomplishment, from terrified tyke sporting wimpy inflatable arm-floaty things to fearless Olympic freestyler, gliding effortlessly through the shimmering backyard vastness, luxuriating in how you can finally traverse the deep end confidently, effortlessly, at will, you in complete control of your body and your world and your liquid universe, the pool now a welcoming watery playground rather than a fathomless abyss. Screw the damn floaties. You are in the deep end. You have arrived.

The next generation will not know the backyard cannonball dive. They will not know the desperation of hiding down in the deep end during nervous first-time teenage skinny-dipping. They will not know the belly flop or the swan dive or the pike or the spike or the dude-I-am-so-wasted-I-think-I`ll-leap-off-your-roof-into-the-pool. Damn tragic, is what it is.

In fact, unless they have access to a lake or ocean -- which, of course, the vast majority don`t -- they will not know any diving at all, really, maybe a couple lame splashes here and there but no real vertical thrill, no overcoming that fear of leaping into the void, of momentary flight, splashdown, rush rush gargle splash zoom wow hey mom watchthiswatchthiswatchthis.


And they will not know that gasping, oh-my-freaking-God-I-almost-didn`t-make-it feeling you get when you struggle and gasp and wheeze and just barely reach the other side and you just know, deep in your innocent 6-year-old soul, that you just brushed flippers with the Scythed, Black-Robed One.

This is vital. This is key. Because the end of the deep end means maybe, just maybe, we aren`t allowing ourselves, our kids, those more vital, deeper explorations. That we are increasingly preventing them -- and ourselves -- from experiencing, on their own terms, those more profound risks and mistakes and gasping epiphanies.

Sure sure, removing the deep end makes some sort of whiny politically correct sense and prevents accidents and protects kids a little more, averts lawsuits and blah blah blah, but hell if we really want to protect kids we`d lock them in a padded room and give them nothing but a large stuffed penguin and a simpleminded ideology to play with for about 18 years before partially lobotomizing them and making them into born-again Republicans. I mean, please.

What is left, really, to teach us of the wonders and perils of solo survivalism and accomplishment and desperate breaststroke struggle? What is left to impart hints of terror and bliss and little exhilarating winks of potential death?

What, in short, will supplant the deep end? The media? "Survivor?" War? The NRA? Dick Cheney`s pallid hateful sneer? Not quite.

No, the demise of the deep end may not be the end of the world as you know it. But it`s sure as hell the end of one of our more fascinating, and vital, deeper perspectives.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.troops09…
U.S. might ask NATO to take over control of Iraq occupation
Administration seeking to cut American presence





By Mark Matthews and Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff

July 9, 2003

WASHINGTON -- With American costs and casualties mounting in Iraq, the Bush administration is showing new interest in putting NATO in charge of the military occupation as a way of scaling back the U.S. troop commitment, U.S. and NATO officials say.

Such a change would discomfit some administration hard-liners, as it would force the United States to share decision-making on Iraq with European leaders who opposed the U.S.-led invasion, analysts said. It might also require seeking a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, which the United States failed to get before launching the war to topple Saddam Hussein.

But as the single most powerful nation in NATO, the United States would retain military command while spreading the burden and costs among a number of nations, thereby easing demands on overstretched American forces, diplomats said.

"There is interest" in turning the mission over to NATO, although not right away, a senior Bush administration official said yesterday. "I think the American public would be pleased to see NATO helping us in Iraq. ... Americans believe in NATO and would consider it a plus to have NATO secure Iraq."

The alliance suffered its worst rupture in decades over the winter when two of its largest members, France and Germany, strenuously opposed the invasion of Iraq and at one point joined with Belgium in blocking NATO from bolstering the defense of Turkey in the event of an Iraqi attack on its neighbor.

Deepening the strains, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld referred to France and Germany disparagingly as "old Europe."

Since the war ended, however, diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic have been eager to repair the damage. Officials in Washington and Brussels, where NATO has its headquarters, say that a handover to NATO command might be formally discussed as early as this fall.

Discussion of NATO comes as members of Congress and defense analysts argue that the nearly daily casualties suffered by U.S. forces and the continuing sabotage of the country`s infrastructure require adding more combat forces to the 146,000 Americans stationed in Iraq along with 12,000 troops from other nations, mostly from Britain.

The Pentagon reported yesterday that 143 Americans had been killed by hostile fire in Iraq since the war began in March, close to the 147 killed in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Guerrilla-style attacks have claimed 29 American lives since President Bush declared major combat operations over May 1.

The mounting death toll has eroded the American public`s confidence in the military operation. In mid-April, 61 percent said the military effort in Iraq was going very well, but the figure now is 23 percent, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

"I think they need more" troops, retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, who commanded U.S. forces in the region after the 1991 gulf war, said in an interview, although he did not say how many. "It seems to me that in order to guard the critical areas and the power stations, it`s going to require more people until you get the Iraqis trained up to do it."

Democrats` position

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who is running for president, called upon the administration this week to "commit more U.S. troops and resources to Iraq." Lieberman, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an article that appeared in the Washington Post on Monday that the president should immediately "ask NATO to assume command of the forces in Iraq."

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, has also urged the enlisting of NATO. During a news conference late last month, he said the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, had assured him that "NATO`s willing to step in," but that "nobody`s asking them." Republican Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the foreign relations panel, and John W. Warner of Virginia, who heads the Armed Services Committee, have spoken of bringing more allies into the Iraq operation, although they have stopped short of calling for a NATO takeover.

NATO has crossed a major political threshold by agreeing last month to provide military support to Poland, which is assembling an 8,000-member multinational force that is to be sent to Iraq in September, diplomats said. "As a general proposition, the United States would like NATO to do more in Iraq in the future," said a senior NATO official in Brussels. He said this had been "communicated at very high levels."

After NATO`s decision to back the Polish-led deployment, "a number of people at headquarters and a number of countries saw this as the first stage" in turning over the whole mission to the alliance, the official said.

Iraq could follow the pattern set in Afghanistan, where NATO is to assume command of peacekeeping forces next month, the official added.

But appealing publicly for NATO help at a time of rising American casualties could prove embarrassing to the Bush administration.

"The problem now is, things aren`t going as well as the U.S. had hoped. It`s not really an opportune time for turning it over. It looks like you can`t do it and are turning to someone else," said James Goldgeier, a European specialist at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Some analysts doubt NATO is up to the military challenge.

"NATO is not staffed, equipped or organized for the mission," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Moreover, France and Germany would likely set stiff conditions for agreeing to have NATO assume the lead in Iraq.

"You would need a whole package" giving allies a major role in decisions on Iraq`s reconstruction and how its future government is organized, said Robert Hunter, U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Clinton. "It can`t be just that the U.S. is still in charge of everything."

Said Stanton Burnett, a former U.S. diplomat at NATO: "The allies would have to be convinced that this administration is not trying to find a quick fix, and that this would set a new pattern and a new understanding of what NATO consultation means."

Such a sharing of authority could be "quite painful" for administration policymakers to swallow, Burnett said, particularly those who favor an assertive, unilateralist American role in world affairs.

But given the pressure on American forces, it might also be necessary.

The Pentagon is having a hard time rotating the 146,000 troops it has in Iraq, let alone increasing the size of the force. More than half the active duty Army is stationed in Iraq and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, and officials are trying to send some of those combat-weary soldiers home.

The Army`s 3rd Infantry Division spearheaded the three-week war, and many of its soldiers have been in the region for more than nine months, with some having their duty extended because of the deteriorating security situation. A 4,500-soldier brigade of the Georgia-based division is due to return home in the next two weeks, with the remaining 11,500 soldiers expected to rotate in late August, officials said.

Force levels

The question is, who will take over the unit`s mission. With some active-duty Army divisions or portions of divisions deployed to Korea, Kosovo and Afghanistan, the Army staff at the Pentagon is looking at how to rotate forces out Iraq and maintain force levels around the world. A senior defense official recently told reporters he has not seen the Army this stretched since the Vietnam era.

One option is to extend the deployment periods of active Army units from six months to nine months. Another is to mobilize National Guard forces to help relieve the pressure, said one officer familiar with the effort.

The Pentagon and the State Department have reached out to some 70 countries to contribute forces outside the NATO umbrella to the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. But they have enlisted only the 8,000-member force that will be led by Poland.

Turning the operation over to NATO might increase European willingness to share the burden, but it would not necessarily be a panacea, as Europe`s forces are also being stretched. German, Dutch and French forces have all assumed peacekeeping roles in Afghanistan, and France has troops in two African trouble spots, the Ivory Coast and Congo.


Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun

[Joerver]

Bush: `The Wrong Man?`
By Robert Parry
July 9, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

George W. Bush’s combative exhortation to Iraqi resistance fighters to "bring ‘em on" by launching more attacks against U.S. troops reminded his supporters why they see him as a war-hero president, what former aide and author David Frum dubbed "The Right Man" to lead the nation through post-Sept. 11 hostilities.

Click here for printable version

But Bush’s tough-guy rhetoric may instead be leading the nation into a maze of dark alleys from which many Americans, especially young soldiers dispatched to a string of conflicts, will never emerge. There is a growing sense that Bush’s life experience of underachieving privilege might make him entirely the wrong man for addressing the complex challenges the nation now faces.

Because of his family connections, Bush has never confronted the physical dangers that come with war, nor even the consequences of personal failure as an executive who’s made bad decisions. His father’s powerful friends have always been there to help, whether keeping Bush out of Vietnam or bailing out his sinking businesses or sparing him from a full vote count in Florida.

Even as a young man, Bush could say one thing and do another. He said he was for the Vietnam War, but accepted a home-side slot in the Texas Air National Guard arranged by his father’s friends. He then appears to have shirked even that duty with still-unanswered questions about why he failed a flight physical and whether he went AWOL for a year.

According to the Boston Globe, "In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And … for a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen." [Boston Globe, May, 23, 2000]

In his early-to-mid adulthood, Bush continued to live a kind of risk-free life, benefiting from the generosity of his fathers’ friends who bankrolled his failed business ventures and then set him up with sinecure positions on corporate boards. While other businessmen faced genuine risks of failure, Bush lived the charmed life of a n’er-do-well who could only fail up.

When it came to democracy and the fundamental right of American citizens to have their votes count – and be counted – Bush again didn’t dare take any risks. He preferred the sure thing of a fix by his father’s friends than winning or losing based on the actual ballots cast by voters.

After Election 2000, when the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount, Bush sent his lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court to get five Republican justices to stop the counting of votes and hand him the White House. Though the U.S. news media largely spared Bush any political damage for this unprecedented act, many world leaders now roll their eyes when Bush proclaims his commitment to democracy around the globe.

Avoiding Risk

This pattern of avoiding personal risk has carried into his presidency. On Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon outside Washington, Bush was on a political trip to northern Florida. With administration officials claiming that Air Force One might be another target, Bush and his entourage fled west, first to Louisiana and then to Nebraska.

Meanwhile, other Americans held their ground in Washington, showing almost no panic even with the knowledge that a fourth hijacked plane was headed toward the capital. That plane never reached its destination because Americans onboard battled the hijackers for control and the plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Hours after the danger had passed, Bush returned to Washington.

Bush didn’t take chances either on his victory lap through the Middle East in June. Instead of following the example of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who visited British troops in the Iraqi city of Basra, Bush didn’t make even a brief stop inside Iraq, as some political observers believed he would.

Instead Bush chose the much safer environs of a U.S. military base in Qatar, where he spoke in front of cheering U.S. soldiers far from the front lines. "I’m happy to see you and so are the long-suffering people of Iraq," Bush told the soldiers, who were about 500 miles out of eye-shot from Iraq.

After leaving Qatar on June 5, Air Force One flew over Iraq, tilting at 31,000 feet so Bush could look down on the sweltering city of Baghdad. Though far out of range of Iraqi weapons, Bush was surrounded by four F-18 fighter jets.

While Bush’s decision to stay out of Iraq may have been justified by the continuing violence, there was an unsettling contrast between Bush taking a peak at Baghdad from 31,000 feet and American soldiers stuck patrolling its baking-hot streets day and night, possibly for the next several years.

Necessary Prudence

Bush’s supporters naturally bristle at the suggestion that Bush is anything but a hero. In his defense, they argue that it makes no sense for Bush to put himself in harm’s way when he has the larger responsibility as the U.S. head of state and when his Secret Service protectors are demanding that he avoid danger.

In a somewhat contradictory vein, Bush backers also cite his derring-do jet flight in full pilot gear onto the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, as a sign of his personal bravery. The White House has since acknowledged that the carrier was within range of the presidential helicopter, but that Bush wanted to do the jet landing and even took water survival classes in case the jet crashed in the Pacific Ocean.

When judging personal courage, it’s also true that no one knows what thoughts go through another person’s head or how a person draws that hazy line between prudence and fear. It’s clear, too, that no one serving as president is ever out of danger from assassination.

Even as conservatives mocked President Bill Clinton as a cowardly draft dodger and some right-wing extremists fantasized about killing him, Clinton dove into crowds, giving his Secret Service detail fits. Living daily with the knowledge that dangerous people – whether the likes of Tim McVeigh or Osama bin Laden – want you dead is not the choice of a coward.

Right Man?

The larger question is whether Bush’s life experiences do make him "the right man" for this moment in American history. Does a lifetime of avoiding consequences for one’s decisions and actions make a person better qualified for the complex judgments of war and peace?

There is an argument to be made for that position. One could say that a person who has been insulated from the everyday experiences of the common man is less burdened with second thoughts. Also, lacking a personal sense of the human costs of war may make a leader less hesitant to commit troops to battle than someone who has been in war and has seen friends die.

But the counter-argument is that an incurious individual who has had limited contact with the world may well make judgments that are artificial and dangerous, perhaps driven more by ideology or wishful thinking than by practical assessments of what power can achieve and what reality looks like.

It is increasingly clear, for example, that Bush grossly miscalculated the situation in Iraq. Not only did Bush overstate the dangers from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but he underestimated the task of pacifying Iraq after the initial assault by U.S. forces.

Bush appears to have bought into his administration’s own propaganda about how easy the war would be. Initially, the thought was that the "shock and awe" bombing of some government buildings in Baghdad would lead to Saddam Hussein’s ouster followed by a rose-petal welcome for U.S. troops and a cooperative transition to a pro-U.S. government in Iraq. Next would come the neo-conservative dream of remaking the Arab world.

Looming Dangers

But the facts soon got in the way of a good story. "Shock and awe" failed to dislodge dictator Hussein. There was no popular uprising even in southern Iraq where the Shiite majority was considered hostile to Hussein’s brutal regime. As U.S. troops advanced into Iraq, they encountered no WMD but found the Iraqi resistance stiffer than expected.

Some military analysts saw these developments as warning signs that the United States was heading toward a bloody debacle in Iraq. I cited some of these analysts in an article "Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down," which observed that Bush seemed to be mixing Bay of Pigs-style wishful thinking about popular uprisings with a Black Hawk Down risk of putting U.S. forces in cultures that are both hostile and foreign.

Instead of reconsidering his course for the war, however, Bush ordered the invasion to proceed with greater ferocity and less concern about civilian casualties.

Desperate to kill Hussein, Bush ordered the bombing of an Iraqi residential restaurant on the faulty intelligence that Hussein might be eating there. Diners, including children, were ripped apart by the bombs. One mother found her daughter’s torso and then her severed head. But U.S. intelligence now believes that Hussein wasn’t there. All told, at least several thousand Iraqi civilians died in the U.S.-led invasion.

But victory supposedly cleansed all sins. When U.S. forces toppled Hussein’s statue in Baghdad on April 9, triumphant Bush supporters lashed out at the skeptics for questioning his wisdom. Some war critics were accused of treason and became the targets of blacklists aimed at denying them work. This Web site received e-mail demands for retractions and apologies for articles that had contained warnings about the looming dangers.

New Scrutiny

Yet in the weeks that have followed – with first the failure to find any trigger-ready WMD and then the expanding Iraqi attacks on isolated U.S. forces – Bush’s Iraq policy has come under greater scrutiny. It is now clear that the war didn’t end with the toppled statue or with Bush’s May 1 declaration of "Mission Accomplished." The war was just entering a new guerrilla phase.

Some war skeptics, such as former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, had predicted as much. Before Baghdad fell, Wilson wrote that Hussein "is preparing to go underground to fight a guerrilla campaign. ….If our presence is seen as an occupation, rather than a liberation, it is entirely possible that Saddam thinks he can rebound."

Wilson, who served in posts in Africa and Iraq, earlier had played a role in debunking claims – in February 2002 – that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons. Wilson said U.S. and British officials ignored his information as they chose to make the bogus Niger uranium claim a centerpiece in their warnings about Iraq’s WMD.

"It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war," Wilson said. "It begs the question, what else are they lying about?" [Washington Post, July 6, 2003]

But Bush continues to show no doubt about his course of action. Rather than rethink the premises of the war in Iraq, Bush says he is determined to prevail. Indeed, that was the context of his "bring ‘em on" remark. He was drawing new lines in the sand for American troops to defend.

"There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely," Bush said on July 2 in Washington. "They don’t understand what they’re talking about, if that’s the case. …There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring ‘em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

To Bush’s defenders, this determination is another sign that he is "the right man" to destroy America’s enemies. He’s not someone who will cut and run.

But to his critics, and increasingly to the U.S. soldiers in Iraq calling for the Pentagon to "get our sorry asses out of here," a different conclusion is emerging. As conditions in Iraq degenerate into violent chaos, this critical view holds that Bush’s mix of arrogance about his "gut" judgments and his lack of experience with real-world conditions is elevating – not lowering – the danger that the United States faces.

In this view, the continuing dangers to U.S. troops in Iraq have highlighted that George W. Bush may be "the wrong man" in the wrong place at a very wrong time
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/070903a.html

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AUTHORITARIANS GONE WILD
Tue Jul 8, 8:01 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Ted Rall to My Yahoo!


By Ted Rall

Whether, Not Who, is the Question About the 2004 Election


Ted Rall



Related Links
• Ted Rall`s Editorial Cartoons



NEW YORK--He has canceled elections in Iraq (news - web sites). He will probably cancel them in Afghanistan (news - web sites). Will George W. Bush put the kibosh on elections in the United States next year?


Frightened by Bush`s rapidly accruing personal power and the Democrats` inability and/or unwillingness to stand up to him, panicked lefties worry that he might use the "war on terrorism" as an excuse to declare a state of emergency, suspend civil liberties and jail political opponents.


People who have spoken out against Bush are talking exit strategy--not Alec Baldwin style, just to make a statement, but fleeing the U.S. in order to save their skins. "Do you or your spouse have a European-born parent?" is a query making the rounds. (If you do, you can obtain dual nationality and a European Union (news - web sites) passport that would allow you to work in any EU member nation.) Those whose lineage is 100 percent American are hoping that nations like Canada and France will admit American political refugees in the event of a Bushite clampdown.


To these people, whether or not the 2004 elections actually take place as scheduled is the ultimate test for American democracy. At Guantánamo Bay the United States is converting a concentration camp into a death camp where inmates will be executed without due process or legal representation. Never before in history has a U.S. president contemplated the denaturalization of native-born citizens-thus far even people executed for treason have died as Americans--but Bush has drafted legislation that would allow him to strip anyone he calls an "enemy combatant" of their citizenship and have them deported. By any objective standard he has already gone way too far, but for many it would take the cancellation or delay of the elections to confirm that we are trading in our wounded democracy for a fascist state.


Lincoln considered suspending the 1864 election because of the Civil War, but ultimately tabled the idea. To date nothing has ever prevented an American presidential election from being held on time.


It`s easy to come up with a scenario in which canceling the 2004 election could be made to appear reasonable. Imagine that, a few weeks before Election Day, "dirty bombs" detonate simultaneously in New York and Washington. Government, media and political institutions and personnel lie ruined in smoking rubble and ash; hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered. The economy, already teetering on the precipice, is shoved into depression. How could we conduct elections under such conditions?


Republicans have already floated the don`t-change-horses-in-midstream argument. After Democratic presidential Sen. John Kerry criticized Bush recently, GOP National Committee Chairman Mark Racicot took him to task not for his specific remarks, but rather for "daring to suggest the replacement of America`s commander-in-chief at a time when America is at war." The White House website`s "frequently asked questions" section indicates that the "war" is expected to continue well beyond 2004: "There is no silver bullet, no single event or action that is going to suddenly make the threat of terrorism disappear. This broad-based and sustained effort will continue until terrorism is rooted out. The situation is similar to the Cold War, when continuous pressure from many nations caused communism to collapse from within. We will press the fight as long as it takes."


The Cold War lasted 46 years; does Bush intend to remain in office that long?


Our boy president has plenty of reason to worry about his election chances. A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll says that only 50 percent of Americans would vote for Bush over a generic unnamed Democrat--the lowest number since 9/11. Two-thirds say that Bush lied about or exaggerated the threat from Iraq`s WMDs, and a steady flow of body bags from Afghanistan and Iraq has made 53 percent aware that the occupations are going poorly. Pollsters report that most people trust Democrats to rescue the sinking economy--and few believe that Bush`s tax cuts will help them.


Bush may be the kind of guy who sees 99 percent odds as 2 percent short of a sure thing, but I bet he`ll look at his $200 million campaign war chest and decide to let the people decide. He`ll surely want to win legitimately in 2004--albeit for the first time. Though they`re capable of anything, Bush`s people probably know that Americans wouldn`t stand for two putsches in four years. Still, you have to hand it to him: The fact that Democrats are terrified of ending up imprisoned by an American Reich is the ultimate tribute to Bush`s artful bullying--and sad confirmation of the impotence of his would-be, should-be opponents.


(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the underreported Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project and the real motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=127&u=/030709/7/4…

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Handouts from the slavemaster

09.07.2003 - Comment by PAUL VALLELY
I am not one of nature`s cynics. Indeed some have said I am a bit too gullible to be a journalist.

When I was a young reporter on the Times, one of the paper`s most legendary figures, Louis Heren - who rose from cockney copy boy to deputy editor - took me out to lunch.

He wanted to pass on a tip he`d had from an even more legendary American journalist when he was Washington correspondent.

"When you are interviewing someone," he said, "you need always to keep in the back of your mind the question `Why is this lying bastard lying to me?"`

Perhaps the years have changed me. But somehow it requires no effort to bring Heren`s maxim to mind when it comes to wondering what the US President George Bush is up to on his five-day tour of Africa, which begins in Senegal today.

I seem to be out on a limb here. Everyone else is giving loud hurrahs for Bush`s pledge of US$15 billion ($25.1 billion) in increased assistance to combat Aids and his promise to treble development aid to the continent.

Unlikely converts to the George Bush fan club, including ace bullshit detector Sir Bob Geldof, are saying they detect "the beginnings of a historic change towards Africa".

So why am I suspicious? In part because even with the increases, America is still the world`s stingiest donor, giving only 0.12 per cent of its national income to aid - less than a third of the EU`s percentage.

The whole of Africa still gets less American aid than Israel and Egypt.

Much of the money has to be spent on American goods and services, and aid is contingent on "eligibility criteria" which promote democracy, human rights, anti-corruption action and the private sector - and require recipients to "do nothing to undermine US interests".

Beware of geeks bearing gifts, as the old saying almost put it.

But there is more. To curry favour with the Republican Party`s growing African-American constituency, Bush begins his tour today on the island of Goree off the coast of Senegal, which was once a centre of the slave trade.

Millions of Africans bound for American plantations passed through its crowded cells. Goree is, in effect, Africa`s holocaust museum. It is the symbol of a system built on injustice.

The bitter irony is that in many ways nothing has changed. The relationship between the United States and Africa is still characterised by unrestrained power, deep injustice and unequal exchange.

But now, the slavery is economic, not physical, and passes under the euphemism of "trade".

Bush will this week no doubt be much on his soapbox to lecture Africans on the virtues of open markets and fair trade. He will brag about America`s Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. Under it, African garment and textile exporters are given duty-free access to US markets.

The trouble is that most of the products in which Africa has an advantage are excluded. Take peanuts. Senegalese farmers face tariffs of more than 150 per cent to export to the US. And African textile-makers have to use US yarns and fabric.

The International Monetary Fund says these protectionist loopholes cost African exporters about US$500 million a year.

There are other strings. The "concession" is given only if African Governments open their markets to US investors, enforce US intellectual property claims and lower their trade barriers to US goods. This is unequal trade at its most insidious.

All of these so-called concessions and all the increases in aid - are wiped out by Bush`s double standards in subsidising US producers by US$200 billion a year.

Last year, America`s 25,000 corporate cotton farms reaped a harvest of US$4 billion in Government subsidies, three times the total amount of US aid to Africa.

In West Africa, you see the consequences. There, US subsidies cheated 11 million small cotton farmers of US$200 billion in lost income in 2001.

In effect, some of the globe`s poorest people are competing against the world`s richest treasury.

So why is Bush even daring to show his face in Africa? And why is he trying to hide his nakedness with the fig leaf of increased aid? After all, this was the man who, in his presidential campaign in 2000, said that Africa "doesn`t fit into the [US] national strategic interests".

The answer, as ever these days, is September 11, 2001. On the one hand, the "failed states" of Africa are seen as a potential breeding ground for Islamic terrorism. On the other, there is oil.

US petroleum production is decreasing and its consumption is rising. African oil is of the "sweet" low-sulphur variety which is good for cars.

By 2005, it is estimated that between 15 and 25 per cent of US oil will come from Africa - close to the proportion now coming from the Middle East. And, apart from Nigeria, the Africans are not members of the nasty Opec cartel.

So pay no attention to that recent Christian Aid report which showed how oil concentrates power in the hands of elites, encourages irresponsible spending, chokes other economic activity, fuels poverty, impedes democracy and makes conflict more likely.

With the friendship of America, Bush insists, "Africa will rise and Africa will prosper".

All I can say is: "Thank God for Louis Heren."

- INDEPENDENT

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3511674&t…


©Copyright 2003, NZ Herald

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July, 2003

Bubba Bush: The Philosopher King
By Stephen Simac


Most people would be amazed to learn that George W. Bush is heavily influenced by philosophers. After all, during the presidential campaign he said his favorite book is The Little Engine That Could. He did claim that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher. It`s unlikely he made it through the New Testament. It`s obvious that his reading comprehension is as low as his understanding of Christian philosophy. Of course many Americans thought that Al Gore`s favorite book, The Red and Black was a primer on checkers. It doesn`t take an intellectual to love wisdom or be a philosopher anyways.
Recently the mainstream media has discovered that the voices in Georgie`s head include a group of particularly virulent "philosophers". The term is used loosely, because none of these men can be accused of "loving wisdom." They are greedy for power and these "neo-conservative political philosophers" have latched on to Bush as tenaciously as Texas ticks.
The "neo-conservative" label was coined in the 60`s by their godfather, Irving Kristol, to distinguish themselves from the old-fashioned Goldwater conservatives. "Big Daddy" Krystol sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, which funds and promotes many of the neo-cons and their philosophizing. His son, William "GateMouth" Kristol publishes the Weekly Standard, a neocon rant rag when he`s not making the rounds of political talk and news television shows.
Neocons are not traditional "paleo" conservatives who have espoused isolationist, small government views at least since FDR. Of course the paleos made an exception for big government, military expenditures to defeat the "Evil Empire" of international communism. Most conservatives want less government except when it comes to their pet peeves. Now the neo-cons promote big government for "the War on Terrorism."
Not all neo cons agree on every issue, they sometimes wear different colored ties, but "neo-conservatives" all swear fealty to the primacy of the interests of Israel in the Middle East. Of course that is true of most paleo-conservative, moderate, or liberal members of congress or presidents since the 70`s.

Roadmap To War
Now one neocon says that even the term "neo-conservative" is anti-Semitic, although it`s what they have called themselvesfor decades and many of the most influential neo-cons including Colin "House Negro" Powell, Condoleeza "Oil Queen" Rice, and Bill "High Roller" Bennett are not Jewish. Many opponents of neo cons, the War on Iraq, Zionism and the illegal actions of Israel are Jewish. The Zionists call them "self hating Jews." At some point that dog will stop hunting and only bark, run ragged from constant use.
One of the neo-con heavies, Richard "the Dark Prince" Perle was caught red handed providing secret information to Israel in 1970 when he worked for Sen. Scoop Jackson. The Justice Department and the FBI caught him giving classified information to Israel, Kurt Nimmo reports in Counterpunch. His spying was recorded on a wiretap.
It didn`t seem to harm his career. He was made chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory committee, by George W. Bush, "the Lesser." Right now Perle is on the defensive after getting reamed by Sydney Hersch in a New Yorker article for having major conflicts of interest between his business of lobbying for foreign countries and various defense firms and his position on the DPB. He had to resign as chairman but is still a member. With access to classified information.
Some of the "neo-conservative" heavies are former Trotskyites, including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and James Burnham. All of them are big fans of Trotsky`s "permanent revolution" philosophy. Some "were liberals who got mugged by reality." Those were "youthful indiscretions", but they saw the error of their commie, socialist, Democrat ways and came over to the light of the Republican Party.
Many of the founders of the neocons earned their stripes publishing conservative diatribes in academia or through right wing foundations. They gained favor by harping about the inefficiencies of government social welfare programs and promoting privatization of essential government services.
When Reagan came into power through secretive chicanery with the Iranian ayatollahs, Jeanne Kirkpatrick and other neo-cons rode in with him. Like ticks they grew fat under Reagan, then off George Bush, "the Elder."
The "paleo-conservatives" are naturally suspicious of the true intentions of these capitalist neo-converts. There is currently a mini-war between the two conservative factions, mainly on-line and in their journals, including the Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Weekly Standard Commentary for the neo-cons. The New Republic, lewrockwell.com, and antiwar.com offer the paleo points of view.
The paleos are accusing the neos of using George "Wooden Dummy" Bush to promote their true faith. The critics are split on whether this is One World Marxism or One World Zionism, but they have fundamental differences in philosophy with the neocons.
The current star of the neo pantheon is Paul "the Jackal" Wolfowitz. He is deputy defense secretary for Donald "Choppers" Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz was the lead "chickenhawk" in the Bush administration chanting for a War on Iraq. Gary "Perpetual War" Schmitt, founder of Project for A New American Century began pushing for regime change in the middle East under the guise of a War on Terrorism in the 90`s. The Jackal is his comrade in arms.

Teacher Of The Liars
One of their philosophy professors was Leo Strauss, who taught at the New School for Social Research, then at the University of Chicago from 1949-69. He died in 1973. Several of this philosopher`s students are in positions of advising the Bush administration, and are seated in the "neo-conservative" bandwagon.
Recently the media has discovered Strauss`s lingering influence on Bush`s advisors after the New York Times published an article about him. It`s wholly owned subsidiary The Boston Globe then ran a three part series on philosophers influencing the Bush administration beginning with Leo Strauss.
Irving Kristol has given Strauss credit for his influence on him. John "Holy Crisco" Ashcroft reportedly is also a Straussian. Sydney Hersch in the New Yorker reported that two of Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld aides, Abraham Schulsky, also a Richard Perle associate, head of Rummy`s special defense intelligence unit, and Stephen Cambone, his top intelligence aide are both Straussians.
They helped re-interpret murky intelligence info about Saddam Hussein, allowing Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld to claim there were definitely ties between him and Al Qaeda and that Saddam had WMD and was itching to use them on the U. S. to support a pre-emptive War on Iraq.
Strauss was a German Jew who emigrated to America in the 1930`s to teach classics and philosophy. Jeffery Steinberg in the Executive Intelligence Review reports that even though Strauss was Jewish, he was a close collaborator with Carl Schmitt, one of Hitler`s lawyers. He reports that Strauss and Schmitt were probably Synarchists, and Hitler`s banker Hjalmar Schact, definitely was.
The Synarchists were a group funded by international bankers devoted to uniting Europe, then the world under a military/industrial/financial/academia/media run government. A New World Order to bring back the modern Roman Empire.
Hitler was supported and favored by the Synarchists as the Hitler Project to accomplish a united Europe by military force. Hitler also had a soft spot in his heart for Zionists who called for all Jews to return to Palestine, since they both wanted to rid Europe of Jews.
When Strauss`s particular political philosophy is examined it`s easy to see why he had an affinity for the Nazis. Like Hitler and his occult circle, Strauss favored a political and intellectual elite accumulating secret and esoteric knowledge, while boldly lying to the public about their true intentions. All of this for the public`s own good, of course.
Strauss was convinced that many of the ancient philosophers, especially Plato and Aristotle buried esoteric information in their writings. This could be extracted by the diligent intellectual poring over their hidden meanings. Naturally the men who studied and learned this esoteric knowledge should become influential advisors of less studied politicians, even if they had to lie to them as well as the general public.
Strauss believed that "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led" according to Shadia Drury, author of the 1999 book Leo Strauss and the American Right, quoted by Jim Lobe in an article in the Asia Times. She also said that he thought that "those who are fit to lead are those who realize there is no morality and there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
Strauss was a follower of Machiavelli, Drury wrote and believed in creating an external enemy of the state if none were available because perpetual war strengthens the control of government, which only exists to enforce order on the natural chaos of human society.
Strauss taught that advisors to the politically powerful should deceive even their bosses if necessary to accomplish their ultimate goals. The acorn doesn`t drop far from the oak tree. Schools of philosophy like religions usually believe that they have got it right, and the others are all fools.
You wouldn`t really need to lie to Georgie "Dyxlesic" Bush to get him to go along with the program. Just write the checks and tell him what to say. And that`s his philosophy in a nutshell.

http://www.coastalpost.com/03/07/06.htm

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Thousands of Saddams Surrender
A $25 million bounty is ‘motivating factor,’ officials believe


NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE


July 9 — Just hours after the United States announced a $25 million reward for the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, thousands of Saddam Husseins surrendered to the American authorities in Baghdad, officials said today.

U.S. OFFICIALS ADMITTED that the mob of Saddam Hussein look-alikes presenting themselves to claim the reward was “an unexpected consequence” of announcing the $25 million bounty. Overwhelmed by the volume of surrendering Saddams, the United States was forced to set up a “temporary Saddam Hussein processing center” in a former government building, with a line of Saddams snaking around the block.
Interviews with a handful of the nearly 3,000 Saddams indicated that the $25 million reward was a key motivation behind their decision to turn themselves in. “Any Saddam Hussein who says he’s not doing it for the money is a liar,” said Saddam Hussein, 57, of Basra. But Saddam Hussein, 74, of Mosul, offered a slightly different assessment: “It’s time for the Iraqi people to move on, and I’m here to help them do that,” said Mr. Hussein, moments before getting into a shouting match with Saddam Hussein, 43, of Kirkuk, who snapped, “I’m the real Saddam Hussein, grandpa!” “I was Saddam Hussein when you were still in diapers, punk!” the elder Mr. Hussein shot back.
Interim administrator L. Paul Bremer told reporters that the United States might consider divvying up the $25 million reward money among the several thousand Saddams, but only if they could offer “reasonable assurances” that they might in fact be Saddam Hussein. “Quite frankly, some of these guys look more like Tom Selleck after a rough night,” Mr. Bremer said.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/936747.asp?0cv=KB20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Borowitz won the 2001 Dot-Comedy Award for Best Humor Columnist on the Net and is the author of the forthcoming book, ‘Who Moved My Soap? The CEO’s Guide to Surviving in Prison.’ His Web site is www.borowitzreport.com
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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washingtonpost.com
Bush Reverts to Liberal Rationale for Iraq War
Critics Still Oppose War Despite Hussein`s Human Rights Record

By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 9, 2003; 11:58 AM


If the Bush administration had wanted to make the case for going to war against Iraq on purely humanitarian reasons, it could have done so. Saddam Hussein was one of the world`s truly bad guys, a horrific leader who brutalized and terrorized his own people. But the administration likely would have found much resistance from conservatives who have long argued that the United States should not try to act as the world`s police department.

So the administration made national security its strongest case for launching an exceedingly rare, historically discouraged, internationally frowned-upon preemptive war.

Fast forward to the present: The administration that had 100 percent certainty that there were weapons of mass destruction has zero percent certainty as to where they are now. The White House and the president`s defenders have reverted to their fall-back humanitarian position -- that the removal of Hussein was justification enough for the war.

Bush`s assertions about whether Hussein had weapons of mass destruction have drawn intensified scrutiny since Monday, when the White House acknowledged for the first time that it should not have included an assertion in the president`s State of the Union speech in January that Iraq tried to purchase uranium in Niger.

The admission emboldened Democrats, who yesterday began turning up the heat, attacking the president`s credibility and in some cases accusing the administration of deliberately misleading the American public and the world about the threat posed by Iraq.

"This is a very important admission," Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle said yesterday. "It`s a recognition that we were provided faulty information. And I think it`s all the more reason why a full investigation of all of the facts surrounding this situation be undertaken, the sooner the better."

At a press conference today in South Africa, asked if he still believed that Hussein attempted to buy nuclear material in Africa, Bush sidestepped the question, responding that "he`s not trying to buy anything right now. If he`s alive, he`s on the run. And that`s to the benefit of the Iraqi people. But, look, I am confident that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction program."

The administration now finds the human rights card a compelling rationale for the war -- one with which the left finds it difficult to disagree. Somewhat ironically, the Bush administration relied on information gathered from liberal groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in making the humanitarian case against Iraq.

For the last decade, Human Rights Watch has been trying -- mostly in vain -- to draw U.S. attention to the human rights violations of the Hussein government. In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush described Hussein: "The dictator who is assembling the world`s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

What the president did not mention was that that atrocity occurred 15 years ago -- when Ronald Reagan was president and his father was vice president. That administration opposed legislation calling for sanctions and the bill eventually died in Congress.

While members of the human rights community are elated at Hussein`s removal, they remain nonetheless skeptical of the administration`s motivations and rationale. First, was the threat posed to the United States and its allies imminent? And second, did the present-day human rights situation justify the ultimate remedy of war, which has killed 212 Americans and thousands of Iraqis?

Joe Stork, Washington director of Human Rights Watch`s Middle East/North Africa division, said the discovery of mass graves alone justifies the claims about Hussein`s regime made by his and other groups. But if there were a time for war, based solely on the human rights concern, it would have been 15 years ago, when the genocide was occurring, rather than now, critics on the left say.

"Look, the attention to human rights is long overdue," Stork said. "But to suggest that the U.S. has been pushing to hold Iraq accountable for human rights abuses while the rest of the world watches ... it`s hard to find words for that kind of hubris. It almost defies words."

Is the left being hypocritical? Some would argue yes. The reason, Bush`s supporters say, is politics -- hatred of Bush. Some conservatives also argue that this sort of inconsistency underscores how out of touch liberals are with the real world, where tough options such as war are sometimes the only option.

Former Republican National Committee spokesman Clifford May escorted groups of Iraqi exiles to the White House this spring, where they met with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. They shared tales of Hussein`s brutality -- women being raped as a tool of political intimidation, political dissidents getting their tongues cut out, opponents being fed through meat grinders and dropped in acid vats. So the left`s behavior is particularly perplexing to May.

"From the very beginning my organization and I were making the case that intervention was justified based just on the problem of human rights," May said, "and I think that argument has been strengthened by the end of the military phase of the war, as we have been finding mass graves adjacent to nearly every large town with the bodies of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who were executed for what Saddam Hussein perceived to be political crimes or opposition to him."

But the argument that Hussein`s human rights record alone justifies the war in Iraq would establish yet a new foreign policy doctrine for the U.S., one that could keep the nation busy with wars for years to come, considering how full the world is of cruel dictators. There`s Syria, Iran and China, of course, but we`ll also have to add some of our allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, to the list.

Uzbekistan, which gave the U.S. military basing rights in the war against Afghanistan, is run by President Islam Karimov, by many accounts one of the world`s most oppressive dictators. Karimov`s government has been accused of oppressing religious Muslims by imprisoning those who speak against his regime and "detaining, arresting, and torturing relatives of pious Muslims."

"If President Bush is prepared to cite favorably our reports on Iraq, he should take with equal seriousness our reports on the many countries he identifies as allies, such as Uzbekistan, Russia and Colombia, where U.S. military aid has been approved despite the dismal failure of the Colombian government to meet human rights standards imposed by U.S. law," wrote Amnesty International`s executive director in a letter to The Post a few months ago.

But May counters that the administration is beginning to do just that.

"Right now I believe we are on the verge of sending troops to Liberia not because we think Charles Taylor has weapons of mass destruction but because it is a human rights situation," May said. "It is hard for me to understand how anybody who opposed our intervention in Iraq can now be in favor of it in Liberia. The only substantial difference is we had a direct national security interest in Iraq and at best only indirect national security interest in Liberia."

Point well taken. But the administration is pondering a peacekeeping and humanitarian mission in Liberia, not an all-out war. And what happened in Iraq will continue to be viewed with skepticism by some if proof is not found to justify the original and most compelling rationale -- U.S. national security.

It could be argued that the administration had justification enough to invade Iraq based on Saddam Hussein`s human rights record. So why did it emphasize the national security angle? After the war, evidence for the national security argument is sparse while mass graves in Iraq give proof of genocide and political assassinations. Perhaps Bush didn`t push the human rights rationale harder because it would have created a precedent of intervention that would have been more politically perilous for Bush than the potential of exaggerating claims about Iraq`s direct threat to Americans.

Whatever the case, the argument that it is a good thing that Hussein is gone and the argument that the Bush administration may have lied to or misled the public on the issue of weapons of mass destruction are not mutually exclusive. Both could be true. And if they are, the former fact won`t exonerate the president if the latter is true as well.


© 2003 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

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White House `lied about Saddam threat`
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday July 10, 2003
The Guardian

A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The claims came as the Bush administration was fighting to shore up its credibility among a series of anonymous government leaks over its distortion of US intelligence to manufacture a case against Saddam.

This was the first time an administration official has put his name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the state department`s bureau of intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to the classified reports which formed the basis for the US case against Saddam, spelled out by President Bush and his aides.

Mr Thielmannn said yesterday: "I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq."

He conceded that part of the problem lay with US intelligence, but added: "Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided."

As Democrats demanded a congressional enquiry, the administration sharply changed tack. The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told the Senate the US had not gone to war against Iraq because of fresh evidence of weapons of mass destruction but because Washington saw what evidence there was prior to 2001 "in a dramatic new light" after September 11.

At a press conference yesterday, Mr Thielmann said that, as of March 2003, when the US began military operations, "Iraq posed no imminent threat to either its neighbours or to the United States".

In one example, Mr Thielmann said a fierce debate inside the White House about the purpose of aluminium tubes bought by Baghdad had been "cloaked in ambiguity".

While some CIA analysts thought they could be used for gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, the best experts at the energy department disagreed. But the national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said publicly that they could only be used for centrifuges.

Mr Thielmann also said there was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida. He added: "This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude ... `We know the answers - give us the intelligence to support those answers`."

Responding to claims of deliberate distortions, Mr Bush accused his critics of "trying to rewrite history" and insisted "there is no doubt in my mind" that Saddam "was a threat to world peace".


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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The war on the web
Anthony Cox describes how his spoof error page turned into a `Google bomb` for weapons of mass destruction

Anthony Cox
Thursday July 10, 2003
The Guardian

I had always wondered how those viral emails or amusing web page addresses forwarded to me built up such momentum. Little did I know that I would be responsible for one of the most successful internet memes this year, and be accused of developing a so-called "Google bomb" of mass destruction.

In early February, I was reading online a Guardian article about Hans Blix`s problems obtaining cooperation in Iraq. Immediately after, I was confronted with the ubiquitous 404 error page, which usually tells the reader that a website is unavailable. With this serendipitous inspiration in mind, along with a text editor and some fiddling in a graphics package, I created a spoof 404 "weapons of mass destruction" error page. Saddam would have been proud; the page was deployed and operational well within 45 minutes.

After favourable comments from friends, I posted it in the newsgroup uk.rec.humour. Within the next 24 hours, the website had had 150,000 hits and had propagated to 118 newsgroups. By the end of February, it had received more than one million page impressions. Perhaps the ultimate accolade was having the original email come back to me with a note saying: "Have you seen this?" Visits declined throughout the subsequent war, and I suspected its 15MB of fame had passed.

Yet, suddenly, in the first four days of July I received nearly 4m page impressions, more than the previous five months combined. The reason? Typing "weapons of mass destruction" in Google and hitting the "I`m feeling lucky" button did not bring up Number 10`s "dodgy dossier", but my spoof site. Suddenly, it was a lot funnier and accessible: even Google couldn`t find the WMD.

The first Google bomb was created by Adam Mathes in 2001. He exploited Google`s page ranking system to return a friend`s website when the words "talentless hack" were used as a search term. He used a multitude of pages linking to his friend`s site, with the specific term "talentless hack". Even though his friend`s site did not contain the search term itself, after calling upon others to insert such links into their sites, the Google bomb found its target.

Google`s page ranking treats links as votes for a website, and both the number and the importance of the link helps increase the ranking of a site. My site had steadily increased its ranking, including a link from the Channel 4 news website and the Guardian, but perhaps the majority were from personal pages, discussion boards and blogs.

However, this was not a deliberate attempt to use Google to make a political point. This Google bomb was slowly and unknowingly built, and only by chance coincided with the accusations that intelligence documents had been "sexed up".

Last Friday, bloggers really picked up on it and it was the highest linked to page in weblogs according to Daypop.com. On Monday, however, a search for "weapons of mass destruction" sent you to a White House strategy document, which might be seen as a step forward for Google users and perhaps the White House.

Then on Tuesday my page was back at the top, so it may have been a glitch at Google, rather than a deliberate decision to drop the site.

This is a problem for Google: weblogs have been accused of causing "noise" in their searches. Instead of providing good original source material, reams of musings from bloggers are returned. The success of my WMD page underlines a problem Google needs to address. Sure it`s funny, but if you wanted documents on WMD, is that what you really expect from a search engine?

I have received about 200 emails from such diverse sources as United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and serving soldiers in the Gulf. Even those critical of the perceived anti-war message thought it was funny. One of the more offensive messages called me a cowardly little boy and stated: "I am grateful to the almighty that not all Englishmen are slithering bottom-feeders."

Ironically, I was not against the war, my views on the war being similar to those of journalist David Aaronovitch and MP Ann Clwyd. But if you are going to make a topical joke, then Bush is an obvious and easy target.

· Anthony Cox is a pharmacist at the West Midlands Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Centre and a teaching fellow at Aston University. He also writes a blog on drug safety at www.blacktriangle.org

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Keep to the law, Blair tells Bush
Nicholas Watt, political correspondent
Thursday July 10, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair gave George Bush a strong warning yesterday that he must follow proper legal procedures in the military trial of two Britons held at Guantanamo Bay who face the prospect of a death sentence.

As 163 MPs signed a motion calling for the men to be repatriated, the prime minister made his unease clear when he demanded that the US should observe the "proper canons of law".

"I quite agree that any commission or tribunal that tries these men must be one conducted in accordance with proper canons of law so that a fair trial is both taking place and seen to take place," he said as he faced intense questions in the Commons.

The prime minister issued his rare rebuke to Mr Bush in response to the president`s formal ruling last week that Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi should face a military trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Mr Abbasi, 23, from Croydon, south London, and Mr Begg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, have been held for 18 months without charge or access to a lawyer.

MPs of all parties are horrified by the ruling because military officers will serve as prosecution, judge and jury.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the two men faced a trial by a "kangaroo court presided over by the Pentagon".

Mr Blair insisted that he was putting pressure on the US authorities to ensure that any charges against the two men should be proved "with proper rules of evidence".

"We... are making active representations to them," he said. His remarks were made after a number of demands that he should to step up the pressure on Washington.

David Winnick, the Labour MP for Walsall North, said: "Put your foot down, prime minister."


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The Niger connection: what we know, what we don`t know, and what we may never be told
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Ben Russell
10 July 2003



* The `evidence` that Iraq sought uranium from Niger was crucial in persuading the public of the case for war * Letters suggesting Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium for use in a nuclear weapons programme were exposed as forgeries in March * The CIA and State Department were dismissing the Niger connection long before the war started * The White House has - belatedly - admitted it should never have used it * The British Government is still standing by it

Pressure was mounting on the Government and the Bush administration last night for a full investigation into their claims that Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Africa to build nuclear weapons.

It was revealed yesterday that a central plank of the argument that Iraq was a lethal and imminent threat to the world was disowned by President George Bush`s officials in Vienna even as the build-up for war was reaching its peak.

In February, State Department officials finally handed the UN International Atomic Energy Agency intelligence documents purporting to show an attempted uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. But yesterday the diplomats` private assessment was revealed to have been that the Niger connection was fraudulent.

Not until a month later did the world learn from Mohamed al-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, that the documents were crude forgeries. By that stage the spectre of Saddam Hussein developing nuclear weapons had already helped to persuade wavering public opinion in the US and UK to back the drive to war. As late as mid-March, the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, said: "It`s only a matter of time until [Saddam Hussein] acquires nuclear weapons."

The first official explanation from the US for its gullibility over Niger was that "we fell for it". This is now known to be a falsehood because CIA analysts and the State Department had already informed the Bush administration a year earlier that the Niger allegations were bogus. This week, the White House belatedly admitted that President Bush should not have included the discredited intelligence claims that Saddam had been seeking to buy uranium in Africa in his State of the Union address at the end of January.

But Tony Blair was adamant in testimony this week that the UK had "separate intelligence" on Iraqi attempts to import uranium from Africa. Last night, the Foreign Office stated that Britain`s information was based on "additional evidence other than documents, forged or genuine".

Britain has not handed this "evidence" to the IAEA for assessment, despite its obligations under the mandatory UN Security Council resolution 1441 to do so. The Foreign Office maintained last night that "we comply fully with our obligations to provide evidence with the IAEA" but that "in the case of uranium from Niger, we did not have any UK-originated intelligence to pass on".

A UN diplomatic source told The Independent that the UK position was "incredible". Another diplomatic source said: "The only concrete evidence the UN got was the Niger set of letters [subsequently proved to be forgeries] and it was told that there was nothing else."

In a letter to the US congressman Henry Waxman - who has been at the forefront of those questioning the White House`s evidence - Paul Kelly, the State Department`s assistant secretary for legal affairs, pointed out that when it passed the documents to the UN`s Iraq Nuclear Verification Officer in Vienna, it inserted a caveat. Mr Kelly wrote: "[It] included the following qualification: `We cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims`."

Mr Baradei told the Security Council in March: "Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic."

On 10 June, the Foreign Office minister Mike O`Brien said that "the Government shared all relevant information about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction with the weapons inspection teams from both Unmovic and the IAEA". But less than a month later the Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane said: "The UK Government did not pass to the IAEA any information on Iraqi attempts to procure uranium."

MPs expressed anger yesterday over the latest twist in the Niger affair, warning that it cast fresh doubts over the credibility of Mr Blair`s allegations.

Peter Kilfoyle, the former Labour armed forces minister, said: "This just adds to the doubts. The Americans have accepted that the information was dodgy.

"It beggars belief that the Prime Minister still thinks this information is reliable."

Six backbenchers signed a Commons motion questioning "why the UK Government has not submitted the evidence, upon which it bases its assessment, to IAEA scrutiny, in line with its obligations under Security Council resolutions".
10 July 2003 09:13

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 10, 2003

Rumsfeld admits evidence for war was not new
From Tim Reid in Washington



THE Bush Administration conceded yesterday that it had no “dramatic new evidence” about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the war — an admission in stark contrast to claims it made earlier this year to justify the invasion.

The statement, made by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, came amid growing anger on Capitol Hill about prewar intelligence.

It followed a White House admission on Monday that President Bush used bogus evidence when he claimed in the State of the Union address in January that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. The rapidly gathering political storm in Washington threatened to overshadow Mr Bush’s five-nation African tour. Mr Bush was forced to defend himself and his Administration over the use of prewar intelligence at a press conference in Pretoria with President Mbeki of South Africa.

Mr Rumsfeld, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the US-led coalition “did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder”. Rather, he said, the United States acted because the Administration saw “existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11”.

That claim appeared to shift significantly from the Administration’s stance before the war, most notably from assertions made by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, in an address to the UN Security Council in February. One of the key points of General Powell’s address, which was the Administration’s detailed case against Saddam, was new evidence “to show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction”.

General Powell cited reports less than five months old showing the dispersal of missiles armed with biological warheads, and “recent” satellite photographspurportedly showing the removal of chemical weapons.He cited intelligence from “the past 18 months” that he said proved Saddam was reactivating his nuclear weapons programme.

In the week before the war, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, said: “We know he’s out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons”. In October, Mr Bush said that Saddam was an imminent threat because of his past “and present” actions.

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July 10, 2003

Guantanamo Bay gives rough justice a bad name
Peter Riddell
It`s not liberal bleating to be alarmed by America`s treatment of terror suspects



George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld followed events at Westminster very closely before the key Commons votes on Iraq in February and March. If they were still doing so, they would have heard near-universal condemnation this week of the recent American proposals to try two British citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay by a military tribunal. This wave of criticism has put Tony Blair in an awkward position in the run-up to his visit to Washington in a week’s time.
What is happening at Guantanamo Bay matters — far more than the tedious battle between 10 Downing Street and the BBC. At stake are the principles of justice and a fair trial which the fight against terrorism is all about. This is not a liberal bleat. Far from it. Protests against the proposed American procedures have come not just from Labour and Liberal Democrat civil libertarians, but also from Tories such as Michael Ancram and Lord Mayhew of Twysden, both of whom have ample experience of terrorism from their days in the Northern Ireland Office.

Terrorism has forced liberal democracies to curtail civil liberties. Increased security precautions are part of our daily lives. No one would quarrel now with the familiar checks and baggage screening at airports and many public buildings, as the American Civil Liberties Union did more than two decades ago.

Similarly, the authorities need powers to detain and question suspected terrorists for longer than normal criminals. The protection of the public must come first. It is a question of balance, between open justice and the need to look after secret intelligence sources. This was recognised in the safeguards introduced into the Terrorism Act after pressure from the Opposition parties and the Lords.

Moreover, there is always some rough justice in wars and in handling terrorist suspects, especially after an outrage as horrendous as the September 11 attacks in 2001. But that does not justify the lynch-law view that al-Qaeda suspects deserve what they get since they are brutal and merciless towards their victims. The very flouting of individual rights by terrorists is exactly why the United States should uphold standards of justice. As Menzies Campbell said: “Even those accused of the most heinous crimes are entitled to due process.”

The sole justification for holding suspects at Guantanamo Bay was the temporary one of interrogating them to find out about other terrorist attacks and plans, in the hope of saving lives. But it is hard to maintain even these grounds of expediency more than 18 months after most of them were arrested. Moreover, their detention has been legally dubious since the detainees have been held, without charge, as “enemy combatants” rather than as prisoners of war with defined rights under the Geneva Convention. And Guantanamo Bay was chosen for their detention as it was outside the legal jurisdiction of the United States.

Nine British citizens have been held at Camp Delta in cruel and inhumane conditions. Mr Blair has conceded that they cannot remain there indefinitely; in reply to a question yesterday from Charles Kennedy about how long they would be “left to languish in this legal no man’s land”, Mr Blair said there “obviously has to be a point in time when this issue is brought to an end”.

However, coming “to an end” now looks like being a wholly unsatisfactory trial. Last Friday the Bush Administration designated six al-Qaeda suspects as eligible for trial by military tribunal or commission, a procedure not used since just after the Second World War. This applies only to non-US citizens; American suspects are held elsewhere and are subject to due process. The Pentagon says that there is evidence that the suspects, including two British citizens — Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg — “may have attended terrorist training camps and may have been involved in such activities as financing al-Qaeda, providing protection for Osama bin Laden and recruiting future terrorists”.

These are grave charges and the suspects should stand trial. But the proposed American procedures are deeply flawed. British ministers have already expressed, in Foreign Office-speak, “strong reservations about the military commission”. Jack Straw spoke to Colin Powell last weekend to press for internationally recognised standards for a fair trial, such as the right to choose defence lawyers, to see evidence that will go before the court and to have an appeals system. Yet military tribunals are largely closed, with rules of evidence inadmissible in a normal court and tilted against the defendant. The Pentagon controls the judge and jury, as well as vetting who can be a defence lawyer. The tribunals can impose the death penalty — in itself a cause of protests — though this requires unanimity, as opposed to a two-thirds majority for a guilty verdict.

Some MPs have been pressing for the repatriation of the UK citizens to face trial here under British terrorist legislation. Yet ministers have been reluctant to call for repatriation, knowing that such a call may be rejected.

The Foreign Office and Commonwealth claims that the details of the trial have not yet been settled, warning in classic fashion against “megaphone diplomacy”. Mr Blair said “it is important that we wait and see whether our representations have been heeded”. Yet many MPs and peers wonder what will be achieved by a softly-softly approach, arguing that the US should listen to the concerns of its closest ally since September 11.

Mr Blair has a chance next week to raise the issue in Washington. He should use his personal influence with the Administration and his high public standing to say why the detentions and the trials have caused such outrage here. As Douglas Hogg said: “The American proposals are wrong, potentially unjust and gravely damaging to their reputation.”

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July 10, 2003
Rumsfeld Doubles Estimate for Cost of Troops in Iraq
By THOM SHANKER



WASHINGTON, July 9 - Gen. Tommy R. Franks said today that violence and uncertainty in Iraq made it unlikely that troop levels would be reduced "for the foreseeable future," and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nearly doubled the estimated military costs there to $3.9 billion a month.

"We have about 145,000 troops in there right now," General Franks told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said he had talked to "commanders at every level inside Iraq," and found that the size and structure of those forces were appropriate for the current situation.

Mr. Rumsfeld has never laid out a timetable for bringing American troops home, and has repeatedly pledged that the forces would stay as long as required, but no longer. Even so, the acknowledgement today of the scope of the long-term military commitment to Iraq was the strongest indication to date that the reconstruction effort requires the continued deployment of large numbers of troops - and that the undertaking carries a hefty price tag.

Under intense questioning from Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, Mr. Rumsfeld or his aides telephoned Pentagon financial officers during a break and reported back to the committee that cost estimates for the Iraq campaign had reached $3.9 billion per month, on average from this past January through September.

A Pentagon official said the $3.9 billion figure "is the estimated cost to maintain the current force level in Iraq," which includes expenses for military operations, including fuel, transportation, food, ordnance and personnel, but not reconstruction costs. The $3.9 billion figure is almost double the $2 billion per month estimate issued by administration officials in April. In addition, the cost of operations in Afghanistan are now $900 million to $950 million monthly, Mr. Rumsfeld said.

During a grueling four-hour hearing, committee members alternately complimented the military`s war plan but criticized the Pentagon`s planning for the postwar stabilization of the nation.

In particular, Mr. Rumsfeld was pressed to detail efforts to reach out to allies - including those like France and Germany who opposed the war - for contributions of troops to replace Americans. General Franks, who stepped down this week from the top job at Central Command, gave no indication that commanders were requesting more troops to combat guerrilla-style attacks. When pressed to predict how long a force comparable to the current one would be needed, he said, "It is for the foreseeable future."

Moments later, Mr. Rumsfeld sought to erase the impression that those comments meant that the American commitment could not shrink more rapidly. "The numbers of U.S. forces could change, while the footprint stayed the same, in the event that we have greater success in bringing in additional coalition forces, in the event we are able to accelerate the Iraqi Army," he said.

With American forces suffering almost daily attacks in Iraq, that statement did not satisfy Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who challenged Mr. Rumsfeld by saying that "we have the world`s best-trained soldiers serving as policemen in what seems to be a shooting gallery." Mr. Kennedy said that "the lack of a coherent plan is hindering our efforts at internationalization and aggravating the strain on our troops."

Mr. Rumsfeld said 142,000 military personnel had returned to their home bases, although most of those serve in the Air Force and Navy, leaving the burden in Iraq to American ground forces. The current ground force figure, 145,000, is down from its peak of 151,000. And he announced the withdrawal of one high-profile unit from the war zone, saying all three brigades of the Third Infantry Division, which spearheaded the attack on Baghdad, would leave Iraq by September.

In sketching how Iraqis will help stabilize their nation, General Franks said that 35,000 Iraqi police officers had been hired and that plans called for training a new Iraqi army of 12,000 within one year and 40,000 within three years.

As recently as May, senior allied officials speaking to correspondents in Baghdad said the Bush administration had hoped to shrink the American military presence in Iraq to two divisions, about 30,000 to 40,000 troops, by autumn, with a third multinational division also present.

Answering complaints that American unilateralism had alienated its allies, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Franks said that 19 nations now had forces supporting the Iraq effort, that 19 others had promised troops and that discussions were under way with 11 more. Those allied forces already in Iraq, and those committed, totaled 30,000, they said.

Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, if he would support having France and Germany take part in the postwar stability force, Mr. Rumsfeld said he would. "We have reached out to NATO," Mr. Rumsfeld said. But he cautioned that "it would be incorrect to say that we expect that international forces will replace all of U.S. forces. We don`t anticipate that."

Mr. Rumsfeld refused to issue a concrete schedule for withdrawing American forces. "Nobody knows the answer to that question, how long it will take," he said. "It will take some time." But he said that "when it`s done, it`s going to have been darn well worth having done."

Senators from both parties - James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island - pressed Mr. Rumsfeld on whether the Pentagon should consider increasing the number of people in uniform to handle global missions. "It seems to me that we have to be prepared to increase our Army, the number of brigades in our Army, or to activate National Guard divisions, and we have to make that decision soon," Mr. Reed said. Mr. Rumsfeld said there were no plans to expand the military.

Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, asked Mr. Rumsfeld about the threat from Iran, and Mr. Rumsfeld said he had received reports that Iran had relocated some border posts a few miles into Iraqi territory, and he cautioned the government in Tehran against such adventurism.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 10, 2003
A Troubled Occupation in Iraq

He may be deposed but he remains a haunting presence. From a hiding place, Saddam Hussein has issued defiant words and vowed resistance, saying that "jihad cells and brigades have been formed." Earlier, President Bush, displaying misplaced bravado, issued his own challenge to Mr. Hussein`s supporters: "Bring them on."

We would have hoped that two months after the end of the war in Iraq, the situation would be neither this confrontational nor this dangerous. With almost daily reports of American fatalities in Iraq, the need for turning around a badly deteriorating situation seems urgent.

Despite some limited gains under Washington`s chief civilian administrator, Paul Bremer III, exasperated Iraqis are increasingly blaming occupation forces for the excruciatingly slow progress in restoring vital services, rebuilding the economy and returning governmental and police power to Iraqi hands. It is not enough for President Bush to claim that America has adequate forces on the ground to repel any Iraqi challenge. What is needed is a realistic and workable recovery plan. The administration also needs to level with the American people, acknowledging that stabilizing and reviving Iraq will take many more months and could cost many more American casualties.

One badly needed change in Iraq is faster, more visible progress toward self-government. Mr. Bremer should be doing more to extricate Americans from the cross-fire of Iraqi discontent. Beginning serious work on a new national constitution could ease the fears, now common among the majority Shiites as well as the minority Sunnis and Kurds, of being unfairly shut out of power by Iraqi rivals or foreign occupiers. On Monday, after numerous false starts, plans were announced for leading Iraqi politicians to join an interim government later this month. It remains far from clear how this arrangement will function and how much real authority Mr. Bremer will allow these Iraqi figures to exercise.

There also needs to be a more systematic effort to extricate American and British soldiers from the deadly cross-fire of the streets. That will require recruiting and training larger, more capable Iraqi police and security forces. Washington and London have rightly been wary of turning over the streets to unreformed Baathist police officers or sectarian Shiite militias. But American and British combat troops are neither trained nor suited for crowd control and policing duties.

The pressure on American and British troops can also be eased by bringing in significant peacekeeping forces from other countries, including many not involved in the war. That will be accomplished more easily once Washington embraces a more substantial role for the United Nations. With broader U.N. involvement, American and British troops will seem less like foreign conquerors and occupiers.

Finally, Saddam Hussein must be found. Mr. Bremer was right to offer a $25 million reward for his capture. Until Mr. Hussein is in custody, Iraqis will live with the fear of his return to power.

Having declared that America`s security depended on regime change in Iraq, Mr. Bush must now see the job through to a successful conclusion. It can be done, and most Iraqis seem eager for it. The key is not to lose the willingness of the public, either American or Iraqi, to see this through.







Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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washingtonpost.com
Senators Grill Rumsfeld About U.S. Future in Iraq
Gen. Franks, Secretary Disagree on Troop Levels

By Thomas E. Ricks and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page A01


Democratic senators sharply questioned the Bush administration`s handling of the Iraqi occupation yesterday, repeatedly pressing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the cost and duration of the U.S. military presence there and voicing concern about the long-term impact on the armed forces.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee offered Rumsfeld perhaps his roughest handling from Congress since he became defense secretary two years ago as they expressed unease about the continuing problems facing occupation forces in Iraq.

"I`m now concerned that we have the world`s best-trained soldiers serving as policemen in what seems to be a shooting gallery," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said.

"We are dangerously stretched thin in the Army," added Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a veteran of the Army`s elite 82nd Airborne Division.

In response, Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was the U.S. commander in the recent war in Iraq and testified alongside Rumsfeld, said he expected that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq -- about 150,000 -- would have to be maintained for the "foreseeable future." That statement is a sharp contrast to prewar Pentagon estimates that the occupation force could be quickly cut to about 50,000 troops, and is more specific than Bush administration officials have been in recent remarks.

Rumsfeld`s testimony yesterday was the first opportunity lawmakers have had to question him after several weeks of grim news. The postwar recovery in Iraq has been slower than expected even as the U.S. military`s casualty rate has spiked, with a death rate of almost one a day last month. Iraqi attacks on U.S. forces have grown in sophistication, with a series of mortar attacks on fixed posts and pistol killings of individual soldiers in Baghdad.

The sharp tone yesterday represented something of a change for congressional Democrats, who have been largely supportive of President Bush`s handling of postwar Iraq. But despite the grilling of Rumsfeld, Democrats in general remain reluctant to challenge Bush on Iraq, and they have issued no calls for a major change in U.S. policy in Iraq.

Republicans remain enthusiastic about Bush`s Iraq policy even as some profess unease about recent events. Yesterday, Armed Services Committee Republicans congratulated Rumsfeld on his role in removing Saddam Hussein from power and stressed that some of the postwar problems can be attributed to the brutality of Hussein`s reign. "What you folks have done is end this monstrous, bloody regime," Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said.

Rumsfeld, who usually appears confident in his testimony, repeatedly said he did not know the answers to major questions from committee members, such as whether France and Germany specifically had been asked to contribute troops to postwar operations in Iraq, or the total monthly costs of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When first asked whether the administration had asked France and Germany, whose leaders vigorously opposed the invasion of Iraq, to contribute to postwar peacekeeping, Rumsfeld said, "I`ll have to ask." After checking during a break in the hearing, he said that they had been asked at least once, last December, which was before the French and German opposition to the war became a major disruption in transatlantic relations. And when asked if a request had been made since then, he said, "I have no idea. I`d be happy to run around and try to find out the answer to that."

Rumsfeld also was initially vague about the monthly cost of military operations in Iraq, telling the committee, "I`ll have to get you that for the record." Later in the hearing, he said he had checked and been told that U.S. military operations currently cost about $3.9 billion a month in Iraq -- far higher than previous Pentagon estimates -- and about $900 million a month in Afghanistan.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), sought to explain the unusually edgy tone of the session to Rumsfeld. "Here`s what you`re hearing today from the committee," he said in a gently admonishing tone. "The problem here is that Americans are unsure about the future of our involvement in Iraq," feeling what he called "not disaffection, not anger, but unease" about the situation.

"So, what you need to do, in my view, is give . . . a concrete plan as much as you can," McCain told Rumsfeld. "In other words, how much is it going to cost, roughly, and how long we expect to be there, even if it`s a pessimistic scenario, and how many troops are probably going to be required."

Near the end of the hearing, Rumsfeld responded with a short lecture of his own. "I think we have to get some perspective on this and put this in context and think back in history," he said. "This is tough stuff. This is hard work. This takes time. . . . We need to have some patience."

Rumsfeld also argued that the situation is not as dire as some perceive. Contrary to some impressions, he said, the fighting is relatively limited in geographical scope to Baghdad and the "Sunni triangle" northwest of it. "Large portions of Iraq are stable," he said. "Most of the recent attacks have been concentrated in Baghdad and three corridors reaching west, north and east out of the Iraqi capital."

Franks, who stepped down on Monday as the chief of the U.S. Central Command but is still on active duty, also defended the planning for postwar Iraq. "We did anticipate a level of violence," he said. But, he added, "I can`t tell you whether we anticipated that it would be . . . at the level that we see right now."

Rumsfeld declined to endorse Franks`s view that the current level of almost 150,000 U.S. troops will be needed in Iraq for the foreseeable future. "Nobody knows the answer to that question, how long it will take," Rumsfeld said. He quibbled somewhat with Franks`s assertion, saying that foreign troops would take up some of the burden, though he later added that U.S. troops would have to be replaced mainly by other American troops.

Rumsfeld and Franks expressed concern about Iranian activity in Iraq. "Iran has mounted an increasingly sophisticated and multifaceted influence campaign" aimed at stirring anti-U.S. feeling, Franks said in his written testimony. Rumsfeld also said that along one stretch of their common border, the Iranians have moved border posts onto Iraqi territory. "That is behavior that`s not acceptable, and they should be staying on their own side of the border," he said.

While unusual, yesterday`s Armed Services Committee hearing is unlikely to represent a turning point in congressional consideration of Iraq, several members of Congress said. "The reason you don`t see people rushing to the floor to make speeches is that there aren`t any easy answers out there," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "I don`t think anyone has any great ideas for dealing with the situation."

While there is "nervousness and anxiety" about the situation in Iraq, Dorgan said, there has been "no huge national outcry," and this is reflected in congressional attitudes.

"The mood is one of concern, and to some extent frustration, that the reconstruction effort is not going as well as we might have hoped," said Senate intelligence committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). "But I don`t think there`s anyone I`ve talked to who doesn`t have the resolve to see it through."

A poll released this week by the Pew Research Center found that 23 percent of Americans believe the military effort in Iraq is going very well. That`s sharply down from 61 percent in April. But there is still strong support -- 66 percent -- for a major U.S. commitment to rebuild Iraq and establish a stable government.

Nevertheless, even some prominent Republicans have expressed growing impatience recently about what they see as a lack of a long-term strategy for rebuilding Iraq and returning the government to its citizens.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and McCain, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, are pressing hard for more information about long-term plans for Iraq, as are some Democrats.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), senior Democrat on the intelligence panel, called for "straight talk to the American people . . . that we`re going to be there for a while, that we may need more forces and that more lives may be lost."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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M-16s Jammed During Ambush in Iraq
Unreleased Army Report Cites Weapons Malfunctions, Desert Conditions

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page A14


When Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch`s lost maintenance company was ambushed in Nasiriyah, Iraq, on March 23, many of the unit`s soldiers were unable to defend themselves because their weapons malfunctioned, according to an Army report.

"These malfunctions," the report says, "may have resulted from inadequate individual maintenance in a desert environment" where sand, heat and improper maintenance combined to render the weapons inoperable.

The report on the incident, scheduled to be released this week, adds new details to the circumstances reported last month by The Washington Post, which described how the 18-vehicle convoy got lost in the southern Iraqi city after its company commander, Capt. Troy King, did not receive word that the larger column it was following had changed routes. The convoy then made several navigational errors, which required the slow, lumbering vehicles to make two U-turns in the middle of hostile territory.

One half of the 507th Maintenance Company, 33 soldiers in all, had fallen as much as 12 hours behind the miles-long column of vehicles moving north. Eleven of the company`s soldiers were killed in combat or died from injuries; six were captured by Iraqi forces and later freed, including Lynch. The remaining 16 sped to safety.

U.S. officials, relying on unconfirmed, initial intelligence reports from Iraq, told The Post after Lynch`s rescue on April 1 that she fired at Iraqi troops until her ammunition ran out and that she was either shot or stabbed. The investigation found that Lynch was neither shot nor stabbed, but sustained most of her injuries after the Humvee she was riding in crashed into another Army vehicle.

The Army report said the unit`s soldiers "fought the best they could until there was no longer a means to resist. They defeated ambushes, overcame hastily prepared enemy obstacles, defended one another, provided life-saving aid, and inflicted casualties on the enemy."

The Army does not intend to bring disciplinary action against any unit member, said one Army official, who declined to be named because the report has not been released.

The report offers new insight into the harrowing 60 to 90 minutes in which members of the convoy took heavy fire while trying to rescue their comrades. It said they were dealing with vehicles and weapons that broke down when they were most needed.

The unit`s 18-vehicle convoy had broken into three clusters as the unit retraced its route. "Most soldiers" in the first group reported that their M-16s malfunctioned as they tried to "return fire while moving," the report said.

When Cpl. Damien Luten, sitting in the passenger seat of a 5-ton tractor-trailer in the second group, attempted to fire the unit`s only .50-caliber machine gun, it failed, the report said. Luten was wounded in the leg while reaching for his M-16. Spec. James Grubb, in the passenger seat of a 5-ton fuel truck, "returned fire with his M-16 until wounded in both arms, despite reported jamming of his weapon," it said.

The third group of vehicles, which included the Humvee in which Lynch was riding, also had weapons problems.

After Lynch`s Humvee crashed, Sgt. James Riley ran with two other soldiers to see if the vehicle`s occupants could be saved. His weapon jammed. Riley reached for 1st Sgt. Robert Dowdy`s M-16 to use instead. Dowdy had been killed instantly in the crash. Riley ordered the two soldiers with him to take cover and then tried to use each of their M-16s against the Iraqis. "But both jammed," the report said.

The two soldiers, Spec. Edgar Hernandez and Spec. Shoshana Johnson, were wounded, and "with no means to continue to resist, Sgt. Riley made the decision to surrender the two soldiers and himself."

Spec. Joseph Hudson attempted to fire his M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon as he drove a huge wrecker towing a 5-ton tractor-trailer that had broken down. But the weapon malfunctioned. After driving past obstacles and debris strewn in his path, the vehicle broke down on the southern edge of the city as he neared safety. Iraqi forces fired on the stalled wrecker, killing Hudson`s passenger, Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata.

Hudson, "also wounded, was immediately surrounded after the shooting stopped, and was pulled from the vehicle by Iraqis and captured."

Hudson, Riley, Miller, Hernandez and Johnson were later freed from captivity.

U.S. officials also said recently that Lynch`s weapon may have jammed during the ambush. Because she was seated between two other soldiers, however, it is also possible she did not fire it, one Army official said yesterday.

The report, which was published on the El Paso Times Web site yesterday, does not refer to Lynch`s weapon having jammed.

Army investigators said Lynch was mistreated during captivity, but they have not been specific. Lynch has told family members she does not recall all her time in captivity and the report does not address the matter, which is under review in connection with a possible war crimes prosecution.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Among Democrats, The Energy Seems To Be on the Left


By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page A01


Ten years after Bill Clinton proclaimed a centrist "New Democrat" revolution, the left is once again a driving force in the party.

They do not call themselves "liberals" anymore; the preferred term today is "progressives." But in other ways, they are much the same slice of the electorate that dominated the Democratic Party from 1972 to the late 1980s: antiwar, pro-environment, suspicious of corporations and supportive of federal social services.

In recent weeks, the progressive left has: lifted a one-time dark-horse presidential candidate, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, into near-front-runner status; dominated the first serious Internet "primary"; and convened the largest gathering of liberal activists in decades.

The liberal MoveOn.org is the fastest-growing political action committee in the Democratic Party. Left-leaning labor leaders, such as Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, are taking a more assertive part in mapping the all-important union role in party operations.

In a sense, it was all foreshadowed by the shake-up of the House leadership after the Democrats` dismal showing at the polls last November. Liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) easily defeated several more conservative Democrats to become the new minority leader.

"There is a coming together of forces to try to resurrect the Democratic Party in the progressive realm," said political strategist Eric Hauser, who helped to organize the recent Take Back America conference of left-leaning activists. "What the Democratic Party stands for hasn`t really been looked at for a while. The issues that people care about seem pretty clearly to be solid progressive issues."

In a party that seemed almost comatose after November`s poor showing at the polls, any energy at all might be welcome by Democrats, no matter where it comes from. And the progressives themselves certainly do not feel as though they are weighing in from the margin. "We are the base," said veteran organizer Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America`s Future.

But for Democrats who remember the Republican landslides of 1972 and 1984, when liberal Democrats George McGovern and Walter F. Mondale led the party to humiliating defeats, the prominence of the left this year is an omen.

"We can`t just talk to the true believers; we can`t just stoke their anger at George Bush," said Will Marshall, director of the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate think tank. "We have to persuade swing voters who right now may not be planning to vote for a Democrat."

Whether the invigorated left is a good or bad thing depends, for many Democratic leaders, on how recent history is interpreted. Indeed, the issue can be boiled down to a single question: What actually happened in the 2000 presidential election?

One school of thought says that former president Bill Clinton, by supporting welfare reform, the death penalty and deficit-cutting economics, had set the stage for Democrats to reclaim their status as America`s majority party. Unfortunately, the theory goes, former vice president Al Gore squandered a huge advantage by not bragging enough about the accomplishments of the Clinton years -- instead, he ran on a populist theme of "the people versus the powerful."

The left looks at the same result and sees things quite differently: Gore won the popular vote with his populist, environmentalist campaign, and would have been elected easily if he had been stronger on those themes. As it was, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader challenged Gore from the left and kept the election close enough for it to be decided (the left says "stolen") by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If Gore had gotten his votes and Nader`s votes, he would have won with "the largest number of progressive votes since 1964," said Borosage -- a clear majority of the electorate. The lesson he draws: Democrats do not need to silence the left to win; they need to energize it.

Much of the credit for the left`s revival goes to President Bush, whose policies and personality seem to touch the nerves of hard-core Democrats like a dental drill. The war in Iraq was a catalytic event, drawing hundreds of thousands of readers to anti-Bush Web sites and filling the sails of the Dean campaign. But this is not just about the war.

Senate Democrats, led by Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), have rallied behind an unprecedented filibuster of Bush judicial nominees. Civil liberties groups are up in arms about the Bush administration`s domestic war on terrorism. Environmentalists are rallying against Bush policies on logging in national forests.

The result: Activists who are normally prone to infighting -- "the Democratic Party is Yugoslavia," in the words of one party veteran, recalling years of internecine squabbles -- are instead trying to pool their energy to present a clear alternative to the man they despise.

But the left`s energy is also a reflection of discontent with the party`s Clinton-era leadership. Off the record, many on the left agree with one Democratic organizer who mused recently: "In some ways, Bill Clinton was the worst thing that could have happened to the Democratic Party" because he largely silenced the party`s left and enervated efforts to build the party`s base.

That sentiment is manifesting itself in a barrage of criticism aimed at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which was closely associated with Clinton`s 1992 election. For years, DLC founder Al From and his associates have preached that "Old Democrat" liberalism equals landslide defeats. "The New Democrat formula is the only one to win in three decades," From said recently. Earlier this year, he and DLC President Bruce Reed -- who served as Clinton`s chief domestic policy adviser for eight years -- fired off a broadside accusing Dean of being an "elitist" from the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the party and warning that he would lead the party to disaster if he wins the nomination.

Instead of sinking, Dean surged.

On leftward Web sites, and in the most liberal campaigns, the DLC has become Democratic enemy number two, trailing only Bush. "The DLC strategy of waffling GOP-lite centrism has been a near total failure for the Democratic Party," said Jeff Cohen, a longtime media critic and spokesman for Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), whose long-shot presidential campaign is gaining strength on the left. "I say `near` total because of Clinton. Take away the unique charisma of that one politician, and the DLC strategy is a total failure."

"We have this debate almost every election cycle," the DLC`s Reed said. "There is always going to be someone who wants to preach the old-time religion." But later in the same interview, he said that Clinton`s "New Democrat" approach was "the most successful political and governing strategy in our lifetime. We shouldn`t even be having this argument over basic party principles."

Riled-up Democrats on the left blame the sail-trimming and poll-watching of the Clinton years for the party`s recent lassitude. Clinton could win this way because he was a skilled campaigner, they say, but subtract his skills, and the party is left with mush. The energized left faults centrist Democrats for caving in to conservatives on welfare, health care, civil liberties, taxes -- and, worst of all, war.

This is the attitude that has fueled the emergence of Howard Dean.

Dean`s record as governor is hard to categorize: liberal on such issues as gay civil unions, conservative on guns and fiscal matters. But the juice in his campaign -- the reason he has thousands of volunteers nationwide gathering for monthly "meetups" and millions of dollars in small contributions pouring in to his Web site -- is that he has aggressively criticized Bush and heaped scorn on Democrats who have gone along with Bush`s war plans and tax cuts.

Borrowing from the left`s most recent fallen hero, the late senator Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.), Dean said he speaks for "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" -- in other words, not the "New Democrats." Writing on Buzzflash.com, a Web site for the Democratic left, Stuart Finkel of Austin said Dean`s supporters "have been energized by the willingness of Howard Dean to do what the DLC and the Democratic leaders in Washington have been so unwilling to do: match George W. Bush word for word, and call every lie he tells a lie."

And while Dean surges, the two candidates in the race most closely associated with the DLC -- Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and John Edwards (N.C.) -- are struggling to avoid the perception that their campaigns have stalled.

Jeff Blodgett is a Minnesota Democrat who managed Wellstone`s campaigns. Now he serves as director of Wellstone Action, a nonprofit group created by Wellstone`s two sons to train a new generation of liberal activists. "The reaction has been extraordinary," he said. The first two "Camp Wellstone" training sessions filled immediately -- 110 people in each session. "We`ve had 10,000 people either become founding members or sign up for our e-mail action list since mid-March.

"The Democratic Party," Blodgett said, "is perceived as having lost its moorings, as being disconnected from the big values and the big vision of where to take this country and hasn`t been projecting that. It turns out there is a large number of people around the country who are looking for ways to participate in the rebuilding of progressive politics."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Bush in the bush

07/08/03: (Information Clearing House) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4040.htm


Today, Bush arrives in Senegal where he`ll visit Goree Island, one of the locations from which an estimated 20 million slaves started their long journey to the Americas. Half of the 20 million never made it. And no doubt, Bush will make a speech about America`s commitment to `freedom` and to Africa, blah-blah-blah…. He`ll talk about America`s desire to fight AIDs, poverty and the lack of economic progress. Of course he won`t mention the 200 billion dollars in subsidies pledged to America`s agri-business over the next few years, nor the effects of `structural adjustment` in destroying the economies of many of Africa`s struggling neo-colonies. And will he mention the long list of African dictators installed or supported by the US over the past fifty years in its alleged fight against communism? Don`t bet on it because you`ll lose.

And you can be sure that he won`t mention the fact that half of all African-Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 end up in US prisons. Or that the mortality rate for this age group is several orders of magnitude higher than for all other demographic groups in the US. Ditto the suicide rate. Will he tell his Senegalese hosts that many of the descendants of those millions of slaves who started out in chains four hundred years ago, ended up in chains in 21st century America?

In return of course, he`ll want a commitment from Africa`s governments to fight the `war on terror.` He`ll want to make sure that Nigeria, Equitorial Guinea and Angola continue to supply the US with 15% of its oil needs (rising to 25%). He`ll want to make sure that US products have unfettered access to African markets. The much vaunted billions in `aid` for AIDS will no doubt, have the same `strings attached` that all so-called US aid has, namely that it`s spent in America.

So why is Dubya visiting the `dark continent`? American presidents have only visited the continent of Africa three times, that`s how much they value Africa, not that a visit by a titular head means much except in PR terms. Yet there is a common perception that the much vaunted `values` of US democracy have somehow bypassed Africa. In the words of one writer, most of Africa now belongs to the `Terminal World,` essentially surplus to requirement. It`s fallen off the edge of the planet. It`s the `basket case` continent. With the end of the Cold War it no longer has any strategic value.

Economically, it`s real productive wealth has fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Aside from South Africa and the oil-producing states, it`s perceived as a continent of peasant subsistance agriculture and internecine wars that as Dubya, in a brief moment of honesty stated, "is of no strategic significance [to the US]."

But perceptions are important and not only that, if the Anglo-American empire is to succeed in its conquest of the world, it can hardly afford to leave Africa out of the equation even if it is low on the list of regions that need `pacifying`. It could be a source of `trouble` as its brief mission in Somalia taught it. And of course, as the USUK project extends its reach into North Africa (Libya being high on its list of countries requiring a regime change), over time, bringing Africa under its control will assume increasing importance.

Much will hinge on the role that the West would like to see South Africa play in being the `policeman` of Africa, now that it has a (nominally) black governing class, even though its economy is totally integrated into the developed world. Hence Bush`s visit includes one to South Africa, where, no doubt, he`ll let Mbeki know what the deal is (including a very public snub of Mandela, that has already hit the headlines). Will he get the ANC government`s blessing?

The visit presents Mbeki with a real dilemma as the ANC government came out quite forcefully against the invasion of Iraq. At the same time, the much vaunted `special relationship` that Clinton formed with the ANC during the transition to democracy in 1994, was intimately connected to the relationship the ANC had with New Labour and the Democratic Party. Both the Labour Party and the Democratic Party supplied the ANC with strategic and financial assistance in the planning of the 1994 election campaign (both parties gave the ANC direct access to their election campaign organisers). USAID gave the ANC millions of dollars in financial support. And the ANC`s economic programme is essentially a right-wing Blairite clone, consisting of the wholesale privatisation of state resources, a refusal to invest in job creation and in general, it has pursued a variant of the Thatcher/Blair so-called neo-liberal economic agenda. Since the 1994 democratic elections, 500,000 jobs have disappeared in South Africa.

On the political front however, Mbeki is pursuing a `populist` line, hence his reluctance to publicly condemn Mugabe. In playing what is in effect, the `race` card, Mbeki is hoping to maintain the support of the Black masses through appeals to `Africanness` much as Mugabe has done. Yet unless there are real gains in jobs, education, health and housing, the `populist` line could backfire in a big way, just as it has done in Zimbabwe.

But as with all countries of the poor world, the ANC government is caught between a rock and a hard place. Desperate to gain access to markets controlled either by the US or the EU, it has to tread a fine line between placating its domestic population and pursuing policies which have the blessing of the IMF and the World Bank, in other words, Washington DC. And South Africa is in a lot better position to bargain than most are. Over 90% of Africa`s GDP is actually South Africa`s. Its expansion into African markets means South Africa is now Africa`s leading player in telecommunications/media, electricity generation, mining, beer production and the retail food markets. South Africa has one of the world`s most sophisticated banking and financial services industry which is rapidly gaining dominance in many African countries. Collectively, they dominate the Southern African region completely.

Bush will no doubt be offering support to the ANC government for Mbeki`s new African initiative (NAD), in the fight against AIDS, financial support for South African peacekeeping forces and perhaps preferential access to the US market for South African goods, in return of course, for supporting Bush`s `war on terror`.

And no doubt a similar line will be pursued in Nigeria given its strategic significance through its oil and also as the most populous of African countries and the fact that there is a close relationship between Nigeria and South Africa. Gaining the support of both countries will be critical to Bush`s African agenda but it remains to be seen whether he can pull it off.

The future of Mbeki`s vision for Africa depends almost entirely on bringing to an end the various conflicts in the DRC, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and elsewhere on the continent. Yet the cause of these conflicts remains essentially economic (in spite of all the racist propaganda peddled in the Western media about the `tribal` and `ethnic` causes). Bush has no remedy for this. Indeed, it`s US policies which are the root cause of the economic and social breakdown of so many African countries. Bush will fly in, make appropriate noises and then fly home, beyond that, expect no changes, it`ll be business as usual.

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washingtonpost.com
Why the CEO in Chief Needs an Audit


By Richard Cohen

Thursday, July 10, 2003; Page A23


The Bush White House is run on a business model. The president is the CEO. He delegates to others, including the vice president, who was once a CEO himself. It therefore should come as no surprise that George W. Bush, a Harvard MBA after all, is doing what other CEOs do when they get into trouble. In his case, he`s "restated" his reasons for going to war.

Corporations do this all the time. If a profit of, say, $2.8 billion turns out to be a loss of a similar amount on account of unanticipated developments (corruption, greed, the demands of mistresses), the figure merely gets "restated." Usually no one is held responsible for this, because a billion here or a billion there can, as we know, fall through the cracks. In fact, the CEO -- having been given a bonus for such a banner year -- is then given another one for managing his company through difficult times.

In the same way, the president recently restated some of the reasons for invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein`s nuclear weapons program, which Bush told the world was being "reconstituted," may in fact not exist. The White House the other day restated its earlier insistence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the West African nation of Niger. It turned out that the supporting documents had been forged. The White House admitted that in a press release left behind after Bush had departed for Africa.

Similarly, the accusation that Iraq was buying high-strength aluminum tubes, which Bush said were "used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons," has to be restated. The tubes appear to have been bought for another purpose entirely and may not be high-strength after all.

As for the charge that Iraq was bristling with other weapons of mass destruction, none have yet been found, raising the distinct possibility that -- in an upcoming quarter -- this too will be restated and the Bush administration will take a one-time charge against future credibility.

In fact, should we -- the stockholders of this operation -- look back at the original business plan for the proposed Bush administration, we will find that almost everything has been restated. During the campaign, Bush said he would not go in for peacekeeping operations abroad. He appears ready to do so in Liberia. He also said he would not get engaged, as did the previous CEO, Bill Clinton, in the nitty-gritty of Middle East peace negotiation. The administration is now choosing intersections in Gaza for traffic lights.

Restatement follows restatement until we poor stockholders have no choice but to conclude that either the Bush administration did not know what it was talking about when it came into office or does not know what it is talking about now. Not even in corporate America can you hold two contradictory positions simultaneously. One of them, as any CEO can tell you, has to be restated.

The Bush administration`s interim business plan called for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. On account of a botched operation in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, this now has to be restated. Similarly, the proclaimed determination to rid the world of Saddam Hussein also has not succeeded. As with bin Laden, this failure will be restated as not being all that important. You learn this sort of thing in business school.

In fact, the entire business plan for Iraq has to be restated. It turns out that the country simply will not govern itself, that some elements resent the U.S. occupation and that it will take more troops to administer the country than originally thought. In some way, this abject failure to plan for an occupation -- despite repeated warnings -- will have to be creatively restated. To paraphrase the president, bring on the restatement.

The dangers of an immense budget deficit have been restated. Rising unemployment has been restated to blame the Clinton administration. The critical importance of relations with Mexico has been restated. The evils of affirmative action were -- after the Supreme Court ruled -- restated and so, of course, were the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Now it is to rid that country of Saddam Hussein and establish the predicates for a Middle East peace. I like them both.

Still, all these restatements suggest a business plan that was both flawed from the start and implemented with an appalling level of incompetence. Despite that, the CEO of this mismanaged operation is not held accountable and remains popular with the shareholders. It used to be that the buck stopped with the president. To state the obvious, that`s been restated.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Sorry, Fresh Out of Weapons... Would You Like Another Vietnam Instead?
July 5, 2003
By Brad Odland

Review the ads in your Sunday paper and you will find a cornucopia of great deals. Top brand home theatre systems and drastically reduced prices, sofa sets at unheard of prices. But when you get the store the clerk tells you, "Sorry, the last one sold not fifteen minutes ago." You shrug and promise yourself to be more diligent next time and then you proceed to look at the more expensive items still available.

This method has been used and abused by retailers for years. The idea is to get people through the door - once there you can then use pure salesmanship and personality to "up-sell" to an item with higher profit margins. We all understand this and accept it as part of the discount retail game. Do we like it? No, of course we don`t.

George W. Bush has taken this to new level. Bush advertised the invasion of Iraq as a way of keeping us and the middle east safe from an attack by the evil regime of Saddam Hussein. The attack was imminent. Nuclear weapons were only months away. Saddam`s invasion plans were ready to roll. His missiles were lined up and ready to fire. His stealthy drone aircraft were awaiting the order to begin dropping deadly anthrax spores on unsuspecting Israelis.

Many in America walked right into George Bush`s store and were willing to accept that the world was in grave danger from an evil man bent on global domination. But now it seems that what we went into the store for is no longer there. So now we are nonchalantly told that Iraq is out of stock on WMDs - would we be interested in accepting another Vietnam instead?

It has become clear that the administration selected intelligence information that promoted the claim of existence of viable ongoing weapons programs with the direct purpose to sway public opinion. The administration assumed that weapons were probably going to be found once invasion began. So it began and it "finished" in a few short weeks with the proclamation by George W. Bush on the deck of the most powerful naval vessel in the world that "major military operations in Iraq have concluded." Now the real war has begun. The one hidden from view.

Yes, there is still a war going on in Iraq, and so is the bait and switch sales pitch. We now realize that a new phase of war has begun - guerilla war. Just like that coveted TV in the Sunday ads, the Iraq war was supposed to be quick, easy and inexpensive. Did we really think that we would actually get that? What we have now, after we`ve brought the box home, is a big screen behemoth with huge monthly payments stretched out over an indefinite period. Comparable to what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumfeld said as the realization of a longer engagement unfolded, "forces will remain in Iraq for as long as it takes..."

I am sure our young men and women are overjoyed with the prospect of an extended tour in Iraq. Patrolling in armored vehicles, scanning the fields for signs of enemy activity, dropping into hot LZ`s, evacuating wounded from the most recent operation to sustain peace in the region. At no point does one feel safe. Any moment you could see your buddy next to you take a bullet in the face or have a full metal jacketed round punch a clean hole through your Kevlar vest and chest. What could be more honorable than to be killed by a bullet fired by a 12-year-old in an unnecessary war? Sound familiar? Have we forgotten?

"Regime change in Iraq," "Saddam must disarm," "Remember September 11th," "United We Stand," "God Bless America" - all slogans used to win the hearts and minds of the American people. It worked. But then it doesn`t take much to win shallow hearts and narrow minds.

George W. Bush sold the American people an Iraq war for increased security and world peace. Now we have a sustained, open-ended war and a world that is anything but peaceful. But that doesn`t really matter to Bush. What matters is that he surpassed his sales quota and will get a nice bonus from his employers.

"Thank you so much...would you like to purchase an extended warranty too? It`s good through 2008!"


Brad Odland is a concerned citizen and Unitarian Universalist in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/07/05_vietn…

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Wegen des großen Erfolges des Guardian während des Krieges in den USA will der Guardian eine amerikanische Ausgabe herausbringen.

This Media Life
En Guardian!
The British are coming—again. The launch of a U.S. edition of the unabashedly liberal Guardian may be just what the Bush-whacked U.S. press needs.

By Michael Wolff

It was a daylong conference about the media’s role in the Iraq war, sponsored by the Guardian newspaper and held in its archive center—a newly refurbished building with café—across the street from the Guardian’s main building on Farringdon Road in London.

Everything about the conference seemed foreign—not just the self-critical nature of the conversation, but the bad air-conditioning and stifling temperature of the room. I tried to imagine such an event in New York or Washington—picking at the fresh scab of how we had covered the war—and what news organization would sponsor it. Of course, the real subject here—which so much of the U.S. media had closed ranks around—was the U.S. itself. That most massive of Bigfoots. Indeed, more and more, the foreign media had a distinct journalistic advantage over the U.S. media: Foreigners could go after the central story and openly dispute the Bush-administration message, whereas U.S. journalists were tied to the party line by a complicated emotional, social, political, and corporate etiquette.

In this respect—as a robust counterpoint to the American media—the Guardian (to which I sometimes contribute) had had a very good war. It became an almost-fashionable read on select U.S. campuses and in certain American liberal circles. Traffic on its Website, which has had a steadily growing American audience, climbed dramatically during the war. The electronic Guardian was the alternative press—if you were looking for one.

Still, when, during a coffee break, Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor, said to me, in a most offhanded way, “We’re coming to America,” I assumed he was talking about a personal visit.

“Well, let’s definitely get together,” I politely said.

“No,” he said. “We’re bringing the Guardian to America. We’re going to publish an American version.”

It struck me first that—even given the Guardian’s campus chic-ness—the U.S. has never been less receptive to the European point of view than it is now. By any measure, to be successful in the U.S. news business is to be staunch, patriotic, defensive. It’s Fox or bust. And it struck me even more forcefully that beyond the difficulties of liberalness, the prospects for literate media—the Guardian being a writer’s paper—were, as everybody knew, nil.

Then, during the next break in the conference, Rusbridger took me across the street to his office and showed me the prototype for the new American Guardian. Its tentative form is as a weekly magazine, quite unlike any other weekly magazine that has been started in the U.S. in the past generation. Not only is it about politics (Rusbridger is looking to launch in the winter to cover the presidential-primary season), but the magazine—meant to be 60 percent derived from the Guardian itself, with the rest to come from American contributors—has a great deal of text unbroken by design elements. This is almost an extreme notion. Quite the antithesis of what virtually every publishing professional would tell you is the key to popular and profitable publishing—having less to read, not more. Even with the Guardian’s signature sans-serif face, it looks like an old-fashioned magazine. Polemical. Written. Excessive. Contentious. Even long-winded.

This was either radically wrongheaded, or so forcefully and stylishly counterintuitive—and unexpected—that I found myself thinking, light-headedly, that it might define a turnaround in American publishing.

Bear with me. There is something here.

First, it’s important to understand the anomalous nature of the Guardian itself.

There may not be anything else quite like it in commercial publishing anywhere. The Guardian is the fruit of a legal trust whose sole purpose is the perpetuation of the Guardian. In other words, the trust—the Scott Trust, created in 1936 by the Manchester family that controlled the paper—eliminates the exact thing that has most bedeviled media companies: the demands of impatient shareholders and the ambitions of would-be mogul CEOs.

The Guardian, because of this flukish independence, occupies for well-bred left-wing Brits something like the position that the New York Times once held for Upper West Side liberals (or that Fox now holds for red-state anti-liberals): You cannot be who you are without it.

Young people even read it.

What’s more, under Rusbridger, it has become, along with the Daily Mail (with its lock on middle England) and the BBC’s morning news show, The Today Programme, among the most influential media voices in the UK.

The sudden turn in popular opinion against Tony Blair for the Iraq war and the anger at his government’s WMD misrepresentations—a development that George Bush has yet to face—have been led by the Guardian.

It is also the paper everybody wants to work for.



“Unlike American packaging genius, which is about packaging down (resulting in the deterioration of taste), the Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger packages up.”



Rusbridger is a large, rumpled, Harry Potter–esque 49-year-old. He’s a Cambridge-educated, well-married, Establishment figure running an anti-Establishment newspaper. He’s dry, slightly mocking (he came to prominence in his early thirties writing a daily-diary column that, in classic English diary form, skewered the rich and pompous), and full of long silences. What’s more, despite the long pages of type, he’s a packaging genius.

“G2,” which he created when he was the Guardian’s features editor (Peter Preston, a Fleet Street eminence, was then the paper’s editor-in-chief), is a daily inside-the-paper tabloid section. But instead of this representing the tabloidizing of the Guardian, Rusbridger gentrified the tabloid. While the American evolutionary step has been to forsake hard news for soft—for instance, the Times’s and the Journal’s ever-expanding leisure, consumer, and service sections—the Guardian in “G2” has morphed headline news into a daily bath of stylish opinion, context, and narrative. It’s high-concept news. It’s story-behind-the-story news—which is, of course, the real story. It is not unlike the kind of magazine journalism that flourished in the U.S. a generation ago—before cableization and tabloidization and consolidation.

This is the marketing point: Unlike American packaging genius, which is about packaging down (resulting in the deterioration of taste as well as attention spans), Rusbridger packages up.

While I was standing in Rusbridger’s office and leafing through the prototype, thinking that this was novel and exotic—quixotic, even—and quite a profound misunderstanding of the American market, it suddenly occurred to me that I was overlooking the obvious. The Brit niche.

Against the background of the rise of Fox, the deification of tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller, and of the general decline of quality U.S. publishing, there’s been something of an exceptional, and profitable, highbrow British invasion. Arguably the two most successful print publications to be introduced during the past decade in the U.S. market are The Economist and the Financial Times. (The third is Maxim, also English in lineage, and a different packaging story.)

Both The Economist and the FT succeeded by pursuing the opposite strategy of almost every other U.S. publication: offering too much, rather than too little, information—and charging plenty for it.

Rather than a lot of readers at a small price, the idea is fewer readers at a greater price (whereas most U.S. magazines discount their subscription price as much as 80 percent). Rusbridger figures that the American Guardian, charging a hefty subscription price, will be in safe financial territory at a 100,000-level circulation. (Advertising, in this approach, is welcome but not the main driver.) In other words, against the trend of all other commercial media (wherein the price the consumer needs to pay or is willing to pay gets progressively lower), the job here is to make the magazine—the writing, the attitudes, the opinions, the content—worth more by being better, smarter, more exclusive.

Being foreign helps. It’s not a mass-produced American product. It’s imported. Authentic. Hand-tooled. Tasteful. Indeed, in some fine irony in this jingoistic age, its non-American-ness (and, hence, its ability to be anti-American) makes it worth more.

And being written helps. The very thing that every American publisher eschews—long articles by actual writers—starts to look like something valuable. (Every week, The Economist goes on—and on—at quite an amazing and interminable length.)

The smarty thing—which runs against the Fox-led Zeitgeist—might, counterintuitively, work here too. The Wal-Marting of the publishing business (as well as every other business) invites the inverse strategy: You’re too dumb, too low-class, too fat for our magazine. Sorry, it’s not for you. That’s a marketing approach that could potentially be worth real dough.

There is also, perhaps, a logical progression here. For the past generation, American publishers have imported British editors—the natural next step is to import British publications.

And there is, of course, the very Englishness of the Guardian brand—and in publishing, no one has ever gone broke appealing to a reader’s inner Anglophile.

Then there is the political point: The Europeans have long divided their media along ideological lines—they know about this sort of market segmentation. It seems obvious that such targeting is coming to the U.S.

But meanwhile, the Fox-led conservative fatwa—or merely its clever marketing ploy—against liberal media has largely purged the slightest liberal inclination from the media, meaning there’s a yawning market hole. Between the New York Times and liberal trade magazines like The New Republic and The Nation, there’s nothing. It’s an open field. The very down-and-out-ness of left-leaning media, together with the great antipathy to smarties in America, means a blissful business condition of absolutely no competition at all. What’s more, the left wing in America has always had terrible packaging skills.

These are, of course, dark days for liberals (out-Foxed, Bush-whacked) and for magazine people (more celebrities, more “elements,” fewer words), so it is natural to latch onto any potential sign of a Renaissance.

There’s Al Gore’s liberal television network, which seems rather too well-intentioned to be true. And there is talk of the launch of a radio network featuring liberal shock jocks.

And now there’s the prospect of a genuine, old-fashioned, hire-some-good-writers-and-give-them-space-to-write, rough-up-the-president-and-the-nabobs magazine.

Well, it could happen.

You go so far in one direction that common sense suggests the real opportunity lies in the other. Right?
http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_89…

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IS OUR PRESIDENT A LIAR OR SIMPLY A STUPID IDIOT?
Back in 1998, when President Bill Clinton looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he lied to the American people. For that he was impeached, and the country was subjected to two years of chaos.

And in 1973, when President Richard Nixon looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "I am not a crook," he lied to the American people and was forced to resign.

Which brings us to January of 2003, when George W. Bush looked squarely into a television camera lens and said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." He went on to say that "our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

Neither of these assertions was true. In fact, the story about the African uranium had been exposed as bogus by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency three months earlier, and articles were printed about it in several major newspapers.

Nor are these the only examples of presidential mendacity that have led to the deaths of more than 200 American and British soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians. In October, 2002, Bush told listeners in Cincinnati, Ohio, that satellite photos showed Iraq to be rebuilding its nuclear facilities and that it possessed a "growing fleet" of unmanned aerial vehicles designed for "missions targeting the United States."

Only two possible explanations exist for these repeated falsehoods. Either Bush was lying to the American people or he was repeating lies told to him by others. If the latter is true, he is even more of a bumpkin than a majority of the nation`s voters thought he was in the contested election of 2000.

But if the former is true -- that the President of the United States led the country into an unprecedented "war of pre-emption" based on information that he knew to be counterfeit -- Bush is guilty of high crimes on a level never dreamed of by Nixon or Clinton.

Is he a bumpkin or is he a war criminal? We will probably never know. The Republican-controlled Senate and House both have elected to hold closed-door hearings on the matter.

Even as American boys and girls continue to fight and die in the desert sand.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/editorial115.html

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-bush…
THE WORLD


More Teams Sent to Liberia as Bush Promises He`ll Be Prudent
Assessors will help the president finalize a decision on a U.S. role there. He again calls on the nation`s leader to step down.
By Edwin Chen
Times Staff Writer

July 10, 2003

PRETORIA, South Africa — President Bush vowed Wednesday to guard against over- deploying U.S. troops around the world even as he dispatched new military assessment teams to Africa to help him finalize the precise American role in peacekeeping efforts in Liberia.

"We won`t overextend our troops — period," Bush said during a joint news conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Bush reiterated his pledge of some form of U.S. participation in enforcing the current cease-fire in Liberia, but he stopped well short of committing combat forces to the civil-war-racked West African nation.

The president suggested that U.S. troops might confine their mission there to conducting training sessions and providing technical support.

"I think our money has helped train seven battalions of peacekeepers amongst African troops. And it`s a sensible policy for us to continue that training mission — so that we never do get overextended," Bush said.

"And so one of the things you`ll see us do is reinvigorate the strategy of helping people help themselves by providing training opportunities," he said. "I think we`ve trained five Nigerian battalions, if I`m not mistaken, one Senegalese But it`s in our interest that we continue that strategy so that we don`t ever get overextended."

The latest dispatch of assessors appears all but certain to further delay a final decision by Bush on Liberia.

"It`s going to take some time for the assessments to come in, and they`ve got some thorough work ahead of them," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Wednesday.

In an interview with BBC World News, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sounded an equally noncommittal note about deployment of combat troops to Liberia. "It`s a judgment we have to make. The president is considering all of his options," Powell said.

It was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill, who revealed Bush`s directive to the Pentagon to send small teams to some member nations of the Economic Community of West African States to determine the readiness of their soldiers to back a peace effort in Liberia.

"Until the assessment teams come back, it seems to me that we will not have a good grip on what we would propose to the president" for Liberia, Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

This week, an initial U.S. military team arrived in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. The group, which encountered a delay at a roadblock controlled by troops loyal to Liberian President Charles Taylor, has begun visiting camps for thousands of people displaced by the unrest.

The additional teams ordered by Bush, according to Rumsfeld, would help "determine the readiness of the ECOWAS forces and the extent to which they may or may not be ready to deploy, and over what period of time, with what type of equipment, having had what type of training."

In his Pretoria news conference, Bush reiterated his demand that Taylor step down. The Liberian leader, who has been charged with war crimes by an international court, has accepted an offer of asylum from Nigeria but has not indicated when he would leave.

Bush, on a five-day tour of Africa, is to visit Nigeria on Saturday. He arrived in Pretoria, South Africa`s administrative capital, late Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Bush and Mbeki met before their wives joined them for lunch.

Though Mbeki opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, all seemed forgiven as he and Bush lavishly praised each other`s leadership in promoting bilateral trade and combating terrorism and regional instability.

Bush toured a Ford Motor Co. plant Wednesday afternoon and then dined with U.S. and South African business executives.

Today, Bush goes to Botswana, where he is to promote his $15-billion global anti-AIDS initiative as well as trade.

The president and his wife also were scheduled to tour the Mokolodi Nature Reserve there.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-agen…
THE WORLD

Newspaper Publisher Arrested as Iraq Agent
The Chicago-area man kept tabs on opposition groups, U.S. says. A dossier found in Baghdad led authorities to him.
By Richard B. Schmitt And Eric Slater
Times Staff Writers

July 10, 2003

WASHINGTON — An Arab-language newspaper publisher was arrested Wednesday in a Chicago suburb on charges of being an agent of Saddam Hussein, spying on the Iraqi opposition in the United States with such James Bond-style gear as a pen containing a hidden microphone and camera.

The alleged agent, Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi — codenamed Sirhan — was accused of funneling information on Iraqi opposition groups in the United States to secret agents working under diplomatic cover at the United Nations, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

Dumeisi, 60, is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, and could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Arrested at his home in Oak Lawn, Dumeisi appeared briefly in federal court, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Bobrick set a preliminary hearing for July 17.

The complaint spins a tale of phony press credentials and journalistic Deep Throats, including a girlfriend of an unidentified Iraqi opposition leader, who allegedly betrayed her lover by supplying to Dumeisi lists of phone numbers he called. Those who know Dumeisi in the small world of Arab American media said he is a minor player, publishing a once- or twice-monthly newspaper that has shifted its focus over the years but emphasized Iraq in recent months, often criticizing U.S. policy to remove Saddam Hussein.

According to the complaint, Dumeisi was recruited by Iraqi agents in 1998, about the same time he started Around-the-World News, a publishing company whose periodicals included the monthly Al-Mahjar, which had offices in suburban Burbank, Ill. The government said the arrest was triggered by a dossier found in April at an Iraqi Intelligence Service safe house in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Justice Department officials stressed that Dumeisi was not being charged with espionage, but said the charge against him was serious. Federal law requires that individuals other than diplomatic officers who work for foreign governments register with the attorney general.

"Those who gather information in the United States about people living in America for the purpose of providing the information to hostile governments should understand that the FBI will pursue them vigorously," Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, said in a prepared statement.

Dumeisi`s attorney, James Fennerty, said his client has been cooperating with federal authorities since 1999, and in May testified before a grand jury.

Fennerty said he met briefly with Dumeisi on Wednesday and the two were considering how to proceed — and trying to determine precisely what the government is after.

Dumeisi is Palestinian-born but holds a Jordanian passport, and has lived legally in the United States for about a decade, according to his lawyer. He is divorced and has seven children, six of them U.S. citizens.

In interviews with the FBI, Dumeisi acknowledged that he had regular contact with Iraqi personnel at the U.N., but said it was for purely journalistic reasons. According to the complaint, he also acknowledged that he regularly traveled to the U.N. mission to attend events such as the invitation-only celebration of Saddam Hussein`s birthday in April.

The government said Dumeisi produced press identification cards for Iraqi intelligence officers, giving them access to conferences and public gatherings that they could otherwise not attend because of restrictions imposed on travel in the United States by foreign diplomats.

Dumeisi also periodically received money — $2,000 or $3,000 — from Iraqi personnel at the U.N. to keep tabs on the Iraqi opposition in America, the complaint said. One of his U.N. contacts, Abdul Rahman I.K. Saad, was expelled by the State Department in June 2002 on suspicion of spying on the U.S., according to the complaint.

His sources of information included a woman who worked for a long-distance phone company who was "romantically involved with a man who was a possible future president of Iraq," according to court papers.

The documents said she gave Dumeisi a list of phone numbers the man called after Dumeisi "offered to help her learn more about him." The government said Dumeisi provided the phone information to the Iraqi U.N. mission.

He also received instruction on the craft of intelligence from the intelligence service, and was trained to use a pen with a hidden camera and microphone, which he used to record an interview of an Iraqi opposition member, "clipped to the center of his shirt near the buttons for it to work better," according to the government.

Dumeisi allegedly had a cellular telephone conversation every Thursday at 1 p.m. with Iraqi personnel at the U.N., and allegedly developed a rudimentary code system to communicate with them. During a search of his home, a copy of the code turned up tucked inside the sleeve of a pocket calendar, the documents said. The FBI said that when he sensed danger, Dumeisi would convey the message that his car was inoperable.

The FBI said it had been investigating Dumeisi for more than four years. But officials said evidence pointing to an Iraqi agent in the United States didn`t surface until this spring when members of the Iraqi National Congress obtained a dossier from an Iraqi intelligence safe house in Iraq.

The file included reports of the activities of an agent — codenamed Sirhan — identified in the report as having a "pro-Iraqi/Arab newspaper in Chicago called the Al-Mahjar."

The government said three former employees who worked with Dumeisi at Al-Mahjar were cooperating in the investigation, as was an admitted former Iraqi intelligence officer who met Dumeisi two years ago at the Iraqi Mission to the U.N.

Dumeisi`s newspaper was initially called Palestine, but in 1996 he changed it to Al-Mahjar — The Immigrant Community, said Yusef Shebli of the Arab Community Radio Program on WPNA-AM in Chicago.

Dumeisi`s motivation was apparently all business — to broaden the scope of the paper and avoid scaring off prospective advertisers. Dumeisi worked at the Arab Community Radio Program for a short time in the late 1990s.

According to Shebli and others, Al-Mahjar is, for the most part, a one-man show, a pro-Hussein mouthpiece for a limelight-seeking Dumeisi.

"He didn`t make the paper for the community," Shebli said. "He made it for himself. He wanted to be the most important Arab journalist in Chicago. He tried to use the paper to get into social circles."

"But," Shebli added, "I doubt he posed any danger to anyone."

Ray Hanania, a Middle East analyst and syndicated columnist who has known Dumeisi for several years, said the publisher declined to join the National Arab-American Journalists Assn. because he felt it focused too much on U.S. interests in the Middle East.

Like other associates and neighbors, Hanania described Dumeisi as kind, gentle and rather unassuming. If he acted as a foreign agent without registering as one, as the government alleges, he seems an unlikely spy, associates said.

"If Saddam Hussein was relying on him for spying, I know there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Hanania said. "There really aren`t that many Iraqis here who need to be spied on. It`s not like you`re talking about the shah of Iran and his family."

Dumeisi is at least the second person in recent months to be charged with acting as an illegal Iraqi agent. A similar charge was brought in April against Raed Rokan al-Anbuke, the son of a former Iraqi diplomat in New York, who was accused of purchasing a miniature camera for an Iraqi intelligence officer and supplying information about Iraqis in the United States.

Schmitt reported from Washington and Slater from Chicago.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-terror1…
EDITORIAL


Jump-Starting 9/11 Inquiry

July 10, 2003

Sometimes it takes an outsider to state the obvious, to make an apt comparison. Rohan Gunaratna, a one-man terrorism think tank and author of "Inside Al Qaeda," did that job Wednesday in telling the special 9/11 commission that U.S. and other Western leaders of the 1990s allowed Afghanistan to become "a kind of terrorist Disneyland," offering unrestricted opportunity to train attackers and plan assaults.

As the Bush administration`s Afghan recovery effort stumbles, as Al Qaeda pulls itself together and as U.S. cities seek to provide terrorism protection without going bankrupt, it is more important than ever to know what went wrong before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon and how to prevent new ones. The commission obviously needs full and free access to experts inside as well as outside government.

The commission chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and the panel`s vice chairman, former U.S. Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), accused the administration Tuesday of hamstringing their work. Kean and Hamilton were understandably reluctant to charge the administration with deliberately impeding their inquiry, but what else could the statement they released have meant in noting the mandatory, intimidating presence of what Kean called the "minders," or agency colleagues, who are always present at interviews with intelligence officials?

Recall the minders that Saddam Hussein sent with Iraqi scientists who were interviewed by weapons inspectors. No one would liken the United States to Iraq, but it is a mistake to create such obvious echoes.

Other agencies are described as barely cooperating. The CIA is reported to be foot-dragging on requests for internal documents, including the crucial daily memorandums sent to the president. The Defense Department has failed to respond to requests for information about national air defenses. In general, said Kean and Hamilton, "delays are lengthening."

The administration — which opposed the creation of the independent commission, then reluctantly endorsed it — may still succeed in crippling its work. If government agencies can string out the process long enough, the commission won`t be able to meet its congressional deadline of May for producing a substantive report. Congress should extend the deadline by six months. But time alone isn`t enough. "Every lost day complicates our work," Kean noted.

President Bush should make up for lost time by meeting with the commission members at the White House to listen to their complaints and then send a clear signal that he fully supports their work.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wedgwoo…
COMMENTARY



Justice, and Security Too
Military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay are proper and necessary
By Ruth Wedgwood

July 10, 2003

To the operatives of Al Qaeda, war against the West is not a metaphor.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the group tried to decapitate the U.S. government, using civilian airplanes as missiles in a surprise attack. America`s right to return fire against this declared adversary was recognized by the U.S. Congress, NATO and the United Nations Security Council. U.S. forces took to the field under the laws of war and captured and routed Taliban and Al Qaeda combatants. Under the usual protocols of armed conflict, captured fighters can be interned as enemy combatants until hostilities are over.

But there is an important moral difference between Al Qaeda and ordinary soldiers — for Al Qaeda has deliberately waged war against civilians. In recognition of this, the Pentagon announced July 3 that six of the captured combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prosecuted for war crimes in military tribunals — the first American prosecutions of foreign soldiers since World War II.

Critics of tribunals have complained that the judge, jury and defense attorneys are military personnel and that portions of the proceedings can be kept secret; a conviction is handed down on a two-thirds vote.

But the choice of a military forum is the right one. In fact, the Geneva Convention demands the use of military tribunals for war crimes cases. The rationale is that military fact-finders will understand and share a common interest in a protective law of war. A Guantanamo defendant will have free choice among a panel of military defense counsel and can retain civilian counsel as well. The Geneva treaty also allows criminal proof involving sensitive operational information to be presented behind closed doors. And Geneva does not require more than a majority verdict.

The procedural rules for the Guantanamo war crimes trials were debated for 18 months in the light of the Geneva principles and the particular problems presented by Al Qaeda, which has proved adept at exploiting disclosures of U.S. intelligence methods.

The basic framework was settled only after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought the advice of bipartisan wise men. These included Lloyd Cutler (White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton), Bernard Meltzer (a Nuremberg prosecutor and University of Chicago law professor) and William Webster (a judge and chief of the FBI under Carter and of the CIA under President Reagan).

There was a hubbub, to be sure, when the White House issued a preliminary order on enemy prisoners in November 2001. But the subsequent rules were written with a sensibility that takes full account of modern standards of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The rules respect the common law`s presumption of innocence in favor of the defendant, burden of proof on the government, right to cross-examination of witnesses, right to call defense witnesses, mandated disclosure of any exculpatory evidence and requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt. Any finding of guilt must be rendered by a two-thirds vote, and a death sentence must be unanimous. All convictions will be reviewed by an independent appellate panel with one or more civilian members endowed with the authority to reverse judgments for serious errors of law. Members of the media are entitled to witness the full trial proceedings, except when classified or sensitive information is presented.

In ordinary civilian trials, there is no significant cost to sharing everything the government knows. But this does not hold true against the background of Al Qaeda`s stated ambition to mount new attacks. In partial concession, the tribunal rules provide that discrete pieces of evidence may be presented in closed court and, indeed, may need to be examined by the military defense counsel rather than by the defendant.

This is not ideal and may be a good reason to delay some trials until the operational backbone of Al Qaeda is broken. But the call for timely trials must make its peace with the equal right of civilians to be guarded against Al Qaeda`s violence. As Winston Churchill aptly noted in October 1940: "I do not relish laying bare to the enemy all our internal resources."

There will surely be practical adjustments to the procedures as problems are encountered. Working through these will depend on the good-faith efforts of military judges, zealous defense counsel and fair-minded prosecutors. The president`s order for military tribunals has one guiding principle: to provide a full and fair trial for any accused, while upholding the laws of war.


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Ruth Wedgwood is a professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University and was one of the advisors to the Department of Defense on implementing rules for the military tribunals. This article appears here by special arrangement with London`s Financial Times.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Imports inundate Iraq under new U.S. policy
Consumers revel, but manufacturers cut jobs, close down
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, July 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/…


Baghdad -- Along the streets of this city, sidewalks are crowded with huge boxes containing televisions, kitchen appliances, air conditioners and stereos.

Almost overnight, it seems, Baghdad has been turned into a vast emporium of imported goods.

It`s part of a bold yet risky economic strategy by the U.S. occupation authorities, who have eliminated all import taxes for goods coming to Iraq at the same time they are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy through cash payments to government workers.

As a result, many Iraqis are getting their first taste of the consumer- oriented good life in many years, and they are snapping up imported goods right and left.

But the boom has come at a high price because it has accelerated the closure of hundreds of factories. After 12 years of economic crisis and strict import regulations under U.N. sanctions, Iraqi manufacturers cannot begin to compete with the price and quality of foreign goods. The closures, in turn, have thrown large numbers of people out of work, increasing social tensions at a time when public dissatisfaction with the U.S. occupation is growing to dangerous levels.


HAPPY CONSUMER
Nevertheless, some Iraqis welcome the change. Tarik Assad seemed the paragon of prosperity Tuesday as he lugged a new kitchen stove into the trunk of his car in Baghdad`s Kerradeh district. The four-burner, Chinese-made model had cost only $90 -- a great bargain, he said.

Under Saddam Hussein, the same model cost about $150, more than a month`s salary in Assad`s job as an accountant for the national oil ministry. Now, the $90 is less than half his new monthly salary of $200.

"Thank God," he said. "My wife will be happy."

Like many of Iraq`s 1 million state employees, Assad was recently given a two-month, lump-sum payment by the U.S. occupation authorities, who are trying to dampen public anger with a flood of cash. Salaries for lower and midlevel positions were increased -- in some cases dramatically -- while pay for top- level officials was cut.

With so much new cash in the economy, shopkeepers are busy trying to keep up with the buying frenzy.

"Most of my customers are state workers who recently were paid," said store owner Mohammed Basem. "For many people, this is the first time they`ve bought an appliance in many years."

Basem said his store is now grossing $7,000 to $12,000 per day. Under Hussein, it was bringing in only $2,000 to $7,000 per month.


MANUFACTURERS DISPLEASED
The losers in the new economy, however, are complaining loudly. Textile plants and clothing factories have been devastated by the influx of cheap clothing, much of it made in China.

Other homegrown operations have also been damaged by the open-door import policy.

Under Hussein`s regime, for example, imported beer and sodas were subject to 150 percent customs duties. After the war, local bottling plants were shut down and imported beverages -- now free of tariffs -- have taken over the market. Streets and highways throughout the nation are festooned with pyramids of brightly colored Saudi and Syrian soda cans, stacked up by vendors to advertise their wares.

"Without customs duties, the domestic producers cannot sell," said Khamis Al-Abed, head of a large consortium that includes one of Iraq`s largest soft- drink distributors. "It`s not a very good economic policy."

Even before the war, Iraq was in severe recession. Last year, the gross domestic product was $25 billion, according to U.S. estimates, one-fifth of its 1979 level. This year, it is expected to fall to about $15 billion.

The nation`s farmers are also being jolted by the elimination of most agricultural subsidies, which were generous under Hussein.

Mohammed Juad Hussein, whose Al-Helli Chicken Co. has been dormant since March 30, used to be one of the nation`s largest chicken butchers. Now, he says he simply can`t compete against containers full of American Tyson chicken legs, which are shipped to the Middle East at bargain-basement prices because Americans prefer white meat to dark.

Hussein says domestic Iraqi chicken costs $1.30 per kilo (2.2 pounds) to produce, while it retails for only $1.25. Before the war, heavy government subsidies cut his costs, and most production was sold back to the government at a guaranteed profit that worked out to about 13 cents per kilo.

He has laid off all but 20 of the firm`s 140 workers. The fate of the rest, he says, "is in the hands of Allah."


BREMER`S POLICY
Iraq`s new economy is largely the work of L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, who has argued forcefully in favor of a free-market system, including rapid privatization of state-owned industries.

"We have succeeded in opening Iraq`s borders and bringing modern free-trade policies here," he said last week. But he acknowledged that his policies are running into heavy opposition from Iraqis.

"I certainly believe that privatization is the way to go for Iraq, to put its obsolete state-run Stalinist industry system back into productive use," he said. "But I recognize that it`s a sensitive subject, and I don`t see any consensus among the Iraqis on it. So it will be a subject for the (soon-to-be- named) Iraqi governing council to discuss."

The debate may be repeated throughout the Middle East. In early May, President Bush proposed a U.S.-Middle East free trade area to cover the region`s 22 nations. He called the proposal "an expanding circle of opportunity, to provide hope for the people who live in the region."

Many Iraqis say the U.S. economic shakeup in Iraq is ill-advised. "We need a free trade system, but only within an institutional basis, as part of a comprehensive package," said Hamid Al-Jumaily, a professor at Al-Nahrein University in Baghdad and one of the country`s leading economists.

"At present, there is no economic policy as such, either by (private) business enterprise or by government. Just opening the borders and eliminating tariffs isn`t free trade."

E-mail Robert Collier at [e-mail].

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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A vulnerable nation

Thursday, July 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/10/ED44…


AS EARLY as September 1999, former U.S. Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, co-chairs of the U.S. Commission on National Security, warned that "Americans will likely die on American soil, possible in large numbers" as the result of terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, their study elicited little national attention from either elected officials or the media.

After Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush declared war on terrorism and promised to defend the homeland. But are we any safer today than we were two years ago?

Not according to a new report released by a panel sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and co-authored by Rudman and former White House terrorism and cyber-security chief Richard A. Clarke. The study concludes that frontline emergency responders -- police, public health providers, firefighters and emergency health workers -- are dangerously unprepared and seriously underfunded to prevent or cope with a catastrophic attack on American soil. They blame the shortfall on a lack of national standards, bureaucratic red tape and politicized appropriations that ignore population densities and give Wyoming $36 per person, but only $9 to California, with its many ports and permeable border.

At the same time, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group, released a study that describes a serious shortage (of skilled medical and scientific staff in federal agencies) who are capable of coping with a bio- terrorism attack.

For two years, critics have accused the Bush administration of failing to fund anti-terrorism efforts adequately, right here, at home. It appears they were right -- a sad commentary on a government that has pledged to fight a global war on terrorism

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Unending war raises Iraq toll

Thursday, July 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/10/ED25…


THE BUSH administration must speed up the job of nation-building in militarily defeated Iraq. It`s either that or create the impression -- even the awful reality -- that our forces may be stuck there in an unwinnable guerrilla war.

"Victory" over the armed forces of Saddam Hussein has lost much of its martial luster since the president declared the end of major combat 10 weeks ago. "Success" in the war is looking less definitive than it did the day our troops took Baghdad. Large pieces of unfinished business from the Bush-ordered invasion include tracking the whereabouts of the ousted dictator and any of the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to have.

Our occupation of Iraq`s urban areas has been marred by delays in the restoration of water supplies, sanitation and electricity. The loss of police protection leaves civilians at the mercy of thugs and looters. Vandals have devastated parts of the civil infrastructure that survived combat unscathed, and have delayed the economic revival of the country.

Most serious for the 150,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq is the continuance of hit-and-run attacks by guerrilla bands and individual assassins. Thirty American soldiers have been killed and dozens of others wounded since May 1. The Defense Department is reluctant to label this a developing guerrilla phase of the conflict, as opposed to isolated actions by criminals and pro-Hussein die-hards.

The extended violence, though, obviously has the coherent aim of undermining the U.S.-led reconstruction, targeting Iraqis enlisted in the postwar program as well as GIs on peacekeeping duty. A particularly bad blow was the bombing last weekend of a U.S.-supported class of Iraqi police cadets in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing seven and wounding more than 70.

Resistance to occupation is focused in areas populated by the Sunni Muslim minority, which rode high when Hussein was boss and the southern Shiite majority and northern Kurds were harshly treated.

The anti-U.S. insurgency, trading on Iraqis` fear that a vengeful Hussein could return to power, makes it all the more desirable to discover the fate of the missing tyrant. Washington has put a $25 million bounty on his head, and $15 million on each of his sons.

But the frequency of guerrilla attacks also points to the urgency of putting the interim governance of Iraq in the hands of responsible Iraqis who are representative of the country`s various factions. The Bush administration, represented on the scene by L. Paul Bremer, seems to be relenting from the idea of withholding for a protracted period the grant of real authority to Iraqi leaders pending elections for a new permanent government.

A "governing council" of returned exiles and former Iraqi opposition leaders may soon be given a measure of power, including the right to form an Iraqi national security force. Washington should move swiftly to put Iraqis in democratic control of their own affairs, and end the GIs` deadly tasks of postwar occupation.

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What`s the exit strategy?
Ruth Rosen
Thursday, July 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/10/ED14…


I KEEP WONDERING what Secretary of State Colin Powell really thinks about the war in Iraq and the fact that we appear to have no exit strategy.

A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell was determined to prevent another military quagmire. In the early 1990s, he developed the Powell Doctrine, a set of criteria for using military force. War, he said, should be a last resort, the purpose should reflect a well-defined national interest and enjoy strong public support, and once decided, should be executed with overwhelming force and have a clear exit strategy.

With astonishing hubris, the Bush administration dumped the Powell Doctrine,

with its many restraints, for a pre-emptive war strategy that had none. But Powell`s criteria were right on target. The ostensible reason for the war -- that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States -- is proving to be untrue. So far, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Despite protestations from the military, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld deployed just enough troops to secure Baghdad and a quick military victory, but not enough personnel to keep the peace. And, most ominously, there is no exit strategy.

The results are not pretty.

For the Iraqi people, it is a blazingly hot, deeply disillusioning summer. Widespread looting, squalor, crippling shortages, massive unemployment, contaminated water, insufficient electricity and pervasive lawlessness have given rise to questions fueled by suspicion and distrust. Why can`t the Americans provide electricity and basic services? Why do they postpone elections? Do they really want democracy in Iraq, or a hand-picked puppet government that will assure them control over our oil?

Happy to be liberated from a monstrous dictatorship, the Iraqi people worry about an indefinite occupation. In April, the world watched as the statue of Saddam Hussein, which had long dominated Fardus Square in Baghdad, was pulled down to the ground. Today, however, few people see what the BBC recently broadcast, the graffiti written on the stump of its base: "All Done: Go Home."

For American and British troops, it is an equally hot and disillusioning summer. Victory came swiftly, but now the troops are spread too thinly and face the terror of guerrilla attacks. Snipers in speeding cars shoot at soldiers who patrol streets and guard checkpoints. The opposition, armed with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and light mortars, ambushes them with terrifying frequency.

Extended deployments have only added to the troops` growing demoralization. One officer from the U.S. Army`s 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq told the Christian Science Monitor, "Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I`ve seen has hit rock bottom." Another Army officer, describing his troops, said, "They vent to anyone who will listen. They write letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them walk around looking visibly tired and depressed. . .."

The war in Iraq, as one historian recently said, is like Vietnam on crack cocaine. Global protests started before the war began. Official deception was exposed within weeks. Troops have become demoralized after months, not years. And within a relatively short time, public opinion has already shifted. A Gallup Poll conducted for USA Today and CNN on July 1 revealed that the number of Americans who think the war is not going well has jumped from 13 to 42 percent since Bush declared the "mission accomplished." Now 56 percent believe it was worth going to war in Iraq, down from 73 percent in April.

Like ghosts from the past, words and phrases from the Vietnam-era -- quagmire, credibility gap, guerrilla war, winning the hearts and minds of civilians, requests for more troops -- are creeping back into military and public parlance.

But this is not Vietnam. Finding an exit strategy in Iraq is far more complicated. There is no government that can negotiate a peace treaty with the United States. Until Iraq has a strong government, one that can provide basic services and protect its people, withdrawal of occupation forces is inconceivable.

Perhaps the military mess in Iraq can at least remind Americans how and why the Powell Doctrine, with all its reasonable restraints, prevented the United States from plunging -- until now -- into another unnecessary and perhaps unwinnable war.

Meanwhile, if the Bush administration -- which never articulated clear post- war plans -- has an exit strategy, what is it? The Iraqi people, our military forces and the American public have a right to know.

E-mail Ruth Rosen at [e-mail]

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Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Attacks
Thu July 10, 2003 07:13 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier in Iraq was shot dead and another was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on Wednesday, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
The latest deaths bring to 31 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. One soldier was killed when his convoy came under small arms fire near Al Mahmudiyah, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, at around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the military said.

Around four hours later, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a convoy north of Baghdad, killing a soldier from the U.S. army`s Fourth Infantry Division and wounding another, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

U.S. officials have blamed isolated remnants of Saddam Hussein`s security forces for the attacks on their troops. But some Iraqis say the attacks reflect more widespread opposition to the U.S.-led occupation of their country.

The Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera reported on Thursday it had received a message claiming responsibility for attacks on U.S. forces from a group called the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance which said it had no ties to Saddam.

Two audio tapes purportedly recorded by Saddam have called on Iraqis to fight the occupation. U.S. officials have said the tapes may encourage Saddam loyalists to carry out attacks but they insist Iraqis will realize over time Saddam is finished.

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Bush spricht von Sicherheitsproblem im Irak

Zuletzt aktualisiert: 10 July 2003 13:43 CEST Drucken Sie diesen Artikel
http://www.reuters.de/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&Stor…

Bagdad/Gaborone (Reuters) - Angesichts der anhaltenden tödlichen Angriffe auf Besatzungssoldaten im Irak hat US-Präsident George W. Bush von einem Sicherheitsproblem in dem Golfstaat gesprochen. Dort wurden erneut zwei US-Soldaten getötet.
"Es ist wichtig für uns, den Kurs fortzusetzen. Wir werden den Kurs fortsetzen", sagte Bush am Donnerstag während seines Besuchs in Botswana. Zuvor hatte das US-Militär mitgeteilt, ein US-Soldat sei am Mittwochabend im Irak getötet worden, als sein Konvoi unter Beschuss geraten sei. Einige Stunden später sei ein zweiter Soldat durch eine Granate getötet worden. Zuvor hatte das Militär von Angriffen in vier Städten berichtet, darunter Falludscha. Die dortige irakische Polizei forderte die US-Truppen zum Abzug auf, weil ihre Präsenz sie gefährde. Die BBC berichtete unterdessen, führende Mitglieder der britischen Regierung glaubten nicht mehr, dass Massenvernichtungswaffen in Irak gefunden würden. Dieser Vorwurf war für Großbritannien und den USA der wesentliche Kriegsgrund.

Seit Bush am 1. Mai das Ende der Kriegshandlungen erklärt hatte, sind die Besatzungssoldaten fast täglich Ziel irakischer Angriffe geworden. 31 US-Soldaten und sechs britische Soldaten wurden dabei getötet. In Gaborone in Botswana sagte Bush, die anhaltenden Angriffe seien ein Sicherheitsproblem, gegen das die USA hart vorgehen würden. "Wir werden uns einen nach dem anderen vornehmen." Die US-Soldaten würden im Irak bleiben.

Bei den Angriffen am Mittwochabend wurde nach Angaben eines Militärsprechers zudem ein Soldat verletzt. Wo sie sich ereigneten war zunächst unklar. Das US-Militär hatte zuvor mitteilt, in der Stadt Ramadi seien drei Granaten auf US-Soldaten abgefeuert worden. Auch in Tikrit, der Heimatstadt des gestürzten Präsidenten Saddam Hussein, und in Balad seien die Soldaten beschossen worden. Augenzeugen berichteten zudem, eine irakische Polizeiwache und ein städtisches Gebäude in Falludscha bei Bagdad seien beschossen worden.

IRAKISCHE POLIZEI DROHT MIT EINSTELLUNG DER ARBEIT

"Wir sind in der Lage, diese Orte zu verteidigen", sagte der Polizeichef von Falludscha, Rijadh Abdel-Latif. "Die Anwesenheit der Amerikaner bringt uns aber in Gefahr. Wir haben die Amerikaner vor mehr als eineinhalb Monaten aufgefordert, Falludscha zu verlassen." Mehr als 100 Polizisten, die von den USA ausgebildet wurden, demonstrierten in Falludscha gegen die US-Besatzungstruppen und forderten ihren Abzug. Andernfalls würden sie innerhalb von 48 Stunden ihre Arbeit einstellen, hieß es in einer Petition an den Bürgermeister und den US-Kommandeur.

Falludscha ist wie Ramadi zunehmend ein Zentrum des Widerstandes gegen die US-Truppen. Auf Saddam zugeschriebenen Tonbändern wurden die Iraker erst vor wenigen Tagen zum Kampf gegen die Besatzungstruppen aufgerufen. Saddam wurde mit dem Einmarsch der US-Truppen am 9. April in Bagdad gestürzt. Es ist unklar, ob er noch am Leben ist.

Die USA und ihr engster Verbündeter Großbritannien hatten den Irak-Krieg unter anderem damit begründet, dass das Land Massenvernichtungswaffen besitze. Führende britische Minister glaubten aber nicht mehr, dass solche Waffen in Irak gefunden würden, berichtete der britische Rundfunksender BBC. "Sie glauben, dass es solche Waffen gab, .. aber dass die Waffen, die Kübel voll gefährlichem Material, die rostenden Raketen verfügbar wären, glauben sie immer weniger." Die beste Erklärung, die gegenwärtig im Umlauf sei, laute, dass Saddam die Waffen kurz vor Kriegsbeginn zerstört oder versteckt habe.

Ein Sprecher von Premierminister Tony Blair wies den BBC-Bericht zurück. Blair habe erst am Dienstag bekräftigt, er glaube, dass die Waffen gefunden würden.

US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld hatte am Mittwoch erklärt, die USA seien nicht wegen völlig neuer Informationen über Massenvernichtungswaffen in den Krieg gegen Irak gezogen, sondern weil sie vorhandene Informationen nach den Anschlägen am 11. September 2001 in einem anderen Licht betrachtet hätten.

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/130179_herbert10.html

Bush wants to deny right to overtime pay
Thursday, July 10, 2003

By BOB HERBERT
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

When I started in the newspaper business I made so little money I had to work part time in my father`s upholstery shop to make ends meet. So I`d spend the days chasing stories and struggling with deadlines and the nights wrestling with beat-up sofas and chairs.

Then the editors at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., began asking me to work overtime on the copy desk, dreaming up headlines and doing some editing. The extra time-and-a-half pay was just enough to keep me solvent and out of the upholstery shop. And the copy desk experience was invaluable.

Now suppose the editors had been able to tell me to work the extra hours on the copy desk without paying me overtime. I couldn`t have afforded to do it and might have left the paper.

The Bush administration, which has the very bad habit of smiling at working people while siphoning money from their pockets, is trying to change the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in a way that could cause millions of workers to lose their right to overtime pay.

The act, one of the last major domestic reform measures of the New Deal, gave Americans the 40-hour work week and a minimum wage (which began at 25 cents an hour in the late 1930s). It wiped out grueling 12-hour days for many workers and prohibited the use of child labor in interstate commerce.

The act`s overtime regulations have not been updated since 1975, and part of what the administration is proposing makes sense. Under existing rules only workers earning less than $8,060 a year automatically qualify for overtime. That would be raised to $22,100 a year.

But then comes the bad news. Nearly 80 percent of all workers are in jobs that qualify them for overtime pay, which is time-and-a-half for each hour that is worked beyond the normal 40-hour week. The administration wants to make it easier for employers to exempt many of those workers from overtime protection by classifying them as administrative, professional or executive personnel.

The quickest way to determine who is getting the better of this deal is to note that business groups are applauding the proposed changes while the AFL-CIO held a protest rally outside the Labor Department last week.

But this is an administration that could figure out a way to sell sunblock to a night crawler. So the rule changes are being spun as a boon to working people.

"By recognizing the professional status of skilled employees, the proposed regulation will provide them a guaranteed salary and flexible hours," said Tammy McCutchen, the Labor Department`s wage and hour administrator.

All spinning aside, I wonder how many Americans really think that working longer hours for less money is a good thing.

A more helpful approach to the issue was offered by the Economic Policy Institute, which found that the proposed changes could ultimately eliminate the right to overtime for 8 million people. That represents an awful lot of cash that would be drawn away from working families.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing the Bush administration is committed to -- undermining a hard-won initiative of Franklin D. Roosevelt`s that has helped many millions of working Americans for more than six decades. It ain`t broke, but George W. Bush is busy fixin` it.

You would think that an administration that has presided over the loss of millions of jobs might want to strengthen the protections of workers fortunate enough to still be employed. But that`s not what this administration is about.

Jared Bernstein, a co-author of the study by the Economic Policy Institute, said, "The new rules are structured in such a way as to create a very strong incentive for employers to exempt workers from overtime protection, primarily by converting hourly workers to salaried workers."

One of the workers who joined last week`s protest at the Labor Department was Bob Adams, a bakery manager at a supermarket chain in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.

When I asked him why he had traveled to Washington for the demonstration, he said: "Because I think we have to put a stop to this. There seems to be a systematic assault on the rights of workers by this administration, and this is a perfect example of it. They tried to push this through as quietly as they could."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob Herbert is a columnist with The New York Times. Copyright 2003 New York Times News Service. E-mail: [e-mail]

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Read this ... prepare for warm chuckle
Simon Hoggart
Wednesday July 9, 2003
The Guardian

The impressionist show Dead Ringers always does Tony Blair with a voiceover of himself instructing himself on how to look and sound in public. "Deep, furrowed brow," you hear him mutter. "Sincere smile, warm chuckle..."

Since most politicians end up looking like their cartoons and sounding like Rory Bremner or John Culshaw, it`s not surprising that we too have come to hear the same voices whisper as he speaks.

Yesterday, for example, he was at the liaison committee, an occasional session at which he answers questions from MPs who are chairmen of other committees. He keeps them for two and a half hours, until some are beginning to whimper for mercy.

Yesterday, before they were felled by the heat and by an overwhelming sense of the sheer pointlessness of human existence, they tried to nail him on the missing weapons of mass destruction and the dodgy dossier.

They failed, as they always do, since he simply denies everything and gives the impression that even to ask such questions is to remove yourself from the comity of decent human society.

He was asked right away if he had misled the Commons over the dodgy dossier.

("Eyes blazing with righteous anger!" we heard.)

"I refute that entirely!" his real voice said, out loud. "We put our case before the House of Commons and the country, and I stand by that case totally!

"It was the right case and we did the right thing!

("Stick out jaw and raise lower lip to give impression of unchallengeable determination," drifted across in our direction.)

"The central allegation that I myself, or anyone else, inserted information into the dossier, that central allegation is completely and totally false - indeed I don`t know anyone who believes it to be true!"

("Turn face away as if you can`t bear to make eye contact with someone who has let such an odious thought creep into his brain.")

The problem is that he looks as if he has a drama coach prompting him from the wings. He mimes anger but doesn`t seem to feel it. He does outrageous without looking truly outraged.

Donald Anderson, who chairs the foreign affairs committee, and who may have felt a little sensitive about claims that his report on Monday was soggy and inconclusive, declared that "the jury is still out".

("Flashing eyes, hands chopping in disbelief")

"Donald, for me, the jury is not out ... I have no doubt at all that the evidence of those weapons will be found, no doubt at all!"

Someone foolishly quoted Clare Short, who claimed that Blair and Bush had decided on the war during talks at Camp David on September 7.

("Look of fierce yet mildly humorous contempt.")

"I can`t actually remember Clare at Camp David..." he replied sarcastically.

("Sycophantic sniggers" - sorry, that was the MPs.)

There was a good moment later when he was being pressed on why the British people will not get a referendum on the new European Union constitution, even though other EU countries will.

("Look of mild exasperation, faint snort of disbelief that anyone can`t see how obvious the answer is.")

"The only reason people are campaigning for a referendum is so they can go out and say `no` - effectively paralysing the EU!"

Which, if you think about it, is the exact equivalent of saying "the only reason people want a general election, is so they can go out and vote for the Tories - effectively paralysing the government!"

("Look of vague innocence; nothing could be further from your mind.")


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Als damals Clinton kam, tanzten die Leute.

On Goree Island, Bush Visit Sparks Anger
Tue July 08, 2003 12:00 PM ET


By Clar Ni Chonghaile
GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (Reuters) - President Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday.

"We are very angry. We didn`t even see him," said Fatou N`diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush`s tour.

N`diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6 a.m. and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday.

Bush came to Goree to tour the red-brick Slave House, where Africans were kept in shackles before being shipped across a perilous sea to a lifetime of servitude.

He then gave an eloquent speech about the horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum, topped by cannon pointing out to the sea.

The cooped-up residents were not impressed.

"It`s slavery all over again," fumed one father-of-four, who did not want to give his name. "It`s humiliating. The island was deserted."

White House officials said the decision to remove the locals was taken by Senegalese authorities. But there was no doubt who the residents blamed.

"We never want to see him come here again," said N`diaye, hiking her loose gown onto her shoulders with a frown.

As the sun rose over Goree before Bush`s arrival, the only people to be seen on the main beach were U.S. officials and secret service agents. Frogmen swam through the shallows and hoisted themselves up to peer into brightly painted pirogues.

Normally, the island teems with tourists, Senegal`s ubiquitous traders, hawkers of cheap African art, photographers offering to take pictures and all the expected trappings of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world`s poorest countries.

On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes were closed and the narrow pier deserted, apart from security agents manning a metal detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship patrolled offshore.

"We understand that you have to have security measures, since September 11, but to dump us in another place...? We had to leave at 6 a.m. I didn`t have time to bathe, and the bread did not arrive," the father-of-four said.

"We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou.

Many residents compared Bush`s hour-long visit unfavorably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

"When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

As the Bush roadtrip moved on, Goree was returning to normal with children once again diving into the shallows and clambering over the now inoffensive pirogues.

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Ed Garvey: `Lucky 6` trials at Cuba`s Camp Delta won`t be fair

By Ed Garvey
July 8, 2003

Who among us has not bragged that America, the conquering hero of World War II, permitted an open trial at Nuremberg for Nazi generals who caused unspeakable death and destruction?

Nuremberg became important to my sense of who we are as a people as I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. We were, by all accounts, the most powerful military force in the world but equally important, our values were just as strong. We could have held secret trials, found them guilty and shot them. We could have deprived them of sleep to gain confessions, and we could have kept the media far from the scene. We could have done lots of things that we believed they would have done to us had the roles been reversed. It is difficult to imagine Hitler holding a trial for American leaders had he conquered the USA. But we did and are proud of it.

True, the "Nuremberg defense" did not prevail, and I`m sure that the Germans would argue that the trials were not a model of due process, but a serious defense was permitted. The Nuremberg defense, you recall, was the notion that officers should be found not guilty because they were "following orders" from their commanders.

One must ask if our values are still in place as we observe the Bush administration`s plans for 600 or so "detainees" held at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Recently it was announced that six of the 600 detainees would have a trial but even the "Lucky 6" are not guaranteed a trial and there is no official explanation why these six were chosen. Presumably, it is not because the evidence against them is flimsy.

Equally important, however, is the fact that, despite reported sleep deprivation tactics to force "confessions" and being held incommunicado from family and friends, should they be found "innocent" they might not be released. Believe it or not, the "Lucky 6" could be held forever if the U.S. government determines they remain "enemy combatants" even if acquitted. One must ask then, why hold trials?

Put yourself among the "Lucky 6." You are not an officer of Hitler`s Germany, Mussolini`s Italy, or Saddam`s Iraq. You can`t speak English. You may or may not have attended a training camp for a group determined by the Pentagon, correctly or incorrectly, to be a "terrorist" group. Now you are in Cuba with temperatures reaching 100 degrees where they permit two showers per week and leave the lights on 24 hours a day. You are mentally disturbed and the isolation is making you sicker. You can`t talk with your parents, you don`t have a lawyer, and you don`t know what crime you are charged with. Hard to defend yourself if you don`t know what you are charged with. On top of that, news sweeps through the camp that the United States is building a death chamber at Camp Delta.

So let`s talk about your trial. There will be a panel of from three to seven Army officers who will decide your fate. The judge will be a military officer called the judge advocate. Conviction does not require a unanimous verdict called for under the U.S. Constitution, only two-thirds. It is unclear what standard of proof will be required. Will it be "beyond a reasonable doubt" or will it be "this guy looks guilty to me"?

Your military attorney will explain your options through an interpreter provided by the prosecution. While he or she was required to agree not to use a common defense with fellow detainees, and it is impossible to believe that you will be permitted to bring witnesses from your home country to testify for you, even at your expense, your lawyer will assure you that the trial will be "fair." For example, you may plead "guilty" and that right will be guaranteed by everyone from Paul Wolfowitz to John Ashcroft.

One other detail. Your military attorney agreed that all conversations between the two of you can and will be monitored by the prosecutors. Then the bad news. If you win your trial you may be returned to your cell indefinitely. If you lose, you can appeal to Paul Wolfowitz. If he turns you down (even Bill Bennett could win that bet), they could walk you down the block and inject you with lethal chemicals. No need for services or burial at home. You will be buried in Cuba. You are an enemy of the state on a par with the top German generals of World War II.

This is truly a glimpse into the soul of George Bush, who was governor of a state that executes people faster and more often than any other state in the Union. George Bush, the man who justified an invasion based on cooked intelligence, has declared that the "Lucky 6" were members of al-Qaida even though they have not been formally charged, there have been no preliminary hearings, and the "Lucky 6" have no attorneys.

The Guardian newspaper reported on the reaction of the Blair government to the fact that two of the "Lucky 6" are from Britain. In what can only be described as a pathetic comment, the Foreign Ministry called for discussions while assuring the Brits that it is unlikely that the two British detainees will face the death penalty.

This is an outrage that must be stopped. Will Democrats seeking the nomination for president find their voice before the United States is found guilty by the civilized world? Will the media take up the cause or are we so Murdochized that we dare not question the president? After all, these prisoners may have those weapons of mass destruction. Can`t be too careful.

Ed Garvey was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1998 and is editor of the Web magazine FightingBob.com. E-mail: [e-mail].

Published: 6:27 AM 7/08/03

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July 10, 2003
Senator Clinton Offers a Cure for Foot-in-Mouth Disease
By MICHAEL WILSON


he other shoe dropped in the publishing and pontificating businesses yesterday. Not the one you talk about eating, but the one you eat.

First, it was announced that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton`s memoir, "Living History," sold one million copies in its first month, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

This meant that Tucker Carlson, a co-host of the CNN program "Crossfire," would have to make good on his promise last month: "If they sell a million copies of this book, I`ll eat my shoes and my tie. I will."

His co-hosts were still just warming up with the jokes on yesterday`s "Crossfire." What kind of shoe, Tucker? Will you use sauce?

That`s when the senator herself popped on the set, in Washington, with a giant brown shoe made of chocolate cake.

"It`s a right-wing wingtip," Mrs. Clinton said to loud applause. She gave him a copy of the memoir, signed: "Tucker, you`re number one million in my book."

"It was a trip," Mr. Carlson said in an interview later. "I had no idea she was coming. My producer had said: `We`re changing the segment. Ignore your scripts.` I said: `Well, gee, Sam, it`s live television. I`d kind of like to know.` Next thing I know, this woman who looks exactly like Hillary Clinton is standing there."

One aspect of Mrs. Clinton will soon begin looking different: her bank account. After the book sells about 1.3 million copies, Mrs. Clinton`s $8 million advance will have been met, and she will begin earning 15 percent of sales, or about $4.20 per book sold, her lawyer, Robert Barnett, said.

CNN replayed the shoe walk-on several times. Mr. Carlson, who called the book "kind of dopey, kind of Midwestern-fifth-grade-girl-scout-leader," said he was impressed with Mrs. Clinton in person.

"I`m easily charmed in general and I`m particularly won over by witty inscriptions, and she had a good inscription," he said. "If Pol Pot came on the show and was charming and witty and good humored and had a good inscription, I`d say, `Well, Pol Pot, charming guy.` "

He said the camera operators ate as much of the shoe cake as they could, and he himself enjoyed a generous portion ("It was excellent"), before they sent the rest to a nearby homeless shelter.

Mrs. Clinton did not have any cake. "The moral here?" Mr. Carlson said. "Mrs. Clinton has self-control."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Zahlen und fakten sind immer gut.

How important is African oil?
President George W Bush is in Africa to launch HIV/Aids, development and anti-terrorism initiatives.
But his visit has also highlighted the growing importance of oil imports for the United States.

The US imports two thirds of its oil needs.

About 15% of that amount comes from West Africa and that figure is projected to rise to 25% in the next 10 years.

The oil sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the fastest growing in the world.


Production has taken off in the Gulf of Guinea which includes Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola and Congo.

By the end of 2003, hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude will be flowing from oil fields in Chad, through rain forests in Cameroon to tankers docked off the Atlantic coast.


Political problems are much more localised in Africa
Douglas Mason, EIU
An American company has secured a concession in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, America is seen as looking to reduce its dependence on the Middle East by looking elsewhere for energy supplies.

Despite a reputation for political and economic stability, oil flows from Africa can be reliable, especially as production often takes place off-shore.

"Usually oil production takes place in enclaves, so continues regardless of what goes on around," said Douglas Mason, Africa specialist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"Political problems are much more localised in Africa."

US military involvement

America may even eventually increase its military presence in the region to secure its oil supplies.

Sao Tome - which has big oil reserves - has invited the US Navy to build a port from which to patrol the Gulf of Guinea.

But some analysts say investing in African oil reserves will not solve all America`s energy problems.

"It is as well to diversify as much as possible. But no one oil source is more reliable than the other," says Robert Mabro, President of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.


Africa and Russia are not going to replace Saudi Arabia which has excess capacity which can stabilise the market
Professor Paul Stevens, Dundee University
"There is a move to reduce reliance on the Middle East but Africa also has its problems. Look at the recent strikes in Nigeria."

Professor of Petroleum and Economics at Dundee University, Paul Stevens describes as "mis-informed" officials in Washington who see African oil as crucially important to the US.

They want to reduce America`s reliance on Saudi Arabia`s goodwill, he says.

"It doesn`t matter where you get it from, it`s how much you pay. If oil cost $60 a barrel in the Middle East, it`s still going to cost $60 in Africa.

"Africa and Russia are not going to replace Saudi Arabia which has excess capacity which can stabilise the market."



Story from BBC NEWS:
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Published: 2003/07/09 11:28:42 GMT

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The UK businessmen trapped in Guantanamo
Arrested in Gambia, interrogated in Afghanistan, abandoned in Cuba

Vikram Dodd
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian

The British government is facing claims that it has abandoned two London businessmen jailed without charge by the US at Guantanamo Bay.

The men`s ordeal began last November, when Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna were arrested by British police at Gatwick airport. Although freed without charge and allowed to travel to Gambia they were rearrested on arrival and detained for a month by local secret police. They were then handed over to US agents who flew them to a CIA interrogation centre at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, before being transferred to Camp Delta in Cuba where they have been held since March.

The men have been jailed for alleged links to al-Qaida. Yet neither they nor their families have been given any information about the substance of the claims against them.

Their supporters say it was the British authorities who passed information to the US which led to their detention. The Foreign Office has denied asking Gambia to arrest them.

Two British nationals who were arrested with them in Gambia, where the businessmen had set up a peanut oil processing plant, were eventually freed after the intervention of the British high commissioner.

But the government, already under fire for failing to help nine other Britons held at Camp Delta, says it will not press US authorities because the men are not British citizens.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, supports such a stance, which Amnesty International calls "scandalous".

Mr Rawi, an Iraqi national, lives in Kingston-upon-Thames, south-west London. He has been a British resident for 19 years and was granted indefinite leave to remain. His brother and sister are both British citizens.

Mr Banna, a Jordanian, was granted refugee status in Britain in 2000 after seeking sanctuary from persecution.

Britain says both men`s countries of birth are the only states who can provide help. But in Mr Rawi`s case, the Iraqi government no longer exists. In fact, the country is run jointly by Britain and the US.

The bizarre chain of events began as the duo prepared to travel to Gambia. Special branch officers visited Mr Banna saying they already knew about his trip. When asked whether they objected, the officers replied that they did not.

The pair were due to travel on November 2, accompanied by Abdullah Eljanoudi, a British national. But as they tried to board the plane at Gatwick all three were arrested under anti-terrorist legislation and taken to a police station in Sussex before being transferred to the high-security Paddington Green station in west London.

Anti-terrorist officers told them the reason for their detention was a suspect device in their luggage - a battery charger. Their lawyer, Gareth Pierce, said they had been freed after an Argos catalogue was produced to prove the charger was widely available.

Six days later the three men flew to Gambia and were met by Mr Rawi`s brother Wahab, a British national.

But on arrival in the capital Banjul, all four were arrested by Gambia`s national intelligence agency.

According to the Rawi family, Gambian agents told one of the brothers that their arrest followed a request from Britain: "Upon asking they were told there were irregularities with their papers. At first, Wahab refused to cooperate with them and asked either for a lawyer or a representative from the British high commission.

"At his request [the Gambian agents] laughed and told him it was the British who have told us to arrest you."

They were held at several locations in Banjul, and interrogated first by NIA agents and then American agents, thought to be from the CIA.

Livio Zilli of Amnesty said: "One of them was reportedly threatened by a US investigator who told him unless he cooperated he would be handed over to the Gambian police who would beat and rape him."

After a month of being held incommunicado, the two British nationals were freed. But Mr Banna and Bisher al-Rawi were transferred to Bagram airbase in January 2003, to a section commonly associated with accusations of torture by US agents.

Steven Watt of the Washington-based Centre for Constitutional Rights said: "It`s curious they were taken to Bagram and not straight to Guantanamo Bay. At Bagram there are two facilities, one run by the CIA where no one, not even the International Committee for the Red Cross, has access. Nobody knows what techniques are used there, but reports of the use of `torture light` have concentrated on the CIA facility at Bagram."

It is thought that they were transferred in March to Guantanamo. Under Camp Delta`s draconian regime, they will have been allowed out of their small cell for 30 minutes each day, and only when shackled.

Their British-based families are now battling to find out any information they can.

The families only discovered where their relatives were being held through letters received via the Red Cross. Neither the British nor US governments had told them anything.

In correspondence to the foreign secretary about British complicity in the arrest, Mr Rawi`s MP, Edward Davey, wrote: "This is not a conspiracy theory ... In Gambia the group were interviewed by American officials. They had a file on Bisher, which must have come from the UK authorities.

"It had information on Bisher`s hobbies that he pursued in the UK ... flying planes and parachuting. Perhaps such hobbies post-September 11 aroused suspicion, but is it illegal to be an Iraqi with a pilot`s licence."

Mr Davey, Liberal Democrat MP for Kingston and Surbiton, said: "My constituent has been in the UK for nearly 20 years, paying taxes and has permanent residency rights and has close British relatives.

"The British government is washing their hands of him. For the UK to say he should get help from a non-existent Iraqi government, when we are jointly governing the country, is beyond Kafkaesque."

Mr Zilli of Amnesty said the British decision not to help Mr Banna was "questionable morally and legally". He added: "We have serious questions about the role the UK may have had in the unlawful rendering to US custody of these people."

In a letter to Mr Davey, the Foreign Office minister Lady Amos denied Britain had asked Gambia to arrest the men. In another letter, Mr Straw denied any government responsibility to help Mr Rawi.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The men detained in Gambia are not British nationals so we`re not able to provide any consular or diplomatic protection for them.

"The other two who are British nationals, when we learned of their detention and sought consular access, were released shortly after the British high commissioner in Gambia intervened."


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Bush tries to placate waverers at home
Gary Younge in New York
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian

President George Bush conceded yesterday America had "a security issue in Iraq" as polls revealed public opinion growing increasingly sceptical about the presence and purpose of US troops in the Gulf.

With the number of American casualties still rising, two months after he declared victory from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the president admitted: "There`s no question we`ve got a security issue in Iraq. We`re going to have to deal with it person-by-person. We`re going to have to remain tough."

Mr Bush`s comments, a marked contrast to the "bring them on" stance of last week, have been prompted by a growing uncertainty about the role of American troops in Iraq among the public and the political establishment.

"We have the world`s best-trained soldiers serving as policemen in what seems to be a shooting gallery," Senator Edward Kennedy told the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, during a Senate armed forces committee hearing on Wednesday. "The lack of a coherent plan is hindering our efforts at internationalisation and aggravating the strain on our troops."

Mr Rumsfeld said there were no definite plans to remove the 145,000 ground troops, but that numbers might be increased. "It seems to me that we have to be prepared to increase our army ... and we have to make that decision soon," he said.

After persistent questioning by a Democratic senator, Mr Rumsfeld`s team telephoned the Pentagon during a break in the hearing, and later revealed that the estimated military cost of the operations had risen from $2bn (£1.2bn) a month to $3.9bn.

General Tommy Franks, the former chief of the US central command, told the committee that continued Iraqi resistance meant troops would not be reduced "for the foreseeable future".

"I anticipate we`ll be involved in Iraq in the future," he said. "Whether that means two years or four years, I don`t know."

"We did anticipate a level of violence," Gen Franks said. "I can`t tell you whether we anticipated it would be ... at the level we see right now."

Meanwhile questions continue to be raised over the accuracy of the intelligence used in the case for war, particularly the claim made by Mr Bush that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger.

The administration, which is under less pressure on this issue than the British government, has already admitted that its intelligence was faulty. But questions remain over how such an error made it into the president`s state of the union address in January.

The concerns raised at the armed services committee during a four-hour hearing on Capitol Hill in many ways mirrored those of the US public.

"The problem here is that Americans are unsure about the future of our involvement in Iraq," the Republican senator John McCain told Mr Rumsfeld, describing the mood as "not disaffection, not anger, but unease".

A poll released by the Pew Research Centre this week shows that only 23% of Americans now believe the military effort in Iraq is going well, compared with 61% in April. The number of those who believe that military efforts are going badly has risen dramatically from 3% early on in the war to 21%. Despite this, 67% think that going into Iraq was the right decision.

Tensions run especially high at military bases where anxious families await the return of troops. Last week a colonel had to be escorted from a meeting with around 800 angry wives of servicemen at a base in Fort Stewart, Georgia.



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Why we were sold only one reason to go to war in Iraq
Blair believed that WMD was the most easily understood threat

Martin Woollacott
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian

Much that was claimed and predicted in the period before the war in Iraq has turned out to be wrong. The forecasts of political upheaval across the Arab world, the anxieties about high American and British casualties, and the fears about the destruction of oil wells turned out to have been as mistaken as the assumptions that Iraqi troops would switch sides, or that large stocks of chemical and biological weapons would swiftly be found, or that Iraqi gratitude would make everything easy after military victory.

This is surely no surprise. It is what happens when decisions are taken, and argued over, as they usually are, on the basis both of incomplete information and of pre-existing tendencies to favour one course of action or another. So even has been the balance of miscalculation between opponents and supporters of the war, in fact, that most have agreed on what amounts to an informal amnesty as far as their own erroneous positions before the conflict are concerned.

But that amnesty manifestly does not apply to the American and British governments, and the hunt in both countries for evidence that intelligence was exaggerated by our leaders has become the principal means through which the argument about the rightness or wrongness of the war is being continued.

Governments bear far more responsibility for getting things wrong or for persuading others into a mistaken view than do people in thinktanks, universities, or in newspapers and broadcasting. Yet, even as distortion of the intelligence evidence is at the centre of this argument, there is something distorted about the argument itself. It does not seem to connect with what people knew, or thought they knew, and with what they were mainly in dispute about before the war.

As the conflict came closer, there was no great division between people who believed that Saddam Hussein represented an immediate threat to western countries and those who did not. There was a consensus along the political spectrum that the Iraqi regime almost certainly possessed some rather limited biological and chemical capacity and might just conceivably have a radiological weapon or two.

That consensus was summed up by Tom Friedman, the popular American columnist and war supporter, who wrote just before it began that "Saddam Hussein has neither the intention nor the capacity to threaten America and is easily deterred if he does".

True, both the American and British governments tried to give the impression that Saddam had serious stocks of unconventional weapons and might be trying to restart his nuclear programme. But, as Friedman and others implied, that was because the real justifications for war could not be presented to a public conditioned to believe that war is only an acceptable risk if a clear and present danger can be demonstrated.

So we had the spectacle of the arguments being conducted on two distinct levels. One involved disputable claims about the extent of Saddam`s weapons holdings, probably wholly specious claims about his connections with al-Qaida, and questions to do with the role of inspectors and the UN.

The other involved forecasts of the threat that Saddam might present if left alone, and, even more difficult to assess, calculations that his removal from power would change the Middle East in ways which would weaken the forces of Islamic extremism in the region and therefore the terrorist threat to the US and Europe. Present on both levels of argument was the humanitarian case for military action, but that was not the primary focus of either discussion.

Neither the British nor the American peoples, let alone the French or the Germans, would go to war on the basis of this second set of arguments. They were too vague, too intuitive, too liable to be proved spectacularly mistaken, and too unlike the normal arguments for war. But they would, or they might, on the first.

A degree of fraudulence was thus involved from the start in keeping, in public, mainly to one level of the argument when the real issues were perceived by many in our governments and by most of their opponents to be on the other. That would be so even if the 45-minute claim had never made it into a British dossier or the quest for Niger uranium had never been included in the state of the union address.

Yet it is also fair to say that the two governments are genuinely astonished that they have found no weapons in Iraq, as are the two invading armies. The surprise extends to the intelligence services, whose line all along has been "not much" rather than "nothing at all".

The answer to this puzzle will emerge in time, probably in part through the discovery of some remnant stocks. But it is possible to speculate that in this, as in so much else, Saddam Hussein was his own worst enemy. So important to him was his image among his own people, and in the region, as a man capable of outwitting the Anglo-Saxons and hanging on to his weaponry, that he may have chosen to carry on with his obstructive manoeuvres long after he had anything much to hide.

How else to explain, for example, the insistence, at a very late stage, that interviews with Iraqi scientists be tape recorded, or the ban on their being interviewed abroad?

In the first half of the 90s, Saddam tried to bluff to cover his continued possession of the weapons, and it may be that, in the second half, he bluffed to cover his loss of them. This is Tony Blair`s real argument in defence of his pre-war position - that Saddam acted "as if" he had weapons - but he cannot apparently bring himself to put it.

If our intelligence services were not good enough to penetrate such a second bluff, then that is as legitimate a subject of inquiry as the question of whether Bush and Blair pumped up the intelligence advice they were getting. They could hardly have done so if the agencies had committed themselves to the view that Saddam`s arms cupboard was completely bare.

That some of the public was misled by this juggling between two levels is undoubtedly true. Easily misled, one might reflect, when a recent Washington Post poll shows that 24% of Americans believe that chemical and biological weapons were actually used in the war. But the more informed and responsible public, among whom can be included our legislators, were well aware of the dual nature of the argument, and of the problems for democratic discussion which that dualism raised.

The British and American inquiries into the possible misuse of intelligence should be conducted, if they are to be honest, with a proper attention to those problems, which deserve an equal and a related scrutiny.

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Do we want Guantanamo Bay justice?
In Britain, too, people are being held without trial, on secret evidence

Audrey Gillan
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian

It has been described as "secretive" by the foreign office minister, Chris Mullin, and a "kangaroo court" by a Labour MP. They are referring to the special US military commission facing two of the Britons detained in Guantanamo Bay, which ultimately could lead to their execution.

But take away the threat of capital punishment and the epithets can be equally applied to another courtroom - only this one is in London. The special immigration appeals commission is hearing the appeals of 10 men who have been detained without charge since December 2001. Most of the evidence against them is heard in secret. Amnesty has called this hearing "a perversion of justice" - it, too, is a kangaroo court.

One of these men is Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian refugee who the government claims is a terrorist. Watching him in this court is a surreal experience. He and his lawyers are not allowed to know most of the evidence against him. Abu Rideh gives his evidence from behind a glass panel; one moment he is joking with the judges, the next he is reduced to tears.

"This is a game," he shouts. "I will go to hospital all my life. If you want to kill me, kill me." The 33-year-old has been held in Broadmoor since a judge ordered the home secretary to remove him from Belmarsh because he was mentally ill.

Abu Rideh denies being a terrorist. He says he could prove his work in countries such as Afghanistan was charitable if the security services had not removed all the documents from his house when he was arrested. What the government considers to be the real evidence against him is not revealed in open court and it admits that most of it is based on assertions that he is linked with known extremists such as Abu Hamza.

Much of the case against these men is circumstantial, or just weak. Take the allegation that Abu Rideh was a mojahed, fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Abu Rideh points out that he was only 18 when the war in Afghanistan ended and was, in fact, in prison in Palestine and Jordan. There may be more inconsistencies, but how can he defend himself when he is not privy to the evidence against him?

Abu Rideh, along with other alleged terrorists who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act, introduced after September 11 to give the home secretary power to intern foreigners without trial. All are Muslims and refugees or asylum seekers.

To push the legislation through, the government had to suspend Britain`s obligations under the European human rights convention, which guarantees the right to liberty. These appeals are tantamount to criminal trials in which the defendant does not enjoy the full presumption of innocence and can be imprisoned indefinitely on the basis of "secret" evidence never disclosed to his lawyers. It allows men to languish in the highest security prisons without limit of time and still, more than 18 months later, without charge.

Since their arrest, none of the men has been allowed to speak to the press. Only now, during these appeals, can their voices be heard. Only now can they begin to learn even the shadowy outlines of the case against them. The bulk of the evidence is heard in secret in the interests of national security.

The government relies for these internments on surveillance, telephone intercepts and informants. It has admitted that none of the cases would be able to proceed in a normal court of law because the evidence is not strong enough: the police have said as much and so has the crown prosecution service.

Often a man known only as Witness B speaks from behind a blue curtain. He is from the security services and a specialist in terrorist groups so his identity needs protecting. But he can refuse to answer questions at his own whim because he says it would jeopardise national security. Sometimes he bounces away what seem the simplest of queries.

"Did you know that Mr Abu Rideh was mentally ill before you arrested him?" The answer would have to be given in closed evidence, he replies. Why would the mental state of a man be a state secret when it is known he is in Broadmoor and has been treated by a psychiatrist for many years?

Witness B is protected by a screen; the lack of justice by the closure of the court doors. Abu Rideh has told the court he feels he is being treated as badly as the men held by the US in Guantanamo Bay. He said internment had made orphans of his five children and that his mother now had diabetes and hypertension.

Chris Mullin is right to criticise US plans for a military court which can order executions. But as he expresses his "strong reservations" about a secretive US trial, perhaps he should peek over the foreign office fence and into his own backyard.

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Queuing for petrol - with nowhere to go
Michael Howard in Baghdad
Friday July 11, 2003
The Guardian

· Power

Electricity comes on for two to four hours a day. There is no warning of it going off. Most of the wealthier households have generators. Baghdad`s water system is powered by electricity. No power, no water. With the customs holiday on imported goods, there has been an influx of consumer durables -TVs, satellite dishes, air conditioners, refrigerators and electric ovens - all useless without power.

· Food

There is plenty, but some prices have gone up since the war. Meat and chicken have more than doubled. But a 50kg bag of flour was 27,000 dinars and is now 10,000; a 50kg bag of sugar was 30,000 and is now 17,000; a can of tomato paste has fallen from 2,500 before the war to 1,600. Tea has also come down from 2,000 dinars per kilogram to 500.

· Communications

Some local telephone exchanges work, but the inter-district and inter-city exchanges are down. A limited mobile phone network operates in the city, but sim cards are reserved for coalition provisional authority officials and the US military.

· Schools

The majority in the city are open, but do not operate every day of the week. Some evening classes have been merged with morning classes.

· Banks

Only a few are open. Many people prefer to keep their money at home, with all that means for the security problem. Domestic robberies have increased dramatically.

· Post

Friends and neighbours travelling around the country or abroad are the only means by which to send a letter in the capital. The only international service is DHL, which few can afford.

· Transport

Buses are running again but fares have gone up and there is no service after dark. Petrol is cheap but because of sabotage attacks on oil pipelines supply is erratic. Queuing for petrol in the summer heat has added to the frustration of Baghdad residents. The city`s battered orange and white taxis are on the street again, but residents complain that fares have increased. Few taxis run after dark.

· TV/radio

A full Iraqi TV and radio network has yet to hit the airwaves. The Iraqi Media Network, staffed by Iraqis but funded by the provisional authority, broadcasts on TV for a few hours every day, and also on radio. This is the media through which Paul Bremer, the chief administrator in Iraq, addresses the nation, although the content does little to engage listeners. More than 150 newspapers have established themselves in the capital since the fall of Saddam. Internet cafes are springing up.

· Leisure

Most organised leisure activities have ground to a halt. Nightlife has been wiped out by the curfew on the capital`s streets, and clubs and theatres remain closed. The city`s amusement parks are also yet to reopen. For teenagers, the popular PlayStation arcades cannot function without electricity.



Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Ministers in talks with US over moving terror suspects to Britain for trial
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
11 July 2003


Two British al-Qa`ida suspects being held in the American camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be returned to Britain to face trial.

Downing Street confirmed yesterday that flying the detainees to Britain had been discussed in high-level talks between ministers and members of the Bush administration.

The admission that the Government is pressing for the repatriation of Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, and Feroz Abbasi, from Croydon, follows an outcry by British politicians from all parties over their treatment. The development was welcomed by the men`s families yesterday.

MPs have condemned the decision to hold them without trial and refuse them the right to choose their lawyers or be tried in an open civil court. The issue is seen as a test of Tony Blair`s influence with the Americans.

Disquiet over the treatment of the prisoners threatens to sour Anglo-American relations. The detainees are known to have been gagged and handcuffed and were being kept in cages. Execution chambers are also reported to have been built at the base.

Geraint Davies, MP for Croydon Central, has repeatedly called on the Prime Minister to repatriate Mr Abbasi to stop him facing the death penalty. Mr Davies complained that Mr Abbasi`s mental health was suffering, which meant he "may not be fit" to face trial or brief a lawyer to mount a proper defence.

At a recent meeting with activists interested in his case, he failed to speak for an hour.

Yesterday, Downing Street, which has until now denied that repatriation is on the agenda, said that it was among "a range of issues" being discussed.

"We have made clear to the US that the detainees should be treated humanely," a spokesman said. "We have got strong reservations about military commissions and those reservations have been raised and will be continued to be raised by the UK."

Mr Blair is expected to raise the issue of the nine UK citizens held at Guantanamo Bay when he meets George Bush for talks shortly. MPs, including Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, have said the issue will be a test of Downing Street`s influence over the Bush administration and the nature of the "special relationship" with America.

Kenneth Clarke, the former Tory chancellor, said he was appalled at the treatment of the British suspects.

"I think Blair has showed little sign of having any real influence until now. If Blair has any influence at all he should bring this to an end. My feeling is that they should be repatriated," he said.

The suspects would face a trial under British terrorist laws if they were repatriated. But under the trial being proposed by the US they could be executed if found guilty.
11 July 2003 08:29


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 11, 2003
Iraqis Set to Form an Interim Council With Wide Power
By PATRICK E. TYLER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 10 — Representatives of the major political, ethnic and religious groups of Iraq — some of them skilled politicians, some of them exile leaders coming home and others political neophytes united by their suffering under Saddam Hussein — will declare the first postwar interim government in Iraq this weekend, Western and Iraqi officials said tonight.

After eight weeks of negotiations with the American and British occupation powers, a "governing council" of between 21 and 25 members will be granted extensive executive powers. The new body of Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Turkmen will share responsibility for running the country under a United Nations resolution that will continue to vest Washington and London with ultimate authority until a sovereign government is elected and a new constitution ratified, the officials said.

There is no clear timetable for a transition to an elected government.

Iraqi political figures who have been involved in negotiations said that the process was speeded by the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and mounting American casualties from daily attacks on allied forces. That had created a sense of urgency within the Bush administration to create a credible Iraqi governing body that could help counter the negative image of foreign occupation that is being exploited by the remnants of Mr. Hussein`s forces.

Traveling in Africa today, President Bush said: "There is no question that we have got a security issue in Iraq. We are just going to have to deal with it person by person. We are going to have to remain tough."

Two American soldiers were killed and one was wounded in two separate attacks Wednesday night in the latest round of violence against allied forces, military officials said. In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a military spokesman said that American forces came under "multiple mortar attacks" in the city and at a base on the outskirts Wednesday night. No casualties were reported.

In an interview tonight, L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in Iraq, said that in the course of negotiations over the new governing structure, he had made a number of "tactical adjustments" to meet the demands of the Iraqis. One of those adjustments, Iraqi political figures said, was to grant assurances that the majority of the council`s members would be Shiites.

Mr. Bremer said the governing council would appoint and supervise a council of ministers that would run the government, send diplomats abroad to represent Iraq, establish a new currency, set fiscal and budget policy and, perhaps, take a prominent role in national security even as the country remains garrisoned by American and British troops.

"If they appoint a minister and he doesn`t perform, they can fire him," Mr. Bremer said. "That`s pretty executive."

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the special representative of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in Iraq, expressed satisfaction with the new government structure, saying that Mr. Bremer "obviously has been listening to the Iraqis."

The commander of allied ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said that "professional assassins" were stalking American troops in Baghdad. He added that military intelligence officials were "working very hard to identify" any regional or national networks linking opposition forces that were staging the attacks and acts of sabotage. Intelligence agencies thus far have failed to reveal actual communication networks but it was likely, the general said, that Mr. Hussein had activated a national plan of resistance in advance.

General Sanchez told a news conference today that it was "too early" to determine if a taped message from Mr. Hussein was having a rallying effect.

Still, he said, the "specter" of Mr. Hussein was putting additional pressure on Iraqis cooperating with allied forces. In Falluja today, newly trained Iraqi policemen staged a demonstration demanding that American soldiers vacate the police headquarters in the town, saying the American presence was a source of instability. On Saturday, seven Iraqi police graduates were killed in nearby Ramadi when an explosives hidden in a utility pole detonated during a graduation ceremony.

"I think the fact that the specter of Saddam continues to be present out there whether he is dead or alive is making a significant impact on the people of Iraq and their ability to cooperate with the coalition," the general said.

He also confirmed reports from Iraqi opposition figures that the United States military was developing a new plan to train and equip a paramilitary force of Iraqi fighters to "assume some of the responsibility for bringing security and stability" to the country. Iraqi political figures have been pressing United States commanders to recruit a militia that could assist American troops.

General Sanchez said such a force, if created, would be composed of "light infantry" that could operate under the command of allied forces.

Western officials and Iraqi political figures said that the council was planning to declare its formation at a news conference on Sunday, though last-minute negotiations might lead to a delay of a day or so.

Mr. Vieira de Mello said that he hoped that the governing council would be formed in the next few days so that he could make a recommendation to the Security Council to recognize the interim administration and give it international legitimacy.

In a private meeting today with Iraqi political figures, Mr. Bremer sought a commitment from all seven of the main Iraqi political groups to nominate their top leaders to serve. In turn, those leaders sought from Mr. Bremer a written commitment on the scope of the council`s powers.

One political group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told Mr. Bremer that it would not make a final decision on whether to participate until Saturday. The group`s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, was expected to decide by then whether his brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, would join the government. Mr. Bremer would not comment.

Other Iraqi political figures said they believed that Ayatollah Hakim would sanction the Shiite group`s participation after having received a pledge from Mr. Bremer that a majority of the governing council members would be Shiite Muslims and that the council`s executive powers would be guaranteed in writing.

In addition to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the core of the governing council would include Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, leaders of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq; Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress; Iyad Alawi, head of the Iraqi National Accord; Nasir Kamel Chadirchy, a Baghdad lawyer whose father founded the first democratic party in Iraq in the 1950`s; Ibrahim Jafari of the Shiite Daawa Party, and Adnan Pachachi, who was Iraq`s ambassador to the United Nations in the 1960`s.

An extraordinary level of secrecy has attended the negotiations over the roster of additional members. Last week, Lena Aboud, a 28-year-old gynecologist and women`s rights advocate said she had been invited to join the government by Mr. Bremer. At least two other women were expected to be named, along with a Chaldean Christian, a Turkmen representative and one or more prominent tribal leaders.

"All along we felt that it was important to have an institution that could exercise real responsibility in the executive part of the government," Mr. Bremer said. The goal was to "get Iraqis to share responsibility with us, to face up to some of the hard decisions," he said, adding, "so we are more than happy to share responsibility."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 11, 2003
War`s Cost Brings Democratic Anger
By DAVID FIRESTONE and THOM SHANKER


WASHINGTON, July 10 — The Pentagon`s new estimate that military costs for Iraq would average $3.9 billion monthly for the first nine months of this year produced surprise and anger today among Congressional Democrats, who said the amount was not only more than they had been told, but far too large given the budget deficit.

"It is a lot more than I expected," said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. "Obviously the Iraqi occupation is bogging down, and the cost is substantially higher than we were earlier advised. So the problems are mounting, and I got a real earful from parents of soldiers when I got home about the lack of a plan for the postwar."

The Pentagon comptroller today stood by the concepts that produced the initial estimate in April that military costs would average just over $2 billion monthly, and said he had kept Congress informed of increases, testifying in early June that estimates of war costs had exceeded $3 billion monthly.

"Numbers change over time because they reflect the reality," Dov S. Zakheim, the comptroller, said in an interview today.

"We didn`t draw down troops nearly as quickly as we thought we were going to do," Mr. Zakheim added. But he said that the overall budget estimates for war costs were sufficiently accurate that the Pentagon does not anticipate requesting any additional funds for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, as some members of Congress have predicted.

Administration officials disclosed, meanwhile, that the cost of running the civilian parts of the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq also are increasing, and that the roughly $7 billion available to pay for much of these costs is expected to run out near the end of the year.

When Baghdad fell in April, the United States tapped billions of dollars in Iraqi bank deposits as well as stolen public funds found in hiding places in Iraq and accumulated revenue from prewar oil sales to pay for the civilian reconstruction effort.

Some of that money has been flown from the United States to Iraq by Air Force transports in pallets containing bales of $20 bills, which were then used to pay for such items as salaries and pensions of Iraqi police and soldiers.

Officials involved in financing the nonmilitary part of the stabilization effort say that once Iraq`s oil industry is restored sometime next year, it may produce two million to three million barrels of oil a day, yielding $15 billion to $20 billion in annual revenue.

But sabotage and troubles repairing the oil fields make that goal uncertain.

Across Capitol Hill today, debate focused on the price of the Iraq mission, and even some Republicans expressed dismay at the estimate for military costs announced Wednesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said the American people would support continued troop assignments in Iraq if they were given all the facts. But he expressed annoyance that it had taken so long to learn the true costs of the postwar period.

"I think the American people need to be told, `Look, we`re going to be there for quite a while, and it`s going to cost us quite a bit of money,` " said Mr. McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "People should be given some estimate of what we can expect. Americans will support the president, in my view, if he just talks straight to them and tells them what the challenges are we face. We got some of that, albeit reluctantly, yesterday from Rumsfeld."

There was a burst of Democratic criticism of the postwar effort in Washington, led by some of the presidential contenders. "It`s time for the president to tell the truth that we lack sufficient forces to do the job in Iraq and withdraw in a reasonable period, to tell the truth that America should not go it alone," said Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, said: "What is now clear is that there are those in this administration that misled the president, misled the nation, and misled the world in making the case for the war in Iraq. They know who they are. And they should resign today."

The most pointed critique came from Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who pressed Mr. Rumsfeld during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday to produce the best estimate of military costs for Iraq. Mr. Byrd said his warnings about the failure to assemble an international coalition before the war had proved true, as American lives are lost in the postwar period and as allies continue to be reluctant to volunteer large numbers of troops to replace battle-weary Americans.

"This administration should think hard about whether we have the money to single-handedly pay for the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq," he said. "At a time when the United States is running record-breaking deficits of $400 billion each year, the administration has not even included these $58 billion in occupation costs in its budget. In sharp contrast to the 1991 Persian Gulf war, where our allies contributed $54 billion of the $61 billion cost of that war, the American taxpayer is virtually alone in bearing the burden for the staggering cost of this most recent war with Iraq."

One conservative Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he thought the expenditure was justified to make certain the nation wins the peace in addition to the war. But he said there was a limit to his patience.

"There`s no doubt in my mind it will be money out the door at least for months," he said. "I`m not willing to say years at this point."

Mr. Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller, said the Defense Department`s prewar budget planning was based on the assumption that the conflict might last three to six weeks, followed by six months of stabilization and transition. Approximately $13 billion was set aside for that, he said, which produced his rough estimate in April of $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion in monthly war expenses.

By the time he went to Capitol Hill in June to testify on war costs, Mr. Zakheim said: "I already knew the numbers were rising. Sure enough, when you looked at the actual costs from January to the end of April, that number was about $4.1 billion per month."

Mr. Zakheim said the unknown course of postwar stabilization in Iraq, and the uncertainties of allied troop contributions, made it impossible to predict exact military costs for Iraq into the next fiscal year.

The estimates of military costs for Iraq do not include such items as salaries for active-duty military personnel, which would have to be paid regardless. The projections do include costs for special wartime salary bonuses, as well as fuel, food, ordnance and transportation costs related to the war effort, and the costs of mobilizing reservists.

One Republican with close ties to the White House, Representative Rob Portman of Ohio, defended the expenditures.

"Clearly there will be lots of pressure to get out," said Mr. Portman, who is chairman of the House Republican leadership group. "But we started something we have a commitment to finish. It would be a mistake for us to get into this kind of engagement without being willing to stay there for a while and see it through."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 11, 2003
Sowing Seeds of Destruction
By CHARLES M. BENBROOK


SAND POINT, Idaho
Though President Bush deserves praise for going to Africa and talking about hunger, his proposals for addressing the problem are likely to make it worse. American farm and trade policies — particularly the promotion of American-style agricultural biotechnology — will do little to alleviate hunger.

In the weeks before the president`s trip, the administration stepped up its efforts to promote biotechnology and genetically modified food. In May, the United States filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against the European Union for its moratorium against the approval of genetically modified crops. The administration claimed that European policies have turned some African nations against biotechnology, thereby undermining American efforts to help Africa. In a speech last month to biotech leaders, the president said, "We must help troubled nations to avert famine by sharing with them the most advanced methods of crop production."

The president is right that African farmers will benefit from new knowledge and technology. But he`s wrong about which technologies we should be offering. African farmers neither need nor want to produce American-style genetically modified crops.

It is easy to understand Africa`s lack of enthusiasm. The first generation of genetically modified food crops — corn and soybean seeds — were created to make pest management simpler on America`s large, mechanized farms. The technologies would be far less effective on African farms, which are small and diversified and rely largely on human labor.

These technologies don`t make economic sense. In the United States, most farmers planting genetically modified seeds break even — the increase in seed costs, approximately 35 percent, is covered by reductions in pesticide expenses or marginally higher yields. In stable, well-irrigated environments, these crops enable individual farmers to cultivate more land.

In Africa, however, these benefits can be burdens. For cash-poor farmers, the cost of genetically modified seed would be prohibitive. Moreover, genetically modified crops need near-perfect growing conditions. In dry areas, they require irrigation systems and the water to run them. They also need to be managed with special care. For example, crops are engineered to work with specific herbicides; the wrong herbicide can ruin an entire crop. In Africa, where pesticides are often misbranded, sold in unmarked containers or handled by people who cannot read, this can be a problem.

Governments will also bear increased responsibilities and costs in carrying out and assessing health and environmental safety testing for these crops, a task few African nations are able to take on.

Africans recognize these drawbacks and that`s why American efforts to promote genetically modified crops have backfired. The initiative to introduce genetically modified corn to Zambia through American food aid donations in 2002 clearly did not work out the way the administration had hoped. The Zambians were vocal in their refusal. And the move brought simmering global tensions over biotechnology to a boil at last summer`s global environmental summit meeting in Johannesburg and raised questions about American motives, priorities and understanding of the roots of hunger. Despite a full-court press by the Bush administration and some members of Congress, the Zambians have stood by their decision to reject such food aid.

African farmers face a multitude of challenges. Drought is a recurrent problem. Soils are often worn out. Depressed commodity prices undercut human enterprise. Land tenure systems and reluctance to direct financial and technical assistance to the women who do the majority of the work on many farms are social issues that undermine farm productivity, as are civil strife and AIDS. For these problems, biotechnology has little to offer.

The only way Africans can afford today`s genetically modified seeds is for us to give the seeds or technology to them no strings attached, a highly unlikely scenario. Before contemplating this approach, though, Americans should know that their money and expertise might be better directed doing the things that Africans themselves might actually find useful.


Charles Benbrook, an agricultural consultant, runs Ag BioTech InfoNet, a Web site.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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July 11, 2003
Your Farm Subsidies Are Strangling Us
By AMADOU TOUMANI TOURÉ and BLAISE COMPAORÉ


After too many years of Africa`s being pushed to the global background, it`s heartening to see the world`s attention being focused on our continent. International support — both financial and otherwise — is certainly needed to help combat the severe poverty and disease gripping our nations. But first and foremost, Africa needs to be allowed to take its destiny into its own hands. Only self-reliance and economic growth and development will allow Africa to become a full member of the world community.

With the creation of the New Economic Partnership for African Development in 2001, African leaders have committed themselves to following the principles of good governance and a market economy. Nothing is more central to this goal than participating in world trade. As the presidents of two of Africa`s least developed countries — Burkina Faso and Mali — we are eager to participate in the multilateral trading system and to take on its rights and obligations.

Cotton is our ticket into the world market. Its production is crucial to economic development in West and Central Africa, as well as to the livelihoods of millions of people there. Cotton accounts for up to 40 percent of export revenues and 10 percent of gross domestic product in our two countries, as well as in Benin and Chad. More than that, cotton is of paramount importance to the social infrastructure of Africa, as well as to the maintenance of its rural areas.

This vital economic sector in our countries is seriously threatened by agricultural subsidies granted by rich countries to their cotton producers. According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee, cotton subsidies amounted to about $5.8 billion in the production year of 2001 to 2002, nearly equal the amount of cotton trade for this same period. Such subsidies lead to worldwide overproduction and distort cotton prices, depriving poor African countries of their only comparative advantage in international trade.

Not only is cotton crucial to our economies, it is the sole agricultural product for our countries to trade. Although African cotton is of the highest quality, our production costs are about 50 percent lower than in developed countries even though we rely on manual labor. In wealthier countries, by contrast, lower-quality cotton is produced on large mechanized farms, generating little employment and having a questionable impact on the environment. Cotton there could be replaced by other, more valuable crops.

In the period from 2001 to 2002, America`s 25,000 cotton farmers received more in subsidies — some $3 billion — than the entire economic output of Burkina Faso, where two million people depend on cotton. Further, United States subsidies are concentrated on just 10 percent of its cotton farmers. Thus, the payments to about 2,500 relatively well-off farmers has the unintended but nevertheless real effect of impoverishing some 10 million rural poor people in West and Central Africa.

Something has to be done. Along with the countries of Benin and Chad, we have submitted a proposal to the World Trade Organization — which is meeting in Cancún, Mexico, in September to discuss agricultural issues — that calls for an end to unfair subsidies granted by developed countries to their cotton producers. As an interim measure, we have also proposed that least-developed countries be granted financial compensation for lost export revenues that are due to those subsidies.

Our demand is simple: apply free trade rules not only to those products that are of interest to the rich and powerful, but also to those products where poor countries have a proven comparative advantage. We know that the world will not ignore our plea for a fair playing field. The World Trade Organization has said it is committed to addressing the problems of developing countries. The United States has convinced us that a free market economy provides the best opportunities for all members of the world community. Let us translate these principles into deeds at Cancún.



Amadou Toumani Touré and Blaise Compaoré are the presidents, respectively, of Mali and Burkina Faso.



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Iraqi children push a U.S. soldier on a bicycle in Fallujah. Assaults by resistance forces have also targeted Iraqis cooperating with U.S. soldiers.

Photo Credit: File Photo/Faleh Kheiber -- Reuters

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Forces Hunt For Organizers Of Attacks in Iraq
Picture of Resistance Remains Murky; Two More Soldiers Killed in Ambushes

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A11


BAGHDAD, July 10 -- U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that Iraqis loyal to former president Saddam Hussein may be organizing guerrilla operations against occupation forces and financing them with money set aside before the war, according to senior commanders and field officers here.

Officials reported today that two U.S. soldiers were killed in ambushes on Wednesday, raising to 32 the number of Americans killed in attacks since May 1, when President Bush declared major hostilities over. The increasing pace, lethality and sophistication of assaults on U.S. forces in Iraq have led many officers and soldiers to suspect that Iraqis opposed to the occupation may have spent the weeks after the fall of Baghdad organizing the resistance campaign and that regional or national command-and-control groups could be directing it.

"Saddam talked about letting us into Baghdad and trying to break the will of the coalition," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S.-led ground forces here, said today. "That possibility is out there."

First Sgt. William Taylor, a member of an Army reconnaissance team based near Tikrit, north of Baghdad, noted that "there was a lull after the heavy combat operations. Now they`ve probably gotten their cells together. The people we`re interdicting now are actively recruiting and supplying money."

Several days ago, for example, soldiers near Tikrit -- Hussein`s traditional power base -- stopped a vehicle that tried to run a checkpoint. They discovered three members of the paramilitary force known as Saddam`s Fedayeen armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, said Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division. They were carrying $40,000 in new $100 bills and two large plastic bags of dinars, the Iraqi currency.

U.S. field commanders have intensified efforts to target local or regional leaders who they believe are coordinating, arming and financing attacks, and senior U.S. officials are attempting to identify possible national organizers, according to top commanders and field officers. But Sanchez and other military leaders expressed frustration that they have been unable to develop a precise picture of a resistance organization or its possible levels of coordination.

Military officials said assaults in recent days have been carried out by skilled urban assassins, by mine specialists who have concealed explosives in potholes and beneath the shoulders of asphalt roads traveled by U.S. convoys, and by fighters who have staged well-coordinated ambushes. While commanders stressed that the majority of attacks have missed their targets and caused no casualties and little damage, they said the successful ones have shown clear evidence of sophistication.

"There are some professional assassins operating in Baghdad," Sanchez said. "There is absolutely no question in my mind."

Sanchez described the gunman who shot a U.S. soldier dead at point-blank range on the Baghdad University campus last Sunday as "a well-trained soldier who knows how to identify a target, how to strike very quickly and escape."

An attack last month at the U.S. civilian and military affairs office in Tikrit was organized and "well-planned," according to Maj. Mike Silverman, operations officer for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, a unit of the 4th Infantry Division. He said several Iraqis fired rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles from rooftops in an attack coordinated from two directions. One U.S. soldier was killed and seven were injured in the ambush, he said.

On Saturday, an estimated 50 Iraqis ambushed a military patrol on a highway south of the city of Balad, 55 miles northwest of Baghdad, in three separate firefights that spanned eight hours. No U.S. soldiers died, but 11 Iraqis were killed, military officials said.

In Wednesday`s fatal attacks, a soldier from the 3rd Corps Support Command was killed when his convoy was ambushed at about 6:30 p.m. near the city of Mahmudiyah, 15 miles south of Baghdad. Four hours later, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and another wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their convoy near the city of Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to military spokesmen.

American military officers say they are particularly troubled by the large caches of weaponry and stashes of cash that soldiers have discovered in recent weeks inside houses or buried in gardens. Increasingly, some commanders are concentrating on finding Hussein loyalists -- including the former president`s senior bodyguards and mid-level aides -- who may be returning to their home areas to hand out the money, recruit gunmen and assemble weapons caches.

"We`re focusing on the ones trying to organize," said Capt. Desmond Jones of Wetumpka, Ala., who heads a 1st Brigade reconnaissance team. "We`re trying to keep them off balance because we know they`re trying to organize attacks."

In an effort to sort out the organizational levels and potential leaders of emerging resistance cells, military intelligence and surveillance teams are attempting to monitor Saddam`s Fedayeen and other military units, Islamic militant organizations and remnants of Hussein`s Baath Party.

Military surveillance teams in the Tikrit area have reported numerous examples of efforts by the Fedayeen to organize local fighters. Soldiers said they could identify Fedayeen troops by the tattoo on their hands that depicts a heart pierced by an arrow.

For several days, surveillance teams tracked a group of Fedayeen militiamen who met almost every day at 6 p.m. at a traffic circle in Tikrit. And armed Fedayeen fighters on motorcycles have been spotted tailing -- and sometimes firing on -- U.S. troop convoys with increasing frequency, according to the 1st Brigade`s Silverman.

The 1st Brigade`s commander, Col. James Hickey, said he believed that coordinated, successful attacks remain the exception rather than the rule. "A lot of guys being paid simply don`t know what they`re doing," Hickey said. Rounds from rocket-propelled grenade launchers "are just bouncing off the tanks and Bradleys," the American fighting vehicles.

Hickey said the attacks have not stopped military operations or reconstruction projects but have unsettled many Iraqis. In recent weeks, assaults by resistance forces have expanded to target Iraqis working with U.S. soldiers on projects to rebuild Iraq.

In the city of Ramadi, about an hour`s drive west of Baghdad, several dozen Iraqi police officers marched on the mayor`s office today and threatened to quit if U.S. troops did not leave their police station by this weekend, according to wire service reports. They said the American presence endangered their lives. Last weekend, seven police recruits were killed and dozens wounded when a bomb exploded as they walked from their graduation ceremony to the station house.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim
Advice on Alleged Uranium Buy Was Refused

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A01


The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday.

"We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material," a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States.

At that time, the CIA was completing its own classified national intelligence estimate on Iraq`s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Although the CIA paper mentioned alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from three African countries, it warned that State Department analysts were questioning its accuracy when it came to Niger and that CIA personnel considered reports on other African countries to be "sketchy," the official said. The CIA paper`s summary conclusions about whether Iraq was restarting its nuclear weapons program did not include references to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa.

The latest disclosures further illustrate the lack of confidence expressed by the U.S. intelligence community in the months leading up to Bush`s speech about allegations of Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Africa. Even so, Bush used the charge -- citing British intelligence -- in the Jan. 28 address as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraq had a program to build weapons of mass destruction and posed a serious threat.

The White House on Monday acknowledged that Bush`s uranium claim was based on faulty intelligence and should not have been included in the speech, further stoking a controversy over the administration`s handling of prewar intelligence. Democratic lawmakers yesterday called for public hearings, while the Democratic National Committee opened an advertising campaign to encourage people to sign petitions calling for an independent commission.

At a news conference in Botswana, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell defended the president`s use of the intelligence. "There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or to deceive the American people," Powell said. "There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used."

Only eight days after the State of the Union speech, however, Powell himself did not repeat the uranium allegation when he presented the administration`s case against Iraq to the U.N. Security Council. "After further analysis, looking at other estimates we had and other information that was coming in, it turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn`t hold up, and we said so, and we`ve acknowledged it, and we`ve moved on," Powell told reporters in explaining his decision. Under the British formulation of events, Powell would not necessarily know all of the basis underlying their statement.

The U.S. and British governments, whose intelligence agencies have a long history of close relations, have sought to maintain a united front despite suggestions in Congress and Parliament this week that both governments may have exaggerated the evidence against Iraq to support the case for war. But as the controversy escalates, the interests of the two allies have begun to diverge.

The Bush administration effectively has discarded the uranium allegation. The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, however, has stood behind its September conclusion that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" for a possible nuclear weapons program despite the release of a report by a British parliamentary commission this week that challenged the allegation and, in effect, Bush`s decision to include it in his address.

British officials have insisted that the Bush administration has never been provided with the intelligence that was the basis for the charge included in London`s September intelligence dossier.

National Security Council guidance distributed within the U.S. government yesterday acknowledged that "no intelligence has been provided to the United States [by Britain] on this subject," sources said. The British intelligence was provided by an unidentified "third country," a diplomatic source said.

Meanwhile, administration officials shed some new light yesterday on the process that led to the inclusion of the uranium-purchase allegation in the president`s State of the Union speech in which Bush said that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The early drafts of the speech did not include Britain as the source of the information, according to administration officials. A senior official denied that Britain was inserted in the final draft because the CIA and others in the U.S. intelligence community were concerned that the charge could not be supported. The British addition was made only "because they were the first to say it publicly in their September paper," the official said.

Powell noted yesterday that the British government continues to believe in the information it produced. "I would not dispute them or disagree with them or say they`re wrong and we`re right, because intelligence is of that nature," Powell said. "Some people have more sources . . . on a particular issue. Some people have greater confidence in their analysis."

Administration officials preparing drafts of the speech also wanted to name Niger as the focus of Iraqi attempts to buy uranium, according to a senior administration official who has looked into the process. But when CIA officials said there were problems with the Niger information, the more vague reference to Africa was substituted for Niger. The State Department, in its talking points on Iraq, had made a similar change the month before the speech.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the Niger claim had been based on forged documents, a conclusion the Bush administration did not dispute at the time.

Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.



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Liberal Democrats` Perverse Foreign Policy


By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A21


It was the left that led the opposition to war in Iraq. Now it is the left that is most strenuous in urging intervention in Liberia. Curious.

No blood for oil, it seems, but blood for Liberia. And let us not automatically assume that Liberia will be an immaculate intervention. Sure, we may get lucky and suffer no casualties. But Liberia has three warring parties, tons of guns and legions of desperate fighters. Yet pressure is inexorably building to send American troops to enforce a peace.

There are the usual suspects, Jesse Jackson and the New York Times, but the most unapologetic proponent of the no-Iraq/yes-Liberia school is Howard Dean, Democratic flavor of the month. "I opposed the war in Iraq because it was the wrong war at the wrong time," says Dean, but "military intervention in Liberia represents an appropriate use of American power."

Why? In terms of brutality, systematic repression, number of killings, relish for torture and sum total of human misery caused, Charles Taylor is a piker next to Saddam Hussein. That is not to say that Taylor is a better man. It is only to say that in his tiny corner of the world with no oil resources and no scientific infrastructure for developing instruments of mass murder, Taylor has neither the reach nor the power to wreak Hussein-class havoc. What is it that makes liberals such as Dean, preening their humanitarianism, so antiwar in Iraq and so pro-intervention in Liberia?

The same question could be asked of the Democratic Party, which in the 1990s opposed the Persian Gulf War but overwhelmingly supported humanitarian interventions in places such as Haiti and Kosovo.

They all had a claim on the American conscience. What then was the real difference between, say, Haiti and Gulf War I, and between Liberia and Gulf War II? The Persian Gulf has deep strategic significance for the United States; Haiti and Liberia do not. In both gulf wars, critical American national interests were being defended and advanced. Yet it is precisely these interventions that liberals opposed.

The only conclusion one can draw is that for liberal Democrats, America`s strategic interests are not just an irrelevance, but also a deterrent to intervention. This is a perversity born of moral vanity. For liberals, foreign policy is social work. National interest -- i.e., national selfishness -- is a taint. The only justified interventions, therefore, are those that are morally pristine, namely, those that are uncorrupted by any suggestion of national interest.

Hence the central axiom of left-liberal foreign policy: The use of American force is always wrong, unless deployed in a region of no strategic significance to the United States. The war in Afghanistan was an exception, but it doesn`t count because it was retaliation against an overt attack, and not even liberals can oppose a counterattack in a war the other side started. Such bolts from the blue are rare, however. They come about every half-century, the last one being Pearl Harbor. In between one has to make decisions about going to war in less axiomatic circumstances. And that is when the liberal Democrats fall into their solipsism of righteousness.

This is the core lunacy of Democratic foreign policy. Either it has no criteria for intervening militarily -- after all, if we`re going into Liberia, on what grounds are we not going into Congo? -- or it has a criterion, and its logic is that the U.S. Army is a missionary service rather than a defender of U.S. interests.

What should be our criteria for military intervention? The answer is simple: strategic and moral necessity. Foreign policy is not social work. Acting for purely humanitarian reasons is wanton and self-indulgent. You don`t send U.S. soldiers to die to assuage troubled consciences at home. Their lives should be risked only in defense of their country.

Should we then do nothing elsewhere? In principle, we should help others by economic and diplomatic means and with appropriate relief agencies. Regarding Liberia, it is rather odd for the Europeans, who rail against U.S. arrogance, to claim that all the armies of France and Germany, of Europe and Africa, are powerless in the face of Charles Taylor -- unless the Americans ride to the rescue.

We should be telling them to do the job, with an offer of U.S. logistical help. We have quite enough on our plate in Iraq and Afghanistan and in chasing al Qaeda around the world.

If, nonetheless, the president finds the pressure irresistible to intervene in Liberia, he should send troops only under very clear conditions: America will share the burden with them if they share the burden with us where we need it. And that means peacekeepers in Iraq. The world cannot stand by watching us bleed in Iraq, and then expect us to bleed for it in Liberia.



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Bush`s Bad Science
Uncertainty is no reason for the U.S. to dodge its responsibility to act on global climate change.

By J.W. Anderson

Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A21


James Schlesinger, the former secretary of energy, reminds us [op-ed, July 7] that the science of climate change and global warming is uncertain. That is quite true, as far as it goes -- but it doesn`t go very far.

What does that mean for national policy? Does it mean, as the Bush administration argues, that any serious decisions should be put off to a later time when the scientists have achieved greater certainty? Schlesinger seems to be leaning in that direction.

In fact, the science may never be clear. Or it may become clear only after severe and damaging change.

A president must constantly make policy in the face of scientific uncertainty. From the options on smallpox vaccination to evaluation of North Korean nuclear capability, this president has been required to come to urgent and highly consequential decisions in the face of unanswered, and unanswerable, questions. Uncertainty is a quality that climate policy has in common with most of the other subjects with which a president must deal.

Three things can be said about global climate change. (1) The world has grown measurably warmer over the past century. (2) The chief cause is probably carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat and is generated by burning fossil fuels. The volume going into the atmosphere is rising steadily. And (3), nobody knows what`s going to happen as the concentrations of carbon dioxide keep rising.

The geological record is full of warnings that when change comes, it can come exceedingly fast. The evidence hints at hidden trigger mechanisms that, once sprung, can send whole continents into radically different climates. It could happen for purely natural reasons, having nothing to do with human activities. But the rapid buildup of carbon dioxide from power plants and cars and furnaces increases the risk. That much is not an uncertainty.

Faced with an unknown risk of a huge calamity, what should a government do?

It could spend a lot of money on further scientific research, call on industry to show voluntary restraint and postpone any serious action into the indefinite future. That`s what the Bush administration is doing.

The better and, in the nonpolitical sense of the word, more conservative policy would be to start now, gently and gradually, to discourage fuel use and encourage efficiency with a small tax on fuel -- and put the country on notice that in years to come, if necessary, it would rise. It wouldn`t affect consumers much immediately, but it would warn the people who build power plants and design cars that the premium on efficiency might go up substantially in the years for which they do their long-term planning. (Because it`s a tax, it won`t happen in this administration. But we`re talking about what`s best, not what`s likeliest.) A gradual beginning and a long-term perspective are important. Among the basic defects of the Kyoto treaty, which was designed to impose greenhouse gas emission limits on all the industrial countries, are that it would have begun with a jolt, making energy suddenly a good deal more expensive, and that it didn`t look beyond 2012.

President Bush was right to get the United States out of the Kyoto treaty. But he promised to develop an alternative -- which, except for a little jawboning, he has never produced.

Another major shortcoming of Kyoto is that it puts no limits on emissions from developing countries. Any control regime that does not include China and India won`t be worth much. To bring them in will require a lot of persuasion, including financial aid and technology transfers. No doubt many Americans will object to the idea of foreign aid to protect the climate. Perhaps they might want to reflect that a warmer world means ice melting at the South Pole, and when the sea level rises in the Bay of Bengal it also rises in California and along the Delmarva Peninsula.

An effective plan to lower the risk of catastrophic climate change need not damage the economy, any more than buying insurance against fires and floods damages the economy.

Scientific uncertainty is a fact of life. One purpose of public policy is to address uncertainty. It`s not an excuse for inaction in confronting a rising risk.

J.W. Anderson, a former editorial writer for The Post, is journalist in residence at Resources for the Future.



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George W. on the Defensive


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A21


While President Bush tours Africa, the winds of change are blowing at home. They threaten his overwhelming political advantage on foreign policy and national security.

Despite the great pictures from that trip, it has not been a good week for Bush. The White House finally admitted that the president never should have claimed in this year`s State of the Union address that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. Reports to that effect had been debunked by a respected American diplomat even before Bush gave his speech.

Then the commission investigating 9/11 criticized the administration for failing to respond expeditiously to its requests for documents and testimony. Tom Kean, the Republican chairman of the commission, also charged that the administration`s refusal to allow witnesses to be interviewed without "minders" amounted to intimidation. Kean and his Democratic co-chairman, former representative Lee Hamilton, are among the most respected and least partisan figures in American public life. If they are complaining, something is definitely wrong.

Finally, there is the continuing mess on the ground in Iraq: the almost daily deaths of American soldiers, the failure to restore order and public services, the anger in military families over the extended commitment of their loved ones to a war zone. Even the war`s strongest supporters are saying that the administration`s postwar strategy was deeply flawed.

A CBS News poll released yesterday showed that public doubts are growing. Approval for Bush`s handling of the situation in Iraq fell from 72 percent in May to 58 percent. For the first time, a majority -- 56 percent -- say they believe the administration overestimated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

An administration rarely on the defensive since 9/11 found itself forced to explain and explain. When the president was asked in South Africa whether he regretted using false information in his State of the Union speech, he evaded the question and criticized "attempts to rewrite history." A bizarre response, because it was the White House that rewrote history by admitting that the president`s earlier statement was now inoperative.

Who would have imagined that foreign policy and terrorism might become the administration`s weak point? From the moment last September when Bush pushed war with Iraq to the center of the nation`s political agenda, the issue provided the president a powerful shield against public dissatisfaction with the economy, and it divided Democrats. Some Democrats supported the war, others opposed it -- and many tried to change the subject.

Suddenly, Democrats are finding common ground in challenging the administration`s veracity and its handling of postwar Iraq. The other day, Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the strongest supporters of the war among his party`s presidential candidates, provided a road map on how to take on the administration. In an opinion article in The Post, Lieberman said the United States needed to be unapologetic about nation-building -- a buzzword the Bushies hate -- while committing enough troops to get the job done. He also urged that NATO assume command of the forces in Iraq.

Jumping on the administration for the problems in Iraq might seem like opportunism except for one thing: Before the war, Democrats on all sides faulted Bush for failing to win over allies who are now desperately needed.

"The biggest thing Democrats agreed on was that winning the peace was going to be much harder than winning the war," said a foreign policy adviser to a prominent Democrat. "Even Democrats who supported the war said the reason we needed to build a broad international alliance was to make sure we had ample help after the war was won. Wouldn`t it be better if the French and Germans were patrolling the streets and not just our guys?"

If there is a split among Democrats, it is over whether to challenge Bush on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At a recent strategy meeting, a significant number of House Democrats wanted to press the case that Bush had lied to the American public about the nature of the threat.

Bush`s relationship to the truth is already emerging as a Democratic theme, though House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in an interview that the search for weapons should be allowed to unfold "without the taint of politics." Instead, she said, Democrats should challenge Bush on America`s engagement in Iraq. Yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry did just that, calling on Bush to "face the truth and change course."

As the problems in Iraq mount, Democrats by the day are becoming less afraid of foreign policy. The president`s free ride is over.

•

Beware technology: When Debra DeShong, communications director at the Democratic National Committee, returned my call on her cell phone to comment on all the money Howard Dean has raised online, I heard her saying -- and quoted her this way in my July 8 column -- that the DNC was asking: "How can we get them over to our side?" What she said was that the party was trying to get them "over to our site," as in Web site. One letter, big difference.



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Tongue-Tied In the Arab World


By David Ignatius

Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A21


PARIS -- The Post ran a story this week about an explosion on a bridge in Baghdad that targeted U.S. troops. Sadly, such stories are becoming routine, but something in the lead sentence caught my eye: "The combat engineers inside the tan Humvees had traversed the Wedding Island Bridge dozens of times to fetch their translator."

"To fetch their translator." That`s the worrying detail. None of the engineers spoke Arabic, apparently. Which meant that, like most of the 150,000 U.S. personnel in Iraq, they were dependent on interpreters. That`s a dangerous vulnerability. But, as with so much else about postwar Iraq, nobody seems to have thought it through carefully.

This is a self-inflicted wound. For until recently, fluency in Arabic was often suspect in Washington, a sign of potential pro-Arab sympathies. It could be dangerous to your career health.

The ideological purges of the 1950s wiped out a generation of Sinologists who were deemed too close to Beijing, leaving America without needed expertise when it went to war in Vietnam. So now the lack of Arab-world expertise limits America in Iraq.

The shortage of Arabic speakers has become so acute that one of the U.S. government`s most fluent Arabists recently had to interpret trivial housekeeping questions at his headquarters in Baghdad. This is a man who could help create a new Iraq; what a waste that he must spend time minding the domestic staff.

The lack of Arabists already was severe during the Afghanistan war. Indeed, I am told that an Arabic document found in Kabul before the murder of Daniel Pearl outlined a plot to kidnap an American journalist in an unnamed country. But it was ignored in a heap of documents by an overwhelmed Pentagon bureaucracy.

Once upon a time it was different. There was a caste at the State Department and the CIA known as "the Arabists." Often their parents had been missionaries or teachers in the Arab world, so they grew up learning subtleties of language and culture. Sometimes, they became Arabists by choice rather than birth -- drawn to that part of the world by its exotic if dangerous political history.

I think of people such as Robert Ames, a young basketball star who fell in love with the Arab world in the 1960s after CIA language school. As I wrote in a 1987 novel based loosely on Ames`s experiences, "he felt the Middle East like a physical sensation on his skin." The real-life Ames developed secret contact with the PLO`s chief of intelligence during the 1970s that saved hundreds of American lives.

Or I think of Ray Close, who was CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia for seven turbulent years and helped limit the damage of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and subsequent oil embargo. He is descended from four generations of missionaries, teachers and diplomats who came to the Middle East starting in 1853, and he has spent 37 years of his life in the region.

Or of Daniel Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew whose fluent Arabic made him a valuable ambassador to Cairo in the late `90s, when he wasn`t fighting Egyptian prejudice. The point is, these people knew enough about their part of the world to help protect American security interests.

But during the past two decades, the Arabists began to fall into disrepute. They were accused of being too sympathetic to the culture they had mastered, and they were attacked for having an implicit bias against Israel.

In his 1993 book "The Arabists," Robert D. Kaplan quoted a particularly vitriolic assessment from former State Department official Francis Fukuyama, who said the Arabists "have been more systematically wrong than any other area specialists in the diplomatic corps. This is because Arabists not only take on the cause of the Arabs, but also the Arabs` tendency for self-delusion."

Not surprisingly, when fluency in a foreign language came to be equated with "self-delusion," the Arabists` ranks began to thin, as ambitious CIA and State officers looked for other billets. Both agencies tried hard in the 1990s to expand their Arabic training programs, but the stigma remains, as does the dearth of officers who can really thrive in the local culture.

We are paying the price for demonizing specialists who knew the Arab world -- whose expertise could be helping the United States in Iraq. We are also paying for America`s decades of neglect, in government and outside, of foreign languages and area studies.

It`s not a question of pro or anti, but of having the skills to get the job done. I can`t think of anything more dangerous to America`s national security, or Israel`s for that matter, than to have American officers in postwar Iraq who can`t find the bathroom without asking an interpreter for directions.



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U.S. May Tap Oil for Iraqi Loans
The White House weighs a plan to pledge future revenue to finance postwar reconstruction. Critics question the effort`s legitimacy.
By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer

July 11, 2003

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is considering a provocative idea to pledge some of Iraq`s future oil and gas revenue to secure long-term reconstruction loans before a new Iraqi government is in place to sign off on the proposal.

The plan, endorsed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States and some of America`s biggest companies, would help avert a looming cash crunch that has the potential to stall the postwar rebuilding effort. One U.S. official rated the proposal`s prospects at 50-50.

But the plan is drawing fire from some administration officials, lawmakers, policy analysts and prominent Iraqis who say it would mortgage the Persian Gulf nation`s most treasured resource, prevent future leaders from deciding how to spend their oil money and put U.S. taxpayers at risk.

"Iraqis believe their oil should not be touched by foreigners, that it should remain in the hands of the Iraqi government and that no one has a right to do anything before an elected government is in place," said Fadhil Chalabi, executive director of the Center for Global Energy Studies in London and a former Iraqi Oil Ministry official.

"As an economist, I believe in what they are proposing. You couldn`t come up with a better formula," Chalabi said. "But Iraqi politics and the way they look at these things are not encouraging. It could create problems later on. Better to wait until a government is formed."

That may be too late, in the view of the plan`s supporters. The Export-Import Bank and an industry coalition that includes Halliburton Co., Bechtel Group Inc. and other major companies that are interested in winning contracts in Iraq are warning that unless steps are taken soon to secure new funds, the reconstruction well could run dry.

"Common sense says get Iraq running. How do you get the country running? By using its own oil revenue 100% for the benefit of the Iraqi people," said Export-Import Bank Chairman Philip Merrill. "If you want to wait three or four years, be my guest. But that means the country is going to be running on the dole of the United States."

Many experts agree that Iraq is headed for a possible cash flow crisis as reconstruction costs escalate, initial funds are depleted and the resumption of oil exports is delayed due to damage caused by looting and sabotage.

But they part company over whether the U.S.-led occupation administration in Baghdad has the legal or moral authority to pledge future oil revenue as loan collateral before the issue can be debated by elected Iraqis.

"Unless a reconstituted Iraqi government or the U.N. Security Council authorizes the plan, it appears to violate international law," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). "We do not have the right, without additional authority, to impose financial obligations on the future government of Iraq."

Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, has asked the Export-Import Bank, the Pentagon and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to disclose more information about the proposal and the role played by Halliburton and other companies in crafting it.

Opponents of the plan warn that if a future Iraqi government chose to stop making payments on the obligations, U.S. taxpayers could wind up holding the bag.

"We`re going to be on the hook, just like U.S. banks were on the hook to Mexico in the early 1980s and U.S. lenders were on the hook to South America in 1990," said independent energy economist Philip K. Verleger Jr.

Although the proposal is under consideration in Washington and Baghdad, the State Department has expressed concern about the preemption of Iraqi decision-making authority and the possibility that a future government might choose to default on the debt.

The Treasury Department has voiced similar reservations, warning that the creation of a new class of debt could complicate U.S. efforts to persuade other countries to write off or restructure Iraq`s massive prewar debt burden.

Still, a Treasury official who requested anonymity said the plan has merit and might well win approval. "It`s a 50-50 proposition right now," the official said.

Experts estimate that rebuilding Iraq could cost anywhere from $20 billion to $100 billion over several years. Oil exports are expected to net about $3.5 billion this year and $14 billion in 2004. But some of that money will be needed for other purposes, and coalition officials continue to scale back their export targets as pipeline explosions and power outages constrain production.

The administration has been financing reconstruction from a $7-billion pool of congressional appropriations, international contributions and seized Iraqi assets. But concern is growing that the rising costs could consume all of the money set aside so far and that initial oil sales will not make up the difference.

"Existing revenues for reconstruction are not adequate to sustain the effort much beyond the end of this year," said Edmund Rice, president of a business group called the Coalition for Employment Through Exports. "The crunch could come in late autumn or after the first of the year. But roughly six months is when they`re going to hit the wall on resources."

The oil loan proposal is designed to bridge the funding gap. Under the plan, a portion of Iraq`s future oil and gas revenue would be pledged as collateral to repay loans or bonds issued to finance infrastructure improvements. An Iraq Reconstruction Finance Authority would be established to review projects and arrange the financing.

The industry coalition has proposed using the financing mechanism to raise $3 billion to $4 billion a year for reconstruction work on a project-by-project basis. The Ex-Im Bank envisions raising $25 billion to $30 billion to boost Iraq`s oil production to as much as 5 million barrels a day from its current level of less than 1 million barrels.

Depending on how much money was raised, the plan could wind up claiming anywhere from a small fraction to the lion`s share of Iraq`s oil revenue over a decade or longer.

The Iraqi reconstruction authority would use the borrowed money to pay contractors for large-scale improvements such as renovating oil wells or building power plants. The loans would be guaranteed by a consortium of export credit agencies, including the Ex-Im Bank and its foreign counterparts. The financing would be reserved for new projects and would be subject to competitive bidding open to companies from all countries.

"Bechtel and Halliburton would have to rebid on a level playing field with everybody else," said Rice, whose coalition represents 28 companies and two trade groups. Members include such California-based giants as ChevronTexaco Corp., Fluor Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Oracle Corp.

Ex-Im Bank officials believe the U.S.-led occupation already has adequate legal authority to launch the oil loan program. In May, the U.N. Security Council authorized allied officials to disburse Iraqi oil revenue for humanitarian purposes, economic reconstruction, disarmament and "other purposes benefiting the Iraqi people." It did not address the use of future revenue.

Bank officials say there is a precedent for such a plan in the region. In 1948, a similar money-raising authority was established in behalf of the new state of Israel before an elected government was in place to endorse taking on the financial obligation.

Supporters of the oil loan idea insist that Iraqis should be included in the decision-making process from the start. But until some form of elected government is in place, the only Iraqi officials in a position to participate are those appointed by allied authorities to staff the various government ministries.

"We`re better off to have the Iraqis involved," said Merrill of the Ex-Im Bank. "Should they have control from Day 1? Probably not. Will they have control at the end of the decade? For certain. Where on the curve do they get control? I don`t know.

"But they`re likely to get there a lot quicker if they`ve got the money than if they don`t."

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Gen. Franks Sees Troops Needed for Years in Iraq
By Esther Schrader, Edwin Chen and John Daniszewski
Times Staff Writers

July 11, 2003

WASHINGTON — With the number of American casualties climbing, the commander of allied forces during the war said Thursday that some U.S. forces may have to remain in Iraq for years.

But authorities are set to launch a Shiite-dominated Iraqi governing council as early as Sunday, a move intended to ease the sense of occupation among Iraqis and give them some control over their internal and international affairs, a Kurdish political source said today.

In addition to seven political parties, the council is to be made up of about 15 other representatives of Iraqi society, which officials hope will help calm anti-U.S. sentiment in the country. Prominent among them is expected to be Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni Muslim former foreign minister, several women and representatives of Iraq`s Christian and Turkmen minority groups.

During 3 1/2 hours of questioning before the House Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. Tommy Franks told lawmakers that the Pentagon hopes to move significant numbers of troops out of Iraq by next July. But he acknowledged that they could be compelled to remain for years longer.

"I anticipate we`ll be involved in Iraq for the foreseeable future," Franks said. "Whether that means two years or four years, I don`t know."

Franks` comments came during another day on the defensive for the Bush administration, which has seen its rapid military success in Iraq tarnished by questions over prewar intelligence and by ongoing attacks on American soldiers that are slowing the process of reconstruction as well as costing lives.

President Bush, in the middle of a five-nation tour of Africa, acknowledged that the threats facing U.S. soldiers in Iraq are serious and likely to persist.

"There`s no question we`ve got a security issue in Iraq, and we`re just going to have to deal with it person by person. We`re going to have to remain tough," the president told reporters in Gaborone, Botswana.

Franks` testimony came on a day that military commanders in Baghdad reported that two more soldiers were killed in attacks near Baghdad and Tikrit. Since Bush declared major combat over May 1, 31 Americans have died in Iraq from hostile fire.

In the first casualty reported Thursday, a 3rd Corps Support Command soldier was killed when a convoy was ambushed by small-arms fire near the city of Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad on Wednesday evening.

Later that night, a 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed and another was injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on their convoy near Tikrit in northern Iraq.

In Baghdad on Thursday, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said his analysts have not yet detected signs of national or regional coordination of the attacks on U.S. forces and added that it was too early to tell if recently broadcast audiotapes purported to be Saddam Hussein urging continued fighting have had an effect.

Sanchez speculated that "maybe that was the plan" by Hussein from the beginning — to withdraw his forces from direct engagement to fight a prolonged guerrilla campaign.

Iraq has been racked by confusion, violence and ill feeling under the administration of the U.S.-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority. Many Iraqis have complained that the absence of an Iraqi government has hampered efforts to reorganize the society and start repairing damage to infrastructure caused by the three-week war against Hussein and two weeks of rampant looting that began April 9, the day U.S. Marines reached central Baghdad.

"We welcome this step," Sheerwan Dizaai, spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Party, said of the plan to launch the council.

During eight weeks of negotiation between the seven parties and chief U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer III, the Iraqis managed to win more powers for the council than originally proposed. It will have the authority to appoint ministers, set economic policy and represent Iraq in foreign countries and international forums.

The council will also have a voice in security inside Iraq. "No policy areas will be reserved for the coalition," said a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad.

Bremer, the effective ruler of Iraq under the U.S.-led occupation, met with leading Iraqi politicians on Thursday and agreed to name the rest of the council, according to Dizaai.

In Africa, where he is promoting his initiatives to battle AIDS and encourage democratic reforms, Bush counseled patience in the Iraq effort.

"We`re making steady progress. A free Iraq will mean a peaceful world. And it`s very important for us to stay the course," Bush said.

Bush claimed in his State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium in Africa. A U.S. official on Thursday said that in September the Central Intelligence Agency unsuccessfully sought to convince the British government to drop such claims from a key intelligence report.

That British paper concluded that Iraq had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That became the basis for Bush`s claim in his January speech.

"We did share with them our concerns about the uranium issue," a U.S. official said, adding that the CIA considered the information "sketchy, incomplete, unconvincing."

The British included the assertion anyway, saying they had information from other sources that had not been shared with the Americans. "They said that they thought they had it solidly enough to report, and so they did," the U.S. official said.

In Africa, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell offered the administration`s toughest defense so far of how the questionable assertion made it into the president`s address, where it was used to help make his case for war.

"There was no effort or attempt on the part of the president or anyone else in the administration to mislead or to deceive the American people," Powell told reporters at a news conference in Pretoria, the South African administrative capital, that was dominated by questions about the intelligence report and when policymakers knew it was false.

Powell called the questions "very overwrought and overblown and overdrawn" and insisted that "we were not cooking the books" to make the threat from Iraq appear more serious than it was.

In Washington, Franks acknowledged that the campaign to secure and stabilize Iraq is "really hard." Although he agreed with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld`s testimony a day earlier that the majority of attacks on U.S. troops are limited to a relatively small area of central Iraq known as the "Sunni Triangle," Franks noted that about 70% of Iraqis live in that region.

In his second day of testimony on Capitol Hill, Franks said that although American troops have detained 3,400 Iraqis, attacks by Iraqi insurgents are coming at a rate of between 10 and 25 a day, and they are growing in sophistication.

Lawmakers complimented Franks — who retired Monday as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and the Horn of Africa — as well as the troops he commanded. But Democrats on the committee criticized the Pentagon`s planning for the postwar stabilization of Iraq.

"I have a fear that, if left unchecked, we may find ourselves in the throes of guerrilla warfare for years," Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the committee`s senior Democrat, told Franks.

"We cannot leave Iraq," Skelton warned, echoed by other Democratic lawmakers on the committee. "This must be a success."

Committee member Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Pleasanton) lashed out at Franks for what she said were intelligence lapses that misrepresented the threat posed by Hussein and misread the way his military and loyalists would react during and after the war.

During an exchange in which Franks repeatedly interrupted her, Tauscher chided him for testifying that banned materials will be found in Iraq that will "vindicate" the administration`s intelligence estimates.

"I don`t think that there`s enough time in the day or enough energy that we could spend vindicating some of the intelligence," Tauscher said.

She said CIA Director George Tenet should be called to testify before the committee "to evaluate whether the intelligence used to send [soldiers] into harm`s way was sound."

Franks insisted that the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is "building momentum." Reconstruction authorities there have already hired 35,000 Iraqi police, he noted, more than half the total force of 60,000 they hope to eventually reach.

He said the Pentagon hopes to have recruited and trained a nine-division Iraqi army by next July.

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Anaheim asked Franks if he would refer to the attacks against American troops as guerrilla warfare.

Franks said he would not call the situation guerrilla warfare because he does not believe the attacks are supported by the Iraqi people.

But pressed by Sanchez, who said that guerrilla groups in Colombia and Nicaragua have also not been supported by most people in those countries, Franks said: "I mean, if people want to refer to what we see as a guerrilla effort, then that`s OK." He added that it did not fit his "own personal definition" of guerrilla war.

*


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Times staff writers Schrader reported from Washington, Chen from Botswana and Daniszewski from Baghdad. Staff writers Greg Miller in Washington and Terry McDermott in Baghdad also contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Calling All Annoying Virgins
Britney Spears` contrived chastity is no more. Who, pray who will step up to symbolize America?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, July 11, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/



Nations are stunned. Preteen gum-snapping girls are frozen in mid-bubble. The culture is baffled and paralyzed and all atwitter now that Britney Spears, America`s slightly soured sweetheart, the world`s most famous and irritating and eye-rollingly pointless virgin, is no longer a virgin, apparently, gasp, oh dear, sigh.

It`s true. The tabloids are all aflutter with the now-verified news that Britney did indeed give into her more moist urges with Justin Timberlake last year, thus totally, like, shattering her image as a sparkly uberchaste hypersexed flesh-curdling Lolita wanna-be who hasn`t had a hit in, like, two years and who no one`s really paying all that much attention to anymore anyway.


And now, the void. The abyss. The waiting. The tragic lack of someone to fill her Astroglide-stained ruby slippers, a nubile grinning gyrating blank-faced pop-icon canvass onto which we as a perpetually sexually perplexed culture can project our odd double-edged need for innocence and virtue and sweetness coupled with debauchery and heat and mad throbbing desire. You know?

See, Brit was perfect. She was America incarnate. She was all forced sweetness and light and girl-next-door innocence on top, spandex and fake breasts and ass-crack-revealing designer jeans and rabid simmering salable lust just underneath.

There she was, licking her dancer`s abs, singin` `bout oops doing it again, smiling hugely through the pain of her fame and her wild partying and her thong underwear and her unused dildo. Poor thing.

She was Everygirl. She was Nogirl. She was inhumanly perky and saccharine and embodied the ideal prefabricated American amalgam of falsely pious chastity masquerading as sweaty hip-grinding hardcore sexuality. Or maybe that`s the other way around. Doesn`t matter.

And now she is gone. Now she is J-Lo. Her next album will be packed with angst-torn lyrics written by someone else and all about getting it on and grinding it out in the backseats of New York taxicabs, of broken dreams and broken condoms and how creepily difficult it is to get the smell of Fred Durst out of your favorite Gucci leather jacket. Ah, fame.

Look. We have no true sexual role models in this nation. We have no delicious icons of healthy vice and open-thighed attitude and responsible divine lust and intelligent sexuality to thwart the bitter ass-clenched proto-Christian conservative agenda. Nina Hartley needs a national TV show. This is all I`m saying. But that`s another column.

What we do have, however, is a BushCo that actually has the appalling gall to set aside $135 mil to force kids to learn all about the joys of repressing all sexual desire and bliss and bodily exploration and sensual spiritual power in favor of abstinence until they get married and then half of them get divorced because they were so goddamn lousy in bed.

And wasn`t it Voltaire who noted, "it is one of the great superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue?" That Voltaire, he knew things.

What we do have is a rather draconian anti-choice anti-women anti-gay anti-sex government that gives every indication it would love nothing more than to shove every single sexually active progressively libidinous vibrator-using human into a small dark room with John Ashcroft on infinite tape loop belting out "Let the Eagles Soar" until every last iota of sexual desire is sucked out of you like pith from a dying tree.

Ah, but then again, we have porn. We have the biggest and richest and dirtiest entertainment industry of them all. More dough than music and mainstream movies and radio and magazines combined. Ten billion a year, estimated, and growing.

And we have the apparent phenom of the hardcore sex biz turning mainstream, of Jenna Jameson turning up at Cannes and a whole Showtime series based on the genius of Seymore Butts, all despite (or maybe because of) that very John Ashcroft`s pallid asexual sneer, Lynne Cheney`s terrifying libido-curdling glare, Laura Bush`s unlocatable femininity no enlightened woman worth her Hitachi Magic Wand can relate to in the slightest.

See? We are perplexed. We are hypocritical and hilarious and two faced and upside down back-asswards. We are confounded and ridiculous and hypocritical and shy. Europeans laugh at us. We are terrified of our sexuality and horrified and/or weirdly shocked when presidents do it or teenagers do it or anyone at all does it unless it`s us and then it`s a fun little dirty secret but we don`t talk about it shhh.

And pointless little Britney Spears, well, she was our emblem. The pitch-perfect little slut-starlet aegis of our virgin/whore innocence/smut touch-me/don`t-touch-me sexual conundrum, all about grinding hips and licked lips and physical bliss and the hot-bodied sloe-eyed come-hither promise of something never really delivered.

Ain`t that just like America.


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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-741737,00.html

July 11, 2003

Liberal California confronts years of forced sterilisation
By Chris Ayres

HIGHLIGHTING a revelation showing that California was not always the home of liberal politics, the state is considering a formal apology to at least 20,000 people who were sterilised against their will between the early 1900s and late 1960s as part of a eugenics programme designed to strengthen the Aryan gene pool.

The programme was sanctioned by the Supreme Court and provided a blueprint for Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, which borrowed heavily from American laws when introducing forced sterilisation for its own “undesirables”.

The enthusiasm of white, wealthy Californians for racial streamlining in the 1920s was lampooned in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, which satirised one of the most popular books on the subject, The Rising Tide of Colour by Lothrop Stoddart.

Although California’s eugenics programme was initially aimed at the mentally ill and physically disabled, some historians say that it was also used to stop Mexican and Asian immigrants from having families.

One of the most influential eugenics proponents was Ezra Gosney, a citrus magnate from Pasadena, who founded the Human Betterment Foundation in 1926. His supporters included Harry Chandler, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, which ran a story in 1935 under the headline of Why Hitler Says: ‘Sterilise the Unfit!’ It went on: “Here, perhaps, is an aspect of the new Germany that America, with the rest of the world, can little afford to criticise.”

Other eugenics enthusiasts included Charles Goethe, founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California, who said in 1929 that the Mexican was “eugenically as low-powered as the Negro. He not only does not understand health rules: being a superstitious savage, he resists them.” Today, Goethe has a public park named after him in Sacramento, the state capital.Although American eugenics was practised most widely in California, 31 other states had similar programmes to “clean up the gene pool”.

In North Carolina the state has ordered an inquiry into its own eugenics programme and in Oregon, the state’s Governor has apologised in person to some of the victims of forced sterilisation.

Although Gray Davis, the California Governor, issued an apology in March to the victims of the state’s programme, the California Senate has yet to pass a resolution on the subject.

The statement proposed by Senator Dede Alpert, a Democrat, would express “profound regret” over the state’s involvement and urge “every citizen of the state to become familiar with the history of the eugenics movement, in the hope that a more educated and tolerant populace will reject any similar abhorrent pseudoscientific movement should it arise in the future”.

Critics, however, have called the apology meaningless because the state has not made any attempt to locate the victims.

Others, such as Paul Lombardo, a University of Virginia historian, said that the Governor’s apology was premature, because the State of California did not even know how many people were involuntarily sterilised.

Even the date when the forced sterilisation programme ended is unknown, although it may have been as late as 1969. Patient confidentiality rules have made research difficult and forced sterilisations remained legal until 1979.

Anyone with “mental disease” could be sterilised if doctors thought the condition could be passed to descendants. Mental disease was a loose term, used to cover everything from epilepsy to homosexuality.

Some women were sterilised for being “promiscuous”. Although it is widely believed eugenics was also used mainly against non-whites, no survey of the racial profile of sterilisation patients has ever been conducted.

There is plenty of evidence, however, that non-whites were targets. One popular 1926 California eugenics textbook said: “The Negro lacks in his germ plasm (a term for hereditary material) excellence of some qualities which are essential for success in competition with the civilizations of the white races at the present day.”

Even poor rural whites were considered a “degenerate” form.

Some doctors, however, have argued that they regarded sterilisation as a humane treatment for patients, along with lobotomies and other practices that have since been discredited.

“In practice, we didn’t sterilise the severely retarded,” said Dr William Keating, a California surgeon at the Sonoma State Home for the Feeble-Minded during the 1950s, in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times.

“They had very little opportunity for sex. The people we concentrated on were people who were moderately retarded, who had a chance of going out and getting pregnant.”

Tony Platt, Emeritus Professor of Social Work at California State University and a eugenics expert, recently asked the California Senate judiciary committee to give researchers full access to internal records, on condition that patients’ identities are protected.

“As we now grapple with public policies pertaining to genetic technologies that promise to solve global problems of disease and malnutrition, it is important to remember the legacy of eugenics,” he told the committee.

“In the name of human betterment, scientific ideas and practices can be used to promote and reproduce extraordinary inequalities.”

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300 BILLION DEFICITS, AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
by Richard Kogan

“Rarely have the policies underlying the baseline projections been as disconnected from the policy makers’ agendas as they are today.”

— Robert Reischauer[1]



In March of this year, the Congressional Budget Office projected that large deficits in 2003 and 2004 would be followed by falling deficits thereafter, a budget surplus within five years, and large and growing surpluses within ten years. Even accounting for the recently enacted tax cuts and supplemental appropriations to fund the Iraq war, CBO’s projections imply steadily improving budgets. But such a conclusion would be considerably too optimistic: CBO’s figures omit as much as $4.3 trillion in costs over the next ten years, costs that result from legislation that Congress is likely — and in many cases, virtually certain — to enact. With these extra costs, the deficit over the ten year from 2004 through 2013 would total $4.1 trillion.

With the enactment of the 2001, 2002, and 2003 tax cuts, the federal tax code is now rife with tax cuts that are scheduled to expire between 2004 and 2010. If Congress makes all these tax cuts permanent — and there will be considerable pressure to do so — projected 10-year deficits will increase by $1.7 trillion. If Congress also amends the Alternative Minimum Tax so that no more than 3 million tax filers are subject to it in any year, the ten-year deficit could increase by another $760 billion.
http://www.cbpp.org/7-2-03bud.htm

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`Heavy-handed policing by US risks Iraq peace`
By Jimmy Burns in London
Published: July 11 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: July 11 2003 5:00

Senior police advisers have told the UK government that the law enforcement operation in Iraq is at risk of disintegration unless US forces stop "kicking ass" and take a more conciliatory attitude towards civilians.


Some UK officials are appalled by the language and tactics used by Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, dubbed the "Baghdad terminator" by local journalists because of his uncompromising style.

"The Americans need to learn that civil policing is not about `kicking ass`, it is about democracy. There are going to be problems if we continue with our different philosophies and different approaches to law enforcement," one UK official said.

Tensions are growing between London and Washington over the postwar administration of Iraq, with some members of the UK military criticising the way the US has handled stabilisation activities in Baghdad.

However, Tony Blair, prime minister, and other senior officials have acknowledged that the US has a far greater challenge. The UK is responsible only for the Shia-dominated southern zone.

One US soldier was shot dead and another killed late on Tuesday in a rocket-propelled grenade attack, raising to 31 the number of US soldiers killed in addition to six UK military fatalities because of hostile fire since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

Mr Bush yesterday acknowledged Washington had a "security issue".

General Tommy Franks, who retired as head of US Central Command this week, came in for tough questioning before Congress yesterday amid growing disquiet about the duration and costs - in lives and dollars - of the US commitment in Iraq.

Gen Franks said the US had mustered about 35,000 Iraqi police so far, just over half of a target force of 61,000 nationwide.

"We will ultimately [pass] responsibility for security and stability to the Iraqis," he said, but gave no time frame. The UK government is relying on advice from senior UK officers with experience of Northern Ireland and peacekeeping duties in other conflict zones, such as the Balkans.

They have expressed concern that the tough rhetoric and tactics being used by US military and security personnel is fuelling militancy among Iraqis who are not necessarily pro-Saddam.

"It is clear that in terms of security in Baghdad, we are very much the junior partners," said one UK official.

One of Northern Ireland`s most respected senior police officers is due to arrive in Basra early next week with the ambitious brief to develop a training programme for a post-Saddam civilian police force, while looking at additional measures such as the deployment of more British police as part of an interim international peacekeeping force.

The special envoy, Stephen White, the second most senior officer in Northern Ireland, has been at the forefront of police reform as part of the peace process.

* Colin Powell, US secretary of state, yesterday defended the administration`s use of intelligence in making the case for war, writes Guy Dinmore in Washington. He said the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa was discovered to be wrong just days after Mr Bush made the accusation.

Suggestions that the President`s State of the Union address was used to deceive the American people were "overdrawn, overblown, overwrought", Mr Powell told reporters in South Africa.

Mr Powell said that his presentation on February 5 to the UN Security Council was "the definitive presentation of our intelligence case".

He explained that he dropped the reference to Iraq`s quest for uranium because, in the eight days between the two speeches "when we looked at it more thoroughly", the accusation "didn`t hold up".

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com%2FS…

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Mike Shannon: `If it looks like a guerilla and walks like a guerilla`
Posted on Friday, July 11 @ 10:30:42 EDT
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By Mike Shannon

It was another bar raising performance in the art of smug condescension, but it just didn`t go over quite as well as it used to. As the news conference began, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld tried valiantly to dismiss any and all charges that the American occupation of Iraq has taken a turn for the worse. But even this master of obfuscation could see a change in the eyes, voices and questions of the once pliant and obedient news corps that hangs on his every word. Whereas, not so long ago, they would chuckle at his latest barbs and marvel at his ease and confidence in the face of such challenges and pressures, it had become more and more apparent that the honeymoon was finally coming to a close. Of course, this does not mean he will now come clean and tell the truth, it merely means he will have to work that much harder to conceal it.

The galling highlight of this particular session of thrust and parry was when the Secretary feigned mock horror at his failure to look up the word "guerilla" before taking the stage. With an ear to ear grin -- how this man can laugh while the men and women he is responsible for face hardship, deprivation and death on a daily basis is as inexplicable as it is disgraceful -- he admitted that he knew someone would bring up this word that the Bushies dare not speak.



With the outside chance that this piece might make it to the Secretary`s desk, I hope he won`t mind if I provide a little edification on the subject. The term guerilla is Spanish both etymologically and historically. Its literal translation is "little war". The term came into being in the early 1800`s when Napoleon invaded the Spanish peninsula. By that time Spain`s military power had long since seen better days, and they were no match against the modern, well equipped and well trained French. Not wishing to permit the takeover of their homeland without a fight, the patriots of Spain took to the hills and began a six year campaign of harassment and low level attrition just like every other out gunned nationalist movement has always done. And just like the Iraqis are doing to us.

In spite of reassurances from Rumsfeld and the rest of Team Bush that the US is not currently engaged in a guerilla war in Iraq -- the best the President could do when pressed on the subject during a question and answer session in Africa was to admit that "we have got a security issue" in Iraq -- the reality is that we are. Even more troubling is that there are two primary dynamics in play that support the contention that things will get far worse before they get any better: The temperament/moral of the American soldier and the temperament/moral of the Iraqi people.

First the American soldier; It is not their professionalism that is being challenged so much as it is their humanity. These guys are not machines. They have the same needs and desires as anyone else. Superb training, unwavering dedication to their duty and even extraordinary do not change that fact. Anybody that is forced to live in an environment of such oppressing heat, thousands of miles from home and surrounded by an enemy that strikes from nowhere and anywhere at a moment`s notice would be hard pressed not to be more than a little apprehensive, a little on edge and little pissed off. The longer these factors are in play the more ingrained the fear and the need to protect themselves from it will come into play. Which means that the possibility that a soldier will fire first and ask questions becomes that much greater which each passing day.

Which leads to the second part the equation: how the Iraqi people perceive their American liberators/occupiers. The Bush administration has been adamant in portraying the Iraqi resistance as "common criminals", "dead-enders", "Baathist diehards", and of course "terrorists". Each of these definitions may in fact be partially correct. But what the administration fails to publicly acknowledge is that they may also just be people who hate the fact that a foreign power has taken control of their homeland.

While it appears as these insurgents are currently in the minority -- and thank God for that. If they weren`t the American casualty rates would be far higher than they currently are -- it is a question of paramount importance as to whether their numbers are increasing or decreasing. That will be determined by whom the average Iraqi will hold to account for the miserable conditions that their lives have been reduced to: the guerillas who blow up the electrical transformers every time they are repaired or the Americans who seem powerless to do anything about it.

Where this is leading is anybody`s guess, but there is one thing for certain: the soldiers of the American army are not going anywhere soon. And neither are the querilla fighters of Iraq.

Contact Mike at [e-mail]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=12189&mode=nest…

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A United States Army soldier watches as underbrush lining the road to Baghdad`s airport, which provides potential cover for attackers, is burned during a security operation, July 11, 2003. Two Iraqis were wounded when their vehicle was caught in crossfire after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a U.S. patrol near Baghdad airport, the U.S. military said on Friday. Photo by Faleh Kheiber/Reuters

U.S. Troops Under Fire in Iraq, Bush Defends War
Fri July 11, 2003 10:38 AM ET


By Andrew Gray
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two Iraqis were wounded as attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. troops in Baghdad, and a U.S. base came under its ninth mortar attack in 10 days, the U.S. military said on Friday.

In the United States and in Britain, its closest military ally in the Iraq war, controversy intensified over the pre-war arguments made by the two governments to their peoples to justify attacking Baghdad.

Touring Africa, President George Bush pointed the finger at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency over a false accusation made in the runup to the war that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium.

U.S. forces in Iraq are facing between 10 and 25 attacks every day, according to the general who led the war that ousted Saddam Hussein, but officers denied Arabic media reports they had pulled out of one flashpoint town west of Baghdad.

Troops in Falluja pulled out of one police station and the mayor`s office but remained in the town, officers and witnesses said. U.S. soldiers in armored vehicles patrolled the town center on Friday morning.

A religious leader at one of Falluja`s 46 mosques urged people to give U.S. forces six months to finish their mission in the town.

"When this period is finished, the patience of Muslims will run out and jihad (holy struggle) will be declared," Sheikh Abdullah Janabi told worshippers at Friday prayers.

ATTACK NEAR AIRPORT

On Thursday evening, a U.S. patrol came under rocket-propelled grenade attack northeast of Baghdad airport and the troops returned fire, a military spokesman said.

"A civilian vehicle was caught in crossfire. One Iraqi was shot in the neck and one Iraqi was shot in the abdomen," the spokesman said. He said the Iraqis had been taken to a military medical facility. There were no U.S. casualties.

U.S. forces have frequently come under fire on the highway leading to the airport. Soldiers set ablaze on Friday the lush vegetation beside the road to deprive assailants of cover. In Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, attackers fired three mortar rounds at a U.S. military base at around 4:30 a.m. local time, a spokesman said.

"No people at all were injured and there was minimal damage," he said, adding it was the ninth attack in 10 days.

U.S. forces have noticed "increasing sophistication" in attacks against them with the use of weapons such as mortars in recent weeks rather than just small arms and grenades, U.S. General Tommy Franks told U.S. lawmakers on Friday.

But Franks, who stepped down recently as head of U.S. Central Command and will soon retire, said the violence against U.S. forces still did not amount to a guerrilla war as there did not appear to be any central coordination behind it.

U.S. troops keep watch while on patrol in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, July 11, 2003. Two Iraqis were wounded as attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. troops in Baghdad, and a U.S. base came under its ninth mortar attack in 10 days, the U.S. military said. Photo by Akram Saleh/Reuters
BUSH DEFENDS WAR

Bush said in Uganda his prewar charge that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Africa had been approved by his "intelligence services," and U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the specific wording was approved by the CIA.

The White House acknowledged this week it had been a mistake to say Saddam had been trying to get African uranium because documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger proved to have been forged.

Bush repeated he had been right to go to war against Saddam.

"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," Bush said.

"It speaks in detail to the American people of the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. My government took the appropriate response to those dangers," he told reporters.

While Bush has faced some criticism over the grounds given for war, his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under more intense criticism from opponents, the media and from within his own party over the supposed doctoring of evidence against Iraq.

COUNCIL EXPECTED SOON

Thirty-one U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. U.S. officials blame Saddam loyalists but some Iraqis say the attacks reflect more widespread discontent with occupation.

Washington hopes the violence will decline if Iraqis feel the occupying powers are transferring authority to local leaders and improving the lives of ordinary people.

One key step in their efforts will be the establishment of a national governing council, expected within days.

U.S. and British officials have been closely involved in setting up the council but hope its members will announce its formation to bolster its legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis.

"It will not be a legal council if it is not Iraqi. It must have the authority to take its place in front of the nation and its people," Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, a leader of Iraq`s Shi`ite Muslim majority, declared on Friday.

"If the council takes its place by the consent of the occupation forces, it will not be a significant council," he said at Friday prayers in the Shi`ite holy city of Najaf.

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Give Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz the boot


By H.D.S. Greenway, 7/11/2003

ECRETARY OF Defense Donald Rumsfeld stands at the head of the table. He has outmaneuvered all his Cabinet rivals and taken over many of the functions that used to belong to the State Department, the CIA, even the Justice Department. He dominates the Cabinet as no secretary of defense has done since Robert McNamara. He is also articulate, refreshingly if undiplomatically blunt, with a no-nonsense approach that is at times both witty and exactly to the point.


His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, is often mentioned as the most brilliant person in government. He is perhaps the most influential deputy in modern times, at the top of his game. He has seen his vision of toppling Saddam Hussein fulfilled, and he is an intellectual force behind a whole new way of looking at US foreign policy.

But for all of that, both should be fired. Here`s why.

The Iraq campaign, of which they were in charge, has been grossly mishandled. I use the word campaign because the overthrow of Saddam`s army and regime was only the opening phase in what has to be, if this country is to maintain any credibility, an open and democratic society in Iraq. This may yet happen, but the current leadership of the Pentagon, through a fatal combination of hubris and incompetence, has so far bungled the job. If there were any accountability in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz would be asked to resign.

First, the Pentagon civilians ignored advice early on from military men that more troops would be needed for the operation. This miscalculation of necessary troop strength left the lines of supply dangerously unguarded as American troops sped toward Baghdad. Once Baghdad fell, it was painfully obvious that there were not enough troops to maintain order.

Second, what policing was done had to be done by combat troops who are trained to kill, not police, so when demonstrations started, their only response was to shoot into the crowd. Rumsfeld dismissed the horrendous post-combat looting as just something that comes along with freedom - a comment that will remain around his neck like an albatross as the political and security situation in Iraq deteriorates. As the respected International Crisis Group said in a recent report: ``Even senior American civilians in Baghdad express consternation at the near-total absence of advance preparations for dealing with postwar needs.``

The Pentagon seems to have believed that Iraqi army units and policemen would come over to the American side with their forces intact and begin working for the Americans. It seems not to have occurred to them that another scenario might unfold, that the soldiers and police would simply melt away and that chaos would take over. The great failure of Pentagon planning was that there was no Plan B if Plan A failed. After trying to run Iraq on the cheap, Rumsfeld this week doubled his estimates for the cost of maintaining troops in Iraq.

It is not as if the Pentagon was not warned. In the lead-up to war, there were many voices from experienced experts and think tanks warning that the United States would need a substantial military police force to go in right after the troops. All were ignored, just as Robert McNamara ignored all advice about Indochina, only to say years later that he never knew.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz presided over what one diplomat calls a ``colossal miscalculation`` that may have more impact on this country than did the miscalculation at the Bay of Pigs four decades ago. All the effort that the armed forces took not to destroy vital civilian infrastructure went for naught because all was destroyed by postcombat looting. Although American soldiers quickly secured the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, nothing was done to protect museums, hospitals, vital offices - even nuclear facilities where radioactive material might have fallen into terrorist hands. Vital records that might have led us to weapons of mass destruction were also destroyed.

The damage done is incalculable, and not just in material terms. The political damage has been worse and will be far more lasting in its consequences. The Pentagon civilian leadership has squandered much of the good will that Iraqis felt after the yoke of the Ba`ath Party was lifted. Policy is in drift. Forces that are inimical to American interests are rushing in to fill that vacuum. A guerrilla war is gathering.

As America`s first proconsul in Iraq, General Jay Garner, was fired when it was clear that his team had failed, so should his bosses at the top of the Pentagon civilian leadership be held accountable for this stunning failure to anticipate and plan ahead for a postwar Iraq. It is said that after the Bay of Pigs, President Kennedy told Richard Bissell, the CIA man in charge of the project, that under a parliamentary system it would be he, Kennedy, who would have to resign. But since it was not, it was Bissell who would have to go. George W. Bush should make the same speech now to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

H.D.S. Greenway`s column appears regularly in the Globe.

This story ran on page A11 of the Boston Globe on 7/11/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/192/oped/Give_Rumsfeld_and…

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Poll: U.S. Losing Control in Iraq

NEW YORK, July 10, 2003

For the first time a majority now says the Bush administration overestimated the extent of the Iraqis’ weapons.

(CBS) With U.S. troops continuing to take casualties in Iraq, less than half of Americans now believe the U.S. is in control of the situation there -- a dramatic decline from April, when 71 percent thought it was.

Less than half now say Iraq was a threat that required immediate action. And while 54 percent still believe that removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth the costs of war, that figure, too, has declined from 65 percent in May.

A majority still believes the U.S. will eventually turn up weapons of mass destruction, but fewer are confident of this today than they were last month, and the public divides on whether the war will have been worth it if no weapons of mass destruction are found. For the first time a majority now says the Bush administration overestimated the extent of the Iraqis’ weapons.

Americans continue to look homeward, and they rate the economy -- not Iraq -- as the nation’s most important problem. There is even more concern about the state of the economy -- just one in four thinks it is improving.

Americans’ belief that the U.S. is in control of the situation in Iraq has plummeted to 45 percent, down from 71 percent in late April.

IS THE U.S. IN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION IN IRAQ?

Yes Now 45%
4/03 71%

No Now 41%
4/03 20%


Americans are also less positive now in their assessment of the U.S. effort in Iraq. Today, six in ten say U.S. efforts are going at least somewhat well (only 6% describe them as going very well) and over one-third of Americans say the U.S. efforts are going badly, up from less than one in four who thought so in May.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/10/opinion/polls/main…

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Where is Iraq War Instigator, Richard Perle?

"The shifty Perle, the Mother of all Neocons, also predicted, like former Defense Department official, Ken Adelman, that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a `cakewalk!` .."

By William Hughes

07/10/03: (Palestine Chronicle) Perhaps we should take a break on looking for Saddam Hussein, Usama bin Laden, William “Slots” Bennett, or, even James J. “Whitey” Bulger. For me, the key question today is: Where is Richard Perle?

Before the launching of Iraq War No. 2, in March 20, 2003, Perle, America’s Iago, regularly appeared on TV and cable TV programs, on radio, and in the print media, too. He repeated, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, why it was so absolutely critical for the U.S. to immediately invade Iraq.

America was “at risk,” he said, with that ubiquitous smirk on his mug. There wasn’t a moment to lose. “Saddam has WMD,” he told us, and he also “hates America” and poses a dire “threat to our security?”

The shifty Perle, the Mother of all Neocons, also predicted, like former Defense Department official, Ken Adelman, that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk!” It will be “easy,” he boasted. We would also be “exporting democracy” to the Iraqi people, who will “welcome us” with open arms “as liberators,” he claimed over and over again in similar words. Cakewalk! Easy! Exporting Democracy! Liberators! Sure!

Now, Perle is among the missing! The man with the sinister-looking scowl hasn’t showed up on the Talking Head circuits since about the time the U.S. occupation of Iraq began going sour. Could he be hiding out in his beloved Israel, in a safe house provided by Benjamin Netanyahu, a/k/a “Bend-the-Truth Yahoo”? Or, are the War Hawks, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), telling him to keep a low profile by working temporarily as an extra on a Hollywood movie? Who knows?

It’s a certainty that the idea of “regime change” for Baghdad was first hustled in Zionist Israel. A 1996 paper concocted by Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Security the Realm,” called for, inter alia, “the removal of Saddam Hussain and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.”

The “realm” Perle, Feith and Wurmser were seeking to secure, however, wasn’t America’s, but Israel’s! The study was intended as a blueprint for the then-upcoming Likud-dominated government of Netanyahu. Feith now works for “our” Defense Department, in a high policy post, while Wurmser is planted in the State Department as a “special assistant.” (“Examining the Role of Israel-and its American Friends-in Promoting War on Iraq,” Allan C. Brownfeld, WRMEA, May, 2003).

For a while, Perle was a chief honcho of the Defense Policy Board, which advised Donald Rumsfeld and reported directly to another shadowy figure, Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Perle was recently forced to resign from the top post, but still remains on the Board.

Perle is a notorious Israeli Firster. He is a member of the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA). He is also a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a hard line, right wing “think tank,” that has slated Iran as Amerca’s next war target. Perle advocates a so-called “Pax Americana,” a new American Empire, which promotes America’s world domination. Gee, I wonder if Israel will benefit from that scheme, too?

Perle serves, also, on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy (FDD)-another right wing group, which is, of course, fanatically pro-Israel. He hangs out with Super-Hawks, such as: Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and Gary Bauer.

In fact, Perle is a master deceiver! American soldiers are now dying in Iraq, 30 since President George W. Bush declared “mission accomplished” on board the USS Lincoln, on May 1, 2003. As the body bags of our fallen heroes return to Dover, Delaware’s Air Force base, loved ones have every right to blame Perle, and his ilk, for their losses.

The Iraq invasion was not a “cakewalk.” Iraq doesn’t have WMD, nor did it have any ties to terrorists, as Perle tooted. And, the Iraqi people bitterly resent the U.S./British invasion and occupation of their country.

The unnecessary and immoral destruction by Coalition Forces of Iraq’s gas, water and electrical works, the bombing of their cities, pollution of their lands and rivers by toxic chemicals, leaking raw sewage and tons of depleted uranium, the death and injuries to countless thousands of innocent civilians,and the mostly total collapse of its social, health, cultural and monetary systems, too, has been a human catastrophe of the first magnitude. A country of 25.5 million souls has become a living hell for no darn good reason. Opponents of the war have nothing to regret.

Democracy, Perle’s rotten lies to the contrary, is not, like Coke Cola, an exportable product. Americans troops now face death around every corner in Iraq, as the situation on the ground begins to resemble the guerrilla warfare conditions of the British-occupied north of Ireland during the late 70s. The Iraqi war will only be over when the Iraqi people say so. The cost to U.S. taxpayers could hit $1.6 trillion. And, this totally uncalled for conflict has created even more enemies for America around the globe.

A final question: Will the slippery Perle, America’s Iago, ever be forced to answer to the people for his incalculable wrongdoing?

© William Hughes 2003. William Hughes is the author of “Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order” (Authors Choice Press) and “Baltimore Iconoclast” (Writer’s Showcase). He can be reached at [e-mail].

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article4057.htm

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Portrait of Bunnypants choking his chicken

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Das Problem mit den elektronischen Wahlsystemen und der amerikanischen Demokratie

Florian Rötzer 11.07.2003

Nach dem Auszählungsdebakel bei der letzten Präsidentschaftswahl werden die Wahlsysteme in den USA modernisiert, aber die haben teilweise erhebliche Sicherheitslücken, was auch zur Ausbreitung kaum widerlegbarer Verschwörungstheorien führt

Das Debakel bei den letzten Präsidentschaftswahlen mit den Wahlmaschinen ( Warum die Amerikaner sich bei den Wahlen verzählen [1]) hat in den USA dazu geführt, dass nun nicht zurück zu Stimmzetteln gegangen wird, sondern aufgrund des "Help America Vote Act of 2002" vielfach neue digitale Wahlmaschinen in den Wahlbezirken installiert werden. Sie gelten, trotz der bekannten Mängel, als sicherer als etwa die Stanzmaschinen. Doch es gibt mit diesen "Direct Recording Electronic" (DRE) Systemen ein großes Problem: Bislang kann nicht wirklich sicher gestellt werden, dass Fehler oder Manipulationen bemerkt werden können. Das aber könnte dazu führen, dass die Glaubwürdigkeit von Wahlen untergraben wird.


Eine für den Wähler und Wahlprüfer undurchdringliche elektronische Wahlmaschine von Diebold

Noch immer ist umstritten, ob George W. Bush tatsächlich Präsident geworden wäre, wenn die Zählung der Stimmen korrekt erfolgt wäre. Die Nachprüfung wurde seiner Zeit bekanntlich durch die Entscheidung des Obersten Gerichtshofs unterbrochen, wodurch automatisch Bush zum Präsidenten erklärt wurde. Große Medien, damals noch etwas kritischer gegenüber Bush eingestellt, hatten eine Überprüfung der strittigen Wahlergebnisse in Auftrag gegeben. Das Ergebnis aber kam erst nach dem 11.9. zustande. Die Medien verzögerten zunächst die Veröffentlichung der Ergebnisse und machten ihre Meldungen angesichts des Patriotismus und Kriegs möglichst klein, denn vermutlich hätten die Stimmen für Bush nicht gereicht ( George W. Bush ist rechtlich, aber wahrscheinlich nicht faktisch der von der Mehrheit gewählte US-Präsident [2]).

Schon 2001 wies eine Expertengruppe auf erhebliche Sicherheitsmängel der elektronischen Wahlmaschinen hin

Am sichersten und auch am besten überprüfbar ist eigentlich die archaische Methode des Stimmzettels, auf der der Wähler mit einem Stift seine Entscheidung einträgt. Obgleich die Wahl mit Stimmzetteln auch in manchen Wahlbezirken praktiziert wird, haben die Amerikaner schon lange mit der Einführung von zunächst mechanischen Maschinen begonnen, weil dies sicherer sei und die Ergebnisse ohne großen Arbeitsaufwand von Menschen schneller gezählt werden können - allerdings passt der Einsatz von Technologie auch zur Haltung der Amerikaner, weil sich damit auch zugleich Geld machen lässt und die Industrie gefördert wird. Noch bei den letzten Präsidentschaftswahl gab es eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Systeme, bald sollen möglichst nur noch computerbasierte Systeme beispielsweise mit einem Touchscreen zur Verfügung stehen, solange Wahlen über das Internet noch nicht durchgeführt werden können.

2001 hatte eine Wissenschaftlergruppe des MIT und des California Institute of Technology einen Bericht [3]) über die Wahlsysteme veröffentlicht und darin berichtet, dass bei den Präsidentschaftswahlen aufgrund von technischen und organisatorischen Mängeln vermutlich 4-6 Millionen Stimmen einfach verloren gegangen seien. Der Bericht empfahl, die mechanischen Stanz- und Hebelmaschinen abzuschaffen. Am verlässlichsten sei neben der Auszählung von Wahlzetteln durch Menschen der Einsatz von Systemen, bei denen auf einem Stimmzettel eingetragenen Markierungen mit optischen Scan-Verfahren eingelesen werden. Die elektronischen Systeme hätten dagegen zahlreiche Mängel. Empfohlen wurde überdies, einen allgemeinen technischen Standard auszuarbeiten, der auch sicher stellen müsse, dass die Wähler selbst ihre Stimmabgabe nachprüfen und eine Kopie davon herstellen können sollen, die sich im Falle einer erforderlichen Nachzählung verwenden ließe.

Eine Petition von Computerexperten mit einer Warnung, die von einem kalifornischen Regierungsbericht bestätigt wird

Just aber dies ist bei den digitalen DRE-Systemen nicht der Fall. Das Problem bei einer Stimmabgabe beispielsweise an einem Computersystem mit einem Touchscreen ist, dass es keine Möglichkeit für den Wähler gibt festzustellen, wie die Stimmabgabe erfasst wurde. Es gibt auch keine Möglichkeit diejenigen zu überprüfen, die für die Auszählung verantwortlich sind. Dan Hill, ein Computerwissenschaftler, der an der Stanford University lehrt, warnt vor der Einführung der existierenden papierlosen Wahlsysteme, wie sie derzeit auf dem Markt angeboten und für die Wahlbezirke gekauft werden.

Diese Maschinen stellen ein inakzeptables Risiko dar, dass Irrtümer oder bewusste Wahlfälschung unentdeckt bleiben, da sie keine Möglichkeit für die Wähler vorsehen, unabhängig überprüfen zu können, dass die Maschine die abgegebenen Stimmen korrekt erfasst und zählt. Wenn Probleme nach der Wahl entdeckt werden, dann gibt es zudem keine Möglichkeit, das korrekte Ergebnis der Wahl festzustellen, wenn man keine Neuwahlen macht.

Dan Hill hat aus diesem Grund eine Petition [4] verfasst, die bereits von einigen hundert Computerexperten mitunterzeichnet wurde. Verlangt wird, keine DRE-Systeme einzuführen oder vorhandene umzurüsten, wenn keine Papierausgabe möglich ist, um eine unabhängige Überprüfung zu ermöglichen.

Computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering. It is therefore crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked. Many of the electronic voting machines being purchased do not satisfy this requirement. Voting machines should not be purchased or used unless they provide a voter-verifiable audit trail; when such machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. Providing a voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems."

Bestätigt wurde dise Warnung der Computerexperten nun durch einen Bericht einer Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force, der am 2. Juli von der kalifornischen Regierung veröffentlicht [5] wurde. Der Bericht wurde auch deswegen in Auftrag gegeben, nachdem die Analysen von Bev Harris gezeigt hatten, dass Touchscreen-Wahlsysteme von Diebold Election Systems manipulierbar sein können, weil von den Stimmabgaben drei Kopien gemacht werden. Da diese Manipulation wegen des dazu verwendeten proprietären Programms (Access von Microsoft) nicht entdeckt und überprüft werden kann, nannte dies Bev Harris Black Box Voting [6]. Noch in diesem Monat wird ein Buch von ihr mit diesem Titel erscheinen. Da die kalifornische Regierung DRE-Systeme bereits eingeführt hat und weiter kaufen will, sollte das Expertenteam die Sicherheit dieser Systeme überprüfen.

Auch die Autoren dieses Berichts zeigen sich sehr besorgt über die mangelnde Überprüfbarkeit und Sicherheit der existierenden DRE-Systeme und fordern umgehend einzuführende Maßnahmen, dass neue Systeme nur mit einer solchen unabhängigen Überprüfungsmöglichkeit gekauft und alte mit seiner solchen ausgestattet werden müssten. Kurzfristig müsse man eine papierbasierte Verifikation umsetzen, wenn dies nicht möglich sei, sollte man im Wahlbüro gleich nach dem Ende der Wahl die Ergebnisse ausdrucken und/oder auf einer CD-ROM abspeichern. Allerdings gehen die meisten der Autoren davon aus, dass bis zum Jahr 2007 auch sichere elektronische Verifikationsverfahren entwickelt werden können. Dafür aber müssten die Kontrollen für die Lizenzierung solcher Systeme, auch seitens des Staates, erheblich verschärft werden.

Die Entdeckung von bedenklichen politischen und technischen Zusammenhängen

Bev Harris ist auf die Idee gekommen, DRE-Systeme von Diebold, die mit Touchscreen oder optischen Scans arbeiten, zu untersuchen, nachdem vor allem 2002 Berichte über Probleme mit solchen Systemen bekannt wurden. Es entstand der Verdacht, dass möglicherweise nicht nur technische Mängel dafür verantwortlich sein könnten, sondern auch eine Manipulation möglich wäre. Harris hatte erfahren, dass Menschen aus der ganzen Welt Daten von einer offen zugänglichen FTP-Seite herunterladen, die Diebold gehörte (inzwischen ist sie nicht mehr zugänglich, aber anderen Orts [7] gespiegelt). Auf der Seite gibt es Bedienungsanleitungen, Quellcode und Installationsversionen von Programmen sowie das Zählprogramm GEMS.

Harris hat das GEMS-Programm mit dem gleich im Benutzerhandbuch mitgelieferten Password analysiert und dabei einige erstaunliche Erkenntnisse gemacht ( Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program [8]). Die Wähler geben ihre Stimme auf dem Touchscreen oder mit dem optischen Scan im Wahllokal ein. Nach der Wahl werden die Stimmen über Modem an den Computer des Wahlbezirks verschickt, auf das GEMS-Programm installiert ist. Das speichert die Stimmen ab, macht aber noch zwei zusätzliche Kopien. Der Wahlbeobachter kann diese drei Kopien nicht sehen, sondern nur auf die Gesamtauswertung oder die Auswertung der einzelnen Wahlbüros zugreifen. Beim Test von GEMS durch Harris griff dieses zur Auswertung aber nicht auf die zuerst abgespeicherten Daten zurück, sondern auf die zweite Kopie. Hier aber konnte Harris demonstrieren, dass sich Veränderungen vornehmen lassen, die aber unentdeckt bleiben könnten, wenn sie sich im Rahmen der erfassten Gesamtstimen halten, weil bei einer Überprüfung der einzelnen Wahlbezirke auf die zuerst abgespeicherten Stimmen zugegriffen wird, die sich nicht verändern. Welchen Zwecken die dritte Kopie dient, hat Harris nicht herausfinden können.

Zudem kann jeder, der ein GEMS-Programm installiert hat, die in dem Access-Programm gespeicherten Kennworte anderer Benutzer kopieren und einfügen, aber auch überschreiben kann. Ausgestattet mit den Privilegien eines Admin kann man auch alle Spuren löschen. Auch die Audit-Logs lassen sich verändern.

Harris behauptet nicht, dass tatsächlich Manipulationen stattgefunden haben, sondern nur, dass sie ohne weiteres möglich wären. Bedenklich sei vor allem, dass niemand das Gegenteil beweisen könne. Das neuseeländische Internetmagazin, das den Artikel von Harris veröffentlicht hat, wittert aber einen großen Skandal: Größer als Watergate [9]. Als Beweis dient der Hinweis darauf, dass auch schon früher "jedes in die USA eingeführte Stimmsystem" manipuliert worden sei. Hingewiesen wird vor allem auf die mit Systemen der Firma Election Systems & Software (ES&S) durchgeführten Wahl im Baldwin County in Alabama im November 2002, wo nach der Schließung der Wahlbüros Stimmen des demokratischen Gouverneurskandidaten auf mysteriöse Weise verschwunden war, so dass der Republikaner die Wahl für sich entscheiden konnte.

Harris hatte herausgefunden [10], dass ES&S, eine der weltweit größten Hersteller von Wahlsystemen und -Programmen mit Sitz in Nebraska, teilweise der McCarthy Group gehört, dessen Präsident 1996 Chuck Hagel [11] war, seit 1996 republikanischer Senatsabgeordneter von Nebraska. Der jetzige Vorsitzende ist Michael McCarthy, der im Wahlkampf des 2002 wiedergewählten republikanischen Senators für Nebraska für die Finanzen verantwortlich war. Von 1992 bis 1995 war Hagel allerdings der Präsident von ES&S. Da Hagel auch ein Aktienpaket der McCarthy Group besitzt, ist er noch immer indirekt zumindest an ES&S beteiligt, die wiederum die einzige Firma ist, die elektronische Wahlsysteme für Nebraska liefern kann. Überdies wurde ES&S von Bob und Todd Urosevich gegründet. Bob ist nun Präsident von Diebold, Todd Vizepräsident von ES&S.

Hagel hatte seine Verbindung [12] mit ES&S beim Antritt seines Abgeordnetenpostens nicht genannt, weswegen ihm eine Verschleierung von Interessenkonflikten vorgeworfen [13] wurde. Tatsächlich wäre der Präsident eines Unternehmens für Wahlmaschinen, das zudem als einzige die Lizenz für elektronische Systeme in Nebraska besitzt, ein geeigneter Kandidat für einen Wahlbetruf, zumindest aber für Verschwörungstheorien, die seitdem auch gedeihen. Schließlich wurden ausgerechnet auch von Florida für große Wahlbezirke ES&S-Systeme gekauft, zudem fördert der vor den 2002er-Wahlen verabschiedete Help America Vote Act mit fast vier Milliarden Dollar den Umstieg auf solche elektronischen Systeme, wie sie ES&S und Diebold anbieten.

Verdächtig ist für manche auch, dass in Georgia, wo es nur Touchscreen-Systeme von Diebold gibt, das Unternehmen kurz vor der Novemberwahl 2002 zur Behebung eines Problems, das bei 5 Prozent der Systeme auftrat, Patches an alle 22.000 Maschinen gesendet hat, ohne dass informiert wurde, was dieser Patch verändert. Allerdings streitet [14] Diebold diese Behauptung von Harris [15] ab und weist auch alle Probleme mit Sicherheitslücken von sich. So habe man auch die FTP-Seite nur deswegen vom Netz genommen, weil sie alte Software enthielt. Für Harris sieht dies allerdings anders aus. Sie hatte nämlich nach der Veröffentlichung ihres Artikels ein Brief von ES&S-Anwälten erhalten, die forderten, ihren Artikel zurückzuziehen. Die Begründung mag schon ein wenig eigenartig klingen:

Auch wenn Sie behaupten, dass Ihr Artikel auf nachweisbaren Sachverhalten beruht, sollten Sie sich bewusst sein, dass selbst dann, wenn diese wahr sein sollten, was ES&S bestreitet, solche "Tatsachen" oder die aus ihnen folgenden Implikationen, wenn sie in falscher Form präsentiert werden, eine Verleumdung oder eine Verleumdung durch Implikation darstellen.

Um noch einmal auf die Wahl von Chuck Hagel zu kommen: Sein Sieg stand eigentlich schon vor der Wahl fest, die er mit 400.000 Stimmen gewann. Sein demokratischer Herausforderer Matulka erzielte hingegen nur 70.000 Stimmen. Matulka freilich glaubt auch, dass nicht alles mit rechten Dingen zugeht. Beweisen kann er nichts, aber wahrscheinlich lässt sich der Verdacht mit diesen Systemen auch nicht völlig ausräumen:

Warum in aller Welt will sich jemand mit einer Wahlmaschinenfirma für ein politisches Amt bewerben? Das ist wie ein Fuchs im Hühnerstall.

Links

[1] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/4246/1.html
[2] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/11100/1.html
[3] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/9105/1.html
[4] http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resolution.asp
[5] http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/taskforce.htm
[6] http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
[7] http://users.ctrix.co.nz/dolly
[8] http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm
[9] http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00064.htm
[10] http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingSecurity.htm
[11] http://hagel.senate.gov/
[12] http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html#Nebraska
[13] http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
[14] http://citypaper.com/2003-02-19/pf/mobs2_pf.html
[15] http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=art…

Telepolis Artikel-URL: http://www.telepolis.de/deutsch/inhalt/co/15193/1.html

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A prolonged occupation
Der Rummy des Tages

GO IT ALONE
In any case, Rumsfeld seems firmly footed in his prewar mode of insistent unilateralism. During a break in yesterday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, a reporter asked him to clarify the administration’s position on “reaching out to NATO to provide troops” for Iraq. Rummy’s first response was to act as if that was outside his jurisdiction. “The Department of State has been the instrument through which the United States of America has been consulting with many, many dozens of nations and organizations around the world,” he aid. “They deal with NATO, they deal with the U.N., they have been doing it.”

He added: “I tend to be very precise when I answer a question and I don’t answer what I don’t know. Can I say precisely what the request was made — or requests, plural, made — by the United States of NATO? No. You may think it’s something I ought to know, but I happen not to. That’s life and that’s a very honest answer.”
There was also this typically rambunctious exchange:
QUESTION: Do you welcome the participation of France?
RUMSFELD: We would be happy to have them.
Q: Will you ask them?
R: I’ve answered that question four times this morning, Charles. Really. Isn’t there a limit?
Q: On France?
R: You keep repeating yourself. I have said that we would be happy to have troops from a wide variety of countries, including France. How’s that?
Q: OK.
R: Does that really nail it for you?
Q: It does.
R: Great! Let’s hear it for him!
There! That’s the attitude that’ll get the allies onboard.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/937307.asp?0dm=N12QO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred Kaplan writes the “War Stories” column for Slate.

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Speculation grows over Campbell

Kevin Maguire and Ewen MacAskill
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

Senior Downing Street staff are openly discussing a possible successor to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair`s closest and longest-serving adviser who is believed to be on the verge of resigning.

Staff are talking about whether Mr Blair will promote someone from inside Downing Street, such as Phil Bassett, head of the No 10 research and information unit, or headhunt someone from political journalism, as he did with Mr Campbell.

Such speculation is potentially destabilising when the government is at its most vulnerable since taking power six years ago.

Mr Campbell yesterday passed up a chance to deny it outright, saying instead: "I would respectfully suggest it is wishful thinking."

Pressed further, he added: "If I decide about my future, the Guardian would be very high on my list of people to discuss it with."

Mr Campbell has discussed with friends, however, what he might do outside the government, according to close colleagues.

Downing Street staff say they are increasingly convinced he is considering whether to depart in September when Fiona Millar, his partner and press secretary to Cherie Blair, is expected to leave Downing Street.

"It`s pretty clear that, the way his mind is working, he will go," said a well-placed government figure. "But he wants the summer to make up his mind. It`s a big decision, it will be a big wrench."

A former tabloid journalist, Mr Campbell, 46, has exercised unprecedented power as a communications chief and was dubbed "the real deputy prime minister" when it emerged his influence extended far beyond media matters.

He was censured by the Commons foreign affairs committee over his role in February`s so-called dodgy dossier on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction.

He has also picked a very public fight with BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan, MPs deciding the reporter was wrong to accuse Mr Campbell of inserting a 45-minute warning into a September dossier.

Mr Campbell, who retreated into the shadows after the 2001 election when he ceased briefing Westminster journalists every day, gave evidence to the committee and appeared on TV.

One colleague said if Mr Campbell announced now that he was to go, it would appear that he had lost the battle with the BBC.

"How could he do it now with the BBC row? You would get huge conspiracy theories," argued the No 10 official, who said the reason for both Mr Campbell and Ms Millar wanting to leave was that "you get to a stage where you want to do something else".

Mr Campbell`s exit would cost Mr Blair one of his most valuable courtiers and shrink further an inner circle already reduced by the departure of Anji Hunter to BP and enforced semi-exile of Peter Mandelson.

Relations between the Blairs and Campbell-Millars, friends as well as political allies, have been strained for months. Ms Millar fell out with Mrs Blair over the influence of Carole Caplin after it emerged the lifestyle guru`s conman boyfriend, Peter Foster, played a part in the Blair purchase of two Bristol flats.

Mr Campbell and Ms Millar resented the svengali-like hold of Ms Caplin over Mrs Blair and Ms Millar, still to put her notice in, has told friends she hopes the pair will leave together.

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Trading on fear
From the start, the invasion of Iraq was seen in the US as a marketing project. Selling `Brand America` abroad was an abject failure; but at home, it worked. Manufacturers of 4x4s, oil prospectors, the nuclear power industry, politicians keen to roll back civil liberties - all seized the moment to capitalise on the war. PR analysts Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber explain how it worked.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

"The United States lost the public relations war in the Muslim world a long time ago," Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, said in October 2001. "They could have the prophet Mohammed doing public relations and it wouldn`t help."

At home in the US, the propaganda war has been more effective. And a key component has been fear: fear of terrorism and fear of attack.

Early scholars who studied propaganda called it a "hypodermic needle approach" to communication, in which the communicator`s objective was to "inject" his ideas into the minds of the target population. Since propaganda is often aimed at persuading people to do things that are not in their own best interests, it frequently seeks to bypass the rational brain altogether and manipulate us on a more primitive level, appealing to emotional symbolism.

Television uses sudden, loud noises to provoke a startled response, bright colours, violence - not because these things are inherently appealing, but because they catch our attention and keep us watching. When these practices are criticised, advertisers and TV executives respond that they do this because this is what their "audience wants". In fact, however, they are appealing selectively to certain aspects of human nature - the most primitive aspects, because those are the most predictable. Fear is one of the most primitive emotions in the human psyche, and it definitely keeps us watching. If the mere ability to keep people watching were really synonymous with "giving audiences what they want", we would have to conclude that people "want" terrorism. On September 11, Osama bin Laden kept the entire world watching. As much as people hated what they were seeing, the power of their emotions kept them from turning away.

And fear can make people do other things they would not do if they were thinking rationally. During the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, psychologist Gustave Gilbert visited Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering in his prison cell. "We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction," Gilbert wrote in his journal, Nuremberg Diary.

"Why, of course, the people don`t want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? ... That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship ... That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Politicians and terrorists are not the only propagandists who use fear to drive human behaviour in irrational directions. A striking recent use of fear psychology in marketing occurred following Operation Desert Storm in 1991. During the war, television coverage of armoured Humvees sweeping across the desert helped to launch the Hummer, a consumer version of a vehicle originally designed exclusively for military use. The initial idea to make a consumer version came from the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wanted a tough-looking, road-warrior vehicle for himself. At his prodding, AM General (what was left of the old American Motors) began making civilian Hummers in 1992, with the first vehicle off the assembly line going to Schwarzenegger himself.

In addition to the Hummer, the war helped to launch a broader sports utility vehicle (SUV) craze. Psychiatrist Clotaire Rapaille, a consultant to the automobile industry, conducted studies of postwar consumer psyches for Chrysler and reported that Americans wanted "aggressive" cars. In interviews with Keith Bradsher, the former Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times, Rapaille discussed the results of his research. SUVs, he said, were "weapons" - "armoured cars for the battlefield" - that appealed to Americans` deepest fears of violence and crime.

Another hostility-intensification feature is the "grill guard" promoted by SUV manufacturers. "Grill guards, useful mainly for pushing oryx out of the road in Namibia, have no application under normal driving conditions," says writer Gregg Easterbrook. "But they make SUVs look angrier, especially when viewed through a rearview mirror ... [They] also increase the chance that an SUV will kill someone in an accident."

Deliberately marketed as "urban assault luxury vehicles", SUVs exploit fear while doing nothing to make people safer. They make their owners feel safe, not by protecting them, but by feeding their aggressive impulses. Due to SUVs` propensity for rollovers, notes Bradsher, the occupant death rate in SUVs is actually 6% higher than for cars, 8% in the largest SUVs. Of course, they also get worse mileage. According to dealers, Hummers average a mere eight to 10 miles a gallon - a figure that takes on additional significance in light of the role that dependency on foreign oil has played in shaping US relations with countries in the Middle East. With this combination of features, selling SUVs on their merits would be a challenge, which is why Rapaille consistently advises Detroit to rely instead on irrational fear appeals.

Other products and causes have also exploited fear-based marketing following September 11. "The trick in 2002, say public affairs and budget experts, will be to redefine your pet issue or product as a matter of homeland security," wrote PR Week. "If you can convince Congress that your company`s widget will strengthen America`s borders, or that funding your client`s pet project will make America less dependent on foreign resources, you just might be able to get what you`re looking for."

Alaska senator Frank Murkowski used fear of terrorism to press for federal approval of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, telling his colleagues that US purchases of foreign oil helped to subsidise Saddam Hussein and Palestinian suicide bombers. The nuclear power industry lobbied for approval of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a repository for high-level radioactive waste by claiming that shipping the waste there would keep nuclear weapons material from falling into the hands of terrorists. Of course, they didn`t propose shutting down nuclear power plants, which themselves are prime targets for terrorists.

The National Drug Council retooled the war on drugs with TV ads telling people that smoking marijuana helped to fund terrorism. Environmentalists attempted to take the fund-a-terrorist trope in a different direction, teaming up with columnist Arianna Huffington to launch the "Detroit Project", which produced TV ads modelled after the National Drug Council ads. "This is George," a voiceover said. "This is the gas that George bought for his SUV." The screen then showed a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV." The picture switched to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV." In Detroit and elsewhere, however, TV stations that had been only too happy to run the White House anti-drugs ads refused to accept the Detroit Project commercials, calling them "totally inappropriate".

September 11 was frequently compared to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, with White House officials warning that the war on terror would be prolonged and difficult like the second world war, and would require similar sacrifices. But whatever those sacrifices may entail, almost from the start it was clear that they would not include frugality. During the second world war, Americans conserved resources as never before. Rationing was imposed on petrol, tyres and even food. People collected waste such as paper and household cooking scraps so that it could be recycled and used for the war effort. Compare that with the headline that ran in O`Dwyer`s PR Daily on September 24, less than two weeks after the terrorist attack: "PR Needed To Keep Consumers Spending."

President Bush himself appeared in TV commercials, urging Americans to "live their lives" by going ahead with plans for vacations and other consumer purchases. "The president of the US is encouraging us to buy," wrote marketer Chuck Kelly in an editorial for the Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune, which argued that America was "embarking on a journey of spiritual patriotism" that "is about pride, loyalty, caring and believing" - and, of course, selling. "As marketers, we have the responsibility to keep the economy rolling," wrote Kelly. "Our job is to create customers during one of the more difficult times in our history."

Fear also provided the basis for much of the Bush administration`s surging popularity following September 11. In the week immediately prior to the terrorist attacks, Bush`s standing in opinion polls was at its lowest point ever, with only 50% of respondents giving him a positive rating. Within two days of the attack, that number shot up to 82%. Since then, whenever the public`s attention has begun to shift away from topics such as war and terrorism, Bush has seen his domestic popularity ratings slip downward, spiking up again when war talk fills the airwaves. By March 13-14 2003, his popularity had fallen to 53% - essentially where he stood with the public prior to 9/11. On March 18, Bush declared war with Iraq, and the ratings shot up again to 68% - even when, briefly, it appeared that the war might be going badly.

Only four presidents other than Bush have seen their job rating meet or surpass the 80% mark:

· Franklin Delano Roosevelt reached his highest rating ever - 84% - immediately after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

· Harry Truman hit 87% right after FDR died during the final, crucial phase of the second world war.

· John F Kennedy hit 83% right after the colossal failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

· Dubya`s dad, President George HW Bush, hit 89% during Operation Desert Storm.

It seems to be a law of history that times of war and national fear are accompanied by rollbacks of civil liberties and attacks on dissent. During the civil war, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus. The second world war brought the internment of Japanese-Americans and the cold war McCarthyism. These examples pale compared with the uses of fear to justify mass killings, torture and political arrests in countries such as Mao`s China, Stalin`s Russia or Saddam`s Iraq. Yet these episodes have been dark moments in America`s history.

Although the Bush administration took pains to insist that "Muslims are not the enemy" and that it viewed Islam as a "religion of peace", it was unable to prevent a series of verbal attacks against Muslims that have occurred in the US following 9/11 - with some of the attacks coming from Bush`s strongest supporters in the conservative movement. "This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack," wrote columnist Ann Coulter - now famously - two days after the attacks. "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren`t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That`s war. And this is war."

Of course, Coulter`s column does not reflect the mainstream of US opinion. But it offers a telling illustration of the way that fear can drive people to say and do things that make them feel brave and powerful while actually making them less safe by fanning the flames of intolerance and violence.

Shortly after Coulter`s column appeared, it resurfaced on the website of the Mujahideen Lashkar-e-Taiba - one of the largest militant Islamist groups in Pakistan - which works closely with al-Qaida. At the time, the Lashkar-e-Taiba site was decorated with an image that depicted a hairy, monstrous hand with claws in place of fingernails, from which blood dripped on to a burning globe of planet earth. A star of David decorated the wrist of the hairy hand, and behind it stood an American flag. The reproduction of Coulter`s column used bold, red letters to highlight the sentence that said to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity". To make the point even stronger, the webmaster added a comment: "We told you so. Is anyone listening out there? The noose is already around our necks. The preparation for genocide of ALL Muslims has begun ... The media is now doing its groundwork to create more hostility towards Islam and Muslims to the point that no one will oppose this mass murder which is about to take place. Mosques will be shut down, schools will be closed, Muslims will be arrested, and executed. There may even be special awards set up to kill Muslims. Millions and millions will be slaughtered like sheep. Remember these words because it is coming. The only safe refuge you have is Allah."

Corporate spin doctors, thinktanks and conservative politicians have taken up the rhetoric of fear for their own purposes. Even before 9/11, many of them were engaged in an ongoing effort to demonise environmentalists and other activist groups by associating them with terrorism. One striking indicator of this preoccupation is the fact that Congressman Scott McInnis (Republican, Colorado) had scheduled congressional hearings on "eco-terrorism" to be held on September 12 2001, one day after Congress itself was nearly destroyed in an attack by real terrorists. (The September 11 attacks forced McInnis temporarily to postpone his plans, rescheduling his hearings to February 2002.)

On October 7 2001, the Washington Times printed an editorial calling for "war against eco-terrorists," calling them "an eco-al-Qaida" with "a fanatical ideology and a twisted morality". Conservatives sometimes used the war on terrorism to demonise Democrats. The then Democratic Senate majority leader Tom Daschle was targeted by American Renewal, the lobbying wing of the Family Research Council, a conservative thinktank that spends most of its time promoting prayer in public schools and opposing gay rights. In newspaper ads, American Renewal attempted to paint Daschle and Saddam Hussein as "strange bedfellows". "What do Saddam Hussein and Senate majority leader Tom Daschle have in common?" stated a news release announcing the ad campaign. "Neither man wants America to drill for oil in Alaska`s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

William J Bennett, Reagan`s former education secretary, authored a book titled Why We Fight: Moral Clarity And The War On Terrorism. Through his organisation, Empower America, he launched Americans For Victory Over Terrorism, a group of well-connected Republicans including Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Trent Lott. "The threats we face today are both external and internal: external in that there are groups and states that want to attack the United States; internal in that there are those who are attempting to use this opportunity to promulgate their agenda of `blame America first`. Both threats stem from either a hatred for the American ideals of freedom and equality or a misunderstanding of those ideals and their practice," he stated.

Washington Times reporter Ellen Sorokin used terrorist-baiting to attack the National Education Association, America`s largest teachers` union and a frequent opponent of Republican educational policies. The NEA`s crime was to create a "Remember September 11" website for use as a teaching aid on the first anniversary of the attack. The NEA site had a red, white and blue motif, with links to the CIA and to Homeland Security websites, and it featured three speeches by Bush, whom it described as a "great American". In order to make the case that the NEA was somehow anti-American, Sorokin hunted about on the site and found a link to an essay preaching tolerance towards Arab- and Muslim-Americans. "Everyone wants the terrorists punished," the essay said, but "we must not act like [the terrorists] by lashing out at innocent people around us, or `hating` them because of their origins ... Groups of people should not be judged by the actions of a few. It is wrong to condemn an entire group of people by association with religion, race, homeland, or even proximity."

In a stunning display of intellectual dishonesty, Sorokin took a single phrase - "Do not suggest any group is responsible" (referring to Arab-Americans in general) - and quoted it out of context to suggest that the NEA opposed holding the terrorists responsible for their deeds. Headlined "NEA delivers history lesson: Tells teachers not to cast 9/11 blame", her story went on to claim that the NEA simultaneously "takes a decidedly blame-America approach".

This, in turn, became the basis for a withering barrage of attacks as the rightwing media echo chamber, including TV, newspapers, talk radio and websites, amplified the accusation, complaining of "terrorism in the classroom" as "educators blame America and embrace Islam". In the Washington Post, George Will wrote that the NEA website "is as frightening, in its way, as any foreign threat". If, as Will insinuated, even schoolteachers are as scary as Saddam or Osama, no wonder the government needs to step in and crack the whip.

Since 9/11, laws have been passed that place new limits on citizen rights, while expanding the government`s authority to spy on citizens. In October 2001, Congress passed the ambitiously named USA Patriot Act, which stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism". In addition to authorising unprecedented levels of surveillance and incarceration of both citizens and non-citizens, the Act included provisions that explicitly target people simply for engaging in classes of political speech that are expressly protected by the US constitution. It expanded the ability of police to spy on telephone and internet correspondence in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations. It authorised secret government searches, enabling the FBI and other government agencies to conduct searches without warrants and without notifying individuals that their property has been searched. It created a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" under which political protesters can be charged as terrorists if they engage in conduct that "involves acts dangerous to human life". It also put the CIA back in the business of spying on US citizens and allowed the government to detain non-citizens for indefinite periods of time without trial. The Patriot Act was followed in November 2001 by a new executive order from Bush, authorising himself to order a trial in a military court for any non-citizen he designates, without a right of appeal or the protection of the Bill of Rights.

As if determined to prove that irony is not dead, the Ad Council launched a new series of public service advertisements, calling them a "Freedom Campaign", in July 2002. "What if America wasn`t America? Freedom. Appreciate it. Cherish it. Protect it," read the tag line at the end of each TV ad, which attempted to celebrate freedom by depicting what America would look like without it. In one ad, a young man approaches a librarian with a question about a book he can`t find. She tells him ominously that the book is no longer available, and the young man is taken away for questioning by a couple of government goons. The irony is that the Patriot Act had already empowered the FBI to seize book sales and library checkout records, while barring booksellers and librarians from saying anything about it to their patrons. It would be nice to imagine that someone at the Ad Council was trying to make a point in opposition to these encroachments on our freedoms. No such point was intended, according to Phil Dusenberry, who directed the ads.

In response to complaints about restrictions on civil liberties, the attorney general, John Ashcroft, testified before Congress, characterising "our critics" as "those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America`s enemies, and pause to America`s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil." Dennis Pluchinsky, a senior intelligence analyst with the US state department, went further still in his critique of the media. "I accuse the media in the United States of treason," he stated in an opinion article in the Washington Post that suggested giving the media "an Osama bin Laden award" and advised, "the president and Congress should pass laws temporarily restricting the media from publishing any security information that can be used by our enemies".

At MSNBC, a cable TV news network, meanwhile, a six-month experiment to develop a liberal programme featuring Phil Donahue ended just before the war began, when Donahue`s show was cancelled and replaced with a programme titled Countdown: Iraq. Although the network cited poor ratings as the reason for dumping Donahue, the New York Times reported that Donahue "was actually attracting more viewers than any other programme on MSNBC, even the channel`s signature prime-time programme, Hardball with Chris Matthews". Further insight into the network`s thinking appears in an internal NBC report leaked to AllYourTV.com, a website that covers the television industry. The NBC report recommended axing Donahue because he presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war ... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and sceptical of the administration`s motives." It went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity".

At the same time that Donahue was cancelled, MSNBC added to its line-up Michael Savage, who routinely refers to non-white countries as "turd world nations" and who charges that the US "is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives". In one broadcast, Savage justified ethnic slurs as a national security tool: "We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy."

In addition to restricting the number of anti-war voices on television and radio, media outlets often engaged in selective presentation. The main voices that television viewers saw opposing the war came from a handful of celebrities such as Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, Janeane Garofalo and Susan Sarandon - actors who could be dismissed as brie-eating Hollywood elitists. The newspapers and TV networks could have easily interviewed academics and other more traditional anti-war sources, but they rarely did. In a speech in the autumn of 2002, Senator Edward Kennedy "laid out what was arguably the most comprehensive case yet offered to the public questioning the Bush administration`s policy and timing on Iraq", according to Michael Getler, the Washington Post`s ombudsman. The next day, the Post devoted one sentence to the speech. Ironically, Kennedy made ample use in his remarks of the public testimony in Senate armed services committee hearings a week earlier by retired four-star army and marine corps generals who cautioned about attacking Iraq at this time - hearings that the Post also did not cover.

Peace groups attempted to purchase commercial time to broadcast ads for peace, but were refused air time by all the major networks and even MTV. CBS network president Martin Franks explained the refusal by saying, "We think that informed discussion comes from our news programming."

Like all good TV, the war in Iraq had a dramatic final act, broadcast during prime time - the sunlight gleaming over the waves as the president`s fighter jet descended from the sky on to the USS Abraham Lincoln. The plane zoomed in, snagged a cable stretched across the flight deck and screeched to a stop, and Bush bounded out, dressed in a snug-fitting olive-green flight suit with his helmet tucked under his arm. He strode across the flight deck, posing for pictures and shaking hands with the crew of the carrier. He had even helped fly the jet, he told reporters. "Yes, I flew it," he said. "Yeah, of course, I liked it." Surrounded by gleaming military hardware and hundreds of cheering sailors in uniform, and with the words "Mission Accomplished" emblazoned on a huge banner at his back, he delivered a stirring speech in the glow of sunset that declared a "turning of the tide" in the war against terrorism. "We have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world," Bush said. "Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free." After the day`s festivities, the Democrats got their chance to complain, calling Bush`s Top Gun act a "tax-subsidised commercial" for his re-election campaign. They estimated it had cost $1m to orchestrate all of the details that made the picture look so perfect.

In the end, though, the spin doctors agreed that these were images that would stay in the minds of the American people. It is impossible, of course, for anyone to predict whether the Bush administration`s bold gamble in Iraq has succeeded or whether, as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak warned at the peak of the war, "there will be 100 Bin Ladens afterward". But in the wake of this conflict, we should ask ourselves whether we have made the mistake of believing our own propaganda, and whether we have been fighting the war on terror against the wrong enemies, in the wrong places, with the wrong weapons


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Discovery of Truman diary reveals attack on Jews
Biographer denies cold war president was anti-semitic

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

For nearly four decades a combined manual and diary put out by the New York real estate board languished on the shelves of the library set up to preserve the papers of Harry S Truman, US president from 1945 to 1953.

Then an archivist stumbled on the diary pages at the back, and discovered Truman`s musings from 1947, the year that marked the beginnings of the cold war and the Marshall plan. The 42 diary entries are his most extensive personal record of that year, said Michael Devine, the director of the library, and the most significant recovery of Truman materials since 1982, when his widow Bess died.

The famously frugal Truman received the blue-jacketed book as a gift in 1946, filling the pages at the back in a neat left-handed script, and making a fair share of spelling and grammatical errors. The first 160 pages are real estate agent listings and adverts, leading the library staff to catalogue it with books from his estate.

Sadly, the irregular entries offer almost no insight into the Truman doctrine to contain the spread of communism in eastern Europe and elsewhere, or the massive infusion of aid after the second world war that became known as the Marshall plan.

It also makes no mention of civil rights, although Truman appointed a commission that year to recommend legislation, and in 1948 desegregated the army.

However the diary does include a rant against Jews, which has surprised scholars because of Truman`s reputation for sympathising with them, and his support for the creation of the state of Israel despite the opposition of the state department and members of his cabinet.

On July 21 Truman used the diary to vent his anger at the former treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, who had sought his intervention on behalf of a ship of Jewish refugees who had been denied entry by Britain to what was then Palestine.

"He`d no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgment on world affairs."

In the same entry Truman goes on to say: "The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I`ve found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."

Although historians said Truman was certainly a product of his era and his upbringing - in a small midwestern town - the remarks did not make him an anti-Semite. "He had a tendency when emotions were running high to put things down on paper," Mr Devine said.

"Truman frequently wrote from the gut and not the head, and there are numerous stories of him asking his secretary whether he had posted a letter so he could pull it out of the outbox."

Robert Farrell, a Truman biographer who edited his private papers, said he detected no deeper hostility in other writings. "I don`t think that`s the way to interpret that section. He was under intense pressure," he said.

"There is a kind of rhetorical quality to that entry. He was irritated at the moment and as he wrote he sharpened everything. I would not want to assert that this is what he really meant.

"He was turned off by Morgenthau, whom he did not like. What he did think was that Morgenthau was getting into affairs that should not concern him."

Instead, the diary offers insight into the president`s capacity for enjoyment - despite the pressures of office, and the petty likes and dislikes that often got in the way.

He wrote of his satisfaction with Marshall as his new secretary of state in January, and the desolation he felt at the death of his mother in July.

Aside from his tirade against the Jews, he used the diary to vent his frustration at the adult children of Franklin D Roosevelt - whom Truman, as vice-president, succeeded on the former`s death in office in 1945. "It is a pity a great man has to have progeny! Look at Churchill`s," he writes.

The diary offers glimpses of Truman`s kindness, and he writes of autographing dollar bills as souvenirs for staff of a house he visited. But the thread running throughout is his candour and optimism.

"Doc tell`s me that I have Cardiac Asthma! Ain`t that hell. Well it makes no diff[erence,] will go on as before. I`ve sworn him to secrecy! So What!"

· The diary can be viewed at www.trumanlibrary.org


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CIA chief takes rap for Bush`s false war claim
Suzanne Goldenberg and Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

The CIA chief, George Tenet, yesterday took the blame for President George Bush`s discredited claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure uranium from Africa.

Mr Tenet`s admission of error was made at the end of a day when the CIA chief came under attack, and after a week when the furore over false intelligence appeared to be reaching a critical point.

In a statement, Mr Tenet said he had been wrong to allow Mr Bush to include the line that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Niger in his state of the union address in January.

Officials had doubts about the report - which originated from MI6 - and an independent CIA investigation dismissed its credibility nearly a year before Mr Bush`s speech. However, it remained in the speech, and was attributed to British intelligence.

"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Mr Tenet said last night. "This was a mistake."

By shouldering the blame, Mr Tenet was trying to limit Mr Bush`s exposure to a controversy that is assuming ever larger proportions.

With the furore threatening to eclipse Mr Bush`s tour of Africa, the president and his national security adviser, Con doleezza Rice, disassociated the White House from the uranium claim yesterday.

Ms Rice insisted the agency had cleared the claim in the president`s speech, adding that if the CIA director had any misgivings, "he did not make them known".

Hours later, Mr Tenet agreed that he was responsible. "Let me be clear about several things right up front," he said. "First, CIA approved the president`s state of the union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound."

He went on to explain that CIA officials reviewing the speech had already raised doubts about the "fragmentary nature"of the intelligence that Niger had sold uranium to Iraq.

"This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed," Mr Tenet said.

It was unclear last night whether Mr Tenet`s honourable gesture would put an end to the controversy. He is scheduled to testify next week at a Senate investigation into intelligence gathering on Iraq before the war.

Earlier yesterday, the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Pat Roberts, made it clear that he held Mr Tenet entirely to blame. He went on to question Mr Tenet`s loyalty, accusing the CIA of seeking to damage President Bush through a series of leaked stories from anonymous officials that have fuelled speculation over the administration`s flawed claims on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction.

A story in yesterday`s Washington Post brought the controversy over uranium to a head. It said that the CIA had also tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British government to drop the claims. It is now known that the CIA sent Joe Wilson, a former diplomat to Niger, to investigate. He concluded it was false.

The dispute over the uranium is adding to disquiet on both sides of the Atlantic about the accuracy of British and US intelligence on Iraq`s weapons. The British government`s September dossier, whose contents are now disputed, said Iraq "has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa".

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) subsequently said documents backing the claim were forgeries. British intelligence officials later admitted this but added that there was "other evidence" to back up the claims. The IAEA told the Guardian yesterday that the British government had not provided it with any extra evidence.

An IAEA investigation agreed with Mr Wilson, concluding that all Niger`s uranium was accounted for.

British sources said they had not provided the US with the information to support their case because it had been given to Britain by another country which asked not to be named.

This week the Commons foreign affairs committee attacked the government`s handling of the issue.

Jack Straw told MPs he did not know when the CIA warned his government that the uranium documents were forgeries. The committee also pointed out that the foreign secretary had been unable to comment on separate intelligence about the Niger uranium until it was investigated "properly".

The MPs said: "We conclude that it is very odd indeed that the government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged, but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence." Parliament`s intelligence and security committee, which meets in private, is also investigating the claims.

In Washington, two Democratic presidential contenders Senators Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean called for an investigation into the false intelligence given to Mr Bush.


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Foreign trip, domestic gamble
Gary Younge in New York
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

Even before he had boarded Air Force One, Mr Bush had fallen out with the black American establishment.

He failed to consult the Congressional Black Caucus, the 38-strong body of black legislators, and then left Nelson Mandela off his itinerary.

"The fact that he`s going at all is welcomed," said Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. "But the trip`s photo-op nature, and the administration`s history of artful visual presentations, and opposition to equity, makes you wonder."

By the time he stood on Senegal`s Goree island and branded slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history" his trip had been defined by what he would not say, who he would not meet, and what he would not do.

"It`s good that he acknowledged the crime but he refuses to offer the apology," said Salih Booker, of Africa Action, a Washington thinktank. "Five countries in five days is insufficient and inadequate - this is Bush`s Africa not Africa`s Africa."

But grudging praise suits Mr Bush fine. His trip had two main aims for his domestic audience and neither was to win over black voters. The first was to present a softer and more compassionate image in foreign policy for moderate, white conservatives worried by America`s isolation.

The second was to mollify a black electorate which, may not vote Republican but could mobilise against him to great effect.

"A black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders," as the late father of JC Watts, the former Republican congressman who will meet Mr Bush in Nigeria today, once said.

The key question is how many, particularly in key southern states, will turn out to vote Democrat. And that will depend on how angry they are.

Knowing that they are never going to love him, Mr Bush is trying to make sure they don`t loathe him.

He is hoping that if he goes to Africa, African-Americans might just stay at home.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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US and Europe on brink of trade war
WTO says Bush`s steel tariffs break rules · Brussels threatens to retaliate unless Washington backs down

Andrew Osborn in Brussels and Larry Elliott
Saturday July 12, 2003
The Guardian

The European Union and the United States were teetering on the brink of a transatlantic trade war last night after Brussels threatened a $2.2bn package of sanctions unless Washington scrapped steel tariffs ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation yesterday.

Brussels claimed victory in its fight to force President George Bush to drop measures aimed at shoring up his political support in America`s industrial heartlands, but the US said it would appeal against the decision.

The world`s two biggest trading blocks are already at loggerheads over Europe`s anti-GM foods regime and America`s tax breaks for multinationals.

Yesterday`s ruling comes as EU and US negotiators are attempting to settle their differences in the global trade liberalisation talks.

A WTO disputes panel said American import tariffs of up to 30% on foreign steel could not be justified under global trade rules and that they should be abandoned as soon as possible.

Within minutes, the European commission said it would seek to hit pre-selected US products with retaliatory tariffs worth up to $2.2bn (£1.3bn) a year unless Washington dismantled its offending steel tariffs within five days.

"If and when the US does not comply with this ruling, the EU will impose counter measures," said Arancha Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy.

She said the sanctions, if used, would hit US steel products, textiles and fruit and vegetables.

"We would like to urge the United States to look at the wider picture - all the world`s steel exporters are telling them to remove these tariffs. This is not just a partial victory - it is a full victory. The US has been caught red-handed."

The WTO appeared to side with the EU and fellow complainants Japan, Korea, China, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Brazil on every front.

The trade watchdog said the US tariffs, announced by President Bush last March, were in breach of global trade rules in every category.

The US had argued they were necessary to help America`s steel industry recover from a wave of cheap Asian and European imports, but the WTO said it had found little evidence to show foreign imports had dramatically increased.

Washington also contended that its hand had been forced by sudden and unforeseen circumstances, but again the WTO disagreed.

Nor did it concur US steel producers had suffered any major economic injury because of alleged floods of foreign imports.

US trade representative spokesman Richard Mills said: "Where the panel found against the United States, we disagree, and we will appeal. In the meantime, the steel safeguard measures will remain in place."

Washington now has 60 days to appeal the ruling, and may delay doing so until the last moment in an attempt to defuse some of the tension ahead of the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September.

Ms Gonzalez struck one conciliatory note when she said the commission remained ready, despite the dispute, to work constructively with the US and the OECD to tackle what she called the real problems affecting the US steel industry - global overcapacity and domestic subsidies.

To rub salt in Washington`s wounds, the WTO also stated that an American decision to exclude preferred trading partners Canada, Mexico, Israel and Jordan from the offending tariffs flew in the face of its rules.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Revealed: first dossier also dodgy
By Kim Sengupta
12 July 2003


Tony Blair`s first Iraq weapons dossier used material culled from the internet to buttress the Government`s case for war - exactly as the now-discredited second, so-called dodgy dossier did.

The document, released last September, shows at least six separate items on Saddam Hussein`s alleged weapons of mass destruction were lifted from reports up to 21 months old. The revelation will be acutely embarrassing to the Prime Minister who, only this week, defended the first dossier robustly, and insisted it supported the need for action.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has already criticised the second dossier, produced in February, in which intelligence was mixed with other material, including a student`s PhD thesis.

The plagiarised documents in the first dossier included mention of ballistic missiles, unmanned drones, nuclear programmes, "dual use" of civil material, maps showing how British bases in Cyprus were within range of Iraqi missiles and Saddam`s supposed plan for regional domination.

In his foreword to the first dossier - Iraq`s Weapons of Mass Destruction - Mr Blair wrote: "This document is based, in large part, on the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) ... Its work, like the material it analyses, is largely secret. It is unprecedented for the Government to publish this kind of document."

Although the action may be unprecedented, much of the information was freely available on the internet.

The dossier appears to have drawn heavily from three sources in the public domain. They are a briefing paper by William Cohen, US Defence Secretary in the Clinton administration, from January 2001; the appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by George Tenet, the CIA director, the following month; an unclassified CIA report to Congress covering the period 1 July to 31 December 2000; and a report on Iraq by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published in London in September.

Under the heading "Recent Intelligence", the first Downing Street dossier "reveals" Iraq was developing "al-Samoud-Ababil-100 ballistic missiles", and Saddam Hussein`s regime had the "technical expertise" to fit them with "chemical and biological warheads". Nineteen months earlier, the unclassified report to Congress noted parts of the supposedly secret project had been in a public parade in Baghdad.

The Iraqis could have used such ballistic missiles, armed with chemical and biological weapons, against their neighbours. Among those under such threat would have been British and American personnel in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The "threat" posed by "current and planned/potential ballistic missiles" is shown in a map in the first Blair dossier, with British bases and tourists on Cyprus within range.

The map is, to all purposes, identical to one in Mr Cohen`s report, and also to one in the IISS report published two weeks before the Blair dossier.

The dossier highlights the chemical and biological threat, claiming Iraq "has attempted to modify the L-29 jet trainer to be used as an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) potentially capable of delivering chemical and biological agents".

That fact had already been mentioned by Mr Cohen and by the CIA in previous reports.

The dossier repeatedly stresses Iraq`s nuclear ambitions: "... Iraq retained, and retains, many of its experienced nuclear scientists and technicians who are specialised in the production of fissile material and weapons design. Intelligence indicates Iraq also retains the accompanying programme documentation and data."

The dossier also claims Iraq was trying to acquire "significant quantities of uranium from Africa", the implication being that, with the expertise already there, the prospect of a nuclear arsenal for Saddam was not far away.

The African uranium claim, since rejected by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, is not in the other documents. Mr Cohen`s report says: "Although Iraq claims it destroyed all the specific equipment and facilities for developing nuclear weapons, it retains sufficient skilled and experienced scientists as well as weapons design information that could allow it to restart a weapons programme."

The dossier maintains Saddam was benefiting from items with both civil and military use. But the report to Congress had already reported the possibility. Another claim in the dossier was: "Saddam continues to attach great importance to the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles which he regards as being the basis for Iraq`s regional power. He is determined to retain these capabilities" - again, something Mr Tenet had already outlined.
12 July 2003 10:22

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Did CIA warn UK to drop Niger claim?
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Ben Russell
12 July 2003


The Government was accused yesterday of refusing a request from the CIA to drop references to Iraq`s alleged efforts to buy uranium from Africa in its dossier of "evidence", despite the US agency warning that the claim could not be substantiated.

US officials said that last September ­ as Tony Blair was discussing Iraq with George Bush at Camp David ­ senior figures in the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to include the claim. The officials said Britain ignored the request, stating Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". A senior Bush administration official said: "We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material."

In Washington last night, George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, said his agency should not have allowed President Bush to mention Africa when analysts had doubts about the quality of the intelligence.

"This was a mistake. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President," Mr Tenet said in a statement released after Bush and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, blamed the error on the CIA.

The claim about the UK`s refusal to drop Africa from its dossier, published in The Washington Post, puts further pressure on Mr Blair to provide the evidence on which the uranium allegation was based.

Unlike the Bush administration, which admitted this week it ought not to have included the claim in the State of the Union speech on 28 January, Mr Blair is standing firm.

Mr Bush said in the speech that the alleged Niger deal had been uncovered by the British Government, rather than US intelligence. There are reports that this caveat was inserted only after the CIA said it could not substantiate it. This covered the White House because officials could say the CIA had authorised the speech.
12 July 2003 10:23

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Disillusioned professionals want to leave Iraq
By Daniel McGrory
The brightest and best feel let down by the US and say that they see no future in their country




IN A corridor of Baghdad’s main teaching hospital three doctors are discussing plans to quit Iraq and find jobs abroad.

All three wanted nothing more than to see the back of Saddam Hussein, but they are so disappointed at the way that American administrators are handling Iraq’s faltering reconstruction that they see no point in staying.

They are not alone. Headhunters from oil-rich Gulf states are tempting Iraq’s professional middle classes, including architects, university lecturers, civil servants and scientists, who believed three months ago that they would play a crucial part in their country’s renaissance.

Apart from the potential damage to Iraq’s economy, there are security concerns at reports that many scientists are being wooed by Iran. At least two dozen scientists are reported to be in Tehran already, according to local scientific sources.

Dhirar Alani is a chemical engineer who worked at Iraq’s biggest weapons plant, Al Qaqa, which is now derelict. So he offered his talents to private companies in Baghdad.

“A lot wanted me, but had no money. So what option is there but to look outside Iraq?” he said. “I know a number of my fellow scientists who have gone.”

Civil servants such as Edoud Halami used to juggle a budget in Iraq’s Agriculture Ministry that was the size of some Third World countries’ economies, and has already been approached by what he called “foreign employers” to leave. He hopes to finalise a deal by the end of the month.

At Baghdad University yesterday, thousands of students were taking their final exams, with many talking about seeking their future elsewhere.

Alia Hatani, 23, an engineering student, said: “I love my country but where is the hope now? We thought we only had to get rid of Saddam and everything would be fine. The Americans are here to stay for years and they don’t seem to want us.” One Western diplomat said: yesterday: “It is a worry that the brightest and best want to leave, and we should ensure they do not fall into the hands of those governments who might be tempted to use their skills on weapons programmes.

“As with so many other things in Baghdad, there is still no agreed policy among the coalition as to how to handle this problem.

“If we can’t satisfy their ambitions in Iraq, should we be offering asylum to key scientists to prevent them going elsewhere?” Mohammed Hilmi, 47, an architect, said: “I always said I would be the last to leave my country, but no more.

“There is no hope for us. The Americans have locked themselves inside the Republican Palace just as Saddam did, and nobody gets to see them apart from their own cronies. So those with money are leaving. So too those with skills to sell.”

Dr Ahmed Mohammed, 31, said: “I cried when I saw Saddam’s statue go. I hated that man for how he destroyed my country. But I’m afraid we have been let down by the Americans.”

He produces a dog-eared ledger which shows how many departments in what was the Saddam Teaching Hospital have fewer drugs now than they did before the war.

“We ask for meetings with the Americans and they tell us, ‘wait’. In the meantime this hospital, which is supposed to be a showcase for Iraqi medicine, is going cap in hand to charities,” he said.

His colleagues, Dr Mohammed Hussein, 26, and Dr Sabah Fadhilal al-Qurasly, 34, want to move to England, though the Home Office is unlikely to encourage a new exodus of disaffected Iraqis.

Official escape from Iraq is not so easy.

Many who worked for the state, including industrialists, leading doctors and scientists, were not allowed passports by Saddam and as yet no new authority has been established to issue travel documents.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-742601,00.html

[Joerver]

July 12, 2003

CIA chief takes blame for Iraq arms blunder
From Tim Reid in Washington



THE career of America’s chief intelligence officer appeared destroyed last night after he was forced by the White House to take the blame for a false claim about Iraq’s weapons programme in President Bush’s State of the Union address in January.

George Tenet, the CIA Director, took full responsibility for the false claim after Mr Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser, blamed him for its inclusion in the speech.

Mr Tenet’s position had already appeared untenable after an extraordinary day in which the White House launched a ruthless counter-attack over claims that Mr Bush may have knowingly lied to the American public when he said in the speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa.

After being effectively thrown to the wolves by Mr Bush and Dr Rice, Mr Tenet issued a statement in which he said that the CIA approved the bogus claim in the address.

“I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. The President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound,” Mr Tenet said.

Mr Tenet said that CIA officials had reviewed portions of the draft speech and raised concerns with national security aides at the White House that prompted changes in language concerning allegations that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. But he said that the CIA officials had failed to stop the remark from being uttered.

Mr Tenet said despite conerns over the intelligence, “agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct, i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address.”

The furore over the speech was triggered by last week’s White House admission that the claim should never have been included in the address.

On Capitol Hill, where the day’s events caused a sensation and brought calls from Democrats for a congressional inquiry, congressmen had demanded to know why the claim made its way into the speech.

In anonymous briefings to the US media on Thursday, CIA officials insisted that the agency explicitly told the White House that the claim was false before the speech.

Mr Bush, taking time out from his Africa tour, told reporters: “I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services”.

Dr Rice appeared to seal Mr Tenet’s fate by saying: “The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety. If the CIA, the Director of Central Intelligence, had said: ‘Take this out of the speech’, it would have been gone.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-743222,00.html

[Joerver]

July 12, 2003

Bush team split as CIA becomes the fall guy
From Tim Reid in Washington




ONE BY ONE, all the President’s men rounded on George Tenet yesterday, forcing the CIA Director to issue a resounding mea culpa that is likely to bring his career to an abrupt end.

The first salvo in what degenerated into open warfare within the Bush Administration was fired by the President himself, blaming the CIA for the inclusion of a false claim about Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme in his State of the Union address last January.

The extraordinary public blame Mr Bush heaped upon the agency was underscored by Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser, who summoned reporters covering Mr Bush’s Africa tour to tell them that the CIA had “cleared the speech in its entirety”.

Their finger-pointing exposed the bitter blame game raging within the Administration as the issue of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction finally caught fire in Washington.

It capped one of the worst weeks Mr Bush has endured since the September 11 attacks and put the normally sure-footed White House on the defensive as it struggled to protect the President from allegations that he he may have knowingly lied to the American public.The Oval Office’s attack on the CIA caused a sensation on Capitol Hill, and brought calls from Democrats for a congressional investigation. The internal warfare was triggered by last week’s White House admission that Mr Bush was wrong to have claimed in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. That claim was based on intelligence reports that Saddam sought nuclear material from Niger.

After it emerged that the CIA and State Department were told 11 months before the speech that the claim was bogus, congressmen demanded to know why Mr Bush repeated the allegation.

In anonymous briefings to the US media on Thursday CIA officials insisted that the agency explicitly told the White House that the claim was false before the speech. They also said they had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British Government on this.

That triggered yesterday’s furious White House counter-attack, with Mr Bush saying: “I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services.”

Dr Rice also insisted that the CIA cleared the speech in its entirety. “If the CIA — the Director of Central Intelligence — had said ‘Take this out of the speech’, it would have been gone.” She added that Mr Tenet was a “terrific” Director, but in Washington her words were seen as devastating.

Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also weighed in. Mr Roberts, a Republican, said that ten days before the speech the CIA was still standing behind the Niger claim. “If the CIA had changed its position, it was incumbent on the Director of Central Intellligence to correct the record and bring it to the immediate attention of the President. It appears that he failed,” Mr Roberts said. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, fuelled the row by saying that he had not included the uranium-from-Africa claim in his presentation to the United Nations a week after Mr Bush’s speech because he doubted its veracity. John McCain, a Republican senator, said that there should be an investigation to determine how the bogus information made its way into the address. Dick Durbin, a senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “Somebody in the White House knew. This really calls into question the leadership in the White House and our intelligence agencies.”

Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender, raised Watergate’s famous refrain: “We need to know what the President knew and when he knew it.” He demanded the resignation of any official who failed to tell Mr Bush the information was false.

“The only other possibility, which is unthinkable, is that the President of the United States knew himself that this was a false fact and he put it in the State of the Union anyhow. I hope for the sake of this country that did not happen,” he said. Democrats had begun taking the offensive even before yesterday’s developments, exploiting growing disquiet over mounting casualties in Iraq and over rising unemployment at home.

Mr Bush will arrive back from Africa today facing, for the first time since he took office, questions about his honesty, and looking vulnerable on foreign policy and national security — issues that until now he has successfully used to divide Democrats and unite the public behind him.

The President continues to enjoy an enviable 60 per cent approval rating — at this stage in their presidencies Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were 42 per cent and 47 per cent respectively — but a Gallup poll showed that public approval for Mr Bush’s stewardship of Iraq has fallen from almost 90 per cent in May to 58 per cent now.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, admitted this week that the monthly cost of the occupation is $3.9 billion (£2.75 billion), nearly double the Pentagon’s previous estimate.

Public and congressional disquiet also mounted after General Tommy Franks, the recently retired coalition commander, said US troops may have to remain in Iraq for up to four years.

OPEN warfare erupted within the Bush Administration yesterday when the President blamed the CIA for the inclusion of a false claim about Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme in his State of the Union address last January.

The extraordinary public blame Mr Bush heaped upon the agency was underscored by Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser, who summoned reporters covering Mr Bush’s Africa tour to tell them that the CIA had “cleared the speech in its entirety”.

Their finger-pointing exposed the bitter blame game now raging within the Administration as the issue of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction finally caught fire in Washington.

It cast grave doubt over the future of George Tenet, the CIA Director. It also capped one of the worst weeks Mr Bush has endured since the September 11 attacks and put the normally sure-footed White House on the defensive as it struggled to protect the President from allegations that he he may have knowingly lied to the American public.The Oval Office’s attack on the CIA caused a sensation on Capitol Hill, and brought calls from Democrats for a congressional investigation. The internal warfare was triggered by last week’s White House admission that Mr Bush was wrong to have claimed in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. That claim was based on intelligence reports that Saddam sought nuclear material from Niger.

After it emerged that the CIA and State Department were told 11 months before the speech that the claim was bogus, congressmen demanded to know why Mr Bush repeated the allegation.

In anonymous briefings to the US media on Thursday CIA officials insisted that the agency explicitly told the White House that the claim was false before the speech. They also said they had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the British Government on this.

That triggered yesterday’s furious White House counter-attack, with Mr Bush saying: “I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services.” Dr Rice also insisted that the CIA cleared the speech in its entirety. “If the CIA — the director of central intelligence — had said ‘Take this out of the speech’, it would have been gone.” She added that Mr Tenet was a “terrific” Director, but in Washington her words were seen as devastating.

Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also criticised Mr Tenet. Mr Roberts, a Republican, said that 10 days before the speech the CIA was still standing behind the Niger claim. “If the CIA had changed its position, it was incumbent on the Director of Central Intellligence to correct the record and bring it to the immediate attention of the president. It appears that he failed,” Mr Roberts said. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, fuelled the row by saying that he had not included the uranium-from-Africa claim in his presentation to the United Nations a week after Mr Bush’s speech because he doubted its veracity. John McCain, a Republican senator, said that there should be an investigation to determine how the bogus information made its way into the address. “Hold somebody responsible,” he demanded.

Dick Durbin, a senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “Somebody in the White House knew. This really calls into question the leadership in the White House and our intelligence agencies.”

Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender, raised Watergate’s famous refrain: “We need to know what the President knew and when he knew it.” He demanded the resignation of any official who failed to tell Mr Bush the information was false.

“The only other possibility, which is unthinkable, is that the President of the United States knew himself that this was a false fact and he put it in the State of the Union anyhow. I hope for the sake of this country that did not happen,” he said. Democrats had begun taking the offensive even before yesterday’s developments, exploiting growing disquiet over mounting casualties in Iraq and over rising unemployment at home.

Mr Bush will arrive back from Africa today facing, for the first time since he took office, questions about his honesty, and looking vulnerable on foreign policy and national security — issues that until now he has successfully used to divide Democrats and unite the public behind him.

The President continues to enjoy an enviable 60 per cent approval rating — at this stage in their presidencies Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were 42 per cent and 47 per cent respectively —but a CBS poll released yesterday showed that public approval for Mr Bush’s stewardship of Iraq has fallen from almost 90 per cent in May to 58 per cent. Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, admitted this week that the monthly cost of the occupation is $3.9 billion (£2.75 billion), nearly double the Pentagon’s previous estimate.

Public and congressional disquiet also mounted after General Tommy Franks, the recently retired coalition commander, said US troops may have to remain in Iraq for up to four years. General Franks, testifying before Congress, said US soldiers are coming under attack 10 to 25 times a day, a rate of assault that shocked the US public.

[Joerver]

Ein schöner Vergleich für Blairs dritten Weg. Ein Esel und ein Pferd ergeben ein Muli. Aber dieses Muli kann sich nicht weiter fortpflanzen.

July 12, 2003

Blair’s mule train plods to the end of the line
Matthew Parris



A donkey and a horse, when mated, produce a mule. The mule is a useful animal and unique in its way, inheriting some of the more serviceable qualities of each parent.
But it is barren. Such are the genetic differences between a mule’s progenitors that the fusion is not self-generating. The mule is viable but cannot give life. Some mainspring, some protean spark, is missing. The beast is condemned to trudge through its days doing other creatures’ work, leaving behind nothing original to itself.

As Tony Blair joins his fellow Third Way leaders at their international summit in London this weekend, we could do worse than reflect on the tragedy of the mule. For does our Prime Minister — by Margaret Thatcher and out of Michael Foot — not share the creature’s misfortune, and for comparable reasons? Is new Labour itself, bereft of the mainspring of belief, incapable of reproduction?

It is Mr Blair’s boast that the brand of progressive politics for which he has become the international cheerleader combines the best of the Left and the Right. It is, he says, the “Third Way”.

Like the mule, Blair’s Third Way has been many useful things to many people; but, like the mule, it is showing in the end no sign of regeneration, and this weekend’s conference betrays a measure of desperation about this. After six years in government Blairism is not looking like the political life-force that its enthusiasts promised. Born of a triangulation between two opposites, this curious ideological creature does combine some serviceable elements of both. It can live beyond a general election; it can avoid the errors of both Left and Right; and it can run a halfway competent government. But as a breeding ground itself for the next political generation it is barren. In the end, and as the day approaches when the Third Way must recast itself in the shape of new men, new women and new ideas, new Labour is firing duds.

Look at the people: Geoff Hoon, Valerie Amos, Charlie Falconer, Patricia Hewitt, Andrew Smith. Jolly competent, some of them; amiable companions, many of them; reliable ministers, all of them; but as the start of something big, no. There is something dead there. They are not the beginning, they are the end; and in their hearts they know it, even their tired, clichéd language betrays it.

Or look at the ideas: endless pettifogging initiatives designed to warm the socialist heart without frightening the capitalist horses. Pledges, vows, targets, mission statements, visions, never adding up to anything with shape or definition. And ever and anon the mindless background chorus of “new”, “renew”, “rebirth” and “renaissance”.

Is it not obvious why Mr Blair returns so obsessively to the vocabulary of vision and regeneration? Like the advertising copywriter ransacking the thesaurus for synonyms for “honest”, he is picking at a sore. New Labour harps on about “new thinking” at every opportunity because what New Labour so conspicuously lacks is precisely that. It talks incessantly of values and vision out of a subliminal terror that it has neither. “At our best when at our boldest,” chanted Blair (twice) at his party conference, as though saying so would make him bold. No wonder those around him babble about the “narrative” of government: it is because their administration so conspicuously lacks it. I doubt whether Margaret Thatcher even knows what a political narrative is. She does not need to. She was one.

So every year we columnists scratch our heads and wonder whether the time has yet come for the column announcing that the dream of the leader of every great political movement has now come true for Tony Blair; and that it is at last possible to imagine the beliefs, shorn of the Believer.

But we do not quite write the column because we do not quite believe it. And the years pass, and Mr Blair’s hair thins, and Margaret Beckett looks exhausted, and even Alistair Darling’s eyebrows begin to turn grey. And still we do not write it because still we cannot believe it.

And now, as we begin to think about Labour’s third term, it is as impossible to identify anybody in new Labour’s court who looks capable of succeeding the King.

What this is not is an unlucky coincidence. The failure of the political tombola to throw up from the Commons tub the kind of galvanising individuals who might carry Mr Blair’s torch into the next generation is no mischance. Dip as we may into the sawdust, there is nothing there. At this weekend’s conference Mr Blair will ransack the lexicon for new words and phrases, new slogans with which to relaunch a tired brand, but in the end he must fail because the problem is not a problem of marketing. The problem is the product. There can be no regeneration because there is nothing to regenerate. There can be no successor to the Prophet because there is nothing to prophecy.

New Labour has not run out of steam; it never had any steam. It has not lost momentum; it was never going anywhere. What momentum it had was inherited from old Labour’s plans for devolution, peer-baiting and hunt sabotage.

The Third Way was not an original idea, a novel doctrine or a new direction. It was an ad-hoc accommodation between two opposing sets of ideas, each with an integrity and energy of their own. The socialist Left and the Thatcherite Right had taken huge knocks by the end of the last century. One had lost the battle of ideas, the other the people’s trust. The year 1989 was as dark an hour for British Thatcherism as it was for world socialism.

Cometh the hour, came the man. Mr Blair gave us to believe that he could bring us something that was neither Right nor Left and yet, strangely, both. He arrived with all the flourish of an accomplished circus ringmaster.

Unfortunately he has not proved to be anything more. After the roll of drums came a timid mish-mash of a government. This confused accommodation between Left and Right served its purpose but was ultimately sterile. No worthy inheritor of Mr Blair’s Third Way politics will be found because there is nothing to inherit.

This is not an argument against moderation in politics. There is a difference between leading from the Centre and hiding there; and this weekend’s Third Way conference should reflect on that. Just because an individual is inclined by disposition to policies that are gentle or gradual in their effect does not make his thinking either weak or indecisive.

I do not think of the politics of Michael Heseltine (or Jim Prior, or Peter Walker) as vacuous. Roy Hattersley’s socialism is no less passionate for being centrist. Such men have been inhabited by idealisms no less powerful for not being pitched from the political extremes. Hugh Gaitskell on Labour’s Right, or Disraeli’s one-nation Toryism, were strong and distinctive in their impact. You can be passionately centrist, and full of ideas.

When centrist men seem incoherent it is usually because they have located the Centre by splitting the difference between the extremes, or simply blurring their position. We sniff them out, sensing that what has propelled them on to this ground has not been conviction but a wish to maximise their appeal. This unsettles us because we doubt that such men are really anchored anywhere. They are defined by the extremes, even though not situated at the extremes. The very name “Third Way” (like “triangulation”) cedes to other political tendencies the task of making the map upon which your triangulator will then mark out his middle way. Look what happens to Labour MPs whose centrism springs from conviction rather than triangulation — Frank Field, for example: cast aside. Triangulators are uncomfortable with conviction at the Centre.

The Third Way becomes a set of political derivatives. Note the school playground triumphalism with which Tony Blair likes to crow: “The Tories are against ever joining the euro, while the Liberal Democrats want to join regardless of circumstances; whereas what we want. . .” (etc), as though this were some kind of an argument. Where other parties place themselves on this issue should be irrelevant to him, if he knows where he wants to place himself.

Everybody of any significance who has stayed close to this leader has fallen into disgrace, given up, blown up, lost the plot or gone mad. Peter Mandelson: fallen. Anji Hunter: given up. Stephen Byers: fallen. Mo Mowlam: blown up. Jack Straw: lost the plot. Fiona Millar: given up. Alastair Campbell: gone mad. Alan Milburn: given up. Charles Clarke: blowing up.

What is it about Mr Blair’s court that addles brains, repels talent and grinds people down? I think I know. It is the howling void at its centre.



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Tenet das erste Bauernopfer.

July 12, 2003
C.I.A. Chief Takes Blame in Assertion on Iraqi Uranium
By DAVID E. SANGER and JAMES RISEN


he director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, accepted responsibility yesterday for letting President Bush use information that turned out to be unsubstantiated in his State of the Union address, accusing Iraq of trying to acquire uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons.

Mr. Tenet issued a statement last night after both the president and his national security adviser placed blame on the C.I.A., which they said had reviewed the now discredited accusation and had approved its inclusion in the speech.

For days, the White House has tried to quiet a political storm over the discredited intelligence, which was among many examples cited in Mr. Bush`s speech to justify the need for confronting Iraq to force the dismantlement of Saddam Hussein`s arms programs.

"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services," the president said after a meeting in Uganda with President Yoweri K. Museveni, for the first time placing implicit blame for his error on those agencies.

Condoleezza Rice, the president`s national security adviser, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Uganda, said, "The C.I.A. cleared the speech in its entirety."

Although Mr. Tenet`s statement did not say he had personally cleared the speech, he said in his statement, "I am responsible for the approval process in my agency."

In an administration that prides itself on discipline and message control, the question of how faulty intelligence got into Mr. Bush`s speech has become an unusual exercise in finger-pointing, with top officials and agencies blaming one another.

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush cited an Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium from Africa as part of evidence of Mr. Hussein`s unconventional weapons and Iraq`s desire to reconstitute its nuclear program.

"The British government," the president said, "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Mr. Tenet said yesterday: "The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."

Other senior administration officials had been more cautious about the information. In a recent interview, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that by the time he got to a meeting that Mr. Tenet attended at the C.I.A. three nights after the president`s Jan. 28 speech, Mr. Powell`s staff had already dismissed any thought of using the Africa claim to bolster the case the secretary was to make a few days later at the United Nations.

The intelligence agencies, Mr. Powell said, were "at that point not carrying it as a credible item."

In a briefing with reporters on Thursday night in South Africa, Mr. Powell suggested that he had looked into the assertion more closely and decided it was not based on sufficiently reliable information to repeat to the United Nations.

"When I made my presentation to the United Nations and we really went through every single thing we knew about all of the various issues with respect to weapons of mass destruction, we did not believe that it was appropriate to use that example anymore," he said. "It was not standing the test of time. And so I didn`t use it, and we haven`t used it since."

Yesterday, Ms. Rice said Mr. Powell`s decision had not been driven by any new information but by longstanding concerns in the State Department`s own intelligence branch about whether the data was reliable.

The State Department`s intelligence unit, Ms. Rice said, "was the one that within the overall intelligence assessment had objected to that sentence."

In the classified version of a National Intelligence Estimate prepared by intelligence agencies last fall, the allegation about Iraq`s activities in the African nation of Niger was included along with a footnote that said the State Department had its doubts about whether it was justified by the evidence. Somalia and Congo were also cited in the estimate.

Ms. Rice said the administration did not learn until March that the documents that were the primary basis for the assertion about Niger had been forged. She also said she did not learn about the mission to Niger last year by a former American ambassador — who found no evidence to back up the charge — until a month ago, when she was asked about it during a television interview.

In recent days, the C.I.A.`s spokesman said Mr. Tenet had never personally approved Mr. Bush`s use of the African uranium example in the speech. But Dan Bartlett, one of Mr. Bush`s closest aides, who drafted parts of the address, said in an interview that the wording had been "cleared at the highest levels of the C.I.A." which would seem to mean Mr. Tenet or his deputy, John McLaughlin.

Inside the National Security Council, some senior staff members gave a slightly different account, saying the paper trail suggests the claim about Africa may have been approved at the agency`s midlevels, by a senior expert on nuclear proliferation and arms control.

A senior administration official said Ms. Rice had telephoned Mr. Tenet before she spoke to reporters yesterday. Asked whether the White House continued to have confidence in Mr. Tenet, Ms. Rice replied, "Absolutely."

But Mr. Tenet was clearly an official under fire yesterday. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the select committee on intelligence, said he was "disturbed by what appears to be extremely sloppy handling of the issue from the outset by the C.I.A."

He added that he was most worried about "a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president." He accused Mr. Tenet of failing to warn Mr. Bush about any doubts in the agency.

The Senate, by voice vote on Thursday night, called for an investigation into what led to Mr. Bush`s statement.

There are still major questions about whether there was a failure to communicate the doubts of some intelligence analysts to the White House or whether, as some senior intelligence officials maintain, in the prelude to the war, the White House stripped much of the nuance and balance from intelligence reports to make the threat from Mr. Hussein seem more urgent and the need for action more immediate.

There is evidence that there was concern in the C.I.A. about the credibility of the uranium information and that those doubts reached at least some White House officials months before the State of the Union address. Administration officials involved in drafting another speech Mr. Bush gave about Iraq, in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, said that at the C.I.A.`s behest, they had removed any mention of the central piece of intelligence about African uranium — a report about an effort by Iraq to obtain "yellowcake," which contains uranium ore, in Niger. No one has fully explained how, given that early October warning to the White House, a version of the same charge resurfaced in the early drafts of the State of the Union address just three months later, and stayed there, draft after draft.

Ms. Rice said yesterday that the new wording Mr. Bush used in the address had been reviewed and changed by the C.I.A., whose officials initially expressed concern about some "specifics about amount and place." After the changes, she said, "the C.I.A. cleared the speech in its entirety."

"If the C.I.A., the director of central intelligence, had said, `Take this out of the speech,` it would have been gone, without question," she added. "If there were doubts about the underlying intelligence, those doubts were not communicated to the president, to the vice president or to me."

Mr. Bush, Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell all insist that the political furor over one line in Mr. Bush`s speech obscures what they say is a larger truth: that Mr. Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program, and had sought to obtain key components for it around the world.

So far, investigators on the ground in Iraq have found no evidence of that rekindled effort, though a barrel full of nuclear centrifuge plans and equipment was found buried for the last 12 years in the garden of one nuclear engineer in Baghdad. This strongly suggests that Mr. Hussein`s government was holding onto key designs in case they had the opportunity to restart the program.

To Mr. Bush`s critics, both in Congress and in the intelligence sector, the case of the African uranium is just one example of what happened to the evidence about Iraq`s weapons and links to terrorism as it moved from individual scraps of intelligence, to the murky world of classified assessments, to the boiled-down language of executive summaries, to the crisp, declarative language of a president who knew, in the words of one of his top aides, that he "needed to rally the country for war."

Caveats and cautions often fell away, senior government officials and intelligence analysts in Washington and London said in recent interviews. Even when cautionary language survived, it was often drowned out in the echo chamber of talk shows and the shorthand of newspaper headlines.

Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director at the C.I.A. and the leader of a team of retired officials who have reviewed the prewar intelligence about Iraq, said that "certainly there is a difference between the intelligence and the public statements" of some government officials. "Intelligence is always written in a way that is not particularly useful in directly supporting policy," he said. "Everybody drops qualifiers when you want to make a point and make it sing a little bit. I would be surprised if they didn`t."

"These are different kinds of products," Mr. Kerr continued. "Policy statements are meant to have a fairly clear and dramatic impact. They don`t convey the subtle distinctions that an intelligence analyst would make. They don`t convey the cautionary note that an analyst would provide."

Greg Thielmann, a proliferation expert who worked for the State Department`s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, added this week: "This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude: `We know the answers, give us the intelligence to support those answers.` When you sense this kind of attitude, you quash the spirit of intellectual inquiry and integrity."

In the case of the uranium, Mr. Bush actually cited British intelligence because it had published the allegation about Africa in an unclassified report in September. "It cited a public document, which probably helped," Ms. Rice explained yesterday. "It was also Britain, which probably helped."

When the first rumors of a purchase effort in Niger surfaced, at the beginning of 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney`s office asked the C.I.A. to assess the information. Apparently without the knowledge of Mr. Cheney or Mr. Tenet, the agency sent a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, to investigate. He reported back that the government of Niger had denied the report, and that other indications were that it was bogus.

Before the speech, the crucial conversations between the C.I.A and White House over whether to include the African reference in the State of the Union address were held between Robert G. Joseph, a nuclear proliferation expert at the National Security Council, and Alan Foley, a proliferation expert at the C.I.A., according to government officials.

There is still a dispute over what exactly was said in their conversations. Mr. Foley was said to recall that before the speech, Mr. Joseph called him to ask about putting into the speech a reference to reports that Iraq was trying to buy hundreds of tons of yellowcake from Niger. Mr. Foley replied that the C.I.A. was not sure that the information was right.

Mr. Joseph then came back to Mr. Foley and pointed out that the British had already included the information in a report. Mr. Foley said yes, but noted that the C.I.A. had told the British that they were not sure that the information was correct. Mr. Joseph then asked whether it was accurate that the British reported the information. Mr. Foley said yes.

Other government officials said, however, that Mr. Joseph did not recall Mr. Foley`s raising any concerns about the reliability of the information. If he had, they said, Mr. Joseph would have made sure that the reference was not included in the speech.

The White House would not say what the C.I.A. officers had been asked, or whether the issue had been raised with Mr. Tenet, who sees the president daily and speaks often with Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser.

The White House said it was stunned to learn, after the speech, that the Niger evidence was based on false documents, and that the sources for evidence that Iraq sought the yellowcake elsewhere in Africa were far short of reliable. "What the president says has to be bulletproof," a senior American official said. "This clearly wasn`t."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 12, 2003
U.S. Forces Girding for Raids by Iraqis
By DOUGLAS JEHL


WASHINGTON, July 11 — American intelligence agencies are warning of a possible new wave of attacks against United States forces in Iraq during the next week to coincide with anniversaries tied to Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party, military officials said today.

The anniversaries include July 14, the date of the 1958 coup against the British-backed monarchy, which is celebrated as Iraq`s National Day; July 16, the date that Mr. Hussein took power in 1979; and July 17, the date of the Baath Party revolution in 1968.

While stopping short of saying the guerrilla attacks on Americans were centrally orchestrated, the officials said the intelligence agencies were edging closer to a view that they were being coordinated at least at a regional level.

American commanders have made clear in the past that they intend to counter such attacks with aggressive military operations aimed at former Baath Party and paramilitary leaders who are believed to be leading the resistance.

Military officials refused today to discuss any future operations, but they said no one should be surprised if concern over possible new attacks prompted new American military action. "We see a heightened period ahead in which the groups who are out there will try to convince others to carry out attacks," one military official said.

The warnings extend to July 17, the date of the last anniversary, and reflect specific intelligence about possible attacks in Baghdad and other areas, the officials said. They follow a spike in attacks against American forces during the past three days.

Among the particular reasons for concern, the military officials said, are credible but unconfirmed intelligence reports indicating that senior Baath Party officials may have recently gathered for a meeting aimed at reconstituting their movement under the titular leadership of Mr. Hussein. "When you combine the intelligence that we`re seeing with the sentiment that usually surrounds these days, there`s reason for a lot of concern," a second military official said.

The most recent major American military operation in Iraq concluded on July 6; it was the third in a series of offensives conducted by the United States since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major military operations. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American ground commander in Iraq, said in Baghdad on Thursday that the operations, which have resulted in several hundred arrests and the seizure of some weapons, were aimed at "former Baath Party loyalists and other subversive elements that we suspect of conducting attacks against U.S. forces."

Bush administration officials, including the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, have said they have seen no evidence that the attacks on American forces are being centrally controlled. But military commanders have said there is ample evidence that the attacks are being coordinated on at least a local level by professional soldiers.

On Thursday, General Sanchez appeared to go even further, saying that the United States was weighing whether the attacks — which he described as increasingly bold and militarily sophisticated — might be part of a broader strategy orchestrated by the former Iraqi leader.

"Are they operating on some sort of commander`s intent out there, if you will?" the general said. "Probably so. I mean, Saddam told us that he was going to let us into Baghdad and then strike at us here and try to break the will of the coalition. So that possibility is out there. And you know, that`s what we`re trying to establish at this point, see if that`s part of their operational plan."

"There`s no question in my mind that there are former Saddam Fedayeen trained soldiers that are out there, Special Republican Guard soldiers that are still out there continuing with their offensive against us," General Sanchez said. "So, in terms of professionalism, clearly, there are soldiers out there that continue to ply their trade against the coalition forces."

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who stepped down this week as head of the United States Central Command, told Congress this week that "more than 90 percent" of the attacks against American forces in Iraq were taking place in the center of the country, in a region known as the Sunni Triangle "where the Baath Party was most heavily invested."

Over the last three days, American military officials said, there have been about 25 attacks a day involving American military personnel, although some were initiated by the United States. That rate is substantially higher than a week ago, though not yet as high as it was during a peak last month, the officials said.

In testimony on Thursday before the House Armed Services Committee, General Franks described the three offensive operations that American forces have carried out since May 1 as an attempt to root out the sources of opposition and their caches of weapons. "We have our people every day not sitting in base camps," General Franks said, "but rather out looking to find the Baathists, looking to find the jihadis, looking to find these people who cross the border from Syria and are hell-bent on creating difficulty."

A senior Defense Department official said today that it would be prudent to expect "other intense military operations" by American forces in Iraq in the days and weeks ahead.

As a factor in the attacks, American officials point to the view — increasingly widespread in Iraq and within the United States intelligence community — that Mr. Hussein and probably his sons, Uday and Qusay, are still alive. That belief has inspired fear among Mr. Hussein`s opponents and loyalty among his followers, the officials say.

"I think the fact that the specter of Saddam continues to be present out there, whether he is dead or alive, is making a significant impact on the people of Iraq and their ability to cooperate with the coalition," General Sanchez said on Thursday.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 12, 2003
G.I.`s Turn Over Policing of Iraqi Town to Local Force
By SHAILA K. DEWAN


FALLUJA, Iraq, July 11 — The new Iraqi police force in this restless town west of Baghdad threatened to quit on Thursday unless American forces allowed them to do their jobs alone.

In response, the American authorities agreed to reduce the number of their soldiers at the Falluja central police station from more than 20 to 1 or 2. As of this evening there were a half-dozen troops at the station, a military spokesman said.

Also on Thursday, three soldiers were wounded at a base in Samarra in the latest of a series of increasingly serious attacks, said the spokesman, Capt. Jeff Fitzgibbons. One Iraqi was also hurt, but the cause of his injuries was not clear, he added.

Captain Fitzgibbons said the weapons used against soldiers had gone from light arms to rocket-propelled grenades to improvised explosives to mortars, which require training to use. It is difficult to pinpoint where the mortar rounds are being fired from, he said. "It shows that the enemy is getting more sophisticated," the captain said.

The police officers staged a peaceful protest march from the police station to the town hall, where they confronted a representative of the allied forces with their demand. It came less than a week after seven police recruits in nearby Ramadi had died in an explosion, making clear the risks of working with the American military as local frustration over the occupation grows.

"They only bring trouble," said Hikwat Ubaid, a lieutenant in the Falluja police force, which has made joint patrols of the town with the American soldiers. "We don`t want to see them. They do nothing here. They go out at night and they get attacked."

Other officers said that the Americans were incapable of understanding their culture and that they did not want even one officer at the police station. "All of these people are our families, our relatives," said Haqi Ismail Daoud, 21. "We know them better than the Americans. We know the tribes and the mosques. And the people see us as collaborating with the Americans, and we`re not."

The police station has taken fire several times in recent weeks, officers said, and on the night before the protest, rocket-propelled grenades were fired in the vicinity.

But Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, the executive officer of the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, said his forces would continue training and equipping police officers and security guards, and sending reinforcements when necessary.

"They want to continue with the cooperation," he said of the police. "They just want more autonomy." He added that the Iraqis would begin patrolling by themselves on Monday.

Colonel Wesley called the withdrawal of allied forces a step toward transferring power back to Iraqis.

"We want Iraqis to take a greater and greater responsibility in Iraq," he said, "and this is a demonstration of that, albeit somewhat awkward, given the means they used to do so."

He said withdrawal from the town center had begun before the protest. Earlier this week, soldiers cleared out of the former Baath Party headquarters next to the town hall, and today the tanks and other armored vehicles that once patrolled the area were gone. Half of the 22 sites requiring a 24-hour guard, including the police station, the Falluja Dam and the local bank, were already turned over to the Iraqis, he said.

Falluja has been a stronghold of anti-American resistance in the heavily Sunni Muslim area northwest of Baghdad. In late April, soldiers killed 17 people at a demonstration during which they said shots had been fired from the crowd. Last week, part of a mosque compound was destroyed when bomb makers working inside accidentally detonated one of their devices, Americans said.

Asked if reducing forces in the town created an opportunity for insurgents to organize, Colonel Wesley said American intelligence and security forces based in a camp outside Falluja would remain. "There are a lot of different answers to that question," he said. "You could see it as good in some ways, because you have indigenous forces dealing with indigenous issues. If, however, there is any kind of corruption in the police force, it could make matters worse."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 12, 2003
In Tenet`s Words: `I Am Responsible` for Review

Following is the text of a statement yesterday by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, as provided by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Legitimate questions have arisen about how remarks on alleged Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa made it into the president`s State of the Union speech. Let me be clear about several things right up front. First, C.I.A. approved the president`s State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.

For perspective, a little history is in order.

There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam`s efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, C.I.A.`s counterproliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn.

He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. The former officials also offered details regarding Niger`s processes for monitoring and transporting uranium that suggested it would be very unlikely that material could be illicitly diverted. There was no mention in the report of forged documents — or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all.

Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerien officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.

In the fall of 2002, my deputy and I briefed hundreds of members of Congress on Iraq. We did not brief the uranium acquisition story.

Also in the fall of 2002, our British colleagues told us they were planning to publish an unclassified dossier that mentioned reports of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. Because we viewed the reporting on such acquisition attempts to be inconclusive, we expressed reservations about its inclusion, but our colleagues said they were confident in their reports and left it in their document.

In September and October 2002 before Senate Committees, senior intelligence officials in response to questions told members of Congress that we differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium reporting.

In October, the intelligence community produced a classified, 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (N.I.E.) on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the intelligence community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the N.I.E.`s key judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them.

But in the interest of completeness, the report contained three paragraphs that discuss Iraq`s significant 550-metric-ton uranium stockpile and how it could be diverted while under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguard. These paragraphs also cited reports that Iraq began "vigorously trying to procure" more uranium from Niger and two other African countries, which would shorten the time Baghdad needed to produce nuclear weapons. The N.I.E. states: "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of pure `uranium` (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out the arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake." The estimate also states: "We do not know the status of this arrangement." With regard to reports that Iraq had sought uranium from two other countries, the estimate says: "We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources." Much later in the N.I.E. text, in presenting an alternate view on another matter, the State Department`s Bureau of Intelligence and Research included a sentence that states: "Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in I.N.R.`s assessment, highly dubious."

An unclassified C.I.A. White Paper in October made no mention of the issue, again because it was not fundamental to the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, and because we had questions about some of the reporting. For the same reasons, the subject was not included in many public speeches, Congressional testimony and the secretary of state`s United Nations presentation in early 2003.

The background above makes it even more troubling that the 16 words eventually made it into the State of the Union speech. This was a mistake.

Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the C.I.A. for comment shortly before the speech was given. Various parts were shared with cognizant elements of the agency for review. Although the documents related to the alleged Niger-Iraqi uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries, officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed. From what we know now, agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct — i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and C.I.A. should have ensured that it was removed.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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The Uranium Fiction
We`re glad that someone in Washington has finally taken responsibility for letting President Bush make a false accusation about Saddam Hussein`s nuclear weapons program in the State of the Union address last January, but the matter will not end there. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush`s speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do.

So far, the administration`s handling of this important — and politically explosive — issue has mostly involved a great deal of finger-pointing instead of an exacting reconstruction of events and an acceptance of blame by all those responsible. Mr. Bush himself engaged in the free-for-all yesterday while traveling in Africa when he said his speech had been "cleared by the intelligence services." That led within a few hours to Mr. Tenet`s mea culpa.

It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush`s speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January. Doubts about the accusation were raised in March 2002 by Joseph Wilson 4th, a former American diplomat, after he was dispatched to Niger by the C.I.A. to look into the issue.

Mr. Wilson has said he is confident that his concerns were circulated not only within the agency but also at the State Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Tenet, in his statement yesterday, confirmed that the Wilson findings had been given wide distribution, although he reported that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other high officials had not been directly informed about them by the C.I.A. The uranium charge should never have found its way into Mr. Bush`s speech. Determining how it got there is essential to understanding whether the administration engaged in a deliberate effort to mislead the nation about the Iraqi threat.

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July 12, 2003
Digging a Hole for the Future

The tourists packing Washington these days to see what really goes on in the Capitol have an irresistible metaphor at hand as the Republican-led Congress digs ever deeper deficits and debt into the nation`s future. A gigantic hole has been excavated on the east side of the Capitol for what will be the new underground visitors center. And, just like the federal budget, the center is already running a deficit: $48 million above its initial price tag of $303 million, with more looming.

While still a raw wound in the earth, the center is a must-see for any American who needs a vivid sense of the future our lawmakers are preparing. If you go, make sure the kids and the grandkids get a look into the pit, for they are the generations who will be paying off the trillions of dollars in interest and debt now being run up by the Bush administration and the lock-step G.O.P. majority.

In its relentless embrace of deficit spending, the G.O.P. — reborn as the Grand Old Profligates — has clamored for serial tax cuts, cashing in promises of budget surpluses for an ever rising tide of red ink. Estimates are that by zealously cutting revenues and rolling over budget costs, the Republican government is running a deficit tab that will amount to at least $4 trillion in the next 10 years. Congress has juggled the tax-cut books with "sunset" machinations, passing cuts as temporary yet vowing to make these revenue chokes permanent. The true cost of various gimmicks and evasions will mean deficits no lower than $325 billion a year — rising to $530 billion by 2013 — plus interest payments of $3.1 trillion on the rising debt, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an independent watchdog group. Visitors peering into the Big Deficit Dig will find no amber wave of grain.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
Chasing Tips on Hussein
Search Intensifies Near Tikrit, Turns Up New Clues

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A01


SIWASH, Iraq -- Just before dawn on Wednesday, Col. James Hickey launched his biggest raid yet in the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his top associates: Tanks and troops on the ground, AH-64 Apache helicopters in the sky and speedboats on the Tigris River converged on an isolated farm owned by a cousin of the former Iraqi leader.

When soldiers blasted into the farmhouse, it was abandoned. A bird had built a nest in the living room couch. Yet there was fresh bread and candy in the kitchen, men`s clothing reeking of recent sweat in the closet and a machine gun, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and explosives secreted in the garden -- evidence, Hickey said, that the farm may have been a safe house for Hussein or others on the run.

In recent weeks, the search for Hussein and dozens of his senior associates and mid-level loyalists has intensified here in his home province of Salahuddin, northwest of Baghdad. Spurred by reports from local informants and intercepted telephone conversations, some U.S. officials say they now believe that the fugitive former president and his closest henchmen may be filtering back here for the protection afforded by a vast network of tribal and family connections.

Almost every raid, officers say, turns up new scraps of evidence -- photos, documents with satellite telephone numbers, fake identity cards. Informants -- ranging from powerful sheiks to poor farmers -- whisper tips, often risking lives and livelihoods. U.S. intelligence units glean tidbits from telephone intercepts, aerial surveillance and gumshoe detective work.

"You get a lot of Saddam sightings," said Col. Don Campbell, chief of staff for the 4th Infantry Division, which oversees the province. "People say, `I can take you to Saddam` or `I can tell you where he is.` If we believe it`s credible, we follow it up."

Tips had accelerated even before last week, when the U.S. government offered $25 million for information leading to Hussein`s capture or confirmation of his death. The lure of the reward money, however, has multiplied the number of tips slipped to U.S. officials by Iraqis in the area, they said.

Though Hussein is the ace of spades in the deck of cards distributed by the Americans that depicts the 55 most-wanted Iraqis, military officers -- keenly aware of the still unsuccessful search for the al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden -- said the former Iraqi president is only the most notorious of numerous targets. The majority of raids, they said, are launched in pursuit of up to 300 other Hussein associates, first-tier bodyguards, mid-level money men and others suspected of financing or organizing attacks on Americans and the Iraqis assisting them.

Thus far, 33 of the 55 figures on the playing cards have been captured or have surrendered. Military officials said they believed those at large, including Hussein, were moving frequently among relatives and friends, trying to evade detection.

Even when the intended targeted has eluded capture, military officials said few raids are considered complete failures.

"Almost every time, we get some piece of evidence that leads us to the next raid," said Maj. Mike Silverman, 38, operations officer for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, which is responsible for Salahuddin province.

"You always have to follow the trail," said Hickey, his commander. "Saddam and his top people come from this neighborhood. They tend to fall back on tribal support, so we think it`s plausible he could be here."

Human Intelligence
In a dusty, air-conditioned command tent on the grounds of one of Hussein`s palace guesthouses on the outskirts of Tikrit, the booty of recent U.S. military raids was spread across a table: pictures, hundreds of pictures. Many depicted Hussein smiling with green-uniformed officers, old men, big families.

"Photos are a big deal," said Silverman, an ebullient, round-faced Floridian. On nearly every raid, Silverman said soldiers find shadows of Hussein. Few houses lack at least one photo of present or past occupants standing next to their ousted leader.

A few days ago, he said, a raid netted the first known photograph of No. 11 in the most-wanted deck -- Barzan Abd Ghafur Sulayman Majid al-Tikriti, a Special Republican Guard commander depicted on his card as a black silhouette.

Though sophisticated, high-tech surveillance equipment is a key component of the Hussein hunt, Silverman said nine out of every 10 tips that the 1st Brigade Combat Team receives come from human intelligence.

"We have lots of walk-ins," he said. Some local Iraqis walk openly into a U.S. military welcome center in downtown Tikrit, the city in Salahuddin where Hussein`s roots run deepest. Others sidle up to military officials during private meetings with local government officials or ask to meet with Iraqi translators working with the Americans.

Human intelligence, however, carries the risk of human error, misjudgment and exaggeration, military officials said.

"We get so much information, we have to be judicial," said Hickey, a lean, quiet-spoken Chicago native.

A local sheik recently approached Silverman at one of his many meetings at the provincial governor`s compound and earnestly reported that he had had lunch with Hussein the previous day at a farmhouse on an island. But the sheik could not read the satellite map that Silverman provided and was unwilling to take U.S. troops to the spot.

American soldiers pinpointed what they believed to be the island, raided a farmhouse and detained a farmer who Silverman said bore a slight resemblance to Hussein. Though troops were fairly certain they hadn`t nabbed the ace of spades, military officials ordered him flown to Baghdad, where he was briefly interrogated before being flown back to his island.

"If the information`s credible, what do we lose by going?" Silverman said. "One informant said his uncle had lunch with Chemical Ali [Gen. Ali Hassan Majeed]. Some pan out, some don`t."

The `Magic One`
The tip came like so many others. An Iraqi policeman working for the new governor of Salahuddin province said he had been talking to a farmer about recent suspicious activity at a neighbor`s farmhouse. "A lot of new cars," the farmer said.

The information pricked Silverman`s interest. The house was located across the Tigris River from the small village of Siwash, a 45-minute drive north of Tikrit in an area not yet explored by the U.S. military. Not only that, Silverman said, "there were a lot of rumblings" about the presence of top Hussein aides in the area over the past two weeks. An unusual number of boats had been reported plying the river between the farm and the village.

At dinner with the governor, Silverman pulled out a satellite photograph of the area. The informant pointed to a white square next to the river. "Yes, that`s it," he told Silverman.

Later, as Silverman discussed the house at another meeting with Iraqi confidants, one participant mentioned that the farm was owned by Hussein`s first cousin.

"That`s more than enough to go," Silverman said.

On Monday, Hickey ordered an assault on the farm. By midnight Tuesday, more than 400 U.S. military personnel were moving into position for a 4:30 a.m. raid, just after a glowing white moon set and the night became its darkest.

Capt. Desmond Bailey, 31, a reconnaissance team leader from Wetumpka, Ala., guided his troops along a narrow country road in pitch darkness, the headlights of their Humvees switched off. He monitored the movements of the vehicles converging on the farm on a computer in his Humvee, dispatching combat e-mails to his troops when he altered routes or updated their positions.

"We hope on every raid we`ll find the magic one," Bailey said in his molasses-thick drawl. "Nothing would suit us better than to find him, cuff him and bring him home."

Ten thousand feet overhead, Air Force surveillance planes monitored the operation. On the other side of the Tigris, two dozen tanks and armored vehicles were surrounding Siwash in a feint designed to draw attention away from the farmhouse. On the river, soldiers were slipping speedboats into the water to cut off escape routes. Two AH-64 Apache helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles hovered over a small ridge far enough away to mask the noise of their rotors. Bradley Fighting Vehicles were converging on the farmhouse from both ends of the road leading to it.

"Looks like everybody`s asleep," a scout on the ground reported on the radio at 4:30 a.m. A dog, however, barked energetically at the massing armor.

Soldiers used explosives to blast open the front gate and entered a house, where they said most fixtures and furniture were coated in dust. No one was home but they found the tell-tale signs of recent visitors.

Hidden in a small bunker in the garden, soldiers also discovered five rocket-propelled grenade launchers, two AK-47 assault rifles, a machine gun, a can of gunpowder and blasting caps. And the soldiers left with a new stash of photos showing Hussein and the apparent residents of the house.

"It will help connect the family dots," Hickey said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Garbage sits in view of the mayor`s office in Fallujah, Iraq, after the facility was vacated by U.S. forces in an effort to show confidence in local police`s ability to keep order in the city. (Saurabh Das -- AP)

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U.S. Troops Step Back In a Tense Iraqi City
Interim Council Meeting Scheduled in Baghdad

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A11


FALLUJAH, Iraq, July 11 -- U.S. forces have begun vacating encampments in this violent city west of Baghdad, including a municipal office that has become a flash point for anti-American tensions. The move accompanies a bid to quell armed resistance by giving new local police officers more responsibility for targeting gunmen and guarding key installations.

In Baghdad, the U.S.-led occupation authority scheduled a meeting Saturday for about 25 Iraqis selected to participate in an interim governing council that will assume authority over elements of the national bureaucracy and decide certain policy issues, diplomats involved in the process said.

The 25 are expected to declare themselves members of the council at the closed-door meeting -- a formality intended to make the group appear as if it emerged from consultations among Iraqis and was not a creation of the occupation authority, the diplomats said.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest political party representing the country`s Shiite Muslim majority, agreed today to join the council, removing the last major obstacle to forming a body that U.S. and British officials feel will be representative of Iraqi society.

The council`s other members will be announced at a news conference on Sunday, officials said. People taking part in the selection process have said that leaders of the country`s largest political parties will be included the group, as well as tribal leaders, religious figures, women, ethnic Kurds and Christians.

In the town of Samarra, a two-hour drive north of Baghdad, attackers fired four mortar rounds at a U.S. military base late Thursday, wounding three soldiers, the Associated Press reported. Early this morning, two mortar rounds were launched into a U.S. base in Ramadi, 60 miles west of the capital. U.S. military officials said there were no injuries or damage to the base. It was the seventh attack on the site in the last 10 days.

The pullout of troops from fixed positions in Fallujah began last week and likely will be completed by next week, said Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, executive officer of the 2nd Brigade of U.S. Army`s 3rd Infantry Division, which controls the Fallujah area. The process started with the removal of soldiers from electrical substations and schools, people in the city said.

On Thursday afternoon, the brigade conducted its most symbolically significant withdrawal, moving out troops who had been guarding the mayor`s office and driving away two M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles parked next to the building. Wesley said the brigade will remove soldiers from 22 locations in and around the city.

The soldiers will be replaced by newly trained Iraqi police officers as well as an armed Iraqi quick-reaction force that Wesley said would be "a cross between meter maids and a SWAT team."

"We want Iraqis to take on greater and greater responsibility" for the city`s security, he said.

Wesley said that despite the withdrawals from fixed positions, the brigade would not abandon the city. Soldiers will continue to patrol at all hours of the day, he said, and a fast-response unit will be ready to swoop in should local police need backup.

"We`re still committed to Fallujah," he said.

But brigade commanders said they believe that having a less visible presence in the city and ceding more authority to Iraqi police could help to address widespread anti-American sentiments in the city, the scene of repeated attacks over the past several weeks.

The withdrawals have drawn a mixed reaction in the city, with ordinary residents welcoming the move, the mayor`s office urging caution and police officers calling for the pullout to proceed faster.

"We`re happy to see them go," said Mohsen Kubaisi, a cigarette vendor. "They shouldn`t have been here in the first place."

At the mayor`s office, municipal employees took a different view, saying they wanted to make sure the local police were sufficiently trained and armed before U.S. troops left key installations. "We support the idea of the soldiers leaving, but we want to be certain our policemen are 100 percent ready," said Karim Aftan, spokesman for the mayor, Taha Bedawi. "The Americans should not leave too soon."

Over at the police station, the few officers on duty said they wanted the 20 Americans who have been guarding the building around the clock to go immediately. On Thursday, about 30 policemen held a protest in front of the mayor`s office, threatening to quit if U.S. forces did not leave and allow them to patrol alone.

On Wednesday night, three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the police station, officers said. And last Saturday, seven police cadets in Ramadi were killed after a bomb planted next to a utility pole exploded during graduation ceremonies. Policemen here said both incidents indicated to them that working with U.S. forces has become increasingly dangerous.

"When they are here, it makes our job worse," said 1st Lt. Nisan Mohammed. "We can do it better without them. If they are not here, nobody will shoot at us."

Mohammed said that if the U.S. soldiers guarding the station, who spent the afternoon in Humvees in the parking lot, did not leave by Saturday, "we will quit working and go home. . . . We will leave the building for the Americans."

A U.S. military officer in Fallujah said he viewed the demand as a negotiating tactic, and he doubted that many officers would quit. The official said the brigade`s commanders had planned before the protest to pull most soldiers from the station and keep only a few liaison officers there. The commanders also had planned to stop having U.S. military police accompany Iraqi police on patrols, the officer said.

Wesley called the protest "a very positive sign."

"We need the people of Iraq, the citizens and the leadership, to step up to the plate and assume a leadership role in the transition process," he said, pledging that by the middle of next week the police "will be completely independent in terms of their activity."




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Polish soldiers, part of an 9,200-troop international occupation force which receives limited assistance from NATO, prepared to leave for Iraq last week.

Photo Credit: Czarek Sokolowski -- AP


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NATO Role in Iraq Faces Snags
Divisions Over War, Existing Deployments Hinder U.S. Efforts

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A13


PARIS, July 11 -- American efforts to get NATO to play a major role in peacekeeping in Iraq will be hampered by continuing divisions in the alliance over the wisdom of the war and concerns that its troops are already overextended on missions elsewhere, according to NATO diplomats and defense analysts.

Officials said it was unlikely France, Germany or such other members as Belgium would agree to a large NATO role in Iraq as long as the United States was the main occupying power and the political transition remained in the hands of the U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer.

The dispatch of French troops "cannot be envisioned except in the context of a United Nations peacekeeping force, based on a clear mandate of the Security Council," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview published Thursday in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro. "For us, it would be fitting that the political transition in Iraq be placed under the responsibility of the United Nations."

France, along with fellow NATO member Germany and Russia, which has a limited partnership with the organization, led the opposition to the war. The dispute became particularly bitter within the meeting rooms of NATO`s governing Atlantic Council, leading to one of the deepest crises in the alliance`s 54-year history.

But, with U.S. troops in Iraq taking fire on a daily basis, the Senate on Thursday passed a resolution calling on the United States to solicit help from NATO. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that the administration will be discussing with its allies "whether there is a broader role the alliance can play."

European analysts saw little chance of success in the near term. "I don`t think anybody is going to jump into an American-run quagmire," said Francois Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research and a noted military affairs expert. "I don`t imagine this happening without a transfer of political authority to Sergio Vieira de Mello," the U.N. special representative in Iraq.

On May 21, NATO agreed to provide limited assistance to member country Poland in running an international occupation force in a sector of Iraq. The plan is for 9,200 troops from such other countries as Spain, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, as well as several Latin American countries. Some are already in Iraq. NATO`s role is to assist with communications, transport and intelligence.

Some U.S. and NATO officials would like to see that limited assistance expand into a much wider role -- a senior official in Brussels from one NATO member called it "highly probable" that the alliance could take over Iraq peacekeeping duties by the fall of 2004, despite the reluctance of other countries. The model, he and others said, is Afghanistan, where NATO has been helping an international peacekeeping force and is about to assume full command of it. But even if consensus were reached for a big NATO role, the problems Poland has had in assembling even a small force points to a big constraint -- a lack of deployable troops.

NATO members` forces are already stretched thin with peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Two of NATO`s best-equipped and most modern armies are on duty in trouble spots in Africa -- the French in Ivory Coast and Congo and the British in Sierra Leone.

"The idea that somehow there`s a great surplus of deployable troops in Europe is not true at all," David Wright, Canada`s long-serving ambassador to NATO and the dean of the NATO diplomatic corps, said in an interview.

"The whole international community is facing a challenge of a lot more peacekeeping, peace-building, nation-building type exercises," Wright said, adding that all such operations require "a mandate, money and soldiers -- and all of these things, relative to demand, are in short supply." He said that "with the demands elsewhere -- the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and so on -- we don`t want to promise things we can`t deliver."

Another senior NATO diplomat said: "We`ve got 2 million European soldiers in uniform. Not all of them are . . . . deployable."

One problem is that European countries with the largest standing armies, such as Poland and Italy, maintain that size through military drafts, and conscripted soldiers are considered unsuitable for the delicate task of peacekeeping.

Another problem is that a mission to Iraq would likely be open-ended, tying up large numbers of troops well into the future. Defense analysts generally work on a formula of multiplying by three -- for example, to maintain 10,000 troops in Iraq would mean committing 30,000, because of the need to rotate forces every few months to keep units fresh.

The problem is most acute for Britain, analysts said, which now has 12,000 troops, or about 10 percent of the country`s ground forces, committed to southern Iraq. With the multiplier for rotations, that means about one-quarter of Britain`s ground forces are earmarked for Iraq duty.

Add to that British military commitments in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and the Falkland Islands, and analysts estimate that more than half of all British troops are currently operating out of their home garrisons. That is said to be bad for morale and reenlistment.

For the United States, keeping 150,000 troops in Iraq -- at a cost of about $4 billion a month -- is also stretching resources, analysts said. "The loss of strategic maneuver if anything goes wrong elsewhere is just unbearable," Heisbourg said. "Running an empire is just a different business than going in and shooting up a place and leaving."



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Support for Bush Declines As Casualties Mount in Iraq


By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A01


Public support for President Bush has dropped sharply amid growing concerns about U.S. military casualties and doubts whether the war with Iraq was worth fighting, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Bush`s overall job approval rating dropped to 59 percent, down nine points in the past 18 days. That decline exactly mirrored the slide in public support for Bush`s handling of the situation in Iraq, which now stands at 58 percent.

And for the first time, slightly more than half the country -- 52 percent -- believes there has been an "unacceptable" level of U.S. casualties in Iraq, up eight points in less than three weeks.

Still, only 26 percent said there had been more casualties than they had expected. Three in four say they expect "significantly more" American dead and wounded.

The poll found that seven in 10 Americans believe the United States should continue to keep troops in Iraq, even if it means additional casualties. That view was shared by majorities of Republicans, Democrats and political independents.

A majority of the country -- 57 percent -- still consider the war with Iraq to have been worth the sacrifice. That`s down 7 percentage points from a Post-ABC News poll in late June, and 13 points since the war ended 10 weeks ago.

Taken together, the latest survey findings suggest that the mix of euphoria and relief that followed the quick U.S. victory in Iraq continues to dissipate, creating an uncertain and volatile political environment. The risks are perhaps most obvious for Bush, whose continued high standing with the American people has been fueled largely by his handling of the war on terrorism and, more recently, the war in Iraq.

On the domestic front, meanwhile, fewer than half the nation approves of Bush`s handling of the economy.

The poll found that the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has sharply divided the country. Fifty percent said Bush intentionally exaggerated evidence suggesting Iraq had such weapons, while nearly as many -- 46 percent -- disagreed.

"If we have the capability of finding out that Joe Blow No-Name has dodged his taxes for the past 10 years, why don`t we have the capability of . . . finding a foolproof method of finding out whether the intelligence we gather is accurate and making it rock-solid before we jump into another situation?" said James Pike, 41, an auto mechanic from Ogdensburg, N.Y.

Earlier this week, Bush administration officials acknowledged that the president should not have claimed in the State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from African countries in a bid to build nuclear weapons.

The survey also found that Americans are divided over whether the United States should send troops to Liberia to help enforce a cease-fire in that West African nation`s civil war, a move the Bush administration is considering. Fifty-one percent opposed sending troops to Liberia as part of a broader peacekeeping operation, while 41 percent favored the idea.

"I don`t really know that we have any business there," said Penny Tarbert, 50, who is disabled and lives in Bucyrus, Ohio. "They`ve been fighting this [civil war] for a long time. I think we`ve got ourselves in enough right now that we don`t need to be spreading ourselves any thinner."

An overwhelming majority of Americans -- 80 percent -- said they fear the United States will become bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission in Iraq, up eight points in less than three weeks.

"I`m worried about how long we`re going to be there," said Betty Stillwell, 71, a writer from central California. "We were supposed to be in there and out. By now I thought they would have set up a government, and they haven`t done that yet. . . . I think the whole thing was poorly planned, no thought to the aftermath."

Despite broad doubts and growing concerns, few Americans say it`s time for the troops to come home. Three in four support the current U.S. presence in Iraq -- a view shared by large majorities of Republicans (89 percent), Democrats (60 percent) and political independents (75 percent).

The number of U.S. casualties, while troubling to many, has not outstripped most people`s expectations. One in four said there had been more casualties than they had anticipated, while 36 percent said there had been fewer and 37 percent said it was about what they had expected.

"I don`t think any [casualties] are acceptable, but they`re necessary," said Chris Eldridge, 29, an electronics technician from Louisville. "They`re a lot lower than I expected. I expected there would be more during the initial fighting. I expected a lot more killed. Fortunately there hasn`t been."

Danny Buckner, 53, a Navy retiree who lives in Brownwood, Tex., had a somewhat different view. "Considering we are having a cease-fire we sure are losing a lot of lives," he said. "They`re killing us right and left. I don`t know what the deal is."

The poll suggests growing public belief that the United States must kill or capture Saddam Hussein for the war to be successful. A 61 percent majority now believe Hussein must be found, up 11 points since April. That view was shared by roughly similar majorities of Republicans, Democrats and political independents.

"It would be nice if we could find Saddam Hussein and get it over with," said Susan Leidich, 39, a homemaker from Birch Run, Mich. "It seems like if the military leaves, it could be like Desert Storm [the 1991 Persian Gulf War], and then Saddam Hussein would take right back over."

The survey suggests that most Americans believe the recent war produced mixed results. Six in 10 said it damaged the image of the United States abroad, and half said the conflict caused permanent damage to U.S. relations with France, Germany and other allies who opposed the war. The public was equally divided whether the war contributed to long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.

But seven in 10 said the war helped improve the lives of the Iraqi people. And six in 10 said it contributed to the long-term security of the United States.

A total of 1,006 randomly selected adults were interviewed July 9 and 10. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company


A U.S. Army soldier watches as underbrush on the road to Baghdad`s airport is burned to guard against ambushes.

Photo Credit: Faleh Kheiber -- Reuters

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Should the Democrats Draft a General?


By Franklin Foer

Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A17


According to a recent Washington Post poll, 72 percent of the public trusts President Bush to handle terrorism better than the Democrats. Republicans have held an advantage on national security issues for two generations, but 9/11 instantly magnified both the size of the gap and its political consequences. The extent of the problem this poses to the Democrats` chances of winning back the presidency in 2004 has not yet penetrated their minds. It`s not remotely comparable to mistrust of Republican health care or education policies, as many Democrats seem to believe. It reveals a fundamental worry that voters have about the party, one that cannot be overcome with small measures.

Some of the presidential contenders have a better chance of minimizing this problem than others because of their biographies, expertise or hawkishness. But it`s an Achilles` heel for all of them. The good news is that an ideal solution has landed in the Democrats` laps: Wesley Clark. The bad news is that because so few Democrats recognize the scale of the problem, not many of them grasp the solution.

For the past several months, retired Gen. Wesley Clark has been campaigning for the post of reluctant warrior. He has tirelessly dropped hints that he would enter the race. It seems that he`s just waiting for the party establishment to rally around him and begin clearing the field.

In fact, Clark`s shot at beating Bush is exponentially better than those of any of the other contenders.

Nobody could possibly take Clark, the former NATO supreme commander, for a McGovernite pacifist -- even when he makes his critique of Operation Iraqi Freedom. When the press refers to him, his first name will always be "General." Without being the least bit exploitative, his ads will feature him with stars across his shoulders.

But Clark`s virtues go beyond foreign policy concerns and his jacket full of medals. When he articulates mainstream Democratic issues, as he does on abortion, affirmative action and taxation, he manages to sound like a centrist maverick. In part, he benefits from a southern accent and a cool demeanor. But he also approaches politics as an outsider. This isn`t to say that he is a policy ignoramus. On the contrary, he talks about domestic issues with a surprising proficiency. (He didn`t finish first in his West Point class for nothing.) Clark`s appeal is that he intelligently veers from traditional Democratic rhetoric to make the party`s case. Take the gun issue. Instead of hemming and hawing about the Second Amendment, he says, "I have got 20-some-odd guns in the house. I like to hunt. I have grown up with guns all my life, but people who like assault weapons, they should join the United States Army -- we have them." In a flash, he could reverse the damage of 30 years of Republican culture warmongering.

Or consider taxes, on which he uses a straightforward formulation, "The American people on the one hand don`t like taxes. None of us do. But, on the other hand, we expect the government to do certain things for us." When these calm explanations come out of his mouth, they sound derived from common-sense consideration, not fidelity to a party line.

The only other candidate with anything like Clark`s personal history is Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. For that very reason, much of the Democratic establishment has backed Kerry in the belief that he would have the best chance of countering Bush`s national security advantage. This is a mistake. Kerry`s military service was followed by a largely dovish career of protesting wars and opposing weapons systems. And Kerry has a bundle of other disadvantages -- being a Northeastern liberal, and perceived as arrogant -- that would likely doom him in the general election.

There`s an important precedent for Democrats -- and not the obvious example of Dwight Eisenhower. In 1995 Colin Powell toyed with the idea of a second career, in presidential politics. It seemed an ideal opportunity for Republicans. Bob Dole had infrastructure but no oomph. Powell had a great chance of beating Bill Clinton. And even if he flamed out, he would have permanently altered perceptions of the party. But when presented with this amazing opportunity, the Republican establishment behaved like, well, an establishment and declined to give Powell substantial enough assurances of support. Twelve months before the election, they sealed their own defeat.

Some Democratic consultants have told reporters that it`s too late to draft Clark. Seven months out from the Iowa caucus, this warning doesn`t make sense. At this date on the calendar 12 years ago, Clinton had barely registered in the polls. Besides, the date shouldn`t be an excuse for dismissing Clark but rather a reason for the establishment to coalesce forcefully behind him.

After 1996, Republicans learned their lesson. Four years later, recognizing a winning horse in George W. Bush, the party establishment rallied around him and muscled his less-electable opponents out of the race. Democrats might ponder whether they want to endure a 2004 drubbing before they learn the same lesson.

Franklin Foer is a staff writer at the New Republic.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Happy Talk on Holiday


By Colbert I. King

Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A17


Finally we`ve managed to get through a week in which happy talk at home and abroad was put on hold for a while. We should savor these moments while we can.

Let`s begin with the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings last Wednesday. The lead witness, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was his usual adept self, dazzling some panel members with his footwork and receiving kudos for his performance. But a few members apparently had decided to rest their pompoms and start behaving like U.S. senators as contemplated in the Constitution and by folks back home who sent them to Washington. After all, the subjects of the hour were war and peace in Iraq (and their cost to the United States).

Prodded by increasingly restive constituents as well as unpleasant news from the postwar front, senators made it plain that they wanted more than the secretary`s usual comforting words. They got what they were after. Under grilling, Rumsfeld presented the senators with the price tag for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It may sound like chump change to Pentagon planners, but the spending estimates should serve as a wake-up call to U.S. taxpayers.

How many of us knew, before this week, that the monthly cost of military operations in Iraq was about $3.9 billion? Or that the administration has now resorted to juggling billions from an Iraq contingency fund and other military accounts to cover unanticipated costs? Add to that the suggestion by Gen. Tommy Franks, who testified alongside Rumsfeld, that nearly 150,000 American troops will have to remain in Iraq for the "foreseeable future."

At $4 billion a month?

The rising U.S. casualty rate was also high on the list of committee concerns. No wonder. American troops in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq are being killed at the rate of one a day -- and that`s not counting the wounded or the Iraqi rockets and gunshots that have missed their targets. Once again, the committee pried out answers that portray a postwar Iraq sharply at variance with the one the Bush administration led the nation to expect.

Only a month ago, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was playing down any notion of surprise at the extent of postwar fighting. "As we expected and planned for," he told the House committee, "smaller combat operations in Iraq continue, even as we work with Iraqis to establish stable and secure areas throughout Iraq."

"Expected and planned for"? Mortar attacks, drive-by shootings, ambushes in broad daylight, 32 U.S. soldiers slain since May -- all this after President Bush declared Baghdad a done deal? Yeah, Wolfowitz and company saw it coming, all right. Chickens also have lips.

Listen instead to Franks, who until Monday was chief of U.S. Central Command in Iraq. He told the Senate that while some postwar dust-ups were expected, "I can`t tell you whether we anticipated that it would be at the level we see right now." Credit Franks with at least taking a pass on the administration`s happy talk.

Franks`s assessment doesn`t mean the United States can`t handle the increasingly sophisticated Iraqi attacks -- or that it should cut and run. But his candor suggests that at least the folks in uniform understand something the administration`s desk-bound hawks can`t seem to get through their heads: that their "know-it-all, we-can-do-no-wrong, just-trust-us-dammit" attitude won`t cut it and that leveling with the American people is the better way.

The next case of happy talk on holiday occurred earlier in the week, and it was enough to cause the likes of Wardell Connerly and other black conservatives to take to their beds with the vapors. After all, they have achieved fame and several pieces of silver reassuring white audiences that America would be well into an era of racial bliss with a contented and well-behaved flock of "people of a darker hue" were it not for the incessant instigation of self-serving race "hustlers" who keep things stirred up by constantly manufacturing racial wrongs.

The little world of Wardell -- it was shortened to "Ward" as he entered wider America -- was knocked upside down at Goree Island in Senegal, where President Bush spoke on the first leg of his African journey.

Bush, standing on the spot where Africans began their long, unwanted journey from their motherland, offered the obligatory denunciation of slavery, calling it "one of the greatest crimes of history." Conservatives probably found that part tolerable, though many would insist that some slave masters were really nice guys and that a few free blacks owned slaves too.

But what must have really caused Connerly et al. to weigh partaking of a shot of hemlock was to hear a conservative, anti-affirmative-action president tell the world that the "racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times."

That`s not what conservatives have been telling themselves. Why, everybody knows -- because they have been saying so -- that if some blacks are lagging behind, it is their own fault, helped along, of course, by indulgent, mush-headed white liberals who encouraged dependency on the government. But, alas, there was George W. Bush, standing on the soil where the Western assault on African culture began, indulging in a little truth-telling.

And if that weren`t enough, enter Mississippi assembly line worker Doug Williams on the same day of the Goree Island speech to authenticate the president`s remarks. Williams, as reported by the Associated Press through interviews with his co-workers, believed that black people had a leg up in society. Co-workers also reported that Williams used racial epithets on the job and made threats against African Americans. So as Bush spoke in Africa about "issues that still trouble America," Williams was back home proving the truth of those words. At the end of his shooting rampage, five co-workers were dead, four of them black.

If that isn`t a stark rejoinder to conservative happy talk on race, what is?

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© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Governing council expected in Iraq
Body would serve as interim authority

By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff, 7/12/2003

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi governing council will be selected and announced within days, members of political parties in the capital said yesterday, although it is unclear how many groups will be represented or which leaders will participate.

US and British civil authorities, dogged by daily attacks on troops and criticism over the slow pace of reconstruction, say the council will usher in the age of Iraqi self-rule. The expected announcement this weekend also will serve as a test of how successful the coalition has been at persuading the country`s disparate political bodies -- orthodox Shi`ite Muslim organizations as well as unions of technocrats and ethnic minorities -- to sign on to the political entity.

The council will have the power to appoint ministers, vote on the 2004 budget, create study groups on major national problems, and oversee the writing of a constitution. Once the constitution is written and a electoral census taken, national elections will be held, and the coalition provisional authority will no longer be necessary, L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator, has said.

No timetable has been set for establishing an elected government.

The coalition hopes that the new council will reduce the rising violence against US forces, which continued yesterday. Three American soldiers were wounded after they came under mortar and grenade attack near Samarra, north of the capital, military spokesmen said.

In Fallujah, west of Baghdad, US forces withdrew from positions in the center of town, witnesses said, a day after Iraqi police threatened to quit unless the Americans pulled back from the station.

The New York Times reported that US intelligence agencies are warning about a possible new wave of attacks in the next week to coincide with key dates tied to the ousted regime. Among the anniversaries are July 14, the date in 1958 when a coup toppled the British-backed monarchy, and July 16, when Saddam Hussein took power in 1979.

Planning for the new interim authority began with dissatisfaction from political leaders who expected more power. Iraq`s first civil administrator, retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, promised party leaders they would become a full-fledged transitional government. But Bremer, his successor, reduced the new body`s authority to a political council that would act in an advisory capacity.

After weeks of negotiations, leaders of the seven parties signed on last week to join a strengthened governing council after receiving assurances that the body would have the power to make ministerial appointments and budget decisions.

``We feel that the arrangement is a highly feasible setup if it is able to gain the respect of the Iraqi people,`` said Sa`ad Shakir, a spokesman for the Independent Iraqi Democrats, a group headed by Adnan Pachachi, 80, a former foreign minister who returned to Iraq after the war.

The number of delegates is unclear. Farukh Abdullah, a leader of the Turkmen Front, said the original list of delegates included 35 names but that the list has shrunk to about 14 delegates. US authorities have said the council would include 20 to 25 members.

Of those spots, seven will be occupied by representatives of the major political groups that existed before the war: the Iraqi National Congress; the Kurdistan Democratic Congress; the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan; the Iraqi National Accord; the Supreme Council for Islamic



Revolution in Iraq; the Dawa Party and the Iraq Democratic Party. Last week, the groups put out a statement declaring their willingness to participate in the council.``There is a widespread positive reception`` to the council, said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, which is led by Ahmed Chalabi. ``There have been great concessions by Bremer in the right direction.`` But Salah Shaikhly, a London exile and spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord party in talks before the war, said the body is far less powerful than members of his party had hoped.

``What we had in mind before the change of government is quite different from what has happened,`` he said.

Still, he said, the naming of a governing council will be ``a bittersweet victory, but it is some type of victory.`` An important sign of the council`s future was whether it would have the support of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest political party representing the country`s Shi`ite majority, whose leaders had threatened to boycott the effort.

At Friday prayers, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council, warned that the governing council has not yet earned the status of a legal body.

``It will not be a legal council if it is not Iraqi. It must have the authority to take its place in front of the nation and its people,`` Hakim said.

At a meeting of civil engineers associated with Pachachi, one observer said the delay in forming an interim body served the Americans, who waited out the surge of power that went to religious groups after the war.

``We wanted it from the very moment that Baghdad was liberated, but at that time the Shi`a groups were the most powerful, and the new government would have been a disaster,`` said Ahmed Al Handani, a retired professor at the military academy who is now a follower of Pachachi. ``Now the Shi`a realize they have to be very flexible with the US. The Shi`a now feel the danger. They are more diplomatic and less fundamentalist.``

Material from wire services was included in this report. Ellen Barry can be reached at [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/193/nation/Governing_counc…

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-balance…

Rumsfeld`s Shake-Up Bid Demotes Reserves
He wants to shift many specialties to active-duty military and be able to wage war in 15 days.
By Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writer

July 12, 2003

WASHINGTON -- With the war in Iraq severely straining the military, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week ordered radical changes that, if adopted, would dramatically reshape the military services and the reserves to create a force that could mobilize for war within 15 days.

In a memo Wednesday to the secretaries of the Air Force, Navy, Army and to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rumsfeld called for shifting a broad range of professional specialties from the reserves to active-duty military.

The proposal is running into opposition from senior Navy and Air Force officials, who warn that moving these jobs into the active-duty force would drive up costs. Reserve officials say they were stunned by the proposal, which they fear would shrink the role of citizen soldiers into irrelevance. Rumsfeld`s office could not be reached for comment.

Calling the effort "a matter of the utmost urgency" in the memo obtained by The Times, Rumsfeld ordered that plans for carrying it out be drawn up by the end of the month.

Senior military officials who are working to respond to Rumsfeld`s order expressed some concern Friday that he is not allowing enough time to produce a thoughtful plan.

"There`s a very tight timeline to do it right," said one senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Rumsfeld`s action was a direct result of the crisis in force strength caused by the deepening violence against U.S. forces in Iraq, sources close to him in the Pentagon said.

Before and during the war, Army officials had planned for no more than 50,000 soldiers to still be in Iraq at this point. But 148,000 are still there, and with attacks against them growingin number and sophistication, senior Pentagon officials say they expect troop numbers in the country will remain at or near the same level for years to come.

As the war on terrorism continues, more than 370,000 Army troops are deployed away from home and family in 120 countries around the world. About 138,000 are reservists, many in certain specialties that are being called up again and again. Another 67,000 reservists from the other military services are also deployed. Current and former army officials and military experts are warning, with growing urgency, that the all-volunteer military, 30 years old this month, cannot long tolerate the pressure.

"The U.S. Army in particular is at serious risk, because it`s increasingly clear, and the administration increasingly acknowledges, that we`re in Iraq for a long haul, with a large force, and the Army is being given most of, if not all of, the responsibility," said Brookings Institution military analyst Michael O`Hanlon.

"This volunteer military we`ve built up is one of the best military institutions in human history, and the Bush administration will risk destroying that accomplishment if they keep on the current path."

Rumsfeld is trying to deal with the problem by shifting more troops into active duty — and by eliminating or reducing the combat role traditionally played by reservists, civilians who train with their units part time until they are called up for active duty.

Rumsfeld suggests making more use of contractors, civilians and computers to do work that is tying up active-duty soldiers. He suggests special attention be paid to relieving pressures on such reserve units as civil affairs that have been called up repeatedly for deployments to Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He left it to the services to recommend which specific units should be shifted.

It is unclear whether, or how much, his plan would increase the overall size of the active-duty Army, although Army brass are already arguing that, even without the sort of shift Rumsfeld is proposing, the service needs more troops to fulfill its mission. Even if the services come up with plans quickly, as Rumsfeld has asked, Congress would have to approve the plan and it would take years to put into effect.

Still, senior defense officials say the changes would be the most significant to the active-duty and reserve forces since the introduction of the all-volunteer force in 1973.

Since that time, a military traumatized by Vietnam — a war fought by draftees — has wholeheartedly embraced the "citizen soldier" concept. A volunteer military, supplemented by a robust reserve force, is meant to ensure that political leaders and ordinary citizens have more of a stake in the military — and are less likely to send troops into battle without popular support.

Acting on that idea, the active duty moved many of the specialties needed to fight a war — security, intelligence, transportation and logistics — over to reservists and the National Guard.

But the force that resulted was not designed to be in a state of constant mobilization. It currently takes from one to three months to mobilize most reserve units. Although some units are designed to deploy quickly, most must first undergo intensive training in the United States before being shipped out.

"The type of war that we`re in, the war on terrorism, is going to be something that is going to require long-term commitments of our armed forces. And the way that we`re structured right now is to have conflicts where you send people over, they fight, and they go home," one Pentagon official said. "The war on terrorism is a much longer, twilight struggle."

That struggle is putting unprecedented strains on the military — and the Army in particular, which shoulders the burden of peacekeeping and nation-building operations more than any other service. In recent weeks, Army officials have repeatedly and insistently told Rumsfeld that the service needs more soldiers to handle its new duties.

Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Army officials had openly voiced concern that Rumsfeld would seek to cut as many as two of the Army`s 10 divisions. After the attacks, Rumsfeld has continued to insist that Army troops should be deployed in different places around the globe, and in new ways, but he has not proposed slashing troop numbers.

At his retirement ceremony June 11, departing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki cautioned to "beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division Army." And a Pentagon official said in an interview this week that the request by the Army for more soldiers has been "taken to the highest levels" of the Pentagon.

In the months leading up to and during the war, every one of the military services began "stop-loss" orders, preventing soldiers on active duty from retiring even if they wanted to and, critics say, effectively turning the idea of the volunteer military on its head. Although those orders have been lifted, if current deployment rates continue as expected, tens of thousands of active-duty troops and reservists can expect a life continually on the road.

Because of the relative lack of troop strength, a typical soldier spending 2003 in Iraq may come home this winter only to be deployed again in late 2004 or 2005. The typical reservist might be deployed for another 12 months over the next few years. Civil affairs specialists, military police and intelligence specialists in the reserves are in particularly high demand, because the regular Army has few such specialists in its ranks.

Publicly, Rumsfeld has been dismissive of increasing the size of the Army — which is under far greater stress than the other services — any time soon, telling senators at a hearing on Capitol Hill this week that a well-thought-out rotation of forces in and out of Iraq should be adequate to meet the requirements of the military operation there without putting undue strain on troops.

But he has long complained that many of the jobs being done by active-duty soldiers might be done more cheaply and efficiently by civilian contractors.

"Something in the neighborhood of 300,000 men and women in uniform [are] doing jobs that aren`t for men and women in uniform," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Service Committee on Wednesday, when he was repeatedly peppered with questions from Democrats and Republicans about the strain on troops. "They`re doing civilian functions, and they shouldn`t be doing civilian functions."

Rumsfeld`s explanation did not appear to satisfy lawmakers. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a graduate of West Point, told Rumsfeld: "We`re reaching the point where we have to go ahead and bite the bullet and put more forces in our force structure so we can rotate those troops who are doing so well and serving so proudly out of Iraq."

And Sen. James M. Inhofe (R.-Okla.) told Rumsfeld that for troops, "There`s got to be relief."

Rumsfeld`s new proposal attempts to solve both problems. He calls in the memo for eliminating "the need for involuntary mobilization (of the National Guard and Reserve) during the first 15 days of a rapid response operation," and structuring forces "in order to limit involuntary mobilization to not more than one year every 6 years."

Much of what Rumsfeld recommends has been under discussion by the military services for some time. The Army Reserve, for example, restructured itself a few years ago, and now fewer than 1% of its soldiers are combat troops.

But Rumsfeld`s central proposal to shift some specialized units from the reserves to the regular Army is already meeting resistance.

Senior defense officials who oppose the proposal say shifting specialties like civil affairs from the reserve force to the active-duty military will increase costs to taxpayers. For what it takes to pay for one such active-duty unit, they say, they can field three reserve units, by drawing on civilian reservists who already possess the skills the Army would have to pay to develop in its ranks.

"It`s far more cost-effective having these capabilities in the reserve," one defense official said.

The officials also say that many reserve units can be mobilized much more rapidly than Rumsfeld gives them credit for.

But Army officials say that only by mobilizing almost exclusively active-duty soldiers can the nation be ready for war in 15 days, Rumsfeld`s goal.

"It makes sense to go to 15 days," one official said. "We`ve been working on that."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE WORLD


Fallouja Police Fear Guilt by Association With U.S.
Army-trained Iraqi cops ask troops to evacuate, saying they make their compound a target.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
Times Staff Writer

July 12, 2003

FALLOUJA, Iraq — News crews beat a path Friday to this city west of Baghdad, drawn by a potential headline: Harassed U.S. Army Pulls Out of Troubled Iraqi Town.

That isn`t true.

But the real story — that Iraqi police don`t want U.S. soldiers on their compound anymore — appears just as disquieting.

Police, exercising newfound political freedoms, staged a demonstration here this week demanding that the Army leave the police compound downtown within 48 hours. The reason?

"We know the Americans are targets of the people here, so we don`t want them that close to us," Officer Ali Mansour explained outside the station. "We don`t want the civilians to associate the Americans with us."

In the new Iraq, or at least in the new Fallouja, it has come to this: The U.S. presence is so provocative that the Army`s ostensible chief ally — local policemen, trained and outfitted by Americans — would prefer to take the aid, the training and the paychecks but keep their distance.

It`s not personal, the police say. They have nothing against the Americans. They like trying to teach them Arabic words and picking up some English. It`s just that officers of the new Fallouja police force are terrified that citizens` ire against the occupiers will be directed at them.

"We all think it would be better if the Americans stayed outside of the city limits and let us guard the city," Police Chief Riyadh Abbas, an important U.S. partner here, said in an interview at the stifling police station, where yet another power blackout had left the ceiling fans limp. "These are our people here. We live in Fallouja. We know how to take care of our city."

There is no need for any police official here to be reminded of what happened a week ago in nearby Ramadi, where eight young recruits were killed by a remote-controlled bomb placed practically in front of City Hall. This was the price the Ramadi police paid for cooperating with the Americans.

Their counterparts in Fallouja are fervid about avoiding such a bloodbath. "The Americans` presence here has no benefit for us," said Lt. Nisan Mohammed Ali. "We don`t want people to think we are instruments of the Americans."

Just two nights ago, several rocket-propelled grenades were fired in the vicinity of the battered police headquarters, which suffered a direct hit in the spring. The Iraqis are convinced the attacks will stop once the Army contingents that park in back of the station clear out. U.S. troops have also guarded the mayor`s office, another favorite target of grenade-firing assailants.

But on Friday, there was no extensive military presence at City Hall. The tanks and Humvees were gone. Iraqi police, not GIs, greeted visitors and checked their credentials.

There were still a few U.S. military police down the street at the station, but they had heard that their presence was being phased out. "I guess it`s getting too dangerous having us around," said one young MP from New England. Several soldiers and residents say patrols have been reduced, especially in town at night.

Rumors and exaggerated news reports had suggested that the Army might be pulling out altogether in Fallouja, a key trouble spot for U.S. forces. The Army says attacks have declined and relations have improved in recent weeks, but an explosion two weeks ago at a mosque compound — described by U.S. authorities as a bomb-making factory — raised tensions anew.

Just Thursday night, a tank crew helping to guard a dam fired a powerful anti-personnel round at attackers who had sent a grenade their way, the Army said. There was no word on casualties.

Farther west, in Ramadi, two mortar rounds landed inside the major U.S. compound in the city — the ninth mortar attack in the last 10 days there. The Army has suffered one minor casualty in these attacks.

On Friday, a steady stream of journalists made their way to the vast Army compound outside Fallouja to find out if it was true: Was the Army pulling out?

"We`re not going anywhere," said Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, who was charged with knocking down the rumor. "We are committed to Fallouja. I`m ready to chair the Chamber of Commerce."

What the Army is doing is "scaling back" its presence downtown and turning over certain patrol and guard duties to Iraqi police, Wesley said. It`s a good-news story, he said.

"We want the Iraqis to take on greater and greater responsibilities," Wesley said in his office on the base, the former headquarters of an Iranian insurgent faction sponsored by Saddam Hussein. "We see this as a very positive sign."

The Iraqi police force has been deemed ready to take over certain duties from the Army, Wesley said. One such task is the guarding of certain "static sites," such as banks and government buildings, including the police station and City Hall. The changeover has been in the works for several weeks, he said.

But this week`s protest by Fallouja police demanding a U.S. pullout from their headquarters appeared to catch the Army by surprise. Commanders were concerned about how the matter might play back home if the Army was seen as withdrawing under pressure.

"We were aware of the potential media misunderstanding about this," Wesley said. "But we wanted to take the high road."

That took the shape of discussions between Army representatives and police officials, including Chief Riyadh, the military said.

Police have been assured that the U.S. presence will be reduced at the headquarters, although a liaison officer will probably be assigned there — and that an Army quick-reaction force will be at the ready should police need it.

Military officials insist there are no hard feelings. They know as well as their police colleagues that many Iraqis are enraged about the occupation, however much they despised Hussein. And some are determined to take it out on anyone who is seen as cooperating with U.S. forces.

"We do attract attention," Wesley said. "No doubt about that."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Route 666, parallel zur Grenze von Arizona und New Mexico, die `Strasse des Satans`. Einer der vielen kuriosen Artikel, die jeden Tag in irgendeinem Blatt zu finden ist.
Nicht zu verwechseln mit Route 66, von der die 666 einmal abging in Richtung Norden. Von der Route 66 ist auch nicht viel übriggeblieben, außer dem Werberummel.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-high…
THE NATION



The Devil Highway`s Number Is Finally Up
After 77 years, U.S. 666 will soon be renamed and, some locals say, maybe even reborn.
By Steve Chawkins
Times Staff Writer

July 12, 2003

TOHATCHI, N.M. — As long as he could remember, Edwin Begay felt there was something gravely troubling about U.S. 666, the road that runs by his hometown.

When Begay was a high school athlete, players from elsewhere on the Navajo reservation would razz him and his teammates for all the sinister cults they thought there must be beside a road named for the sign of the devil. Until recently, Begay tried to avoid saying 666 — quite a feat, considering his house sits on the road`s west side and the school where he works sits on the east.

"I just tell people we`re north of Gallup," he said. "We`ve gotten criticism over `the Satan road` for years. It`s always been an offense to us."

But no longer: Mindful of the biblical reference to "the number of the beast" that will usher in the end of the world, state officials in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah decided to beat the devil by changing his highway`s name.

After 77 years as U.S. 666, the road is to be called U.S. 491, by decree of the American Assn. of State Transportation and Highway Officials.

At a July 30 ceremony in the reservation town of Shiprock, the highway will be rededicated. Officials and residents will feast on mutton and fry bread. Navajo medicine men will issue traditional incantations.

"They`ll bless the new highway," said S.U. Mahesh, a spokesman for New Mexico`s highway department. "And they`ll cleanse the old one."

The road was named innocently enough in 1926. Highway officials only wanted to indicate it was the sixth spur off Route 66, the get-your-kicks highway later immortalized by Nat King Cole.

But good vibes have been elusive for the Navajos and Ute Mountain Utes who live near the pothole-riddled road. On the reservation, some see the number as a bad sign, malevolently placed upon the highway by a callous white establishment. Outside the reservation, residents shrug off such concerns as Native American superstition.

On a recent Sunday afternoon in a restaurant at the highway`s southern tip in Gallup, Jessica Lindberg, 18, bemoaned the demise of a geographic fixture she had known her entire life.

"It`s ridiculous!" said Lindberg, who works as a receptionist at a nursing home. "It`s historic! Everyone who lives in Gallup knows it as the triple-six."

Long saddled with a reputation for drunk-driving collisions, the road rolls 193 miles north from Gallup to Monticello, Utah. In New Mexico, about 108 miles of it slice through the eastern edge of the sprawling Navajo reservation. Most of that stretch is two lanes, with barely a shoulder on either side.

In the distance, khaki cliffs loom. Spectacular rock formations rise abruptly from the chaparral, dwarfing the scattered villages.

About 10 miles north of Gallup, Jenny Benally sells Indian blankets, turquoise jewelry and saddles in a store that`s a combination pawnshop-grocery-laundromat-gas station. Reluctant to drive the 666 at night because of the crashes, she said the name change is a good idea.

"I know the triple-six is a bad sign," she said. "Our grandmas and grandpas are upset by it. It should have been changed a long time ago."

At the Gospel Lighthouse in Iyanbito, Navajo pastor Mark Thomas agreed. For many on the reservation, the number is fraught with prejudice, he said.

"They feel like the Christian community has brought a curse upon the Navajo people," he said.

Thomas, whose aunt and uncle were killed by a drunk driver on the 666, said the road has been wrongly endowed with a sinister power. "When fear is placed in the minds of people, they expect that something evil is going to happen," he said.

Even the dry legal language of a New Mexico legislative resolution captures the highway`s satanic aura, alluding somberly to "the cloud of opprobrium created by having a road that many believe is cursed running near their homes and through their homeland."

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said the Navajos` requests for a change have been ignored for years.

"It`s been one of those cases where public officials knew about the problem but nobody did anything about it," said Richardson, who was elected in November. "Out of respect for the Navajo people, I made a determined effort."

Stripping the road of its hellish implication is only the beginning, Richardson said. A new name might draw tourists and even new businesses.

And, after a $7.5-million environmental study, the state hopes to make the road safer by widening its remaining 77 miles of two-lane, wind-raked asphalt.

Highway officials consider U.S. 666 one of the most dangerous roads in New Mexico, a state where the chance of dying in traffic is twice what it is in California, according to federal figures.

Beer and liquor are illegal on the reservation. Residents hit the border towns of Gallup and Farmington to drink, sometimes careering out of control as they ply the highway. Whether a new name will improve life along the road is a question that arouses skepticism even among the missionaries whose churches dot the reservation.

"There are just too many drunk drivers,`` said John Greydanus, pastor of Bethel Christian Reformed Church in Shiprock.

A drunk driver recently skidded from the 666 straight onto Greydanus` lawn, stopping three feet from his house.

Outside the church next to his home, tourists have stopped to take pictures of each other in front of the 666 sign. Sometimes, they hold up homemade 777 signs to signify their battle against evil.

Meanwhile, drivers on "the devil`s highway" whiz past the wry reminder Greydanus put up on his church`s billboard: "Only one road leads to heaven."

In popular culture, that road is definitely not the 666.

In the 1994 film "Natural Born Killers," the highway was the setting for a gory 52-corpse murder spree. Garage bands have composed teeth-baring odes to the number made infamous in Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation.

How it got there is a matter of conjecture.

Like a number of other New Testament scholars, David Scholer, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, believes that 666 was not so much a reference to Satan as a coded allusion to the brutal Roman emperor Nero — an especially chilling figure to ancient Christians.

Clues to "the beast`s" identity are found in the Hebrew alphabet, whose letters each had a numerical value. Letters representing 666 can be arranged to spell the emperor`s name, Scholer said.

Over the years, Christians have applied 666 to a host of villains, from corrupt popes to Hitler. But in doing so, they`ve misunderstood the images in Revelation and mistaken history for prophecy, Scholer said.

"The images aren`t that mysterious," he said. "They`ve been made mysterious by overly literalized interpretation."

Along the highway, mystery drains from the landscape as travelers roll north from the reservation. Stark mesas and volcanic cones give way to softer vistas of bean fields and pastures.

In Cortez, Colo., truckers fill up at the M & M Cafe`s gas pumps and then pray at its chapel. A singing duo who call themselves Trucking Troubadors for Christ, Marvin and Paula Graves, lead services weekly. Paula Graves said she`s never met a trucker upset by the prospect of apocalypse on the 666.

The number`s reverberations grow even fainter in Utah, where the road ends after just 17 miles. At milepost 13 — an unlucky spot if ever there was one — retired beekeepers Della and Delbert Archer chuckled when asked about their location.

For 25 years, they have lived happily in a double-wide trailer amid the sage and piñon. No bad luck has befallen them beyond the usual toils of aging, said 79-year-old Della. They`ve never given a moment`s thought to living on a spot that others might see as numerically hexed.

"No one`s even asked us about it before," she said.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

Da wird ganz schön rumgeeiert, was da nun in Falluja passieren soll. Es sieht aber so aus als ob die GIs den Ort aufgeben müssen, weil niemand sie da haben will.

U.S. pulls back a bit in Hussein stronghold
Locals hope change will stem attacks
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, July 12, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


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Fallujah, Iraq -- U.S. troops were partially withdrawn from this tense city west of Baghdad on Friday in an attempt to tamp down a growing wave of anti-American sentiment.

The local Iraqi police force, which had been chosen and trained by the Americans, had staged a demonstration the day before, saying the U.S. presence was putting their own lives in danger from guerrilla attacks. They demanded that the U.S. troops be withdrawn from the police station and the mayor`s office.

In response, U.S. commanders agreed to cut back their forces at the police station from more than 20 to just one or two men, and two M2 Bradley fighting vehicles that had guarded the mayor`s office were driven away.

But U.S. troops continued scattered patrols Friday afternoon, and military spokesman Capt. James Brownlee said they will continue to have a presence in the town.

"We`re not going to pull out of Fallujah any more than the sun is going to set in five minutes," he said. "As we`ve always said, we`ll pull out only when we feel the Iraqis are able to take care of security by themselves."


A DRAMATIC SWITCH
The U.S. pullout -- under pressure from its own proteges -- signaled a dramatic switch from just three months ago, when U.S. troops were praised as liberators from Saddam Hussein`s dictatorship.

Fallujah, with 250,000 residents, is at the center of the region known as the Sunni Triangle -- the area north and west of Baghdad populated almost exclusively by Sunni Muslim tribes that were loyal to Hussein. The area has seen increasing incidents of armed anti-U.S. resistance.

Several times per day, there are attacks on U.S. troops or the U.S.-trained Iraqi police. On Wednesday morning, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the police station in Fallujah. Last week, a remote-controlled bomb killed seven police recruits in Ramadi, 30 miles west of Fallujah.

Of the 31 U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1, most have died either in the Sunni Triangle or in Baghdad.

In addition to the Iraqi police concerns, citizen complaints range from the United States` failure to provide essential public services, such as electricity and water, to simple cultural differences.

In a meeting earlier this week in Gurma, a town on the outskirts of Fallujah, U.S. troops and Mayor Khamis Abdullah al-Jumaily tried to tackle the problems of postwar Iraq as an overhead fan spun slowly and temperatures climbed in the closed room.


MAKING THE RIGHT NOISES
The Americans talked about a restoring water supplies and reorganizing the City Council. The Iraqis asked for the release of money for a new town hall. After an hour, the meeting broke up amid broad smiling.

"This is very good," al-Jumaily said.

"Great," Capt. Kevin Capra said.

Around the corner, and out of earshot from one another, however, the two let loose.

"The Americans have done nothing," al-Jumaily said.

"The Iraqis are asking for the sky," Capra said.

The United States says tangible improvements will come soon and a bit of patience is all that`s required. But even some of the Americans` supposed allies criticize the U.S. presence.

"So far, they haven`t done anything," al-Jumaily said. "No water, electricity, no money, and lots of soldiers behave with the people (in a) very aggressive, offensive way. The economy is bad and retired people have received no money in four months. Food rations are irregular."

Things look very different from the U.S. side.

"We`ve made a lot of progress in Gurma, and we`ve been overwhelmed by the support we`ve received from the people," Capra insisted.

He and his top aide, 1st Lt. Jason Barr, are essentially in charge of U.S. relations with Gurma. Capra, 30, of Montclair, N.J., and Barr, 24, of Columbus,

Ohio, are artillery specialists and West Point graduates with no professional training in utilities engineering, farm economics, municipal development or Arab studies.


DAILY PATROLS
The two men go out on patrol every day, rumbling through the back roads and village streets in a convoy that consists of a humvee, a huge Paladin long- range artillery vehicle and an ammunition carrier.

On patrol through the area Tuesday, Barr enthusiastically expounded to an accompanying reporter on his challenges -- from water that mysteriously disappears to a balky town council.

"One water plant isn`t working," he said. "The other plant is working, but the water doesn`t seem to get taken to the townspeople like it should. Instead,

it seems to wind up with the private truckers, who then sell it. We`re trying to figure it out."

In April, when the mayor was chosen by a group of local tribal leaders and imams, a council of 20 was also chosen. The U.S. officers think the unwieldy group is creating a decision-making gridlock. They are hoping the Iraqis will get the hint and winnow down the council so the Americans don`t have to flex their muscles and impose a solution.

More serious than such administrative headaches is the bad blood that won`t go away.


FINGER-POINTING
In two shootings on the streets of Fallujah on April 28 and 30, U.S. troops killed 20 Iraqi civilians and wounded 86. Both sides blamed each other for the violence.

Then on June 30, an explosion at the Al-Wahdah mosque killed six people, including the imam. U.S. officials say the explosion came from inside the structure, perhaps from a bomb being prepared or stored there. The Iraqis say the Americans fired a missile in retaliation for the imam`s frequent sermons calling for jihad, or holy war, against U.S. troops.

Despite these bitter experiences, Fallujah`s mayor, Taha Bedawi, gamely insists that the town has no problems.

"I don`t know why the media focus on the attacks here," he said. "We are very satisfied with the Americans. Only bad elements are giving us problems."

But most residents of the region seem to be implacably opposed to any U.S. presence. Attitudes range from a wait-and-see skepticism to a declared willingness to fight.

On the banks of the Euphrates River near the village of Ameriya, 5 miles south of Fallujah, about 30 local farmers gathered outside a mosque to listen to one of their members, Khalil Daham al-Zoba. His son, Leith, was the imam killed in the June 30 mosque explosion in Fallujah.

Al-Zoba spoke almost inaudibly about the explosion. He was interrupted time and again.

"The Americans promised to liberate us, but they have given us nothing and have repressed us," one farmer said. "There isn`t any electricity, or diesel to run our irrigation pumps. The government no longer buys our crops and the prices are very bad. And when we dare to preach jihad against them, they kill us."

The waters of the Euphrates swirled just a few feet from his chair, and an early evening breeze made the 100-degree temperature seem almost pleasant. The assembled men, in traditional white dishdasha robes and kaffiya headdresses, kept interrupting. Shouts rang out, calling for jihad against the Americans.


SHIFTING SENTIMENTS
Al-Zoba`s voice grew softer. "I hated Saddam Hussein. He forced me to fight in the wars, and I was injured four times and received no bounty because of that. But now, because of what the Americans have done, I cannot hate him."

Al-Zoba paused. Everyone fell silent, with the only noise the groaning of a distant generator. He reached behind him and grabbed his 4-year-old son, Mustafa, who had an angelic smile and wore a little dishdasha. He caressed Mustafa`s chin slowly.

"If Saddam Hussein comes here, I will sacrifice my youngest son under his feet, I will cut his throat. But I will fight to avenge my other son`s death. I swear this."

E-mail Robert Collier at [e-mail].

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Posted on Sat, Jul. 12, 2003



`No real planning for postwar Iraq`

BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY and WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The small circle of senior civilians in the Defense Department who dominated planning for postwar Iraq failed to prepare for the setbacks that have erupted over the past two months.

The officials didn`t develop any real postwar plans because they believed that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops with open arms and Washington could install a favored Iraqi exile leader as the country`s leader. The Pentagon civilians ignored CIA and State Department experts who disputed them, resisted White House pressure to back off from their favored exile leader and when their scenario collapsed amid increasing violence and disorder, they had no backup plan.

Today, American forces face instability in Iraq, where they are losing soldiers almost daily to escalating guerrilla attacks, the cost of occupation is exploding to almost $4 billion a month and withdrawal appears untold years away.

"There was no real planning for postwar Iraq," said a former senior U.S. official who left government recently.

The story of the flawed postwar planning process was gathered in interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior government officials.



Officials at the State Department and CIA thought the Pentagon`s vision for Iraq was badly flawed and impractical, so the Pentagon planners simply excluded their rivals from involvement.

One senior defense official told Knight Ridder that the failure of Pentagon civilians to set specific objectives - short-, medium- and long-term - for Iraq`s stabilization and reconstruction after Saddam Hussein`s regime fell even left U.S. military commanders uncertain about how many and what kinds of troops would be needed after the war.

In contrast, years before World War II ended, American planners plotted extraordinarily detailed blueprints for administering postwar Germany and Japan, designing everything from rebuilt economies to law enforcement and democratic governments.

The disenchanted U.S. officials today think the failure of the Pentagon civilians to develop such detailed plans contributed to the chaos in post-Saddam Iraq.

"We could have done so much better," lamented a former senior Pentagon official, who is still a Defense Department adviser. While most officials requested anonymity because going public could force them out of government service, some were willing to talk on the record.

Ultimately, however, the responsibility for ensuring that post-Saddam planning anticipated all possible complications lay with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Bush`s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, current and former officials said.

The Pentagon planning group, directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, the department`s No. 3 official, included hard-line conservatives who had long advocated using the American military to overthrow Saddam. Its day-to-day boss was William Luti, a former Navy officer who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney before joining the Pentagon.

The Pentagon group insisted on doing it its way because it had a visionary strategy that it hoped would transform Iraq into an ally of Israel, remove a potential threat to the Persian Gulf oil trade and encircle Iran with U.S. friends and allies. The problem was that officials at the State Department and CIA thought the vision was badly flawed and impractical, so the Pentagon planners simply excluded their rivals from involvement.

Feith, Luti and their advisers wanted to put Ahmad Chalabi - the controversial Iraqi exile leader of a coalition of opposition groups - in power in Baghdad. The Pentagon planners were convinced that Iraqis would warmly welcome the American-led coalition and that Chalabi, who boasted of having a secret network inside and outside the regime, and his supporters would replace Saddam and impose order.

Feith, in a series of responses Friday to written questions, denied that the Pentagon wanted to put Chalabi in charge.

But Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, who at the time was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board - an influential group of outside advisers to the Pentagon - and is close to Feith and Luti, acknowledged in an interview that installing Chalabi was the plan.

Referring to the Chalabi scenario, Perle said: "The Department of Defense proposed a plan that would have resulted in a substantial number of Iraqis available to assist in the immediate postwar period." Had it been accepted, "we`d be in much better shape today," he said.



The failure to consult more widely on what to do if the Chalabi scenario failed denied American planners the benefits of a vast reservoir of expertise gained from peacekeeping and reconstruction in shattered nations from Bosnia to East Timor.

Perle said blame for any planning failures belonged to the State Department and other agencies that opposed the Chalabi route.

A senior administration official, who requested anonymity, said the Pentagon officials were enamored of Chalabi because he advocated normal diplomatic relations with Israel. They believed that would have "taken off the board" one of the only remaining major Arab threats to Israeli security.

Moreover, Chalabi was key to containing the influence of Iran`s radical Islamic leaders in the region, because he would have provided bases in Iraq for U.S. troops. That would complete Iran`s encirclement by American military forces around the Persian Gulf and U.S. friends in Russia and Central Asia, he said.

But the failure to consult more widely on what to do if the Chalabi scenario failed denied American planners the benefits of a vast reservoir of expertise gained from peacekeeping and reconstruction in shattered nations from Bosnia to East Timor.

As one example, the Pentagon planners ignored an eight-month-long effort led by the State Department to prepare for the day when Saddam`s dictatorship was gone. The "Future of Iraq" project, which involved dozens of exiled Iraqi professionals and 17 U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon, prepared strategies for everything from drawing up a new Iraqi judicial code to restoring the unique ecosystem of Iraq`s southern marshes, which Saddam`s regime had drained.

Virtually none of the "Future of Iraq" project`s work was used once Saddam fell.

The first U.S. administrator in Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, wanted the Future of Iraq project director, Tom Warrick, to join his staff in Baghdad. Warrick had begun packing his bags, but Pentagon civilians vetoed his appointment, said one current and one former official.

Meanwhile, postwar planning documents from the State Department, CIA and elsewhere were "simply disappearing down the black hole" at the Pentagon, said a former U.S. official with long Middle East experience who recently returned from Iraq.

Archaeological experts who were worried about protecting Iraq`s immense cultural treasures were rebuffed in their requests for meetings before the war. After it, Iraq`s museum treasures were looted.



Numerous officials in positions to know said that if Pentagon civilians had a detailed plan that anticipated what could happen after Saddam fell, it was invisible to them.

Responsibility for preparing for post-Saddam Iraq lay with senior officials who supervised the Office of Special Plans, a highly secretive group of analysts and consultants in the Pentagon`s Near East/South Asia bureau. The office was physically isolated from the rest of the bureau.

Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who retired from the Near East bureau on July 1, said she and her colleagues were allowed little contact with the Office of Special Plans and often were told by the officials who ran it to ignore the State Department`s concerns and views.

"We almost disemboweled State," Kwiatkowski said.

Senior State Department and White House officials verified her account and cited many instances where officials from other agencies were excluded from meetings or decisions.

The Chalabi plan, fiercely opposed by the CIA and the State Department, ran into major problems.

President Bush, after meeting with Iraqi exiles in January, told aides that, while he admired the Iraqi exiles, they wouldn`t be rewarded with power in Baghdad. "The future of this country … is not going to be charted by people who sat out the sonofabitch (Saddam) in London or Cambridge, Massachusetts," one former senior White House official quoted Bush as saying.

After that, the White House quashed the Pentagon`s plan to create - before the war started - an Iraqi-government-in-exile that included Chalabi.

The Chalabi scheme was dealt another major blow in February, a month before the war started, when U.S. intelligence agencies monitored him conferring with hard-line Islamic leaders in Tehran, Iran, a State Department official said. About the same time, an Iraqi Shiite militia that was based in Iran and known as the Badr Brigade began moving into northern Iraq, setting off alarm bells in Washington.

At the State Department, officials drafted a memo, titled "The Perfect Storm," warning of a confluence of catastrophic developments that would endanger the goals of the coming U.S. invasion.

Cheney, once a strong Chalabi backer, ordered the Pentagon to curb its support for the exiles, the official said.

Yet Chalabi continued to receive Pentagon assistance, including backing for a 700-man paramilitary unit. The U.S. military flew Chalabi and his men at the height of the war from the safety of northern Iraq, which was outside Saddam`s control, to an air base outside the southern city of Nasiriyah in expectation that he would soon take power.

Chalabi settled into a former hunting club in the fashionable Mansour section of Baghdad. He was joined by Harold Rhode, a top Feith aide, said the former U.S. official who recently returned from Iraq.

But Chalabi lacked popular support - graffiti in Iraq referred to "Ahmad the Thief" - and anti-American anger was growing over the looting and anarchy that followed Saddam`s ouster.

"It was very clear that there was an expectation that the exiles would be the core of an Iraqi interim (governing) authority," retired U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney said. He was in Iraq in April to help with postwar reconstruction.

Once Saddam`s regime fell, American authorities "quickly grasped" that Chalabi and his people couldn`t take charge, Carney said.

However, the Pentagon had devised no backup plan. Numerous officials in positions to know said that if Pentagon civilians had a detailed plan that anticipated what could happen after Saddam fell, it was invisible to them.

Garner`s team didn`t even have such basics as working cell phones and adequate transportation. And Garner was replaced in May - much earlier than planned - by L. Paul Bremer.

In his e-mail response to questions, Feith denied that officials in his office were instructed to ignore the concerns of other agencies and departments. He contended that in planning for Iraq, there was a "robust interagency process," led by the National Security Council staff at the White House.

Feith repeated a theme that he struck in a speech Tuesday in Washington, when he said planners prepared for "a long list of problems" that never happened, including destruction of oil fields, Saddam`s use of chemical and biological weapons, food shortages, a collapse of the Iraqi currency and large-scale refugee flows.

"Instead, we are facing some of the problems brought on by our very success in the war," he said.

Feith rejected criticisms that the Pentagon should have used more troops to invade Iraq. That might have prevented postwar looting, he said, but U.S. military commanders would have lost tactical surprise by waiting for extra troops, and thus "might have had the other terrible problems that we anticipated."

"War, like life in general, always involves trade-offs," Feith said. "It is not right to assume that any current problems in Iraq can be attributed to poor planning."

Other officials, while critical of the Pentagon, say it is unfair to lay sole blame on civilians such as Feith who are working under Rumsfeld.

The former senior White House official said Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, never took the logical - if politically risky - step of acknowledging that American troops would have to occupy Iraq for years to stabilize and rebuild the country.

"You let him (Bush) go into this without a serious plan … for the endgame," the official said. It was "staggeringly negligent on their part."

Still, the Defense Department was in charge of day-to-day postwar planning. And the problems were numerous, the current and former officials said. Key allies with a huge stake in Iraq`s future were often left uninformed of the details of U.S. postwar planning.

For example, the government of Turkey, which borders Iraq to the north and was being asked by Washington to allow 60,000 American troops to invade Iraq from its soil, peppered the U.S. government with 51 questions about postwar plans.

The reply came in a cable Feb. 5, more than 10 pages long, from the State Department. Largely drafted by the Pentagon, it answered many of Ankara`s queries, but on some questions, including the structure of the postwar government in Iraq, the cable affirmed that "no decision has been made," a senior administration official said.

The response was "still in work, still in work … we`re still working on that," Kwiatkowski said. "Basically an empty answer."

(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondent Renee Schoof and researcher Tish Wells contributed to this report.)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6285256.htm

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July 11, 2003


Consider the Parallels with Vietnam
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
By DAVID LINDORFF

As the war in Iraq grinds on and American casualties mount, the situation there is increasingly coming to resemble the one in Vietnam some 35-40 years ago. We even have a Defense Secretary who, like Robert McNamara before him, is an over-confident egotist devoid of self-doubt and incapable of tolerating criticism, and who thinks himself so brilliant that he can outsmart a popular insurgency and overpower it with fancy weaponry. What makes this historic parallel particularly haunting is the return of terminology, some of which hasn`t been heard in years. To help readers understand likely future developments in Iraq, here is a glossary of some of those terms:

Guerrilla war -- An unconventional conflict, in which the enemy can hide among the people, popping out to fire on U.S. soldiers and ducking back before he or she can be challenged or identified. Are we in a guerrilla war in Iraq? Ask Don Rumsfeld. His denials are starting to sound like his claims before the war about WMD`s: empty.

Quagmire -- A sticky situation in which the military cannot hope to win victory, but cannot retreat for fear of losing the entire warSand face. Is Iraq becoming a quagmire? The latest testimony by Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks (who has, it is worth noting, quit his post as head of the military in Iraq before things can get worse and damage his reputation), is that at least 150,000 troops will be needed in Iraq "indefinitely."

Body count -- A tally of how many of our guys and their guys get killed each day. The U.S. body count has been averaging about one a day until recently, but now we`re starting to see two people a day get hit, and larger-scale attacks are becoming more common. We haven`t been getting the enemy body counts that used to be de rigeur (and massively inflated) at Pentagon press conferences during the Vietnam War, but as the U.S. body count mounts, the pressure will rise on the Pentagon to respond to public dismay by showing that the "score" of dead is always in our favor. (Obviously, the fact that 10 times as many Vietnamese troops were dying as Americans didn`t affect the outcome of that conflict, any more than it is likely to affect the outcome of this one.)

Light at the end of the tunnel -- This gloomy image was popular for years in the White House and Pentagon during the interminable Indochina conflict. We haven`t heard it used yet with respect to Iraq, but if "quagmire" starts to be more in vogue, can this grizzled phrase be far behind?

Search and Destroy -- This was a favorite tactic of U.S. forces in Vietnam. It had the effect of killing the occasional Vietcong or Vietcong sympathizer as well as many innocents. It also had the effect of driving entire rural populations into the arms of Vietnamese insurgents. Search and destroy efforts in Iraq are already having the same effect, as innocent bystanders get killed in droves each time the U.S. mounts a campaign. (Search and destroy is likely to be even more counterproductive as a strategy in Iraq than it was in Southeast Asia, given the Arab culture`s tradition of eye-for-eye vengeance.)

Allies -- As in the Indochina War, the U.S. in Iraq is twisting arms to compel a few weak client states (in the Vietnam era it was Korea and Australia, now it`s Poland, Bulgaria and maybe India, a particularly weird choice given that nation`s fundamentalist Hindu government and its militant crackdown against Muslims), to send a token few troops to make the occupation and counterinsurgency look like an international effort. This is, in other words, not your grandfather`s allies of World War II.

Letting Iraqi boys defend Iraq -- Nixon`s "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War was to "Vietnamize" it. The strategy proved a dismal failure, because he was trying to get a corrupt government to battle committed nationalists. Current plans to create a new Iraqi army of 40,000 to fight with U.S. troops against Iraqi resistance are unlikely to fare any better. (Sound familiar? For a preview of how well it works, check out the performance of the new American-made Afghan "army.")

Winning hearts and minds -- This was what U.S. military efforts in Vietnam were supposed to accomplish. The idea was that somehow by napalming villages, terrorizing populations with high-tech weapons, defoliating cropland and littering it with hair-trigger anti-personnel bomblets, and then after all that distributing some goodies--chocolate bars, medicine and food rations for example--the people`s hearts and minds would won over to the U.S. effort. This of course never happened in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia. Now we`re attempting the same thing in Iraq, where similar actions can be expected to produce similar results.

Vietnam Syndrome -- This term came into vogue among Republicans and neo-con Democrats directly after the U.S. defeat in Indochina. The idea was that the loss in Vietnam had soured American policy makers and the public on foreign military actions of any kind. The Bush administration`s war-mongering in Afghanistan and Iraq was supposed to drive a stake through that syndrome, by offering an example of successful use of military force in promoting American foreign policy. With Afghanistan quickly returning to its pre-invasion condition of feuding warlords and anarchy (and continuing to prove a hospitable place for Al Qaida-type terrorists), and with Iraq becoming a guerrilla war quagmire that the U.S. has little hope of actually "winning," it seems Bush, Rumsfeld and National Security Director Condoleeza Rice are well on their way to reviving the syndrome, though it will probably eventually get a name change, to Iraq Syndrome. Another variant of Vietnam Syndrome was The Lessons of Vietnam, a phrase more popular among liberals). The irony is that the "lesson" of Vietnam (which was supposedly taken to heart too by Secretary of State Colin Powell), was that the U.S. should not get involved in future wars unless the objective was clear and the public was solidly behind it. Yet here we have a war that, like Vietnam, was entered into based on a series of lies to the American public, and that, like Vietnam, has no clear objective. Eventually, thousands of Iraqi and American deaths hence, we will, sadly, no doubt also be hearing about the Lessons of Iraq.

Peace with honor -- This was the semantic contortion that Richard Nixon attempted to use to disguise America`s embarrassing defeat by the peasant army of Vietnam. Again, as the American public loses patience with the continued slaughter of American troops in Iraq, and the lack of progress there towards some resolution of the conflict, we can expect Bush and Rumsfeld to come up with some version of peace with honor to describe their eventual humbling retreat from Iraq.

Escalation -- During the Vietnam war, escalation was the term used for upping the intensity of the fighting. Whenever the U.S. found itself starting to lose the war, presidents, from Kennedy to Nixon would "escalate" the U.S. effort, adding troops and expanding the field of battle, first to North Vietnam, then to Laos, and finally to Cambodia. The more they escalated, the worst they got trounced. We`re already hearing the term escalation applied now to Iraq. So far, it`s the Iraqi resistance that has been escalating the fighting since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime. Inevitably, though, unless the U.S. decides to declare peace with honor and quit Iraq, we can expect to see the U.S. begin escalating the counterinsurgency effort, with the addition of more troops and more aggressive search and destroy tactics.

The Draft -- One big difference between the Vietnam War and the current war in Iraq is that during the decades of the Southeast Asian conflict, the U.S. had a draft, and consequently an almost unlimited supply of soldiers to throw into battle. The U.S. military now, which numbers about 1 million, is largely dependent for front-line combatants upon reservists and National Guardsmen. Already some one-third of U.S. forces are directly committed to the war effort in Iraq, counting the 150,000 actually stationed in Iraq, and the 200,000 who play supporting roles in Kuwait and other regional countries. Given the enormous back-office operation required by today`s technologically complex, highly bureaucratic, and managerially top-heavy U.S. military, there is actually little in the way of more troops that could be assigned to this conflict should it escalate in intensity. Moreover, with morale crumbling among the reservists and guard troops in Iraq, most of whom are older than typical soldiers in a draft army, and who have left behind jobs and families, the U.S. is facing a serious manpower crisis, just in terms of replacing current troops in the field. If it doesn`t turn to a draft, it will have a hard time recruiting more reservists and guard troops, since most people join those units to make a little extra money, not to actually have to go overseas and fight. If it does restart the draft, popular support for war, such as it is--in Iraq or anywhere in the world--will evaporate completely. (The mechanism for a draft--the Selective Service office and local draft boards, and a lottery machine to allocate priority numbers by birthdate--is already in place, and a national call-up could happen within 30 days of a Congressional vote authorizing a return to compulsory service.)

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. A collection of Lindorff`s stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff07112003.html

[Joerver]

July 12, 2003
New Iraqi Governing Council to Meet on Sunday
By REUTERS


Filed at 1:39 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed Iraqi governing council will meet for the first time on Sunday, a major step toward filling a power vacuum created by the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi spokesmen said on Saturday.

The council -- long awaited by Iraqis who cite the lack of a national government as a major frustration -- will have a Shi`ite Muslim majority, Adel Abed al-Mahdi, spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said.

``Tomorrow is the first meeting of the Iraqi governing council,`` he told Reuters. ``We took the decision. It is going to be tomorrow, Sunday.``

He was speaking after talks between top Iraqi politicians and U.S. administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer and other officials from the U.S.-led administration, which has run Iraq since Saddam was toppled on April 9. Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), said the council would hold its founding meeting at 11 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT) at a building previously occupied by Saddam`s Industrial Militarization Commission.

The council will have 25 members roughly reflecting Iraq`s religious and ethnic makeup -- 13 Shi`ites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Christian and one Turkmen.

Shi`ites, who form 65 percent of the population, were persecuted during the 35-year rule of Saddam`s Baath Party.

The council will have some executive powers like nominating ministers, reviewing laws, signing contracts and approving the national budget as well as a role in appointing members of a committee to draft a new constitution ahead of free elections.

Bremer has the power to overrule the council`s decisions, but Qanbar said that the U.S. administrator had told political leaders that he did not have the desire to do so.

``We trust him,`` Qanbar said.

NO LETUP IN ATTACKS

Along with the political moves, the U.S. military said its troops in the flashpoint town of Falluja had begun a transition of responsibility to local police forces who had requested more autonomy.

U.S. forces have often come under fire in Falluja and other mainly Sunni Muslim towns north and west of Baghdad since the ousting of Saddam, himself a Sunni.

There was no letup in the attacks against U.S. occupation forces with one soldier wounded in a grenade attack on a prison west of Baghdad after midnight.

A U.S. soldier was killed and another was wounded in what the military said was a non-hostile gun incident.

In Falluja, U.S. forces manned posts at an Iraqi police station despite protests on Thursday from police who say their presence makes the building a target for guerrilla attacks.

U.S. army officers said they would gradually hand over more control to local police but military police would maintain small liaison offices in the office of Falluja`s mayor and the police department in the town of 200,000 people.

Officers said there was no prospect of a pullout from the town 30 miles west of Baghdad in the near future.

``Our operations here have continued as normal since the protest. Nothing has changed and we have not reduced the number of troops (in the town),`` U.S. Army Second Lieutenant Amanda Goldstein told Reuters at the main police station on Saturday.



Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd.

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[Joerver]

Our President is a Criminal

By Daniel Patrick Welch

07/12/03: It`s well past time to say it. Despite the weaseling and finger-pointing--in fact, because of it--the Forged Niger letter is indeed the smoking gun, and the chips have yet to stop falling. Who wrote the damn thing, and on whose orders? Who cares whether Tenet, his job on the line, acquiesced to including a literal truth that actually amounts to one of the great frauds of the century? The sheer audacity and cynicism of this coterie of hacks and hustlers is simply astounding. As a teacher, I won`t let six-year-olds get away with such transparent sophistry. The bottom line is that Bush knew the information was bogus, and used it anyway to convince millions to go along with his phony war.

For that alone, for the memory of the thousands of dead Iraqis and Americans, he deserves the il Duce treatment (figuratively speaking, Mr. Ashcroft-no need to start tapping my phone or putting me on no-fly lists). The criminal enterprise called the Bush administration is (Helen Thomas was right) the worst ever. Their campaign in furtherance of the conspiracy to defraud the public into buying the Iraq war is one of the the most cynical abuses of power in U.S. history. It deserves to be treated as such.

Alarmist? You bet. This guy already thinks (and occasionally tells foreign leaders) that he gets his orders from God. If these radical extremists can get away with this, then the dumbing down of America will be complete, and the stage will be set for the next wave of the nascent fascism. La Cosa Bush (apologies to the mafia) is, like all crime families, violent, arrogant, and beyond the reach of the law--so far. Bush`s handlers no longer even have the decency, courage or self-restraint to prevent his criminally stupid comments from wreaking havoc around the globe. Was last week`s pseudo-macho invitation to "Bring `em on" even a mistake? Or was it another calculated ploy to make him look "tough" to the American people, playing to the ugliest side of the American psyche while once again enraging thinking people the world over. No matter--he must be stopped. This cabal has been lying, cheating, and manipulating national tragedy to force their right wing agenda down our throats long enough.

And half-measures won`t do any more. None of this vague safe rhetoric about "misleading" or cautious calls for those who "know who they are" to step down. WE know who they are, the junta that has hijacked our government and our national agenda. The cartel must go: Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle should all resign, be fired or impeached immediately, before their conspiracy of lies and their mutual pact of self-protection is allowed to further endanger the country and the world. Cornered criminals, especially stupid ones, are a dangerous lot, and there is no telling to what lengths they will go to cover their own behinds.

On a mission from God, installed by a viciously partisan Supreme Court, the skids are greased for a further slide into misadventure, bankruptcy and ruin. With the addition of Congress on their side, they are acting with particularly reckless abandon--and impeachment is not in the cards as long as the GOP circles the wagons. None will have the courage or integrity Goldwater showed when he told Nixon the jig was up. Power corrupts, and the Republicans are so drunk with it they won`t turn on their Lord Fauntleroy until he robs a bank on camera in broad daylight.

But that is no reason not to tell the truth: whatever their chances, some of the braver souls in congress should introduce impeachment legislation immediately: Conyers, Kucinich, Lee, Paul? The media has already shown they will not help; moneyed interests overwhelmingly favor the right. A campaign based on the old game of raising oodles of money and buying ads is a sure failure. The only thing that can save us now is a grassroots, velvet revolution, the principled, impassioned movement calling for these people`s head on a spike.

And maybe, just maybe, this one isn`t an impeachable offense, but I`m just plain getting sick of Rumsfeld`s smug, arrogant grin on the tube. What the hell is he smiling at all the time? Is it funny, somehow, that thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead after his "precision" bombing? It is ironic, admittedly, another fraud, to be sure-but hardly amusing. Maybe it`s just part of what you do when you think you can get away with anything.

Senate Intelligence Chair Pat Roberts foreshadowed just how twisted the logic is going to get when he said that what concerns him most "is what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the CIA in an effort to discredit the president," Yeah, right. The black bag set, whose penchant for secrecy and service verges on pathology, are the real problem here--not the curious fact that even some of them have finally decided that things are so bad that someone, somewhere has to speak out.

It`s time to close the curtain on this Bizarro World. Saddam loyalists--not nationalist resistance to occupation--are the real problem in Iraq. Protesters are terrorists, but we are fighting for our freedoms. Bush`s popularity remains robust, yet huge shows of force and repressive rules on free speech are needed to keep the viewing public from seeing that he is dogged by prostest at every turn. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and some animals are more equal than others. The lies won`t stop until we fire the liars.

© 2003 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted.

Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School. He has appeared on radio [interview available here] Past articles, translations are available at danielpwelch. We would appreciate your linking to us.

Copyright http://www.danielpwelch.com/

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Ambushed
Torture-Lite
by Christine Pelisek


President Bush is right: There is a difference between us and the bad guys.

For one thing, the bad guys will torture you.

And we . . . well, actually, we might torture you, too, but we’re nicer about it. And that’s what counts.

And if something does go wrong and a tortured prisoner dies, President Bush wants someone right there to save that unlucky person’s soul.

Last month, Bush publicly swore that the U.S. will no longer torture terrorism suspects. That’s really nice, and it shows how nice we really are. But it also raises the question of exactly how much torture has been going on, especially given that federal authorities are now investigating the December deaths of two Afghan detainees as homicides. The prisoners were being held at the CIA interrogation center at the air base in Bagram. The Washington Post reports that military pathologists found signs of blunt-force trauma on the detainees. The official cause of death is a heart attack in one case and a blood clot in the lung in the other. Human-rights organizations also have reported other instances of mistreatment and possible torture.

There’s also a review of the death of a detainee who died last month at a U.S.-run holding facility near Asadabad in eastern Afghanistan. The Independent in Britain reports U.S. officials practically bragging about their “stress and duress” techniques, which they further described as “torture-lite.” The paper also notes that Amnesty International can visit any prison in Afghanistan except the one at Bagram.

But fear not. If “torture-lite” is still heavy enough to kill you, at least there’s no need to fear for your eternal well-being. Just last month, as reported in Forward, a New York–based Jewish journal, W. met with Chuck Colson, a convicted Watergate conspirator who was subsequently born again. Colson now runs Prison Fellowship Ministries, an evangelical Christian rehab program. Colson wants to go national as part of Bush’s faith-based initiative. If Colson does indeed get federal funds, who knows how far he’ll be able to take it — maybe even to our kinder, gentler torture

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/34/news-pelisek2.php

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July 13, 2003
Overseer in Iraq Adapts Strategy as Hurdles Rise
By PATRICK E. TYLER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 12 — L. Paul Bremer III rises at 5 a.m. in his modest residence in a white, air-conditioned trailer that overlooks the Tigris River — if you don`t count the portable toilets that partly block the view.

Most days he jogs around the once splendid gardens of Saddam Hussein`s Republican Palace, behind which his trailer is perched, and is at his desk inside the marbled halls an hour later wearing a suit and Army-issue combat boots.

When he moves out beyond the palace walls, now girded by an endless helix of razor wire, he has around-the-clock protection from a force of former Navy Seals and Army guards. Most Iraqis know very little about him except that he is whisked through their streets sandwiched between machine gunners in a convoy and that he appears on television with a fresh kerchief in his pocket and those size 10 1/2 desert boots, which he even wore to the World Economic Forum in Jordan last month. ("I thought he had forgotten to change," a Western colleague commented.)

In the dust of Iraq, the boots, Mr. Bremer says, are an attempt to spare his dress shoes. But they also signify that he is engaged in managerial combat.

For Mr. Bremer, the 61-year-old occupation administrator of Iraq, the daunting problems of the most complex and expensive nation-building tasks the United States has undertaken in a half-century have only intensified since President Bush appointed him on May 6.

The economy remains devastated and moribund. Electricity supplies to the capital are failing. Guerrilla attacks on American troops are increasing. Saddam Hussein has returned as a disembodied voice on audiotape exhorting his followers to rebellion and sabotage.

Mr. Bremer`s notion that he could run Iraq on the strength of decisive and firm management policies has given way, a number of Western and Iraqi officials say, to the realization that he desperately needs an Iraqi governing body to share responsibility — or blame — for the long-term task of establishing postwar order and stability.

"There has been a process of coming down to earth," said Hoshyar Zebari, the affable policy aide to the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

When Mr. Bremer arrived in Baghdad on May 12, he inherited a landscape of collapsed government, burned-out ministries, looted universities and commercial centers and police and security forces that had fled or abandoned their posts.

The devastation had overwhelmed the first wave of diplomats, civilian aid workers and military personnel working under Jay M. Garner, a retired lieutenant general. General Garner was the reconstruction administrator selected by Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the overall commander of allied forces during the war.

"They told us to bring two suits," said one of General Garner`s former aides. "We thought we would be walking into functioning ministries, that we would fire the Baathists in the top jobs, and get the trains running again in a couple of months." It was not to be.

But when Mr. Bremer arrived with a personal mandate from President Bush and an "I`m-in-charge" message, he conveyed a sense that the mayhem would soon be over. On his desk in the elegant wood-paneled study he appropriated from the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Bremer planted a hand-carved motto: "Success has a thousand fathers," an admonition for teamwork and an implicit rejection of the second line of the aphorism that failure is an orphan.

"There won`t be any failure," Mr. Bremer said.

In selecting Mr. Bremer for the job of winning the peace in a country that has known only iron-fisted totalitarian rule for a quarter-century, Mr. Bush settled on the candidate who appears, up to now, to have straddled the ideological divide between the State Department and Pentagon over the kind of crisis management needed to protect the allied victory here.

To Pentagon conservatives, Mr. Bremer has strong credentials as the tough counterterrorism chief in the Reagan administration and as a longtime protégé of former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. With Mr. Bremer`s 23-year career as a diplomat, his conservatism is leavened with a strong pragmatic instinct.

"As forceful as he is, he certainly is not dogmatic," said Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations special representative in Baghdad.

Barham Salih, a senior aide to the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, said: "He came with some very definite ideas on what needed to be done," adding that Mr. Bremer "believed that Iraq needed to be rebuilt along free-market principles."

Mr. Salih said Mr. Bremer initially resisted a more nuanced assessment.

"I told him that Iraq is a welfare state and its government is dependent on oil revenues and the people have gotten used to be given handouts," Mr. Salih said. "I told him it would be disastrous policy if he is thinking of ending the welfare state overnight."

Mr. Bremer accepted a portion of this advice. He protected the food aid operation on which 60 percent of Iraqis rely for sustenance, and he accelerated the distribution of subsidies and salaries to Iraqi civil servants, most of whom are still sitting at home.

But he took a cleaver to the salaries of the defeated Iraqi Army, enraging thousands of military men who had obeyed the leaflets that American planes dropped urging them not to fight for Saddam Hussein.

The onset of guerrilla-style attacks on American convoys in May and weeks of demonstrations by disgruntled officers that culminated in violence prodded him to reconsider. He agreed to pay back wages and reinstitute salary payments to the officer corps. Soldiers got severance payments.

"In retrospect, we probably should have gotten to that decision faster," he said in an interview. "And it certainly was the case that our military commanders made the case that these people were threatening our coalition forces."

He has since extended the same subsidies to Mr. Hussein`s most ardent propagandists, the staff of the Ministry of Information whose minister, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, so cluelessly informed the world that American forces were committing suicide at the gates of Baghdad.

The adjustments, Mr. Bremer explained, were "tactical."

"I think I said at my first press conference that I expected we would be calling a lot of audibles," he said, using the football term for calling plays from the line of scrimmage. "But our strategy hasn`t changed."

Part of that strategy, he says, has been "to get real political responsibility in the hands of a representative group of Iraqis."

Yet it has not always seemed that way to the Iraqi political figures and former opposition leaders. From the day Mr. Bremer arrived, one of his staff members said, he disparaged the former Iraqi opposition leaders — the people General Garner had implored to come to Baghdad to form a provisional government — as "disorganized," unable to work together and not competent to run a country.

Mr. Bremer`s change in tack came as the Bush administration was seeking to win Security Council backing to lift sanctions against Iraq, unfreeze assets and begin pumping oil to pay for national reconstruction. But it also came as alarms were sounding that Iran was exploiting the chaos in Iraq and was seeking a political foothold in Baghdad through the Shiite religious leaders in the Iraqi opposition.

Mr. Bremer had quickly jettisoned the provisional government idea, telling Iraqi political figures that they were not representative of the Iraqi people. Later, he announced a new plan to appoint an advisory "political council" of 25 to 35 Iraqis. It could nominate, it could suggest, it could consult, Mr. Bremer said, but he would make the decisions.

Iraqi political figures accused Mr. Bremer of "retracting" General Garner`s promises, and one said it seemed as if he were looking for "35 lackeys."

Thus began the two months of political wrangling that brought Mr. Bremer and the former Iraqi opposition leaders to this point: ready to announce the formation of a "governing council" that Mr. Bremer has pledged will have extensive executive powers to hire and fire ministers, draft and approve a budget and send diplomats abroad.

Mr. Bremer says now that he cannot recall using the term "advisory" in his original formulation. "I don`t think the original concept has changed very fundamentally," he said in the interview. "We did change the name and I think that was an important symbolic change that many Iraqis are very pleased with."

Mr. Vieira de Mello, the United Nations representative who has mediated between Mr. Bremer and the Iraqi political groups, said that in private, Mr. Bremer had shown a pragmatic streak in moderating his views as it became increasingly clear that he could not govern Iraq alone.

To the Iraqi political groups, especially the Shiite leaders mistrustful of Mr. Bremer, Mr. Vieira de Mello has delivered a different message: "I have urged them to take more power once they become a coherent body because Bremer will not be able to stop them."

Thus the conflict over the governance of postwar Iraq may be only beginning. There is a constitution to draft and elections to prepare for.

"I am here until I can pass full responsibility to a fully sovereign Iraqi government," Mr. Bremer said. But no one, including Mr. Bremer, knows how long that will take.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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The Niger connection
How did a poor African nation become crucial to justifying war in Iraq? Now doubts over intelligence claims that Saddam sought uranium from Niger threaten a damaging split between the US and Britain write Peter Beaumont and Edward Helmore in New York

Peter Beaumont and Edward Helmore in New York
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

In the tunnels of Akouta in Niger, the miners dig for a dark and heavy ore, tar-like in lustre. In economic terms it is as precious as gold. But for some its worth far outweighs its financial value. For carried in these ores is uranium, the ninety-second element on the periodic table, and the fuel for an atomic bomb.

For three decades the miners of Niger have carried on their business, largely unnoticed by all except those who follow the heavy metal markets.

Now suddenly the uranium mines of Niger - and those seeking to do business with them for their uranium ores - have been thrown into the sharpest relief by a question that may have crucially influenced the decision of the US and Britain to go to war against Saddam Hussein.

Did Iraq seek uranium from Niger to fuel its nuclear weapons programme? Or was the claim, repeated by both President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, based on a crude forgery, discredited both by the CIA and a senior US diplomat sent to investigate the claim?

The story of the `Niger connection` is one that has embroiled the US and British governments in a new round of charges that President Bush and Tony Blair led their countries to war on a false premise - that Iraq was actively seeking uranium for its nuclear weapons programme, a charge made in both the British Government`s dossier on Iraqi WMD last September and in Bush`s State of the Union address this January.

It is an affair that is now threatening to claim the first major scalp in the row over whether governments on both sides of the Atlantic hyped up the evidence against Iraq to justify a war - that of the CIA`s director George Tenet, who yesterday was forced to take the blame for his agency`s failure properly to warn the White House that the claims about Niger were `highly dubious`.

In a remarkable admission Tenet has publicly conceded that the CIA wrongly allowed Bush to tell the American people that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa, despite analysts` doubts about the information.

`These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President,` Tenet said, referring to a section of January`s State of the Union address in which Bush said: `The British Government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.`

Tenet`s admission follows an unprecedented round of finger- pointing by both Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, at the CIA - effectively accusing it of clearing what it knew to be defective intelligence for a major presidential speech.

Boiled down to their bare bones, the allegations go like this: with deep suspicion at the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the CIA over allegations of Iraqi attempts to procure uranium ore from Niger, the CIA was getting cold feet. What evidence they did have, as Tenet admitted on Friday, was fragmentary.

So, in early 2000, the CIA dispatched a former US ambassador, Joseph Wilson, to investigate the claims. He rapidly concluded that the alleged Iraqi procurement programme did not exist, and at most Baghdad had merely attempted to discuss improved trade relations with Niger in the late 1990s.

Wilson and the CIA became convinced that some evidence of the Niger connection was based on crudely forged documents that agency sources suggested had been obtained by Italian authorities and passed on to Britain which - the same sources told the US media - passed the forgeries on to the CIA. When those documents emerged after Bush`s State of the Union address, they would be quickly exposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna as the confections that they were.

Crucially, despite knowing of the dubious nature of the Niger connection, the CIA did not impress upon the White House its serious doubts. Instead, it allowed the President, citing `British intelligence` as proof, to claim the Niger connection as hard evidence of Saddam`s efforts to rebuild a nuclear arsenal.

If Tenet`s account is true, it is doubly embarrassing, for the CIA had made its reservations clear elsewhere, if not to Bush.

The previous year, ahead of Blair`s September 2002 dossier setting out the British case against Saddam, the CIA told London that the Niger claim was deeply questionable. And it also warned US Secretary of State Colin Powell against using the Niger evidence before he made his powerful presentation about the Iraqi threat to the UN in February, just weeks after Bush`s State of the Union address.

In other words, the CIA told everyone about its doubts except the White House.

What is most revealing is Tenet`s admission that the central claim was left in Bush`s speech because it had been attributed to British intelligence. Agency officials `in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct, i.e. that the British Government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa,` Tenet said.

`This should not have been the test for clearing a presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed.`

But there is a big question hanging over Tenet`s account. For Britain vehemently rejects American claims that the Niger link was based solely on the forged documents or that it supplied any intelligence on the Niger connection to the CIA.

`The information in the British Government`s September dossier regarding Niger categorically did not come from the forged Italian documents; it came from our own source. That information was not passed on to the US,` said an intelligence source last week. `It was an entirely separate and credible source.`

On one crucial issue Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in his letter released yesterday, does agree with the US version of events. He admits that the CIA did warn Britain against including claims on the Niger connection in the Government`s September dossier on WMD.

`The media have reported that the CIA expressed reservations to us about the [Niger] element of the September dossier,` he said. `This is correct. However, the US comment was unsupported and UK officials were confident that the dossier`s statement was based on reliable intelligence which we had not shared with the US.`

The consequence of the gulf between these two positions is a new crisis over the intelligence on Iraq that is no longer limited to either just Britain or the US. For the first time Washington and London now point their fingers at each other.

The controversy is beginning to affect public support for the President. A Washington Post poll has found that 50 per cent of the US public now believe the administration exaggerated WMD claims in order to justify war with Iraq.

Here it was the turn yesterday of Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram to throw his weight behind fresh demands for a full and independent inquiry, saying Straw`s letter did little to clarify the situation.

Ancram said: "An independent judicial inquiry is the most sensible way of establishing the facts.`

Andrew Mackinlay, the Labour MP for Thurrock who sits on the foreign affairs committee, said, if there was no political interference with the September dossier, then `at the very least it raises questions about the competence of the security and intelligence services`.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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No more fudges
A WMD inquiry is imperative now

Leader
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

We live in the era of pre-emptive warfare. The build-up to the most recent Gulf war demonstrated a widespread acceptance of the need to anticipate the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, and challenge those who have access to them and may deploy them. In such circumstances, the accuracy of the intelligence informing such decisions becomes critical.

We must be convinced that the information on which our governments go to war is impartially gathered and impartially presented before the lives of combatants and civilians are put at risk.

Were those standards of proof met before war was launched against Iraq? Or were we simply fed misinformation, exaggeration and half-truth over Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction? A worrying picture is emerging. We have seen no evidence of the aluminium tubes which we were told Saddam could use for uranium-enrichment. We have seen no evidence of the fleet of mobile-weapons labs; only two sorry-looking trucks whose use has yet to be established.

We have seen no evidence of Saddam`s alleged capacity to deploy WMD within 45 minutes. Now, there are serious questions over claims that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Niger, a claim central to the Government`s original case that his weapons of mass destruction represented a threat to world security.

Following the admission by the CIA`s director that he did not believe this claim, we must be told how it became so central to arguments deployed by Britain and the US. We need to be told the source of our intelligence, which the Government says is independent of fake documents which Washington now disavows. And we must be clear about when US intelligence first alerted the Government to their doubts.

Only a full public inquiry can answer these questions and the broader issues of the case for war.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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What is al-Qaeda?
In this extract from his new book, Al-Qaeda: Casting a shadow of terror, The Observer`s chief reporter, Jason Burke, looks at the true nature of bin Laden`s organisation and why the west`s misunderstanding of the broad and diverse phenomenon of modern Islamic militancy undermines its response to terrorism

Jason Burke
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

The fighters came back in the middle of the night. Their weapons and the ammunition slung around their shoulders reflected the dull red glow given out by the embers of the fire. The men sleeping in the room sat up and moved to make space by the fire for the new arrivals. Outside it was cold enough for frost to form wherever there was standing water.

During the day two men had been taken prisoner and several others killed or wounded and the fighters did not talk much. One of them cleaned and checked a captured light machine gun while the others ate the remnants of a thin chicken stew cooked several hours earlier. It was 3am and everyone knew, at least if the routine established over the previous two days continued, the bombing would not start again for two or three hours and now was the time to sleep.

Through the day the B-52s had been overhead. We had watched their distinctive quadruple contrails tracking in straight lines from the north towards their targets. Then they would make a sharp turn to the west and we would see great gouts of smoke, dirt, rock and flame on the steep slopes above us. A second or so later the noise and the blast would reach us, tugging at our clothes. When I woke three hours later all the men in the room were awake. They wrapped their blankets over their thin shalwar kameez, hitched the straps of their Kalashnikovs over their shoulders, put magazines in their pockets and moved outside into the cold. Many of their blankets, bought in the city of Jalalabad some 30 miles away, had been imported from Iran and were bright green and pink and covered in gold prints of large flowers. The men moved off in small groups towards their assault positions.

The sky had begun to lighten. To the north, behind us, lay Jalalabad and the dirt-coloured desert around it. Strands of mist hung over the irrigated lands around the Kabul River. And then high overhead, scoring confident white lines across the pale sky like a steel cutter across glass, came the first set of the quadruple vapour trails of the B-52s of the day. When they appeared the trails were white against the dawn sky. But the rays of the early morning sun were angled up into the sky like searchlights and when they struck the vapour trails, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the sun`s rays turned them a pink as bright and as out of place as the printed flowers on the blankets wrapped around the soldiers thin shoulders. The trails powered forwards towards the mountains and then dipped away to the West. And then came the boiling, orange flames and the oily, dark smoke and the noise rolling over the hills.

The Americans had started bombing the caves - known locally as Tora Bora - on November 30th 2001. Seventeen days earlier the Taliban and their Arab and Pakistani auxiliaries had pulled out of Kabul. Within hours the troops of the Northern Alliance had entered the city. With a group of mujahideen I had smuggled myself across the border and arrived in Jalalabad a few hours after it had been liberated. Over the next weeks American warplanes and special forces troops scoured Afghanistan mopping up retreating Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Resistance was minimal.

Osama bin Laden was in Kandahar, the southern desert city that was the spiritual home and administrative headquarters of the Taliban, when the air strikes started. By early November he, his close aides and several hundred of his Arab followers had moved up to Tora Bora. By mid December he, his senior aides, much of the Taliban high command, and hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters were gone. They had slipped the net.

I left Tora Bora, spent a few days in Jalalabad and then drove out to Pakistan. I arrived in London in time for the office Christmas party.

Though I had been reporting on Afghanistan, Pakistan and bin Laden almost full time for nearly four years, and had been covering conflicts, coups and natural disasters for a decade, nothing had prepared me for what I had seen. In fact living and working in the region for so long had made the shock altogether more powerful. I had witnessed countless scenes of grief and deprivation in Afghanistan but, though horrific and tragic, most of it seemed to make sense, to be somehow part of the essence of the place. What I had seen at Tora Bora did not make any sense at all.

It was clear that it was impossible to explain what had happened merely by looking at events in southwest Asia. What had occurred at Tora Bora was the culmination of a huge and complex historical process. The men who had been under the bombs were from Yemen, Egypt, the Sudan and Algeria and a dozen other countries as well as from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The reason for what had happened at Tora Bora lay hidden in their histories.

I also wanted to answer other questions. What was the nature of the threat that now confronted my way of life, my culture, my values, my own personal security and that of those I love? Should I genuinely be frightened of bombs on the London underground, hijackings at Paris Orly, gas attacks in Los Angeles or dirty bombs in Chicago?

Little that had previously been published helped. It was clear to me that profound misconceptions were widespread. Foremost among them was the idea that bin Laden led a cohesive and structured terrorist organisation called "al-Qaeda". Every piece of evidence I came across in my own work contradicted this notion of al-Qaeda as an "Evil Empire" with an omnipotent mastermind at its head. Such an idea was undoubtedly comforting - destroy the man and his henchmen and the problem goes away - but it was clearly deeply flawed. As a result the debate over the prosecution of the ongoing "war on terror" had been skewed.

Instead of there being a reasoned and honest look at the root causes of resurgent Islamic radicalism the discussion of strategies in the war against terror had been almost entirely dominated by the language of high-tech weaponry, militarism and eradication.

One question remained, and remains, largely unanswered: what is al-Qaeda? The word itself is critical. Al-Qaeda comes from the Arabic root qaf-ayn-dal. It can mean a base, such as a camp or a home, or a foundation. It can also mean a precept, rule, principle, maxim, formula or method.

For the most extreme elements among the Islamic radicals who joined the Afghans in the long battle through the 1980s against the Soviets, the word was understood in a very specific sense. Abdullah Azzam, the chief ideologue of the non-Afghan militants and a spiritual mentor of bin Laden, used it to describe the role he envisaged the most committed of the Muslim volunteers who had fought the Soviets playing once the war in Afghanistan was over. In 1987 he wrote: "Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward and [to] put up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. This vanguard constitutes the strong foundation (al qaeda al-sulbah) for the expected society."

Azzam was talking about a mode of activism and a tactic, not talking about a particular organisation. Indeed it would be a year or more before bin Laden formed his group. Azzam was using the word to denote a purpose, an ideal and a function. He, and subsequently bin Laden too, saw the role of al-Qaeda, the vanguard, as being to radicalise and mobilise those Muslims who had hitherto rejected their extremist message. They would act like any revolutionary vanguard, as Lenin or indeed the French revolutionaries had imagined. Modern radical Islamic thought is heavily influenced by Western radical political thought, on the right and the left, and the concept of the vanguard is only one of a number of concepts, and tactics, borrowed from thinkers ranging from Trotsky and Mao to Hitler and Heidegger.

Bin Laden and a number of close associates acted on Azzam`s suggestion and, probably sometime in 1988 or early 1989, set up a militant group in Peshawar, the frontier city in western Pakistan. They hoped the group would act as a "vanguard" in the coming struggle. The unity that a common purpose had forced on the disparate groups of Islamic extremists fighting against the Soviets was disintegrating. National and ethnic divisions re-asserted themselves among the volunteers. Bin Laden`s group was formed with the aim of rousing Muslims, through active campaigning or "propaganda by deed", to create an "international army" that would unite the umma or world Islamic community against oppression. The group was small, comprising not more than a dozen men, and there was little to distinguish it from the scores of other groups operating, forming and dissolving in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

Bin Laden left Pakistan in 1989 and returned to his homeland of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, bin Laden, several other Arab veterans of the war in Afghanistan and a number of Afghan commanders, offered to form an army of Islamic militants to protect the land of Mecca and Medina. The Saudi regime rejected bin Laden`s plan and the 32 year old militant began to work to reform of his own country. The al-Qaeda project languished. In 1991 bin Laden left his native land and fled, via Pakistan, to Sudan where he remained until 1996.

Western intelligence officials have been criticised for being slow to recognise al-Qaeda. This is unfair. In his first few years in Sudan bin Laden was at least as interested in arboriculture and road construction as in creating an international legion of Islamic militants. His own group had barely expanded beyond the dozen or so individuals who had pledged allegiance to him back in 1988 or 1989 and he was heavily reliant on the know-how and resources of larger and more established militant outfits such as Egytpian Islamic Jihad. Nor was he connected to the raft of attacks, including that on the World Trade Centre, there were in this period. His involvement in Somalia and the famous "blackhawk down" episode was marginal.

In 1996 bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan. This provided the first real opportunity for him to build something that could genuinely be described as an organised terrorist structure.

What bin Laden was able to do in Afghanistan was provide a central focus for many of the disparate elements within contemporary Islamic militancy. This led, not to the formation of a huge and disciplined group "with tentacles everywhere", but to a temporary concentration of many of the different strands within modern Islamic militancy on a single place and project. This period, from 1996 to 2001, is when "al-Qaeda" matured.

"Al-Qaeda" consisted of three elements. The first element was the "al-Qaeda hard core", the few dozen associates who had stayed with bin Laden since the late 1980s. Their numbers were boosted by the number of experienced militants, most of whom had been active independently for several years, who made their way to Afghanistan to join bin Laden there. One such was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who had been involved in attacks in the Philippines and elsewhere. Most of these militants came for purely pragmatic reasons. For men who had spent years trying to mobilise and act, struggling all the while with domestic security services, Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 was like a department store for Islamic terrorists. Recruits, knowledge, ideas and even cash could be had off the shelf. Bin Laden and his associates were running a whole floor, the biggest, the best-stocked and the most glitzy.

A second element of "al-Qaeda" involves the scores of other militant Islamic groups around the world which have, or had, some kind of relationship with bin Laden or figures connected to him. But imagining that all these groups were all created or run by bin Laden is to denigrate the particular local factors that led to their emergence.

Tracing the links between various groups and the "al-Qaeda hardcore" not easy. Even within individual movements different factions had different relations with "al-Qaeda". For example, the Ansar ul Islam group that emerged in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in the autumn of 2001 comprised three different factions. Though two of them set off to Afghanistan to meet senior al-Qaeda leaders in the spring of 2001, a third had been unwilling to deal with bin Laden or those around him. Only when bin Laden specifically sent an emissary did they "come on board". By the end of 2001 Ansar was joined by Arab fighters who had fled the US-led onslaught in Afghanistan, some of whom had been close to the al-Qaeda leadership. Ansar was one ostensibly one group, yet included many different relationships to "al-Qaeda". In that it is a microcosm of the broader militant movement.

It is also worth pointing out that at no stage did any Ansar members have any relations with Saddam Hussein. Such claims rested on the thinnest of evidence.

Indeed claims of any links between Saddam and al-Qaeda were based on a fundamental misconception of the nature of modern Islamic militancy. They depended, largely, on the idea that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant allegedly sheltered by Baghdad, was close to bin Laden. Yet Western European intelligence reports, compiled in 2003, reveal that his group was formed "in opposition" to al-Qaeda. Again, if only if al-Qaeda is, wrongly, conceived of as a single organisation encompassing the whole of contemporary radical Islamic activism could one say that al-Zarqawi was "al-Qaeda". It is also true that representatives of bin Laden did have some contact with Saddam Hussein`s regime, as the American administration has often said. But bin Laden rejected all of Baghdad`s approaches - a point that is less often made by hawks in Washington.

I was able to study Ansar ul Islam in some depth when I was working in northern Iraq in 2002. I had first been to Kurdistan in 1991 when, as a young and cocky student I had spent several weeks one summer carrying a Kalashnikov alongside the peshmerga fighters there. In 2002 the results of hardline proselytisation by Gulf-based Islamic groups and the global spread of bin Laden`s message was becoming obvious as the "salafi-jihadi" ideology spread among the previously secular Kurds. On my return to Kurdistan, I had an opportunity to interview many of Ansar`s members, including Didar, a failed suicide bomber.

I met Didar in the eastern Kurdish city of Sulaimania in Northern Iraq. He was born, he said, in 1985 and raised in the sprawling city of Arbil, one of nine children. His father was unemployed but, as he had two sons working (illegally) in Britain, the family had a good standard of living. They had their own house and car. All the children went to school and Didar, the 6th child, studied until he was 14.

Didar`s upbringing was not particularly religious. Like most Kurds he went to the mosque to pray several times a week and kept the fast at Ramadan but little else. Nor had he been involved in politics though, he said, he felt strongly that things were not right with the world from his early teens. His education, he told me, was unlikely to get him a decent job and he had few friends. When he left school in 1999, without employment, he didn`t have much to do so started going to the mosque a lot. Soon he was spending every evening there and was invited to join a Quranic study group. He enjoyed the meetings and liked being with his new friends. Didar`s teacher at the mosque gave him books and pamphlets to read. Some were hardline tracts subsidised by Saudi Arabian quasi-governmental groups. Others were reprints of Abdullah Azzam`s works. His teacher explained Azzam`s doctrine that jihad was the duty of every Muslim man and told him that men like Osama bin Laden were true Muslims whose examples should be followed. He introduced Didar to other young men with similar ideas. This mode of recruitment, or rather induction, is similar to that of many young Islamic radicals.

In November of 2001 Didar was told by his teacher that a group called Ansar ul Islam had announced a jihad in Kurdistan. Didar had not heard of the organisation before but was keen to join it. The two men took a bus to the stronghold of the group in the mountains east of Sulaimania. The Ansar base was surrounded on three sides by fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two secular groups who dominate politics locally. On the fourth side was the Iranian border. Around 40 Arabs had recently arrived there from Afghanistan, joining around 500 Kurds, and providing a battle-hardened, fanatical edge.

A Kurd who had spent time in bin Laden`s camps in Afghanistan was running the training of Ansar`s new recruits, and for the next three months Didar was instructed in basic infantry tactics, explosives, urban warfare and assassinations. The training followed the syllabus that had been taught to the group`s representatives who had made it to Afghanistan in the previous year and is similar to that outlined in a series of notebooks I had found at a training camp in Khost, the eastern Afghan town that was the centre of international Islamic militancy in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 about a week before the battle at Tora Bora.

Every morning the Ansar recruits would rise for morning prayers and then do physical training until the sun came over the horizon. They spent the rest of the day training, in lectures or reading the Koran. The idea of ishtishahd, or "martyrdom operations" was first raised by the Arab instructors but it was one of Didar`s friends, a 22 year old who he had met in the mosque at Arbil, who starting talking about suicide seriously.

"Hisham quoted all the verses of the Quran and repeated the prophet`s teaching on ishtishad and every day we talked about it - I decided that I wanted to do this too. I knew that PUK people were kufr (unbelievers) and that our duty was to fight against the kufr to free the umma. I told [our leader], that I was ready and then during the night they called me on the radio and asked me to come to them. They showed me the jacket and how it worked. Then we had lunch."

Didar was talking to me in the office of the PUK security chief. While he spoke the chief went to a cupboard and pulled out the jacket that had been taken off Didar when he had been arrested. It had two slabs of TNT over the chest and in the small of the back and was made of blue nylon. A belt contained more explosives. There were two metal switches, one for the jacket and one for the belt. I sat and clicked them back and forth, listening to the metallic tick, as Didar continued.

"After seeing the jacket I went back to our base."
"What date was it?", I asked.
"It was the 12th of June," he said. "Because it was during the World Cup."
You were watching the World Cup?"
There were no televisions because they were haram [forbidden]. But I was following it in the newspapers."
What was your favourite team?"
"England. Michael Owen and I like McManaman and David Seaman."
"England is your favourite team and you are about to blow yourself up in the jihad against kufr?"
"Politics is one thing. Football is something else."


Didar was driven to a house on the outskirts of Halabjah. He had dinner at the house of a sympathiser. Then they watched a Jackie Chan film on a DVD.

"I didn`t dream. I slept fine. I knew I was going to paradise so was very calm. At just after five pm I [left the house]. I was calm. I was thinking about paradise. The bus went through the bazaar and I got down just before the PUK office and walked up to it with the switch in my pocket and my hand on it. I walked up to the official at the door and gave him the name of a man who I thought would be inside and he said what is that underneath your shirt, and I said nothing and he asked again and I said it`s TNT and then they arrested me."

Didar`s story is revealing. It tells us much about the real nature of "al-Qaeda". Bin Laden does not have the power to issue orders that are instantly obeyed. He is not the commander in chief of an army. Bin Laden does not kidnap young men and brainwash them. Both the young men who flocked to Afghanistan to seek military and terrorist training and the leaders of more established groups who were happy to link themselves with bin Laden`s group did so of their volition.

As is clear from the testimony of recruits in the training camps run by the "al-Qaeda" hardcore in Afghanistan nobody was kept there against their will. Most overcame considerable obstacles to reach the camps. Indeed bin Laden`s associates spent much of their time selecting which of the myriad requests for assistance they would grant. The requests came from everywhere from Morocco to Malaysia. A group in Singapore even made a video showing their intended targets which they showed to Mohammed Atef, bin Laden`s military commander. Other militants formulated their plans in the training camps and then approached the leadership. Those who had not got any ideas of their own were refused assistance and told to return when they had thought of something.

These requests, like the recruits who carried them, originated in the huge swathe of largely young men who are sufficiently motivated to want to devote substantial proportions of their lives and energies to the most extreme form of Islamic militancy. In very broad terms they share the key ideas, and the key objectives, of bin Laden and the "al-Qaeda" hardcore. They, like Didar, subscribe, whether involved in a radical group or not, to the "al-Qaeda" worldview. They speak the "al-Qaeda" language. They are committed to a certain way of thinking about the world, of understanding events, of interpreting and behaving. This ideology, a composite of the common elements of all the various strands of modern Islamic radical thought, is currently the most widespread, and the fastest growing, element of what makes up the phenomenon currently, and largely erroneously, labelled "al-Qaeda". The smoke and the vapour trails over Tora Bora signalled the end of Afghanistan as a favoured destination for aspirant terrorists. But the "war on terror" has so far done nothing to eradicate the reasons for the volunteers wanting to travel to the training camps or to deal with the grievances behind the constant applications fielded by bin Laden and his lieutenants.

The war in Afghanistan ended a specific, and in many ways anomalous, period. The camps were destroyed, the militants who had joined bin Laden there were scattered. The al-Qaeda hardcore, the first component of al-Qaeda that we identified above, was virtually destroyed. However the threat is more grave than ever before.

Thirty years ago a new Islamic political ideology began to resonate amongst millions of young men and women across the Muslim world. This ideology was a sophisticated and genuine intellectual effort to find an Islamic answer to the challenges posed by the West`s cultural, economic and political superiority. In the middle of the 20th century nationalist anti-imperialism was the dominant ideology. Then, at least in the Middle East, it was pan-Arabism. Both failed to solve the problems of the Islamic world. Now Islam is seen the solution. But over the decades Islamic activism has changed. Once Islamic activists thought primarily in terms of achieving power or reforming their own nation. There was room in their programme for gradualism and compromise, for a huge multiplicity of different strands of political thought, for the parochial, radical and conservative movements of rural areas and for the clever, educated and aware ideologues of the cities. There was also room, on the movement`s periphery, for those extremists who were committed to violence and who saw the world as a battlefield between the forces of good and evil, of belief and unbelief.

But increasingly, and this is a trend that is accelerating, the extremists are no longer perceived as the "lunatic fringe". Instead they are seen as the standard bearers. And their language is now the dominant discourse in modern Islamic activism. Their debased, violent, nihilisitic, anti-rational millenarianism has become the standard ideology aspired to by angry young Muslim men. This is the genuine victory of bin Laden and our greatest defeat in the "war on terror".

In the weeks immediately following the tragedy of September 11th there was a genuine interest in understanding: why?. Why "they" hate us, why "they" were prepared to kill themselves, why such a thing could happen. That curiosity has dwindled and is being replaced by other questions: how did it happen, how many of "them" are there, how many are there left to capture and kill. Anyone who tries to "explain" the roots of the threat now facing all of us, to answer the "why", to elaborate who "they are", risks being dismissed as ineffectual or cowardly. To ask "why" is to lay oneself open to accusations of lacking the moral courage to face up to the "genuine" threat and the need to meet it with force and aggression. Many characterise this threat, dangerously and wrongly, as rooted in a "clash of civilizations."

This attitude not only plays into the hands of the extremists but, by downplaying the importance of genuine causes, risks encouraging tactics that are counterproductive. I hope to redress the balance. As I watched the bombs falling at Tora Bora I had asked the question why. My book is my attempt to find some answers.

Jason Burke is chief reporter for The Observer. This extract is adapted from the opening chapter of his new book Al-Qaeda: casting a shadow of terror, which is published this week by IB Tauris. Buy Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror at Amazon.co.uk


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Outrage at US plan to mortgage Iraqi oil
Faisal Islam, economics correspondent
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

American plans to mortgage Iraq`s future oil supplies to pay for expensive postwar reconstruction work risk a repeat of mistakes made with Germany after the First World War, debt relief campaigners said this weekend.

Much of the revenue will be securitised over at least a decade under the proposals being pushed by the US Export Import Bank, the Bush administration`s trade promotion body, and a lobbying group that includes key American contractors Bechtel and Halliburton.

Reports suggest that $30 billion of loans will be backed by Iraq`s reserves, the second biggest in the world.

Anne Pettifor, head of the Jubilee Plus debt relief campaign, said `It is outrageous that the poor people of Iraq will be lumbered with billions of dollars of debt that will be used to boost the share prices of Wall Street financiers and US construction giants.`

She warned against the coalition `using the instrument of debt to control Iraq`, after it leaves. Such a motive was behind the way Germany was treated after 1918, provoking resentment that eventually encouraged the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The World Bank has said such commitments should only be made by a sovereign Iraqi government. The plans will complicate a conference on Iraq`s existing $120bn debt, which the US wants European powers to cancel.

The Department for International Development would not rule out British participation in the scheme.


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Blair ignored CIA weapons warning
Intelligence breakdown after Britain dismissed US doubts over Iraq nuclear link to Niger

Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

Britain and America suffered a complete breakdown in relations over vital evidence against Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, refusing to share information and keeping each other in the dark over key elements of the case against the Iraqi dictator.

In a remarkable letter released last night, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, reveals a catalogue of disputes between the two countries, lending more ammunition to critics of the war and exerting fresh pressure on the Prime Minister.

The letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which investigated the case for war against Iraq, reveals that Britain ignored a request from the CIA to remove claims that Saddam was trying to buy nuclear material from Niger, despite concerns that the allegations were bogus. It also details a government decision to block information going to the CIA because it was too sensitive.

As diplomatic relations between America and Britain become increasingly strained over Iraq`s WMD, Straw said that the Government had separate evidence of the Niger link, which it has not shared with the US.

The revelations come just four days before Tony Blair travels to America for his toughest visit there since he came to power in 1997. As well as WMD, the Prime Minister will also raise Britain`s `serious concerns` over the treatment of British citizens held at Guantanamo Bay.

Straw`s letter reveals:

· That evidence given to the CIA by the former US ambassador to Gabon, Joseph Wilson - that Niger officials had denied any link - was never shared with the British.

· That Foreign Office officials were left to read reports of Wilson`s findings in the press only days before they were raised as part of the committee`s inquiry into the war.

· That when the CIA, having seen a draft of the September dossier on Iraq`s WMD, demanded that the Niger claim be removed, it was ignored because the agency did not back it up with `any explanation`.

Although publicly the two governments are trying to maintain a united front, the admission two days ago by the head of the CIA, George Tenet, that President Bush should never have made the claim about the Niger connection to Iraq, has left British officials exposed.

Last night, Downing Street and Foreign Office sources said that `they would not blink` over the Niger claims. One Downing Street figure said that they were based on intelligence from a third country that was reliable. `We are not backing down,` he said.

Another official said that the claim was based on the `intelligence assessment` made at the time, leaving the door open to a climbdown if the intelligence is found to be wrong.

`I want to make it clear that neither I nor, to the best of my knowledge, any UK officials were aware of Ambassador Wilson`s visit until reference first appeared in the press,` Straw said in the letter.

`The media has reported that the CIA expressed reservations to us about this element [the Niger connection] of the September dossier. This is correct. However, the US comment was unsupported by explanation and UK officials were confident that the dossier`s statement was based on reliable intelligence which had not been shared with the US. A judgment was therefore made to retain it.`

Straw said that the Joint Intelligence Committee`s assessment of the Iraqi nuclear threat did not just rest on attempts to procure uranium. There was also other evidence of links between the two countries and attempts to sign export deals.

Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary who has become a trenchant critic of the Government`s case for war against Iraq, said that it `stretched credibility` to say that the Americans and the British had failed to share such basic information.

`From all I know of the intimate relationship between the CIA and the Secret Intelligence Services, I find it hard to credit that there was such a breakdown of communication between them,` Cook said.

`It is time the Government came clean and published the evidence. The longer it delays, the greater the suspicion will become that it didn`t really believe it itself.

`There is one simple question it must answer. Why did its evidence of the uranium deal not convince the CIA? If it was not good enough to be in the President`s address, it was not good enough to go in the Prime Minister`s dossier.`

Yesterday, in another damaging broadside, Richard Butler, who was executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission to Iraq from 1997 to 1999, said that anyone who had claimed that there was a link between Niger and Iraq should resign.

Referring to Australian politicians who had made similar claims, only to withdraw them and apologise later, Butler said: `In the justification for the war, these claims were false and known to be false.

`A Minister who misleads Parliament must accept responsibility for it and resign. Ministers must be held responsible, not public servants.`


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Blair seeks new powers to attack rogue states
By Andy McSmith and Jo Dillon
13 July 2003


Tony Blair is appealing to the heads of Western governments to agree a new world order that would justify the war in Iraq even if Saddam Hussein`s elusive weapons of mass destruction are never found.

It would also give Western powers the authority to attack any other sovereign country whose ruler is judged to be inflicting unnecessary suffering on his own people.

A Downing Street document, circulated among foreign heads of state who are in London for a summit, has provoked a fierce row between Mr Blair and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder.

Mr Schröder is in London for a summit of "progressive" governments, convened by Mr Blair, which opens today.

Mr Blair has involved British troops in five conflicts overseas in his six years in office, and appears to be willing to take part in many more.

The document echoes his well-known views on "rights and responsibilities" by saying that even for self-governing nation states "the right to sovereignty brings associated responsibilities to protect citizens".

This phrase is immediately followed by a paragraph which appears to give the world`s democracies carte blanche to send troops anywhere there is civil unrest or a tyrant who refuses to mend his ways. It says: "Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect."

A political row with Mr Schröder will add to Mr Blair`s difficulties at a time when the American and British intelligence services have fallen out with each other over the question of whether Saddam had been seeking to construct a nuclear bomb.

In Washington, the US government has withdrawn the claim that Iraqi agents were in Niger trying to buy uranium. The head of the CIA, George Tenet, has accepted the blame for allowing this claim to be included in President George Bush`s State of the Nation speech, in which it was attributed to British intelligence. The former foreign secretary Robin Cook has challenged Mr Blair to publish any evidence Britain has to back up the uranium story.

He told The Independent on Sunday: "The longer they delay coming up with it, the greater the suspicion will become that they don`t really believe it themselves.

"There is one simple question the Government must answer when the Commons meets on Monday: why did their evidence not convince the CIA? If it was not good enough to be in the President`s address, it was not good enough to go in the Prime Minister`s dossier.

"A month ago I gave Tony Blair the opportunity to admit that in good faith he had got it wrong when he warned of the uranium deal. Now that President Bush has made just that admission it looks as if Tony Blair would have been wise to get his in first."

But Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, insisted yesterday the information did not come from British intelligence but from some other, unnamed country, and that it was accurate.

In a letter to the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, Donald Anderson, Mr Straw said: "UK officials were confident that the dossier`s statement was based on reliable intelligence which we had not shared with the US."

This public disagreement with the CIA, coupled with anger in Britain over the fate of British suspects held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, forms an awkward background for Mr Blair`s visit to Washington on Thursday, when he will meet President Bush.

Dr Hans Blix, the former head of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq, has told the IoS that he believes the British government "over-interpreted" the available intelligence about Iraq`s weapons.

Dr Blix was particularly scathing about the claim made in a British government dossier, released last September, that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons "deployable within 45 minutes".

"I think that was a fundamental mistake. I don`t know how they calculated this figure of 45 minutes. That seems pretty far off the mark to me," he said.

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, said: "Day by day the case for an independent scrutiny of the lead-up to the war against Iraq becomes irresistible. Only full disclosure can restore the reputation of this Government."

The failure to find the weapons is damaging public trust in the Prime Minister and his relations with the Labour Party, with many backbench MPs who supported the decision to go to war now saying they might have changed their minds if they had known that the weapons might never be found.

The former international development secretary Clare Short will urge the Prime Minister in an interview broadcast on GMTV today to resign before things get "nastier". This brought a strong rebuke yesterday from the Home Secretary, David Blunkett. He said: "Clare Short is being typically self-indulgent. It is important to get behind the Prime Minister and focus on the things that matter to people, like decent opportunities and economic prosperity. I do not understand why people would plot to try to change the most successful leader in the Labour Party`s history."

There was also support for the Prime Minister from his old ally, Bill Clinton. At a London conference organised by Peter Mandelson and attended by the Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and hundreds of Labour Party supporters, the former US president urged the left to stop attacking Mr Blair or risk the renaissance of conservatism.

"If we want to prevail we will have to learn how to make our case better," he said. "We`re living in a new world in which we will be swallowed whole if we do not, and all the evidence of the good we have done will be lost if we give in to inter-party squabbles on the left and lay down in the face of attacks from the right."
13 July 2003 10:03


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Menzies Campbell: What would Bush say to Blair if we were holding US citizens prisoner on the Isle of Wight?
13 July 2003


Ministers` discomfort has been palpable. Chris Mullin newly returned to government, the usually imperturbable Baroness Symons and the Prime Minister have all in the past few days stood embarrassed at the dispatch box unable to defend the indefensible. What is proposed for British citizens incarcerated without charge at Guantanamo Bay - a special US military commission that could ultimately lead to their execution - cannot be defended. Even those accused of the most heinous crimes are entitled to due process. A secret military tribunal without choice of counsel and no right to cross-examine witnesses is not due process. John Walker Lindh, the only American citizen detained in Afghanistan, was never sent to Guantanamo and faced legal proceedings in the US system with all the protections and privileges which that entails. Why should British citizens be in any worse position?

When the Prime Minister sees President Bush next week he should ask him how he would feel if the boot were on the other foot. What would he and Congress be saying if the British were holding US citizens on the Isle of Wight and proposing to put them on trial in the same way as is proposed at Guantanamo?

The British embassy would be under siege, our ambassador declared persona non grata and British products banned from the Senate dining room. And that would be just for starters. There would be outrage, and justifiably so.

Here in the UK, 200 signatures on an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons may seem a mild protest, but a head of steam is building up. If Tony Blair cannot achieve the repatriation of British citizens and any are forced into a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty or even face that penalty, outrage here may not be far away. A direct appeal to President Bush would make sense. The proposed tribunals are military in all respects, and under the control of the Pentagon. But the president is the commander in chief. He is the head of the military system of which the tribunals form part. All he has to do is to issue a command.

If he cannot be persuaded to do so, there could be real trouble for Mr Blair and the Government. You don`t have to use words like "poodle" to know that there is sufficient apprehension already, both in Parliament and in the country, about British dependence on the US. If British citizens, however serious the charges against them, are seen to be denied civil rights, opinion could well harden against the Prime Minister.

And on to the fire could be heaped the fuel of the extradition treaty with the US recently entered into by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, on behalf of the British Government. Ministers here welcomed the treaty as reflecting best modern practice, as has the Foreign Office website.

But what no one in the Government has been at pains to point out is that this treaty does not adhere to the principles of reciprocity. It is true that it provides for each country to seek the extradition of alleged criminals from the other, but not on the same basis.

It is enough, under the treaty, for a successful application from the US to provide evidence only of the identity of the person who is the subject of the application. But if the British Government makes a similar application it must establish to the satisfaction of the American courts not only identity but also prima facie evidence that a crime has been committed. American prosecutors, on the other hand, will no longer have to show that there are reasonable grounds to believe someone committed an offence to extradite them. A statement of the facts of the offence will be sufficient.

American citizens will have better protection under this treaty than UK citizens. Why? Because the Americans enjoy a constitutional protection against extradition on the word of an overseas government alone. It is hard to see why the UK Government feels compelled to enter these one-sided agreements. When added to the controversy over the position of British citizens at Guantanamo, it inevitably creates an impression that in significant areas involving the rights of our citizens we have to accept second best to the US.

This is surely wrong, either as high principle or low politics.

Why should the rights of British citizens be less then those of their US equivalents? Is not the value of British citizenship, as a matter of principle, equivalent to that of the US?

But the politics is just as compelling. In the continuing controversy about weapons of mass destruction, the relationship between the UK and the US is under increasing scrutiny. Disagreement with the policies of the Bush administration can too easily convert into anti-Americanism. Being too deferential can weaken the relationship that deference is designed to foster. A British government that seems in thrall to the US will find it more difficult to persuade its citizens of the value of the alliance.

Civil rights issues are conventionally thought of as the enthusiasm of the chattering classes. At the outset of the Blair Government civil rights were on the agenda, most notably freedom of information and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. But civil rights are no longer a serious issue for Labour.

The military action against Iraq was said by the Labour Government to be morally justifiable because it was about improving the human rights of Saddam Hussein`s people.

Strange now that Mr Blair`s Government should be embarrassed by an apparent failure to secure the human rights of its own citizens.

Menzies Campbell is spokesman on foreign affairs for the Liberal Democrats
13 July 2003 10:10


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 13, 2003

Focus: The Niger connection: how a spy story tarnished British and US reputations
Growing doubts over British claims that Iraq tried to buy nuclear material in Niger are piling the pressure on No 10, writes Nick Fielding



The row over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is threatening to cause serious damage to senior intelligence figures on both sides of the Atlantic. Claims made before the invasion that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear bombs are rapidly unravelling, undermining the justification for the war.
Both Tony Blair and President George Bush declared they had intelligence showing that Saddam had been trying to acquire uranium — an essential ingredient for an atomic bomb — from Africa.

But now much of the evidence for those claims is disputed — and in some cases discredited. It has forced the White House to admit that Bush’s state of the union speech in January was inaccurate. And it has tarnished Blair’s reputation.

It may yet cost George Tenet, the head of the CIA, his job and raises serious questions about the reliability of claims by British intelligence.

How did such a serious matter become so distorted? Its roots lie in November 2001, two months after the devastating Al-Qaeda attacks on America, when Italian secret service agents were approached by a west African diplomat. He knew, he said, of a plot by the Iraqis to buy hundreds of tons of uranium ore (yellowcake) from Niger.

He had a small bundle of documents which, for a price, he was willing to pass on. The documents purported to be letters between Iraqi agents and officials from Niger.

On the surface the claims appeared to make sense. It was already known that Iraq had bought yellowcake from Niger in the 1980s. That nuclear programme had been dismantled, but nobody knew for certain whether or not Saddam had tried to resurrect it. The Niger documents offered tantalising evidence.

A deal was struck and the documents swiftly passed into the hands of the Americans. Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the US ambassador in Niger, was asked to prepare a report assessing them.

Soon afterwards, at the end of February 2002, Joseph Wilson, a senior American diplomat, was told by the CIA that the office of Dick Cheney, the vice-president, had questions about the claims. Would he be prepared to carry out an investigation? Wilson accepted the brief and travelled to Niamey, Niger’s capital, a city he knew well. He met Owens-Kirkpatrick, who told him she had already investigated the documents and debunked them in her reports to Washington. Wilson continued with his own inquiries.

There are two main uranium mines in Niger and both are tightly controlled by a consortium of French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Nigerian companies. Wilson concluded that their supervision was too rigorous for any Iraqi attempt to purchase ore to have gone unnoticed.

“Before I left Niger,” Wilson said last week, “I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. In early March I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the CIA. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African affairs bureau.”

Several sources say Wilson’s findings were also communicated to Britain, but Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, denies this. Whatever the case, the documents were at best dubious. The State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research concluded that they were “garbage”.




BRITAIN by September last year had still not seen the disputed documents relating to Niger, but its own sources were giving it information.

Intelligence that was “non-documentary” but came from “more than one source” was enough for the British to conclude independently that Iraq had indeed tried to obtain uranium from Africa.

On September 24 the British government issued its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which included the claim that “there is evidence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant amounts of uranium from Africa”. Niger was not mentioned, but it seemed obvious to Wilson that this was the same story as the one in the discredited documents. He advised the CIA of the error.

Whether the agency then contacted British intelligence is not known. In any event, the British learnt about the American documents the following month — but continued to stand by their assessment, citing their independent sources.

There were now two distinct strands competing for attention: the discredited documents and the separate British intelligence.

On December 19 the State Department declared publicly in a fact sheet about Iraq that Niger was the African country from which Saddam had been seeking to acquire uranium.

Immediately after this claim appeared, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wrote to the Americans asking for details. It received no immediate reply — and would not get one for more than six weeks.

In the meantime, leading US political figures, including Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary and, finally, the president himself, repeated the claims about Niger.

On January 28, in his state of the union speech, Bush referred to Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. “The British government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” he said.

It raised eyebrows among experts, including Greg Thielmann, the former director of the State Department’s bureau of strategic, proliferation and military issues.

He said: “When I saw that, it really blew me away . . . Not that stupid piece of garbage. My thought was, how did that get into the speech?” Wilson was puzzled too. Whether or not the evidence was from discredited documents or British intelligence, it did not accord with what he had found in Niger. In his view, any serious attempt to acquire yellowcake would have come to light at the two mines.

The day after the state of the union address, Wilson contacted a friend at the State Department. “I reminded (him) of my trip,” Wilson recalled last week, “and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.”

Others had doubts, too. After the state of the union address, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, delivered a speech about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations. He refused to mention the claims about uranium. “I didn’t use the uranium at that point because I didn’t think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world,” he said last week.




IN February the IAEA finally received the US intelligence supposedly linking Iraq to uranium from Africa. On March 7, Mohamed el-Baradei, the chief weapons inspector, blew the controversy wide open. He announced that many of the Niger documents could easily be spotted as forgeries.

“It took us about two hours and a Google internet search to decide that the material was very dubious,” said an IAEA source last week.

In the heat of the build-up to war the revelation produced only a modest reaction. Besides, there was still the separate British intelligence.

But that, too, has now come under scrutiny with the publication of a report by the Commons foreign affairs select committee. This says it is unclear why the government asserted as a “bald claim” that it had evidence of Iraq seeking to buy significant amounts of uranium in Africa.

British concerns about the justification of the war are now being echoed in America, where Bush’s state of the union speech is under scrutiny. Speaking during his tour of Africa last week Bush said that the intelligence services had cleared his speech. On Friday “senior officials” in the CIA were reported as responding that the agency had warned members of the president’s national security council that the intelligence was not good enough to make the firm statement that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa.

The CIA was apparently told that the British government was very sure of its sources and as long as the point was attributed to the British it could go into the speech.

Downing Street and British intelligence are standing by their claims. They insist they have separate sources showing that Saddam sought uranium from Africa. But they have not revealed what that intelligence is. Nor have they passed it to the IAEA, though some experts would argue they are obliged to do so under UN rulings.

Resolution 1441 calls on all UN members to give “full support” to the IAEA, by providing “any information related to prohibited programmes . . . including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items”.

Sources close to the IAEA said last week: “We first asked for documents in September 2002 when we read the comments in the British government dossier referring to Iraq seeking to obtain uranium ore from Africa. We wrote to ask what this was all about. It was not until February 4, 2003, that we got the fake Niger documents — from the State Department. Since then we have had nothing.”

Little evidence of weapons of mass destruction has yet been found in Iraq, and now the controversy over the uranium claims casts further doubt over the US and British justification for going to war. In London and Washington calls for independent inquiries are growing.

Many questions beg for answers. Why did the most senior figures in the US administration press the claims about uranium long after doubts about them had arisen?

Why do the Americans now appear to reject the British intelligence as well? On Friday, Tenet said he should not have allowed the British claim about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa to have been included in Bush’s state of the union address. If the British have their own intelligence to back the claim, why have they not told Tenet about it? (Or has he seen it and rejected it?)

How does Britain’s case square with Donald Rumsfeld’s admission last week that “the coalition” had no “dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder” before it invaded? And why has British intelligence not passed its information to the IAEA? The Foreign Office says it believes the intelligence sources have spoken to the agency, but the IAEA denies this.

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are thinking of their summer holidays, but with Blair under siege here — and Bush facing the first skirmishes of the next presidential election campaign in America — this row will not go away.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-743587,00.html

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July 13, 2003

Assassins stalk new Iraqi government
Hala Jaber, Baghdad



UNDERGROUND militants in Iraq have threatened to target members of the country’s new interim government, claiming they are puppets of Washington and London.

The threat emerged yesterday as Paul Bremer, the US administrator, held talks with senior Iraqi politicians about the formation of the “governing council”. Diplomats said the 25-member council could be convened for the first time as early as today.

Sources associated with a nascent anti-American resistance movement in Baghdad warned participants in the council against “collaborating” with the American and British occupying powers.

“Otherwise they too will become targets of resistance attacks similar to those being conducted against the Americans,” said one source who singled out members of Lon- don and Washington-based exile groups.

The sources said warnings had already been relayed to some potential targets. Groups regarded as “illegitimate” would be given an unspecified period of grace in which to “repent” or face elimination.

“Any real Iraqi national who has sucked milk from his mother will never help, aid, collaborate or turn himself into a puppet of the occupiers,” said one source. “He or she can never sell their country for political advancement or a pocketful of dollars.”

The threats cast a shadow over Bremer’s plans for the country’s first post-war interim government.

After eight weeks of negotiations, the new body of Sunnis, Shi’ites, Kurds, Christians and Turkmen will be given executive powers, such as appointing officials and diplomats and reviewing laws.

The governing council will have five women among its 25 members, and will include the Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, as well as the prominent exiles Ahmed Chalabi and Ayad Allawi.

It will run the country under a United Nations resolution that will continue to give Washington and London overall authority until a sovereign government is elected and a new constitution ratified. The process was speeded up by Bremer in an attempt to allay growing anti-American sentiments and attacks, as well as international criticism that the US-led military force was denying Iraqis the political power to run their country.

Bremer had originally planned on establishing an “advisory body” but switched to a council with executive powers to dispel a common perception, both in Iraq and the wider Middle East, that America’s mission amounts to colonisation rather than liberation.

“Bremer has finally realised the urgency of the matter and the need for Iraqis to see an Iraqi body running their daily lives rather than the Americans,” said an Iraqi close to the negotiations. “Many Iraqis say it is the absence of an Iraqi body that is fuelling such anger and resentment against them.”

The formation of the interim government has become an urgent matter for the allied forces facing mounting daily attacks and rapidly deteriorating security and living conditions. At least 25 attacks are being carried out each day against the Americans, with 31 soldiers killed in Iraq since President Bush declared combat over on May 1.

Even Shi’ites, who constitute 65% of Iraq’s 25m people and who largely welcomed the US-led invasion after years of persecution under Saddam Hussein, are losing patience and have warned of turning against coalition forces.

They are expected to comprise 60% of the council — Sunnis will have 20% and the remaining 20% will represent various minorities including Kurds and Christians.

The council’s duties include drafting the constitution, reviewing contracts for foreign investment and overseeing the introduction of a new currency.

The threats against council members were echoed yesterday in a warning to 33 officials in the town of Fallujah, a hotbed of resistance, that they will also be targeted by militants. The officials include the mayor, police officers and tribal chiefs.

A list of those issued with death threats was obtained by The Sunday Times and al-Arabiyah Television just as US forces began to hand over resonsibility for security in the town to Iraqi police.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-743548,00.html

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July 13, 2003
There`s Hope in Liberia`s History
By JIMMY CARTER



ATLANTA
Liberia is ready to be rescued from disaster, and the time is ripe for persistent but modest American involvement in this process. I have full confidence that a joint effort with West African nations will be successful.

I made my first visit to Liberia as president in 1978, when the nation was a symbol of stability and economic progress in West Africa. The visit represented a continuation of the strong ties between our countries that had been maintained for more than 150 years, since freed American slaves established a government there in 1822. President William Tolbert enjoyed worldwide acceptance as an enlightened Christian layman, having been the elected leader of the Baptist World Alliance, representing almost all organizations of this major Protestant faith.

My wife, Rosalynn, and I noticed the minimal level of security, both for Liberian public officials and for visiting dignitaries, quite different from what we had experienced on other foreign visits. When questioned, American Embassy personnel explained to the Secret Service that Liberians were a peaceful people and violence was unlikely.

Two years later, a sergeant named Samuel Doe was assigned to a beach patrol near the president`s home and he and his platoon decided to present some of their grievances to the highest authority. Within a few hours, the president and his 13 cabinet members were executed, and Sergeant Doe and his youthful followers became the governing authority.

A struggle among warlords continued, and President Doe was captured in Monrovia, tortured and dismembered in September 1990. By that time, Charles Taylor gained control of 95 percent of the country, excluding only the small area surrounding the capital. The 13-member Economic Community of West African States sent troops into Monrovia to protect what was left of the government, and chose a distinguished professor as acting president.

The Carter Center adopted Liberia as one of its peace efforts in Africa, and I began visiting the country in 1990, working closely with the Economic Community of West African States and its military arm. By traveling throughout the country, we also became well acquainted with civilian leaders and the different warlords, and encouraged other nations in the region (primarily Nigeria) to attempt to stabilize the country so that a democratic government might be established. As time for elections approached, there were two principal demands for any warlord wishing to be president: disbanding his army and turning in all weapons.

This effort by West African leaders, strongly supported by the Liberian people, was successful. All the major armies disbanded, and coalition troops confiscated almost 40,000 weapons, ranging from pistols to artillery pieces. A blanket amnesty was declared, and a flood of refugees and displaced persons returned to their local villages to vote. As the prime monitors, we encouraged a liberal interpretation of voter registration, and there were no disputes among the candidates about this procedure.

Carter Center monitors visited polling sites throughout Liberia on Election Day in July 1997, and were impressed with the overwhelming commitment to peace and democracy. Rosalynn and I began our day at a large open-sided shed near the capital, and we had tears in our eyes when we saw people, overwhelming numbers of registered voters, lined up in the dark, in a steady rain, long before the polls opened. At the end of the day, Charles Taylor received about 75 percent of the total vote — because of strong support of people whom he had dominated in the rural areas and because others in Monrovia felt that he might resort to violence if he lost.

Unfortunately, the United States government played a minimal role in Liberia after the election. There were high hopes, but it became increasingly obvious that Charles Taylor was determined to maintain dictatorial powers and had little commitment to an honest government or to the well-being of the people. It was also clear that he was involved in inciting dissension in neighboring Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Because of these disappointments and concern about the safety of our staff, we decided to close our office and have restricted our subsequent involvement to staying in touch with regional and Liberian leaders.

Now that President Taylor has said he will resign, the coalition of West African nations should reassume their former role, with Nigeria, Ghana and other countries providing troops. A relatively small but significant American military presence of perhaps 2,000 troops should join the coalition. In addition, the world community should provide necessary economic assistance to revive Liberia`s economy. Drawing on our experience, the Carter Center and other international monitors can help to ensure a proper electoral process.

Liberia has significant agriculture, forestry and mining resources, and with Mr. Taylor`s departure the Liberian people will be eager to participate peacefully as we join them in restoring stability and democracy.


Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, is chairman of the Carter Center and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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July 13, 2003
In and Out of Africa, at a Brisk Pace
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON


BUJA, Nigeria, July 12 — President Bush swept through Africa, a continent of wonders and history and heartbreak and promise, with the same brisk, businesslike efficiency he brings to all his activities.

When he visited the Slave House on Gorée Island in Senegal, said to have been the holding pen and departure place for as many as a million slaves being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, he was in and out in 15 minutes.

"Very emotional, very touching," Mr. Bush said as he headed off the island.

He spent a full 60 minutes at a game park in Botswana, a country where he stayed a total of 6 hours.

Senegal, too, was dispatched within a quarter of a day. Uganda was penciled in for 3 hours, 15 minutes, less time than it took him to fly there from South Africa.

Mr. Bush has never been an enthusiastic traveler, and he is not one to lollygag, whatever he is doing. This is a man, after all, who has been known to play 18 holes of golf in less than two hours and to fidget impatiently when foreign leaders give long-winded answers at joint news conferences with him.

In this case, though, his schedule was not particularly frenetic. On Wednesday in South Africa, Mr. Bush met with President Thabo Mbeki in the morning, held a brief news conference, had lunch with Mr. Mbeki, visited a Ford Motor Company factory and had dinner with the American ambassador.

Concerns about security clearly limited Mr. Bush`s ability to get out and move around. But it was still striking that out of the four nights that the president was in Africa, he spent three of them in a luxury hotel in Pretoria, South Africa, one of the least colorful of the major cities on the continent.

Like many tourists, Mr. Bush could not resist making comparisons to home. As he was driven through the Mokolodi Nature Reserve in Botswana on Thursday, he was heard to say that it looked a lot like Crawford, Tex., the site of his beloved ranch, to which he will return next weekend.

Riding the Clinton Highway


As he jumped from country to country over the last five days, Mr. Bush often found himself following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who visited Africa in 1998 and again in 2000.

When he rode from the airport into Abuja, Nigeria`s capital, Mr. Bush found himself on Bill Clinton Highway. Like Mr. Clinton, he gave a speech on Gorée Island. His quick drive through the game park in Botswana, on the back of a pickup truck, inevitably drew comparisons to Mr. Clinton`s two-day safari in the same country in 1998.

Mr. Clinton often drew big, enthusiastic crowds, and he won over many of Africa`s leaders. Mr. Bush drew fewer, smaller crowds and found himself papering over differences with many of the governments he dropped in on. In South Africa there was a sizable demonstration against Mr. Bush outside the United States Embassy, notable because it had the tacit backing of Mr. Mbeki`s governing party, the African National Congress, which was critical of Mr. Bush over the war in Iraq.

Administration officials bristled at the Clinton comparisons. They said Mr. Bush had been well received and had brought with him far more activist and generous proposals to deal with Africa`s woes than had his predecessor.

"We`re not here for style, we`re here for substance," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "And I think the substance of this trip will compare to any previous trip by any former president."

Unscripted Passion


This is a White House that plans every trip down to the last detail and plots out every camera angle to make sure that Mr. Bush is always shown in the most presidential and flattering pose possible. So the horror of the White House advance team can only be imagined when Mr. Bush, Laura Bush and one of their twin daughters, Barbara, cameras trained on them as always, pulled up on a dusty drive in the game park in Botswana and encountered a male elephant determinedly but ultimately unsuccessfully trying to mate with a female.

The newspaper reporter who was taken along on the minisafari in the small pool that accompanies Mr. Bush wherever he goes, Samson Mulugeta of Newsday, described the scene to other reporters like this, using the abbreviations for President of the United States and First Lady of the United States: "As the pool convulsed into giggles, Potus turned back and smiled sheepishly. Barbara threw her head back in embarrassment and covered her face with her hands. Then Potus threw his cap over his face to shield himself from the impending coitus (which never materialized). Flotus`s expression was not visible from our angle."

Undeterred by this encounter with nature, Mr. Bush took up an invitation from the elephant trainer on the scene to get closer to some of the other animals. As he patted the elephants, Mr. Bush said, "Good boy."

Mrs. Bush called out, "O.K. darling, that`s enough."

Bush`s 2-Question Limit

Mr. Bush almost never holds formal news conferences. Instead, he frequently takes a few questions from reporters, especially after meetings with foreign leaders. He has a strict rule: he calls on two American reporters and his counterpart calls on two reporters from the other country`s press corps.

Mr. Bush is a stickler about the practice, even if it means chiding another leader on his own turf. When President Festus G. Mogae of Botswana tried to start one of these sessions on Thursday by saying, "Does anyone want to ask . . ." Mr. Bush cut him off good-naturedly and said, "That`s not the way we do it."

Whatever the humor in the situation, Mr. Bush`s two-question rule variously annoys and infuriates White House reporters, who have started to rebel. On Wednesday, when Mr. Bush and Mr. Mbeki held their "media availability" on the lush lawn of the presidential complex in Pretoria, many of the reporters on the trip chose not to attend, figuring they would not get a chance to ask a question anyway. South African and American reporters had been seated on opposite sides of the aisle, like friends of the bride and friends of the groom, and the result was a lot of empty chairs on the American side.

If Mr. Bush noticed, he gave no sign of it. And on Friday, when he appeared with President Yoweri K. Museveni of Uganda, he violated his own rule and took only one question.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 13, 2003
No Roman Holiday

Controversy trails Silvio Berlusconi like a swarm of angry hornets. On the day before the flamboyant Italian prime minister took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, his Parliament rescued him from a trial on charges of bribing a judge, by voting him immunity. That touched off an unusually fierce barrage in the European press.

Then, at his inaugural address to the European Parliament, Mr. Berlusconi lit into a German socialist who had been criticizing him, suggesting that the man would be good in the film role of a Nazi concentration camp guard. Mr. Berlusconi later said his "joke" had been misunderstood, but things got no funnier when a junior Italian tourism minister insulted the German tourists who flood into Italy every summer. Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, promptly canceled his Italian vacation. The tourism official apologized and resigned.

Mr. Berlusconi`s iffy humor is one of his trademarks, and it`s likely to make for a lively six months while he is president of the European Union — especially with a lot of left-wing politicians ready to pounce on him over his conservatism and for siding with Washington on Iraq. Whether he can cause real damage to Europe is another question. Beyond pomp and publicity, the presidency of the union is not where the real power lies.

That does not make Mr. Berlusconi`s insult to the German deputy, Martin Schulz, any less outrageous. By invoking Germany`s Nazi past, Mr. Berlusconi violated one of the critical taboos of the European Union: to leave national rivalries and hostile histories out of the public discourse. Chancellor Schröder was right to lead a chorus of demands for an apology.

It must be noted that Mr. Berlusconi came under an unacceptable barrage in the European legislature, where one banner read, "No Godfather for Europe." That does not justify his outburst. But the European leaders who rightly condemn him might also get some of their deputies to apologize, and make clear that this card is not in play.

A proper apology could put a lid back on. Or not. Mr. Berlusconi is not your ordinary Euro-pol. He`s a self-made media magnate, the wealthiest man in Italy, a conservative given to straight talk and a magnet for controversies. Many center on the conflict of interest between his media empire and his political office — which is what Mr. Schulz was going after when he was hammered.

All this makes for good "summer theater," the scandals that fill European papers during the political dog days. But the man who represents Europe is not supposed to supply the grist. His task is to set a tone of tolerance and inclusivity. That must be driven home to Mr. Berlusconi, at least for the next six months.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 13, 2003
Germans Are From Mars, Italians Are From Venus
By ROBERTO PAZZI


ERRARA, Italy
The tension between Germany and Italy, unleashed in recent days by the incautious words of Stefano Stefani, our tourism minister, has played out since ancient times.

Long before Mr. Stefani, who resigned on Friday, accused German tourists of invading Italy`s beaches and conducting burping contests, there has existed an ambivalent relationship of attraction and repulsion between our countries. Though this dynamic has stimulated culture, it has also brought about disquieting, even disastrous, political outcomes.

It all began with Rome under the emperor Augustus, when Varus`s Roman legions were exterminated by the German forces under Arminius in 9 A.D. in the forest of Teutoburg. Unlike Gaul, Germany was never colonized. It remained a perilous wedge into the Roman Empire, another civilization. For this reason, Germania became an object of idealization and myth in the work of the great historian Tacitus. He recognized, with bitterness, in the customs of the Germanic barbarians a purity of strength that his Romans had already lost. Tacitus foresaw that the end of Rome would come from Germany, and this is what indeed took place with the barbarian invasions.

First empire, then religion. Germany and Italy were kept apart by the tremendous battles over the religious investiture of the feudal rulers. This tension peaked with the humiliation Germany received at the hands of Pope Gregory VII, an Italian, when he compelled Henry IV, the German emperor, to do penance for three days in the snows of Canossa, where he had come to beg for remission of his excommunication in January 1077. Later it burst forth with Luther and the subsequent division of Europe into two modes of religious observation, Protestant in the north, Catholic in the south.

The half-Spanish, half-German Emperor Charles V vainly spent the 40 years of his reign (1516-1556) to force history back into the shell of unified Christianity. The sack of Rome was the monstrous apex of this encounter when, in 1527, Charles V`s Lutheran soldiers entered the eternal city, raping and murdering nuns and priests. The hoped-for union would never be recreated.

Later, with German Romanticism, the question blurs into literary and poetic mythmaking. Italy becomes the warm maternal center of Europe, the place where the egg of Greek civilization had come to be hatched. The ruins of Rome and Athens speak to those who interrogate them. Goethe idealizes the Mediterranean`s force of attraction — the land where lemons grow — with his "Italian Journey." Of course, there`s another side to this, too. Nationalists like the dramatist Heinrich von Kleist idealize a barbaric Germany, drawing on the Roman wars to write a tragedy based on the defeated Varus and Augustus.

As we know too well, this drama of sentimental ambivalence culminates in the equivocal, insincere, finally fatal friendship between two political colossi (not two innocuous poets, alas). The ruins of Germany and Italy left by World War II are still under the eyes of Italians, to remind us of the tragic fate of that unnatural alliance. Why unnatural?

Because Germans and Italians are made to love each other, but never to esteem each other. They are doomed to attract each other without mutual understanding. They fill the empty spaces in the others` mind. A military alliance between two such different peoples, apart from the representation of the two mad dictators in Chaplin`s film, is unthinkable. The Germans are the people of Luther, Leibniz, Bach, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche. Germany`s psyche is tempted, as Thomas Mann warned us in "Doctor Faustus," by a Luciferine dream of the Absolute, an intoxicating dream in which the Self dissolves into the All.

Italy, however, cradle of Greek and Latin Mediterranean civilization, is still infused with the Euripidean assumption: character is man`s destiny. Italians have always been incurable and marvelous individualists, resistant to any dream of the absolute, including the Christian one. Their Catholic faith is but a veil covering the pagan cult of beauty, imagination, youth, glory, etc. We call it success, but really it`s the need of an exceptional Self — a Greek hero like Ulysses or a saint like Augustine of Hippo — to distinguish oneself from the crowd.

Just look at our prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. He`s a rich man who derides professional politicians and who has made millions of Italians dream of emulating his luck by voting for him. What better expression of the Italian individualistic soul could there be?

Certainly narcissism, that dreadful postmodern malady, is the not so latent risk of this habit of mind. Indeed, Mr. Berlusconi`s reply to Martin Schulz, the German member of the European Parliament, likening him to a commandant of a concentration camp, shows the darker side of this sensibility.

Are these two nations fated never to understand each other, then? Where on earth can Germany and Italy meet and find a balancing point? Perhaps only in the course of constructing a united Europe, a dwelling that will depend on respect for diversity of character and attitudes. Until then, let us hope we can make it through the summer holidays — on the beaches of Italy and in the mountains of Germany — in peace.


Roberto Pazzi is author, most recently, of ‘‘Conclave,’’ a novel. This article was translated by Ann McGarrell from the Italian.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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National House of Waffles
By MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

More and more, with Bush administration pronouncements about the Iraq war, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

W. built his political identity on the idea that he was not Bill Clinton. He didn`t parse words or prevaricate. He was the Texas straight shooter.

So why is he now presiding over a completely Clintonian environment, turning the White House into a Waffle House, where truth is camouflaged by word games and responsibility is obscured by shell games?

The president and Condi Rice can shuffle the shells and blame George Tenet, but it smells of mendacity.

Mr. Clinton indulged in casuistry to hide personal weakness. The Bush team indulges in casuistry to perpetuate its image of political steel.

Dissembling over peccadillos is pathetic. Dissembling over pre-emptive strikes is pathological, given over 200 Americans dead and 1,000 wounded in Iraq, and untold numbers of dead Iraqis. Our troops are in "a shooting gallery," as Teddy Kennedy put it, and our spy agencies warn that we are on the cusp of a new round of attacks by Saddam snipers.

Why does it always come to this in Washington? The people who ascend to power on the promise of doing things differently end up making the same unforced errors their predecessors did. Out of office, the Bush crowd mocked the Clinton propensity for stonewalling; in office, they have stonewalled the 9/11 families on the events that preceded the attacks, and the American public on how — and why — they maneuvered the nation into the Iraqi war.

Their defensive crouch and obsession with secrecy are positively Nixonian. (But instead of John Dean and an aggressive media, they have Howard Dean and a cowed media.)

In a hole, the president should have done some plain speaking: "The information I gave you in the State of the Union about Iraq seeking nuclear material from Africa has been revealed to be false. I`m deeply angry and I`m going to get to the bottom of this."

But of course he couldn`t say that. He would be like Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles," holding the gun to his own head and saying, "Nobody move or POTUS gets it." The Bush administration has known all along that the evidence of the imminent threat of Saddam`s weapons and the Al Qaeda connections were pumped up. They were manning the air hose.

Mr. Tenet, in his continuing effort to ingratiate himself to his bosses, agreed to take the fall, trying to minimize a year`s worth of war-causing warping of intelligence as a slip of the keyboard. "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," he said, in 15 words that were clearly written for him on behalf of the president. But it won`t fly.

It was Ms. Rice`s responsibility to vet the intelligence facts in the president`s speech and take note of the red alert the tentative Tenet was raising. Colin Powell did when he set up camp at the C.I.A. for a week before his U.N. speech, double-checking what he considered unsubstantiated charges that the Cheney chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and other hawks wanted to sluice into his talk.

When the president attributed the information about Iraq trying to get Niger yellowcake to British intelligence, it was a Clintonian bit of flim-flam. Americans did not know what top Bush officials knew: that this "evidence" could not be attributed to American intelligence because the C.I.A. had already debunked it.

Ms. Rice did not throw out the line, even though the C.I.A. had warned her office that it was sketchy. Clearly, a higher power wanted it in.

And that had to be Dick Cheney`s office. Joseph Wilson, former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, said he was asked to go to Niger to answer some questions from the vice president`s office about that episode and reported back that it was highly doubtful.

But doubt is not the currency of the Bush hawks. Asked if he regretted using the Niger claim, Mr. Bush replied: "There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to world peace. And there`s no doubt in my mind that the United States, along with allies and friends, did the right thing in removing him from power. And there`s no doubt in my mind, when it`s all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth."

I`m happy that Mr. Bush`s mental landscape is so cloudless. But it is our doubts he needs to assuage.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct.
Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear

By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A01


CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials.

Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged.

The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq`s nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director. It also appears to raise questions about the administration`s explanation of how the faulty allegations were included in the State of the Union speech.

It is unclear why Tenet failed to intervene in January to prevent the questionable intelligence from appearing in the president`s address to Congress when Tenet had intervened three months earlier in a much less symbolic speech. That failure may underlie his action Friday in taking responsibility for not stepping in again to question the reference. "I am responsible for the approval process in my agency," he said in Friday`s statement.

As Bush left Africa yesterday to return to Washington from a five-day trip overshadowed by the intelligence blunder, he was asked whether he considered the matter over. "I do," he replied. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday that "the president has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well."

But it is clear from the new disclosure about Tenet`s intervention last October that the controversy continues to boil, and as new facts emerge a different picture is being presented than the administration has given to date.

Details about the alleged attempt by Iraq to buy as much as 500 tons of uranium oxide were contained in a national intelligence estimate (NIE) that was concluded in late September 2002. It was that same reference that the White House wanted to use in Bush`s Oct. 7 speech that Tenet blocked, the sources said. That same intelligence report was the basis for the 16-word sentence about Iraq attempting to buy uranium in Africa that was contained in the January State of the Union address that has drawn recent attention.

Administration sources said White House officials, particularly those in the office of Vice President Cheney, insisted on including Hussein`s quest for a nuclear weapon as a prominent part of their public case for war in Iraq. Cheney had made the potential threat of Hussein having a nuclear weapon a central theme of his August 2002 speeches that began the public buildup toward war with Baghdad.

In the Oct. 7 Cincinnati speech, the president for the first time outlined in detail the threat Hussein posed to the United States on the eve of a congressional vote authorizing war. Bush talked in part about "evidence" indicating that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The president listed Hussein`s "numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists," satellite photographs showing former nuclear facilities were being rebuilt, and Iraq`s attempts to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes for use in enriching uranium for nuclear weapons.

There was, however, no mention of Niger or even attempts to purchase uranium from other African countries, which was contained in the NIE and also included in a British intelligence dossier that had been published a month earlier.

By January, when conversations took place with CIA personnel over what could be in the president`s State of the Union speech, White House officials again sought to use the Niger reference since it still was in the NIE.

"We followed the NIE and hoped there was more intelligence to support it," a senior administration official said yesterday. When told there was nothing new, White House officials backed off, and as a result "seeking uranium from Niger was never in drafts," he said.

Tenet raised no personal objection to the ultimate inclusion of the sentence, attributed to Britain, about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa. His statement on Friday said he should have. "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," the CIA director said.

Bush said in Abuja, Nigeria, yesterday that he continues to have faith in Tenet. "I do, absolutely," he said. "I`ve got confidence in George Tenet; I`ve got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA."

There is still much that remains unclear about who specifically wanted the information inserted in the State of the Union speech, or why repeated concerns about the allegations were ignored.

"The information was available within the system that should have caught this kind of big mistake," a former Bush administration official said. "The question is how the management of the system, and the process that supported it, allowed this kind of misinformation to be used and embarrass the president."

Senior Bush aides said they do not believe they have a communication problem within the White House that prevented them from acting on any of the misgivings about the information that were being expressed at lower levels of the government.

"I`m sure there will have to be some retracing of steps, and that`s what`s happening," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. "The mechanical process, we think is fine. Will more people now give more, tighter scrutiny going forward? Of course."

A senior administration official said Bush`s chief speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson, does not remember who wrote the line that has wound up causing the White House so much grief.

Officials said three speechwriters were at the core of the State of the Union team, and that they worked from evidence against Iraq provided by the National Security Council. NSC officials dealt with the CIA both in gathering material for the speech and later in vetting the drafts.

Officials involved in preparing the speech said there was much more internal debate over the next line of the speech, when Bush said in reference to Hussein, "Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in his Feb. 5 presentation to the United Nations, noted a disagreement about Iraq`s intentions for the tubes, which can be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium. The U.N.`s International Atomic Energy Agency had raised those questions two weeks before the State of the Union address, saying Hussein claimed nonnuclear intentions for the tubes. In March, the IAEA said it found Hussein`s claim credible, and could all but rule out the use of the tubes in a nuclear program.

Staff writer Dana Milbank contributed to this report from Nigeria.



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The Informer in Their Midst
Friend Unveiled as Cog in Hussein`s System of Treachery

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A01


SUWAYRAH, Iraq -- The tape was already running as the two men reached the cafe. Ordinary sounds from a distant past are heard: the rustle of their clothes as they walked, the turn of some loose dirt underfoot, the nearby happy shrieks of children at play. The sounds crowd in on snatches of conversation that began, always, with the warm greeting between two old friends: Faleh Hassan Hmoud, a carpenter, and Salem Joda Shokan Zubeidi, a teacher.

"Ya akhi," they said to each other, "Oh, my brother."

They were neighbors who had known each other since childhood, eaten in each other`s houses, and in the evenings, as young single men, hung out together at a local cafe in this town near the Tigris River, 30 miles southeast of Baghdad. Hmoud was a tall, heavyset man with a full moustache and a back-slapping personality; Zubeidi was slighter of build, and more reserved.

The year was 1980. Into the night, in the company of friends, they whispered conspiratorially over coffee about the charged politics of the day and the recent ascension to power of Saddam Hussein, a man they both professed to despise.

The tape turned. Hidden somewhere on the body or clothing of Hmoud, its contents later sent Zubeidi, his "brother," to the gallows. Others around the cafe table were also executed.

After the fall of Hussein`s government, a number of audiotapes incriminating Hmoud, along with extensive police files detailing his activities, were found in the archives of the secret police. Hmoud`s family, joining the Zubeidis in outrage, said in interviews that they are convinced of his guilt. The man they all still refer to by his first name, Faleh, has fled, but his family remains behind.

"He deserves to be shot," said Mahmoud Shakir Mahmoud, Hmoud`s brother-in-law. "Faleh was a dirty, sick man."

Iraq was riddled with informers, according to Iraqis and human rights groups. They were on street corners, in neighborhoods, workplaces, high schools, universities, hospitals, mosques -- even in the intimacy of apparent friendship. Iraqis learned to fear not only the system but each other.

The poison of this treachery will last long after the ouster of Hussein. Like Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, Iraq will have to balance the desire for vengeance among victims with the difficulty of bringing to trial an entire system of repression, which reached down to every neighborhood cafe.

"I want blood," cried Zubeidi`s sister-in-law in the family home last week.

Salem`s older brother, Salman, vowed that if any justice system is to deal with Hmoud, he must be sentenced to death. "I will wait," he said after being counseled to be patient by a religious leader in the holy city of Najaf. But if the new courts of Iraq do not act, Salman threatened: "I will kill him. That is my right."

Iraq`s reckoning with history is buried, in part, in millions of government documents scattered across the country, and the information they contain will resonate for years. "It`s a documented oppression; it`s all written down," said Mona Rishmawi, senior human rights adviser to the United Nations special envoy to Iraq. "But we need to build the kind of evidence that can be presented before any court in the world -- not blind vengeance. We need to make justice something real for the victims."

Voice of the Betrayer
In early April, as the previous government fell, the citizens of the city of Kut, the capital of a province that includes Suwayrah, stormed the headquarters of the state`s general security agency. The files of more than two decades of secret police work were carried away, among them a yellowed paper folder chronicling the betrayal of Salem Zubeidi in 1980 and the role of the man -- code-named "Moudhir" in the police file -- who turned him in.

Who among the many in Zubeidi`s circle had sold out the 27-year-old teacher of Arabic? Who was "Moudhir"? The written documents tantalize without ever answering. An accounting with the past might well have stopped there, a mystery trapped in speculation, never to be resolved.

In an extraordinary discovery, however, Zubeidi`s file also contained some micro-cassette tapes stored in manila envelopes. Other tapes surfaced in other Suwayrah files. The voice on each, prodding conversations in dangerous directions, was the same: Faleh Hassan Hmoud, according to Hmoud`s relatives, former friends of both Hmoud and Zubeidi and members of the families of the executed.

All of the material, including files on two other executed men linked to Hmoud, was provided for review by Zubeidi`s family. Hmoud`s family said they believe the material is authentic. A reporter listened to the tapes with the assistance of an interpreter.

"Faleh was always talking against the regime," said Ali Hussein Muhsin, 48, an occasional guest at the cafe table who later that summer left to fight in the Iran-Iraq war, where he was captured and spent 10 years as a prisoner of war. "We knew him as a communist so we used to talk to him about political matters. We never doubted him."

Until this April, Hmoud, now 48, was an increasingly prosperous member of the community. After growing up poor, he had expanded his carpentry work into a shop. By 1990 he was trading grains and later moved into the date business. He opened a grocery store.

He was a father of four children. For the last 24 years, a period in which he allegedly sent at least six men to their death, he played his role to perfection. He shook his head at the government`s cruelty -- and expressed sympathy for those left grieving for the vanished. He became publicly devout, frequenting the mosque and making pilgrimages to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, his relatives and neighbors recalled.

"News about the tapes was spread in the town and I heard it like everyone else, in the street," said Jalil Baqir Mahmoud, 49, who is a cousin of Hmoud`s wife. "At first I couldn`t believe it. Faleh`s wife phoned me. I told her I think they are wrong. A voice will change on a tape over the years and they are mixed up. I called Salman, Salem`s brother and said, `How can you be sure this is Faleh?` "

The cousin continued: "When I went to Salman`s house and heard the tape I was shocked because once he spoke, I recognized him right away. This is Faleh, 100 percent. I called his wife and let her listen to the tape. She just listened for a few minutes and she said, `That`s enough.` "

Hmoud`s wife, Nidhal Shakir Mahmoud, who is suffering from breast cancer, did not wish to be interviewed, according to relatives. Hmoud has been ostracized by his relatives, who fear they will be stigmatized by his actions.

Shortly after they discovered the tapes, the Zubeidis took them to the main market street in town to play for anyone who would listen. Anger mixed with bafflement because the stain of suspicion, which fell on so many others, had never touched Hmoud.

When he first heard the tape, Salman Zubeidi became hysterical, picked up an ax and set out from his home to kill Hmoud. He was restrained by his sons and neighbors, according to Salman and his family. "He was our neighbor, Salem`s friend. He came to our house to eat," said Salman, the eldest of four brothers, his face gaunt from the pain of reminiscence.

The Deception`s Beginnings
The treachery began in June 1980, according to the police files.

The Iranian revolution was still young that summer. It had galvanized many of Iraq`s majority Shiite Muslim population, which had long been dominated by the Sunni minority. Fearing that zeal from the revolution would spill over into Iraq, Hussein intensified a crackdown on the Iraqi Shiite community.

Membership in the Shiite political movement, the Dawa, or Islamic Call party, was made punishable by death. Leading Shiite clerics were murdered.

The violence extended into the ruling Baath Party. At a videotaped party meeting in Baghdad five days after he became president in July 1979, Hussein alleged that some of his party comrades were involved in a Syrian-sponsored plot against the country. Before 1,000 delegates, 66 alleged conspirators were denounced, led out of the hall and shot.

At the cafe, all this was the stuff of conversation. The men even chatted about who in Suwayrah might be an informant.

The discussion also was filled with the mundane -- the quality of bricks to build a house, the state of the roads, a local sewage project.

The tapes are scratchy and not always comprehensible. In one snippet of conversation, they talk about a speech by Iran`s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Then, Hmoud asks: "What did Saddam Hussein say yesterday? Did you read the newspaper and his speech to the workers?"

"This is not a man," said Zubeidi. Adopting a mocking tone, he mimics Hussein`s speech. "Anyone who strikes us with a stone on our borders, we will bomb him.` " Zubeidi`s voice trails off in disgust.

Hmoud was supposedly a member of the Iraqi Communist Party, which at the time was also being ruthlessly suppressed by the Baathists. Joined in their apparent hatred of the government, Hmoud and Zubeidi expressed curiosity about each other`s political philosophy.

Hmoud told Zubeidi that he could get him books by the executed Iraqi Shiite scholar, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr Sadr, who the government had feared could become the Iraqi equivalent of Khomeini. Sadr, along with his sister, another leading thinker, was killed in 1980. Zubeidi asked for copies of Sadr`s books, "Our Philosophy" and "Our Economy."

The file notes that the police had trouble finding a copy of "Our Economy" and found only "Our Philosophy" by the "executed criminal," as the file put it. When Hmoud handed the book to Zubeidi, the teacher laughed because it was a censored edition published by the Ministry of Information in Baghdad, according to the file.

Zubeidi said he could get a Lebanese edition from a friend, Hashim Ali Kadhim, a religious student, a fateful admission that would buttress another investigation leading to the arrest and execution of Kadhim and his brother, Merza, both of whom were part of the cafe circle.

A few days later, Zubeidi handed Hmoud the Lebanese edition inscribed by Kadhim; "For my respected brother, Salem." A photocopy of the inscription was found in the file.

The young men often spoke of Hussein. On July 17, 1980, the informer reported that he had met Salem on July 9 when he said: "Salem attacked the character of the leader, President Saddam Hussein, saying the Syrian conspiracy in 1979 was not a conspiracy and Syria had nothing to do with this operation. This operation was just the elimination of the leadership because they didn`t want Saddam Hussein as leader."

In a report dated Aug. 28, Hmoud reported that Salem said Hussein "considers himself an important man in the world but his speeches are meaningless. I feel embarrassed when I hear his speeches."

The Trap Closes
By early September, the police were ready to strike. Hmoud and Zubeidi left the cafe together early on the morning of Sept. 5, according to Zubeidi`s cousin, Khalaf Aaid Shokan, who was also at the cafe that night.

By 3 a.m., Zubeidi`s family was searching for him and quickly arrived at Hmoud`s house, rousing him from bed.

"Faleh came out and he was very terrified, all of his body was shaking," said Shokan. "He said the security took Salem and warned him not to talk to anyone about what he had seen."

Separately, Abdul Hussein Hussein Abdullah Rubai, 24, who was also at the cafe with Zubeidi and Hmoud, was arrested that night. He was later executed with Zubeidi.

A police mug shot taken after his arrest shows Zubeidi drawn and haggard, his eyes wide with fright, not the carefree young man of his family`s memory, preserved in a revered graduation photo. The police initially told the family that Zubeidi was held only for questioning, and would be released quickly. As the weeks and months dragged on, the police simply ignored family members, warning them to stop their inquiries or more of them would be arrested.

At one point, inside the prison, the police tried to recruit Zubeidi to become an informer. The file contains a note in Zubeidi`s handwriting that reads, "I, the one who signed below, Salem Joda Shokan Zubeidi, promise to be a good citizen working to serve my country, my nation and the 17th of July Revolution and will cooperate with the security services for the public benefit and write down anything I find which is against the interests of the Baath Party and the Revolution."

On Sept. 4 ,1983, the Revolutionary Court, which heard political cases, sentenced Zubeidi and his friend Rubai to death. The two were executed by hanging along with three other men shortly afterward, according to the police files. Zubeidi`s and Rubai`s families do not know the other three men.

Zubeidi`s brother, Salman, was dismissed from the army without a pension after more than 20 years` service. Two of his sisters, Karima and Naiima, lost their jobs as teachers in a local elementary school. And the file shows the family was kept under surveillance until 2000.

The family, after repeated entreaties, finally learned of the execution in May 1984, after Zubeidi`s mother went to Baghdad to appeal in person. A telegram from Baghdad to Kut reads: "He was sentenced to death and hanged until dead. . . . Please inform her of that." A follow-up telegram on May 22, 1984, says, "The family of the criminal was informed."

In Salem Zubeidi`s file is also a handwritten note, dated August 1980. It records that Hmoud got about $100 for betraying his friend. "Please reward our agent with 30 dinars for his efforts," the note says.



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Iraq Cost Could Mount to $100 Billion
Impact on Other Programs Feared

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A22


The cost of the war and occupation of Iraq could reach $100 billion through next year, substantially higher than anticipated at the war`s outset, according to defense and congressional aides. This is raising worries that other military needs will go unmet while the government is swamped in red ink.

The cost of the war so far, about $50 billion, already represents a 14 percent increase to military spending planned for this year. Even before the United States invaded Iraq in March, President Bush had proposed defense budgets through 2008 that would rise to $460 billion a year, up 74 percent from the $265 billion spent on defense in 1996, when the current buildup began.

At the same time, the federal budget deficit is exploding. This week, officials expect to announce that it will exceed $400 billion for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, the largest in U.S. history by a wide margin. Former White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. said last month the deficit should be smaller next year, but economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- factoring rising war costs -- said Friday the deficit may climb even higher than their previous $475 billion estimate.

"It`s already unclear whether [the Bush defense buildup] is sustainable," said Steven M. Kosiak, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Add another $50 billion, and it`s doubly unclear."

Administration officials concede that spending levels in Iraq are considerably higher than anticipated. At the onset of war, Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon`s chief financial officer, said post-combat operations were expected to cost about $2.2 billion a month. By early June, he had adjusted that forecast to $3 billion. But with about 145,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq, some under fire, costs have continued to climb.

The average monthly "burn rate" from January to April, a span encompassing the "heavy combat" phase of the war, was $4.1 billion, Zakheim said. That is not much higher than current expenditure rate of $3.9 billion a month for the occupation, even though most of the Navy and Air Force contingents have been sent home.

"We`ve peaked out," Zakheim said, "but we are still there in a way that we perhaps didn`t think we would be at this point."

Defense experts worry that the cost of actual operations in Iraq understates the impact of those operations on military and federal spending. Indirect costs of a protracted conflict could include new funding for military recruiting and the retention of exhausted troops ready to leave the services, Kosiak said.

If 100,000 or more troops remain in Iraq a year from now, there will be political pressure to increase the overall size of the Army. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he would seek to add two new heavy divisions to the existing 10, or as many as 32,000 troops. Hunter inserted language in the defense authorization bill pending in Congress to prohibit any base closings that would harm the Army`s ability to field 12 divisions.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Republicans contended that President Clinton had stretched the military too thin with the deployment of 10,000 troops in the Balkans, Kosiak noted. Now, there are 16 times that many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, and the grumbling is beginning again. Sens. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) practically pleaded with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for a larger Army when he appeared last week before the Armed Services Committee.

"I know your close communications with the [Army] Reserve component will convince you, as it`s convinced me and many of the members of this panel, that there`s got to be relief," Inhofe told Rumsfeld.

Right now, the Army`s 3rd and 4th Infantry divisions, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, 1st Armored Division and 173rd Airborne Brigade are all serving in Iraq, as are elements of the Army`s V Corps, according to the Army. Nineteen of the Army`s 33 brigades are deployed abroad. Only one division, the 1st Cavalry, is being held in reserve.

Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the war will likely lead to delays in new weapons purchases and some weapons development.

Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the conservative Lexington Institute, said elements of Rumsfeld`s "transformation" of the military into a smaller, quicker force will undoubtedly have to be put on hold.

"The big budgetary question is not what it`s costing us today," Thompson said. "It`s the costs of reservists not reenlisting. It`s the cost of active-duty [troops] giving up on a career that proved just too difficult to sustain, and the costs of equipment that is not being maintained at any level that can be considered adequate."

Pentagon officials are not nearly so pessimistic. Although Zakheim refused to venture how many troops would be in Iraq in a year, Defense Department documents sent to Congress last week indicate the Pentagon "assumes that only a limited number of U.S. forces will remain" there by September 2004. However, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the retired commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told lawmakers last week that troops could be in Iraq as long as four years from now.

Zakheim strongly dismissed concerns over morale, troop retention and recruiting.

"The people on the ground really seem to want to stay there," said Zakheim, who recently returned from Baghdad. "Even the people I visited in hospital, their number one objective is to get back into theater. People sign up to do just what they`re doing."

Such comments have fueled Democratic criticism that the administration is not facing up to the facts in Iraq, nor is it addressing the hard choices they present.

"It`s been hide the ball every step of the way," said Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. "They`ve consistently understated the cost by a factor of several-fold, and they`ve done everything they can not to share information."

Said Spratt: "Fifty billion dollars to a $400 billion deficit -- that`s a significant addition that should have some bearing on tax cuts and other spending decisions."

Two antiwar activists, Elias Vlanton of Takoma Park, and Niko Matsakis of Boston, are keeping a running tally of the war costs on their www.costofwar.comWeb site. Among the site`s assertions: the $67 billion spent this year on the war and Iraqi reconstruction could have put 9.5 million more children in Head Start, financed the hiring of 1.3 million schoolteachers, or covered the health insurance costs of 29 million children.

Next year`s costs are more difficult to discern. Although the administration has "a pretty good sense of what`s going to be on the ground" Sept. 30, Zakheim said, it will not request funding now for Iraqi operations in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The defense spending bills for fiscal 2004 pending in Congress do not provide money for the occupation.

"We at least need to have some good estimates," Spratt said. "This is a big footnote to the budget. The budget does not adequately reflect all the costs that we know are going to be incurred in the coming fiscal year."

Even Republican aides on Capitol Hill complain that the Defense Department has been far too reluctant to own up to the budgetary costs of the war.

Zakheim defended the administration`s budget policymaking as "open" and "above board," saying that ongoing military operations have traditionally been funded through emergency budget requests, not the base Pentagon budget.

"It is far more responsible to the taxpayer for us to get a better fix on what the costs are going be, then come in" with a request, he said. "Maybe in two months` time, things will be so different that everything we`re talking about now will be seriously OBE`d" -- overtaken by events.



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Cost of the War in Iraq
$67,932,961,402
http://costofwar.com/

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953
War affects everyone, not just those directly involved in the fighting. This webpage is a simple attempt to demonstrate one of the more quantifiable effects of war: the financial burden it places on our tax dollars.

To the right you will find a running total of the amount of money spent by the US Government to finance the war in Iraq. This total is based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Below the total are a number of different ways that we could have chosen to use the money. Try clicking on them; you might be surprised to learn what a difference we could have

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Former Exiles Given Majority on Iraqi Council
U.S. and Britain Revise Plans in Choosing 25-Member Governing Body

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A23


BAGHDAD, July 12 -- Iraqi leaders and the U.S.-led occupation authority agreed today to give a slight majority of seats on a 25-member governing council to people who had lived outside the limits of ousted president Saddam Hussein`s government, Iraqis involved in the process said.

The makeup of the council, which will have broad executive powers during the postwar occupation, is a significant victory for political groups that had opposed Hussein`s government from exile. But it is a reversal for the authority, whose leaders had planned to give Iraqis who lived under Hussein a majority on the council. U.S. and British officials here have been concerned that granting former exiles and ethnic Kurds a majority could weaken support for the council among the many Iraqis who view the former exiles with suspicion.

Although top U.S. and British officials here had initially sought to keep former exiles and Kurds in the minority, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and other senior officials agreed to revise their formula after lobbying by political leaders who had been in exile. The Iraqi leaders argued that placing more people with political skills on the council, even if they had lived outside the country, would give the group the best chance of success.

For the occupation authority, that outcome has become increasingly important. Instead of limiting the council to an advisory body, Bremer and other top U.S. and British officials here now believe that forming a council that has broad responsibility for day-to-day governance could help to channel some of the anger away from the U.S. occupation authority over the slow resumption of basic services.

The change was driven by intense pressure from several political groups that had been in exile, particularly the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which demanded that some people tapped by the authority to join the governing council be stricken from the list, Iraqi political leaders said. A representative of the Supreme Council, the largest political party representing Iraq`s Shiite Muslim majority, asserted that one of the people advocated by the occupation authority, a liberal Shiite cleric from the town of Hilla, had links to Hussein`s intelligence service, the leaders said.

After tense negotiations, U.S. and British officials acceded to demands from the Supreme Council and other parties that some of the names be changed out of concern that the Supreme Council would pull out, people involved in the process said.

At least two replacements for those who were removed are Iraqis who did not live under Hussein`s government in recent years: Hamid Majid Musa, the leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, who lived in autonomous Kurdish-controlled Iraq, and Samir Mahmoud Shaker, a businessman from the city of Ramadi, who participated in a conference of exiles before the war.

"They drove a very hard bargain," a diplomat familiar with the selection process said of the Supreme Council.

Representatives of the occupation authority could not be reached for comment.

The council will be comprised of 13 Shiites, five Sunni Muslims, five Kurds, one Turkman and one Assyrian Christian, Iraqi political leaders said. Three members will be women, they said.

The body will include leaders of the country`s seven main political groups, all of whom had lived outside Iraq or in Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Iraq. They are Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Ayad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord, Abdul Aziz Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa party and Nasir Chaderchi of the National Democratic Party.

Hoshyar Zebari, a senior official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said representatives of the seven groups urged Bremer and his top political aide, Ryan Crocker, a State Department official, to add people with political experience. Because Hussein did not allow any political organization other than his ruling Baath Party, most of those with meaningful political experience have spent at least some time in exile.

"If we`re going to assume real responsibility, there is a need for the governing council to have a strong political element to it," Zebari said. He said Iraqi political leaders expressed "some disappointment at the quality of the internal leaders."

A spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of exile groups that advocated a strong role for returning Iraqis, said the council`s membership was "very positive."

The council has scheduled a meeting for Sunday morning and a news conference after.

In a private meeting today, Bremer and the leaders of seven large political organizations agreed on the language of an executive order he will issue authorizing the council`s formation and outlining its powers and responsibilities, attendees of the meeting said.

Bremer has promised that the council would have the power to approve next year`s budget, select and dismiss government ministers, appoint diplomats and set up a "preparatory commission" to decide how the country`s new constitution should be written, participants in the meeting said. In today`s document, Bremer stated that the council would have the right to prepare policies on matters concerning Iraq`s national security, its armed forces and the justice sector.

Also today, attackers in a passing pickup truck threw a homemade bomb at U.S. soldiers guarding a hospital in downtown Baghdad, slightly injuring one of them, the Associated Press reported.



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Fighting for the Soul of Islam


By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page B07


Why do they hate them? That is the question to ask in the wake of the slaughter of 53 people by Islamic suicide attackers in a mosque in Quetta, Pakistan, on July 4.

This was no isolated local atrocity, no jihad against Zionist oppressors, no blow delivered by the underdog against American crusaders. These victims were poor Shiite Muslims. As with the bombs set off in Saudi Arabia and Morocco a few weeks ago, this assault in southwestern Pakistan involved Muslims killing Muslims in the name of religion. It was part and parcel of an expanding civil war within Islam that is being fought across an extended region vital to U.S. interests.

Americans tend to think of their country as the center of global virtue. When Osama bin Laden`s henchmen killed more than 3,000 people on American soil on 9/11, politicians and pundits rushed to ask, about Arabs in particular and Muslims in general: Why do they hate us?

But events since then have shown that this was too self-centered and exclusionary a reflex. Those who hate in this way hate much more than us. Their fury is part of a bigger picture that is succinctly and expertly treated by historian Bernard Lewis in his new book, "The Crisis in Islam." As Lewis points out, the radicals have an entire world to destroy before their apocalyptic design of restoring the Islamic caliphate can be realized.

Instead of asking with embarrassing, self-referential introspection why they hate us, American politicians and pundits should be pointing out that the first, most important line of this battle must be fought by Muslims in the battle for the soul of Islam.

The key to winning that battle lies in the mobilization of a revitalized Islamic mainstream that will reassert and protect itself from the extremists. Islam, like other great religions, has periodically had to rescue itself from movements that would hijack an entire faith. This is such a moment.

The American way of life, U.S. support for Israel and Washington`s military power provoke specific animosities toward the United States by the jihadists. But their rage against those they consider fallen-away Muslims is as great. Apostates are the worst of all infidels.

Arab leaders who exercise power through the nation-states created in the colonial era are turncoats and usurpers. Islamic radicalism has become a vehicle for the power-mad, such as bin Laden. Islamic moderation is the best antidote to their ideological poisons. The United States on its own cannot reform the Muslim world. Only Muslims can do that.

But Washington can be a catalyst to introduce change into the grim stalemate that now exists between the two main branches of Islam: the Sunni majority, which controls the governments and commerce of most Arab countries, and the Shiites, who govern Iran but are downtrodden elsewhere.

As long as the leaderships of both communities were absorbed in pan-Arabism, nationalist struggles and the Cold War, Islam was dormant as a political force. But in 1979 a Shiite theocracy took power in Iran after the overthrow of the shah and set off a chain reaction throughout the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia by vowing to export its revolution.

The Wahhabist Sunni establishment of Saudi Arabia responded by pouring its oil wealth into a fierce counterrevolution. Muslim governments either sought to profit by taking funds from both contending factions or looked the other way and pretended no religious conflict was occurring.

The United States has largely stumbled its way into a central role in this conflict of religious extremes. Uncomfortable with admitting and analyzing the role of religion in politics abroad as well as at home, American policymakers rely almost exclusively on the region`s political authorities and U.S. military power as levers of policy.

Washington has been slow to capture the depth and breadth of the competing Islamic revolutions and their long historical roots. Lewis argues persuasively that the conditions that create movements such as bin Laden`s al Qaeda are almost as old as Islam. They have more to do with the way in which the religion developed than with any particular "us." We are stand-ins for and acolytes of the Muslims who are the main target of the radicals` fury.

The entire political system that has prevailed in the Muslim world since the end of the colonial era is under attack. It is not up to Americans to decide whether the survival of the nation-state, as it exists in Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere, is compatible with Islam. That is a task for Muslims, who themselves should be asking, "Why do they hate us?"



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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July 9, 2003


Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush?
The Importance of Tipping
By DAVID LINDORFF

Tipping.

That`s the new watchword.

When does the situation facing American troops in Iraq deteriorate to the point that public sentiment "tips" against further U.S. involvement and against the Bush administration`s policy of occupation and "nation building"?

The signs, for American GI`s and for George Bush`s reelection hopes, are getting grimmer.

Already 70 American soldiers have died in Iraq since virtual fly-boy Bush prematurely declared the war to be "over" in a staged victory rally aboard an aircraft carrier off San Diego harbor.

A search for the terms "guerrilla war" and "Iraq" turns up hundreds of citations, most dating from about the middle of June onward. Some, like an article on June 18 in the Detroit Free Press, simply use the term "guerrilla war" in news reports as an unremarkable and most apt characterization of the current military situation in Iraq. Others, like an article on June 23 in the Christian Science Monitor, use the term in editorials warning that the situation threatens to become a "quagmire," (another Vietnam-era term that`s returning to currency). Still others use the term in articles warning that the current crisis is heading towards a Vietnam-like situation.

Any way you look at it, there is a growing acceptance in the media that the U.S. is not in control of events in Iraq, is not being viewed as a liberator by Iraqi people, and is facing mounting military threats.

The mounting alarm at this shift in coverage seems to be greater at the Pentagon and the White House than concerns about the actual attacks on American troops themselves, though if those attacks continue to increase in frequency and severity, that could change. For now, though, the Bush administration`s panic at the spreading popularity of the term "guerrilla war" in the formerly worshipful national media is understandable.

If the American media continue to increasingly portray Iraq as a dangerous hell hole for American soldiers, and continue to play up the American body count each day, the American public will quickly start to view this Bush military adventure they way they came to view President Johnson`s military adventure in Indochina--as a disaster.

This shift in public attitude in Johnson`s case took several years to develop. But Johnson had several advantages not available to Bush. First of all, he began as a hugely popular president, having won election in a landslide. Second, most Americans believed that America had been attacked in Vietnam. Few knew or believed until years later that the alleged attack on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin was a sham). Johnson also had the advantage that he was sending American soldiers into a war that he hadn`t started (the Indochina conflict dated back to the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration took over the battle against Ho Chi Minh`s anti-colonial revolutionaries from France). In Bush`s case, on the other hand, the blame for any military disaster in Iraq belongs unambiguously with him and his advisers. This was a war quite publicly started by Bush, and it is widely understood already that he started it based upon lies made to the American public. It is his war to lose.

Why the sudden shift in the U.S. media, from unabashed war boosterism to increasing skepticism?

The answer is simple: the continued killing of American troops.

For the first time since at least 9/11, the dynamic of the corporate media business is working against Bush`s interests. Top management at the media conglomerates may still have a strong political affinity for the Bush administration, with its anti-regulation ideology and its general pro-business, pro-rich policies, but dead soldiers make great news, and the news business lives and dies on ratings and circulation.

Viewers and readers eat up stories about innocent, dedicated young soldiers getting killed in the line of duty, particularly by nefarious guerrillas who shoot and run instead of standing and fighting so they can be wasted for their crimes. We are hooked on these stories because they get us angry--first of course at those who are doing the killing, but before too long, also at those in power who are putting our "boys" in harm`s way.

Add to that the growing awareness that the reasons for sending American troops into Iraq were bogus in the first place, and you quickly shift to a broad opposition to administration policy.

All this could happen--indeed is happening--very rapidly. First the media has to tip from support for the war to opposition. That appears to be happening already. Then the public will begin to tip, from support for the war and for the Bush administration, to public sentiment in favor of bringing the troops home and for punishing Bush for sending them there in the first place.

Already, Iraq is at a point like Vietnam in the late 1960s, where the government realizes that it can`t just declare victory and leave, because it`s clear that when U.S. troops leave, a new regime will take power that will be strongly anti-American. The more American troops get slain in Iraq, the less forgiving Americans would be if the U.S. pulled out only to see those lives wasted.

That`s where the term "quagmire" comes in. Clearly the U.S. could have quit Vietnam any time, but to do so the administration in power, whether Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, would have had to admit to defeat--as Nixon ultimately had to do when Vietnamese troops stormed Saigon and the U.S. Embassy. The same is now increasingly true with Iraq. The longer U.S. forces remain in Iraq, the more American soldiers die at the hands of Iraqi fighters, the harder it will be for Bush and his advisers to call it quits.

Hence the talk of sending more troops to Iraq, in hopes of quelling the insurrection.

A president running for election during a popular war, or a war for the nation`s survival, can be hard to beat.

A president running for election during an unpopular war, and a war that the American public doesn`t even see as having anything to do with the nation`s security, is another thing entirely.

This could turn out to be a very interesting presidential election campaign.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. A collection of Lindorff`s stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff07092003.html

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Eden`s Long Gone

Some folks used to believe the Bible`s Garden of Eden was located near the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the heart of what today we call Iraq. If it was ever there, it has been long gone.

Right now, the temperature in Iraq is in triple digits. If the wind blows at all, it blows hot like a blast furnace. Electricity and air conditioners go on and off. The water goes on and off. The flies are out. The sewage stinks. American youth who thought the "road home" led through Baghdad have discovered that Baghdad is going to be their home for the foreseeable future. They aren`t happy.

Neither are the Iraqi people. They suffer from the same heat, the same aggravating lack of reliable services, but they also suffer from having no jobs and, for many, no future prospects. Their infrastructure is in lousy shape. Their schools are in lousy shape. Their hospitals are in lousy shape. They are living under foreign occupation. They have no idea when or if they will get to govern themselves. Their streets are no longer safe.

The euphoria of getting rid of a dictator is dissipating fast. Americans never were greeted by dancing in the streets, as the most pro-war of the neoconservatives predicted. Saddam`s brutality was exaggerated, at least in its scope, for war propaganda purposes. He never killed as many Iraqis as American warmongers claimed. Heck, if he had, the country would be depopulated, and it`s a strange kind of dictatorship when practically every Iraqi had a gun. There were 40 gun stores in Baghdad. I bet that`s about 40 more than there are in Washington, D.C.

But I`m not trying to paint Saddam as a libertarian. I`m just pointing out that if you kept your mouth shut, you could pretty much go about your business. And, more important, in the meantime, Saddam — despite the terrible sanctions — fed the people; he kept the electricity and the telephones operative; he provided security for the people; and he had a communications system.

The unfortunate truth is that since occupying Baghdad we have done a worse job in all of those areas than Saddam. Our ineptness is in danger of "rehabilitating" Saddam in the eyes of many Iraqis. We are proving to be worse at governing than he was, and if we show too much brutality in putting down resistance, we will even erode our moral advantage.

Recently, an American Army vehicle ran over a 10-year-old boy. It didn`t stop. That did not sit well with the Iraqis who saw it happen. I hope it was the case that the soldiers didn`t realize they had hit him. A skinny 10-year-old wouldn`t make much of a bump to a heavy Army vehicle. But the boy`s family thinks they knew. They think the American soldiers just didn`t care that they had killed an Iraqi child.

This is the kind of incident that, under the right circumstances, can cause an explosion. The first intifada in the West Bank was started by an automobile accident involving a truck with a Jewish driver who hit some Palestinians — entirely unintentionally. Didn`t matter. The pent-up rage burst out.

The question is, does our occupational government under the reign of Lord L. Paul Bremer of Baghdad realize that it doesn`t have a lot of time to restore basic services to the Iraqi people? I wish I had more confidence, but it`s rather a long time since I`ve met a high-ranking American official who wasn`t arrogant, or a bureaucracy that didn`t move with the speed of molasses.

We aren`t in a guerrilla war yet, and there is no reason to use the word "quagmire," since we voluntarily stepped into this garden spot. But if we don`t do it right and do it fast, even President Bush will wish he had never heard of Iraq.


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THE WORLD


Mystery Blast Highlights U.S. Military`s Dilemma
An unresolved, deadly incident at a mosque points up the difficulty of managing Iraq.
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Terry McDermott
Times Staff Writers

July 13, 2003

FALLOUJA, Iraq — By all accounts, Laith Khalil Dahham was a prodigy of Islamic learning.

The ascetic young man was always at the top of his class and became an imam at his hometown mosque when he was 17. He was made spiritual leader of a much larger mosque here five years later, earning the honorific "sheik." Students from throughout the region began seeking him out.

"Sheik Laith used to tell the truth," said Khalid Hamed Mahal, imam of Safwat al Rahman mosque here. "He had no fear of anybody. He spoke to Muslims in a way that gave Muslims confidence in him."

A mysterious explosion obliterated the sheik`s dwelling in the mosque compound in the working-class Al Askari neighborhood just after late prayers June 30. The 25-year-old Dahham, badly burned, blinded and his right leg blasted in half, survived a few hours before dying in a Baghdad hospital. Six other young men also were killed.

U.S. military authorities had been monitoring the young preacher at Al Hassan ibn Ali mosque because his sermons urged worshipers to resist the foreigners. The authorities suspect that the mosque compound was being used as a bomb factory and the explosion was an accident caused by the men inside, although there have been conflicting statements on this point and no public evidence to support it.

To the Americans, Dahham was a jihadist. But to many people in Fallouja and beyond, he is a martyr dishonored in death by the Americans. The resulting uproar demonstrates how difficult it can be for the military — not designed for subtlety — to manage the sort of volatile situations that arise in occupied Iraq.

Not counting Dahham, U.S. authorities report only three instances of active, violent Islamist involvement in the resistance, and speculation that the mosque explosion signaled the emergence of a militant Islamist front seems premature. But the confusing aftermath of the incident at Fallouja has fueled fears that it may prove a catalyst for militancy.

From the U.S. viewpoint, the bombing could hardly have occurred at a worse time and place. Persistent resistance to the U.S.-led occupation has roiled the city and the surrounding Sunni heartland of west-central Iraq.

Last week, for example, Iraqi police here demonstrated against the continued presence of U.S. soldiers in the police compound downtown because the police feared being so close to troops that are so frequently the targets of attacks. By week`s end, Army officials said they were scaling back their patrols downtown.

Laith Khalil Dahham, the eldest of four siblings, was born in Al Bahawa, a farm village in the Euphrates basin near Fallouja where life is governed by the long rhythms of the crops and the daily rituals of prayer. It is a quiet place, said his father, Khalil, a senior figure in the Al Zobai tribe here.

The younger Dahham`s short life appears to have focused almost exclusively on the exploration of his religion. He was trained in the Naqshbandi way of Islam, part of the mystical Sufi tradition popular in and around Fallouja. Practitioners are notably nonpolitical — and, until recently, worshipers say, Dahham`s sermons were exclusively spiritual affairs.

Men from around the region began coming to him for private study in his simple, cinder-block residence next to the mosque. There were in total about two dozen men; the size of the group varied from night to night. Some slept over — the U.S. enforces an 11 p.m. curfew — making the lodgings a social as well as religious center.

Some time after the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, Dahham`s sermons took a turn toward current events — and militancy.

"He was provoking people to jihad — it is well known," said Taghlib Alousi, a longtime acquaintance and a founder of the Iraq Unified National Movement, one of a number of new Islamic parties.

It is unclear whether the young preacher called outright for attacks against the occupation forces, as some said, or simply advised listeners to resist the "invaders," as others recalled. Whatever his message, it came to the attention of the U.S. military. The Army is on the lookout for potential enemies — as well as for allies.

"What we have been doing is co-opting the local leadership — the imams and the sheiks," said Maj. Joffery Watson, an intelligence officer for the unit occupying Fallouja. "Leveraging their influence. It`s easier to reach the community."

The imam`s homilies were cause for concern, Watson said: "Identifying us as occupiers. That we`re here to do things that are not part of our mission."

The military went to its contacts, including senior religious leaders and Fallouja Mayor Taha Bedani, who governs with U.S. support.

Dahham was summoned to two meetings during the week of June 23, one with the mayor and religious leaders in City Hall, and the second with a similar group at a prominent mosque.

"I reminded him of the Koranic proverb, `Don`t deliberately put yourself in a place that may lead to your death,` " recalled Abdul Rahman Taha, the mayor`s son, who spoke privately with his old schoolmate at City Hall. "He replied, `I was only preaching what was in the Koran.` "

The admonitions seemed to have their intended effect. On his final Friday of life, Dahham moderated his message, according to people familiar with the speech. Instead of resistance, he spoke of the need for Muslims to prepare themselves for death.

The following Monday, June 30, Ahmed Hamed Sulayman, who had become a regular member of the imam`s group, made the hourlong trek from Baghdad west to Fallouja to meet with Dahham. He arrived about 1:30 in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day with Dahham.

They attended prayers, went to the market and spent the evening counseling a troubled married couple, Sulayman said.

They returned to Dahham`s mosque about 10:35 p.m. They performed the ritual washing before the day`s final prayers, and Dahham entered his living quarters.

"There were already people there," Sulayman said. "I was about to go after him and then I know nothing. I woke up in the hospital."

By Sulayman`s account, then, the young sheik was away from the mosque much of the afternoon and evening — when U.S. authorities say the bomb-making activity was going on.

Omar Rauf, a young blacksmith who lives nearby, had stopped by a few minutes before the blast to speak with the imam about a fence that he was helping to build for the mosque. Rauf said he saw nothing unusual inside the sheik`s quarters, just students, including his younger brother, Abdul, and books. Rauf walked to his car, about 25 yards away.

"I was getting into my car, and everything just blew up," Rauf said.

The blast buckled the walls of the structure in the mosque compound, causing the steel-reinforced roof to crush those inside and causing most of the deaths, U.S. investigators surmised later. Among those killed was the blacksmith`s brother.

None of the dead was known to have belonged to an organized resistance.

Frantic relatives transported Dahham to five hospitals in three cities. A private hospital in Baghdad finally agreed to treat him for 1 million dinars upfront — about $650 — but the imam died before anything could be done. There were at least four survivors.

The morning after the blast, an angry crowd gathered at the devastated mosque compound. Residents overwhelmingly expressed the belief that the Americans had bombed the building from the air, and some reported seeing an airplane fly over and a flash of light just before the blast.

U.S. officials categorically deny any American involvement, be it from a warplane, artillery or other source. No U.S. shell casings, rocket parts or other debris were found at the site, said Maj. Michael Peloquin, who led the ordnance team that responded to the explosion.

Peloquin and others on the ordnance detail acknowledged that their findings were inconclusive. The team is trained in weapons collection and disposal, not after-blast assessment. Peloquin could only estimate that the explosion had been caused by something larger than a single stick of dynamite but smaller than a 300-pound car bomb. U.S. officials said they are awaiting chemical analysis.

On the day after the blast, a military briefer in Baghdad said it was possible the imam and his students were making bombs. The following day, July 2, the U.S. Central Command in Florida issued a statement that said the explosion was "apparently related to a bomb-making class that was being taught inside the mosque."

On July 3, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said Iraqi police told his investigators that bomb-making was going on in the building.

But the U.S.-backed Fallouja police chief, Riyadh Abbas, said he had given no evidence to the U.S. supporting the bomb factory theory.

Shortly after the incident, Abbas recalled how a U.S. colonel seemed stunned that police would consider an American strike as a possible cause of the blast.

"I could see that the colonel was becoming very uncomfortable," the chief said. "Sweat was running down his brow."

The Army — increasingly exasperated by residents` claims that the U.S. had somehow bombed the mosque — arranged a news conference in Fallouja with civil and religious leaders who were considered moderates. The message was that the Americans had nothing to do with the blast — though none of the Iraqis endorsed the notion that the sheik and his followers were bomb-makers.

"Sheik Laith and the others who were with him were not criminals," declared Abdul Sattar Hardan, a leading Fallouja religious elder who has called for cooperating with U.S. forces and agreed that the U.S. did not cause the blast.

The day after the news conference, the Central Command issued another statement. This one paraphrased Mayor Bedani, who had spoken at the news conference. It said in part: "The mayor emphasized the explosion was not a U.S. attack, but Iraqis making explosive devices to be used against coalition forces."

The mayor had said no such thing. He later called the CentCom statement a fabrication.

A week later, Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, the executive officer of the Army brigade that patrols Fallouja, said two men who knew about bomb-making activity in the mosque had come forward. The men had gone that evening to confront Dahham when the bomb blew, according to Wesley.

The lieutenant colonel said he had information that one bomb had been built and another was under construction. He called Dahham a "rogue imam."

Other witnesses, including survivors of the blast, were not interviewed by authorities. The Times found two of them, both students of the imam, who were in the compound at the time, one in the room with Dahham, one immediately outside it. A third person interviewed by The Times, the blacksmith, had just left the site. All three insisted that there was no evidence of bomb-making.

The suggestion that the dead had formed a kind of guerrilla cell has enraged local leaders — including those who worked with the Americans — and the families of the victims.

Many condemn the U.S. assertions as a rush to judgment after a sketchy investigation, and some moderates — including Mayor Bedani, Police Chief Abbas and Sattar, the religious elder — favor another explanation: that a third party planted the bomb to drive a wedge between residents and the Army.

"He considered the Americans invaders and occupiers, as we all do, but he was not a violent boy," Abdul Karim Mohammed Ibrahim said of his son Abdul Rauf, who was killed in the blast. "The Americans have made a great mistake."

The current mood in Iraq is brittle. It is exacerbated by the heat, the lack of basic services and jobs, a broad resentment of the occupation and the continuing hostilities. The violent deaths of a respected religious leader from a well-known family and of his students have deeply disturbed many in this conservative place known as the city of mosques.

"We are not calling for war. We are always calling for peace," said Khalid Hamed Mahal, another Fallouja imam. "But when war is declared against us, we have an expression: Our leadership will be the teachings of Muhammad."

The morning after the Fallouja explosion, simple wooden boxes containing the remains of five of the dead were laid out in front of the mosque as worshipers performed midday prayers. Afterward, the people of Al Hassan mosque hoisted the coffins on their shoulders and marched boisterously to the austere cemetery, a little over a mile away.

Kalashnikov rifles crackled as the procession proceeded through the Al Askari neighborhood and picked up new recruits. The U.S. Army was nowhere in sight, and mourners vowed revenge to Allah.

Days later, Ahmed Jasim, a longtime friend, spoke about the dead imam:

"Sheik Laith, he is with God now. He has had a wonderful death, a martyr`s death We are all hoping to have a similar end, to be martyrs like Sheik Laith."

This, Jasim and others believe, is a way to paradise. For the long-term U.S. prospects in Iraq, it is anything but.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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The War Within
U.S. agency turf battles at home have slowed progress in Afghanistan
By Peter Tomsen
Peter Tomsen was President George H.W. Bush`s special envoy and ambassador for Afghanistan, 1989-92.

July 13, 2003

WASHINGTON — It`s a concept everyone in foreign relations understands: If you want to really know what`s happening on the ground in a country — in Afghanistan, say — you have to have people there who speak the language, people who can talk and listen without interpreters. The State Department certainly knows this, which is why it runs months-long language and culture intensive programs for younger diplomats to bring them to full, functional fluency as quickly as possible. So, guess how many employees of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have completed — or even started — the 10-month program to master Afghan languages since our military victory there. None.

That troubling fact is one small indication of why we have lost momentum in Afghanistan.

It`s more complicated than that, of course: There has been insufficient money from the United States and other countries for reconstruction. The U.S. funding that has been delivered often hasn`t been effectively spent. Radical Taliban and Al Qaeda followers, operating both within Afghanistan and from Pakistan, are disrupting reconstruction and aid programs. Warlords competing with President Hamid Karzai`s legitimate government and with each other are successfully resisting change. And Afghan factionalism is frustrating the national unity now so important to restore the Afghan state.

But U.S. strategy is also at the heart of Afghanistan`s problems. The four American entities responsible for overseeing and implementing policy there — the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA and USAID — are too busy with turf wars to properly attend to details. As worried policymakers in Washington consider options for regaining the initiative in Afghanistan, the first thing they should focus on is not what`s happening on the ground there but rather what`s happening on the ground here.

Today, nearly eight months after Congress passed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act authorizing more than $3 billion in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, the absence of interagency unity on our policy there is seriously hampering success. The congressional legislation recommended naming a coordinator to create "an overall strategy" for Afghanistan, while "ensuring program and policy coordination among agencies of the United States Government." But that never happened.

Instead, there are, in effect, four different U.S. policies in Afghanistan, where the American ambassador is "chief of mission" in name only. State Department personnel in Afghanistan back the administration`s goal of withdrawing U.S. assistance to warlords, but CIA and Defense Department support to them continues to flow. Administration guidelines give a high priority to Afghan institution building and to spreading the Kabul government`s authority around the country. But USAID bureaucrats in Kabul continue to resist taking an important step toward that end: channeling American aid through the moderate, pro-Western Karzai government.

As Elisabeth Kvitashvili, a USAID official in Kabul, told the New York Times: "If we felt the government and the ministries had the capacity to handle the money in a manner that would satisfy the U.S. taxpayer, we`d give it to them, but that`s a big if."

It`s not that individual agencies aren`t doing good things. Provincial reconstruction teams run by the Defense Department have undertaken important — if underfunded — projects in poverty-stricken rural areas. But these and other worthy efforts are not coordinated as part of a larger effort. All four agencies have important roles to play in Afghanistan. But before they can be effective, the U.S. must establish a framework in which they can all operate as part of a whole. We must articulate exactly what we want to accomplish, how these goals will be paid for and who will be in charge. The policy and direction must be set in Washington and then clearly communicated to the field.

The problems in Afghanistan have been brewing since our military involvement began there after Sept. 11. Bob Woodward reported in his book "Bush at War" that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage complained at a White House war strategy session in October 2001 that he did not know who was in charge in Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld grumbled at the same meeting that he felt that the CIA had developed the game plan and that "we`re just executing the strategy."

That`s worrisome given what Afghans privately say about the lack of knowledge of Afghanistan among CIA personnel arriving there. Like State, the CIA has not invested over the years in building a well-trained pool of Afghan experts, and it has lacked valuable "human intelligence assets" on the ground in the region. CIA slots in Afghanistan are often filled with recruits from Latin America or other regions. Quick rotations of a year or less do not permit accumulation of area knowledge and valuable personal contacts.

The situation in Afghanistan isn`t without precedent. In 1985, then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz was concerned about a lack of coordination of U.S. Soviet policy. In his memoir, "Turmoil and Triumph," Shultz wrote that he told President Reagan: "To succeed, we have to have a team: right now there isn`t one. [Defense Secretary Caspar W.] Cap Weinberger, [CIA Director] Bill Casey, [United Nations Ambassador] Jeane Kirkpatrick and I don`t see things the same way I`m frustrated and I`m ready to step aside " Reagan urged Shultz to stay. But more important, the president put Shultz in charge of coordinating Soviet policy. The resulting policy, one in which the U.S. spoke with a single voice, produced five U.S.-Soviet summits and the first U.S.-Soviet strategic arms reduction treaty in history, and it laid the groundwork for the end of the Cold War that came with the Soviet Union`s collapse.

Those momentous successes were made possible by teamwork, certainly. But they were also possible because someone was put in charge and given authority to implement policy. In Afghanistan today there is a lack of both teamwork and leadership. But as Reagan demonstrated, those are problems that can be solved.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS


When Presidents Deceive
White House manipulation of intelligence goes back at least to Theodore Roosevelt.
By Jacob Heilbrunn
Jacob Heilbrunn is an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times.

July 13, 2003

WASHINGTON — Democrats have pounced indignantly on the recent revelation that President Bush relied on forged documents when he asserted last January that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger. "This may be the first time in recent history that a president knowingly misled the American people during the State of the Union address," said Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe.

But far from being an aberration, presidential manipulation of intelligence is an American tradition practiced by Democrats and Republicans alike. During the past century, presidents, in displays of both self-deception and deliberate chicanery, have used highly suspect intelligence to justify action or inaction abroad.

The manipulating began with America`s rise to empire early in the 20th century. The architect of that empire, Theodore Roosevelt, relied upon America`s only organized espionage unit, the Office of Naval Intelligence, to provide him with inflated threat assessments. To help justify building more American battleships, he seized on rumors reported by the U.S. naval attaché in Berlin that Japan`s Adm. Heihachiro Togo was traveling around Germany buying weapons with bags of Chinese gold. He also demanded and got inflated estimates of foreign navies` shipbuilding programs. Naval intelligence officers were too cowed by Roosevelt to dispute his notion that battleships were key to American military supremacy. The result, writes Christopher Andrews in "For the President`s Eyes Only," was that "at the outbreak of the First World War, the United States was to be desperately short of destroyers."

Nor was Roosevelt`s domestic foe, Woodrow Wilson, immune to the temptation to exaggerate intelligence findings. With U.S. entry into World War I looming, Wilson played up German subversion, going far beyond what was actually known in insisting that Germans had filled "unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and conspirators, and sought to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf And many of our own people were corrupted."

After World War II broke out, in an attempt to frighten the U.S. into entering the war, the British provided Franklin Roosevelt with false intelligence documents suggesting a Nazi plot to take over Latin America. Roosevelt was warned by the State Department and FBI that the British claims were greatly exaggerated. In particular, they questioned the authenticity of a letter that was supposedly from the Bolivian military attaché in Berlin.

Nevertheless, in a fireside chat Sept. 11, 1941, Roosevelt warned that Hitler was infiltrating Latin American governments to gain "footholds and bridgeheads in the New World, to be used as soon as he has gained control of the oceans. Conspiracy has followed conspiracy." On Oct. 27, in his most important foreign policy speech before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt relied on a map he had been warned had probably been forged by British intelligence: "I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler`s government — by planners of the New World Order This map, my friends, makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well."

On Aug. 4, 1964, Lyndon Johnson took the plunge into intelligence manipulation. In order to justify radically escalating the Vietnam War, he appeared on national TV with the sobering news that a U.S. ship had been attacked that day in the Gulf of Tonkin. Although there had been a skirmish in the area two days earlier, the events of Aug. 4 were not at all clear. Johnson delivered his message to the American people despite the fact that the ship`s captain had already reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff his doubts about whether the attack had taken place, saying that "reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather reports and overeager sonar men may have accounted for many reports." The captain concluded by suggesting a "complete evaluation before further action."

Richard M. Nixon and his secretary of State, Henry A. Kissinger, also showed themselves willing to exaggerate or downplay threats in order to justify actions. In the administration`s early years, Kissinger exaggerated the Russian missile threat, as he wanted Congress to approve an antiballistic missile system. But by 1972, he was soft-pedaling the Russian threat in an attempt to win approval for the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks treaty. Later, when the CIA spotted Soviet infractions of SALT I, Kissinger, according to Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones in "The CIA and American Democracy," "exploited his dominant position to hush up the evidence."

During the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, intelligence again became highly politicized. Pressure from the administration for worst-case estimates prompted a declaration from the CIA that the Soviet Union was in no danger of collapse — even as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was dismantling the "evil empire." And while the administration was trying to sell arms for hostages to Iran, CIA official Robert Gates prevented Iran analysts from disseminating information to a White House that was uninterested in hearing news that didn`t support the overture to the mullahs. Gates` reward for his loyalty to the Reagan administration was to be promoted in 1991 to head the agency by President Bush, who had himself been CIA director.

Given the historical record of the presidents who came before, it would have been more surprising if Bush had not manipulated intelligence.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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20 Lies About the War
Falsehoods ranging from exaggeration to plain untruth were used to make the case for war. More lies are being used in the aftermath. By Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker
13 July 2003


1 Iraq was responsible for the 11 September attacks

A supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, leader of the 11 September hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence official was the main basis for this claim, but Czech intelligence later conceded that the Iraqi`s contact could not have been Atta. This did not stop the constant stream of assertions that Iraq was involved in 9/11, which was so successful that at one stage opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Americans believed the hand of Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. Almost as many believed Iraqi hijackers were aboard the crashed airliners; in fact there were none.

2 Iraq and al-Qa`ida were working together

Persistent claims by US and British leaders that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league with each other were contradicted by a leaked British Defence Intelligence Staff report, which said there were no current links between them. Mr Bin Laden`s "aims are in ideological conflict with present-day Iraq", it added.

Another strand to the claims was that al-Qa`ida members were being sheltered in Iraq, and had set up a poisons training camp. When US troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or biological traces.

3 Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons programme

The head of the CIA has now admitted that documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to import uranium from Niger in west Africa were forged, and that the claim should never have been in President Bush`s State of the Union address. Britain sticks by the claim, insisting it has "separate intelligence". The Foreign Office conceded last week that this information is now "under review".

4 Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons

The US persistently alleged that Baghdad tried to buy high-strength aluminum tubes whose only use could be in gas centrifuges, needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Equally persistently, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were being used for artillery rockets. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, told the UN Security Council in January that the tubes were not even suitable for centrifuges.

5 Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first Gulf War

Iraq possessed enough dangerous substances to kill the whole world, it was alleged more than once. It had pilotless aircraft which could be smuggled into the US and used to spray chemical and biological toxins. Experts pointed out that apart from mustard gas, Iraq never had the technology to produce materials with a shelf-life of 12 years, the time between the two wars. All such agents would have deteriorated to the point of uselessness years ago.

6 Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or biological warheads, with a range which would threaten British forces in Cyprus

Apart from the fact that there has been no sign of these missiles since the invasion, Britain downplayed the risk of there being any such weapons in Iraq once the fighting began. It was also revealed that chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases in Cyprus last year, indicating that the Government did not take its own claims seriously.

7 Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox

This allegation was made by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council in February. The following month the UN said there was nothing to support it.

8 US and British claims were supported by the inspectors

According to Jack Straw, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix "pointed out" that Iraq had 10,000 litres of anthrax. Tony Blair said Iraq`s chemical, biological and "indeed the nuclear weapons programme" had been well documented by the UN. Mr Blix`s reply? "This is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction," he said last September. "If I had solid evidence that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction or were constructing such weapons, I would take it to the Security Council." In May this year he added: "I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am beginning to suspect there possibly were not."

9 Previous weapons inspections had failed

Tony Blair told this newspaper in March that the UN had "tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully". But in 1999 a Security Council panel concluded: "Although important elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq`s proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated." Mr Blair also claimed UN inspectors "found no trace at all of Saddam`s offensive biological weapons programme" until his son-in-law defected. In fact the UN got the regime to admit to its biological weapons programme more than a month before the defection.

10 Iraq was obstructing the inspectors

Britain`s February "dodgy dossier" claimed inspectors` escorts were "trained to start long arguments" with other Iraqi officials while evidence was being hidden, and inspectors` journeys were monitored and notified ahead to remove surprise. Dr Blix said in February that the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections, all without notice, covering more than 300 sites. "We note that access to sites has so far been without problems," he said. : "In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew that the inspectors were coming."

11 Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes

This now-notorious claim was based on a single source, said to be a serving Iraqi military officer. This individual has not been produced since the war, but in any case Tony Blair contradicted the claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its weapons in May 2002, which meant that they could not have been used within 45 minutes.

12 The "dodgy dossier"

Mr Blair told the Commons in February, when the dossier was issued: "We issued further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports." It soon emerged that most of it was cribbed without attribution from three articles on the internet. Last month Alastair Campbell took responsibility for the plagiarism committed by his staff, but stood by the dossier`s accuracy, even though it confused two Iraqi intelligence organisations, and said one moved to new headquarters in 1990, two years before it was created.

13 War would be easy

Public fears of war in the US and Britain were assuaged by assurances that oppressed Iraqis would welcome the invading forces; that "demolishing Saddam Hussein`s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk", in the words of Kenneth Adelman, a senior Pentagon official in two previous Republican administrations. Resistance was patchy, but stiffer than expected, mainly from irregular forces fighting in civilian clothes. "This wasn`t the enemy we war-gamed against," one general complained.

14 Umm Qasr

The fall of Iraq`s southernmost city and only port was announced several times before Anglo-American forces gained full control - by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, and by Admiral Michael Boyce, chief of Britain`s defence staff. "Umm Qasr has been overwhelmed by the US Marines and is now in coalition hands," the Admiral announced, somewhat prematurely.

15 Basra rebellion

Claims that the Shia Muslim population of Basra, Iraq`s second city, had risen against their oppressors were repeated for days, long after it became clear to those there that this was little more than wishful thinking. The defeat of a supposed breakout by Iraqi armour was also announced by military spokesman in no position to know the truth.

16 The "rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch

Private Jessica Lynch`s "rescue" from a hospital in Nasiriya by American special forces was presented as the major "feel-good" story of the war. She was said to have fired back at Iraqi troops until her ammunition ran out, and was taken to hospital suffering bullet and stab wounds. It has since emerged that all her injuries were sustained in a vehicle crash, which left her incapable of firing any shot. Local medical staff had tried to return her to the Americans after Iraqi forces pulled out of the hospital, but the doctors had to turn back when US troops opened fire on them. The special forces encountered no resistance, but made sure the whole episode was filmed.

17 Troops would face chemical and biological weapons

As US forces approached Baghdad, there was a rash of reports that they would cross a "red line", within which Republican Guard units were authorised to use chemical weapons. But Lieutenant General James Conway, the leading US marine general in Iraq, conceded afterwards that intelligence reports that chemical weapons had been deployed around Baghdad before the war were wrong.

"It was a surprise to me ... that we have not uncovered weapons ... in some of the forward dispersal sites," he said. "We`ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they`re simply not there. We were simply wrong. Whether or not we`re wrong at the national level, I think still very much remains to be seen."

18 Interrogation of scientists would yield the location of WMD

"I have got absolutely no doubt that those weapons are there ... once we have the co-operation of the scientists and the experts, I have got no doubt that we will find them," Tony Blair said in April. Numerous similar assurances were issued by other leading figures, who said interrogations would provide the WMD discoveries that searches had failed to supply. But almost all Iraq`s leading scientists are in custody, and claims that lingering fears of Saddam Hussein are stilling their tongues are beginning to wear thin.

19 Iraq`s oil money would go to Iraqis

Tony Blair complained in Parliament that "people falsely claim that we want to seize" Iraq`s oil revenues, adding that they should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN. Britain should seek a Security Council resolution that would affirm "the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the Iraqi people".

Instead Britain co-sponsored a Security Council resolution that gave the US and UK control over Iraq`s oil revenues. There is no UN-administered trust fund.

Far from "all oil revenues" being used for the Iraqi people, the resolution continues to make deductions from Iraq`s oil earnings to pay in compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

20 WMD were found

After repeated false sightings, both Tony Blair and George Bush proclaimed on 30 May that two trailers found in Iraq were mobile biological laboratories. "We have already found two trailers, both of which we believe were used for the production of biological weapons," said Mr Blair. Mr Bush went further: "Those who say we haven`t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons - they`re wrong. We found them." It is now almost certain that the vehicles were for the production of hydrogen for weather balloons, just as the Iraqis claimed - and that they were exported by Britain.
13 July 2003 19:04



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Niger and Iraq: the war`s biggest lie?

http://www.sundayherald.com/35264


Investigation: Neil Mackay reveals why everyone now accepts that claims Saddam Hussein got uranium from Africa are fraudulent ... except, that is, Britain`s beleaguered prime minister and his Cabinet supporters



In February 1999, Wissam Al Zahawie, the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See in Rome, set off on a series of diplomatic visits to several African countries, including Niger. This trip triggered the allegations that Iraq was trying to buy tons of uranium from Niger -- a claim which could yet prove the most damning evidence that the British government exaggerated intelligence to bolster its case for war on Iraq .
Some time after the Iraqi ambassador`s trip to Niger, the Italian intelligence service came into possession of forged documents claiming Saddam was after Niger uranium. We now know these documents were passed to MI6 and then handed by the British to the office of US Vice-President Dick Cheney . The forgeries were then used by Bush and Blair to scare the British and Americans and to box both Congress and Parliament into supporting war. There are an increasing number of claims suggesting Bush and Blair knew these documents were forged when they used them as evidence that Saddam Hussein was putting together a nuclear arsenal.

The truth behind claims that Blair`s government `sexed up` intelligence reports that Saddam could mobilise weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes may never be known, but the Niger forgeries lie like a smoking gun covered in Britain`s fingerprints. At some point Tony Blair is going to have to answer questions about what the British government and MI6 were up to.

The fact that the documents were forged matters less than the purpose to which they were put. On September 24, 2002, Blair`s dossier Iraq`s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government said: `There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme of nuclear power plants and, therefore, has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium.`

On January 28, 2003, Bush, in his State of the Union address, said: `The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.` Bush didn`t stop there -- later, there was talk of `mushroom clouds` unless Saddam was taken out.

It was the International Atomic Energy Agency which rumbled the documents as forgeries -- a task that their experts were able to complete in just a matter of hours. Here are just four examples of how easy it was to work out the documents were, as one intelligence source said, `total bullshit`:


In a letter from the President of Niger a reference is made to the constitution of May 12, 1965 -- but the constitution is dated August 9, 1999;

Another letter purports to be signed by Niger`s foreign minister, but bears the signature of Allele Elhadj Habibou, the minister between 1988-89;

An obsolete letterhead is used, including the wrong symbol for the presidency, and references to state bodies such as the Supreme Military Council and the Council for National Reconciliation are incompatible with the letter`s date;

It wasn`t until just before the war began that Mohamed El Baradei, IAEA director-general, told the UN Security Council on March 7 that his team and `outside experts`, had worked out that ` these documents ... are in fact not authentic`.
Exactly who was behind the forgeries is unclear but the finger of suspicion points towards some disaffected or bribed official in Niger . What looks more certain is that Bush and Blair were warned the documents were rubbish before El Baradei told the UN. The IAEA says it sought evidence about the Niger connection from Britain and America immediately after the US issued a state department factsheet on December 19, 2002, headed `Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council`. In it, under the heading `Nuclear Weapons`, it reads: `The declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?` But the IAEA, despite repeatedly begging the UK and US for access to papers, wasn`t given any documents until February 2003 -- six weeks later.

Well before the IAEA rained on the pro-war parade, the CIA was telling its masters in the Bush administration that the British intelligence on the Niger connection was nonsense. Vice-President Dick Cheney`s office received the forged evidence in 2002 -- before Bush`s State of the Union address on January 28 this year -- and passed it to the CIA. The CIA then dispatched former US ambassador Joseph C Wilson to Africa to check out the claim. Wilson came back saying the intelligence was unreliable and the CIA passed Cheney the assessment. Nevertheless, Bush kept the claim in his speech, and Cheney said, just days before the war began in March, that: `We know (Saddam`s) been absolutely trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.` He also poured scorn on the IAEA for saying the documents were forged. `I think Mr El Baradei frankly is wrong ... (The IAEA) has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don`t have any reason to believe they`re any more valid this time than they`ve been in the past.`

Wilson said it was Cheney who forced the CIA to try to come up with a credible threat from Iraqi nukes. `I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq`s nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. A legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretences,` he wrote. Wilson also said: `It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs the question: `What else are they lying about?``

Wilson is no rogue official. He was lauded by George Bush Snr for `fighting the good fight` after he became the last US diplomat to confront Saddam in the run-up to the first Gulf war. The irony isn`t lost on Wilson, who says: `I guess he didn`t realise that one of these days I would carry that fight against his son`s administration.`

Greg Thielmann, director of the State Department`s Office of Strategic, Proliferation and Military Issues, says the State Department`s Bureau of Intelligence and Research ruled the Niger connection implausible and told US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thielmann also said Iraq posed no nuclear threat, and Team Bush distorted intelligence to fit its drive for war. Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director now leading a review of the agency`s pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMDs, says intelligence was ambiguous and the CIA was under pressure from the Bush administration.


The CIA, in what one British intelligence source described as a `wise attempt at an ass-saving manoeuvre`, also tried to have reference to Iraq`s uranium links to Niger deleted from Bush`s State of the Union address. CIA officials say they `communicated significant doubts to the administration about the evidence`. Condoleezza Rice, Bush`s national security adviser, disputes the claim, saying the CIA cleared the reference made by Bush.

The CIA also tried to save Blair`s ass too. In September, before publication of the UK dossier citing the Niger connection, the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to use the claim. CIA figures say the agency was consulted by the UK and `recommended against using that material`. Blair, however, continues to defend the allegation, claiming the UK has separate intelligence -- or `non-documentary evidence` -- to back up the Niger claim, proving Britain wasn`t solely reliant on the forgeries. That`s quite a different tack to the White House, which shamefacedly admitted on Monday that Bush`s uranium claim was based on faulty British intelligence and shouldn`t have been included in the State of the Union address. But Bush is determined not to find himself in the same situation as Blair -- facing calls for his resignation over claims that he lied. On Friday, CIA director George Tenet said he was to blame for Bush`s use of the bogus uranium claim . He said the insertion was a `mistake`, the CIA cleared the speech and `the President had every reason to believe the text presented to him was sound`. But that doesn`t tally with high-level intelligence that the Niger claim was written into the President`s Daily Brief -- one of the most top-level intelligence assessments in the US, prepared by the CIA and given to Bush and other very senior officials.

Also significant was the refusal by Colin Powell to use the uranium claim when he addressed the UN on February 5 calling for war. On Thursday, Powell said it was not `sufficiently reliable`. With Bush trying to get off the hook, Blair looks as if he could be twisting in the wind -- unless he has this `other evidence` to back up the Niger connection. It should be pointed out that it would be extremely difficult for Niger to sell uranium in quantities large enough to be weaponised as its mines are controlled by France and its entire output goes to France, Japan and Spain. E xperts say it couldn`t be smuggled out unnoticed. One western diplomat said: `As far as I know, the only other evidence Britain has about the Niger connection is based on intelligence coming from other western countries which saw the same forgeries. Blair`s claim that he has other evidence is nonsense. These foreign intelligence agencies are basing their claims on the same forgeries as the Brits.`

The diplomat`s accusations tally with a letter sent in April, before the White House climbdown, by the State Department to Democrat House of Representative`s member Henry Waxman, who has been demanding answers on the deception carried out against the American and British people. In it, the State Department admits that it received intelligence from the UK and another `western European ally` -- which many believe to be Italy -- that Iraq was trying to buy Niger uranium. But it adds: `not until March 4 did we learn that, in fact, the second western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the US that was subsequently discredited`. In other words, as one intelligence source said: `It was based on the same crap the British used`. Given the letter is dated April 29, this information invites the question: why did it take until last week for the White House to admit the Niger connection was rubbish?

Another State Department letter to Waxman makes the astonishing admission that when America handed the Niger documents to the IAEA they included the qualification `we cannot confirm these reports and have questions regarding some specific claims` -- hardly the same tune that Bush and Blair were singing with their claims that Saddam was chasing down Niger uranium.

We know that Blair`s `other` evidence backing the Niger connection includes second-hand or even third-hand intelligence -- and that it doesn`t come from the UK. Nor has this intelligence been passed to the IAEA (in accordance with UN resolution 1414). The Foreign Office says: `In the case of uranium from Niger, we did not have any UK-originated intelligence to pass on.`


Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the Niger uranium claim was based on `reliable evidence`, which was not shared with the US. Although the Foreign Affairs Select Committee hasn`t seen the evidence either, Straw told its chairman, Donald Anderson, the `good reasons` for withholding the intelligence from the US in a private session. Blair won`t say why the information is being kept under wraps , but he tells the nation there is no reason to doubt its credibility.

Foreign Office minister Mike O`Brien said on June 10 that all relevant information on Iraqi WMDs had been sent to weapons inspectors -- but less than a month later he was contradicted by another Foreign Office minister, Denis MacShane, saying the UK didn`t give the IAEA any information on Iraq seeking uranium. One senior western diplomat told the Sunday Herald: `There were more than 20 anomalies in the Niger documents -- it is staggering any intelligence service could have believed they were genuine for a moment.

`I know that the IAEA told Britain and America, two weeks before El Baradei made his statement to the UN in March, that the documents were forgeries, that the IAEA was going to publicly state the documents were faked. At that point, the IAEA gave them a chance -- they asked the US and UK if they had any other evidence to back up the claim apart from the Niger forgeries. Britain and America should have reacted with shock and horror when they found that the documents were fake -- but they did nothing, and there was no attempt to dissuade the IAEA from its course of action.

`The IAEA had said it would follow up any other evidence pointing towards a Niger connection . If the UK and US had had such evidence they could have forwarded it and shut the IAEA up -- El Baradei would never have gone public if that had happened. My analysis is that Britain has no other credible evidence.` The source added: `The weapons inspectors have friends in the CIA and the State Department . They made sure the documents made their way to the IAEA as they knew fine well they`d be exposed as forgeries.

`If I was prosecuting someone in a court of law and I brought in what I knew to be forgeries in an attempt to convict you, the case would be thrown out immediately and it`d be me in the dock. The case wasn`t thrown out against Iraq, however, and what we are left with is an ominous sense of the way intelligence was treated to promote war. There are only two conclusions: one is that Britain has intelligence but kept it from the weapons inspectors, which they should not have done under international law, or that they don`t have a thing. If they did have intelligence, then why not show it to the world now the war is over`.

An IAEA source said the issue was `now a matter for the UK and the USA to deal with`. The IAEA, as well as UNMOVIC inspectors, feel discredited and humiliated after their bruising encounters with the UK and US. One UN diplomat said: `They`re bitter, but perhaps now they may have some solace as the truth seems to be coming out. It`s obvious that we could have done this without a war -- but the evidence shows war would have happened regardless of what the inspectors could have done as that was the wish of Bush and Blair. Everyone, it seems, was working for peace -- except them.`

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Das ist der letzte Umfragewert von Bush, nach CBS (60%), WaPo(59%) heute Newsweek (55%) overall Rating. Das ist ein Absturz auch wenn man eine Abweichung von +/- 3% berücksichtigt.

A Quagmire for Bush?
Americans are increasingly skeptical about the war in Iraq and the intelligence leading up to it

By Laura Fording
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
http://www.msnbc.com/news/938073.asp?0cv=KB20

July 12 — Forty-five percent of Americans say the Bush Administration misinterpreted intelligence reports that proved Iraq was hiding banned chemical or biological weapons before the war, says a new Newsweek poll. And while a significantly smaller number—38 percent—believe the administration purposely misled the public, President Bush’s approval ratings have declined significantly in recent months, the poll shows.
WHILE 55 PERCENT of those polled say they approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president, his ratings have fallen 6 points from the end of May, 16 points from mid-April when Baghdad first fell to American soldiers, and nearly 30 points from the weeks immediately following the September 11 attacks.
Americans are increasingly skeptical about the military operations in Iraq, as well. The number who say they are very confident that the United States can create a stable democratic Iraqi government is now just 15 percent; 39 percent are someone confident. Those numbers were 21 percent and 42 percent, respectively, at the beginning of May. In that same time frame, Bush’s approval ratings with respect to Iraq have fallen to 53 percent from 69 percent.
In response to the attacks on U.S. military personnel in Iraq, 49 percent say they would support more aggressive action by U.S. forces to prevent the violence, even if it means great risk for Iraqi civilians. Forty-five percent say they would support a withdrawal of U.S. troops in response to the attacks; 40 percent would support increasing the number of troops in Iraq.
Meanwhile, 57 percent say they want the majority of U.S. troops to leave Iraq within two years; 74 percent want them out within five.
Tell Us What You Think: Take The Poll

This week, a bipartisan panel investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks complained that federal agencies were not cooperating fully or quickly. Forty-two percent of those polled say that lack of cooperation is motivated by a desire to cover up embarrassing or politically damaging information.
The NEWSWEEK poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, which interviewed by telephone 1,017 adults aged 18 and older on July 10 and 11. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
As politicians gear up for the 2004 election, Bush is facing competition from a broad range of Democratic opponents. In January 2003, when registered Democrats-and those whose beliefs fall more along Democratic party lines-were asked who they would like to see nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate, 22 percent opted for Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, 14 percent for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, and 13 percent each for former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Florida Sen. Bob Graham, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Reverend Al Sharpton, who were also on the list, each received 6 percent or less. Numbers for former Illinois Sen. Carol Mosely Braun and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich—who have also entered the 2004 presidential race—were not available in January. In the current poll, Lieberman’s ratings have fallen to 13 percent and he now lags behind Gephardt by 1 point. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who barely made a blip on the poll in January, is now in third place, with 12 percent of those polled backing his nomination.
The economy and jobs rated highest on American’s list of the issues that will determine who they vote for in the 2004 election, with 50 percent saying the economy was the most important issue and 22 percent ranking terrorism and homeland security first. However, the number Americans who believe that both the economy and homeland security are equally important issues has risen 13 points since the beginning of May, to 25 percent.
When registered voters were asked who they would vote for in a general presidential election between Bush and a Democratic opponent, Bush won every race—against Dean (53 percent vs. 38 percent), Edwards (51 percent vs. 39 percent), Gephardt (51 percent vs. 42 percent), Kerry (50 percent vs. 42 percent) and Lieberman (52 percent vs. 39 percent).

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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Feeling Dean`s Pain
By Howard Fineman, Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.com/news/937672.asp?0bl=-0
Charlie Dean died 30 years ago in the jungles of Laos at the age of 23. But all these years later his older brother, Howard, remains angry and unsettled about the event--and the unanswered questions that surround it.

HE HAS HAD PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING for what he calls his "survivor`s guilt," and has journeyed to Laos seeking "closure." Yet Dean still cries about the loss, and is doing so now, slumped in a folding chair at his presidential-campaign headquarters up in Burlington, Vt. "I know what it is like to sit at home, waiting," he says to NEWSWEEK, his voice trailing off. His features collapse, his eyes and his face turn red. He raises a hand to his brow as tears stream down his cheeks and he sobs quietly. "Sorry," he says, then brightens as, ever the doctor, he examines, almost clinically, his own reaction. "It`s amazing after 30 years, isn`t it?"
Yes, it is. Howard Dean is a simmering teakettle of emotion, aspiration and edge. In these wrought-up times, it`s a persona that has considerable appeal to the grass roots of the Democratic Party, if not, as yet, to the nation at large. It`s made him a celebrity on the Internet, where his Web-based efforts are changing the face of campaigning. As governor of Vermont, he was known for his chesty confrontations. As an early foe of war in Iraq, he made acerbic comments that now look prescient. But Dean`s aura of disdain can cause him problems, too. His attacks on Democratic presidential rivals are delivered with all the grace and humor of a fedora-wearing hit man. And goading him isn`t hard. The man from AP did it last week, pressing a series of "what if" questions that caused Dean to snap: "What if, what if. I have two teenage sons who ask `what ifs` all the time. I don`t play `what if`." Expect his rivals and their allies to push harder in the months to come.

So what makes Howard Dean tick tick tick? Where does the sense of entitlement, the touch of imperiousness, the sense of permanent, low-grade combat come from?

EERIE SIMILARITIES
Ironically, the roots and rising of one Howard Brush Dean III bear an eerie similarity to those of one George Walker Bush: Mayflowering family trees, early industrial-era money, family compounds near Atlantic waters, prep schools and a party-hearty life at Yale (Bush `68, Dean `71). The birthright of such an upbringing is confidence in social position and a sense of license to say anything to anyone at any time--without warning, restraint or evident regret. Dean insists that "everyone in our family is totally unpretentious," and so they were, and are. But he is brusque by nature, and if he can seem bumptious to the press at times, why not? The Deans (or, more specifically, the Hunting clan, descended of whaling captains) took up residence in Sag Harbor--now a pricey reach of eastern Long Island--three centuries before media elites began networking there.

The Deans were hard chargers by nature. The pace was set by the candidate`s late father, Howard Brush Dean Jr. He compensated for his short stature (a trait he bequeathed to his eldest son) by referring to himself as the "Short Me." He compensated for his lack of World War II military action (he was disqualified because of childhood diphtheria) by running Allied supply lines in exotic places such as the Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, India and China. After the war he came home to replenish the family treasury, heading to Wall Street as his father and grandfather had done.

His four obstreperous sons (Howard is the eldest) worshiped him--and feared him. "He was our role model," says Howard. "He was also a micromanager." That meant raising hell in defiance of Dad whenever possible and making up for any deficiency by marching through life straight ahead. So "Howie" Dean pumped iron furiously at St. George`s Episcopal School in Newport, R.I., playing guard and linebacker on the football team--positions normally reserved for bigger boys. He was wrestling captain in his senior year, a master of the quick pin. At Yale he trod the path of his father, who flunked out twice and bragged about his social exploits when he showed his son around the campus. Howie was a hard drinker and partier, too. "But it was harder to flunk out in my time," he says. Like George W. Bush, Dean quit drinking cold turkey. He did so in 1981, when he was 32, one week after marrying Judith Steinberg in a Manhattan hotel. "I didn`t like the way I behaved when I drank," he says.

PERSONAL POWER
Dean wasn`t deeply interested in politics per se, but rather, it seems, in power of a personal kind. He was a senior prefect at St. George`s. At Yale, he thought about teaching or medicine, which put the fate of others in the practitioner`s hands. "I have always wanted to change the world in some way," he says matter-of-factly. "It`s very deep." Indeed, it took a while for it to surface. After a post-college year skiing in Aspen, Dean returned to New York in 1972 to become the next (fourth) Dean--stretching back to Herbert Hollingshead Dean, a founder of Smith Barney--to be an investment banker.

He hated it. Business was bad. (There was an Arab oil embargo on.) Dean missed the country life of hockey on the pond and duck on the table that he`d grown up with (at least on weekends) in the big house in eastern Long Island. "I took my father to dinner, fed him three martinis and told him I wanted to go to medical school," Dean recalls. He was 25--too late for the "micromanager" to protest. He moved back into his parents` Park Avenue apartment and began taking science classes.

That`s when the defining crisis arrived. Charlie turned up missing. Younger by 16 months (they`d shared a bunk bed as boys), he was the more idealistic. "Charlie was the more community-minded, the more focused on politics," says third brother Jim Dean. In 1968 Charlie enrolled at Chapel Hill, a font of civil-rights activism. In 1972 he plunged into the anti-Vietnam War campaign of Sen. George McGovern, only to see him crushed in 49 of 50 states by Richard Nixon. "Charlie was very disillusioned," says Jim. "That is when he decided he needed to leave the country."

Pieced together in later years, many of the whys and wherefores of Charlie`s journey remain a mystery: a freighter from Seattle to Japan, then Bali, then Australia, then to Laos, where his dad knew a man in USAID. Why Laos? Perhaps Charlie was just on the hippie circuit, and saw it as a way station to Nepal. Perhaps he wanted the thrill of seeing the flickering flame of the Indochina war he had wanted to help try to end. Later, his parents thought that perhaps he had become a spy--a theory fueled by the fact that the Army listed this civilian as a POW/MIA. "I don`t happen to believe it, but for all I know he was in the CIA," says Howard Dean.

A SEARCH FOR ANSWERS
All Dean does know is that Charlie and a friend took a ferry on the Mekong River between Laos and Thailand. They were taken into custody by Laotian communists. After three months at a local camp, Dean thinks, Charlie wanted some answers. "So he figured--and this would be typical Dean, not just Charlie but any of us--`All right, let`s get some action here. Let`s go to the top of the food chain`." Dean speculates that they were on their way to a North Vietnamese military base camp--or on the way back--when they died. "We think that the North Vietnamese basically ordered them killed," Dean says.

Charlie`s death focused his older brother, and gave him a sense of mission he carries with him to this day. "I think Howard began to look at things more seriously," says Jim Dean. "It made him wonder, what do I want to do with my life?" Dean was already into medicine, but within a few years was running for state legislator in his adopted state of Vermont. It may be an accident--or not--that he has risen to prominence as the kind of antiwar candidate Charlie would have admired.

The grief, meanwhile, has been hard to overcome. "I never understood it and had survivor`s guilt and anger about it for a long time," Dean says. "I figured, `How could you do this?` I was angry at him because of all we had to go through. That`s what happens when you lose somebody you`re so close to at a young age." To deal with the emotions, Dean sought professional help in the early `80s, though he won`t discuss the details. "I did have grief counseling for a while," he says. "It was here in Vermont. I was not hospitalized or any of that crap. I never missed a day of work. It was for a reasonably short period of time." Going to Laos last year--talking to locals, seeing the site where his brother may have been buried--gave him "huge insight" and "some closure." But perhaps not enough. "There is a story there," he says. "I don`t know what it is." Not knowing everything is a form of powerlessness Howard Dean cannot stand.

With T. Trent Gegax in New Hampshire



© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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Die Politik mit den Massenhysteriewaffen

Michael H. Goldhaber 13.07.2003
Bush, der zweite Irak-Krieg und die Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie

Kriege waren stets ein Bestandteil des menschlichen Lebens, sagt man uns immer wieder. Was wir Krieg nennen, nämlich einen militärischen Kampf um die Kontrolle über ein Territorium, ist in Wirklichkeit eine Folge des Aufstiegs der Landwirtschaft und der frühen Industrie gewesen. Land ist zum Anbau von Getreide oder zur Ausbeute von Ressourcen wertvoll. Für diejenigen Menschen, die in den fortgeschrittensten Ländern leben und die primäre Abhängigkeit von diesen Arbeiten verlasen haben, machen diese Kriegsgründe keinen Sinn mehr. Heute haben Kriege im Allgemeinen und der zweite Irak-Krieg im Besonderen für ihre Betreiber den primären Wert als Mittel, Aufmerksamkeit anzulocken und zu lenken.






Für Bush und Co. war die Aufmerksamkeit der Menschen in den Ländern um den Irak wichtig, aber viel wichtiger war die der Menschen in den USA. Manche schauten dem Krieg aufgeregt zu, als würden sie einen Sportwettkampf, oder sie waren beruhigt, weil der Angriff einem Tyrannen galt, der angeblich für die USA gefährlich war. Andere beobachteten wie ich mit wachsender Depression, dass der Krieg unter Verletzung des internationalen Rechts und trotz aller Opposition begonnen hat. Wir waren nicht nur wegen des unnötigen Tötens und Zerstörens krank, sondern auch wegen der Macht, die George W. Bush daraus gewinnen würde, eine Angst übrigens, die selbst wieder für Bush sehr nützlich ist. Unsere größte Angst ist vielleicht, dass dieser Krieg viele Fortsetzungen mit denselben Zielen finden könnte.





Saddam war sicherlich ein gieriger, prahlerischer Tyrann, der wie alle Tyrannen durch Angst herrschte. Zu seinen Untaten gehört, dass er seine Untertanen zwei Mal in tödliche Kriege getrieben hat, die sie nicht gewinnen konnten. In dieser Hinsicht hätte er wahrscheinlich die Invasion vermeiden können, in dem er sich dem Unvermeidlichen gebeugt und seine Macht aufgegeben hätte. Bush benutzte andererseits, auch wenn er nicht wirklich ein Tyrann ist, die ihm zur Verfügung stehenden gewaltigen Kräfte, um einen unverlangten Krieg zu führen, der ihm die Möglichkeit gab, Zuhause die Macht zu behalten und weiter auszuüben, um seine Politik der Ungleichheit gegen einen geringeren Widerstand durchzusetzen und die Wahlen zu gewinnen.

Zentral und paradox bei der Bush-Regierung ist, dass sie die Verwendung von Techniken der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie perfektioniert hat, um den Angehörigen der "old economy", die ihre Verbündeten sind, zu helfen, ihre Macht und ihren nützlichen Reichtum so lange als möglich zu bewahren. Diese Inkohärenz bedeutet, dass die Regierung auf Messers Schneide steht. Sie hat, um sich dort halten zu können, nur die Möglichkeit, gefährlich und unehrlich zu spielen.

Bush zögert ebenso wenig wie Saddam nicht, wesentlich durch Angst zu herrschen, indem er seine Kriege über leicht durchschaubare Appelle mit dem Terror und dem Wunsch nach Rache rechtfertigt, der durch den al-Qaida-Anschlag vom 11.9. aufgeflammt ist. Die Demokratische Partei ist mittlerweile so durch seinen politischen Erfolg und seine hohen Umfrageergebnisse, die sich seiner Thematisierung des Krieges verdanken, beeindruckt, um noch groß Widerstand zu leisten.

Die demokratischen Politiker haben erst vor kurzem die fünf Jahre anhaltende Mehrheit im Kongress verloren. Sie sind mit der Tatsache konfrontiert, dass die Bevölkerung bald auf 300 Millionen Bürger anwachsen wird, so dass die Abgeordneten noch weiter von denjenigen entfernt sein werden, die sie repräsentieren sollen. Sie stehen einer Generation gegenüber, die in keiner positiven Hinsicht versteht, was die Gemeinschaft und die Regierung für sie macht. Sie sind Teil eines Systems, das wegen der Definition der Staatsgrenzen zunehmend stärker die wenigen Landbewohner über die vielen Stadtbewohner bevorzugt. Sie leben in einer Zeit des zunehmenden Egoismus, in der die Kultivierung einer lässigen unreflektierten Haltung mit einer machohaften moralischen Überlegenheit für diejenigen einhergeht, denen es zufällig gut ergeht. Auf all dies haben die demokratischen Politiker am ehesten mit einer Art Verwirrtheit reagiert und nach medienerfahrenen Beratern Ausschau gehalten, die ihnen sagen, wie sie sich verhalten sollen, was normalerweise darauf hinausläuft, dass sie zu blassen Nachahmungen der Republikaner werden.

In den Jahren ihrer Macht im Kongress wurden überdies viele Demokraten implizit korrupt, was sie noch immer sind, um ihren Spendern, die großen Unternehmen, zu gefallen, die ihnen die benötigte oder vermeintlich benötigte Fernsehwerbung kaufen können, um genug Aufmerksamkeit für den Wahlsieg zu erhalten. Die Republikaner können sie schnell als steuer- und ausgabefreudige Liberale oder als Befürworter einer starken Regierung bezeichnen. Bei Gelegenheit können sie diese bezichtigen, zu wenig für die Verteidigung zu tun, sie können sie als unternehmerfeindlich darstellen, was Arbeitsplätze kostet, oder als Befürworter des Klassenkampfes, sobald sie anmerken, dass die Steuervergünstigungen von Bush die Unternehmen oder die Reichen begünstigt. Anstatt diese Dummheiten zu bekämpfen, in dem sie auf die Notwendigkeit hinweisen, das Allgemeinwohl berücksichtigen, gegen die Klimaerwärmung kämpfen oder gegen exzessive Strafen, die Todesstrafe eingeschlossen, vorgehen zu müssen, scheinen die Berater den Demokraten eher zu sagen, dass sie weniger kontrovers erscheinen sollen. Als Folge kriegen die bestimmter auftretenden Republikaner meist, was sie wollen, abgesehen nur dann, wenn die Wünsche ans Unverschämte grenzen, wie dies zunehmend mehr der Fall ist. In diesem Kontext ist Krieg-gegen-den-Terrorismus-Rhetorik von Bush eine weitere Peitsche, um die Demokraten zu unterwerfen.

Die Ängste der Demokraten haben nicht nur mit dem politischen Verlust zu tun. Das Kapitol in dem der Kongress seinen Sitz hat, war offensichtlich das Ziel des entführten Flugzeugs, das von den Passagieren zum Absturz gebracht wurde. Die Kongressmitglieder in diesem großen Land sind meist gezwungen, viel zwischen ihren Wahlbezirken und Washington hin und her zu fliegen. Und demokratische Abgeordnete waren die ausgewählten Ziele der noch immer unaufgeklärten Anthrax-Anschläge, die kurz nach dem 11. September ausgeführt wurden, aber fast mit Sicherheit vom Inland ausgingen. All dies machte sie ängstlich vor dem Terrorismus und sehr empfänglich gegenüber Behauptungen von Massenvernichtungswaffen in den Händen von Saddam Hussein und anderen, unbeachtet der wirklichen Drohung, die von Saddam ausging.

Doch weder Saddam noch Bush regierte bzw. regiert allein durch Angst. Saddam ließ wie als eine Karikatur des typischen Tyrannen Statuen und Porträts von sich im ganzen Land anbringen, so dass er eine Art göttlichen Status in den Augen der Bürger erhielt, die ihn überall und immer sahen. Dadurch verletzte er nicht nur ein wichtiges Gebot des Islam: das totale Verbot der Bilder von Menschen, sondern er machte auch den großen Wert dieses Verbots deutlich. George W. Bush muss sich nicht auf fixierte Bilder von ihm stützen. Er steht immer vor den amerikanischen Augen, weil seine Mannschaft die Medien so gut manipulieren kann, so dass die Medienstars wie die Hunderten von Journalisten des Weißen Hauses gutwillige Mitverschwörer sind. Jedes Mal, wenn man Bush sehen und hören kann, kriegen sie das, zumindest kurz, mit. Die Berater von Bush haben die Situation perfektioniert, in der er - normalerweise ohne Fragen zu beantworten - vor einem Publikum spricht, von dem er sicher sein kann, dass er es mit seinen populären, fast kindlichen Äußerungen beeindrucken kann. Das führt zu häufigem Applaus, der dann gesendet wird und zu der Aufmerksamkeit beiträgt, die man Bush und seiner Botschaft widmet. Saddams Berater waren in dieser Hinsicht, auch wenn sie manches ähnlich taten, wesentlich weniger einfallsreich.

Genau wie Saddam, zumindest zwischen 1991 und seinem Sturz, bezog sich Bush unendlich oft auf Gott und die Religion. Wie ernst beide dies auch immer meinten bzw. meinen, so war bzw. ist die Absicht damit verbunden, die Unterstützung des großen religiösen Blocks im jeweiligen Land zu finden. Und das funktionierte wahrscheinlich für beide ganz gut.

Die Parallelen gehen vermutlich noch weiter bis zum Krieg selbst. Patriotismus bleibt das letzte Mittel eines Schurken, oder ist es, wie Ambrose Pierce meinte, sogar das erste? Ein Schurke, der versucht, die Menschen hinter sich zu bringen, kann patriotisch erscheinen, wenn er behauptet, dass er die Nation oder die Ehre der Nation mit einem Krieg verteidigt. Das war sicher ein Grund für die drei zerstörerischen Kriege Saddams und erinnert an sein fortwährendes Bemühen, sich selbst als einen neuen Saladin darzustellen, der wieder einmal die westlichen Eroberer aus dem Herzen des Islam und aus den arabischen Ländern vertreibt.

Relativ früh in seinem zweifelhaft erlangten Amt als Präsident sank die Populrität von Bush ab, bis al-Qaida ihm zufällig die Möglichkeit eröffnete, für uns etwas zu tun, in dem er in einen Krieg oder in mehrere Kriege zieht. Während jeder US-Präsident nur eine bescheidene Überzeugungsmacht in der Innenpolitik hat, so steht ihm doch die jetzt mit weiten Abstand am besten bewaffnete und - zumindest was das Kämpfen anbelangt - die am besten vorbereitete Armee in der Welt zur Verfügung, die allerdings vorsichtiger geworden ist, sich tatsächlich in Kämpfe zu begeben.


Massenhysteriewaffen


Es bleibt weiterhin unklar, was al-Qaida mit dem unerwarteten und unvergleichbaren Angriff auf das World Trade Center erreichen wollte. Aber wie alle Terrorgruppen hoffte man wahrscheinlich, die Effektivität des wirklichen Angriffs durch die Benutzung der Medien, vor allem durch das Fernsehen, zu verstärken, um der amerikanischen Öffentlichkeit Angst zu machen. Seitdem ging der Luftverkehr zurück und ist die amerikanische Wirtschaft wahrscheinlich noch mehr ins Stottern geraten, als dies sonst geschehen wäre, doch al-Qaida erreichte damit eine für ihre Ziele wahrscheinlich nützliche Weise Aufmerksamkeit.

Das Ereignis war allerdings auch ein Aufmerksamkeitsfänger für die amerikanischen Nachrichtenmedien und ein Gottesgeschenk für die Journalisten. Sie verloren kaum Zeit, die Gelegenheit zu nutzen. Innerhalb von 24 Stunden gab es bei den Fernsehsendern Titel für laufende Show wie "Attack on America" oder "America`s New War". Das half nicht nur dabei, die Identifikation eines jeden Amerikaners mit den Opfern zu maximieren, sondern gleichzeitig auch die Bühne zu schaffen, die den Medien und den meisten Journalisten mehr Aufmerksamkeit zukommen ließ, als der von ihnen erklärte Krieg sich weiter abspielte. Möglicherweise hätte es ein andere Ergebnis gegeben, wenn der Titel nur korrekterweise Massenmord in Manhattan gelautet hätte.

Auch viele außerhalb der Medien zogen ihren Vorteil aus dem Ereignis, um ihre eigenen Möglichkeiten der Aufmerksamkeitsgewinnung zu steigern. Vor dem Anschlag hatten einige Intellektuelle, die auf die eine oder andere Weise mit den amerikanischen Rüstungskreisen verbunden waren, einen Kampf der Kulturen zwischen dem Islam und dem Westen behauptet. Andere hatten angsterregende Berichte über die Gefahr für die Vereinigten Staaten durch Terroristen vorbereitet, die Massenvernichtungswaffen einsetzen, auch wenn die arabischen Terroristen vom 11.9. wie alle anderen überall in der Welt zuvor keine benutzten hatten (ausgenommen vielleicht den U-Bahn-Anschlag in Japan von Aum Shinrikyo).

Massenvernichtungswaffen ist eine anderer Name für das, was man zuvor ABC-Waffen genannt hat, also atomare, biologische und chemische Waffen. Die Gefahr ist jedoch nicht sehr groß, dass Terroristen, selbst wenn sie auf chemische oder biologische Waffen zugreifen könnten, einen Angriff auf ein technisch fortgeschrittenes Land wie die USA starten, der nicht viel größere Verwüstungen in den Teilen der Welt hervorrufen würde, für die die Terroristen vermutlich kämpfen. Beispielsweise könnten sie versuchen, Pocken in den USA zu verbreiten, aber wahrscheinlich könnte hier eine wirksame Reaktion des Gesundheitssystems gefunden werden. Doch welche Epidemie hier auch immer beginnen sollte, so würde sie sich mit weitaus geringerer Kontrolle in Ländern wie Pakistan oder Ägypten aus breiten können, die nicht über die Mittel verfügen, sie eindämmen zu können. Was Chemikalien angeht, so werden tödliche Substanzen in großen Mengen täglich an vielen Orten in den USA verwendet, wodurch es Terroristen leichter müsste, diese Vorgänge zu sabotieren, als chemische Waffen wie Nervengas herzustellen, einzuführen und irgendwie zu verbreiten.

Nuklearwaffen, die in einem der vielen Tausenden von täglich in den zahlreichen Häfen ankommenden Containern ins Land gebracht werden, würden eine wirkliche Gefahr darstellen. Doch Terroristen müssten erst einmal eine solche Waffe von einem Staat, der sie herstellt, direkt oder indirekt erhalten. Und es gibt viele Gründe auf beiden Seiten, bei einer solchen Transaktion sehr vorsichtig zu sein. Keine Regierung kann sicher sein, dass Terroristen die Waffe nicht gegen sie einsetzen oder dass sie nicht in Wirklichkeit ihre Feinde sind. Terroristen würden kaum in der Lage sein, die Ware zu testen. Sie würden keine Möglichkeit der Überprüfung haben, ob es sich wirklich um eine Bombe handelt, und sie würden sich auf die Genauigkeit der auslösenden Codes verlassen müssen, die man ihnen gegeben hat (diese Codes gibt es, um eine nicht berechtigte oder zufällige Explosion zu verhindern). Ohne diese korrekten Codes würde das Ding nicht in die Luft gehen - und jeder, der es findet, könnte wahrscheinlich die Spuren auf ihre Herkunft zurückverfolgen. Selbst wenn eine von einem Terroristen erworbene Bombe explodieren und zu zahlreichen Toten und Panik führen sollte, könnte die Konfiguration der freigesetzten Isotope auf das Herkunftsland verweisen, das man dann zwingen könnte preiszugeben, wer sie gekauft hat. Zudem bestünde die Gefahr von Gegenschlägen. Die Produktion und der Verkauf von Atomwaffen an Terroristen könnten eine viel bessere Terrorwaffe in der Praxis sein als die wirklichen Bomben in den Händen von staatenlosen Terroristen, wie dies möglicherweise Nordkorea beweist.

Massenvernichtungswaffen sind also, um es anders zu sagen, keine besonders für Terroristen geeignete Waffen. Die Angst vor ihnen kann aber das Ansehen der Intellektuellen, die für stärkere Verteidigung eintreten, vergrößern und eine gute Ausrede anbieten, um Länder wie den Irak anzugreifen. Wie hätten Bush und Co. hoffen können, ohne Behauptungen über solche Waffen zu machen, den Kongress und die UN überzeugen zu können, dass ein Angriff gerechtfertigt ist. Letztlich hat die UN diese Behauptung nicht mit der von Bush erwarteten Geschwindigkeit ernst genug genommen. aber sie verlieh einem Krieg, der aufgrund ziemlich fragwürdiger Gründe geführt wurde, einen ziemlich dünnen Anschein von Rechtmäßigkeit.

Es war auch nicht notwendig, wirklich zu bewiesen, dass das Irak-Regime zum Beginn des Kriegs im Besitz solcher Waffen gewesen ist. Die USA mussten lediglich versichern, dass unsere Geheimdienste sicher waren, dass sie existieren. Während ich dies schreibe, ist noch immer nicht gewiss, ob das mehr als eine pure Lüge war. Wer aber kann jetzt noch glauben, dass die Massenvernichtungswaffen das wirkliche Kriegsziel waren? Nachdem sie nicht sofort nach dem Ende des Krieges gefunden wurden, ließ die Bush-Regierung die Story zirkulieren, sie habe die ganze Zeit gewusst, dass der Irak während der letzten 10 Jahre seine Massenvernichtungswaffen im nicht ganz freundlichen Syrien versteckt habe.


Ein Krieg zur Selbstdarstellung


Die Bush-Regierung hat unter Verwendung von Gründen, die schon lange vor 2001 ausgearbeitet wurden, eine Doktrin verkündet, dass ein präventiver Krieg von nun an gerechtfertigt ist: Ein Land kann angegriffen werden, um es davon abzuhalten, in eine Lage zu kommen, uns anzugreifen. Die Doktrin hat eine lange Geschichte. In den 1940er Jahren hat niemand anders als der Philosoph und Pazifist Bertrand Russell einen Präventionsangriff auf die Sowjetunion gefordert, um diese davon abzuhalten, Nuklearwaffen zu entwickeln, und so zu verhindern, dass sein Atomkrieg jemals geschehen könne. Er wurde jedoch nicht groß beachtet. Die neue Bush-Doktrin ist jedoch charakteristischerweise auf die permanente Aufrechterhaltung der US-Hegemonie ausgerichtet.

Doch selbst, wenn der Irak unter Hussein chemische und biologische Waffen gehabt hatte, wie hätte er die USA mit diesen angreifen sollen? Wenn es dies nicht konnte, warum war dann Prävention notwendig? Die Hauptrechtfertigung, dass der Irak diese Fähigkeit selbst unter der neuen Präventionsdoktrin hatte, war die Verbindung mit al-Qaida, für die allerdings nur die dürftigsten und unsichersten Beweise angeboten wurden. Bush brachte in Äußerungen den Irak und den 11.9. zusammen, ohne groß zu behaupten, dass er von einer Verbindung Kenntnis hat.

Selbst nach dem Krieg wiederholte er, noch immer ohne Beweis, die Behauptung, dass er einen Verbündten von al-Qaida besiegt habe. Ein großer Teil der Amerikaner, bis zu 40 Prozent der Bevölkerung, ging offensichtlich vor der Invasion davon aus, dass es eine solche Verbindung gibt. Ohne diese Überzeugung wäre die öffentliche Unterstützung für den Krieg zu klein gewesen, um ihn zu ermöglichen. Bush, ein Mann mit Scheuklappen und wenig Wissen in allen Bereichen, der allerdings einen Umbau des Ausbildungssystems gefordert hat, verließ sich daher auf die noch weitaus größere Unkenntnis der Öffentlichkeit über andere Länder und deren Standpunkte, was leider zum Kennzeichen dieser Nation von Einwanderern geworden ist.

Amerika ist ein sehr großes Land. Durch Hollywood, Silicon Valley, New York und andere Medienzentren zieht es die Aufmerksamkeit der übrigen Welt auf sich. Aus diesem Grund schenken wir überwiegend nur anderen Amerikanern die Aufmerksamkeit. Wir sind ein Land mit nur zwei wirklichen Nachbarn. Kanada gleicht den USA oberflächlich, hat aber viel weniger Einwohner, stellt keine Gefahr dar und ist von keinem großen Interesse. Mexiko ist hingegen so verschieden und arm, so dass leicht Vorurteile und Unwissen gepflegt werden können. Der Rest der Welt ist für viele von uns ein verschwommener Fleck, an den man kaum denkt und den man nicht versteht, dessen Teile austauschbar erscheinen und wenig zu unterscheiden sind. Nur wenige von uns sehen ausländische Fernsehsender oder Filme oder lesen - mit Ausnahme manchmal von britischen - ausländische Zeitungen oder Bücher, auch sie übersetzt sind. Die meisten College-Schüler konnten nach Monaten von Debatten und Diskussionen kurz vor dem Krieg Irak nicht auf einer Weltkarte ausmachen. Wahrscheinlich hätten sie auch nicht sagen können, wie sich der Irak vom Iran unterscheidet, und schon gar nicht, wie die Araber selbst sich unterscheiden.

Aus dieser Perspektive war der 11.9. nicht nur erschreckend, sondern er stellte auch ein rohes Eindringen in unsere Selbstgenügsamkeit als Nation dar, was uns gegen unseren Willen dazu zwang, an den Rest der Welt zu denken. Es stand ganz außer Frage, dass wir ernsthaft versuchen würden, die tieferen Beweggründe der Terroristen zu verstehen. Natürlich, es musste etwas getan werden, so dass wir uns wieder sicher nach innen konzentrieren können. Geht man davon aus, dass wir ohne erkennbaren Grund seit dem Ende des Kalten Kriegs Billionen von Dollar für das Militär ausgegeben haben, schien eine militärische Reaktion auf der Hand zu liegen. Solange der Krieg nicht zu viele Kosten hinsichtlich des Geldes oder amerikanischer Leben verlangt, konnte man von einem Krieg gegen einen unklar bestimmten Terrorismus ausgehen. Der Afghanistan--Krieg war in dieser Hinsicht erfolgreich, ist aber seit langem aus der Öffentlichkeit verschwunden. Wenn wir davon überzeugt waren, dass Bush etwas für uns macht, dann war nichts einfacher oder wahrscheinlicher als ein weiterer, leicht größerer Krieg.

Die Opposition gegen den letzten Krieg war erstaunlich groß, besonders wenn man bedenkt, wie wenig die Medien davon Notiz nahmen. Nicht alle Kriegsgegner waren viel besser als die Kriegsbefürworter informiert. Manche waren lediglich gegen Krieg im Allgemeinen, manche hatten Angst vor den entstehenden Kosten an Geld oder Menschenleben oder misstrauten Bush. Aber man kann wohl mit großer Sicherheit sagen, dass die meisten der Amerikaner, die mehr über die Welt wussten, sich gegen den Krieg aussprachen als die übrigen.

Das Pentagon arrangierte den Krieg klugerweise als gute Fernsehunterhaltung für das amerikanische Publikum, wobei es kaum einen Grund gab, die Engstirnigkeit in Frage zu stellen oder den Krieg aus der Perspektive von Anderen zu betrachten. Die bei den amerikanischen Truppen "eingebetteten" Journalisten wurden mit Mini-Biographien eines jeden amerikanischen Opfers oder Kriegsgefangenen versorgt. Die Rettung von Jessica Lynch aus der Kriegsgefangenschaft wurde damit schnell, direkt hinter dem Fall von Bagdad, zur zweitgrößten Story des Kriegs. Tägliche Pressekonferenzen von Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld, dem Sprecher des Weißen Hauses, Ari Fleischer, und anderen orientierten die amerikanischen Medien auf heimische Pro-Regierungs-Interpretationen des Kriegs.

Der Krieg wurde auch ein wenig wie ein Computerspiel geführt. Die beeindruckenden Hightech-Waffen waren so in alles integriert, dass es für die technisch weit weniger fortgeschrittenen Truppen Saddams fast unmöglich war in Funktion zu treten. Unsere Medien widmeten sich diesen Einzelheiten gerne.

Vor dem Krieg haben Rumsfeld und andere versprochen, dass wir sehen würden, wie die Iraker in den Straßen tanzen, weil wir sie befreien. (Ursprünglich, so erzählt man, sollte der Krieg - und jeder amerikanische Krieg braucht einen Namen - Operation Iraqi Liberation genannt werden. Dann aber habe man gesehen, dass die Abkürzung OIL heißen würde, was für viele Kriegsgegner der eigentliche Grund war. Daher hat man den Namen schließlich zu Operation Iraqi Freedom umgetauft.) Als man das Tanzen in den Straßen nicht gleich sehen konnte, gab es einige Sorgen, doch dann, als Bagdad eingenommen wurde, gab es da den Fall, dass junge Männer im Hooligan-Alter auf den Straßen mit Freudenrufen herumliefen. Über was freuten sie sich eigentlich? Über das Ende von Saddam Hussein? Über das Ende der Bombardierungen? Über die Möglichkeit, ins Fernsehen zu kommen? Über die Medien haben wir keine Möglichkeit, dies zu erfahren. Große Menschenmengen bejubelten auf beiden Seiten den Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs 1914. Menschenmassen jubelten den deutschen Truppen unter Hitler zu, als sie in Österreich einmarschierten und sie von ihrem eigenen kleineren Diktator befreiten.

Rumsfeld stellte schnell die kurzen Szenen der jubelnden Iraker und des Sturzes der großen Saddam-Statue mit der Hilfe der US-Marines als Äquivalent des Falls der Berliner Mauer 1989 durch friedliche Menschenmengen oder des Sturzes des schrecklichen Diktators Ceaucescu durch die Rumänen, obgleich in beiden Fällen keine Invasoren von außen erforderlich waren. Nur nach geraumer Zeit wird sich herausstellen, ob die Mehrzahl der Iraker sich schließlich dankbar für die Invasion zeigen werden, was auch für die Reaktion der Nachbarn gilt. Doch die Aufmerksamkeit der Amerikaner wird sich, lange bevor wir das wissen können, schon längst wieder anderen Dingen zugewandt haben. Eine Woche nach der Einnahme von Bagdad war die größte Story in den amerikanischen Medien die Entdeckung der Leichen einer Frau und ihres Fötus, die seit Weihnachten vermisst wurden. Offensichtlich wurden sie von einem eifersüchtigen Mann getötet. Das interessiert anscheinend weit mehr als das Schicksal von 25 Millionen Iraker, die jetzt unter unserer Herrschaft stehen.

Während des Vietnamkriegs wurden Millionen von jungen Amerikanern eingezogen, andere hatten Angst, dass sie zum Militär mussten. Eine ganze Reihe wurden eingesperrt, weil sie nicht kämpfen wollten. Dieser Krieg zog sich über 10 Jahre hin. Es gab zwei Millionen Tote, darunter 57.000 Amerikaner. Es ist bedeutsam, dass die USA sich niemals eingesetzt hat, offiziell die Menschen, die für die Tötung vieler Unschuldiger verantwortlich waren, zu finden und vor ein Gericht zu stellen. Jeder, der heute unter 45 Jahre alt ist, kann sich nicht selbst an die Diskussion erinnern, die während dieses Konflikts stattgefunden hat.

Die Kriege in Afghanistan und im Irak haben das amerikanische Gedächtnis vom Vietnam-Debakel weitegehend gesäubert. Jetzt haben wir keine Wehrpflicht mehr. Amerika ist ein solch großes Land, dass nur noch einer von Tausend in die Region um den Irak im letzten Krieg zum Kampf geschickt worden ist. Geht man von unserem riesigen Rüstungsbudget selbst in Friedenszeiten aus, so sind die zusätzlichen Kosten des Kriegs im Irak nicht sonderlich groß.

Der wirkliche Sieg des Krieges war vielleicht, dass jetzt mehr als jemals zuvor ein Krieg eine gute Show für die USA ist, da die getöteten Soldaten zahlenmäßig so gering gehalten werden, dass sie kaum mehr ablenken. Es könnte nun scheinen, dass jeder Präsident, der Angst auslösen kann oder nur eine Ablenkung von schwierigen innenpolitischen Problemen finden will, in aller Ruhe einen ähnlichen Krieg wie im Irak mit einem geeigneten Feind planen und starten kann. Uns wird gesagt, dass das, was im Irak geschehen ist, uns eine Anschauung auf den Krieg des 21. Jahrhunderts gibt, was ein weiterer Hinweis darauf ist, dass unser Militär noch viele solcher Kriege führen könnte.


Die Zukunft von Bush


Bush hat gezeigt, dass er das Militär benutzen kann, um den Terroristen Schlagzeilen abzunehmen. Er ließ die terroristische Bedrohung kläglich aussehen, wie sie tatsächlich ist, auch wenn sie am 11.9. furchtbar erschienen ist. Dieser Anschlag war weitaus schlimmer als alles anderes, was al-Qaida zuvor oder seitdem bewirken oder was man vernünftigerweise erwarten konnte. Er profitierte von den völlig unvorbereiteten USA und trotzdem ging alles nur teilweise nach Plan ab. Auch wenn künftige Angriffe nicht unmöglich sind, werden sie jetzt, nachdem unsere Vorsichtsmaßnahmen sogar viel zu stark in Kraft getreten sind, sehr viel schwerer im selben Maß auszuführen sein. Keine Terrorgruppe, die beabsichtigt, sich in das amerikanische Bewusstsein einzubrennen, wird das ohne eine entsprechende Basis im Ausland machen können. Selbst wenn viel über den Terrorismus als Zukunft des Krieges geschrieben worden ist, so ist er eher eine Form der Vergangenheit als der Zukunft.

Bush kann jetzt, nachdem er die Aufmerksamkeit durch seine Kriege gefunden hat, sie logischerweise nicht aufrechterhalten, indem er weiterhin die Angst vor dem Terrorismus als Rechtfertigung verwendet, sein Versagen in der Innenpolitik zu überspielen, auch wenn er dies natürlich beabsichtigt. Er hat bereits den Irak-Krieg als einen weiter andauernden Krieg gegen den Terrorismus bezeichnet. Er plant, die erneute Nominierung als Präsidentschaftskandidat in New York, vielleicht am Ort des Anschlags kurz vor dem dritten Jahrestags von 11/9 anzunehmen. Aber er steckt in einer Falle. Wenn vor er nächsten Wahl ein anderer großer Terroranschlag irgendwo in den USA geschieht, dann wird ihm dies als zugeschrieben werden, da seine Heimatschutzmaßnahmen dies nicht verhindert haben. Aber wenn dies nicht eintritt, dann wird unsere Bereitschaft, uns permanent in einem Krieg gegen den Terrorismus zu sehen, unweigerlich schwinden.

Wäre der 11. September nicht geschehen, so hätten Bush und seine Gefolgschaft sehr wahrscheinlich mittlerweile eine sehr geringe Popularität erreicht und wäre gefangen in einer Welle von Wirtschaftsskandalen, die mit großer Sicherheit auch seinen Vizepräsident betroffen hätte. Die Unterstützung für den alten Reichtum und älterer Formen des Kapitals wie Landwirtschaft, Öl, Metall und Eisenbahn, die diese Clique vor allem repräsentiert, wäre als reaktionär und als dumm angesehen worden. Die Vorstellungen von einem permanent boomenden, von der Industrie gespeisten marktbasierten Kapitalismus, an dem sie weiter festhalten konnten, wäre immer stärker in Frage gestellt worden.

Der Boom in den 90er Jahren, der angeblich aus dem freigesetzten Kapitalismus stammte, zeigt sich im Rückblick noch viel stärker als Manifestation der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie, als wir dies vermutet hatten. Der materielle und finanzielle Reichtum ging auf diejenigen über, die Aufmerksamkeit erhalten und bewahren konnten, selbst wenn dies nur durch Vorspiegelung eines kapitalistischen Erfolgs geschah. Unternehmen wie Enron, das seinen Wachstum vor allem einer geschickt verborgenen betrügerischen Buchführung verdankte, waren sehr viel zahlreicher als zuvor angenommen. Ihre Führungskräfte waren weniger Kapitalisten als Stars, die überzeugend spielten, dass sie Profite machten. Die Dotcom-Blase war nur der besonders sichtbare Teil der Verbindung zwischen der Aufmerksamkeitsgewinnung und dem Geld, dass dann in Form von Investitionen hereinströmte.

Das Internet beschleunigte in Wirklichkeit nur den Augenblick der Offenbarung, das Reichtum in Form der Aufmerksamkeit weitaus mächtiger ist als Reichtum in materielleren Formen. Wenn das alte Kapital noch weiter überleben sollte, dann musste es so viele Fesseln von sich wie möglich entfernen - und das ist die allem zugrundeliegende Intention von Bush jun. und seiner Gefolgschaft. Dieser Schritt kann nur, wenn dies überhaupt gelingen sollte, durch den Einsatz von Mitteln der Aufmerksamkeitsgewinnung erreicht werden, die bis zum Extrem ausgereizt werden und sich auf diese Agenda konzentrieren, unabhängig davon, wieweit diese Absicht verborgen werden kann. Eines der Ziele war die Wiederherstellung der Disziplin und der Spannung des Kalten Krieges, da dies die Ausbreitung der amerikanischen Macht legitimierte und die amerikanische Kontrolle der Rohstoffressourcen auf den ganzen Welt unterstützte. Damit lässt sich auch der Patriotismus beispielsweise einsetzen, um Einschränkungen besser der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie anzupassen. Die Bush-Regierung begann so, Länder wie Nordkorea unter Verdacht zu setzen, während sie sich, wenn irgend möglich, den Einschränkungen von internationalen Abkommen entgegensetzte. Erst der 11.9. schuf eine Gelegenheit, das ganze Programm voranzutreiben.

Das schiere Selbstinteresse der Journalisten, die sich gierig darauf stürzten, Aufmerksamkeit durch Kriegsberichterstattung zu gewinnen, machte es für Bush und Co. leicht, die amerikanischen Medien weitgehend für die Unterstützung des Irak-Kriegs zu gewinnen. Was sie allerdings nicht berücksichtigten, war, dass sich eine internationale Opposition praktisch aus dem Nichts und weitgehend über das Internet ihre eigenen Aufmerksamkeitszentren in eine weltweite Antikriegsbewegung umformen konnte, die sich nicht übersehen ließ. Diese Bewegung wurde teilweise durch den Krieg selbst, durch das Spektakel der Hightech-Militärmaschinerie und die vorübergehende Ehrfurcht, die einem klaren Gewinner zuwächst, übertönt. Gleichwohl könnte sie sich, nachdem sie sich ihrer gerade erst bewusst wurde und nur einen blassen Anblick ihres Potenzials gewinnen konnte, zu einem wirklichen Fundament der Opposition stabilisieren, zu einer grenzenlosen Bewegung zugunsten einer Politik, die im Aufmerksamkeitszeitalter mehr Sinn macht. Um dies zu erreichen, muss sie besser verstehen, wie eine solche Politik aussehen müsste und wie sie am besten zu erzielen sein wird.

http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/kolumnen/gol/15144/1.html

[Joerver]

Iraqi attackers -- who are they?
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/ar…



Baghdad -- As violent anti-American resistance appears to be gaining force in Iraq, with attacks against U.S. troops occurring several times daily, there is growing debate over the enemy`s real identity.

Are the attackers, who have killed 31 U.S. soldiers in the past 10 weeks, fedayeen militia fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein, as Washington officials have often stated? Are they former soldiers from the Republican Guard and other army units? Are they unemployed workers? And are the attacks centrally coordinated, or are they the work of small, disconnected groups?

If the fighters are mostly members of the former regime`s hard core, it is believed the U.S. military will have a relatively easy time of finishing them off. But if they represent a broader cross-section of the Iraqi population -- as even some U.S. military officials are beginning to suggest -- the job will be much more difficult, messy and protracted.

The questions have assumed a particular urgency for American Army officers here, as they anticipate a rash of possible attacks this week to coincide with anniversaries important to those who still support Hussein.

Monday is the 45th anniversary of the 1958 revolution that overthrew the British-backed monarchy; Wednesday is the 24th anniversary of Hussein`s ascension to power in 1979; and next Friday is the 35th anniversary of the Baath Party coup in 1968.

U.S. officials in Baghdad said last week they had received intelligence reports indicating that senior Baath Party officials recently held a clandestine meeting to regroup their forces under Hussein`s titular leadership.

"Are they operating on some sort of commander`s intent out there?" Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez asked at a Baghdad press conference on Thursday. "Probably so. There`s no question in my mind that there are former Saddam Fedayeen-trained soldiers that are out there, Special Republican Guard soldiers that are still out there continuing with their offensive against us."


`SPECTER OF SADDAM`
Sanchez added: "I think the fact that the specter of Saddam continues to be present out there, whether he is dead or alive, is making a significant impact on the people of Iraq and their ability to cooperate with the coalition."

But there is a growing belief, held by both Iraqis and Americans here, that Hussein has lost his sway over all but a tiny core of loyalists, and that the nascent guerilla-style insurgency has spread beyond their ranks.

"Saddam is not the leader anymore," said a colonel with the special paratroop forces of Hussein`s Republican Guard, who asked to remain anonymous because he says he fears arrest by U.S. authorities.

"There are many groups behind the resistance," said the colonel, who declined to say whether he has direct contact with the groups. "There is coordination between some. It`s a small part Fedayeen Saddam, but also part tribes, groups of the military and Islamic resistance. You will see a lot of new groups as long as the American administration keeps taking bad actions. It will get worse."

Last week, the Bush administration offered a $25 million reward for the capture or proven death of Hussein, but the Iraqi colonel believes that either would make little difference. "It will have no effect on the resistance," he said.


`A NATIONAL STRUGGLE`
"It`s mostly young people, who have no jobs, and they see the Americans committing abuses and occupying the country, so they have no choice but to fight," said an Iraqi journalist who formerly worked for one of the regime`s newspapers. "It is a national struggle and an Islamic struggle."

U.S. occupation officials concur, at least in part, with the Iraqis` assessment of the breadth of the resistance, and they acknowledge that the slow pace of recovery -- power outages, water shortages, rampant street crime and widespread unemployment -- has contributed in part to the violence.

"I think it`s a bit of everything -- fedayeen, ex-military and unemployed workers sitting around fuming in the heat," said Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, of the Army`s 3rd Infantry Division in Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad that is a center of anti-American sentiment. "From what we`ve seen around here, it`s probably small, disconnected groups, which will be difficult to root out."

Fallujah and the surrounding region is also the heart of the so-called Sunni triangle, a reference to the Islamic group that comprises just 20 percent of the Iraqi population but was treated far more favorably by the Hussein regime than the majority Shiites. Analysts believe that the fear of losing their privileged position in the post-Hussein era has prompted many Sunnis to sympathize with the anti-U.S. opposition.

Most of the American military responses so far have focused on suspected Hussein supporters. Operation Sidewinder, a weeklong military operation through the area north of Baghdad, concluded a week ago, which resulted in several hundred arrests. Sanchez said the operation was aimed at "former Baath Party loyalists and other subversive elements that we suspect of conducting attacks against U.S. forces."


NO FOREIGN FIGHTERS, IRAQIS SAY
Iraqis interviewed here dismissed two other claims by some U.S. officials --

that foreign "jihadists" from Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations are involved, and that Iraqis are being being paid significant sums to take up arms against the U.S. military.

"That`s just American propaganda," said a former Iraqi general. "Iraqis are fighting because they have real motivation. We are not mercenaries."

The role of Islamists is more difficult to evaluate. While some of the fighters appear to hold hard-line Islamic views, it is less clear if they are being actively encouraged by Islamic leaders who have expressed opposition to the U.S. occupation.

Mouaid al-Ubaidi, the nation`s best-known Sunni imam, frequently denounces the American presence during sermons at the Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad. Like some other imams, he mentions "martyrdom" when referring to those who have died in recent confrontations, while avoiding any direct praise of attacks on Americans.

But al-Ubaidi and other imams still seem willing to give the Americans a chance to fix Iraq`s ills and to wait for the establishment of an Iraqi ruling council, which is expected to be announced today.

"We are trying to calm people down, because this is not the right moment for jihad," al-Ubaidi said in an interview. "The people are asking us for jihad, but we have to convince them that we must wait to see whether the Americans allow the Iraqis to govern. We have to wait and see. After that, we will decide."

E-mail Robert Collier at [e-mail].

[Joerver]

How the Land of the Free Became the Dinosaur in the Tar Pit

By Maureen Farrell, BuzzFlash
July 11, 2003

"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit – we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."
– Norman Schwarzkopf, from his 1993 autobiography, "It Doesn`t Take a Hero."


"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability."
– George H.W. Bush, "A World Transformed," 1998


"Facing a marked increase in the frequency and brazenness of attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq in the last two weeks, military officials are for the first time speaking more openly about the potential for a long-term fight to quell the resistance to the American presence. Although the term is rarely used at the Pentagon, from every description by military officials, what U.S. troops face on the ground in Iraq has all the markings of a guerrilla war. . . ."
– The Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2003




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Believing in the projected brevity and stated purpose of W.W.I, diehard imperialist Rudyard Kipling used his influence to secure a commission in the Irish Guards for his only son, Jack, who was both medically unfit and underage. Wounded in combat, Jack was listed missing in action and confirmed dead two years later. By that time, Kipling`s grandiose notions about patriotism and valor were replaced by bitter self-recrimination. "If any ask us why we died; Tell them `Because our fathers lied,` a haunted Kipling wrote.


By now, more and more Americans are coming to understand how deeply we were deceived as our sons die daily in the long, unforgiving shadow of WMD "exaggerations." Though some tried to warn us, the mainstream media sold the war so fiercely and thoroughly that these small voices had relatively little impact – particularly when anyone attempting to expose uncomfortable truths was accused of "drinking Saddam Hussein`s Kool-Aid."


But even so, Norman Schwarzkopf, George H. W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell told us what to expect a decade or so ago. "The Gulf War was a limited-objective war. If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today – an unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships," Powell wrote in 1992. "Would it have been worth the inevitable follow-up: major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come and a very expensive and complex American proconsulship in Baghdad? Fortunately for America, reasonable people at the time thought not. They still do."


Bush and Scowcroft were among the reasonable. "Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," they wrote, while Schwarzkopf was similarly sane earlier this year when he told the Washington Post he "would like to have better information" before endorsing the war in Iraq. And despite attempts to paint such concerns as the province of the "loony left," "reasonable people" included military experts; distinguished scientists; the CIA; conservative columnists; the National Council of Churches; traditional allies; The W.W.II generation; businessmen and millions who took to the streets in protest.


Surprisingly, various veterans organizations also became vehemently antiwar. Some found this war so unreasonable, in fact, that they urged soldiers to disobey orders. "Many of us believed serving in the military was our duty, and our job was to defend this country," one group wrote. "Our experiences in the military caused us to question much of what we were taught. Now we see our REAL duty is to encourage you as members of the U.S. armed forces to find out what you are being sent to fight and die for and what the consequences of your actions will be for humanity. . . If you choose to participate in the invasion of Iraq you will be part of an occupying army. Do you know what it is like to look into the eyes of a people that hate you to your core?"


They do now.


Just one day after the U.S. military toppled Saddam`s statue, the Guardian`s Seumas Milne countered pundits` incessant gloating and braying. "On the streets of Baghdad yesterday, it was Kabul, November 2001, all over again," he wrote, warning against the shortsighted, ill-informed hubris and "grimly ironic" confidence of war enthusiasts. "For most Afghans," he reminded, "`liberation` has meant the return of rival warlords, harsh repression, rampant lawlessness, widespread torture and Taliban-style policing of women. Meanwhile, guerrilla attacks are mounting on US troops. . . and the likelihood of credible elections next year appears to be close to zero."


Sound familiar?


Milne also warned that Iraqis` initial euphoria should not be confused with enthusiasm for the illegal occupation of their country, while Robert Fisk reported that though "America`s war of `liberation` is over, Iraq`s war of liberation from the Americans is just about to begin." "The next chapter is going to be a conflict between the Iraqi people and the invaders," Iraqi refugee Dr. Renwar Rueben told reporters. "Sooner or later, the Americans will face the revolutionary anger and aggressiveness of the Iraqi people."


To date, more than 60 Americans have died in Iraq since George W. AWOL played Top Gun before a "Mission Accomplished" backdrop – and attacks against US soldiers (now averaging about 13 a day), are becoming more organized, more determined and more brazen. One infantry captain, holding the charred helmet of a fallen fellow soldier said, "This is what the Iraqis think of us." But chances are, this young soldier is unaware of the region`s more subtle history. Leftover hostility from the Gulf War and from the United State`s role in the Iran-Iraq war (as well as from sanctions that killed half a million Iraqi children) still simmers, while, according to Dr. Rueben, "Iraqis also know America supported Saddam Hussein`s use of a biological bomb against Kurds in 1988," and that the former President Bush "vetoed against condemnation of Iraq for these actions."


Saddam`s role in the American-led coup that brought the Baath party to power and his 40 year relationship with the CIA is also common knowledge. "This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it," Robert Morris wrote in the New York Times. "Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad." By the time the war "ended," this cynicism was best expressed by Russia`s president Vladimir Putin. "Where is Saddam? Where are those arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, if indeed they ever existed? Perhaps Saddam is still hiding somewhere in a bunker underground, sitting on cases of weapons of mass destruction and is preparing to blow the whole thing up and bring down the lives of thousands of Iraqi people," he said.


It doesn`t help, of course, that Bush`s soulless "bring them on!" invitation, inspired Iraq`s `nonexistent` guerillas to reply or that Donald Rumsfeld asserts "criminals" are attacking US troops. Doesn`t the Secretary of Defense understand the difference between criminal activity and guerilla warfare? "A little background, especially for our Confused Rummy," Vietnam veteran Stewart Nusbaumer wrote, "criminals kill for money, guerrillas kill for politics . . . Iraqis are killing Americans to take back their country!"


Occupation requires iron resolve, however, and "Washington`s overlord in Iraq," L. Paul Bremer is just the man for the job. "We are going to fight them and impose our will on them, and we will capture or... kill them until we have imposed law and order on this country," he declared. Given this, it might be time to contemplate Nusbaumer`s second Vietnam-inspired lesson, namely: "knowing when your butt is sinking fast into a hopeless quagmire." Though the "Q" word makes the Pentagon surly and uneasy, the incompetence and arrogance that have led to this point are maddening, especially now that ridiculed concerns are coming to fruition. When Gen. Eric Shinseki told the Senate 200,000 troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz (who`s largely responsible for this fine mess ) deemed his estimate "wildly inaccurate." But thanks to anti-US hostility and guerilla-style attacks, Bremer is requesting up to 50,000 additional troops atop the 150,000 or so already in place.


And though neoconservative hawks insulted our allies and made it clear that the U.S. could go it alone (Perle even thanked God "for the death the UN," for God`s sake ), there are murmurs that U.S. troops are stretched too thin. Will we have enough to fight King George`s perpetual wars? With 32 states linking selective service registration to drivers` license applications since 2000 and with 89% compliance, if "old Europe" doesn`t come around, young Americans may have to. And though Bush stated early on that "the country shouldn`t expect there to be a draft," after a list of lies, can anyone believe a word he says?


Americans aren`t the only ones dying for Bush`s sins, of course. Thousands of Iraqis perished in the war and others were blinded, maimed and orphaned. And though many rightfully argue that Iraqis would continue to be tortured had Saddam stayed in power, those who use Saddam`s cruelty as justification for the lies that usurped our democracy often sidestep crucial information. Though mass graves are certainly testimony to Saddam`s barbarity, rarely do Bush apologists mention that some of these graves contain the remains of Shiites George H. W. Bush urged to rise up against Saddam, nor do they address why America installed a strong-arm dictator in the first place. In October, 2001 Scowcroft explained it to PBS` "Frontline":



LOWELL BERGMAN, FRONTLINE: Wasn`t there an uprising?
BRENT SCOWCROFT, Former National Security Adviser: Of course.
LOWELL BERGMAN: Didn`t we see their military killing people?
BRENT SCOWCROFT: Yes.
LOWELL BERGMAN: And we didn`t intervene.
BRENT SCOWCROFT: Of course not.. . . . because – first of all, one of our objectives was not to have Iraq split up into constituent parts because it`s our – it`s a fundamental interest of the United States to keep a balance in that area. . . between Iraq and Iran.. . . suppose we went in and intervened and the Kurds declare independence and the Shi`ites declare independence. Then do we go to war against them to keep a unified Iraq?


"I have come to believe that the greatest civic sin is to lie to the people," Charley Reese wrote. "It ought to be considered the unforgivable sin. It undercuts the very basis of self-government. That concept, pioneered by America`s Founding Fathers, says that the people can make the right decisions in the long run provided they are given the facts. If they are lied to, they are denied the opportunity to make the right decisions. They are, rather than choosing their destiny, being manipulated by others for hidden reasons."


The day Saddam`s statue fell, and everyone wanted to feel good, television stations were interviewing soldiers` wives. Time and time again, these women gushed about how anxious they were for their husbands to return. Yet in September, 2002, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution`s Jay Bookman predicted the scenario that`s now unraveling. "This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman," Bookman wrote. "Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled? Because we won`t be leaving."


"They kept telling that as soon as you get to Baghdad you would be going home," one soldier`s wife told the Guardian. "The way home is through Baghdad, they said." And though Bush promised troops would not remain in Iraq "for one day longer than is necessary" officials are talking about "maintaining perhaps four bases in Iraq" and staying there indefinitely. Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "This idea that we will be in just as long as we need to and not a day more – we`ve got to get over that rhetoric. It is rubbish. We`re going to be there a long time. We must reorganize our military to be there a long time."


Sadly, military families who thought "Mission Accomplished" meant troops would come home are now paying the ultimate price for their trust. "What are we getting into here?" one sergeant asked. "The war is supposed to be over, but every day we hear of another soldier getting killed. Is it worth it? Saddam isn`t in power anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?"


Ah, there`s the rub. Soldiers marched into Baghdad thinking they were defending the Land of the Free, but instead, as Schwarzkopf warned, they`re "like the dinosaur in the tar pit," and "bearing the costs of the occupation." Now that it`s clear Saddam`s weapons of mass destruction did not pose an immediate danger to the United States, why, one wonders, did George W. Bush risk the scenario his father foresaw? Rhetoric aside, for what hidden reason did he possibly "condemn" soldiers to fight in "an unwinnable urban guerilla war?" Was it for global domination? Or war profiteering? Or for oil? The answer is out there somewhere – along with Osama, Saddam and the ever elusive Truth.


Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure. Visit Buzzflash to read the original version of this article including links to sources.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16382

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An Elegy for Johnny Somebody

http://www.liberalslant.com/lwt071303.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By: Lisa Walsh Thomas - 07/13/03



"Leave our country and take your barbed wire with you. All it`s doing is separating our people." - Shouts of Iraqis at American soldiers as reported on the CBS Evening News, July 10, 2003, following a special report indicating that George Bush was fully aware of the falsehood in the story that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger even as he told 83 million people of it during his State of the Union address in January.



Johnny Somebody can too easily be composited from the sad list of American service-people who have died in Iraq since the Bush invasion to "disarm" a country this administration taught our people to fear as a threat to civilization.

Like his friends, Johnny played war and army when he was a kid. The guys he shot were bad guys. The guys who were on his side were good guys. He came from a small town and life was clear, black and white. If you didn`t know for sure what was right or wrong, you could always find out at church. He wanted to grow up to make his family and his church and his neighborhood proud of him. He wanted to do something important, maybe design large buildings.

Dinner table talk at Johnny`s house didn`t cover tax shelters or estate taxes. Then again, because Johnny`s family was poor, they didn`t pay a lot of taxes. They paid as was ordained for people of their low income and were grateful, on the times when his father was laid off, that they were able to get food stamps. They considered it their duty as patriotic Americans to pay what was asked and to be grateful that they had been born in America, the greatest country in the world.

Johnny`s options at high school graduation were limited. Two teachers had told him he was cut out to be an engineer, but he knew that college would be an expensive undertaking, borrowing the funds and repaying for years. There WAS a way, however, one a recruiting officer had explained to him shortly before graduation. He could see the world, and the U.S. army would provide him with a college education; he could eventually give his own children all the things his parents had wanted to give him. In addition, he would be the pride of his family, of his neighborhood. His future sons would look up to him.

It sounded good, especially after the terrorist attack on 9-11. Word in the neighborhood was that Saddam Hussein was behind the attack. Johnny had a teacher who explained to the class that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but Johnny`s father told him that the teacher was unpatriotic, that it was Iraqis who hijacked the planes. Later, quietly, his mother explained to him that no, the hijackers were Saudis, not Iraqis. Johnny was not, in truth, certain of the difference.

If the Saudis were our friends, why would Saudis kill 3,000 Americans? He finally looked up Iraq on a world map, but it was easy to confuse Iraq and Iran, both enemies to freedom, according to the president. Both countries, and several others, were evil, as the president put it, enemies of freedom.

It became more confusing the more questions he asked.

Johnny had heard regularly on television that President Bush, who often carried a bible, was a man of God, and President Bush was declaring a "war on terrorism." Part of that "war" was a planned invasion of Iraq. Like his parents before him, Johnny was a patriot. What his president said was considered as good as gold.

For those two reasons, a chance to have a better life and a chance to serve his country in its hour of need, Johnny enlisted. He was already finished with basic training when he listened to the state of the union address in January, 2003. He had friends who didn`t trust Bush, who had been angered to find out that the president had slipped out of serving in the military during the Vietnam War by being put in the National Guard by his father and had then been AWOL for a year. Johnny didn`t know, but he doubted it. After all, CNN would surely have run it as a lead story if the Commander-in-Chief had been AWOL. What he DID know was that in the state-of-the-union address, the president lay out evidence proving without doubt why Iraq was a danger to Johnny`s parents and his little sister, to his entire country.

Iraq -- and President Bush had proof of this -- had tried to buy uranium from Africa in order to build nuclear bombs. Further proof lay in tubing that was designed for nuclear bombs. These people hated America; they hated freedom. Every night the news ran clips of President Bush talking about how many people hated freedom. Millions of people around the world were protesting war, but they apparently cared little for freedom.

Johnny`s father was certain that Iraq was on the brink of being able to launch destructive missiles into the heart of the United States within minutes. Johnny`s mother wasn`t so sure. But in the end, Johnny knew that to be a good soldier, he had to put his trust in his God and in his Commander-in-Chief.

In April, Johnny entered Iraq and no moment of his life was ever the same again. Before his first taste of real combat, he had never understood how many bodies would be strewn around after a battle, how the piercing wails of children would ring in his ears for hours, how many flies could cover a severed arm in the middle of a dirt road. Sometimes he wondered if the president, who had never been in a war, knew how bloody it was. One night he shared a sack of candy with another private, and they talked into the late hours about the kind of girls they wanted to marry someday. The next morning, the soldier was killed by accident. When Johnny saw his new friend`s body, he was stunned at how much it looked like the bodies of Iraqis that he saw so often, and he embarrassed himself by suddenly throwing up.

He didn`t write about these things to his mother. For one thing, they weren`t encouraged to talk about how many Iraqis were being killed, and for another thing, he didn`t think his mother should know of what he was seeing. He thought of taking pictures and sending them to President Bush, just to be CERTAIN the president knew how bad it was, how many Iraqi civilians and children were being killed, but he was afraid that the president, with all these lives in his hands, wouldn`t have time to read a letter from a mere private. Instead, he thought of the nuclear weapons that Iraq was building, the chemical weapons that they had stored, ready to use as soon as they needed them.

He focused on that, and on all the American children like his own little sister who could not survive a nuclear attack on the United States.

One night in the spring, Johnny realized that he wasn`t sleeping more than an hour at a time. However noble the cause, the blood had begun seeping into his dreams. He swore to himself to never tell his mother how many people, some of them barely out of childhood, he had himself been forced to kill out of fear and confusion. It was self-defense, but the guy on the bunk below him one night said that these Iraqi boys were only defending their own country from attack. Johnny thought about it but said nothing. His best buddy told him one night he was getting too quiet. So Johnny made himself grin and say, "Hey, we`re gonna kick some ass tomorrow." It made him feel better, safer.

On a loud hot day that would go unmarked by any but Johnny`s family and closest friends, Johnny heard a thunderous sound, then looked down at his abdomen for only a moment to see that the blood of his dreams was now wet and deep red and sticky and real. He put a finger to it before he could believe that it was his OWN blood. Then the desert sky went black. He felt his own body falling apart, like a softball someone took a sledge hammer to, and for a split second he wondered if his mother would be given a flag at his military funeral, the way he had seen it happen in movies.

He died still believing that his Commander-in-Chief was a man of God and a hero.

Shortly thereafter, Johnny`s parents received a check for $6,000 compensation. Not long after that, they were reimbursed for $1750 for burial expenses.

Because he had wanted to save all his small salary, Pfc Johnny Somebody had waived the $20 a month charge for $250,000 life insurance, so the compensation to his family ended with the total $7750.

A bitter relative asked Johnny`s father if he didn`t feel slighted getting $6,000 when the average compensation per family for victims of the World Trade Center attack was averaging 1.18 million dollars. Johnny`s father stared back, not comprehending. His son, he adamantly repeated, was a hero. He died for his country. He... his voice faltered.

Johnny never had the chance to find out that the "evidence" of Iraq`s danger to the U.S. was made up of fabrications, unproven assumptions, and bald lies. He never knew that his little sister would fail two classes that semester or that his father would miss three weeks of work in a row, start buying beer every night, and finally lose his job.

He never knew that his mother`s face had learned to turn to stone when someone told her that Johnny had died for his country or that heathens had killed their Johnny.

He never knew that late one night, with her husband and daughter sleeping under heavy medication for depression, his mother would sit before the TV set with the stony look she had learned and that all alone in the dark apartment, with no witness to see her treasonous gesture, she would point a long finger at a rerun of a smiling man wearing a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier, that she would hiss into the dark:

"YOU, George Bush, lied. You KNEW that poverty-stricken country was no threat to my boy. You KNEW there were no nuclear weapons. You didn`t make a mistake. You LIED."

Five minutes later, a woman who had never been called neurotic or hysterical in her life, would start screaming, and it would take a half hour for her husband and daughter to quiet her as she repeated over and over, louder and louder:

"You LIED. You LIED. You LIED. You LIED."



Lisa Walsh Thomas is a lifelong writer and human rights activist. Her second book, "The Girl with Yellow Flowers in Her Hair," is now available through Pitchfork Publishing at http://www.pitchforkpublishing.com
Lisa can be reached at: [e-mail]

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$1 Billion a Week
And that’s on the low side. So much for a ‘self-sustaining’ reconstruction. Parsing the real cost for U.S. taxpayers

By Christopher Dickey
NEWSWEEK
http://www.msnbc.com/news/938233.asp?0cv=KA01

July 21 issue — Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came back from his recent trip to Iraq with some disturbing stories.
ONE AFTERNOON HE was headed out on the highway to the Baghdad airport in a heavily protected convoy. He’d already been warned that, on that road, “people get shot, there are fire fights.” Then the general with him suddenly ordered a machine gunner on top of a Humvee to get down. The reason: Iraqi killers are good at blindsiding American troops. “From time to time,” Lugar was told, “there are enemy, whoever they are, who sort of loop wires down from the bridges that might pluck somebody off at the neck as they go down the road.”
By the time Lugar’s trip to Iraq was over, the Indiana Republican worried the American people were being blindsided, too, by the true costs in blood and treasure of a war that has yet to end. “This idea that we will be in [Iraq] ‘just as long as we need to and not a day more’,” he said, paraphrasing the administration line, “is rubbish! We’re going to be there a long time.” Lugar said he kept demanding answers about the cost to American taxpayers and was not quite getting them. “Where does the money come from?” he asked. “How is it to be disbursed, and by whom?”
Last week, at last, some of the answers started coming in, and they were grim. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a hearing that the “burn rate” for American money to fund the military presence in Iraq was now $3.9 billion a month—almost $1 billion a week. “This is tough stuff,” said a cranky Rumsfeld, lecturing the Senate committee. “This is hard work. This takes time. We need to have some patience.”

A MATTER OF FUNDING
But that billion a week is just the beginning. It doesn’t include the cost of running Iraq’s government and rebuilding it, which could be an additional billion a month, according to rough U.N. estimates made before the war. Then there’s the matter of Iraq’s enormous debts. Last week the major creditor countries in the so-called Paris Club agreed to restructure about $21 billion worth, but estimates of the total external debt, including war reparations to Kuwait, run well over $100 billion. How will the reconstruction be funded? For the administration it’s an especially painful question, in part because it comes at a time when the U.S. economy is in the doldrums, when budget deficits are ballooning and when tax cuts are the preferred method of getting business churning again. No wonder “Rumsfeld lost his cool,” said a former senior official from the first Bush administration. “He was befuddled. I think he’s running out of confidence and wriggle room.”
Why did the administration rush into this war so ill prepared for what would come after? Supposedly there was a clear and present danger from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, but even if it was present, clearly it wasn’t imminent. No such weapons were used and none have been found. While administration hawks were pushing hard for war, however, they airily dismissed questions about the long-term cost of occupying post-Saddam Iraq. Some suggested there might not be a long term. “Most of the Iraqi bureaucracy, and most of the Iraqi infrastructure, will be left intact,” a State Department official assured a NEWSWEEK reporter just before the war. An occupation might not have to last more than “30 to 60 days.”
As for financing the occupation, “We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate a week after the invasion started in March. Now such pretenses have to be dropped. “It’s not going to be self-financing,” says L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition administrator for Iraq. “Although Iraq is potentially a rich country, it’s not very rich now.”
IT WAS A NATIONAL LOSS’
At the Exploration Studies and Research Center in Baghdad, you can see why. Some of the most valuable intellectual property in the country, key to reviving the oil industry, is missing or destroyed. Millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and materials were either stolen or ripped apart. Scores of “rock cores”—four-foot-long cylinders that held the keys to geological data in oil-rich zones—were smashed when looters threw them one by one on the ground and took off with the wood frames that held them. “It was a national loss,” says Natic al Bayati, an oil-exploration expert. Seismic maps and original documents, some dating back to 1967, were burned. Seismic data collected on more than 200,000 kilometers of land—at an estimated cost of about $15,000 per kilometer—went up in smoke. “Our people [of Iraq], now they are destroying themselves,” says al Bayati.
Two weeks ago Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) sold off some 8 million barrels that had been stored in Ceyhan, Turkey, since before the war. Last week an additional 8 million barrels were sold to four international companies: Shell, ChevronTexaco, BP and Taurus, a Swiss-American trading company. It was the first newly produced petroleum sold since the fighting, and it brought in about $200 million. “Peanuts,” says Mussab al-Dujayli, a SOMO oil expert. He thinks the U.S. administration is dreaming if it believes it will be able to finance the reconstruction with oil money alone.
“The oil industry is in a state of chaos and anarchy,” says al-Dujayli. He points out that the Oil Industry Guards, a military unit that was tasked to secure the pipelines, has been either destroyed or dismantled. The Americans are talking about replacing the force but, meanwhile, pipelines north and south have been attacked several times in just the past two weeks. Iraq is actually importing gasoline from Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere, according to industry sources.

Nor is the oil business all that’s a shambles. As one senior U.N. official points out: “Iraq is not Afghanistan. It’s an urbanized, industrialized country where people are used to services like clean water, electricity, air conditioning. And that makes it really, really expensive.” The American failure to provide Baghdad with adequate power and light is now notorious, hampered by looting, sabotage and even the murder of electrical-company workers for “collaboration.” But even without those problems, the electrical grid is in a sorry state. Both U.N. and U.S. estimates predict that $3 billion to $5 billion will be needed just for emergency repairs. “It will take $10 billion to make it hold,” says one U.N. official.

A MISSING MINISTRY
The Ministry of Housing is working with U.S. contractor Bechtel on vast infrastructure projects, and Bechtel certainly has the wherewithal: it was given $680 million by Washington to repair and build highways and bridges, airports, water-treatment facilities, sewage plants, hospitals and clinics, schools, and police and fire stations. But the Ministry of Housing has “no buildings, no vehicles, no documentation, no designs, no specifications,” says Saad Al-Zubaidi, a senior official there. “It was all burned. There’s not even a single piece of paper.”
To bring the country back to life, Bremer presented a budget last week that sketches expenditures and revenues for the last six months of this year. At first glance, it looks reasonable. It projects oil revenues of a modest $3.4 billion. It draws on financing from Iraq’s frozen assets in the United States (total: $1.7 billion) and cash and other assets seized from Saddam ($795 million), as well as leftover funds from the United Nations’ prewar Oil-for-Food Program. But some of the numbers are misleading. When visitors are briefed by the Coalition Provisional Authority on “2003 Revenue Sources,” for instance, they’re shown “Special Programs & military downsizing” as a $900 million revenue item. In fact, that’s what Saddam might have spent on the Baath Party and secret security forces if he’d stayed in power. Now he won’t. But that’s not a tangible asset, much less disposable income.
The frozen assets and bales of cash are real enough, but they’re one-time windfalls that won’t be in next year’s budget. And the hoped-for oil revenues in 2004 of $13 billion won’t materialize either, according to Bremer’s aides, unless $1.2 billion is invested in the infrastructure right away. That hefty sum is included as a footnote to the Ministry of Oil line item in the current balance sheet: “Over $1 billion of capital expenditures to be funded off-budget.” If it were “on,” the sheet wouldn’t balance at all.
Will the United States have to eat all these costs? Under the Geneva Conventions, as the occupying power, it might. But in practical terms, it’s more likely to eat crow. Having turned its back on most of the other major players in the world community when it rushed to invade Iraq, and having held the United Nations at arm’s length afterward, Washington now talks about sharing the burdens of long-term occupation with others. As of last week, a total of $1.7 billion had been raised from nongovernmental and international organizations, major industrialized nations, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and a handful of smaller countries. A major donors’ conference is to be convened by the United Nations in October. At the same time, the Coalition is moving to create an Iraqi executive council in the next few days that can share responsibility for some of the country’s administration, and share some of the blame as well.
The $1 billion-a-week tab for the military presence is another matter, however. Not-withstanding Washington’s talk about a “Coalition of the Willing” and its frequent enumeration of the number of countries doing their bit, it’s the number of soldiers on the ground that count right now. By that measure, the Americans are doing all the heavy lifting, with 145,000 troops in Iraq, against 14,000 for Britain, and much smaller contingents for the others. The Pentagon plans to entice other countries to contribute forces. But America will maintain its lead role, and provide the bulk of the troops. Outgoing CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks last week predicted that forces will have to stay in Iraq for two to four years. As long as they’re needed—and not a day more—could turn into a long and costly stay.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With Scott Johnson, Rod Nordland and Colin Soloway in Baghdad, Michael Hirsh and Richard Wolffe in Washington and Tamara Lipper traveling with the president

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/938233.asp?0cv=KA01

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Irak ist eine Herausforderung für Europa

Um der Stabilität willen muss sich die EU in die Gestaltung der Nachkriegsordnung einmischen / Ein Strategiepapier der Bertelsmann Forschungsgruppe Politik

Trotz aller Bemühungen, haben die Alliierten, allen voran die USA und Großbritannien, größte Schwierigkeiten, die Stabilität in Irak zu gewährleisten. Doch Schadenfreude ist fehl am Platz. Europa muss sich einmischen, auch wenn es in Teilen den Waffengang abgelehnt hat. Zu seiner eigenen Sicherheit muss es die erfolgreiche Transformation der gesamten Region unterstützen. Zu diesem Schluss kamen Politiker, Wissenschaftler und Experten am Wochenende bei den 8. Kronberger Gesprächen. Wir dokumentieren einen Auszug aus dem Strategiepapier, das die Bertelsmann Forschungsgruppe Politik der Runde vorgelegt hat. Die Übersetzung besorgte Julia Balkhausen. Die komplette Fassung in englischer Sprache steht im Internet unter www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de

(. . .) Der Krieg sowie die Art und Weise, in der die Probleme nach dem Krieg angegangen worden sind, haben tiefe Veränderungen in der sozialen und politischen Verfasstheit des Iraks ausgelöst, deren Folgen noch schwer abzuschätzen sind. Der Krieg hat zum Zusammenbruch des sunnitischen Machtzentrums geführt und zu einer Machtzunahme der peripheren Kräfte, vor allem der Schiiten und der Kurden.

Irak nach dem Krieg
Die Kurden, die sich jahrzehntelang am Rande der irakischen Gesellschaft befanden, haben als Alliierte der siegreichen amerikanischen Streitkräfte im Norden am Krieg teilgenommen. Ihre enge Beziehung zu Washington, gepaart mit ihren militärischen Kompetenzen und einer beachtlichen politischen Institutionalisierung, die auf mehr als einem Jahrzehnt Autonomie und Selbstregierung basiert, macht die Kurden zum ersten Mal in der irakischen Geschichte zu einem bedeutenden Machtanwärter auf nationaler Ebene.

Die zwei kurdischen Hauptorganisationen, die Kurdische Demokratische Partei (KDP), angeführt von Masud Barzani, und die Patriotische Union Kurdistans (PUK), angeführt von Jalal Talabani, haben die kurdischen Gebiete verlassen und ihren Hauptsitz nach Bagdad verlegt. Die Ankündigung der alliierten Besatzungsmächte, dass irakischen Milizen und Einzelpersonen mit Ausnahme der kurdischen Peshmerga schwere Waffen entzogen werden sollen, beweist die privilegierte Position der Kurden.

Die Schiiten, eine heterogene Gemeinschaft innerhalb der irakischen Bevölkerung, die eine klare Mehrheit der Bevölkerung bildet, sind von der schweren Unterdrückung durch den sunnitisch dominierten Staats- und Sicherheitsapparat befreit worden. Das erste Mal seit Jahrzehnten können sie sich frei äußern, ihre Religion uneingeschränkt praktizieren und ihre kommunalen Angelegenheiten selbst verwalten. Jedoch hat die schiitische Bevölkerung weder die organisatorische Kraft der Kurden noch ihre Erfahrung territorialer Autonomie. Die Schiiten sind tief gespalten in zahlreiche Gruppen, die pro- und antiamerikanisch, säkular und religiös sind, und denen sowohl Exilanten als auch Ortsansässige angehören. Dennoch ist allen schiitischen Gruppen das Ziel gemeinsam, ihre zahlenmäßige Stärke in entsprechende Repräsentation und politische Macht auf nationaler Ebene umzusetzen. Der Krieg hat sie diesem Ziel möglicherweise näher gebracht als jemals zuvor. Diese Zentrifugalkraft, in Verbindung mit der Machtübertragung auf zuvor marginalisierte Gruppen, ist außerdem verstärkt worden durch die Entscheidung der Alliierten, die Baath-Partei, die Armee und die Sicherheitsdienste aufzulösen, die die Hauptwerkzeuge des sunnitischen Repressionsapparates waren.

Ein kompletter Zusammenbruch der Ordnung in vielen Regionen des Iraks, gekoppelt mit weit verbreiteten Plünderungen und allgemeiner Anarchie direkt nach dem Kollaps des Baath-Regimes haben zu der Auflösung des zentralistischen politischen Systems beigetragen. Drei Gruppen von Akteuren sind bereit, das politische Vakuum zu füllen:

Erstens, das Stammessystem, das von dem Baath-Regime instrumentell wiederbelebt wurde, um die ländlichen Gegenden zu kontrollieren, nachdem der Sicherheitsapparat durch die Niederlage von 1991 ernsthaft geschwächt worden war. Durch das Machtvakuum, das seit dem Sturz von Saddam existiert, ist die Rolle von Stammesführern weiter gestärkt worden. In jedem politischen System der Nachkriegszeit werden sie wichtige Machtpositionen einnehmen.

Zweitens, die Auflösung des faktischen Einparteiensystems hat zu der Entstehung zahlreicher unterschiedlicher Parteien geführt; einige von ihnen sind alt (die Kommunistische Partei, die Nationaldemokratische Partei und die Bewegung der Muslimbrüder), andere sind völlig neu. Das Aufkommen dieser Parteien zog auch die Publikation von mindestens 30 neuen Zeitungen nach sich, von denen die meisten politischen Parteien angegliedert sind.

Drittens, während des Krieges und der ersten Tage der Anarchie spielten Moscheen und religiöse Führer eine wichtige Rolle beim Erhalt der öffentlichen Ordnung und der Bereitstellung von Grundversorgung, wozu Patrouillen in den Straßen, medizinische Behandlung, humanitäre Hilfe und spirituelle Führung in der chaotischen und verwirrenden Atmosphäre zählten.

Trotz dieser tief greifenden Transformationsprozesse gibt es Anzeichen dafür, dass das alte Netzwerk aus Bürokraten, Stammesführern und alten Regimefreunden (der "Schattenstaat" ) bis zu einem gewissen Maße intakt geblieben ist, obwohl das Regime zusammengebrochen ist. Diese Überbleibsel könnten das System der informellen Kontrolle und Belohnung, die die Herrschaft Saddam Husseins kennzeichnete, fortführen. Dieser Mechanismus erinnert an die mafiösen Strukturen in vielen ehemaligen kommunistischen Ländern Osteuropas. Diese Gruppen können mit der Unwissenheit über die irakische Gesellschaft seitens der Koalitionstruppen rechnen. Ein Beispiel ist die kürzliche Ernennung eines ehemaligen Mitglieds der Baath-Partei und irakischen Armeebrigadiers zum Zivilverwalter der Provinz Basra.

Die USA und ihre Alliierten haben einige Zeit gebraucht, um die soziale und politische Wirklichkeit des Iraks zu begreifen. Das Pentagon hat vorerst das Vorhaben verschoben, den Irakern so bald wie möglich politische Macht zu übertragen, um die Anzahl der Truppen vor Ort und die Kosten für den amerikanischen Steuerzahler zu reduzieren. Die Sicherheitslage, selbst in Bagdad, bleibt unbefriedigend und Versuche, Wasserversorgung und Elektrizität rasch wiederherzustellen, sind gescheitert. Anarchie und Plünderungen nach dem Fall des Regimes sowie das amerikanische Unvermögen, die Situation zu kontrollieren, waren kein gutes Omen für den Aufbau einer alliierten Übergangsregierung.
Die von den USA organisierten Konferenzen, die zum Aufbau einer Übergangsregierung führen sollten, zeichneten sich durch eine geringe Teilnehmerschaft und wachsende Kritik an der Besatzung der Vereinigten Staaten aus. Viele Iraker sind sich der Unbeliebtheit der amerikanischen Anwesenheit in ihrem Land bewusst, und da sie glauben, dass diese Präsenz nur vorübergehend sein wird, warten sie ab und lassen sich bis zur Klärung der Lage nicht in politische oder administrative Institutionen einbinden. Die Entscheidung, die reguläre irakische Armee, die die Aura eines nationalen Symbols hatte, aufzulösen, hat zu der wachsenden Opposition gegen die Präsenz der Alliierten beigetragen. Die gewalttätigen Demonstrationen und bewaffneten Angriffe auf US-Truppen in Falluja könnten ein Vorgeschmack dessen sein, was in naher Zukunft zu erwarten ist.

Iraks Ölindustrie
Der Irak verfügt über gewaltige Ölreserven; mit mindestens 10,9 Prozent der nachgewiesenen Reserven weltweit liegt das Land nur hinter Saudi-Arabien. Jedoch ist die Förderung irakischen Öls und die Entwicklung der Ölindustrie durch innere Unruhen, Zerstörung von Anlagen in Kriegen und Schäden als Ergebnis der Sanktionen behindert worden. Die derzeitige Fördermenge von 2,7 Millionen Barrel pro Tag steht in keinem Verhältnis zu den nachgewiesenen Reserven von 112 Milliarden Barrel und den niedrigen Produktionskosten, die auf etwa einen Dollar pro Barrel geschätzt werden.

Es ist zweifelhaft, ob internationale Firmen das hohe Risiko übernehmen und Milliarden von Dollars in ein politisch wie wirtschaftlich instabiles Umfeld investieren werden. Daher ist politische Stabilität die Grundlage für die Entwicklung der irakischen Ölindustrie. Dies setzt das Ende bewaffneter Konflikte, ein stabiles Arrangement der verschiedenen politischen Akteure und eine Debatte über die Ölpolitik durch ein gewähltes Parlament sowie entsprechende Gesetzgebung voraus.

Die Wirtschaft ist nach drei Kriegen und der Aufrechterhaltung von strengen Sanktionen über ein Jahrzehnt hinweg stark geschwächt. Der Wert des Dinars ist abgestürzt, Iraks Schulden und die Kompensationsforderungen werden auf eine Summe von rund 200 Milliarden US-Dollar geschätzt. Die private Industrie ist ein Schatten ihrer selbst und Führungspersonal wie Fachkräfte sind weitgehend ausgewandert. Eine internationale Wirtschaftskonferenz sollte Iraks finanzielle Verpflichtungen verhandeln, einen Teil der Schulden zu erlassen und den Rest neu zu strukturieren.

Die Nichteinmischung von Iraks Nachbarn ist entscheidend. Eine mögliche Besetzung des Nordirak durch die türkische Armee, um gegen die irakisch-kurdische Bevölkerung in die Auseinandersetzung um Kirkuk einzugreifen, wäre ein absolutes Desaster. Dies könnte der Anlass für eine direkte Intervention der Iraner in innerirakische Angelegenheiten sein, was wiederum den Süden Iraks destabilisieren könnte, wo sich der Großteil des aktiv geförderten Öls und der potenziellen Ölfelder befindet.

Die ungeheuren Ölvorkommnisse bedürfen großer Investitionen, eines professionellen Managements und hoch entwickelter Technologie, nicht nur, um bestehende Anlagen zu reparieren, sondern auch, um neue Anlagen zu bauen. Die überwiegende Mehrheit der Beschäftigten in der Ölindustrie sollten weiter beschäftigt und Auswechselungen lediglich auf hoher Führungsebene vorgenommen werden. Die Ölindustrie sollte zentral gesteuert bleiben, selbst wenn der Irak ein föderales System einführen wird.

In jedem Fall sollten die Einnahmen an die föderalen Einheiten nach einer zuvor festgelegten Formel verteilt werden, um eine erneute stark zentralisierte Autokratie zu verhindern. In Anbetracht ihres relativ großen Gewichts innerhalb der irakischen Wirtschaft sollte die Ölindustrie auf transparente Weise organisiert und geleitet werden, da sie einem enormen inneren, regionalen und internationalen Druck ausgesetzt sein wird. Die Größe der Aufgabe und die hohe Summe an benötigtem Kapital erfordern die Beteiligung der großen internationalen Ölunternehmen. Deshalb sollten Ausschreibungen und Vertragsabschlüsse offen, transparent und kompetitiv gestaltet werden.

Einige Experten haben empfohlen, Iraks Ölindustrie zu privatisieren, um die großen Investitionen aufzubringen, die für die Modernisierung benötigt werden. Auf diese Weise soll ein besseres Management und eine größere Effizienz gesichert werden, die gewöhnlich im privaten Sektor gesehen wird. Es ist jedoch schwer vorstellbar, dass solch ein revolutionärer Schritt in kurzer Zeit umgesetzt werden kann. Allerdings könnte es auf längere Sicht denkbar sein, das "norwegische Modell" einzuführen, das auf einem öffentlich begrenzten Unternehmen basiert, in dem zumindest anfänglich der Staat der Mehrheitseigner ist.

Eine Strategie für die EU
Die einstimmige Annahme der Resolution 1483 durch den UN-Sicherheitsrat (nur Syrien enthielt sich) markierte den Abschluss der ersten Phase der Übergangszeit. Die Resolution verabschiedete einen vorläufigen institutionellen Rahmen, der solange gelten wird, bis es eine souveräne und international anerkannte irakische Regierung gibt. Dieser Rahmen legitimiert die dominierende Rolle der Besatzungsmächte Vereinigte Staaten und Großbritannien und gewährt ihnen das Recht, eine irakische Übergangsregierung einzusetzen sowie die Verteilung der Einnahmen aus dem Ölexport zu kontrollieren. Außerdem sieht sie einen Sondergesandten des UN-Generalsekretärs vor, der in Hinblick auf den Wiederaufbau des Iraks, seiner institutionellen Entwicklung und die humanitären Probleme mit zahlreichen Kompetenzen ausgestattet ist.

Die Sicherheitslage in Irak bleibt weiterhin sehr unsicher. Die Streitkräfte der Koalition haben weder die erforderliche Truppenstärke noch das geeignete Training, um eine effektive Polizei zu ersetzen. Einige der irakischen Polizeieinheiten, die zur Arbeit zurückgekehrt sind, haben sich über die mangelhafte Ausstattung beklagt und betont, sie benötigten Waffen, um den unterschiedlichen Gangs und Milizen nicht unterlegen zu sein. Die Kosten für die Aufrechterhaltung oder gar die Erhöhung der amerikanischer Militärpräsenz in Irak auf längere Zeit und die steigende Zahl der Opfer in den Reihen der Armee könnten die US-Regierung veranlassen, eine multilateralere Vorgehensweise zu befürworten, insbesondere in Anbetracht des bald beginnenden Wahlkampfes. Eine Möglichkeit wäre die schrittweise Übertragung von Sicherheitsaufgaben an eine multinationale Sicherheitstruppe, die mit einem UN-Mandat ausgestattet wäre und möglicherweise unter Nato-Kommando stünde.
Die Vereinigten Staaten und Großbritannien streben offensichtlich danach, einige europäische Länder in die Verwaltung des Nachkriegsirak einzubeziehen, um Kosten und Verantwortung zu teilen und jene zu "belohnen", die sie während der Krise unterstützt haben. Offensichtlich soll einer von drei zukünftigen Verwaltungssektoren, von einer multinationalen europäischen Streitmacht unter Führung eines polnischen Kontingents kontrolliert werden.

Die Präsenz bestimmter europäischer Staaten und die politischen wie ökonomischen Konsequenzen des irakischen Transformationsprozesses sowohl für die Region als auch für andere Teile der Welt werden dazu führen, dass letztlich auch die EU einbezogen werden muss. Dieses Thema sollte nicht ausgeklammert oder unter steigendem Druck behandelt werden, wie es in der jüngsten Krise geschehen ist. Vielmehr sollte es auf der Basis einer klaren und einheitlichen Strategie behandelt werden, der alle EU-Mitglieder zustimmen.

Es versteht sich von selbst, dass die EU diese Strategie nicht im Alleingang verfolgen kann, da die Vereinigten Staaten weiterhin die führende Rolle in Irak und in der gesamten Region spielen werden. Es ist an den Europäern, für sich selbst eine Rolle zu definieren, welche die Verantwortung einzelner Mitgliedsstaaten sowie die der Union als Ganzes kombiniert. Diese Rolle sollte auf einer schlüssigen und vernünftigen Strategie basieren, die die Amerikaner sowie andere internationale Akteure überzeugt und eine Kooperationsbasis schafft. Diese Strategie sollte einen Vision beinhalten, die die Prinzipien und Maßstäbe für die zukünftige Entwicklung des Iraks im Sinne europäischer Werte und Interessen definiert und Empfehlungen für spezielle Maßnahmen gibt.

Territoriale Integrität
Der Irak sollte als separater, unabhängiger Staat bewahrt und seine territoriale Integrität aufrechterhalten werden. Die geographische Verteilung der natürlichen Ressourcen macht es sehr unwahrscheinlich, dass alle wichtigen großen Gruppierungen einer Aufteilung des Landes zustimmen. Außerdem würden Pläne zur Neufestlegung der Grenzen einen gefährlichen Präzedenzfall der Änderung kolonialer Grenzen in der Region schaffen und eher zu neuen Problemen führen, als zur Beseitigung der existierenden beitragen. Während der Übergangsphase sollte ein Machtvakuum in peripheren Gebieten verhindert werden, da dies von terroristischen Gruppen ausgenutzt oder die Entstehung von organisiertem Verbrechen begünstigen könnte.

Internationaler Schirm
Die EU sollte die Wahrung der internationalen Legalität und die Autorität des UN-Sicherheitsrates als Leitprinzip während der gesamten Übergangsphase vertreten. Obgleich die Resolution 1483 für den UN Sondergesandten lediglich eine begrenzte Rolle vorsieht, sollte seine Zuständigkeit sukzessive erweitert werden. Alle Anzeichen deuten darauf hin, dass die Transformation des Iraks eine langfristige Aufgabe ist, deren Last zunehmend von der internationalen Gemeinde getragen werden wird. Zu diesem Zweck sollte die Einrichtung einer multinationalen Task Force unter dem Dach der UN unterstützt werden. Diese sollte während der Übergangsphase als hohe Behörde fungieren, die allen rivalisierenden Gruppen Garantien bietet und den Weg zu einem konstitutionellen Prozess und zum angestrebten repräsentativen und verantwortlichen politischen System ebnet. In diesem Rahmen sollte der Aufbau einer multinationalen Sicherheitstruppe einschließlich der möglichen Beteiligung von Nato und EU in Betracht gezogen werden.

Einbeziehung irakischer Akteure
Das Einbeziehen einheimischer Akteure im frühestmöglichen Stadium bei minimaler äußerer Einmischung ist wichtig, um den Verdacht zu vermeiden, dass ein neues Kolonialsystem aufgebaut werden soll. Eine Übergangsregierung und eine konstitutionelle Versammlung sollten ausgehend vom Prinzip umfassender Repräsentation gebildet werden.

Die internationale hohe Behörde sollte die Bildung der Übergangsregierung und die Wahlen zur konstitutionellen Versammlung überwachen; anschließend sollte sie dafür garantieren, dass es der Übergangsregierung nicht gestattet wird, sich in ein weiteres autoritäres Regime zu verwandeln, das sich auf Ölgelder stützt, oder die Entscheidungen der konstitutionellen Versammlung in unangemessener Weise zu beeinflussen.

Um der Wiederherstellung einer zentralisierten autoritären Regierung in Irak zuvorzukommen, sollte die Macht gestreut und ein System gegenseitiger Kontrolle geschaffen werden. Ein besonders wichtiges Instrument, das die Nachhaltigkeit verschiedener Machtzentren garantiert, ist die konstitutionell garantierte Verteilung fester Anteile der Ölgewinne an Institutionen, die nicht Teil der Zentralregierung sind. Der kurdische Norden sollte als Keimzelle eines künftigen föderalen Systems mit finanzpolitischer und gesetzgeberischer Autonomie fungieren.

Die derzeitige Vereinbarung, die Erlöse des UN-verwalteten "Öl-für-Nahrungsmittel"- Programms auf der Basis eines festgelegten Verteilungsschlüssels zu verteilen, könnte als Ausgangspunkt für föderative finanzielle Arrangements dienen. Die föderative Machtverteilung sollte mit kultureller Autonomie für ethnische Minderheiten und einem dezentralisierten Entscheidungsprozess kombiniert werden.

Verantwortlichkeit
Ein neues politisches Regime in Irak sollte auf den Prinzipien der Repräsentation und Verantwortlichkeit beruhen. Die Meinungsfreiheit sollte garantiert und der Rechtstaat etabliert werden. In Anbetracht der Beschaffenheit der aktuellen Regierungsinstitutionen erfordert dies deren sorgfältige Neuordnung mit dem größtmöglichen Maß an Beteiligung aller Bevölkerungsgruppen. Die Vertretung der Minderheiten muss sichergestellt werden und dementsprechend ist der Charakter der stammesbezogenen sozialen Beziehungen zu berücksichtigen (z. B. durch Einräumen weitgehender lokaler Autonomie und durch Einrichtung eines Zweikammersystems mit einem "Oberhaus" für Stammes-Scheichs, religiöse sowie andere bedeutende Persönlichkeiten).

Die irakische Übergangsregierung sollte sich selbst dazu verpflichten, die irakische Gesellschaft zu demilitarisieren, Bestrebungen nach Massenvernichtungswaffen aufzugeben und eine kleine Berufsarmee aufzubauen. Dies sollte im Kontext des Aufbaus eines Sicherheitssystems in der Golfregion geschehen, das auch Iran umfassen sollte. Die diversen Sicherheitsdienste des vormaligen Unterdrückungsapparates sollten so bald wie möglich aufgelöst werden. Die strafrechtliche Verfolgung der irakischen Kriegsverbrechen und Menschenrechtsverletzungen sollten ins Auge gefasst werden, auch wenn diese mit Rücksicht auf die Auswirkungen auf den nationalen Zusammenhalt und die administrative Kontinuität geschehen muss.

Aufgaben der EU
Die EU-Institutionen, die EU-Mitgliedstaaten und die Anwärter auf einen EU-Beitritt sollten

-die politische und praktische Unterstützung der Interimsverwaltung ausweiten und Iraks Wiedereingliederung in die internationale Gemeinschaft erleichtern.

-ihre Erfahrungen mit dem Aufbau neuer politischer Institutionen anbieten. Die EU hat unter ihren Mitgliedstaaten eine große Vielfalt institutioneller Strukturen, die mit einem hohen Maß an Sachkenntnis über dezentrale Politik und institutionelle Reformen gepaart ist.

-Unterstützung für die Reform des Rechtssystems und der Durchführung der Gesetze in Irak anbieten. Die EU könnte die Juristenaus- und -weiterbildung und eine Strafvollzugsreform unterstützen. Sie könnte Schulungen in internationalem Recht und Schulungen zu Menschenrechten ausweiten. Die EU sollte Aktivitäten zur Schulung des militärischen und polizeilichen Personals in Menschenrechtsfragen und zur Schulung von Beziehungen zwischen Zivilbevölkerung und Militär sowie von Beziehungen zwischen der bürgerlichen Gemeinschaft und der Polizei unterstützen.

-den Wiederaufbau der irakischen Zivilgesellschaft fördern, indem sie Nichtregierungsorganisationen Unterstützung gewährt und Basisarbeit in Bezug auf Demokratisierung, Menschenrechte, Umgang mit zivilen Konflikten etc. fördert. Sie sollte die Reform des Bildungssystems als Schlüssel zur Verbreitung ziviler und demokratischer Werte unterstützen.

-die internationale Integration der irakischen Gesellschaft fördern, indem Studien- und Austauschprogramme für Studenten, Lehrer, Journalisten, Funktionäre und andere Berufsgruppen geschaffen werden zur Überwindung der Auswirkungen der jahrzehntelangen Isolation. Das Lernen der englischen Sprache sollte als Schlüssel zur Erneuerung der internationalen Kommunikation gefördert werden.

-die Kooperation der neuen irakischen Regierung gewinnen, um für transnationale Probleme gemeinsam Lösungen zu finden, beispielsweise im Kampf gegen Drogenhandel und Terrorismus.

-die Verhandlung über die neue zeitliche Planung oder den Erlass der irakischen Schulden und Reparationszahlungen befürworten und Hilfe dazu anbieten.
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Die Autoren
Die Bertelsmann Stiftung in Gütersloh bemüht sich seit langem um den Dialog im Nahen Osten. Dazu lädt sie einmal im Jahr hochrangige Politiker, Unternehmer und Fachleute aus aller Welt ein, die in Kronberg im Taunus miteinander streiten und nach Lösungen suchen. Die 8. Kronberger Gespräche organisierte wieder Christian-Peter Hanelt von der Stiftung. Das Strategiepapier für das Treffen schrieb Felix Neugart von der Bertelsmann Forschungsgruppe Politik am Centrum für angewandte Politikforschung in München.
-die rasche Öffnung des irakischen Ölsektors für internationale Investitionen vorantreiben, um die irakische Ölproduktion zu erhöhen und auszuweiten. Die EU sollte an ihrem strategischen Vorgehen festhalten und Marktbedingungen vermeiden, die zu hohe oder zu niedrige Ölpreise hervorbringen. Die Unterstützung für eine Erhöhung der irakischen Produktion sollte nicht zu einem Preisverfall oder einem Angriff auf die Opec führen.

-ihre Erfahrungen - insbesondere der vor einem EU-Beitritt stehenden ehemals kommunistischen Länder - beim Umgang mit Übergangsjustiz anbieten und den irakischen und internationalen Behörden entsprechendes Material zur Verfügung stellen.

-mit anderen internationalen Akteuren zusammenarbeiten, um den Verkauf und Schmuggel von Massenvernichtungswaffen und militärischer Güter an andere Länder oder Organisationen, speziell terroristischen Gruppen, zu verhindern.

[Joerver]

US row casts shadow over Blair
Washington trip set to open new wounds over UN role in Iraq

Patrick Wintour and David Pallister
Monday July 14, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair is facing mounting pressure to urge President Bush to give the UN a greater role inside Iraq as a way of calming the security situation and indirectly helping ease the mounting political pressure over the government`s handling of the Iraq crisis.

With Mr Blair due to fly to Washington on Thursday, the prime minister is facing growing domestic demands to assert his independence from the Americans. Any demand for a bigger UN role could inflame already damaged relations between London and Washington.

Mr Blair is locked in dispute with Mr Bush over the future of British citizens held at Guantanamo Bay and the two country`s normally cooperative intelligence agencies are at loggerheads over whether they ever possessed intelligence to justify the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger.

Ministers believe Mr Blair will not be free of the torrent of media questions over the run-up to Iraq until the Iraq Survey Group reports on Saddam`s weapons programmes, or alternatively Iraq is more clearly free of Saddam.

They believe the Americans` dominating presence, leaving the UN sidelined, is slowing the path to reform, and Mr Blair urgently needs to reopen discussions with President Bush about expanding the limited UN role.

Britain is already arranging for EU troops, mainly from eastern Europe, to take over some of the British role in Iraq. An alternative, proposed by the former US president, Bill Clinton, at the weekend is for Nato to be given a role, so internationalising the security force.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, gave little sign of being willing to bow to any British influence, yesterday predicting instead that it may be necessary to increase the 150,000 US troops, and a higher level of attacks on US soldiers through the summer.

He said the administration was still debating the extent to which the attacks on the US was centrally organised.

The US military also defended the planned military tribunals for the accused at Guantanamo Bay, insisting they will be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

The home secretary, David Blunkett, and the constiutional affairs secretary, Lord Falconer, believe that if the two alleged terrorists were returned to Britain, they may well not be sent to trial due to the way in which any evidence has been extracted from them. The decision would rest with the crown prosecution service.

Mr Blunkett leans towards trial in the US civil courts, rather than repatriation, but such a trial risks ending with the death penalty, leaving ministers without an easy option.

Ministers closely involved in the discussions insist Mr Blair is determined to confront Mr Bush in private over the issue in Washington. But some of them were forced to spend another day fending off questions on how the government handled intelligence in the run-up to war.

The former chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, renewed his attack on Mr Blair, saying the prime minister had made a fundamental mistake in claiming Iraq had weapons capable of being fired in 45 minutes.

He said Mr Blair had over interpreted the intelligence made available to him.

But the leader of the Commons, Peter Hain, also insisted that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, and rejected calls for an independent judicial inquiry.

Speaking on GMTV, he said: "I do not think that there is any greater justification for an independent inquiry... we are going to find, I believe, the weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the world and were used against other parts of the world. I think in the end history will judge that this was the right thing to do."

Mr Hain did not repeat Downing Street`s carefully crafted formula that ministers are confident weapons of mass destruction programmes and their products will be found. He conceded that Mr Blair was facing a particular problem of trust with the electorate, but said it reflected a wider disengagement between politics and the electorate.

Mr Hain robustly defended the British claim that it had not shared all its intelligence, including the uranium claim, with the US, insisting that British evidence on Saddam`s search for uranium came from a third intelligence agency.

Mr Blair defended the attack on Iraq on moral grounds at a progressive governance conference in London.

He said: "When we see the Iraqi people making, at last, the first tentative steps towards self-government announced today, and when the United Nations representative is already talking about 300,000 people in mass graves, then I hope that at least one thing that we can all agree on, the world is more secure, Iraq is a better place and will be a better place, with Saddam Hussain out of power."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Political death of a usurper
An unwinnable war in Iraq and the deceit that led to it have destroyed the credibility of the prime minister

George Galloway
Monday July 14, 2003
The Guardian

"Now does he feel/ his secret murders sticking on his hands;/ now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;/ those he commands move only in command,/ nothing in love: now does he feel his title/ hang loose about him, like a giant`s robe/ upon a dwarfish thief."

Thus Angus spoke of the Scottish usurper Macbeth, whose ambition led him deep into a river of blood. Less poetically, Clare Short, Mo Mowlem and Robin Cook are saying much the same of their former cabinet colleague. I predicted before the war that Iraq would be the political death of Tony Blair, and it is now almost Shakespearean how the pain from his self-inflicted wounds is written across his face. It is as if he is physically diminishing before our eyes as his authority bleeds into the sands of Iraq.

Each new day brings another stab at Blair`s credibility: former cabinet members in public, current ministers in private, using the round of summer parties to distance themselves from the fading king. From Hans Blix, the BBC and the press, from two former heads of the joint intelligence committee and now, perhaps fatally, from across the Atlantic, fall blow after hammer blow. Suddenly, comparing the two main war leaders to wolves - which has got me into such difficulty with the Labour hierarchy - seems very tame indeed.

Always travelling light on ideological baggage, never having won or wanted the affection of the Labour clan, Blair`s main asset was his "Trust me, I`m a regular guy" reputation. Now it is gone and will never be recovered.

That Iraq was lynched by Bush and Blair has become plain as a pikestaff. Take the saving of Private Jessica. Said at first to have been shot and held hostage by Iraqi doctors, and now revealed to have been in their care after a road traffic accident, her story serves as a metaphor for the mendacity so deep and treacly-black it might be an oil sump: from the 45-minute warning to the banks of the Niger and the sweepings of the internet floor.

In their occupation of Iraq, the US and British armies have entered the gates of hell. Soon it will be 100 degrees at midnight in Baghdad, but there will be no respite from the need for full body armour. In two weeks, armed attacks on coalition forces have nearly doubled to 25 per day. More than 200 have been wounded and over 40 killed in combat since "victory" was declared by President Bush. Morale among US forces is dropping towards Vietnam-type levels, with heavy drug consumption, and commanders turning a blind eye to the prostituting of Iraqi women. No doubt the spectre of troops "fragging" overly strict officers is on their minds.

So hot is the welcome to these "liberators" that the US has now evacuated its forces from both the vast campus of Baghdad University and from the hub of the sharpest armed action, in Fallujah. The latter gives the lie to the repeated calumny that those fighting the occupation are merely "Saddamist remnants". In truth, Fallujah is the heartland of the Jubbur tribe, arch-enemies of Saddam whose leaders were purged by the Takriti Ba`ath party bosses more than a decade ago.

No fighting in this area could take place without the Jubbur, so it must be more than nostalgia for the old regime that is fuelling it. Throughout the Calvary of Vietnam, resistance was routinely described as coming from unrepresentative "hardline elements" or outside the country`s borders. The deeper Johnson and Nixon sank into the quagmire, the more they spread the war, to neighbouring Cambodia and new killing fields. Look out for "hot pursuit" operations in the months to come into Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In Vietnam, the Americans installed a succession of puppet governments in whose name they could claim to be fighting. Though as bereft of electoral legitimacy as a Jeb Bush Floridian plebiscite, the Vietnamese juntas had a social base. Yesterday`s jokers, the "Iraqi Governing Council" - handpicked by Iraq`s US governor, Paul Bremer - make South Vietnam`s General Thieu look like an authentic national leader. Without hundreds of thousands of foreign troops, they would be swept away in a gale of derision.

Iraqis want Britain and America out of their country, that much is abundantly clear. Only independently supervised elections to a constituent assembly can produce Iraqi leaders fit to face the outside world and rebuild their country.

Tony Blair can run around the world on grand diplomatic tours. He can bask in the adulation of the Republican right in the US Congress. But he cannot hide from the fact that he has lost the plot at home. He has entered that twilight which saw the departure in tears of Mrs Thatcher in a taxi from the Downing Street she once bestrode like a colossus.

The foreign affairs select committee was wrong when it said the jury was out on the Blair war. Both the public and the Labour movement jury has already returned its verdict of guilty. Mr Blair will soon exit the political stage; it would be better t`were done quickly.

· George Galloway is Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin and a columnist for the Scottish Mail on Sunday

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In the running
Howard Dean thinks his country should not have invaded Iraq, he wants Bush`s tax cuts reversed and the money spent on healthcare and education. Political suicide? In fact, a unique internet campaign has him leading the race for the Democratic nomination. Could he be the man to kick Bush out of the White House next year? Julian Borger reports

Julian Borger
Monday July 14, 2003
The Guardian

Howard Dean is scarcely five minutes into his standard campaign speech to a crowd of Democrats on a New Hampshire lawn, when it becomes apparent why he is at the centre of so much unexpected excitement. Dean, who until recently was governor of the neighbouring state of Vermont, does not exactly look the part of an electoral phenomenon. He is neither tall nor imposing (a fact only emphasised by the fact his handlers stand him on little stools to make his speeches). Nor can he boast a military record that has become so politically handy in this age of perpetual conflict. In fact, in his dour brown suit, he looks every inch the provincial doctor he was before he wandered into Vermont politics.

But it is soon clear that Dean is visibly, viscerally angry and it just so happens that right now, anger is what the true party faithful are looking for in their presidential candidate in the 2004 elections.

The Democratic rank and file are furious that the country was taken to war on false pretences, and they are outraged at the Bush tax cuts, which are in effect a transfer of staggering proportions from the nation`s savings account to the nation`s millionaires.

Dean has opted to give vent to that fury, in marked contrast to most of his rivals from the Democratic establishment in Congress, who voted to support the war and struck a deal with the White House over the tax cuts. He has consequently emerged as the surprise frontrunner in the Democratic nomination race, upsetting the conventional wisdom that an anti-war, pro-gay (he instituted civil unions for same-sex couples in Vermont) liberal could never thrive in a nation so fearful and so intoxicated with patriotism.

Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont politics professor who has watched Dean`s meteoric rise, says: "The Democrats chose to leave that corner of the political spectrum open, and Dean has solid political instincts. He saw the gap."

In the past few days, Dean has abruptly leapt from relative obscurity to the poll position in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, raising more money than all his rivals over the past quarter, $7.5m (£4.6m).

That may be small change compared to George Bush`s bulging war-chest, but for a lowly Democrat in this fund-raising phase of the contest, the "money primary", it is a triumph that gives Dean that all-important quality - momentum.

His outspoken style and his high-risk politics have put him at the head of an insurgency. He is promising the defeat-weary Democrats what John McCain promised the Republicans in 2000 - the tantalising prospect of a new brand of politics that will revitalise American democracy.

"People always say Dean`s so liberal he can`t win," the governor tells a crowd gathered on a warm evening in the small New Hampshire town of Hopkinton. "But the blueprint can`t be `let`s try to be like George Bush`. The blueprint must be to reach out to people who have given up on the political process. Stop being afraid of rightwing talkshow hosts. Stop trying to plant our flag further and further to the right. Plant our flag in the middle of where America is and give people a reason to vote again."

Hopkinton is an unlikely setting for a rebellion. It is a genteel settlement of wooden, colonial-era homes and austere churches. All but a couple of the 250 faces looking up at Dean are white and mostly middle-aged - not exactly an excluded underclass.

But that is the nature of politics in New Hampshire, a peaceful prosperous state with the jarringly inappropriate motto "Live free or die". Through historical accident, the place has become a crucial early hoop the candidates have to jump through and survive if they are to get a shot at the presidency. Consequently, contenders for the most powerful job in the history of the world have to spend weeks courting the state house by house, schmoozing voters in their own back gardens. It is an odd arrangement - a bit like giving Northumbrians an early say in who becomes prime minister - but it has been locked in political tradition since John Kennedy launched his candidacy only a few miles from Hopkinton in 1960 - a parallel the Dean campaign team are happy to draw.

Dean`s new visibility has put him at, or near, the top of the Democratic party polls both in New Hampshire and the only contest that precedes it, Iowa. He is chewing the heels of the party`s two venerable congressional leaders, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry. And Dean is now able to start building a nationwide campaign.

"We`re speeding up our decisions that we had thought we couldn`t make until October. We`re putting staff in the south and in Oklahoma," Joe Trippi, Dean`s campaign manager boasted from the campaign`s Vermont headquarters.

In almost any other industrialised country, Dean`s campaign platform would sound boringly middle-of-the-road. In Bush`s America, it verges towards the liberal extreme. He thinks the US should not have invaded Iraq and he wants a public inquiry into the propaganda campaign that preceded the war, and believes the burden of running the country should now be shared with Nato and the United Nations. At home, he is calling for the Bush tax cuts to be reversed and for the money to be spent on healthcare, education and paying off the national debt. He is arguing for a government-run health insurance scheme available to all Americans - a radical proposal in a country with 42 million people uninsured.

"Surely the most powerful nation on the face of the earth can join the British, the French the Germans and the Japanese who all have health insurance for their citizens?" Dean asks the crowd, defying prevailing political correctness by unfavourably comparing America with Europe. Such unpatriotic ideas will make him an easy target for America`s rightwing talk show hosts, who have a stranglehold on political thought in the heartland, but Dean has built his electoral persona in defiance of their dominance.

His campaign strategy has been to bypass the mainstream media and to gather momentum instead on the internet. McCain and the liberal Democrat, Bill Bradley, both used their websites as a successful campaign tool in 2000.

Dean`s supporters, however, have gone one step further. They are organising the campaign online through a commercial site, Meetup.com, normally frequented by Harry Potter and Star Trek fans. The Dean campaign paid the company a fee of $2,500 to use its website as a billboard. It allows supporters in towns across America to find each other, set up a group, and organise a place and time to meet.

Earlier this month, for example, 55,000 of them met at exactly the same time at a total of 310 halls and bars, to pledge money and to write personal letters to undecided voters (in Iowa on this occasion). The system has not only helped generate the flood of campaign contributions, it has also fostered a spirit of solidarity among campaign volunteers at minimum cost.

"We`re now getting responses from Iowa, where people are saying they can`t remember the last time they received a handwritten letter from anyone," Trippi says.

From an original staff of seven in January this year, the campaign now has 180,000 volunteers and has set a goal of one million by the end of the year. Aaron Lavallee, a 23-year-old accountant, came to the Dean campaign through the Meetup.com`s website. "At first I thought it was a dating service, but then I saw the link to Dean, and I thought he doesn`t seem like an inside politician from Washington," Lavallee says. "I went along to the meeting to see if I was the lone ranger in my area, but there were about 40 people there."

"He has tapped into the anti-war movement," said Michael Cornfield, a professor at George Washington University`s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. "He`s also tapped the American penchant for underdogs, for picking someone from nowhere. He`s this year`s Jimmy Carter or Gary Hart. He`s a maverick and a risk-taker and Americans love that."

Cornfield, and most US political analysts, believe Dean has a reasonable chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But winning the presidency outright would be quite another matter. All the risks he takes in the primaries would come back to haunt him in the freestyle combat of the general election.

He has no military or national security record and floundered when faced with questions about the armed forces in a recent television interview. While Vermont governor, he changed his stance on the death penalty, from outright opposition to support in exceptional circumstances, such as the murder of a child. Faced with intense questioning on the issue, he looked ill at ease. He is no Bill Clinton. Garrison Nelson, who has seen him in action in Vermont, says he can crack under pressure.

"The positive side of being a physician is that you believe you know better than your patient. The negative side is that you don`t take challenges very well. He bristles when challenged," Prof Nelson says.

When the real pressure comes, Dean may also discover the cost of burning his bridges with the Democratic party leadership he has spent the primaries deriding. There may be few establishment figures ready to come to his defence, nor can he count on the party bastions - the unions and black community groups. As governor, his fiscal conservatism alienated organised labour, and Vermont is hardly an ideal base from which to forge minority ties.

The Republicans claim to be thrilled Dean is doing so well. Bush`s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, has even been spotted at a Dean rally, shouting ironic encouragement. Dean`s rivals in the Democratic camp, meanwhile, warn of an electoral catastrophe reminiscent of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Then again, the Democrats have not done very well playing it safe in George Bush`s shadow. It is a moment of decision for the party and its supporters. The only certainty is that if they choose the Howard Dean route, it will at least be clear what the election is about.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Rumsfeld expects more attacks very soon
Julian Borger in Washington
Monday July 14, 2003
The Guardian

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said yesterday that he expected more attacks on US troops in Iraq this month but that the 150,000-strong force was likely to stay for the "foreseeable future".

Mr Rumsfeld was echoing military intelligence reports that attacks could come on a string of anniversaries linked to the Saddam and Ba`ath party regime.

"I`m afraid we`re going to have to expect this to go on and there`s even speculation that during the month of July, which is an anniversary for a lot of Ba`athist events, we could see an increase in the number of attacks," he said.

His prediction came as a group claiming to be linked to al-Qaida said in a tape broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya television that they and not Saddam`s followers were behind the attacks in Iraq.

The tape also warned of a new anti-US attack in days to come which would "break the back of America completely".

Key anniversaries include today`s, marking the 1958 coup against the monarchy; Wednesday`s, marking Saddam`s rise to power in 1979; and Thursday`s anniversary of the Ba`ath party revolution 11 years earlier.

On May 1, Mr Bush proclaimed the end of all major combat, but 31 US soldiers have since died and scores more hurt in guerrilla attacks.

Mr Rumsfeld cautioned yesterday that "we`re still at war", and it would not be possible to reduce the American military presence any time soon.

He portrayed the attacks as a paradoxical consequence of the invasion`s success, saying that the "more progress we make, I`m afraid, the more vicious the attacks will become".

Mr Rumsfeld said that there were a lot of Ba`athists and Fedayeen "who are disadvantaged by the fact that their regime has been thrown out and would like to get back, but they`re not going to succeed".

He said there was evidence that some attacks, particularly in the north, were coordinated, but denied that the coalition was "bogged down".

"We`ve been there less than 10 weeks, is that bogged down? How long were we in Germany? How long were we in Japan?" he asked. "The president has said we are going to use as many forces as are necessary for as long as it takes."


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Saddam is hiding near Baghdad, says exiled spy chief
By Patrick Cockburn in Samarra, Iraq
14 July 2003


Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, are hiding in an area of farmland and small villages on the Tigris river between Baghdad and the city of Samarra, says a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer.

General Wafiq al-Samarrai, head of Iraqi military intelligence before he went into exile, is assisting American forces in the hunt for Saddam. He said the deposed leader had been able to escape capture because the area was heavily populated and had thick vegetation.

"He is hiding in an area about 60km [37 miles] long and about 20km wide according to my information," General Samarrai told The Independent in an interview at his house in Samarra. He said that Ali Hassan al-Majid, a senior member of Saddam`s inner circle notorious for using poison gas against Kurds, was also there but moving separately from the former Iraqi ruler.

America is giving top priority to its search for Saddam, for whom it has offered a reward of $25m (£15m), believing the failure to capture or kill him is encouraging guerrilla attacks.

General Samarrai has always been well informed on the actions of Saddam and his senior lieutenants. In charge of Iraqi military intelligence on Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, he was also head of military intelligence in the 1991 Gulf War. He fled to the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq in late 1994.

Other Iraqi opposition leaders have said they believe that Saddam, who disappeared after the fall of Baghdad on 9 April, is hiding a little further to the east near the town of Baqubah..

The general said Saddam had not chosen to hide near Awja, his home village, or the nearby city of Tikrit, because it was not so heavily populated and was more barren, making concealment more difficult.

General Samarrai`s pursuit of the former Iraqi leader has already led to retaliation. Late at night 10 days ago, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the side of his house, making a small crater in the cement above a window. "I had information that somebody might try to kill me 48 hours before it happened," he said.

Ali Hassan al-Majid and Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, another long-time close aide of Saddam Hussein, were both reported to have been in Samarra seeking false identity papers just after the end of the war.

The general does not believe that the death or capture of Saddam will end guerrilla attacks against US forces. He said: "Saddam plays a very small role in this. Most of the attacks are by Islamic groups, former military men who are no longer being paid and members of the Baath party."

A second tape purporting to be from the deposed dictator was left outside the office of Al-Hayat-LBC television yesterday. The first was broadcast by the al-Jazeera Arabic-language network on 4 July. "The return to underground operations that we started from the beginning is the best way for Iraqis to achieve independence," the voice on the tape said, adding that he was speaking "from inside glorious Iraq".
14 July 2003 09:20

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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CIA kept Niger claims out of Bush speech
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
14 July 2003


The CIA kept suspect claims about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction out of a speech by President George Bush last October - more than three months before their appearance in his State of the Union address.

George Tenet, the director of the CIA, is now known to have argued with the White House that Mr Bush should not use the allegations, which were focused on Niger, when he laid out the case against Saddam Hussein on 7 October last year. The intelligence supporting them was dubious, the CIA said.

But, in his weekend statement taking responsibility for the blunder, Mr Tenet indicated the CIA had been pressed by the White House to approve the text of the address on 28 January. The language was watered down to refer only to Africa and quote British, not US, intelligence as the source.

Mr Bush expressed full confidence at the weekend in Mr Tenet, sayingthe matter was closed. But John Kerry, the Senator for Massachusetts and Democratic presidential candidate, said the Tenet statement "doesn`t answer the questions ... about the intelligence given to Congress before the war".

More worryingly for Mr Bush, a growing number of Americans believe they were misled on Iraq`s weapons, according to polls in The Washington Post and Newsweek.

How the Niger connection unravelled

Sunday 6 July: Joseph Wilson, a retired US ambassador, breaks his silence to reveal that he travelled to Niger on the orders of the CIA in February 2002 to investigate claims that Saddam had tried to acquire uranium from the African state. He is convinced that claims of Iraqi uranium purchases were false.

He tells The New York Times: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq`s nuclear weapons programme was twisted."

Monday 7 July: Serious doubts are raised over the Government`s claim in its September dossier that Saddam Hussein tried to acquire significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee declares itself "puzzled" by the Government`s claim that it was relying on intelligence from forged documents exposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in March. MPs declare it is "very odd indeed" that the Govern-ment was still reviewing evidence about the claim eight months after it declared it had intelligence to back it up.

Tuesday 8 July: The White House deals Tony Blair a devastating blow by rejecting the British intelligence linking Iraq and Niger. A Bush administration official says: "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq`s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." Mr Blair insists that the Government stands by its story.

Wednesday 9 July: It emerges that the allegations were disowned by US officials in Vienna as they handed the now disputed evidence to IAEA officials. The IAEA confirms that it has not received any other evidence about Niger, despite British insistence that its foreign source passed the details on.

Thursday 10 July: Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, says he did not mention the alleged uranium deal to the UN Security Council because he "did not think it was strong enough".

Friday 11 July: CIA sources confirm they advised Britain to omit the Niger allegations in its dossier on Iraq`s weapons which was published last September. A senior Bush administration official says: "We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material."

Saturday 12 July: The director of the CIA, George Tenet, admits it was wrong for the agency to allow the Niger allegation to be included in George Bush`s State of the Union address in January.

Jack Straw says in a letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that Britain`s information on Niger was not shared with the US.

Sunday 13 July: Tony Blair prepares for talks with Mr Bush later this week with a growing transatlantic rift over intelligence and the basis for the war in Iraq clouding the "special relationship" between London and Washington.
14 July 2003 09:23
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July 14, 2003

Saddam put ‘on rubbish heap of history’
From Stephen Farrell and James Hider in Baghdad



TWENTY-FIVE Iraqis representing a cross-section of the country’s ethnically diverse population came together for the first meeting of the nation’s new Governing Council yesterday, three months after the fall of Baghdad.
Its first decision was to abolish all holidays associated with the Baath party and Saddam Hussein, who was described by Sayyed Muhammad Bahr al-Uloom, the prominent Shia cleric, as being “on the rubbish heap of history”.

The council, handpicked by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which has so far refused to countenance direct elections, also declared a new public holiday on April 9, the day that the US Army captured Baghdad and helped to topple a statue of Saddam in Paradise Square.

Council members have the right to nominate and dismiss ministers, to draw up a budget and to reform the judiciary, police and military, but the coalition retains control of operational security.

After a series of delays and last-minute reshuffles the council was presented as an ethnic and religious mix of Shia and Sunni Muslims, Kurds, a Christian and a Turkoman representative.

John Sawers, the British deputy of Paul Bremer, the American chief administrator in Iraq, described the body as an “interim government”, brushing aside accusations that the members, most of whom either lived in exile or in Kurdish areas outside Saddam’s control for more than a decade, were mere placemen for the American and British forces controlling Iraq.

In a scene unimaginable four months ago, the bearded Dr al-Uloom, dressed in the black turban marking his direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad, chaired the first meeting in Saddam’s former military industrialisation headquarters.

To applause, he walked to the front of a horseshoe arrangement of seats and read out a statement pledging to restore security to Iraq’s lawless streets, revitalise the economy and bring in democracy with free elections.

Dr al-Uloom, whose persecuted Shia constituency represents about 60 per cent of the population, was the temporary spokesman for a diverse collection of mainly secular Iraqis. The array of 18 suits, four Arab headdresses and two tribal costumes replaced the unrelieved line-up of khaki uniforms that had marked the former regime.

The council has yet to decide on a chairman or whether to rotate leadership. The coalition hopes that the appointment of local leaders will curb persistent attacks on American and British soldiers, but in a sign of the dangers still posed by Saddam loyalists and factional divides, the ceremony took place under heavy security that included American soldiers in combat gear, CIA agents in plain clothes and Iraqi security guards.

An official in one of the groups taking part expressed regret about the lack of prominent Sunni Arabs in the line-up. The paucity of representatives from the historically powerful and now disaffected community from which Saddam came could exacerbate attacks, he said.

Two interest groups that were absent were that of Sharif Ali, the claimant to the Iraqi throne, and that of Muqtadar Sadr, the prominent Shia leader whose rivals, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa party, were both represented. Apart from local journalists, no members of the public were present to see their new “government” emerge, although the event was broadcast live by the coalition-controlled television station.

Mr Bremer, who retains a veto over the council’s decisions, was careful to play a low-key role in the proceedings, keen to avoid charges of overbearing American control. He shunned the stage for a front-row auditorium seat and allowed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations’ envoy, to share the spotlight with the Iraqis.

Who`s who in Iraqi council

Iraq’s new Governing Council comprises 13 Shias, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, one Turkoman and one Christian. Ten have returned from exile. Prominent members include:



Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Shia. Exile. Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

Dr Ahmad Chalabi. Shia. Exile. Head of the Iraqi National Congress, a Pentagon favourite

Dr Ayad Allawi. Shia. Exile. Leader of Iraqi National Accord group of military and intelligence services defectors

Dr Jalal Talabani. Kurd. Secretary-General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan


Masoud Barzani. President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party


Dr Adnan Pachachi. Sunni. Exile. President of the Iraqi Independent Democrats. Former Foreign Minister seen as a potential interim leader


Dr Akila al-Hashimi. Shia. Diplomat. One of three women


Judge Dara Nor al-Din. Kurd. Judge. Jailed under Saddam

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-745044,00.html

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July 14, 2003

Uranium intelligence row hangs over Bush-Blair summit
By Michael Evans, Melissa Kite and Elaine Monaghan



TONY BLAIR faces an unusually tough meeting with President Bush in Washington this week after an open disagreement between the CIA and MI6 over prewar Iraq intelligence.
The CIA’s very public rejection of British reports that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from the African state of Niger has caused bewilderment in London.

British officials said yesterday that the intelligence had come from several sources and had been rechecked and confirmed since the row over its authenticity had erupted. Protocol prevented MI6 passing intelligence reports from third countries to Washington without permission, they said.

In Washington the Administration struggled to explain why Mr Bush had included the British claim in his State of the Union speech in January, when, as The Washington Post disclosed yesterday, the White House had agreed to a CIA request that it be excluded from a presidential speech the previous October.

The Democrats demanded answers. “The White House needs to provide a full accounting of how that misleading information found its way into the President’s State of the Union Address,” Senator John Edwards, of North Carolina, also a presidential candidate, said.

Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: “The American people deserve to be told very accurately what the facts are.”

A leading Republican senator said that George Tenet, the CIA Director, should resign after his admission on Friday that his agency had approved Mr Bush’s State of the Union speech and had not insisted on the claim’s removal.

“Somebody ought to be accountable,” Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN. “If I were the President, he wouldn’t be there.”Mr Tenet is the only holdover from President Clinton’s Cabinet and a man who could prove a useful lightning rod when an inquiry publishes its findings next May into the September 11 attacks.

Senior officials did their best to defuse the row. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, said that it was “ludicrous to suggest that the President of the United States went to war on the question of whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Africa”.

The claim was “part of a very broad case that the President laid out”, she said.

Seeking to placate the British, Dr Rice said that the uranium claim was accurate, but should have been excluded from the speech because such addresses required a very high standard of proof and MI6 was unable to reveal its sources.

Dr Rice confirmed that officials in her department had asked the CIA for stronger evidence about uranium when the address was being prepared. CIA officials had pointed to the National Intelligence Estimate, and then the line citing British intelligence had been agreed.

Mr Blair told a summit of centre-left leaders in London: “When we see the Iraqi people making at last the first tentative steps towards self-government announced today, and when the United Nations representative is already talking about 300,000 people in mass graves, then I hope that (there is) at least one thing that we can all agree on — the world is more secure, Iraq is a better place and will be a better place with Saddam Hussain out of power.”

The row has intensified calls for an independent inquiry into the evidence used by Downing Street to make the case for war.

Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, who quit the Cabinet over Iraq, said: “It is time that the Government came clean and published the extra evidence they claim proves there was a uranium deal.”

Michael Ancram, Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “We believe that an independent judicial inquiry is the most sensible way of establishing the facts.”

Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, said: “Day by day the case for an independent scrutiny of the lead up to the war against Iraq becomes irresistible. Only full disclosure can restore the reputation of this Government.”

Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector before the invasion, added fuel to the row when he said that he thought that Mr Blair had made a “fundamental mistake” in declaring that Saddam could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. “That seems pretty far off the mark to me,” he told The Independent on Sunday.

Mr Blair will also be under huge pressure when he meets Mr Bush on Thursday to secure a fair trial for the British terrorist suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The controversy over the quality of the intelligence is beginning to show in Mr Bush’s ratings, which fell six points from the end of May to 55 per cent in a poll conducted for Newsweek magazine on July 10 and 11.

The number of Americans who approved of his job performance has gradually been eroded, falling 30 points from the weeks after the September 11 attacks, according to the survey.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-745043,00.html

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Members of the new Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad on Sunday, with the panel`s name in the background.

U.S. Soldier Killed, Four Wounded in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 1:11 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A U.S. soldier was killed and four wounded in fighting in Iraq, the military said Monday.

The soldiers were with the 3rd Infantry Division, which is charged with patrolling the capital, Baghdad, said Spc. Giovanni Llorente, a military spokesman.



July 14, 2003
In First Step, New Iraq Council Abolishes Hussein`s Holidays
By PATRICK E. TYLER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 13 — Three months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, 25 prominent Iraqis from a variety of political, ethnic and religious backgrounds stepped onto a stage here today and declared themselves the first interim government of Iraq.

The members of the Governing Council said they would begin meeting in continuous session on Monday to decide on a rotating presidency or a similar leadership structure. As its first act today, the Council abolished six national holidays that had been celebrated under Mr. Hussein`s 24-year rule and created a new national day.

Two of the banned holidays were fast approaching, adding to the urgency of forming a government, Iraqis said. Monday, July 14, is the anniversary of the 1958 overthrow of the monarchy, and July 17 is the anniversary of the 1968 coup that brought Mr. Hussein`s Baath Party to power.

In their place, the Council declared April 9, the day that Baghdad fell to allied forces as Mr. Hussein went into hiding, the national day of a new Iraqi state. That state will not emerge until the interim government decides on a process to write a new constitution and to hold the first democratic elections. No timetable for either task has been set.

Iyad Alawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord and a member of the Council, said the first priority of the government "will be security and the resumption of services." The Council was selected through negotiations between the main Iraqi opposition groups and the office of L. Paul Bremer III, the American civilian administrator for the occupation.

"We hope sometime next week to have declarations on security that will comfort the Iraqi people," he said without elaborating. Some Iraqis are pressing the United States military to form a paramilitary force of Iraqis to help defeat the remnants of Mr. Hussein`s security forces believed to be involved in attacks on American soldiers.

The government formation took place under heavy security by American soldiers, who have cordoned off a broad section of central Baghdad that includes Mr. Hussein`s Republican Palace and the convention center where today`s ceremony took place. The Iraqis met privately for two hours and then had lunch with the Western overseers of the occupation — Mr. Bremer, and John Sawers, appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain — and Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations representative, and other senior American and British officials.

When the 25 emerged for a news conference, 2 wore the black turbans of Shiite Islamic clerics descended from the Prophet Muhammad and 2 wore the flowing robes and headdresses of tribal sheiks. Three women were among them, two in head scarves and one without. The rest, men of various political stripes, wore business suits.

They arranged themselves in a semicircle as one of the clerics, Sayyed Muhammad Bahr al-Uloum, read a one-page statement, saying, "The establishment of this Council is an expression of the national Iraqi will in the wake of the collapse of the former oppressive regime."

The occupation leaders looked up at them from the front row in the convention center hall. During weeks of negotiations, they agreed to cede considerable executive powers to Iraqis after initially resisting anything greater than an advisory role. They did so in the face of a daunting reconstruction agenda, a critical shortage of money and a security environment that resembles a low-intensity war for the more than 160,000 allied troops.

From here forward, the 25 Iraqis — doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, clerics, diplomats, political activists, businessmen and a judge — will share responsibility for the course of postwar Iraq.

A Kurd, Hoshyar Zebari, the political adviser to Massoud Barzani, leader of the largest Kurdish political party, was designated as the Council`s press secretary.

But when they walked out on stage, it was the elderly cleric, Mr. Uloum, who approached the microphone. Holding the text of the statement just below his snowy white beard and squinting through thick glasses, he intoned, "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate."

Establishing this interim government is the first significant political milestone in postwar Iraq, and some of the new government members expressed a strong determination to expand their powers.

"We hope that this Council will work for a very short time," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the other Shiite cleric who represents the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq. "We should have a constitutional government and we should get rid of the occupation."

The very diversity of such a large Council raised questions of whether it would be able to project unified goals and principles in a chaotic transitional period where significant segments of the population were pulling in different directions.

In the north, Kurds are seeking to protect the autonomy they have won over the last 12 years. In the center, Sunnis are divided by mistrust for Western occupation and old loyalties to Mr. Hussein. In the south, Shiites worry that their majority status will be subordinated, as it was in the last century, to the Sunni minority.

Members of the Council said today that they had been assured that their decisions would not be vetoed by the occupation authority.

"I don`t foresee that Mr. Bremer will ever cast a veto against any decision taken by the Council," said Adnan Pachachi, 80, a foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations during the pre-Hussein era of the 1960`s. "We were assured that all decisions of the Council will be respected." Differences of opinion, he added, can "be managed easily through consultation."

Mr. Bremer was urged by a number of advisers to lower his profile so as to underscore the Council`s independence. He has withdrawn significantly from asserting any role in organizing the task of writing a constitution. The Council will set up a preparatory committee to decide the process for selecting a drafting committee.

Great difficulties surround the constitutional question. Earlier this month, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the leading clerics of Shiite Islam, warned that the occupation powers should have no role in the constitutional process. A number of the council members said they would work to devise a selection process that would win the acceptance of the grand ayatollah, who has yet to meet with any official from the occupation powers.

The only non-Iraqi to speak at the ceremony was Mr. Vieira de Mello. "Iraq today finds itself in a unique and difficult situation: a great country beset by much recent tragedy, currently without full enjoyment of its sovereignty," he said. "Today, therefore, your convening marks the first major development towards the restoration of Iraq`s rightful status as a fully sovereign state."

The liveliest moments of the news conference occurred when some council members disputed questions from the news media. The Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani criticized a BBC correspondent for suggesting that the interim government would have limited powers and therefore little legitimacy among the Iraqis.

"The Council has a lot of authority, appointing ministers, diplomats, budgets, security," Mr. Talabani said. He then accused the BBC of having been biased toward Mr. Hussein`s government during the war.

The strongest comments were directed at the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera. "The satellite channels are expecting Saddam to come back, but he is in the trash can of history," Mr. Uloum shouted after someone else questioned the legitimacy of the interim government. "I am very sorry these Arab channels betrayed their Arab brothers."

Only one of the council members, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, expressed public gratitude to the United States and Britain for removing the former government.

A majority of the council members are drawn from the ranks of Iraqi opposition leaders in exile and Kurdish leaders from northern Iraq, who led the external fight to topple Mr. Hussein.

One Iraqi who carried on that struggle from inside Iraq, Abdul Karim Mahoud, said today, "Those who were outside of Iraq represent some Iraqi opposition groups, and we hope now that they`re back in Iraq they will represent some of the Iraqis in this country."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 14, 2003
U.S. Seeks Help With Iraq Costs, but Donors Want a Larger Say
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN


WASHINGTON, July 12 — Faced with the huge cost of rebuilding Iraq, the United States has called for an international conference in October to be attended by dozens of nations — many of which opposed the war to oust Saddam Hussein — to raise billions of dollars to restore Iraq`s economy.

But the Bush administration has run into a now familiar diplomatic problem. Potential donor nations say they are uneasy about financing a military occupation, and some American officials concede there will have to be more participation by other countries in deciding how money for Iraq is raised and spent.

"The donors want a say on the allocation of funds," said a Western diplomat involved in aiding Iraq. "They want credit for what they give, and they don`t want to commingle their money with money for the occupation. The way things are set up now will have to be changed."

Among the nations that want a different structure for international aid to Iraq are Germany and France, two countries that opposed the war, although French and German officials emphasize that they are ready now to help rebuild Iraq.

In response to donor concerns, American officials are pressing for the creation of another element of the occupation bureaucracy, a trust fund for donations by other countries. But it is not clear whether the fund will be seen by donors as sufficiently independent.

"We`ve believed from the beginning that many donors would like to see a separate trust fund for donor contributions, possibly under the World Bank or the United Nations," said Alan Larson, the under secretary of state for economic affairs. "Now we are hard at work on it."

The call for aid comes at a time when the occupation of Iraq is costing the United States more money across the board. Last Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed that military operations in Iraq were costing $3.9 billion a month, nearly twice the estimate the administration issued in April.

The more the United States needs others to help run Iraq, the more likely it is to share power. Some experts say the same dynamic could unfold militarily.

"The administration faces a classic trade-off between keeping control and getting outside participation," said James Dobbins, who has run or helped run the reconstruction of Kosovo, Haiti, Afghanistan and other countries. "This administration does not want to lose control, but they`ll have to take another look at that position."

Mr. Dobbins, who is currently director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation, said that providing security in Iraq would probably require twice the roughly 160,000 foreign troops who are there now, and that other countries that join the rebuilding effort might not want to serve under the command structure set up by the American military.

Similarly, he said, international aid to Iraq may have to be carried out under an entirely different structure than the one currently contemplated.

"The United States will have to share power to secure resources for Iraq and to establish an image of legitimacy," he added.

The donor conference for Iraq is to take place in New York City in October. A preliminary meeting last month in New York drew more than 50 interested nations as well as representatives of the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and several independent relief organizations.

The financial reserves being used to run civilian operations in Iraq are going to run out at the end of the year, or perhaps shortly thereafter, and it is far from clear how much oil revenue will be available for Iraq`s reconstruction.

The current supply of about $7 billion for Iraqi nonmilitary operations came from several sources, administration officials say. These include $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets frozen in American banks since 1991, $900 million found in hiding places in Iraq and $1.6 billion from Iraqi oil sold before the war.

In addition, the United Nations has set aside $1 billion in development funds for Iraq, and Congress appropriated $2.4 billion for Iraqi reconstruction contracts by the Bechtel Group and other companies.

Administration officials say this money will be used up by the beginning of next year.

Meanwhile, L. Paul Bremer III, the occupation administrator, has submitted a budget of roughly $6 billion for the rest of this year, and it is expected that the amount for 2004 will be considerably higher.

Oil revenues for Iraq, if the country somehow manages to resume pumping two million to three million barrels a day, could bring in $15 billion to $22 billion per year at currently projected oil prices, administration officials say. But a considerable amount of this money will have to be used to pay for food, medicine and other basic needs.

The Bush administration is exploring a number of ideas about how to use oil revenue to pay for the reconstruction, according to John Taylor, the Treasury under secretary for international affairs.

One proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars by "securitizing" the oil revenues — borrowing large sums up front and having them repaid over several years. But Mr. Taylor said that this idea would run up against Iraq`s tens of billions of dollars in debt to foreign countries and companies, which would almost certainly challenge the first claim of any Iraqi "oil bonds" to oil revenues.

Other ideas include setting up a fund like Alaska`s and making payments to individual Iraqis, perhaps by establishing individual retirement accounts. Some officials want to privatize Iraq`s oil industry and use revenues for a widely held private company. Still others say that the revenues could be managed by a development board for use in major projects.

Administration officials say there may be resistance if other countries want some say in how money is spent for Iraq. Many officials are adamant that it will be the Coalition Provisional Authority, or C.P.A. — the current name for the American and British led occupation — that decides.

"It still hasn`t entirely sunk into the international community, but the C.P.A. is the government of Iraq," said a senior administration official. "There are already unfortunate misunderstandings on that. But I cannot underline that often enough. The C.P.A. is the government of Iraq."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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July 14, 2003
British Tread Carefully in South Iraq
By NEELA BANERJEE


AMARA, Iraq — For the British soldiers of southern Iraq, the death of comrades is something they say they have learned to handle after spending years in places like Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Bosnia.

But on a blazing morning in late June, British troops at the Abu Naji military base here in southeastern Iraq were stunned when they heard that six of their own had been killed and eight wounded in the nearby town of Majar al Kabir, during what had started as a routine patrol. Every soldier crammed into the mess hall the next day to mourn the dead.

During the faltering peace of the past few months, the British occupation of the south seemed one of the few examples of stability in Iraq. While the Americans struggled to control the north, the British had set aside their flak jackets, heavy weapons and curfews. This was an area where soldiers did not fear daily attacks. This was a place that Prime Minister Tony Blair could visit, while President Bush had to settle for flying over Baghdad.

Over all, Britain, an old colonial power with much recent experience in peacekeeping, seemed the best prepared for a role in Iraq.

The deaths in Majar al Kabir shattered that illusion and raised questions about how effectively the occupation forces can forge local alliances to govern this country. In early July, a British soldier in Basra was wounded by sniper fire. The British are conducting an investigation into the Majar deaths, but previous statements by the military and interviews with villagers suggest the soldiers were abandoned by the local militia with whom they had been working.

The British have entrusted security in Maysan Province, which encompasses Amara, the provincial capital, and Majar al Kabir, to militia units called emergency brigades. These men answer only to a self-appointed provincial council of Shiite religious groups, which wants no one else to deal with the British. The leader of the council, Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, has been named to Iraq`s new Governing Council.

Some in Majar al Kabir believe that the militia is part of the Badr Brigade, an armed group trained in Iran and affiliated with Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, a prominent Shiite leader who, during Saddam Hussein`s reign, lived in exile in Iran. In numerous encounters, local people appeared fearful of criticizing the brigades, but those who did said the militiamen were mainly outlaws.

Many Iraqis say allied forces — including the British, who governed Iraq in the 1920`s — do not have a deep enough understanding of the country to differentiate easily between good partners and bad.

The British "admit that they have no plan," said Hazem al-Ainachi, a businessman in the south`s biggest city, Basra, and a member of a new interim city council organized by the British. "They say, `We have come across a society that`s so different.` "

Iain Pickard, a spokesman for the governing Coalition Provisional Authority in Basra, conceded that the British lacked detailed knowledge about an Iraq that was long largely closed to outsiders. But he said the allies were under tremendous pressure to devolve power to local government and police forces, even without a clear sense of the players.

"We need to win this argument on three fronts," Mr. Pickard said. "We need our own domestic support, which is more fragile in the U.K. than in the U.S. We need to win it regionally, so that the parties stick to the peace process.

"And we need for the people out there," he added, pointing out his window to Basra, "to see us as a force for good because we need their support."

Iraqis are clamoring for self-rule, but in several cities, the allied forces` efforts to foster it have soured badly. The British themselves have now formed an interim city council in Basra for the second time after widespread discontent led to the disintegration of the first one. But the council is merely advisory.

Two weeks ago, the American authorities in Najaf arrested the man they had appointed mayor after local people accused him of embezzlement and arbitrarily throwing people in jail. This came two weeks after local elections in Najaf were canceled for fear that Islamic militants and Baathists would come to power, a senior American official said at the time. Over the last month, local elections have been postponed indefinitely throughout Iraq by allied officials.

The situation in Maysan Province may be the most extreme example so far of Iraqi self-rule backfiring. On June 24, British paratroopers entered Majar al Kabir to patrol with the emergency brigade. Local residents grew angry because they thought the British had come to search their homes for weapons.

A clash ensued that left four Iraqis dead and the paratroopers fleeing for their lives. A helicopter that arrived to evacuate the British was attacked, and eight soldiers were wounded. The villagers then moved on to the local police station where six Royal Military Police officers were training the militia. Exactly what happened next is unclear, but the mob stormed the station and killed all six men.

As the British sift through the events of June 24, they will glean important lessons, said Maj. Peter Mabbett of the King`s Own Scottish Borderers, the infantry unit that replaced the paratroopers at Abu Naji. So far, changes have meant a greater show of force.

The most difficult lesson for the British may prove the realization of who their putative allies really are, some in Maysan Province say. The Majar al Kabir militia still sits in the bullet-pocked police station, near the room where four of the dead were found. Ahmed Hassan, who heads the emergency brigade in the Majar, district said the British had brought on the violence by searching for weapons in a neighboring hamlet.

Now, while conducting their investigation, Mr. Hassan said, the British detained some of his men and tortured them. "This encourages the people to do lots of things against the British," he said.

Major Mabbett denied the allegation. Even so, the British authorities still stand by their alliance with the emergency brigades.

"We need to restore security here," said Graham Roberts, a Defense Ministry official and policy adviser to the commanding officer of the British troops in Maysan.

British soldiers, who say they watch their backs around the brigades, may be picking up on what many local people already know. A former political prisoner, Dr. Ali Shia al-Maliki is among the few in Maysan Province willing to speak out against the brigades. In his town of Uzayr, about 35 miles southeast of Amara, the emergency brigades "have power because they have guns and cars they stole from the old government," he said.

When local mullahs and members of the middle class tried to form a town council, they were pressed to drop their efforts by the brigades, the 30-year-old Dr. Maliki said.

For several weeks right after the end of the war, Dr. Maliki worked as an interpreter for the British. "When the British first arrived, educated people — 90 percent of them — couldn`t say that they wanted the British to stay because they were afraid of the bad people," he said.

In Maysan, everything seemed in place already when the British entered. Religious opposition groups had ousted the governing Baath Party during the war, appointed themselves to a governing council and approved the formation of the emergency brigades.

The so-called supervisory council has refused to disband despite the fact that local representatives have been elected to a provincial board of executives. Abdul-Rahim Jabir, a council member and member of the militant arm of the Hawsa Party, a Shiite group led by Moqtada al-Sadr, said the council "brings the voice of the people to the British."

Even if the British tried to rid the area of self-appointed militias and leaders, it might now be too late, some Iraqis fear. "If the British took any action against these people, their soldiers wouldn`t be safe," Dr. Maliki said. "And that is a Briton`s first priority."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 14, 2003
Poor Richard`s Flattery
By WALTER ISAACSON


WASHINGTON

This being Bastille Day, it`s a good time to pause and reflect on the troubles we`re having with our oldest ally. When France signed treaties of friendship and alliance with the United States 225 years ago, it made possible the victory in our fight for independence. It also began a struggle among American diplomats, one that continues to this day, about the best way to deal with an ally known more for its pride than its fortitude.

If you think it all started with Donald Rumsfeld kicking the French while Colin Powell scratched them behind the ears, then you`re wrong. The schizophrenia goes way back. In fact, the rift between a tough-talking realist approach and a more seductive style that appeals to shared ideals was embodied in the battles between John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who served uneasily together in Paris, displaying a complex mix of disdain and grudging admiration for each other, for much of the Revolutionary War.

Adams and Franklin were both smart and patriotic, but otherwise had very different personalities. Adams, who was in his early 40`s, was unbending and argumentative; Franklin, who was 30 years older, was charming and flirtatious. These personality traits seemed to find their greatest expression in their relations with France. Adams learned French by memorizing a collection of funeral orations, Franklin by lounging on the pillows of female friends. Adams felt comfortable confronting people, while Franklin preferred to seduce them.

In the early days of the war, both men shared a somewhat isolationist or exceptionalist view, one that has since been a thread throughout our history: America should never be a supplicant in seeking support from other nations. "A virgin state should preserve the virgin character, and not go about suitoring for alliances," Franklin noted shortly after his arrival in France. In memos to the French foreign minister, he stressed a balance-of-power calculus to show that it was in France`s national interest to deal a blow to its historic rival, England. But he also played the rousing chords of American idealism and appealed to French moral sentiments by publishing the documents coming out of America, such as the Declaration of Independence, and proclaiming that "our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind." He even adopted the guise of a noble frontier philosopher, which he knew would appeal to France`s Rousseau-loving romantics, by trading wigs and ceremonial swords for a soft fur cap and old frock coat.

After France joined the war on America`s side in 1778, Franklin became a proponent of continuing to seduce her by feigning great gratitude. America`s fealty to France, in his view, was based on idealism as well as realism, and he described it in moral terms rather than merely in the cold calculus of commercial advantages. "This is really a generous nation, fond of glory, and particularly that of protecting the oppressed," he declared in a letter to Congress.

Adams, on the other hand, was much more of a cold realist. He felt that France had supported America because of its own national interests — weakening England, gaining a lucrative new trading relationship — and neither side owed the other any moral gratitude. Franklin showed too much subservience to the court, Adams felt. "We ought to be cautious how we magnify our ideas and exaggerate our expressions of the generosity and magnanimity," Adams wrote Congress.

The wily French foreign minister, Vergennes, was understandably eager to deal only with Franklin, and by July 1780 he had exchanged enough strained correspondence with Adams that he felt justified in sending him a stinging letter that declared, "The king did not stand in need of your solicitations to direct his attentions to the interests of the United States." In other words, France would not deal with Adams anymore.

Vergennes informed Franklin of this decision and sent him a copy of all his testy correspondence with Adams, with the request that Franklin forward it to Congress. In his reply, Franklin was exceedingly candid about his own frustration with Adams, saying, "It was from his particular indiscretion alone, and not from any instructions received by him, that he has given such just cause of displeasure."

Although Franklin could have dispatched the packet without comment, he took the opportunity to write a letter of his own to Congress that detailed his disagreement with Adams. Their dispute was partly the result of a difference in style. But it was also caused by a fundamental difference in philosophy. Adams believed that America`s foreign policy should be based on realism, while Franklin believed that it should also include an element of idealism both as a moral duty and as a component of America`s national interests.

Adams ended up being recalled, but only temporarily. He returned to France to work alongside Franklin and John Jay in negotiating with Britain the treaty that ended the war. Franklin agreed that the details of their negotiations should be kept secret from France, despite an earlier promise the two nations had made that they would act only in concert. When the treaty was completed, Vergennes was understandably upset, and let Franklin know. Franklin replied with a mix of apology and flattery:

"In not consulting you before they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a point of propriety. But, as this was not from want of respect for the king, whom we all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and that the great work, which has hitherto been so happily conducted, is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours."

Vergennes, faced with a fait accompli, not only accepted it but agreed to Franklin`s rather audacious request that France give yet another loan to the United States. What Franklin realized was that the key to the relationship was pride. France was, above all, a proud nation that enjoyed flattery and fealty. This, in Franklin`s mind, made it easy to deal with. As the godfather of how-to-succeed books, Franklin had propounded a fundamental rule for winning friends: always play to their pride and vanity by constantly seeking their opinion and advice, and they will admire you for your judgment and wisdom.

The corollary, for Franklin, was his method for assuring that he did not fall victim to such pride. Franklin admitted that he could never master the virtue of humility. But he was able to feign it, which was almost as good. "I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it," he wrote. Indeed, he discovered, the appearance of humility turned out to be just as useful as the real thing.

These are the tactics Franklin would likely recommend today. Indulge the French in their pride. They earned it 225 years ago, and they will repay you nicely if you offer this easy concession, as John F. Kennedy discovered when he and Jackie lit up Versailles in 1961. And remember to heed President Bush`s rhetoric during his campaign about the need for America to show humility in its dealings with the rest of the world. Sure, as the president has since pointed out, the terrorist attacks made a more assertive policy necessary. But it does not need to be accompanied by a pretense of swagger and bluster, which seems to be the pumped-up preference in Washington these days. Instead, it should be accompanied by a pretense of humility. Which, as Franklin showed, could be just as useful as the real thing.



Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, is author, most recently, of "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
`Preemptive` Raids in Iraq Intensified



Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 14, 2003; Page A16


BAGHDAD, July 13 -- U.S. forces have increased raids and patrols in the most volatile areas of Iraq in response to intelligence reports warning that attacks against them could increase during upcoming anniversaries of Baath Party events, military officials said today.

The operations are "a preemptive strike" against loyalists of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Islamic opposition groups "who are planning attacks against coalition forces," the U.S. military said in a statement released today.

The raids and patrols follow the pattern of operations conducted over the past several weeks, targeting holdouts from Hussein`s government and gunmen suspected of launching attacks against U.S. forces.

Military officials, citing intelligence reports based on information from Iraqi informants and other sources, said they were bracing for a potential increase in violence because several anniversaries formerly celebrated as holidays occur this week. They commemorate the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14, 1958; Hussein`s rise to the presidency on July 16, 1979; and a coup by the Baath Party on July 17, 1968.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on NBC`s "Meet the Press" today that "we could see an increase in the number of attacks."

Thirty-two Americans and six British soldiers have been killed in hostilities since the beginning of May. Over the past six weeks, the pace of the attacks against U.S.-led forces has accelerated dramatically.

[Early Monday, the Associated Press, citing a military spokesman, reported that a U.S. soldier was killed and four wounded in fighting in Iraq. The spokesman did not disclose any further details, pending notification of next of kin.]

U.S. soldiers killed four Iraqis during raids and other operations launched Saturday night by the 4th Infantry Division, which oversees the region surrounding Hussein`s ancestral home area of Tikrit, on the Tigris River northwest of Baghdad. Operation Ivy Serpent, as the effort was code-named, was the fourth in a series of such operations carried out by the division over the past several weeks.

-- Molly Moore



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Weapons of Mass Destruction
Fallout from Bush`s tactical nukes on the American West
Alex Roth
Wednesday, July 9, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/ar…


Late in May, the Bush administration won a major legislative victory in its push toward development of smaller nuclear bombs. Although criticized by some, President Bush`s efforts likely received a warm welcome in southeastern Washington State at Richland High School (home of "The Bombers"), whose mascot is a giant mushroom cloud. The school`s emblem was inspired by the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which produced the plutonium for countless nuclear weapons, including the bomb called "Fat Man," which obliterated Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945.

At Bush`s urging, Congress voted to lift its 10-year-old ban on research and development of small, "tactical" nukes, bombs ranging up to a third the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. (The differences in the House and Senate bills still must be reconciled.)

America has built no nuclear weapons since 1990, while deactivating many. Nuclear testing stopped roughly a decade ago, as did development of tactical nukes. The tax money just appropriated for tactical nuclear weapons research is quite small in proportion to military spending. But the president`s policies are a distinct reversal of prior administrations` slow, steady retreat from the nuclear brink. Bush has made clear his willingness to use nuclear weapons, even in so-called pre-emptive strikes against non-nuclear countries.

Bush`s nuclear policy, like Richland High`s mascot, is a bizarre throwback to a bygone era, familiar in the American West, when the government thoughtlessly promoted military technology as a cure-all for ethical and diplomatic challenges. Typical of that era`s approach was a plan called Project Chariot (part of "Operation Plowshare"), which would have detonated multiple nuclear weapons off Alaska`s northwest coast to create an artificial deepwater port. The plan persisted for four years, until 1962, despite the vigorous objection of inhabitants terrified by the ghastly damage the blasts and radiation would have inflicted on people and ecosystems.

Other examples are more widely known, including the high cancer rates among Utahans living downwind from the Nevada Test Site, where some 900 nukes were exploded during the Cold War. Even some residents of Richland, Wash., ("Go Bombers!") are alarmed by the 55 million gallons of radioactive waste buried at Hanford in leaking underground containers, awaiting federal cleanup.

With this sort of history so common and close at hand, we in America`s nuclear heartland see right through Bush`s new tactical (if not tactful) nuclear initiative. Call it "Operation Oblivious Texan," forsaking as it does precise, smart bombs for massively destructive stupid ones, a dumbing-down of Bush`s arsenal to match his diplomacy.

Bush`s surreal atomic contradictions reflect the logic of Dr. Strangelove`s generation: He wants to curtail nuclear proliferation by proliferating nukes, wants to minimize the threat of nuclear war by making nuclear weapons more practical to use and seems to be enforcing his international consensus against weapons of mass destruction in part by implicitly threatening to nuke the uncooperative.

The research Bush ordered will be conducted at the Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico, and the Livermore lab, east of San Francisco. All three of these facilities continue to send deadly detritus from past bomb research to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project site near Carlsbad, N.M., where it will be stored for the next 10,000 years. To cope with the extreme, ultralong-term hazard, a group of anthropologists, linguists and other experts was convened in the early 1990s. Their job was to devise universal warning signs for the dump that people will heed after our language and civilization are forgotten --

a task as surreal as a varsity jacket emblazoned with a mushroom cloud.

It`s surely too late to un-make the lethal debris at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project or save past victims of misguided nuclear adventures. But there`s still time to start brainstorming sane diplomatic policies, military strategies -- and high school mascots.

Alex Roth is an attorney and writer in Portland, Ore.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Bush`s Fiscal Policy Not Creating New Jobs

By Seth Sandronsky, AlterNet
July 9, 2003

How about that "jobs and growth" plan from the $350 billion in tax cuts that President Bush proposed and Congress signed?


This is more than an academic question. The jobless rate in June rose to 6.4 percent, or about 9.4 million workers, versus 6.1 percent, or 9 million workers, in May, the Labor Department reported.


Significantly, the administration had forecast the creation of 1.4 million new jobs by year-end 2004 after its most recent tax cut became law. Against that backdrop, 913,000 workers joined the ranks of the unemployed between March and June, according to the Labor Department.


It also noted: "In June, there were 2.0 million unemployed persons who had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, an increase of 410,000 over the year. They represented 21.4 percent of the total unemployed, up from 18.8 percent a year earlier."


Corporate America has been shedding workers in part to reduce its high ratio of debt to income accumulated during the 1990s. Corporations are bringing their high debt loads of the past decade closer into balance with current income with a vengeance.


Many examples of this trend can be seen in the airline, dot-com and telecom industries. This process is, in turn, weakening household spending, also at debt`s door from a decade of buying based on borrowing.


Meanwhile, large-scale layoffs in the public sector are casting ominous shadows over the American workforce, increasingly female and nonwhite. Spending cuts by state and local governments swimming in red ink don`t typically spur private-sector employers to spend on new workers.


In fact, such a contraction harms small firms more than large ones. The latter have more capital, and can survive business downturns longer than smaller companies.


The Bush administration`s response to the budget crises being faced by local and state governments has been to cut taxes for the corporations and the rich for the third time. This policy, plus increased military spending to invade and occupy Iraq, has partly helped to shift the federal budget from surplus to deficit.


Federal deficit spending can be a useful policy. Uncle Sam can build daycare centers, hospitals and schools that the American people need.


This is especially the case when private-sector spending is slowing down relative to its income. As Martin Wolf wrote on July 2 in The Financial Times, the borrowing binge that the U.S. went on in the 1990s won`t happen again this decade.


During such post-bubble times, government spending for non-military purposes can take up the slack in the economy. Uncle Sam can, as in the past, prime the pump when recession and stagnation arrive.


But such Keynesian stimulus to address the "soft patch" in the market is not on the radar screen of the Bush White House. It is, for now, focused on continuing the economic restructuring of the nation, couched in the vocabulary of a fiscal policy to create jobs.


Accordingly, working life is becoming more precarious for millions of people in America. Just ask them.


Seth Sandronsky is a member of Peace Action and co-editor of Because People Matter, a progressive newspaper in Sacramento, Calif.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-bushnex…
NEWS ANALYSIS


Back Home, Challenges Abroad
Bush returns from Africa to quandaries in Iraq, the West Bank, N. Korea -- and Africa.
By Robin Wright
Times Staff Writer

July 14, 2003

WASHINGTON — While in Africa, President Bush dealt with the grim issues of AIDS, civil war and poverty, but his trip across the troubled continent last week may look like a peaceful interlude compared with what now awaits him in Washington.

Bush returns to intensifying questions about the cost and duration of the American presence in Iraq, where U.S. authorities are taking precautions against widely rumored plans for attacks this week pegged to two former national holidays.

He will also need to put in time to shore up the new "road map" for an Arab-Israeli peace and a 2-week-old truce declared by major Palestinian militant groups. Israel does not want to hand over control of more territory until the Palestinian Authority moves against extremist groups, while the Palestinians are angry about Israel`s failure to release significant numbers of prisoners.

And after delaying for a week, the president must finally determine what steps, if any, the U.S. military should take to help halt civil war in Liberia.

Next, Bush may need to focus on the Korean peninsula. A report Saturday from a former South Korean official said North Korea has reprocessed all 8,000 spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. If confirmed, it would mean the North has made more progress toward stockpiling material for making atomic weapons. U.S. intelligence has also reportedly found traces of krypton-85, a byproduct of reprocessing spent fuel rods, in air samples from the Yongbyon facility.

Even following through on pledges he made in Africa to promote democracy and deal with the AIDS pandemic may be difficult for the president, with Congress last week agreeing to appropriate only a fraction of the funds Bush promised.

"He`s got a lot of projects started, but now he has to follow through," said Ellen Laipson, former vice chairwoman of the National Intelligence Council and now president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

The accumulating challenges seem all the more daunting now that the Democrats have shed their reluctance to criticize Bush on security issues, putting his administration seriously on the defensive for the first time since he took office.

In particular, the White House is facing considerable heat over Bush`s allegation in this year`s State of the Union address that Baghdad had sought to buy uranium in Africa. The administration now concedes that claim was erroneous.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bob Graham of Florida charged Sunday that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence on Iraq`s alleged weapons of mass destruction to fit its policy goals. "I think there was a selective use of intelligence — that is, that information which was consistent with the administration`s policy was given front-row seats. Those questions that were not supportive were either put in the closet or were certainly in the back rows," he said on NBC`s "Meet the Press."

Repercussions from the flap over intelligence are already spilling over into how the entire U.S. intervention in Iraq is perceived.

"Even if Bush hopes to put the intelligence story to bed, the Democrats are now quite seized with the idea of not giving him an open-ended mandate on Iraq," Laipson said. "People are reaching a threshold and realizing that there is a cost for open-ended engagement in Iraq. Congress is signaling that the administration should articulate a plan to wrap it up there and reduce troops."

On Sunday, the U.S. began transferring political power to Iraqis with the naming of a 25-member governing council to help the civilian administrator run postwar Iraq. But the hand- over seems to underscore U.S. vulnerability rather than strength, as Washington faces increasingly emphatic demands by Iraqis for greater control of their own country.

The U.S. decision last week to scale back its presence in the town of Fallouja, site of a series of attacks since U.S. troops killed about 20 protesters in April, is a microcosm of that problem. The move followed a protest march on the mayor`s office Thursday by dozens of police, wearing uniforms provided by the U.S., who threatened to quit unless U.S. troops stop using their station as a base.

The Bush administration was "unprepared conceptually in terms of understanding Iraqi anger, because the war was so easy that it was hard to believe that the [ruling] Baath Party would try to reconstitute itself," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department policy planning staffer who is now chairman of the international relations department at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. "But loyalties to the party, from people who were paid by it or benefited from it, were deeper than we thought."

The mounting pressures forced Pentagon officials to admit to Congress last week that the cost of keeping troops in Iraq and running the country has reached almost $4 billion a month, double original estimates, and that the deployment could last more than twice as long as the original projection of two years.

Iraq is slowly but surely shifting from a sought-after victory to an unwanted burden, a situation Bush must turn around quickly to prevent lasting damage to his foreign policy goals or himself politically, analysts add.

"This is the beginning of foreign policy fatigue in the country, with the administration admitting for the first time that we may be in Iraq for four years, and that will surely have an impact on Bush," Barkey said.

Although legislators have urged the Pentagon to seek help from NATO to relieve the burden on U.S. troops in Iraq, that option may be fading due to divisions among the 19 member states over whether the trans- atlantic alliance should intervene — because of deployments elsewhere and ongoing disagreements about the war.

Bush may also have to work to keep the Mideast peace plan advancing as it faces new controversies and obstacles.

"The road map is now something to be worried about," said a senior State Department official who requested anonymity. "Tensions are such that we`re now only one suicide bomb away from collapse and only one failed prisoner release away from collapse."

Potentially sparking further tension, the Israeli government said over the weekend that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat may be deported if he continues to undermine the new government of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

"Arafat should be removed from any position of influence," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told "Fox News Sunday." "The problem now [is] that Arafat still controls most of those armed Palestinian forces and the security organization, or one can say security/terrorist organizations."

U.S. officials are particularly concerned that Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has been unable to strengthen his fragile position since he was selected April 30, after months of U.S. pressure for new leadership. The Bush administration decided last week to expedite $20 million of an existing allocation and channel it to Abbas for reconstruction projects and to generate jobs for a population suffering 70% unemployment.

"Abu Mazen is a de jure leader, and we`re trying to help make him the popularly accepted leader," the State Department official said. Arafat still has the largest backing of any leader, more than 20%, while Abbas has less than 2%, according to recent polls. Expelling Arafat could only further undermine or discredit Abbas, U.S. officials warn.

The most pressing decision awaiting Bush, however, may be what to do about Liberia. After repeatedly pledging that the United States will participate in United Nations and West African efforts to convert a cease-fire into a political transition to end 14 years of conflict, the president must soon resolve the question of deploying troops — and determine the scope and duration of their mission.

"August may not be such a quiet month," Barkey said, "given all the issues that are coming up."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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RONALD BROWNSTEIN / WASHINGTON OUTLOOK


When Fighting Bush, Heavyweight Contenders Need to Use a Light Touch
Ronald Brownstein

July 14, 2003

Hopkinton, N.H.

As the weather cooled here one afternoon late last week, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean`s rhetoric against President Bush heated up.

During his first two stops on a campaign swing through New Hampshire, Dean was forceful in substance but restrained in tone as he critiqued Bush`s domestic and foreign agendas.

At a medical center in Derry, where he began his day, Dean never raised his voice as he lamented the debt that Bush`s tax cuts will impose on future generations. He sounded as temperate as a high school guidance counselor encouraging a disappointing student to do better.

Speaking with reporters after the event, Dean`s message had more edge as he urged the resignation of any official who "misled" the president as part of the now-discredited administration claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa. But even on this, his rhetoric was calm.

Dean`s temperature rose only slightly at a house party later in Concord. As trees swayed in the breeze and wispy clouds drifted overhead, Dean made his case in a suburban backyard to the improbable accompaniment of a rooster crowing nearby. He accused Bush of dividing the country and of falling "out of touch with ordinary Americans." Still, Dean didn`t approach the level of scorn you`d find in the judges on the average episode of "American Idol."

When Dean arrived in Hopkinton, however, he turned up the heat when he spoke to nearly 250 supporters milling around a rolling lawn in the thin twilight. "This president promised he would be a uniter, not a divider; that`s a lie," Dean declared. "We can do better than a president who appeals to the worst of us," he said.

The sharper the barb at Bush, the louder the cheers from the crowd.

Dean`s shifting emphasis was a reminder that the Democratic presidential candidates are still struggling to find the right tone for challenging a president who is enormously unpopular with the activists who are critical to selecting the party`s nominee, but generally well-respected by the swing voters who can decide a general election.

The question for Dean and his rivals is whether in satisfying the visceral longing among Democrats for denunciation of Bush, they will frighten away centrist voters — the way conservatives did with their overheated attacks on Bill Clinton throughout his presidency.

The demand from Democratic die-hards for a hard line against Bush seems to have at least three distinct roots. One is tactical. The principal lesson most Democrats took from the 2002 midterm election was that the party lost ground because it failed to challenge Bush aggressively enough, especially on his tax cuts and foreign policy. Dean encapsulates that conviction when he declares, always to loud applause, that "the way to beat this president is not to try to be like him."

Some of the anger toward Bush also reflects the lingering belief among many Democrats that he won the White House illegitimately in 2000. But far more of the passion has been generated by what Bush has done since he arrived in Washington.

As president, Bush has pursued a more confronta-

tional conservative agenda than many on either side expected. That has energized conservatives. But it has also repelled many Democrats.

The result is that except for the periods immediately around the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, Bush has polarized public opinion as sharply as any president in memory. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken late last month, Bush`s approval rating was 94% among Republicans, but just 29% among Democrats. That`s among the largest gaps ever measured.

In the same poll, only 28% of Democrats said Bush was someone they admired. Just 30% of Democrats said Bush cared about people like them. Among Republicans, both numbers approached 90%.

Like some black hole, that pulsating hostility is exerting a gravitational pull on the Democratic presidential field. Dean at times has used language more superheated than in Hopkinton, describing Bush as obsessed with Iraq, comparing him to President Nixon and accusing him of "catering to bigotry and hatred."

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has gone even further; at times he sounds like he`s calling Bush out for a fight. Edwards has called the president "a phony a complete phony," and described his economic plan as "the most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism." Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) has approached similar heights in accusing Bush of manipulating intelligence to stampede the country into war.

The problem for the Democrats is that most independents and swing voters aren`t nearly as angry at Bush. They may disagree with some of his ideas and express dissatisfaction with aspects of his performance. But in last month`s Gallup survey, a majority of independents described Bush as a strong and decisive leader, honest and trustworthy, and someone who cares about the problems of people like them. They are unlikely to recognize the portrait of Bush some of the Democratic contenders are painting.

Like all candidates challenging an incumbent, the Democrats face legitimately conflicting pressures. To convince the country to change course, they must make a forceful case against Bush`s direction. But they might also remember that even most Americans who disagree with a president, any president, usually don`t consider him malevolent or stupid, just wrong or ineffective.

Dozens of leading Republicans forgot that truth during the Clinton era and indulged in public contempt that hurt them more than their target. One who remembered the lesson was Bush. In 2000, he firmly made his case against the record of Clinton and Al Gore on education, entitlement programs and foreign policy.

And yet, faced with a base that loathed Clinton and Gore at least as much as the Democrats today loathe him, Bush demonstrated a light touch on the Clinton administration`s ethical problems, saying only that he would restore honor and integrity to the White House. No one misunderstood his meaning. Yet he never seemed consumed by anger or zealotry.

The Democrats might learn from the man they are trying to unseat that, when dealing with a sitting president, usually less is more.

*

Ronald Brownstein`s column appears every Monday. See current and past columns on The Times` Web site at http://www.latimes.com/brownstein .

copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Bush doublespeak
Ruth Rosen
Monday, July 14, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/14/ED24…


I`M RE-READING George Orwell`s classic dystopian novel, "1984," so I may be a bit sensitive to official language that masks what`s really going on. In the bleak world of "1984," as you may remember, the Ministry of Truth publishes lies, the Ministry of Love tortures people and the Ministry of Peace wages perpetual war.

I`m hardly the first to notice that the Bush administration has excelled at using language to say one thing and mean its opposite -- now popularly known as doublespeak. The "Healthy Forests" program, for example, allows increased logging of protected wilderness. The "Clear Skies" initiative permits greater industrial air pollution.

Last week, the president employed doublespeak again. In the name of "improving" Head Start -- the federally funded preschool program that provides early educational, health and nutrition services to 1 million impoverished children -- he pressed Congress to pass legislation that would allow states to "opt in" and to match block grants to participate in the program.

"Opt in." Sounds generous and inclusive, doesn`t it? But what it really means is shifting responsibility for Head Start to the states, most of which are crushed by budget deficits and don`t have the money to fund the quality programs that prepare poor children to arrive at school ready to learn. The result? The quality of Head Start program would vary widely, with cuts decided by individual states.

Shifting funds to California, according to Amy Dominguez-Arms, vice president of Oakland`s Children Now, "could undo a comprehensive preschool program with proven positive results for children. What we`re worried about is that it would lower quality standards and that the state would use the funds for other purposes."

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children`s Defense Fund, sees Bush`s legislative proposal as an attempt to dismantle Head Start and as "part of a bold plan to break the sacred covenant between people and their federal government. If it ain`t broke, don`t fix it," says Edelman. "More importantly, if it ain`t broke, don`t break it."

She`s right. Head Start enjoys the highest customer satisfaction score of any federal agency. Even the Bush administration`s own Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) concedes that Head Start provides our poorest children a quality early childhood education.

So why is the president willing to dismantle Head Start? "Management flexibility," he says. More doublespeak. The president`s real agenda is to starve and shrink federal programs and get out of the business of providing services to the poor. The problem is, the poor can`t afford to pay for the private services that might replace public ones.

Since it began in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson`s war on poverty, Head Start has benefited 20 million at-risk kids and families. Studies have shown that kids who participate in Head Start commit fewer juvenile crimes, need less special education, are more likely to graduate from high school, and that every dollar invested during the first seven years of a child`s life saves $2 to $4 of federal dollars later on.

"Leave no child behind," Bush promised during his campaign, stealing the decades-old slogan of the Children`s Defense Fund. Well, right now, Head Start serves 3 out of 5 eligible children. Yet it would only cost $2 billion a year to give all eligible kids the chance to participate in Head Start.

What does it say about the values of our society that we are willing to spend $4 billion dollars a month waging war in Iraq and give huge tax breaks to millionaires, but don`t have enough money to give American children the benefit of early education that prepares them for learning in school?

Doublespeak is dangerous: Bush`s "opt in" proposal is designed to dismantle Head Start, hardly what the American people expect from a president who calls himself a compassionate conservative, devoted to improving children`s education.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Sunday, July 13, 2003

Media will miss doing battle with Ari

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- "I`m leaving the White House, but I`m not leaving President Bush," says press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Fleischer, on a final trip with the president in Africa, said in a farewell interview that he would work in the Bush re-election campaign wherever he is needed.

Fleischer, who has taken his share of potshots at the French, recently joked about the fact that his last day in the White House will be tomorrow, "Bastille Day," commemorating the French Revolution.

He expressed hope that at his final briefing, he would be accorded "a brief, momentary honeymoon, easy, nice, softball questions, Helen behaving herself, hopefully."

I confess, I did ask Ari some tough questions -- questions I would have preferred to ask the president if he had been accessible, such as: "Why would we kill thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians to take out one man?"

I believe that it is important to pin down official government spokesmen and go beyond their spin to better understand momentous White House moves. It`s the job of the media to seek answers and demand accountability from our elected officials on a daily basis. I like to think we do that as surrogates for all of the American people.

When Fleischer departs, I will miss my sparring partner in the pressroom. We`ve had our moments. Every press secretary seems to follow the motto: "The best defense is good offense," and Fleischer has been no slouch as a slugger in defense of Dubya.

Some of us reporters also weren`t bashful about our questions in the face of evasive statements. Nothing personal, mind you -- much as it might have appeared in the course of our daily give-and-take.

Actually, it depends on where you sit. I believe Fleischer had a pretty tame press corps to deal with, as reporters felt the pressure of avoiding confrontation in the "patriotic" surge that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

Obviously, Fleischer hardly thought he was getting off easy. "Until you have that podium, no one knows what it is like," Fleischer said.

Fleischer has served in the high-profile stressful role for 2 1/2 tumultuous years during which he had to field hard questions on terrorism; the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. challenges at the United Nations and the lead up to the Iraqi invasion and the war. More recently he faced postwar questions about the missing unconventional weapons and the unsettling events surrounding the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

He is sticking to his guns, saying he still believes Saddam Hussein hid the elusive weapons and they will be found.

He said he saw the president most troubled during the fearful anthrax attacks in 2001 because Bush thought it was a "second wave" terrorist attack launched by al-Qaida.

"He thought it was a biological epidemic strike on the United States," Fleischer explained.

At it turned out, there was no evidence of any al-Qaida link to the anthrax attacks and the search for the perpetrators is continuing.

Asked if he had ever lied to the media, he replied: "Absolutely never."

Reflecting on his role, he said "unquestionably" he had good access to the president -- the best source for information possible.

Fleischer said he had tried to follow two rules in his tough job: "Always let the truth be your guide, and keep a sense of humor."

Fleischer said he gets a "ton of mail, mostly kindly support" telling him he is doing a "nice job" and wondering how he keeps his patience in the presence of an irascible press corps, including yours truly.

What does he want to do for the rest of his life?

"Catch up on my sleep," he replied and spend more time with his bride, Becky.

He also plans to write his memoirs about the relationship between the press secretary and the press with high focus on media "negativism."

"I want to be my own boss," he said, and disclosed that he will open his own company, which will be called "Ari Fleischer Communications," to dole out advice on how to deal with the media.

In handing over the podium to his deputy, Scott McClellan, Fleischer said: "I feel good about leaving. I will miss the president. I will miss the briefings. ... the little combat. I look forward to a new chapter in my life. I`m happy and content to going back to being me."

We will miss Ari, and wish him well in the pursuit of his new life outside the White House. "I feel wonderful with no scores to settle," he said.

That`s a relief, but we await his book.

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/130496_thomas13.html

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EDITORIAL


Rescue the Effort in Iraq

July 13, 2003

Guerrilla-style forces fire rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and rifles at U.S. soldiers. Iraqis who cooperate with Americans are murdered. Bitter grumbling grows because Iraqis have yet to see fully restored services, like electricity and water, amid the broiling heat. The basic political restructuring of Iraq lags as debate rages in Washington about the commitment of American resources. In short, the U.S. occupation of Iraq is turning into a disaster.

The Bush administration — which has offered dismissive, cavalier assurances that all`s well and progressing in Iraq — must face the problems squarely and respond urgently. Send more troops, perhaps 20,000 to 30,000, to bolster the 140,000-plus there already. Send more civil administrators and aid workers; keep them in Iraq longer. Seek more international help, especially from experienced peacekeepers. Tell the troops, the Iraqis and the American public what the plan is for Iraq and how it will be executed.

The lack of international legitimacy for the war — a result of Washington`s poor diplomacy — has handicapped U.S. efforts to rebuild a nation ravaged by years of conflict and sanctions. The Bush administration gave up on getting United Nations authorization for the conflict; that affected it little on the battlefield, but it hurts now — and a failed Iraqi reconstruction will be even more injurious to America. If U.S. promises go unfulfilled in Iraq, the world will view America as an invading bully that ousts regimes and leaves only wreckage. Its announced ambitions to spread democracy will be hollow.

President Bush`s insistence that the United States will stay the course in Iraq, even with a present price tag of almost $4 billion a month, is far more welcome than his outrageous bluster — "bring them on" — concerning those Iraqis who would attack Americans. Iraqis have killed more than two dozen American troops since Bush declared major combat over May 1.

The violence and increasing anti-American sentiment — visible in graffiti — underscore the need for more soldiers to beef up patrols, collect intelligence and chase down attackers. The complex mission requires a blend of troops: combat forces to suppress guerrilla assaults and peacekeepers to stop petty crime, reopen schools and get buses back on the road. U.S. units in Iraq deserve rotation home, to be replaced by fresh troops. Morale suffers when combat forces must extend their tours to serve as peacekeepers; replacements can be sharper and more efficient. The Pentagon took a good step last week when it said the 3rd Infantry Division would be brought home after its tour had been lengthened by months.

The administration should press the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for help, specifically asking key alliance members France and Germany — which opposed this war — to assist. Washington should give the U.N. a bigger peacekeeping role. India and other nations hint that they will provide troops if this happens.

The Bush administration also should dispatch more diplomats to help establish vital local governments across Iraq more quickly. Retired envoys with Middle East experience could be invaluable in working with fledgling city councils to instill democratic self-rule after decades of Saddam Hussein`s dictatorship.

When Iraqis see their countrymen in charge, the animosity toward U.S. troops will decline. When the electricity and water get back to prewar levels, the political climate will improve. U.S. officials must get Iraqi leaders — those with untainted pasts — to believe and spread the word that it`s up to them, not just their occupiers, to rebuild the country. Iraqis also must absorb this history lesson — America wants to get out of other countries, not stay; think Germany and Japan after World War II.

L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. official in Iraq, sped up formation of a national government last week. A permanent government is a year or two away; financing reconstruction is still uncertain. But the U.S. should not pledge Iraq`s future oil and gas revenues to raise funds. Those are Iraqi resources, to be spent as Iraqis wish — not Americans, already vulnerable to claims that they toppled Hussein to get Iraq`s oil.

Each day of chaos increases Iraqi anger at and misunderstanding of America. Most Iraqis believe America can do anything it wants: Washington desires oil, so fields were guarded quickly and not set afire; if the electricity doesn`t work, it must be because of U.S. wishes.

When it went to war, the U.S. accepted responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. This task will take years. But now the administration must display as much urgency about stopping guerrilla attacks and improving Iraqis` lives as it did in marching into combat.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Bruce S. Ticker: `Bring `em on...to someone else`
Posted on Monday, July 14 @ 10:04:48 EDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bruce S. Ticker

Maybe the Iraqis read George W. Bush`s alleged mind the day before he declared, "Bring `em on."

Army reservist First Sgt. Christopher Coffin, a 51-year-old neighbor of Bush`s parents, was prevented from enjoying the breezy Maine summer because of the younger Bush`s war. The Iraqis did not "bring `em on" to the Bush family`s Kennebunkport compound or Coffin`s home in nearby Kennebunk.

Coffin died in Iraq on Tuesday, July 1, under questionable circumstances. The Portland Press Herald reported that the Army initially told the family that Coffin was driving a vehicle that crashed after swerving to avoid an Iraqi civilian vehicle. The family sought an investigation after news reports based on an Army statement indicated that a member of the same unit died after a rocket-propelled grenade hit a truck during an ambush outside Baghdad. The military quickly agreed to investigate.

His sister-in-law, Candy Barr Heimbach of Bethlehem, Pa., told the newspaper that Coffin had wanted to retire from the reserves prior to his deployment in Iraq; Coffin and his wife had a loving relationship; he returned last year after serving in Kosovo; his family was very surprised that he was called up again so quickly; and he and other members of his unit admitted to being scared because of the increased attacks on American soldiers, though his unit was not part of a combat division.



She added, "It was not his hope to be over there now...They were not expected to see any kind of action at all."

Do you get the feeling that Heimbach is being a tad mild in expressing her family`s sentiments? Maybe she felt like saying that her brother-in-law badly wanted out of the reserves; he did not want to go to Iraq and once there resented being exposed to greater danger than he expected; the family wonders if this invasion was even necessary; and the family is convinced that the Army lied to them about the circumstances surrounding his death.

If Heimbach is subtle, soldiers serving in Iraq and their spouses waiting at home are quite blunt. "I want my husband home," Luisa Leija said from where she lives in Fort Hood, Texas. "I am so on edge...They are not fighting a war. They are not doing what they trained for. They have become police in a place they`re not welcome."

In a letter to Congress, a soldier wrote, "The way we have been treated and the continuous lies told to our families back home has devastated us." Said another soldier, "The level of morale for most soldiers that I`ve seen has hit rock bottom."

This kind of treatment can cripple our military. Lawmakers and others are worried that current members of the military and reserves will quit as soon as they can. Consider, too, that other citizens who are aware of this turmoil simply won`t join.

Major newspapers reporting many of these conditions supplied numerous examples of the frustrations experienced by the troops and their families. The samples above and following were culled from The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and USA Today.

An Army officer in Iraq described how the heat, boredom, security threats and harsh living conditions have dismayed his troops, saying, "They vent to anyone who will listen. They write letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them walk around looking visibly tired and depressed...We feel like pawns in a game that we have no voice (in)."

Luisa Leija, whose husband, Capt. Frank Leija, has been in Iraq, got the fright of her life one morning when her 9-year-old daughter proclaimed, "Mommy, mommy, there`s a man in uniform at the door." It was a soldier in full camouflage who was a neighbor locked out of his house.

An insurance executive was reportedly refused a raise by his company because he was ineligible after a year of active duty in the Army Reserve. Nancy Koehler, 35, of Richmond, Va., has been on active duty stateside in the Marine Forces Reserve since September 2001. In the interim, she sees her husband and 5-year-old daughter on weekends and her real estate license expired.

Jesse Miller, a newly-married San Francisco lawyer and a company commander for the California Army National Guard, said, "I don`t want to be gone when my first child is born."

Recall how us Americans were exhorted to support the troops? Bush has a funny way of supporting the troops -- keeping them cooped up as an occupation force in a country that more and more resembles a powder keg waiting to explode and placing many others on long tours of duty.

All Bush has done since May 1 -- when he declared the major military action to be finished -- is stumble around in Iraq as one soldier on average dies each day.

If the government does not act to repair any damage sustained by the military as a result, what will we do if we are confronted by a crisis?

Bush has said some whoppers, but his "bring `em on" crack has got to be the most reckless of them all. This is a guy who was surrounded by the Texas Rangers (Texas state police) during the election. He is probably the most security-conscious president we ever had.

Bring `em on...to someone else, he would say.

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The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 14 July 2003

Things have reached a pretty pass indeed when you apologize for making a mistake, but nobody believes your apology. So it is today with CIA Director Tenet, and by proxy George W. Bush and his administration.

On Friday evening, CIA Director Tenet publicly jumped on the Niger evidence hand grenade, claiming the use in Bush`s State of the Union Address in January 2003 of data from known forgeries to support the Iraq war was completely his fault. He never told Bush`s people that the data was corrupted, and it was his fault those "sixteen words" regarding Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger for a nuclear program made it into the text of the speech.

Problem solved, right? Condoleezza Rice and Don Rumsfeld had been triangulating on Tenet since Thursday, claiming the CIA had never informed the White House about the dubious nature of the Niger evidence. Tenet, like a good political appointee, fell on his sword and took responsibility for the error. On Saturday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press corps that Bush had "moved on" from this controversy.

Not so fast, said the New York Times editorial board. The paper of record for the Western world published an editorial on Saturday entitled "The Uranium Fiction." The last time the Times editors used language this strong was when Bush, in a moment of seemingly deranged hubris, tried to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 investigation:

"It is clear, however, that much more went into this affair than the failure of the C.I.A. to pounce on the offending 16 words in Mr. Bush`s speech. A good deal of information already points to a willful effort by the war camp in the administration to pump up an accusation that seemed shaky from the outset and that was pretty well discredited long before Mr. Bush stepped into the well of the House of Representatives last January. Doubts about the accusation were raised in March 2002 by Joseph Wilson, a former American diplomat, after he was dispatched to Niger by the C.I.A. to look into the issue. Mr. Wilson has said he is confident that his concerns were circulated not only within the agency but also at the State Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Tenet, in his statement yesterday, confirmed that the Wilson findings had been given wide distribution, although he reported that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other high officials had not been directly informed about them by the C.I.A."

The sun came up over Washington DC on Sunday and shined on copies of the Washington Post which were waiting patiently to be read. The lead headline for the Sunday edition read, "CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October." The meat of the article states:

"CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials.

"Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged."

What do we have here?

Here is CIA Director Tenet arguing in October of 2002 against the use of the Niger evidence, stating bluntly that it was useless. He made this pitch directly to the White House. These concerns were brushed aside by Bush officials, and the forged evidence was used despite the warnings in the State of the Union address. Now, the administration is trying to claim they were never told the evidence was bad. Yet between Tenet`s personal appeals in 2002, and Ambassador Wilson`s assurances that everyone who needed to know was in the know regarding Niger, it appears the Bush White House has been caught red-handed in a series of incredible falsehoods.

There are two more layers on this onion to be peeled. The first concerns Secretary of State Powell. One week after the Niger evidence was used by Bush in the State of the Union address, Powell presented to the United Nations the administration`s case for war. The Niger evidence was notably absent from Powell`s presentation. According to CBS News, Powell said, "I didn`t use the uranium at that point because I didn`t think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world."

What a difference a week makes. The White House would have us believe they were blissfully unaware of the forged nature of their war evidence when Bush gave his State of the Union address, and yet somehow the Secretary of State knew well enough to avoid using it just seven days later. The moral of the story appears to be that rotten war evidence is not fit for international consumption, but is perfectly suitable for delivery to the American people.

The second layer to be peeled deals with the administration`s newest excuse for using the forged Niger evidence to justify a war. They are claiming now that they used it because the British government told them it was solid. Yet there was the story published by the Washington Post on July 11 with the headline, "CIA Asked Britain to Drop Iraq Claim." The article states:

"The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday. `We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material,` a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said."

We are supposed to believe that the Bush administration was completely unaware that their Niger evidence was fake. We are supposed to believe George Tenet dropped the ball. Yet the CIA actively intervened with the British government in September of 2002, telling them the evidence was worthless. The CIA Director personally got the evidence stricken from a Bush speech in October of 2002. Intelligence insiders like Joseph Wilson and Greg Thielmann have stated repeatedly that everyone who needed to know the evidence was bad had been fully and completely informed almost a year before the data was used in the State of the Union address.

In an interesting twist, the profoundly questionable nature of Tenet`s confession has reached all the way around the planet to Australia. I spoke on Sunday to Andrew Wilkie, a former senior intelligence analyst for the Office of National Assessments, the senior Australian intelligence agency which provides intelligence assessments to the Australian prime minister. Mr. Wilkie notes the following:

"In the last week in Australia, the Defense Intelligence Organization has admitted they had the information on the Niger forgeries and says they didn`t tell the Defense Minister. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs has admitted they had the information on the Niger forgeries and didn`t tell the Foreign Minister. The place I used to work, the Office of National Assessments, has admitted publicly that they knew the Niger evidence was fake and didn`t tell the Prime Minister about it.

"You`ve got three intelligence organizations in Australia, the intelligence organizations in the US, and every one is saying they knew this was bad information, but not one political leader reckons they were told. All three organizations have said they didn`t give this information to their political leaders. It is unbelievable to the point of fantasy."

I also spoke on Sunday with Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA who was interviewed by truthout on these matters on June 26 2003. Mr. McGovern is not buying what the White House is trying to sell.

"Tenet`s confession is designed to take the heat off," says McGovern, "to assign some responsibility somewhere. It`s not going to work. There`s too much deception here. For example, Condoleezza Rice insisted that she only learned on June 8 about Former Ambassador Wilson`s mission to Niger back in February 2002. That means that neither she nor her staff reads the New York Times, because Nick Kristof on May 6 had a very detailed explication of Wilson`s mission to Niger. In my view, it is inconceivable that her remark this week - that she didn`t know about Joe Wilson`s mission to Niger until she was asked on a talk show on June 8 - that is stretching the truth beyond the breaking point."

Andrew Wilkie crystallized the issue at hand by stating, "Remember that the sourcing of uranium from Niger was the only remaining pillar of the argument that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear program. By this stage, the aluminum tubes story about Iraq`s nuclear program had been laughed out of the room. That had been laughable since 2001, leaving the sourcing of uranium as the last key piece of evidence about Iraq reconstituting a nuclear program. It`s not just sixteen words.

"It is just downright mischievous to hear Condoleezza Rice on CNN this morning saying it was just sixteen words. It was worth a hell of a lot more than sixteen words. I can remember that October speech by Bush where he talked about "mushroom clouds" from Iraq. The nuclear story was always played up as the most emotive and persuasive theme. It wasn`t just sixteen words."

A page on the White House`s own website describes the Bush administration`s central argument for war in Iraq. The Niger evidence is featured prominently, along with claims that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents, almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, and several mobile biological weapons labs. The Niger evidence has been destroyed, and the `mobile weapons labs` have been shown to be weather balloon launching platforms. The vast quantities of anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard gas and VX, along with the munitions to deliver them, have completely failed to show up.

Many people quail at the idea that the President and his people could have lied so egregiously. What was in it for them? Besides the incredible amounts of money to be made from the war by oil and defense corporations like Halliburton and United Defense, two companies with umbilical ties to the administration, there was an "ancillary benefit to all this," according to Ray McGovern. "Not only did the President get an authorization to make war, but there was an election that next month, the November midterms. The elections turned out surprisingly well for the Bush administration because they were able to use charges of being `soft on Saddam` against those Democratic candidates who voted against the war."

As Andrew Wilkie says, this issue is not about sixteen words in a speech. It is about lies and American credibility. "All of this breaking news is actually distracting us from the core issue," says Wilkie. "The core issue is the credibility gap. We were sold this war on the promise that Iraq had this massive WMD arsenal. Of course that hasn`t been found, and whatever might be found now is not going to satisfy in any way that description of the `massive` arsenal, the `imminent threat,` and all those great words used in Britain and Australia and Washington. We`ve got to be careful that, in debating the details on the issue of Tenet and Niger, we are not distracted from that core issue which is still left to be resolved."

William Rivers Pitt <mailto:[e-mail]> is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times best-selling author of two books - "War On Iraq" available now from Context Books, and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," now available from Pluto Press at www.SilenceIsSedition.com.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/071403A.shtml

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Betting everything on a hoax about Iraq
Uranium: As the Bush administration distances itself from false claims used to justify the invasion, the fallout remains nebulous.
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By William R. Polk
Special To The Sun
Originally published July 13, 2003

The Bush administration is caught in a scandal of almost unprecedented dimensions over the justifications that it and Great Britain gave for going to war against Iraq. Call it the "yellow cake scandal." It goes to the core of whether Saddam Hussein was trying to produce nuclear weapons, thus posing a threat to the United States and Great Britain, which would justify war.

It goes to a charge by President Bush that Iraq was trying to build a nuclear arsenal in which Bush used evidence his administration now acknowledges was no good. The President`s people are now saying he was given bad information by the Central Intelligence Agency, but it is worth recalling that in the campaign for a war against Iraq, intelligence sources consistently complained the White House was manipulating intelligence to build support for the war.

"Yellow cake" is the nickname of uranium oxide, a component of nuclear weapons. It is produced, among other places, in two mines (Somair and Cominak) in the west African state of Niger. Working those mines is an international consortium composed of French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerien interests. They, in turn, are closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure that no dangerous materials are diverted to unauthorized parties.

In late 2001, a rumor circulated that the government of Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake. In the shadowy world of espionage, it is still unclear who started the rumor. What is known is that some individuals or an organization forged documents to cast blame on Iraq.

The documents were appallingly crude. The letterhead on one document was obviously transplanted from some other, presumably genuine, paper; the signature of the president of Niger was copied; and, most telling of all, one signature was supposedly written by a minister who had been out of office for over a decade.

How these documents reached the British and American governments is also obscure. One story has them acquired by Italian agents and passed to the British intelligence agency (MI6), which passed them to the CIA.

When the documents reached the CIA, officials apparently concluded that, despite the papers` obvious faults, the subject they addressed was too important to be neglected. So, in early 2002, the CIA asked a retired American ambassador with 23 years of experience on African affairs (and who had been stationed in Niger in the 1970s) to investigate.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, now a business consultant, agreed to fly to Niger to attempt to find out what was behind the story. He has described his experiences and conclusions in articles in The New York Times and the Financial Times.

When Wilson arrived in Niamey, the Nigerien capital, he consulted with the current U.S. ambassador, Barbra Owens-Kirkpatrick, and the embassy staff for whom everything relating to uranium was top priority. They told him that the story was well known and that they had already "debunked" it in reports to Washington. Then, as Wilson writes, "I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country`s uranium business." They uniformly and formally "denied the charges." The Embassy concurred.

Returning to Washington in early March 2002, Wilson reported to the CIA and to the Bureau of African Affairs of the Department of State that, although he had not been shown the documents themselves, he was sure that "there`s simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale [outside controlled channels] to have transpired." Too many people would have had to give approval and even more would have known about the diversion of uranium. Moreover, since it would have violated UN sanctions, a diversion would have attracted a great deal of notice. In short, he concluded, the transaction did not take place.

In his Op-Ed article in The New York Times last Sunday, Wilson revealed "there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador`s report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a CIA report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally)."

The CIA has confirmed that its account of the matter was distributed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the FBI and the office of Vice President Cheney.

His task, Ambassador Wilson concluded, had been accomplished: "the Niger matter was settled and [so I] went back to my life."

Despite this negative report, however, senior officials of the Bush administration continued to stress the nuclear threat from Iraq. In a speech in Nashville on August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned of a Saddam "armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror" who could "directly threaten America`s friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

The next month, in September 2002, Wilson was surprised to learn that the British government had published a "dossier" or white paper on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that included the yellow cake story. Assuming this meant that the CIA had not shared with MI6 the results of his investigation, Wilson called his contact at the CIA to suggest that he warn his British counterparts the materials were a hoax.

Wilson assumed that there was another source for the speech President Bush made on October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati in which he warned that "The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gasses and atomic weapons." But then, on January 28, 2003, he was astonished to hear Bush in the State of the Union address pin his warnings on Saddam Hussein`s possession of atomic weapons to the yellow cake story. Bush declared that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

To make its case at the United Nations, the American government turned over the yellow cake documents to the Security Council. When they were examined by the IAEA, its director, Mohamed El-Baradei, informed the Security Council they were fake.

How could the U.S. government not have known? Condoleezza Rice, director of the staff of the National Security Council, replied on Meet the Press. "Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the [Central Intelligence] Agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."

At least as early as February 2003, all the decision makers in the Bush administration as well as the general public knew that at least this part of the rationale for the invasion of Iraq was based on forged documents, but this did nothing to deter the U.S. military onslaught.

Almost more astonishing, as late as June 25, 2003, Britain was still insisting in Parliament that it stood by reports that Iraq had been trying to buy yellow cake. Finally, on July 7, the White House acknowledged that the story was a hoax.

Should that put an end to the story? No.

As some critics of the Bush administration have pointed out, when President Bill Clinton lied about an illicit sex affair, he was subjected to a major investigation by half a hundred lawyers and was nearly impeached. President Nixon was forced to resign over the Watergate break-in and President Reagan was been closely questioned over the Iran-Contra scandal.

Important as these scandals were, their significance pales in comparison to launching a war in which hundreds of Americans have died in Iraq and thousands of Iraqis have been killed while their country has been left in a shambles. The United States initially spent nearly $100 billion on the war and is committed to far larger outlays to repair what it destroyed.

It is unlikely that many in America will accept as the last word the president`s explanation Friday: "I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services. And it was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. And my government took the appropriate response to those dangers. And as a result, the world is going to be more secure and more peaceful."

History will judge the truth of that assertion, sooner, perhaps, than the Bush administration would wish.

William R. Polk was a Member of the Policy Planning Council in the administrations of President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He has written widely on American policy and international affairs. He is now a director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-pe.cake13jul13,…

Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery

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Ben Roberts: `How America became the jewel that lost its luster`
Posted on Monday, July 14 @ 09:52:32 EDT
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By Ben Roberts

Some years ago, in the fever of election year politics, New York`s Governor, Mario Cuomo gave a sensational speech at the Democratic Convention, if memory serves me correct. He described America as `the mansion on a hill.` He went on to liken America to a beacon for humanity. Now Mario Cuomo is an excellent and articulate speaker, and one might possibly dismiss this as simply a good speech. It was much more than that. This week former Governor Cuomo was on a PBS TV show. During this appearance it became abundantly clear that this speech years ago, heaping praise on America, was much more than a speech. It was reality. He was reliving the eyes through which his striving Italian parents, with next to nothing, saw this country when they arrived in New York harbor. It was their hopes and dreams. It was their ambitious answer during their immigration interview that they wanted to be in America because it allowed the possibility that their young son, Mario, could one day become a Governor in the new country they were calling home. He did! Ellis Island arrivals, from all over Europe, routinely burst into tears when they set eyes on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. They came from all over the world. Some via Ellis Island, some more recently via long lines and multiple denials at US embassies in the difficult places of their birth, and some by putting themselves at great risk by sneaking across borders into a land that they once inhabited. Neil Diamond was quite right in his song `They Come To America.` They did so against almost impossible odds. However, today something has gone very much awry with America, the jewel that former Governor Cuomo`s parents saw. That jewel has lost a lot of its luster and magnetic appeal. The question is, `How did this happen?`



We do not have to delve very far back into the past of this country to see how we got to the sad state of where we are. The assassination of President Kennedy sent shockwaves around the world. The impeachment of President Nixon sent shockwaves around the world. The savage beating of Rodney King as he was set upon by a pack of white police officers sent shockwaves around the world. The circumstances of how George Bush came to be President sent shockwaves around the world. The global excesses and downfall of Enron shockwaves around the world. September 11, and its subsequent war on terror, no doubt sent shockwaves around the world. The massacre in Jenin by the Israeli army sent shockwaves around the world. The circumstances surrounding the preemptive war in Iraq, complete with invasion by our troops, has sent (forgive the pun) `shock and awe` waves around the world. The absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and continuously surfacing evidence of deceit, plagiarism, forgeries, and flat out lies by the people we have entrusted to govern us is, as we speak, sending reverberating shockwaves around the world. Looking at some of these events might provide clues of how we got to be where we are today.

Beginning with President Kennedy. This week on National Public Radio (NPR) an author was describing his book, which is a historical accounting of US foreign policy in the Middle East from President Truman`s Administration to today. In scholarly fashion he illuminated how successive US Presidents dealt with, and were viewed, by both the Israelis and the Muslim nations. He pointed out that when Kennedy was assassinated the equivalent of a primal scream was heard from the collective throats of the Muslim world, as this man provided so much hope and possibility for them and the world they lived in. The author then compared that response with how these people would react today if something untoward were to happen to Bush. He concluded quite rightly that there would be unrestrained glee and dancing in the streets. `America, how did we come from that to this?` Those who don`t want to see the truth would say that the response that we would get today from the Muslim world confirms that they are vile, bloodthirsty, and savage. What nonsense. Remember, their grief came pouring out when the breath of life left our leader. So what is different now? Now we have a leader who vowed `a crusade` on these people. Now we have a leader who called the nations that these people call their homes `axes of evil.` Now we have a leader who has attacked two nations of these Muslim peoples, one by deceitful and dubious means, and is presently threatening two others with attack. Now we have a leader whose government has singled out his own citizens who are connected to these peoples by ancestry and faith, and has violated their democratic rights and relegated them to the status of malcontents. Now we have a leader whose close friend, ally, and man of the cloth Jerry Falwell, has labeled these peoples holiest prophet, Mohammed, a terrorist. Now do you see how drastically different the response would be from the Muslim world?

Watergate and the impeachment of President Nixon cheapened and knocked some of the shine from America because it showed that, despite its claims to stellar democratic government, the American body politic was not above corruption, bribery, and lawlessness. Stack the presidential elections in Florida decades later alongside this debacle, and we have a carbon copy of how to circumvent the law. However, this one has improvements. At least the Watergate crowd were subject to the judicial checks and balances of the democratic process and suffered the consequences of disgrace, jail time, and the like. Here the judicial system seems to have been used to ensure that ill gotten gains remained ill gotten. That election tarnished the American jewel very badly in the eyes of the world. Maybe that`s why in a recent forum abroad my reference to Bush as `President of the United States,` resulted in the abrupt and angry retort, `Please don`t refer to Bush as President of the United States. He did not win any election.` Maybe that is why an agency involved in international elections last week suggested that the US allow outside observers to be on hand in America to ensure free and fair upcoming elections, as we are wont to do in other nations elections. How striking. Opinion outside America is now saying that `the world`s finest,` `the police,` `the defenders truth and democracy,` need to be policed. This is a 180 degree turnaround. The name America always symbolized high standards, and the bar against which all else was measured. Not anymore. The Florida win-at-any-cost elections saw to that. Talk about a jewel losing its luster.

September 11 took something away from us all. Our loved ones. Our innocence, and a piece of our souls. Our nation mourned deeply. The world mourned with us and graciously extended its hand of compassion. We appreciated it very much. But what did our government do? The Administration declared war on terror, Bush decreed certain nations vile `axes of evil` and threatened to attack them, and in a televised speech bullied friendly nations with the threat of `You need to do more to help us. We know who you are, and if you`re not with us you`re against us.` How odious. This is where the jewel of America lost a lot of its shine. Think about this. When someone is in grief and mourning it hits us so hard that we offer them our hand, desperate to do anything to help them get through the darkness. The state they are in pulls at our heart and makes us want to do that. The grieving person might have to call our attention to their plight, but they almost never threaten us with reprisals for doing too little. If they did we would begin to question whether they were really in grief, or simply using the event to dominate and manipulate us for their own interests. Well this is exactly what George Bush did. No wonder the world pulled back its outstretched hand of compassion. A news report by Botswana journalist Spencer Mugabe, was carried by NPR this week. It had to do with Bush`s diplomatic Daytona 500 race through Africa, and how he was being perceived. Mugabe`s comment was `No one around here cares for George Bush.` Imagine that. Pick a former president of this country. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the elder, or Clinton. Can you imagine any of these leaders going to that part of the world and eliciting such a sentiment? So its not only the Muslim world. The world in general has pulled back its hand toward America. It seems that is the price paid when our leaders threaten other nations, attack them on the premise of truth that turns out to be lies, and labels the world citizenry opposed to war as `a focus group.`

We now have this circus show of news reports claiming the reference to Saddam Hussein acquiring nuclear weapons from Niger was inadvertently put in George Bush`s State of The Union speech, and of CIA Director George Tenet falling on his sword in a mea culpa routine. How predictable. Tenet is not vying for office, and has little to lose. George Bush is. Keep focused America, the bait and switch game is on. Look at what is happening. Tenet takes the blame, but today in Nigeria Bush said he has total confidence in Tenet, declaring the matter closed. How neat. Its no one`s fault. Don`t buy it for a minute! Its smoke and mirrors once again, but this time we want answers. This nonsense is only dragging American credibility deeper in the mud. Want to know what happened here? Then find The New Yorker magazine of May 12, 2003, and read the article titled `Selective Intelligence` by Seymour Hersch. Here is some of it: `They call themselves self-mockingly the Cabal - a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts based in the Pentagon`s Office Of Special Plans...The office inevitably turned to Ahmed Chalabi`s Iraqi National Congress...The Special Plans Office developed a close working relationship with the I.N.C., and this strengthened its position in disputes with the C.I.A, and gave the Pentagon`s pro-war leadership added leverage in its constant disputes with the State Department. Special Plans also became a conduit for intelligence reports from the I.N.C to officials in the White House.` Simply put, the professional agency authorized to gather intelligence to ensure our national security, the CIA, has been sidelined by a pro-war group and President who now get their intelligence from an Iraqi political organization devoid of intelligence capability, whose leader has been convicted of embezzlement and has political ambitions of one day being El Numero Uno in Iraq. How is that for our state of the art intelligence gathering capacity? George Tenet knows all this. That`s how the bogus reference to Niger as a source of Saddam acquisition of nuclear material found its way into Bush`s State of the Union speech. The pro-war crowd wanted it there to drag us along into their scheme of death and destruction. The only thing inadvertent about that is that it was inadvertently found out to be fabrication. But don`t say I didn`t warn you. The day of Bush`s State of the Union speech, Counterpunch carried an article by me titled: `The Sorry State Of The Union.` Find and read it in their archives for January 28, 2003, when Bush delivered the address. A lot of people did just that.

In fact I remember the feedback from that article well, because a young man emailed me requesting permission to use my material. He was facing the threat of losing his job for voicing his opinion about the state of America and the Bush Administration. He said my article could stand alone as his defense without him saying a word, because he had been saying the same thing, and wanted use of it to mount his defense. It seemed the powers that be thought he was unAmerican, unpatriotic, or un or anti something or other. You know, the `get Natalie Maines syndrome.` I was quite annoyed that in America, this bastion of liberty and free expression, someone could potentially lose his livelihood for expressing their opinion. I was honored that he attached such value to my article, and it goes without saying that I promptly gave him clearance to fire away with it. I did not hear back from him, but certainly hope it was able to assist him in defending his right to be an American. See what I mean about the jewel losing its luster?

Which brings us to the question of what to do about this jewel that has lost its luster. Now a jeweler I am not. But I imagine their job of restoring a jewel to its original shine and appeal would entail putting it into some kind of cleaning fluid to remove the offending grime and build up, then buffing it to its previous sparkling shine. Let`s face it, the jewel called America began losing a lot of its luster and appeal with the Florida elections. The jeweler to restore that shine will collectively be none other than American citizens when they go to the polls in 2004. After those elections I sure hope I get to see what Governor Cuomo`s struggling parents saw when they set eyes on America, because right now I sure don`t.

Ben is a newsletter editor, freelance writer and published author. His most recent articles *Tears For America , and *Believe George Bush At Your Peril can be found in the May archives of SmirkingChimp.com, AmericaHeldHostile.com, and Bushcritics.gmx.de. His action adventure novel, Jackals of Samarra, can be found at www.iUniverse.com, and at all the major Internet book outlet sites. Ben can be contacted by email at: [e-mail]
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=12216&mode=nest…

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Politiker Schwarzenegger

Die Phrasendreschmaschine

Von Ulrike Putz

Kalifornien geht es schlecht. Der Sonnenstaat ist pleite, Gouverneur Gray Davis soll wegen der Krise vorzeitig abgelöst werden. Für die Rolle des politischen Hoffnungsträgers gibt es jetzt einen zupackenden Kandidaten: Muskelprotz Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Berlin - Er kam, um seinen neuesten Film zu promoten, doch für die Journalisten in Berlin war "Terminator 3 - Rebellion der Maschinen" nebensächlich. Bei der Pressekonferenz zum Europastart des Actionstreifens wollten sie von Hauptdarsteller Arnold Schwarzenegger vor allem eins wissen: Wird Conan, der Barbar demnächst die Heimat Hollywoods regieren?

Dot-Com-Absturz, Energie-Krise, Wassermangel. Dem kalifornischen Haushalt fehlen 38 Milliarden Dollar. Die amerikanische Westküste braucht einen Mann fürs Grobe, um aus seiner Misere herauszukommen. Mit Arnie wäre die Rolle ideal besetzt. Nicht umsonst ist "No Problemo" sein berühmtester Filmsatz, sein Spruch "I`ll be back" im Falle einer anstehenden Wiederwahl mehr als politiktauglich.

Doch noch ist es nicht so weit: Zwar sind die politischen Ambitionen des Republikaners Arnold seit Jahren ein offenes Geheimnis. Ob er sich seiner Partei als Kandidat zur Verfügung stellen will, ließ der gebürtige Österreicher, der 1983 amerikanischer Staatsbürger wurde, bislang im Dunkeln. "Wenn der Staat mich braucht und es keinen Besseren gibt, werde ich vielleicht kandidieren", sagte der 55-Jährige und stellte unter Beweis, dass er das Abgeben von Worthülsen, Grundvoraussetzung erfolgreicher Politik, bereits beherrscht wie ein Profi.

Bei einem US-Truppenbesuch jüngst im Irak bewies der ehemalige Mister Universum auch politischen Verstand, als er die Zustände vor Ort messerscharf analysierte. "Hier sieht man Armut, es mangelt an Geld und an einer starken Führung - Zustände wie in Kalifornien." Just wegen dieser Zustände soll demnächst entschieden werden, ob Gouverneur Gray Davis, für die Demokraten bis 2006 gewählt, sein Amt vorzeitig zur Verfügung stellt und Neuwahlen angesetzt werden. Also doch Arnie als Gouvernator? Wollen die Kalifornien einen Landeschef, dessen nackte Hinterbacken Millionen von Kinogängern bewundern durften?

Die Spötter, und davon gibt es viele, sollten Arnold Schwarzenegger nicht unterschätzen. Auch in Kalifornien müssen Politiker mehr tun, als nur die Massen unterhalten, wollen sie oberster Chef des 35-Millionen-Einwohner Staates werden. Immerhin gälte Kalifornien, wäre es ein unabhängiges Land, vor Frankreich als fünftgrößte Volkswirtschaft der Erde.

Ronald Reagan ist - entgegen der Legende - 1966 nicht als abgehalfterter Western-Held zum Gouverneur Kaliforniens gewählt worden. Auf seine politische Karriere hatte er sich jahrelang als Präsident der mächtigen Schauspielergewerkschaft vorbereitet. Und auch Schwarzeneggers politischen Ambitionen sind nicht die Schnapsidee eines hirnlosen Muskelprotzes, sondern die logische Konsequenz langjähriger ehrenamtlicher Arbeit. Seit Jahren engagiert sich der Schauspieler für die Jugend in den heruntergekommenen Innenstädten Amerikas und zahlt aus eigener Tasche Millionen für seine Stiftung "Inner-City Games".

Im vergangenen Jahr hat Arnold das Volksbegehren "Proposition 49" angeschoben und finanziert. Nachdem die Kalifornier bei der Wahl für das Programm gestimmt haben, muss der Staat nun 400 Millionen Dollar in Projekte stecken, mit denen Kinder und Jugendliche nach Schulschluss und in den Ferien beschäftigt und so von Drogen fern gehalten werden sollen.

Sollte Arnold von seiner Partei als Kandidat nominiert werden, wird er es nicht leicht haben in Kalifornien. Analysten glauben, dass vor allem die weißen Vorstädte in den vergangenen Jahren politisch nach links gerückt sind und eher die Demokraten wählen. Und auch die Latinos, die inzwischen ein Drittel der kalifornischen Bevölkerung ausmachen, sind traditionell anti-republikanisch eingestellt. Andererseits würden viele Hispanos gern einen Immigranten an der Spitze des Staates sehen - auch wenn Schwarzenegger nicht aus Mexiko, sondern der Steiermark eingewandert ist.

Schwarzenegger ist in der republikanischen Partei fest verankert. Für Bush Senior war er von 1990 bis 1993 Vorsitzender einer Nationalen Kommision für Volksgesundheit, Sohn George W. Bush unterstützte er im Wahlkampf.

Von den Republikaner wollen erstaunlich viele die Personalprobleme ihrer Partei mit einem Kandidaten Arnold behoben sehen: Sie trauen Schwarzenegger, der das Recht von Frauen auf Abtreibung unterstützt und sich für strengere Waffengesetze einsetzt zu, den Demokraten wertvolle Stimmen abzujagen. Nicht zuletzt, weil er mit einer eingefleischten Demokratin, der Radiojournalistin und John F. Kennedy-Nichte Maria Shriver verheiratet ist. Sollte Arnie antreten könnte es im Herbst zu einem echten Hollywood-Showdown kommen: Als Kandidat der Demokraten wird Harry & Sally-Regisseur Rob Reiner gehandelt.

Auch wenn noch nichts entschieden ist: Die Polit-Maschinerie in Sachen Schwarzenegger ist bereits angelaufen. Folgerichtig meldeten sich in den vergangenen Monaten gleich mehrere Damen bei amerikanischen Gazetten, die Schwarzenegger sexuelle Belästigung unterstellten, und kräftiges Schmerzensgeld wollten. Die Klagen wurden abgeschmettert, Arnie musste nicht zahlen - obwohl er wahrlich könnte: 30 Millionen Dollart Gage hat Arnold Schwarzenegger für Terminator 3 erhalten. Zumindest finanziell wird er es sich leisten können, den Gouverneurs-Job in der Landeshauptstadt Sacramento zu übernehmen. Auch, wenn der nur mickrige 200 000 Dollar im Jahr bringt.



© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2003

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

African Giver

Only one of these statements is true*

1) The president brings to Africa $15 billion to fight AIDS, $200 million in famine relief and $100 million to fight terrorism.

2) The US department of energy expects African oil imports to reach 770m barrels a year, and US investment in the oil fields to exceed $10bn a year.

And it isn’t #1.

_____ ___________
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Administration’s deviously personally-enriching strategy gets clearer every day.

But if you, like 97% of the other SUV-dependent “American People” depend on reports from the champagne quaffing, de-veined-shrimp munching embedded “reporters” gleefully and uncomplainingly accompanying the ex-baseball manager turned omnipotent save the world from all its ills born-twice Messiah on Air Force One you’ll probably know nothing about Mr. Bush’s—well, Mr. Cheney’s really—long-term strategic plan to protect America totally from terrorism.

Sorry, that should read “short-term opportunistic plan to become more totally fabulously wealthy”.

By slowly taking-over all non-Saudi foreign oil and gas sources one-by-one so they won’t be foreign any more.

With the oilfields of Iraq now firmly under Halliburton’s control—even if Iraq itself isn’t—it was considered safe to send Tony Blair’s poodle clipper to Africa.

Why in Allah’s name, Africa?

To explain how America became great through slavery?

To deliver the $15 billion to fight AIDS?

To order two dictators of oil-poor African nations to leave office immediately, or else?

Of course not.

Naturally, he’ll say things like this but really he’s in Africa to pay a courtesy call and ass-kiss with some of the most notorious dictators on the continent if not the world. Including one with over 4 billion barrels of oil reserves under his yeast-free Olympic-sized bidet.

Standing behind microphones before exhortative backdrops for Homeland Security consumption Bush’ll be warning the “American People” about the threats of Weapons of Mass Blah Blah, Slavery, Famines, Civil Wars, AIDS or just Terrorism but behind the scenes he’ll be oiling the wheels to increase the 1.5m barrels a day the US is currently importing from West Africa.

{Editor’s Note: The same as imports from Saudi Arabia.}

He’ll be rubbing skin with ChevronTexaco and MobilExxon executives and rich dictators in national garb to arrange kick-backs for the smooth emptying of West African wells.

Sorry, that should read “to arrange far bigger investments than the $10 billion the U.S.A. has invested in West African oil fields so far this year”.

A bit o’ background; At present, the U.S.A. imports about 18 percent of its oil from Africa — most of it from Nigeria, Angola and Gabon. Oil imports from Africa are expected to grow to 25 percent of the total in the coming decade. An anticipated $50 billion influx of kick-backs (sorry, foreign investment) will pour into the region, including places where oil reserves are only beginning to be exploited. Chad, Cameroon, Sudan are also oil rich.

West African oil is attractive, too, because it is high quality — almost as good as Middle Eastern oil, experts say, so it requires less refining. Also, transportation from the Gulf of Guinea is relatively inexpensive because it is a direct route that avoids delays and dangers of bottlenecks like the Strait of Hormuz.

Other than Nigeria, the new oil states of Africa are non-OPEC countries, and have shown they are willing to pump oil as fast as they can to reap kickbacks (sorry, profits), rather than pace production as OPEC nations do.

Wait. It gets worse.

Your favourite TV anchor won’t be telling you this but the United States is already committed to deploying troops to defend these resources because of the intense civil strife that surrounds them. And has already discussed sites such as the Gulf of Guinea nation of Sao Tome as possible U.S. military outposts.

For the common people of African nations mired in poverty, the impact of oil money coming in will make not a whit of difference. They see Washington playing by the old rules of corrupt deals, amoral alliances and military engagement.

But for the traditional-dress garbed dictators of African nations mired in poverty, the impact of oil money coming in will make a big difference. Some $200 billion in revenues is expected to flow into their pockets (sorry, African government treasuries) over 10 years.

The billions they make in oil revenue and kickbacks will dwarf the millions executives of ChevronTexaco and MobilExxon traditionally make in oil revenue and kickbacks.

ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco? Sure, being the best they can be seeking profits wherever the White House guarantees a strong military presence.

And Halliburton and Bechtel too.

“Rumours of military bases are premature,” said a US diplomat in the region. But you’d expect him to say that.

He did admit however, the Pentagon has started funding English lessons for one dictator’s army. The Pentagon!!

So they can protect the streets of poverty stricken African capitals after the oil takeovers?

Instead of poor GI’s?


*Why is only one statement true?

Serious doubts have been raised about the AIDS fund, the most ambitious of the Bush Africa initiatives. He asked Congress for only a small portion of the funding in 2004, not the $3 billion implied by his announcement earlier this year. The bulk of the remaining funding will have to come in later stages of the program, and sceptics fear it may not happen.

The announcement led American people to believe that “we are more generous and compassionate than we really are,” says Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action. So, far he says “it’s not what is happening in Congress, or what the White House intends

http://www.asticles.com/asticles/african.htm

[rv_2011]

Schwierige Suche nach Sündenböcken

Florian Rötzer 14.07.2003

Zwischen der britischen und der US-Regierung wird die Schuldfrage im Fall der angeblichen irakischen Suche nach Uran im Niger hin und her geschoben und schon einmal zur Wiederherstellung der Einheit in einschlägigen Kreisen auf Frankreich gezeigt

In Großbritannien ist Ministerpräsident Tony Blair wegen der beiden "dodgy" Irakdossiers und den Gründen für den Irak-Krieg in Bedrängnis. Der große amerikanische Bruder hat zwar erst einmal in der CIA den geforderten Sündenbock gefunden, aber sucht den Schwarzen Kater ins Ausland und zunächst einmal nach Großbritannien zu schieben, womit Blair noch stärker unter Druck steht (Alles ehrenwerte Männer [1]). Der wird sich diese Woche mit Bush treffen, vermutlich auch, um zu einer einheitlichen Sprachregelung zu finden, aber es deutet sich an, dass man in Frankreich einen neuen Sündenbock für die Niger-Story finden könnte oder will.

In den USA sinkt vor allem wegen der Schwierigkeiten im besetzen Irak die Popularität von Präsident Bush, aber auch, weil nun doch sich die Erkenntnis durchsetzt, dass die Regierung für den geplanten Krieg eben das gemacht hat, was man dem Hussein-Regime vorwarf, nämlich zu betrügen oder zumindest wackelige Mutmaßungen in Tatsachen umzudrehen. Die Glaubwürdigkeitskrise ist allerdings nur sehr kurzfristig damit zu begegnen, dass den Geheimdiensten, die erheblich unter Lieferdruck für "Beweise" gesetzt wurden, die Schuld in die Schuhe geschoben wird. Die Menschen werden sich fragen, warum die Regierung diesen alles abgenommen hat, vor allem aber werden sie in Zukunft wohl doch vorsichtiger sein, den angeblichen Geheimdienstbeweisen zu glauben, wenn weitere Präventivschläge vorbereitet werden sollen. Und daran will sowohl Bush als auch Blair festhalten.

Die Glaubwürdigkeitskrise hat nun auch wohl endgültig Präsident Bush erreicht. Nach einer aktuellen Umfrage [2] ist seine Popularität auf einem Tiefstand seit dem 11.9. gefallen. Noch wird zwar der Irak-Krieg nicht von einer Mehrheit in Frage gestellt, doch weniger als die Hälfte der Befragten glauben noch, dass die Bush-Administration im Irak eine stabile Regierung aufbauen könne. 45 Prozent gehen davon aus, dass die Bush-Regierung die Geheimdienstberichte über die Massenvernichtungswaffen falsch gedeutet hat, 38 Prozent glauben dagegen nicht an Missverständnisse, sondern sagen, die Regierung habe die Öffentlichkeit gezielt getäuscht.

In einer Umfrage [3] der Zeitung Mirror steht zwar auch noch immer fast die Hälfte der Befragten hinter Blairs Entscheidung, gegen das Hussein-Regime in den Krieg zu ziehen, aber das geäußerte Misstrauen ist hier sehr viel höher als in den USA. 66 Prozent denken, dass Blair sie bewusst oder unwillentlich über die Tatsachen getäuscht hat. Nur 29 Prozent glauben noch an die Aufrichtigkeit, 27 Prozent meinen, er habe bewusst falsche Informationen weiter gegeben, 39 Prozent sind milde und gehen davon aus, dass er sie nicht täuschen wollte.

Neben der wohl vorgezogenen French-Connection kommt auch Italien ins Spiel

Aber möglicherweise naht in der Hin- und Herschieberei der Schuld über falsche und zweifelhafte Beweise - und die auf gefälschten Dokumenten basierende Niger-Story ist ja nur eine neben vielen, man denke nur an die mobilen Biowaffenlabors [4], über die mittlerweile standhaft geschwiegen wird -, Entlastung für die britische und amerikanische Regierung. Wer die Story verfolgt hat, wird sich erinnern, dass die Amerikaner sagten, der Hinweis auf die Uransuche des Irak-Regimes im Niger stamme von britischen Geheimdiensten und mindestens einer zusätzlichen Quelle eines weiteren Landes. Darauf hat auch die britische Regierung immer hingewiesen, aber beteuert, sie dürfe nicht sagen, um welches Land es sich handele.

Nun haben sich die amerikanische und britische Regierung wohl darauf geeinigt, dass sie im Grundsatz zu der Behauptung stehen wollen, die aus mehreren Quellen stamme, auch wenn sie vielleicht nicht hätte in der Rede an die Nation von Bush aufgenommen werden sollen, zumal die CIA sie selbst nicht in Berichten erwähnt und bereits aus anderen Reden wieder entfernt hatte. Der britische Außenminister Jack Straw verwies allerdings wieder auf die mysteriöse ausländische Quelle und bestand auf der Richtigkeit, um die britische Regierung mitsamt der Geheimdienste nicht ganz dumm dastehen zu lassen.

Bei den amerikanischen Geheimdienstkreisen munkelt man nun, weiß zumindest die der Bush-Regierung nahestehende Washington Times zu berichten [5], dass einer der beiden ausländischen Geheimdienste, von dem der britische MI6 angeblich die Information über den Urankaufversuch des Hussein-Regimes in Niger hat, ein französischer ist. Der DGSE habe mit dem britischen Geheimdienst unter der Voraussetzung kooperiert, ohne Erlaubnis nicht weiter zu sagen, woher die Informationen stammen. Der ebenfalls konservative Telegraph stellt die French-Connection etwas anders dar. Hier heißt es, der französische Geheimdienst habe den britischen Kollegen die Möglichkeit verwehrt, den Amerikanern "glaubwürdige" Informationen weiter zu geben.

Dafür könnte sprechen, dass Niger eine ehemalige französische Kolonie ist und dass die Uranminen von einem französischen Unternehmen betrieben werden. Der französische Geheimdienst könnte also guten Zugriff haben, obgleich damit noch nicht erklärt wäre, wer die Dokumente gefälscht hat. Allerdings sollen die laut der britischen Regierung auch keine Rolle für die Information gespielt haben. Und dass der französische Geheimdienst nicht als Quelle genannt werden wollte, soll der Tatsache zuzuschreiben sein, dass er nicht der Regierung torpedieren wollte, die gegen den Irak-Krieg und für eine Fortsetzung der UN-Inspektionen war.

Die Schuld dem Wieselstaat Frankreich zuzuschieben, käme wohl nicht ungelegen, nachdem die Franzosen im Ansehen der Amerikaner gesunken sind, es auch zu Boykottaufrufen gekommen ist und die US-Regierung vor allem die unwilligen Franzosen weiter schneien will. Doch auch dem Sündenbock Frankreich können nicht alle Ungereimtheiten zwischen Großbritannien und den USA aufgeladen werden. Die Beweise für die Niger-Story seien, so britische Regierungsbeamte, vorhanden und würden nicht auf den gefälschten Dokumenten beruhen, die man sowieso erst gesehen habe, nachdem die Internationale Atomaufsichtsbehörde, die sie von der US-Regierung hatte, schnell als Fälschungen entlarven konnte.

Schon damals ging man davon aus, dass alles nicht mit rechten Dingen zugehen konnte, wenn die CIA die angeblich plumpen Fälschungen wirklich nicht erkannt haben sollte. Dummerweise hatte die CIA im Auftrag des Büros des US-Vizepräsidenten Ende 2002 auch noch den ehemaligen Diplomaten Joseph Wilson in den Niger geschickt, um die Story überprüfen. Dieser hatte die Informationen als unglaubwürdig bezeichnet, was aber nicht zu Bush vorgedrungen ist oder vordringen sollte. Nach der Washington Times bezweifeln die Briten, um ihre Haut zu retten, aber auch den Bericht des US-Diplomaten: "Er scheint einige Menschen gefragt zu haben, ob das zutrifft", sagte angeblich ein britischer Regierungsangehöriger. "Und als diese `Nein` sagten, hat er dies akzeptiert."

In Betracht kam auch der italienische Geheimdienst SISMI, im Jahr 2001 Dokumente über die Niger-Story an die Briten und Amerikaner geliefert [6] zu haben. Laut Financial Times sollen [7] auch Angehörige des britischen Verteidigungsministeriums gesagt haben, dass die Informationen über den versuchten Waffenkauf im Niger, die sich nicht auf die gefälschten Dokumenten stützten, von Frankreich und Italien gekommen seien. Die italienische Regierung streitet [8] dies allerdings ab.

Links

[1] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/mein/15201/1.html
[2] http://www.msnbc.com/news/938073.asp?0si=-&cp1=1
[3] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=131751…
[4] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/15002/1.html
[5] http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030713-114149-3172r.h…
[6] http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030721/story2.html
[7] http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/Sto…
[8] http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/07/13/sprj.irq..ita…

Telepolis Artikel-URL: http://www.telepolis.de/deutsch/special/irak/15207/1.html

[rv_2011]

Mehr als nur ein Symbol des guten Willens?

Thomas Pany 14.07.2003

Der neu einberufene Verwaltungsrat im Irak

Gestern war das konstituierende Treffen und schon heute sollen die 25 Mitglieder des neuen Verwaltungsrates (new governing council) im Irak konferieren, um einen modus operandi auszuarbeiten. Es soll also jetzt doch nach anfänglichem Zögern zügig vorangehen mit der Demokratisierung im Irak zu Zeiten, in denen die Besatzungsmacht täglich immer neuen Angriffen ausgesetzt ist, die Soldaten müde werden und der US-amerikanischen Führung langsam dämmert, dass sie Verbündete braucht, um Last und Verantwortung abzuwälzen.

Der Verwaltungsrat soll künftige Minister benennen und nötigenfalls abberufen, aber vor allem die "Richtung der Politik" vorgeben. So sollen die 25 Mitglieder den Haushalt für 2004 verabschieden und darüber hinaus Vorläufer einer größeren Versammlung sein, die binnen eines Jahres eine neue Verfassung ausarbeiten soll.

13 Schiiten, 5 Sunniten, 5 Kurden, ein Christ und ein Turkmene, 22 Männer und drei Frauen - "wahrscheinlich die erste repräsentative Regierung in der Geschichte des Irak", so der Guardian - sind nach zwei Monaten zäher Verhandlungen von den Besatzungsmächten dazu bestimmt worden, den ersten Schritt zur Übergabe der Macht von den Alliierten auf das irakische Volk einzuläuten.

Prominente Ratsmitglieder (die vollständige Liste der Mitglieder mit Kurzbeschreibung hier [1]) sind: der Führer des irakischen Nationalkongresses (INC) Ahmed Tschalabi (siehe Wer kommt nach Saddam? [2]), die beiden Kurdenführer Massud Barsani und Dschalal Talabani (siehe Die Stunde der Kurden [3]), der frühere irakische Außenminister Adnan Patschatschi (siehe Iraqi Opposition, go home ! [4]) und der SCIRI-Führer Abdel Asis Hakim (siehe Die Mullahs und das Bündnis mit dem Satan [5]).

Hakim und Tschalabi repräsentieren die gegensätzliche Pole im Rat am deutlichsten: Während Asis al-Hakim die Amerikaner als Besatzer bezeichnet und bei seiner Forderung bleibt, dass die Truppen das Land möglichst bald verlassen, sieht Tschalabi die Amerikaner, mit deren Unterstützung der Exiliraker ins Land zurückgekommen war, als Befreier.

Für Hakim ist die Einberufung des Verwaltungsrates auch nur ein erster Schritt, die Macht des Rates zu beschränkt. Auch wenn der Sprecher des Rates, der schiitische Kleriker Muhammed Bahr Al-Ulum, der als gemäßigt gilt demgegenüber insistierte, dass dem Rat "echte Macht und eine enorme Verantwortung" zugeteilt worden sei - das letzte Wort haben nach wie vor Bremer und seine provisorische Regierung, die "Coalition Provisional Authority" (CPA); sie kann gegen jede Entscheidung des Rates ein Veto einlegen.

Als erste Amtshandlung beschloss der neue Rat die Einführung eines neuen Feiertags: der 9.April, Tag der Befreiung des Irak, soll ein nationaler Gedenktag werden.

Washington hofft, dass die Angriffe auf die amerikanischen Truppen vor allem im schiitischen Zentralirak nachlassen werden, wenn die Iraker "spüren", dass die Alliierten dazu bereit sind, die Führung des Landes auf irakische Führer zu übertragen.

Die Skepsis gegen Motive und Art der derzeitigen Verwaltungsregierung unter Bremer in der irakischen Bevölkerung ist allerdings groß. Dass es den Amerikanern nicht gelungen ist, Sicherheit und notwendige Versorgung der Bevölkerung mit Strom und Wasser zu garantieren, nährt die Zweifel. Es wird für die USA und neuen irakischen Verwaltungsrat nicht leicht sein, sich gegen den oft geäußerten Verdacht zu behaupten, dass es sich hier nur um eine von den Besatzungsmächten eingesetzte Marionettenregierung handelt.

Obendrein haben die beiden Saddam Hussein Tonbänder, die letzte Woche ausgestrahlt und vom CIA mit der üblichen Vorsicht als "wahrscheinlich authentisch" bezeichnet wurden, die Unsicherheit in der Bevölkerung und in der US-Administration verstärkt.

Die Besatzungstruppen gehen derzeit mit Großrazzien, Code-Name: "Operation Ivy serpent", gegen Baathisten und Fedajinkämpfer in Städten nördlich von Bagdad vor. Geheimdienste, so die BBC, warnen seit einiger Zeit vor weiteren Anschlägen, die für den 16.Juli, dem Jahrestag der Machtübernahme Saddam Husseins (1979), und dem 17.Juli, dem Jahrestag der baathistischen Revolution (1968), angekündigt wurden ( Nach dem schnellen Erfolg beginnen die Schwierigkeiten [6]).

Links

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51929-2003Jul…
[2] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14448/1.html
[3] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14553/1.html
[4] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14495/1.html
[5] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14466/1.html
[6] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/15023/1.html

Telepolis Artikel-URL: http://www.telepolis.de/deutsch/special/irak/15214/1.html

[Joerver]

July 11, 2003


Chatting with the Almighty About Bush
God Responds to W.
By TIM WISE

God is apparently quite busy. Between trying to soften the hearts of the hateful, sow peace and brotherhood throughout the world, and prevent a new episode of "The Bachelor" from appearing on American TV, the Almighty also takes the time to speak to George W. Bush.

According to the Israeli daily Ha`aretz, Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that God had told him to attack al-Qaeda and then Saddam Hussein.

I know some folks say anyone who claims to hear the voice of God is crazy, but don`t count me among those people. After all, I spoke with God this morning, and man is she pissed.

Although Bush`s supporters insist there must have been a mistranslation of the President`s remarks, God says that`s exactly what Bush claimed, even though she never told him any such thing. She`s considering a libel suit.

As God explained to me this morning: "I didn`t say "attack Hussein," I said `attack Houston,` what, do I mumble or something?"

I had e-mailed God asking for an interview, not really expecting to hear back. After all, there`s a lot going on nowadays and I`m not really in the press pool, so to speak. I was hoping to ask the Lord about a few things, especially another recent comment by the President, in which he taunted Iraqis angry with the U.S. occupation of their country, saying "bring "em on," when asked about snipers who might try and kill American troops, as several indeed have.

When the phone rang I thought it was a telemarketer. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be God.

"I mean, what is with this guy?" God asked, as if she didn`t already know. "Is this what conservatives mean by "support the troops?" Good Me, isn`t this the same putz who said Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher during the 2000 Presidential campaign?"

"Yes," I confirmed. Bush had said that.

"See, that`s what I`m talkin` about," God continued, clearly getting worked up. "Where do you get "bring it on` from Jesus?

"Or what was that other thing he said, about that asshole bin Laden? What was it? `Dead or alive?" Me almighty, what in the name of Me was I thinking when I breathed life into this blithering idiot?"

There was no stopping her now.

"In fact, wait just a minute; let me put you on three-way calling for a second. I`ve gotta call Jesus and ask him about this. Let`s see, where`s my Day Planner? Ah yes, here it is, now let`s see, "Prince of Peace," "Prince of Peace," oh wait, I`ve got him on speed-dial. This should only take a second."

I waited, the phone rang, Jesus answered, and before he could say anything, God piped up.

"Hey Yeshua, when you were standing on that hill giving that sermon, did you dare the Romans to "bring it on`? Did I miss something?"

"I know, I know," Jesus responded. "If I wasn`t so committed to that "turn the other cheek` thing, I`d return to Earth just to set that guy straight. As a matter of fact I did say "bring it on," but only once, and I wasn`t taunting anybody. It was right after I fed the multitudes from that one loaf of bread. I was asking for some margarine, as in, "bring it on, can`t a brotha` get some margarine up in here?" I don`t know how he got it all twisted around."

"Me love him," God replied, letting out a heavy sigh, "he`s as thick as a post."

Seeing as how I`m an American, I think God almost felt sorry for me.

"Me bless you," she said. "You all are in one Me-awful mess down there, aren`t you?"

I thanked her for her concern, and then noted that the President was currently traveling in Africa.

"You think I don`t know that?" she snapped. "I watched him get off the plane in Senegal earlier, turn to one of his aides and ask "Is this the capital of Africa?" Jeeezus H. Christ!"

"Yes?" Jesus replied, still on the line.

"No, no, not talking to you. It`s just an expression," God explained. "Sorry."

"So, do you think the President`s AIDS package for Africa will do any good?" I inquired.

"Well," God replied, "I really can`t talk about the future. But I sure hope he doesn`t dare the virus to "bring it on." The people of sub-Saharan Africa have suffered enough without your President challenging a deadly disease to a game of chicken."

"Hey listen," God continued, "I really have to wrap this up. I`ve got a live interview on Fox in a second. Gonna give O`Reilly fits. I`m thinking about the old Tower of Babel trick, where I garble up all of his words so no one can tell what in the name of Me he`s talking about. Or maybe the locust thing, I don`t know. So many curses and plagues, so little time."

"O.K.," I said, `one last question: seeing as how you created the universe and all, how do you feel about the President`s environmental policies?"

"What environmental policies?" God asked sarcastically. `You mean the one where he tells global warming to "bring it on," because he`s from Texas and can take the heat? That environmental policy? He`s really starting to piss me off. In fact, I`m thinking of taking out a bulletin board smack dab in the middle of the hole in the ozone layer that says, "I burned one Bush, I can burn another one. Don`t test me, frat boy."

I thanked God for her candor and then, wondering how she might react decided to throw in one last thing. "You know," I said. "George W. is convinced you`re a man. In fact, most people apparently think so. To be honest, I guess I did too."

"Oh for the Love of Me! What is it with you fellas? What, you think creating a cosmos is something you can do just because you took a class at Home Depot or something? Hah! I`d like to see you try it. To make a world from scratch you`ve gotta have patience, you`ve gotta have humility, you`ve gotta have spatial relations for My sake! Most guys can`t even pack their own suitcase without help. If I`d been a man, Jupiter would be sitting on top of Pluto right now, because "Who cares, it`s permanent press!"

"Those are all good points," I interjected, as if God needed my approval for her logic. "Maybe you should try and clear it up for everyone," I suggested.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "Should I go on Oprah or something?"

"No," I said. "I don`t think guys like George W. watch Oprah. She encourages people to read."

"Hmm..." God wondered aloud. "O.K. then, better make it The Super Bowl. That way, both Jesus and I can make it real clear to these clodhoppers that we had nothing to do with them winning the big game. We couldn`t care less, so stop thanking us."

"Better yet, maybe I`ll just show up at the next meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, right about the time they decide to discuss that whole "women should submit graciously to their husbands` thing. Oh yeah baby, time for God to "bring it on." This is going to be fun."

Tim Wise is an essayist, activist and father. He can be reached (and/or forgiven) at [e-mail]

http://www.counterpunch.org/wise07112003.html

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Posted on Sat, Jul. 12, 2003



Lack of planning contributed to chaos in Iraq

BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY and WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The small circle of senior civilians in the Defense Department who dominated planning for postwar Iraq failed to prepare for the setbacks that have erupted over the past two months.

The officials didn`t develop any real postwar plans because they believed that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops with open arms and Washington could install a favored Iraqi exile leader as the country`s leader. The Pentagon civilians ignored CIA and State Department experts who disputed them, resisted White House pressure to back off from their favored exile leader and when their scenario collapsed amid increasing violence and disorder, they had no backup plan.

Today, American forces face instability in Iraq, where they are losing soldiers almost daily to escalating guerrilla attacks, the cost of occupation is exploding to almost $4 billion a month and withdrawal appears untold years away.

"There was no real planning for postwar Iraq," said a former senior U.S. official who left government recently.



Officials at the State Department and CIA thought the Pentagon`s vision for Iraq was badly flawed and impractical, so the Pentagon planners simply excluded their rivals from involvement.

The story of the flawed postwar planning process was gathered in interviews with more than a dozen current and former senior government officials.

One senior defense official told Knight Ridder that the failure of Pentagon civilians to set specific objectives - short-, medium- and long-term - for Iraq`s stabilization and reconstruction after Saddam Hussein`s regime fell even left U.S. military commanders uncertain about how many and what kinds of troops would be needed after the war.

In contrast, years before World War II ended, American planners plotted extraordinarily detailed blueprints for administering postwar Germany and Japan, designing everything from rebuilt economies to law enforcement and democratic governments.

The disenchanted U.S. officials today think the failure of the Pentagon civilians to develop such detailed plans contributed to the chaos in post-Saddam Iraq.

"We could have done so much better," lamented a former senior Pentagon official, who is still a Defense Department adviser. While most officials requested anonymity because going public could force them out of government service, some were willing to talk on the record.

Ultimately, however, the responsibility for ensuring that post-Saddam planning anticipated all possible complications lay with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Bush`s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, current and former officials said.

The Pentagon planning group, directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, the department`s No. 3 official, included hard-line conservatives who had long advocated using the American military to overthrow Saddam. Its day-to-day boss was William Luti, a former Navy officer who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney before joining the Pentagon.

The Pentagon group insisted on doing it its way because it had a visionary strategy that it hoped would transform Iraq into an ally of Israel, remove a potential threat to the Persian Gulf oil trade and encircle Iran with U.S. friends and allies. The problem was that officials at the State Department and CIA thought the vision was badly flawed and impractical, so the Pentagon planners simply excluded their rivals from involvement.

Feith, Luti and their advisers wanted to put Ahmad Chalabi - the controversial Iraqi exile leader of a coalition of opposition groups - in power in Baghdad. The Pentagon planners were convinced that Iraqis would warmly welcome the American-led coalition and that Chalabi, who boasted of having a secret network inside and outside the regime, and his supporters would replace Saddam and impose order.

Feith, in a series of responses Friday to written questions, denied that the Pentagon wanted to put Chalabi in charge.

But Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, who at the time was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board - an influential group of outside advisers to the Pentagon - and is close to Feith and Luti, acknowledged in an interview that installing Chalabi was the plan.

Referring to the Chalabi scenario, Perle said: "The Department of Defense proposed a plan that would have resulted in a substantial number of Iraqis available to assist in the immediate postwar period." Had it been accepted, "we`d be in much better shape today," he said.



The failure to consult more widely on what to do if the Chalabi scenario failed denied American planners the benefits of a vast reservoir of expertise gained from peacekeeping and reconstruction in shattered nations from Bosnia to East Timor.

Perle said blame for any planning failures belonged to the State Department and other agencies that opposed the Chalabi route.

A senior administration official, who requested anonymity, said the Pentagon officials were enamored of Chalabi because he advocated normal diplomatic relations with Israel. They believed that would have "taken off the board" one of the only remaining major Arab threats to Israeli security.

Moreover, Chalabi was key to containing the influence of Iran`s radical Islamic leaders in the region, because he would have provided bases in Iraq for U.S. troops. That would complete Iran`s encirclement by American military forces around the Persian Gulf and U.S. friends in Russia and Central Asia, he said.

But the failure to consult more widely on what to do if the Chalabi scenario failed denied American planners the benefits of a vast reservoir of expertise gained from peacekeeping and reconstruction in shattered nations from Bosnia to East Timor.

As one example, the Pentagon planners ignored an eight-month-long effort led by the State Department to prepare for the day when Saddam`s dictatorship was gone. The "Future of Iraq" project, which involved dozens of exiled Iraqi professionals and 17 U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon, prepared strategies for everything from drawing up a new Iraqi judicial code to restoring the unique ecosystem of Iraq`s southern marshes, which Saddam`s regime had drained.

Virtually none of the "Future of Iraq" project`s work was used once Saddam fell.

The first U.S. administrator in Iraq, retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, wanted the Future of Iraq project director, Tom Warrick, to join his staff in Baghdad. Warrick had begun packing his bags, but Pentagon civilians vetoed his appointment, said one current and one former official.

Meanwhile, postwar planning documents from the State Department, CIA and elsewhere were "simply disappearing down the black hole" at the Pentagon, said a former U.S. official with long Middle East experience who recently returned from Iraq.



Numerous officials in positions to know said that if Pentagon civilians had a detailed plan that anticipated what could happen after Saddam fell, it was invisible to them.

Archaeological experts who were worried about protecting Iraq`s immense cultural treasures were rebuffed in their requests for meetings before the war. After it, Iraq`s museum treasures were looted.

Responsibility for preparing for post-Saddam Iraq lay with senior officials who supervised the Office of Special Plans, a highly secretive group of analysts and consultants in the Pentagon`s Near East/South Asia bureau. The office was physically isolated from the rest of the bureau.

Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who retired from the Near East bureau on July 1, said she and her colleagues were allowed little contact with the Office of Special Plans and often were told by the officials who ran it to ignore the State Department`s concerns and views.

"We almost disemboweled State," Kwiatkowski said.

Senior State Department and White House officials verified her account and cited many instances where officials from other agencies were excluded from meetings or decisions.

The Chalabi plan, fiercely opposed by the CIA and the State Department, ran into major problems.

President Bush, after meeting with Iraqi exiles in January, told aides that, while he admired the Iraqi exiles, they wouldn`t be rewarded with power in Baghdad. "The future of this country … is not going to be charted by people who sat out the sonofabitch (Saddam) in London or Cambridge, Massachusetts," one former senior White House official quoted Bush as saying.

After that, the White House quashed the Pentagon`s plan to create - before the war started - an Iraqi-government-in-exile that included Chalabi.

The Chalabi scheme was dealt another major blow in February, a month before the war started, when U.S. intelligence agencies monitored him conferring with hard-line Islamic leaders in Tehran, Iran, a State Department official said. About the same time, an Iraqi Shiite militia that was based in Iran and known as the Badr Brigade began moving into northern Iraq, setting off alarm bells in Washington.

At the State Department, officials drafted a memo, titled "The Perfect Storm," warning of a confluence of catastrophic developments that would endanger the goals of the coming U.S. invasion.

Cheney, once a strong Chalabi backer, ordered the Pentagon to curb its support for the exiles, the official said.

Yet Chalabi continued to receive Pentagon assistance, including backing for a 700-man paramilitary unit. The U.S. military flew Chalabi and his men at the height of the war from the safety of northern Iraq, which was outside Saddam`s control, to an air base outside the southern city of Nasiriyah in expectation that he would soon take power.

Chalabi settled into a former hunting club in the fashionable Mansour section of Baghdad. He was joined by Harold Rhode, a top Feith aide, said the former U.S. official who recently returned from Iraq.

But Chalabi lacked popular support - graffiti in Iraq referred to "Ahmad the Thief" - and anti-American anger was growing over the looting and anarchy that followed Saddam`s ouster.

"It was very clear that there was an expectation that the exiles would be the core of an Iraqi interim (governing) authority," retired U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney said. He was in Iraq in April to help with postwar reconstruction.

Once Saddam`s regime fell, American authorities "quickly grasped" that Chalabi and his people couldn`t take charge, Carney said.

However, the Pentagon had devised no backup plan. Numerous officials in positions to know said that if Pentagon civilians had a detailed plan that anticipated what could happen after Saddam fell, it was invisible to them.

Garner`s team didn`t even have such basics as working cell phones and adequate transportation. And Garner was replaced in May - much earlier than planned - by L. Paul Bremer.

In his e-mail response to questions, Feith denied that officials in his office were instructed to ignore the concerns of other agencies and departments. He contended that in planning for Iraq, there was a "robust interagency process," led by the National Security Council staff at the White House.

Feith repeated a theme that he struck in a speech Tuesday in Washington, when he said planners prepared for "a long list of problems" that never happened, including destruction of oil fields, Saddam`s use of chemical and biological weapons, food shortages, a collapse of the Iraqi currency and large-scale refugee flows.

"Instead, we are facing some of the problems brought on by our very success in the war," he said.

Feith rejected criticisms that the Pentagon should have used more troops to invade Iraq. That might have prevented postwar looting, he said, but U.S. military commanders would have lost tactical surprise by waiting for extra troops, and thus "might have had the other terrible problems that we anticipated."

"War, like life in general, always involves trade-offs," Feith said. "It is not right to assume that any current problems in Iraq can be attributed to poor planning."

Other officials, while critical of the Pentagon, say it is unfair to lay sole blame on civilians such as Feith who are working under Rumsfeld.

The former senior White House official said Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, never took the logical - if politically risky - step of acknowledging that American troops would have to occupy Iraq for years to stabilize and rebuild the country.

"You let him (Bush) go into this without a serious plan … for the endgame," the official said. It was "staggeringly negligent on their part."

Still, the Defense Department was in charge of day-to-day postwar planning. And the problems were numerous, the current and former officials said. Key allies with a huge stake in Iraq`s future were often left uninformed of the details of U.S. postwar planning.

For example, the government of Turkey, which borders Iraq to the north and was being asked by Washington to allow 60,000 American troops to invade Iraq from its soil, peppered the U.S. government with 51 questions about postwar plans.

The reply came in a cable Feb. 5, more than 10 pages long, from the State Department. Largely drafted by the Pentagon, it answered many of Ankara`s queries, but on some questions, including the structure of the postwar government in Iraq, the cable affirmed that "no decision has been made," a senior administration official said.

The response was "still in work, still in work … we`re still working on that," Kwiatkowski said. "Basically an empty answer."

(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondent Renee Schoof and researcher Tish Wells contributed to this report.)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6285256.htm?template=co…

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A soldier with the 18th Military Police Brigade guarded the charred wreckage of a sports utility vehicle that blew up near the headquarters of occupation forces in Baghdad today.

July 14, 2003
Iraqi Council to Seek U.N. Seat; One G.I. Killed in Baghdad
By PATRICK E. TYLER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.


BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 14 — An American soldier was killed and six others were wounded in a bold guerrilla attack in the heart of this city`s fashionable Mansour district early today.

Hours after the dawn ambush of a military convoy of the Third Infantry Division, the 25 members of Iraq`s new interim government met behind closed doors and decided they would send a delegation to New York this month to claim Iraq`s seat at the United Nations, a step some members said would confer greater legitimacy on the governing body that met for the first time Sunday.

An hour after the Iraqi council members concluded their first full days of private deliberations at their newly refurbished headquarters near Saddam Hussein`s Republican Palace, someone threw an explosive device from a speeding taxicab at a car parked near the government complex, engulfing the vehicle in flames, the Iraqi police said.

The decision by the Iraqi interim government to send a delegation to New York caught the United Nations special representative`s office here by surprise. A spokesman said he was not aware of the plan.

An Iraqi official said the delegation would include Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations; Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, and Akila al-Hashemi, who worked in the Foreign Ministry in Mr. Hussein`s government. Another official said the group might be joined by Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader, who is also member of the council.

In their session today, the governing council deferred the sensitive question of who would lead the 25-member body by setting up a rules committee to make recommendations on schemes for rotating leadership.

A council formed two other committee, one to develop an agenda of the highest-priority issues that the interim government is facing, and a second to draft a policy statement to be issued to the Iraqi public.

Iraqi officials said that the top American civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, joined part of the council`s discussions and suggested several high-priority projects that the council should adopt.

Mr. Bremer asked the council to approve a plan to refurbish 1,300 Iraqi schools before the opening of classes this fall. He asked for recommendations on how to develop an accelerated training program for 70,000 police officers in municipalities across the country and how to set up a special court for prosecuting alleged war criminals captured during the military campaign here.

In addition, Mr. Bremer asked the council to undertake a review of the problems of reintegrating the 400,000 members of Mr. Hussein`s armed forces into society through job training and other programs.

But some of the most intense discussions today centered how the governing council would project itself to the Iraqis, many of whom remain skeptical that the body is anything more than an extension of Mr. Bremer`s occupation authority.

At one point in the session today, Mahmoud Othman, an elderly Kurd who was an adviser to Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the leader of the Kurdish revolt of the early 1970`s, asked the group "from where" it derived its legitimacy, a sensitive point that was raised in the council`s inaugural news conference.

Mr. al-Hashemi, a seasoned diplomat under Mr. Hussein, replied that the interim government`s legitimacy was derived from the United Nations resolution that called for the formation of an interim administration under the American-British occupation.

But at that moment, Mr. Chalabi objected and said that the new government had to assert its independence from both the occupation powers and the United Nations. The interim government`s legitimacy, he said, according to those present, arises from "the struggle of the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein and our participation in that struggle."

The discussion to send a delegation to the United Nations Security Council meeting followed, officials said. It was not clear whether there was a vote on sending the delegation, but several members said there was general agreement to dispatch at least three of the council members.

The council members had adjourned this afternoon when the incendiary device exploded near government headquarters, which adjoins the Baghdad convention center where Mr. Bremer met later this evening with World Bank officials to discuss the requirements for nation-building and past experiences in Europe.

In brief comments to reporters, Mr. Bremer said that the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority will still call the shots regarding the rebuilding of Iraq and the rejuvenation of its economy.

Asked whether the new governing council will have the authority to sign contracts and make decisions about privatizing state-owned corporations, Mr. Bremer responded, "The coalition made it very clear in its discussions yesterday with the governing council that we consider that the coalition has very broad authorities to determine the direction of the Iraqi economy."

Foreign investment in Iraq, Mr. Bremer added, "is an issue on which the governing council will obviously want to give its advice, and we intend to listen very carefully to whatever the governing council has to say."

Separately, one of the 25 members of the council, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said that he expected Iraq to have a fully functioning government in no more than two years, at which time he said American and British troops should leave.

"Nobody wants the Americans to stay one day longer than they are necessary," Mr. Rubaie said. He said that Iraq should first have a "parliamentary constitution system in place," but that that would not take nearly as long as some have estimated.

"I don`t think that four to five years is acceptable," he said. "I think we`re talking about probably 18 months from now. I very much hope we`d be on a timetable of probably 18 months to two years from now."

By then, he said, Iraq should have a "proper government in place to have the American and British troops go home safely."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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UK gives up fight for Guantanamo captives
Ministers believe legal barriers rule out trial in British courts

Michael White and Audrey Gillan
Tuesday July 15, 2003
The Guardian

Senior ministers are resigned to the prospect that the two British prisoners who face US military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba cannot be repatriated to stand trial in UK courts because the legal barriers to such a political compromise are insurmountable.

The stalemate has become hugely embarrassing to Tony Blair as he heads for Washington this week to enjoy the rare honour of addressing a joint session of Congress.

The Britons are among six designated prisoners - held incommunicado for 18 months since the Afghan campaign - facing secret justice before a military tribunal. If they plead not guilty, they could risk the death penalty for alleged terrorist offences.

The fact that two of the six are British citizens has led to speculation in Whitehall that they may have been chosen in the hope that, faced with a strong prosecution case, they will accept plea-bargaining and tell what they know in return for leniency.

But British officials deny claims by MPs who have visited Capitol Hill that a formal US offer to send back Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi was rejected by David Blunkett, the home secretary, because he could not guarantee, as the Bush administration had demanded, that they would face trial in Britain for alleged intelligence offences.

"That offer might have been discussed among US officials, but there were the usual fissures between the state department and the department of defence. It was never agreed among them," said one Whitehall official. The US defence department would control a military tribunal at Guantanamo.

One former minister with close military and political contacts in the US is adamant that he was told in Washington: "We would be happy to send these guys back, but you have no law to prosecute them. We are not going to just let them go."

British lawyers say that intelligence or interrogation-based evidence would make it hard for the crown prosecution service even to try to mount a successful prosecution and that, in any case, defence lawyers would argue that lack of access to their clients for 18 months rendered a fair trial impossible.

The news that the British government was giving up hopes of repatriation came as the wife of one of the British men added to pressure on Mr Blair by calling for her husband to be brought back to this country.

On the first birthday of the couple`s son, Sally Begg, from Birmingham, yesterday asked the prime minister to intervene on Moazzam`s behalf so that he might meet the baby he has never seen. Mrs Begg asked that her husband be repatriated and face justice in a British court.

Mr Begg, 35, was arrested in Pakistan where he had been running an Islamic school, and was transferred to Bagram air base in Afghanistan before being moved to Guantanamo Bay.

Mrs Begg, who was in the family`s Islamabad home when her husband was arrested, said: "I think he should be brought back home where I can see him, where the children can see him, where he can see his baby that he has never seen and who is one year old today."

Speaking to BBC Radio West Midlands she made a personal appeal to Mr Blair: "I would say `You are a father, you are a husband and you are there for your wife. I want my husband to be there for my children and for me and I need him just like your wife needs you`."

Family and friends of Mr Abbasi say they are extremely concerned for the mental health of the former computing student from south London.

The Abbasi family`s local MP, for Croydon Central, Geraint Davies, said: "I fear that his mental health will have been adversely affected by his treatment, and he may not be fit to face trial or brief a lawyer to mount a proper defence."

Since the camp opened there have been 28 reported suicide attempts involving 18 of the inmates.

Prisoners are held in cells measuring 6ft 8in by 8ft, doors and walls are made of mesh and, according to a recent report, each prisoner is allowed out of the cell three times a week for 20 minutes of solitary exercise in a large concrete-floored cage, followed by a five-minute shower.

British officials admit that the prospect of military justice for Guantanamo prisoners has been under private discussion between London and Washington for some time.

In reality it is all but impossible, officials admit, to see how the US demand for a trial can be squared with British legal impediments.

The slim chance of any repatriation leaves Britain hoping that the prime minister can save face by winning the same rights as those accorded to John Walker Lindh, the American captured in the Afghan campaign, who was tried in open in a US civil court.

Yet the concessions made by the Bush administration on behalf of a US citizen with middle-class Californian credentials are unlikely to be repeated on behalf of the captives from Britain and elsewhere in Guantanamo Bay.

Some lawyers in the US doubted that the US would agree to transfer the British inmates to US territory for trial. Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer who has represented some of the British inmates in court cases in America, said: "It seems unlikely the US would give a civil American trial just to the English people, because then how would they justify not doing the same for the 674 others?"

Officials close to Mr Blunkett and to Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, deny there is any division between them as they struggle to ensure that Mr Begg and Mr Abbasi, along with any other Britons tried, get proper legal representation and as fair and open a trial as the US will accept.



Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Disparate voices of Iraq emerge from silence
New governing council to send delegates with widely different views to address UN security council

Jonathan Steele
Tuesday July 15, 2003
The Guardian

Thousands of Iraqis marched through Baghdad yesterday, celebrating the 45th anniversary of the overthrow of the monarchy and calling for the restoration of national independence.

Many carried pictures of Abdul Karim Kassem, the army general and 1958 coup leader who nationalised Iraq`s British-owned oil company and was overthrown five years later in a CIA-backed plot supported by Saddam Hussein`s Ba`ath party.

Across town supporters of the constitutional monarchists held a mourning meeting for King Faisal II, grandson of the ruler imposed by Britain in 1920.

The rival events, a further symbol of the vibrant debate among Iraqis after 30 years of repression, came a day after the inauguration of the new US-appointed governing council. It decided yesterday to send a three-person delegation with widely different views to address the UN security council next week. It will consist of Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the CIA-funded Iraqi National Congress, and Akila al Hashimi, a former member of the Ba`ath party who was a senior official in the foreign ministry until April.

For the constitutional monarchists, led by Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a cousin of the murdered king and the only pretender to the throne who has returned to Iraq, yesterday was cause for double sorrow. The US administrator, Paul Bremer, decided not to invite him on to the council.

The last invitation went to the Communist party, whose leader Hamid Majeed Mousa only decided on Friday to join the council after saying he would not. "We decided to take part because of the extra powers given to it," Kawa Besarani, a party spokesman, said.

These include oversight of security. Mr Bremer has accepted that the council will be in charge of rebuilding Iraq`s armed forces and police. Some in the council want US and British troops to leave the cities so that Iraqi forces can gradually replace them and leave security in Iraqi hands.

A US soldier was killed and six were wounded when a convoy was ambushed by a group with rocket-propelled grenades in a middle-class area of Baghdad early yesterday. His death brings to 32 the number of US forces killed since President Bush declared the war over.

Other parties on the council, including the Communists and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the main Shia groups, would favour a United Nations peace-keeping force to take over from the coalition so as to give foreign troops legitimacy.

India yesterday supported this view. Rejecting an American request to join the coalition forces in Iraq, the external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha announced that India could only consider sending troops under UN authority. "Were there to be an explicit UN mandate for the purpose, the government could consider the deployment of our troops in Iraq," he said after a meeting of the cabinet and security officials. Washington had put pressure on India by sending a team of Pentagon officials to New Delhi last month to discuss arrangements for an Indian deployment in Iraq.

The new council in Iraq is already divided over its attitude to America. A proposal for it to express thanks to President Bush for the invasion and to declare April 9 "Liberation Day" was rejected by most members at their first informal meeting on Saturday. Instead, they made April 9 a holiday to celebrate "the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime".

A majority also decided to invite the chief UN representative rather than Mr Bremer to make the only speech by a foreigner at the council`s launch on Sunday.

Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shia member of the governing council and a human rights activist, said: "Nobody wants the Americans to stay one day longer than what they have to stay." He added that when Iraq has a government, an elected parliament and the security is under control then "the coalition troops should leave".

Shortly afterwards a Tunisian embassy car was destroyed in a blast near the compound where the council convened.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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The most dangerous home secretary we have ever had
From Guantanamo to jury trials, the government cares little for liberty

Hugo Young
Tuesday July 15, 2003
The Guardian

Guantanamo Bay, a place of torture and systemic injustice, is also an apt symbol of the state of British politics. It`s the place where the two most luridly deforming strands of the Blair government are twined together. The first is these ministers` subservience to American power. The second is the absence of any liberal instinct from their political makeup. Around Guantanamo such deplorable traits tellingly merge. But the retreat from liberalism, once as important an element of centre-left politics as public spending, stretches further.

Belatedly, ministers have begun to register public doubts about what`s being done to British citizens on Guantanamo, and what lies in wait if the US government insists on imposing military trials on two of them. Blair promises to raise the issue with President Bush this week. Straw reiterates that we will not tolerate executions. The absence of elementary legal guarantees of a fair trial has become an issue on which we are suddenly prepared to be heard muttering anxious displeasure.

But this system has been cooking for months. An American professor who was involved in putting it together, and now defends it as perfectly acceptable, has disclosed that the Brits were in on it from the beginning. Not a single word of ministerial horror escaped out of Whitehall, until the party began to wake up and protest. It was always plain that the US, post-9/11, would tolerate more breaches of fundamental rights and free doms than we would, though our counterterrorism measures have done their bit. But so extravagant were and are the abuses of state power as regards the Guantanamo prisoners that an early demand for extradition was the minimum process any government would start that took seriously its responsibilities to its own citizens.

Instead, there was more than a year of public silence. Baroness Symons and Chris Mullin were among junior ministers sent on to the airwaves even last week to pretend there was nothing much wrong with the proposed military tribunals that couldn`t be put right by a bit of private diplomacy. A public challenge was, it seems, unimaginable between allies. That`s the mindset, and the illusion of private influence is the promise. We will see. I shall be amazed if Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi escape the Guantanamo machine and are tried in a British court.

British compliance, however, had another origin. No minister deeply cared what was happening. The anti-terrorism perspective has occluded all others. Any instinct there might once have been to say with undeviating clarity that these plans for military courts are intolerable has vanished, even from ministers who once possessed it.

The condition reaches to the top. Both Blair and Straw, who might once have wanted to be seen as at any rate lightly varnished with libertarian respectability, are now proud not to call themselves liberals. Straw is openly scornful, citing the message he gets from his Blackburn market square. His record as home secretary, except for his collaboration in the Human Rights Act, revealed a man true to his word. As for Blair, his sabotage of freedom of information and his fervent defence of every penal measure the Home Office can dream up remind us that he is at heart - perhaps all prime ministers get that way - an unmitigated state-power man, guaranteed to come down on the wrong side whenever basic liberal principles vie with easy populist applause.

These are problems that no longer bother the mainstream left. The progressive governance conference Blair organised this weekend had much to say about avoiding the extremes of equality, but nothing about extending the margins of liberty. Many so-called progressives take their basic liberalism for granted, and perhaps think they don`t need to think about it. In the present age of relentless state encroachments on individual freedom, this is an indefensible piece of complacency. The need for certain fundamental laws to protect the people against arbitrary power has never been in more urgent need of discussion. It`s extraordinary to see the Tory party more interested in that than all the potent Labour progressives in our midst.

But then the Tories do not have a Blunkett. At the apex of anti-liberalism, bragging his contempt, sits the most dangerous home secretary this country has ever had. His criminal justice bill - eroding trial by jury, permitting previous convictions into the trial process, introducing myriad other changes designed not to improve the quality of justice but the economy of convictions - casually knocks aside some of the very fundaments of our justice system. His attacks on judges who get in the way of his asylum orders or his penal ambitions betray constitutional illiteracy and mocking disrespect for the key upholders of the law on a scale not seen even when Michael Howard had the job.

In all this Blunkett is Blair`s lieutenant. They are a team of anti-liberals, goading each other on. Until now they did have one hurdle to surmount on the journey to that utopia where the judges had been put in their place. Lord chancellor Irvine wasn`t all that reliable a liberal himself. But he was the real begetter of the Human Rights Act, and above all a defender of the judges. He may have been a Blair crony, but in the avuncular rather than the courtier category. He could tell Blair what fundamental legal principle meant. Now I can`t think of a single member of the cabinet who even cares.

Least of all Irvine`s successor, Lord Falconer, the courtier not the elder, a complete Blair placeman. His consultation papers outlining the supreme court and the judicial appointments commission are a rushed job, trying to make post-facto sense of a reshuffle that happened for other reasons. Some of the ideas - especially a supreme court separated from parliament - make good sense. The old lord chancellor, as argued in this space for years, was a multi-hatted affront. But neither the speed nor the agent of these radical reforms inspires confidence in their good faith.

Falconer may have been a brilliant commercial lawyer, but look where he comes from. His last job was as Blunkett`s literate fixer, his permanent existence is as Blair`s flexible friend. The Home Office has taken over the Lord Chancellor`s Department. The conviction rates of judges could soon be under as much political scrutiny as those of chief constables. The new appointments system, unless it is set up with a scrupulous bias in favour of high judicial virtue rather than political correctness, will see a deterioration that leaves judicial independence more and more under threat.

This would be less worrying from a government whose libertarian instincts compelled it to set some limits to executive power. An old Labour government, let`s say, in which Roy Jenkins` progressivism had to be accommodated alongside Jim Callaghan. There is now no Jenkins, no Irvine - and only Guantanamo to be accommodated.

· [e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Niger: Straw accused of `new deception`
By Andrew Grice and Ben Russell
15 July 2003


Jack Straw stood accused of misleading the public over the threat from Iraq last night after he cited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuclear bomb without saying it was 12 years old.

Labour MPs claimed the Foreign Secretary had resorted to desperate tactics after he referred to Mahdi Obeidi, an Iraqi scientist, who has handed parts needed to build a gas centrifuge system that enriches uranium to American officials. What Mr Straw did not say was that Mr Obeidi had buried the parts ­ and documents about the programme ­ in his garden as long ago as 1991.

Mr Straw was interviewed on BBC Radio 4`s Today programme about the controversy over the Government`s claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, from which the United States has distanced itself in recent days. The Foreign Secretary said: "One of the things that has happened since the fall of Baghdad has been the discovery in Baghdad of technical documentation and centrifugal parts which are necessary in the enrichment of uranium, which were buried at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Baghdad. People don`t bury technical documents, still less parts of centrifuges, unless they have a purpose in doing so.

"It is difficult to believe there was any purpose in doing such a thing except the preparations were being made for further development of a nuclear programme."

The discovery of the parts and documents is the only success announced to date of the Iraqi Survey Group, which is searching for Saddam`s weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Straw did not point out that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the buried materials were not a "smoking gun" because they related to a pre-1991 nuclear weapons programme and appeared to confirm that no attempt had been made to restart it since the 1991 Gulf War. Labour MPs reacted angrily to Mr Straw`s interview. Alice Mahon, MP for Halifax, said: "This is old stuff which the Government cannot be allowed to get away with. It is an attempt to mislead. It will not do."

Tony Lloyd, a former Foreign Office minister, said: "The public really wants to see an end to this scraping of the very bottom of the barrel. If there was a real, current programme that justified the war, let`s see the real evidence and not simply a rehashing of yesterday`s news."

A Foreign Office spokesman denied Mr Straw had made misleading remarks, insisting he was referring to a recent interview by Mr Obeidi but had not said the parts discovered were new.Asked about the timescale, the spokesman said: "We are still assessing the information that came from this scientist."

Tony Blair is under pressure to make a full statement before the Commons rises for its summer break on Thursday on "the Niger connection" and the failure to find WMD. Today, Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, will call for an emergency statement by the Prime Minister.

In a letter to Mr Blair last night, he demanded an independent inquiry, headed by a judge, to investigate the Government`s handling of intelligence material before the war. Mr Kennedy said the case for an inquiry had grown stronger in recent days because the White House had "disowned" Britain`s claim about Niger, and because of comments by Hans Blix, the UN`s former chief weapons inspector, who told The Independent on Sunday that the Government had "over-interpreted" evidence of Iraq`s WMD capability.

The Government admitted last night that some of the documents submitted to the IAEA on Iraq`s attempts to buy uranium were fake. Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister, said in a written Commons reply: "We have now seen the documents passed to the IAEA and agree that some of them are forgeries. Others are still under consideration."

The Government insisted that it had separate evidence from other intelligence services, which it could not pass on to the IAEA because it was not British. Mr Straw said he hoped and believed discussions were now taking place to see whether that evidence could be handed over. Diplomatic sources categorically denied reports yesterday that France had supplied intelligence to Britain about purported Iraqi attempts to smuggle uranium from Niger.

Although France handed some raw intelligence to the IAEA, Paris had little faith in it and it was dismissed by the IAEA.

Mr Blair said at the end of a summit of centre-left leaders in Surrey that "we should be proud as a country of what we have done".

Asked whether he stood 100 per cent behind the Government`s claim about "the Niger connection," he said: "We stand entirely by the intelligence that we gave and shared with the public. Nobody was in any doubt at all or is in any doubt about the security threat Saddam posed. There may be many ways of dealing with it, but the whole of the United Nations declared him a security threat."
15 July 2003 09:32

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 15, 2003

Inscrutable voice of the White House quits
From Tim Reid in Washington



THERE was good news for political journalists in Washington yesterday. Ari Fleischer, one of the most skilled practitioners of the non-answer in White House history, retired as President Bush’s chief spokesman.
The bad news was that his replacement as the person who articulates the President’s policy positions is so cautious and tight-lipped that he makes Mr Fleischer sound like a drunken gossip.

Mr Fleischer, 42, possessor of the most visible bald pate in Washington, stepped down after a gruelling 2½ years in which his daily game of thrust and parry with the press covered such events as the September 11 attacks, the anthrax alert and two wars. It was his choice to leave before “burnout” and he departs on good terms with Mr Bush.

His ability to respond to a question six times without actually answering it infuriated journalists and his ruthless adherence to “message” reinforced the contention that this is the most obsessively secretive White House of all time.

Today Scott McClellan, his deputy, will become the public face of the Administration, but there is little expectation that the change of guard will alter White House policy of trying to reveal nothing more that Mr Bush’s daily schedule.

Mr McClellan, who like Mr Bush is from Texas, is not as sleek or sure-footed as Mr Fleischer. He is known for a sense of humour and is universally liked, but he is not about to feed juicy morsels from the inner sanctum of the Oval Office to a ravenous press corps.

His mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a former Mayor of Austin and a Texan politician as loquacious as her son is taciturn, told The Washington Post last week that, even if he split his head wide open, “he’d never tell you”.

Despite Mr Fleischer’s cagey press briefings and often combative relationship with the press, his mastery of the job earned him a grudging respect from reporters. At his last press briefing yesterday, it was clear that this had also become great affection.

After a grilling on the continuing row about claims made in Mr Bush’s State of the Union Address in January — centred on now-discredited intelligence that Iraq tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger — Mr Fleischer was about to return to his office. Instead, he was swamped by reporters who had clubbed together to buy him a huge cake — “a yellowcake”, one quipped.

One after the other they shook him by the hand or hugged him and, in genuinely warm terms, wished him luck.

Mr Fleischer, who married recently, will take to the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit and establish Ari Fleischer Communications, giving a few choice corporate clients advice on how to deal with the press.

He has been called “fibber” and “artful dodger” in his tenure and once said that, although “you can never lie in this job, there are many different ways not to answer a question”. His care is such that he has made few gaffes but he regretted appearing to advocate the assassination of Saddam Hussein by saying that the cost of “one bullet” was cheaper than a war.

He also caused a furore when he suggested that President Clinton’s all-out drive to secure a Middle East peace deal before leaving office had exacerbated problems in the region.

There is a tradition among outgoing White House spokesman, begun during the Ford presidency, to leave a handwritten note of advice to their successor in a flak jacket hanging in their office.

I asked Mr Fleischer what he told Mr McClellan. “I’ve written the note,” he said.

“Are you going to tell us what’s in it?” “No.”

Now there’s a surprise.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-745982,00.htm…

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July 15, 2003

Niger storm gathers strength on both sides of the Atlantic
by Bronwen Maddox



IT IS a sign of the new vulnerability of Tony Blair and George W. Bush that one of the fiercest rows about the Iraq war has blown up over an insignificant claim.
The allegation that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa was a brief claim in the Prime Minister’s September dossier. It contributed a single line to the President’s State of the Union address in January.

In making a case for war, neither leader attempted to say that Iraq had an advanced nuclear programme. Signs of nuclear ambitions were merely a garnish on the central claims that Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons posed an immediate threat.

But the doubts now cast on that single charge of a mission to buy African uranium have enabled critics of the war to gain more purchase on both leaders than they have managed since Baghdad fell. The debate over the missing African link, fuelled by growing awareness that the aftermath of the war will be much bloodier and more expensive than expected, is seriously damaging support for Blair and Bush.

A row has been simmering for months. In testimony to the United Nations Security Council, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog, was sceptical that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium “yellow cake” from an African country, not named in the dossier but understood to be Niger.

Iraq had, indeed, done this in the early 1980s, but its sprawling nuclear research programme was uncovered in the 1991 war and demolished. No other evidence suggested that it had managed to rebuild it. The Niger allegation appeared, the IAEA said, to be based on forged documents.

Since then, Downing Street has stuck doggedly to its position, saying that it has more evidence besides the now discredited documents. It has not shared this with the US, it says, because it is unable to do so. By this it is implying, many believe, that the sources are other countries’ intelligence agencies — in particular, those of Italy and France.

Even a few weeks ago, that looked like the end of the matter. In Britain, the claim, even if discredited, never got a fraction of the attention of Blair’s assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons ready to use in 45 minutes. That was the heart of his case for an immediate threat; barely processed uranium for use in an embryonic nuclear programme was not. Yet in the past week, the African uranium claim has exploded on the American political scene. The issue dominated the heavyweight Sunday morning talk shows, with the Administration, usually television-shy, fielding Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, and Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser.

Why now? Three reasons: American casualties, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the Admininstration’s acknowledged error in including the claim in the State of the Union address. There is a new, bitter awareness in the United States that although Bush pronounced the war over on May 1, conflict continues — and 32 Americans have been killed since then. At least one intelligence assessment appears to be seriously wrong: that US soldiers would be welcomed by grateful Iraqis.

Americans are now taking a less generous view of the President’s reasons for going to war. Democrats hope that they have found a way to attack Bush without attacking the war. The Niger claim is their best target because it looks particularly flimsy, and because Bush gave it such prominence.

It is easy, outside the US, to underestimate the significance attached to the State of the Union, when the President gives an account of his government directly to Americans. The speech, usually nearly an hour long, is endlessly revised. No phrase is included casually; the “axis of evil” itself evolved over many weeks, says David Frum, the former speechwriter.

A mistake leaves the President vulnerable to the charge, with its Vietnam-era resonance, that he has misled Congress and the people.

The Administration is now scrabbling to distance itself from the claim. George Tenet, the CIA Director, has offered himself as fall guy, saying that he should have deleted it.

But although the Administration has noted that Blair still stands by the claim, its efforts to save itself inevitably distance Bush from him.

The row in Britain over the accuracy of Blair’s twin dossiers has not gone unnoticed in Washington. There is a deep distaste in American professional life for inaccuracy, sloppiness, plagiarism; they are not unknown faults, but ones that carry a heavy price, as Howell Raines, the former Editor of The New York Times, found when a young protégé fabricated his reports. There is, too, a frequent willingness to see these as British faults, the consequence of a national faith in the amateur, as Tom Wolfe suggested in his Bonfire of the Vanities.

For Blair, this is bad news. It puts him on the back foot when he turns up in Washington on Thursday. As Bush’s strongest ally, he should have been in a strong position — and he needs every scrap of bargaining power to challenge Bush on the trials of British prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the US’s reluctance to share military technology.

Even worse for Blair, the American dimension will give this row more life. It will be fed by congressional inquiries and by Democratic passion ahead of the November 2004 elections. Downing Street, still challenging the BBC over its sources in the row over the dossiers’ reliability, will very likely come under pressure to say more about its own.


Bronwen Maddox will answer your questions online tomorrow at 2pm. To send e-mails, visit www.timesonline.co.uk/talkingpoint

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2738-745882,00.htm…

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Exiles rule `stillborn council stacked by US`
From James Hider in Baghdad and Stephen Farrell in Fallujah




IRAQIS celebrated Revolution Day and the overthrow of the monarchy yesterday against a background of anti-American violence and denunciations of the new Governing Council as unrepresentative.
On the anniversary of the bloody coup which ended the monarchy 45 years ago, when nationalists killed King Faisal II, an American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack and followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Shia spiritual leader, said the new administration was stacked with out-of-touch exiles and was “stillborn”.

The Governing Council yesterday agreed to send a delegation to the UN Security Council, saying that it would “assert and emphasise” its role as a legitimate Iraqi body during the transitional period.

Many in Baghdad seemed happy that the 25-member council, drawn from Iraq’s political and religious leaders and professionals, had assumed at least some of the trappings of power.

The council contains two of the three leading Shia groups, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Islamic Party.

But the most conspicious absence is that of the faction led by the ambitious Mr al-Sadr, the son of a leading Shia cleric murdered by Saddam Hussein in 1999. He has undoubted popular backing but his supporters are widely suspected of complicity in the murder of Abdul Majid Khoei, a Shia cleric killed in Najaf by a mob in April.

In Baghdad, where Mr al-Sadr’s armed supporters moved quickly to fill the security vacuum in poverty-stricken Shia areas immediately after the collapse of the Baath regime, Sheikh Abbas al-Rubeiyeh, the 26-year-old cleric’s spokesman, said his group had been overlooked despite claiming to have 25 per cent of grassroots backing in Iraq.

“The Americans will regret not inviting us into this council,” he said. “The Shia parties on the council have no support in the street. I think it was cooked up by the Americans.” But a senior coalition official dismissed Mr al-Sadr as a small fry in Iraqi politics. John Sawers, the British deputy to Paul Bremer, the coalition chief administrator, said: “I think you need to speak to some of the elders in the Shia faith here to find out what they think about the Moqtada al-Sadr group.”

Less than 24 hours after the newly appointed council members congratulated coalition forces on their removal of Saddam, a rocket attack on a US patrol in central Baghdad killed one soldier and wounded six others, a blow to coalition hopes that having an Iraqi leadership, however limited, would ease tensions.

Thirty miles west, in Fallujah, one of the most volatile towns in the “Sunni Triangle”, there was contempt at the new body and scorn for US forces, who have sought to win hearts and minds by scaling back their presence on the streets and yesterday handing out 2,000 frozen chickens at mosques.

At his barber shop in the wall of the Hassan Mosque — scene of an explosion which killed a pro-jihad preacher last month in what the US claimed was a bomb-making factory but local people believe was a US assassination — Rasheed Hameed said: “This council did not come into place by jihad or revolution. They came here because the Americans brought them. We don’t want anything American, their promises or their chickens.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2738-745877,00.ht…

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July 15, 2003
A Shifting Spotlight on Uranium Sales
By DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, July 14 — The White House defense of President Bush`s State of the Union speech comes down to this: The president was technically accurate when he cited a British report alleging Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa, but he never should have said it.

The evidence "did not meet the standards we use for the president," said Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and the minder of Mr. Bush`s pronouncements. That is putting it politely. American intelligence agencies questioned the accuracy of the British report, and even doubted their own evidence.

Now Ms. Rice and her colleagues are pointing the finger at George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, who never read the draft of the State of the Union speech that the White House sent him and, by his own admission, never asked that it be withdrawn.

It is a curious defense, one that acknowledges that the president cited dubious intelligence and admits that the vetting process failed, while arguing that history may yet prove him right. It plays to the central argument that Mr. Bush and his aides have used in trying to quiet a growing political storm: that Mr. Hussein posed an urgent threat, no matter what was going on in the uranium mines of Niger.

But if the White House`s changing — and sometimes contradictory — time line of events leading up to the speech is to be believed, Ms. Rice`s aides knew as early as October that some underlying evidence was suspect. The C.I.A., according to that time line, changed its assessment of the reliability of that evidence three times in four months — enough to make clear that there was reason to doubt the quality of the evidence.

That has led to questions that Mr. Bush and his aides have still not answered. Why did Mr. Bush`s aides keep coming back to the Africa case as "an emblematic example" of Mr. Hussein`s surreptitious activities, as one administration official terms it, if so many in the intelligence world were questioning it?

Further, how did it survive so many drafts of the State of the Union speech in January, only to be thrown out, days later, by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who found the evidence so thin that he dared not take it to the United Nations for his own presentation?

By the time Mr. Powell made it to the C.I.A. to prepare his own case against Iraq — three nights after the State of the Union address — the intelligence agencies were "not carrying it as a credible item," he said in an interview. How it met Mr. Bush`s standards and not Mr. Powell`s is one of the mysteries the White House has not addressed.

The answer, some in the intelligence world say, is that the evidence did not change — but the political environment around it did.

When the first reports of Mr. Hussein`s reported interest in Niger flowed in, apparently from a foreign intelligence service, they caught the eye of aides to Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps the most hawkish corner of a hawkish administration, but also one with long experience in Iraq. They knew that Mr. Hussein had obtained uranium ore — called yellowcake — in the African country two decades ago. It seemed reasonable he might go back for more. The request for further investigation went back to the C.I.A.

The report came back that Niger denied it had sold anything. But Ari Fleischer, who spent his last day as White House press secretary defending the administration`s decision-making, noted today that it included an account of Iraqi businessmen who met with Niger officials seeking to "expand business contacts." As one official on White House national security staff said the other day, "Their contacts in Niger didn`t think that meant they wanted to open a McDonald`s. They interpreted it to mean they wanted more uranium."

But there was no proof, and an eager speechwriter included the specifics in a speech Mr. Bush was scheduled to give in Cincinnati on Oct. 7 that Iraq had sought 550 metric tons of yellowcake. Mr. Tenet called Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, to have the dubious statement deleted. It was.

It is what happened next that has investigators searching for evidence that intelligence was manipulated for political purposes. Three weeks after the speech, the evidence that Mr. Tenet removed showed up in the classified "National Intelligence Estimate," which was sent to Congress. So was the statement that Iraq was looking for uranium in Somalia and Congo. There was a vague footnote explaining that the State Department had doubts. It turns out that so did many in the C.I.A., who say the charge never should have been in the formal intelligence estimate, a document reflecting the views of many intelligence agencies.

Its appearance in print cleared the way for repetition of the tale. And someone — the White House won`t say who — put the reference into early drafts of the State of the Union address.

Mr. Fleischer insisted that the new reference "was different" from the one removed in Cincinnati — it was a general claim that Mr. Hussein had "sought" uranium in Africa, not that he had obtained any. But clearly someone in the White House wanted more details to come out of the president`s mouth. A mid-level N.S.C. official called the C.I.A. for more details.

After all, specifics would add dramatic effect and underscore the urgency to act. Chemical and biological weapons are hard to deliver and harder to understand, but the world knows the mushroom cloud, the image Ms. Rice used in describing what the next Sept. 11 attack could look like if Mr. Hussein gave nuclear weapons to terrorists.

According to the accounts provided by the White House, the C.I.A. official, Alan Foley, pushed back, saying the specifics could not be verified. That is when the White House reached for the unclassified British report, and attributed the statement to Prime Minister Tony Blair`s intelligence services. "It would have been better not to include it," Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, said on television on Sunday, when asked why his boss was citing foreign intelligence reports instead of his own.

That seemed to state the safely obvious. But was the report cited to manipulate the evidence?

"A lot of bull," Mr. Fleischer said about that accusation today, with the candor of a man about to go to the private sector. Inside the C.I.A. and the State Department, though, many are still asking how a White House aware of the doubts could have shown such caution in October, and thrown it to the winds in January.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 15, 2003
Conflict on Iraq-Syria Border Feeds Rage Against the U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS


ALHERI, Syria, July 14 — On this desolate stretch of desert along the Iraqi frontier, tensions with the American soldiers just across the border are running so high, Syrian soldiers say, that four villagers have been shot by American soldiers in the past month.

Soldiers on the Syrian side of the border said American soldiers shot dead two cousins, one Iraqi and one Syrian, as they crossed into Iraqi territory about three weeks ago. Since then, they said, two other Syrian civilians have been wounded in separate incidents this month. The Syrians said that American helicopters and planes routinely violate Syrian airspace while patrolling.

The events described at this Syrian border post are the latest in a series of incidents along the frontier. They include the American attack, on June 18, on a convoy suspected of ferrying loyalists of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader.

That incident, along a smugglers` route about 30 miles from here, and the others have apparently fueled intense anti-American rage in the villages on the border. Among the signs of that anger is a series of video discs circulating through the villages exhorting viewers to attack the Americans in Iraq.

Indeed, the locals here say the anger is high enough to prompt young Syrians to go across the border to stage attacks against Americans soldiers. It is unclear whether the four villagers shot in the recent incidents had crossed into Iraq with that intention.

Local Syrian officials say they are growing increasingly frustrated and fearful that events could spin out of control.

"The Americans are firing at random, firing at so many people," said Maj. Ali Shamad, the chief of the Syrian border post, who confirmed the deaths of the two villagers and the wounding of two more. "Their planes come over the border every day. The Americans have gone too far."

Only moments before, an American military helicopter had swooped down to about 100 feet over the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, at one point appearing to cross into Syrian airspace. Through the morning here, the rumble of American jets could be heard for miles, though it was unclear which side of the border they were over.

"It is very provocative," the major said, referring to the American actions. "Very provocative."

Major Shamad described the Americans on the Syrian border as jumpy and afraid, firing on the slightest pretext. He insisted that his own troops did not fire, even when fired upon or when the American planes or helicopters crossed into Syrian airspace.

"Not without orders," the major said.

American officials could not be reached today to discuss the accusations. Although Syrian officials said American soldiers were as close as 25 yards from the Syrian posts, an American reporter who visited the border was blocked by Syrian soldiers from getting close enough to contact the Americans.

Villagers living along the border here say that since the fall of Mr. Hussein, the Americans have been blocking families with members on both sides of the border from visiting one another.

Villagers say the 300-mile frontier, mostly desert, is traversed by smugglers as well, and that much of the trouble the Americans have encountered has been from their effort to contain smuggling.

"As long as the Americans are here, we cannot smuggle," said Adnan Slaibi, a villager in Alheri.

Several villagers here said the Iraqi convoy that was attacked by American planes and commandos last month was in fact a group of smugglers making their way across the border.

Relatives of the two men apparently killed on the border said they were shot while trying to visit a relative in the village of Qaim on the Iraqi side. Family members said that Abdul Halim Haloum and his cousin, Same Haloum, both 25, were apparently shot as they crossed the border during the night.

Abdul Rehman Haloum, the father of Abdul Halim, said that the bodies of the two men were returned to the family by a relative who worked at a hospital on the other side of the border and that he said the men had been shot by American soldiers. Each, he said, had been shot in the head, side and leg.

"I never had a problem with the Americans," Mr. Haloum said in an interview, "but after what they did to my son, I hate them now."

Syrian soldiers and villagers said at least two other locals had been shot by the Americans in the past two weeks.

One of the men was said to have been shot when he wandered by accident into the neutral zone that separates the Syrian and American positions, while the other was said to have been smuggling cigarettes into Syria from Iraq.

When a reporter approached the house of the man said to have been killed after wandering into the no-man`s land, he was approached by two men who said they had been sent by the Syrian secret police. Stay out of the village, the men said. The other man said to have been wounded by the Americans could not be located.

There are other indications here that anger against the Americans is running strong.

A Syrian man in the nearby village of Abu Kamal invited an American reporter into his home for lunch, and then began to play videos exhorting Muslims to fight against the Americans in Iraq.

"Jihad is oxygen," one of the videos said. "Without jihad, we cannot breathe."

One of the videos played by the Syrian man, Sulaiman Abu Ibrahim, showed what appeared to be the beheading of a soldier from a Western country by a crowd of Middle Easterners.

Mr. Ibrahim said it was an American who was being shown in the video, and that he had been beheaded during the battle for the Baghdad airport in early April.

Senior Pentagon officials in Washington said they knew of no American beheaded during the war.

Mr. Ibrahim, who showed a visitor several such tapes, said they accurately expressed the rage felt by many villagers on both sides of the border toward the Americans over their occupation of Iraq.

"There is so much anger here," Mr. Ibrahim said. As the video of the beheading unfolded, Mr. Ibrahim ran a finger across his throat with evident satisfaction.

"Ameriki," he said, "Ameriki."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 15, 2003
Uranium Quicksand

In trying to defend the indefensible in its depiction of Iraq`s nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration is now making a legalistic argument that would be laughable if the matter were not so serious. Because the British government believed in January that Iraq had been trying to import large quantities of uranium from Africa, top administration officials are saying, Mr. Bush was technically correct when he cited the British concerns in the State of the Union address. The explanation conveniently glosses over the fact that long before Mr. Bush delivered the speech on Jan. 28, American intelligence officials had concluded that the British charge was probably unreliable.

The British-made-us-do-it defense might be more compelling if London had a better track record when it came to assessing Iraq`s unconventional weapons programs. In fact, parts of the British dossier on Iraq`s arms that was published with great fanfare in February were lifted verbatim from unsubstantiated Internet sources. Prime Minister Tony Blair`s warning last September that front-line Iraqi military forces could launch chemical or biological weapons on short notice proved to be embarrassingly misinformed once the war in Iraq began.

George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, was wary enough of the uranium report that he advised the White House last October to remove a reference about it from a speech Mr. Bush was planning to deliver in Cincinnati. It was dropped. Secretary of State Colin Powell found the supporting evidence so questionable he choose not to cite the accusation in his presentation about Iraq to the United Nations Security Council in February.

Yet the charge still found its way into the State of the Union speech. Mr. Tenet has accepted blame for the C.I.A.`s failure to tell the White House to yank it, but the real question is why the White House put it in the address — and kept it there — long after it had been debunked. The decision to attribute it to British intelligence was clearly a desperate effort to get around the objections that had been raised by the C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies. By clinging to that weak justification, the White House is only compounding its mistake. The honorable response at this point would be to concede the error and apologize to the American people.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 15, 2003
16 Words, and Counting
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


After I wrote a month ago about the Niger uranium hoax in the State of the Union address, a senior White House official chided me gently and explained that there was more to the story that I didn`t know.

Yup. And now it`s coming out.

Based on conversations with people in the intelligence community, this picture is emerging: the White House, eager to spice up the State of the Union address, recklessly resurrected the discredited Niger tidbit. The Central Intelligence Agency objected, and then it and the National Security Council negotiated a new wording, attributing it all to the Brits. It felt less dishonest pinning the falsehood on the cousins.

What troubles me is not that single episode, but the broader pattern of dishonesty and delusion that helped get us into the Iraq mess — and that created the false expectations undermining our occupation today. Some in the administration are trying to make George Tenet the scapegoat for the affair. But Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney`s resignation.

Condi Rice says she first learned of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson`s fact-finding trip to Niger during a TV interview, presumably when George Stephanopoulos asked her on "This Week" on June 8 about a column by me describing the trip. (Condi, you`re breaking my heart — you didn`t read that column itself? How about if I fax you copies of everything I write, so you don`t miss any, and you fax me everything you write?)

Actually, I have to agree with Ms. Rice that the focus on that single sentence in the State of the Union address is a bit obsessive. It was only 16 words, attributed in a weaselly way that made it almost accurate, and as any journalist knows well, mistakes do get into print.

So the problem is not those 16 words, by themselves, but the larger pattern of abuse of intelligence. The silver lining is that the spooks are so upset that they`re speaking out.

The Defense Intelligence Agency has had town hall meetings in which everyone was told not to talk to journalists (thanks, guys, for naming me in particular). One insider complains: "In the most recent meeting, we also were told that, as much as possible, we should avoid `caveat-ing` our intelligence assessments. . . . Forget nuance, forget fine distinctions; they only confuse these guys. If that isn`t a downright scary dumbing-down of our intelligence product, I don`t know what is."

Intelligence isn`t just being dumbed down, but is also being manipulated — and it`s continuing. Experts say the recent firefight on the Syrian-Iraq border involved not Saddam Hussein or a family member, as we were led to believe, but just some Iraqi petroleum smugglers. Moreover, Patrick Lang, a former senior D.I.A. official, says that many in the government believe that incursion was an effort by ideologues to disrupt cooperation between the U.S. and Syria.

While the scandal has so far focused on Iraq, the manipulations appear to be global. For example, one person from the intelligence community recalls an administration hard-liner`s urging the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research to state that Cuba has a biological weapons program. The spooks refused, and Colin Powell backed them.

Then there`s North Korea. The C.I.A.`s assessments on North Korea`s nuclear weaponry were suddenly juiced up beginning in December 2001. The alarmist assessments (based on no new evidence) continued until January of this year, when the White House wanted to play down the Korean crisis. Then assessments abruptly restored the less ominous language of the 1990`s.

The latest issue of the Naval War College Review describes the ambiguities of the North Korean uranium program and argues that U.S. officials "opted to exploit the intelligence for political purposes."

"Is there a parallel with what is now going on, after the fact, in estimates about Iraq?" asked the article`s author, Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the Strategic Research Department of the Naval War College, in an interview. "I think there may be."

So that chiding White House official was right: there was more to the picture. But I`m afraid the bigger the picture gets, the more it looks like a pattern of dishonesty.







Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

July 15, 2003
Pattern of Corruption
By PAUL KRUGMAN


More than half of the U.S. Army`s combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq, which didn`t have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn`t supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods?

How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn`t an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence.

Literally before the dust had settled, Bush administration officials began trying to use 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Gen. Wesley Clark says that he received calls on Sept. 11 from "people around the White House" urging him to link that assault to Saddam Hussein. His account seems to back up a CBS.com report last September, headlined "Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted notes taken by aides to Donald Rumsfeld on the day of the attack: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

But an honest intelligence assessment would have raised questions about why we were going after a country that hadn`t attacked us. It would also have suggested the strong possibility that an invasion of Iraq would hurt, not help, U.S. security.

So the Iraq hawks set out to corrupt the process of intelligence assessment. On one side, nobody was held accountable for the failure to predict or prevent 9/11; on the other side, top intelligence officials were expected to support the case for an Iraq war.

The story of how the threat from Iraq`s alleged W.M.D.`s was hyped is now, finally, coming out. But let`s not forget the persistent claim that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, which allowed the hawks to pretend that the Iraq war had something to do with fighting terrorism.

As Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official, said last week, U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al Qaeda. Yet administration officials continually asserted such a connection, even as they suppressed evidence showing real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia.

And during the run-up to war, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, was willing to provide cover for his bosses — just as he did last weekend. In an October 2002 letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made what looked like an assertion that there really were meaningful connections between Saddam and Osama. Read closely, the letter is evasive, but it served the administration`s purpose.

What about the risk that an invasion of Iraq would weaken America`s security? Warnings from military experts that an extended postwar occupation might severely strain U.S. forces have proved precisely on the mark. But the hawks prevented any consideration of this possibility. Before the war, one official told Newsweek that the occupation might last no more than 30 to 60 days.

It gets worse. Knight Ridder newspapers report that a "small circle of senior civilians in the Defense Department" were sure that their favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, could easily be installed in power. They were able to prevent skeptics from getting a hearing — and they had no backup plan when efforts to anoint Mr. Chalabi, a millionaire businessman, degenerated into farce.

So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by tailoring statements to reflect the interests of his political masters, rather than the assessments of his staff — but that`s not why he may soon be fired. Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush administration are arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be unquestioningly loyal to the White House as committees demand documents and call witnesses."

Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Senator Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems more concerned about protecting his party`s leader than protecting the country. "What concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president."

In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war, at the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by corrupting the system even further.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[stockmarketbull]

@Joerver,was hast du gestern zwischen 15:08 Uhr und 20:30 Uhr gemacht?


Und zwischen 1:06 Uhr und 9:22 Uhr haste wohl gepennt

[Joerver]

Bulle
Entschuldige, dass ich auch mal was außer Haus zu tun habe z.B. arbeiten und dann auch schlafen.
Für heute melde ich mich von ~13,30-20,00Uhr ab.
Habe ich Deine Erlaubnis?
So ne Flat-Rate ist schon was schönes.
Das nächste Mal kämmst Du Dich bitte, wenn Du mit mir redest.

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Budget Deficit May Surpass $450 Billion
War Costs, Tax Cut, Slow Economy Are Key Factors

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A01


War, tax cuts and a third year of a flailing economy may push this year`s budget deficit past $450 billion, according to congressional sources familiar with new White House budget forecasts. That would be 50 percent higher than the Bush administration forecast five months ago.

The deficit projection due out today is nearly $50 billion more than economists anticipated just last week, and it underscores the continuing deterioration of the government`s fortunes since 2000, when the Treasury posted a $236 billion surplus. That represents a fiscal reversal exceeding $680 billion.

"It`s shock and awe," said a senior Republican Senate aide.

The 2003 forecast -- part of the White House`s annual midterm budget update -- easily tops the previous record $290 billion deficit of 1992, even when adjusted for inflation. The red ink now exceeds the entire military budget. Measured against the size of the economy, however, the deficit still has not reached the levels of the Reagan era. It also may prove slightly inflated, because it includes some White House policy proposals that may not be enacted this year.

Still, the political ramifications began to manifest themselves even before the new numbers were officially released. Yesterday, the nonpartisan Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group, declared the first six months of this year "the most fiscally irresponsible in recent memory," as Congress and the administration embarked on "a schizophrenic pursuit of small government tax policies and big government spending initiatives. . . . Policymakers need to stop the hemorrhage of red ink, face up to the necessary trade-offs and negotiate a new balanced budget plan."

The 2003 budget deficit -- for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 -- was exacerbated by the $79.2 billion emergency spending bill enacted at the outset of the Iraq war, which foresees $42 billion in spending in fiscal 2003. It also includes the initial costs of the 10-year, $350 billion tax cut enacted in May. The cost this year of the tax cut plan will exceed the president`s initial proposal by more than $30 billion. The White House projection also includes some anticipated costs from the 10-year, $400 billion prescription drug benefit for Medicare still being hashed out in Congress.

But Republicans and many independent economists say the sluggish economy and rising jobless rate remain the largest factors in the worsening fiscal picture. Tax revenue has fallen for three straight years, a streak not seen since the Depression. Through June, tax collection is below the amount of taxes collected in the same period in 1999, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"I consider this an amazing phenomenon," said CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

The White House deficit projection for fiscal 2003 tops a House Democratic forecast that put the year`s deficit at $416 billion. The Congressional Budget Office`s midyear forecast, due out in August, will put the deficit closer to $400 billion, according to two congressional sources, but that figure will not include the cost of the prescription drug bill if a final agreement has not been reached by then.

For fiscal 2004, the White House and other deficit forecasters may diverge sharply. The White House budget office will project a slightly improved deficit for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, although it will likely still top $400 billion. That figure, however, will not include the continuing cost of the occupation of Iraq.

In contrast, private-sector forecasts, which include war cost projections, estimate the deficit will be as high as $475 billion in 2004. The CBO is likely to project a deficit next year close to $500 billion, according to congressional sources.

The rising tide of red ink has put Republicans on the defensive. Asked yesterday about growing war costs and budget deficits, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer cited the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon in 2001, saying: "What was the cost of September 11th? What is the cost of a country that is attacked? What is the price that the American people would have to pay if something like that were ever to happen again?"

Rich Meade, the House Budget Committee`s chief of staff, sent out talking points yesterday to gird GOP lawmakers, staff and the press for the deficit figures. They suggested that the deficits are being fueled by excess government spending, not tax cuts, and will be reversed only by the economic growth that three successive years of tax cuts are supposed to fuel.

While Democrats complain about the deficit, House Budget Committee spokesman Sean M. Spicer said, they have pushed for Medicare drug coverage that would cost more than twice the amount that the pending bills envision.

But Senate Budget Committee Democratic aides said yesterday that the $450 billion deficit understates the problems, because it is offset by more than $150 billion in Social Security taxes that are being spent on other programs. If those taxes were not included, the deficit would jump from about 4.2 percent of the gross domestic product to 5.6 percent, a level rivaling the Reagan-era deficits.

The White House budget "is going to put the best face they can on the deficit in the long run, maybe plus it up a little this year to look honest and on the level," said Rep. John M. Spratt (S.C.), the Budget Committee`s ranking Democrat. "In truth, as bad as it may seem, it`s actually worse."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Violence Feared on Hussein Holidays
Week of Anniversaries May Be Impetus for Attacks, Officials Say

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A10


BAGHDAD, July 14 -- Faez Khalil, a doughnut-soft merchant who sells guitars and keyboards, says he`s a peaceful man. But he is fighting mad at U.S. troops occupying his country, and he`s hoping that Iraqis strike back at them on Thursday, the 34th anniversary of the day Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party took power in Iraq.

"I hope there will be attacks on July 17, because we want to be freed from the Americans," said Khalil, 35, who believes Iraqis are suffering more violence and hunger now than during Hussein`s rule. "If I could, if I had a gun, I would participate."

With deadly and increasingly well-organized attacks on U.S. soldiers surging, U.S. military officials are concerned that Thursday`s anniversary, which was celebrated as Iraq`s national day during Hussein`s rule, could be used for a symbolic escalation of the violence.

"I can`t go into our plans, but we are aware that the 17th is like their independence day, like our July 4, and we are taking special precautions," said Army Sgt. John Konken, guarding a Baghdad street in a tank with "Cure 4 Terrorism" written on the barrel.

A senior U.S. military official said a large sweep for armed insurgents that began over the weekend was intended, in part, as a preemptive measure in light of the holiday.

"We understand the significance of that day for a lot of bad people," the official said, adding that 226 people, including six former officials in Hussein`s government, had been captured in the sweep, dubbed Operation Ivy Serpent.

This week is filled with potentially potent dates for anti-U.S. violence. Today was the anniversary of the 1968 overthrow of Iraq`s last king, and Wednesday is the date Hussein took over the presidency in 1979. But the most significant day for many Iraqis is July 17. Although Iraq`s new Governing Council`s first official action was to abolish Hussein-era holidays, July 17 still stands for Saddam in a country deeply unsure if the military occupation is better than his dictatorship.

"This used to be my shop," Khalil said. "Now it is the Americans` shop. The whole city is the Americans`. Saddam made many mistakes, but he didn`t hurt us as much as the Americans have."

The first violence of the new week came just before dawn, when a U.S. soldier was killed and six were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the road to Baghdad`s international airport, now headquarters for the U.S. military`s top brass.

It was unclear whether the attack was related to this week`s anniversaries, and Sgt. James Thomas, of the 82nd Airborne Division, one of the first soldiers on the scene after the attack started, said the symbolic days would not affect his actions. "There`s no difference between the 17th of July and the 4th of July," he said. "You stay a little more alert, that`s all."

Standing a few feet away, Samir Obaidi, 22, a Baghdad University medical student, said the Americans should be careful on Thursday. "Of course there will be attacks," he said. "They shouldn`t go outside. That is my advice."

In interviews in several neighborhoods around the city, Iraqis said Thursday could easily come and go with no more violence than usual. Rumors fly easily in this jittery capital, and often prove false, as with rumors that Hussein planned to stage a comeback offensive on his birthday, April 28. But many here said the Thursday holiday could be powerful motivation for people angry at the occupying troops.

"People hate July 17 because Saddam and his party came to power on that day. . . . They promised improvements, but they turned out to be liars," said Ahmed Ali, 42, who runs an electronics shop.

But Ali said many Iraqis now feel the same way about the United States. He likes the U.S. soldiers who have come into his shop to buy televisions and DVD players. But he said he feels let down by President Bush and his administration, and that even people who hated Hussein are extremely angry with the United States. He said his city is wracked by uncontrolled crime and violence, and a lack of electricity and other basic services, despite U.S. promises that things will improve.

"People need food, jobs, electricity and a good living," Ali said. "Saddam and his party used to consider us their slaves. Now we are slaves of the Americans, so nothing has changed."

Bush and top U.S. officials in Iraq have acknowledged that the country has a serious security problem and that reconstruction of basic infrastructure will take time. But they have said that the democracy that emerges eventually will be a vast improvement over Hussein`s brutal dictatorship and that it will be overwhelmingly supported by the people here.

But growing impatience and anger with the pace of change, apparent in conversations with numerous Iraqis today, has fueled persistent rumors that Thursday could bring at least a symbolic attempt to lash back at the U.S. military.

"It won`t be big enough to shake the world, because the Iraqis are not strong enough. But it will be chaotic," said a former Iraqi army colonel who gave only his first name, Hassan. Sitting in his shop, where he sells Tang and hamburgers, he said, "I think Iraqis will help anyone who does something against the Americans on July 17."

Across the street, shopkeeper Ahmed Wali, 28, said that although he had been jailed and beaten by Hussein`s police, he preferred the former government because it provided security and jobs.

The rumors about impending attacks don`t mean much to Sgt. William Thompson, who was guarding the site of the Coalition Press Information Center.

"We`ll just keep taking doxycycline and drinking lots of water. . . . The 17th doesn`t mean anything to us," Thompson said. "For us, every day`s a bad-guy day."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Bremer`s Iraq: Pragmatism vs. Dogma


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A19


Is L. Paul Bremer a socialist?

The man President Bush named to be the top administrator in Iraq, Bremer sure sounded like one when he declared that "a method should be found to assure that every citizen benefits from Iraq`s oil wealth."

This very progressive view, offered in an opinion article in Sunday`s New York Times, was backed up by two highly practical, far-reaching suggestions. "One possibility would be to pay social benefits from a trust financed by oil revenues," Bremer wrote. "Another could be to pay an annual cash dividend directly to each citizen from that trust."

To get a sense of how radical these ideas are, consider what they`d mean if our government put them into practice at home. What if the Social Security system were financed not by payroll taxes but by "a trust fund financed by oil revenues"? Instead of making a limited number of individuals very rich, oil wealth would help pay benefits to senior citizens -- or, alternatively, create a national heath insurance program.

Bremer`s second idea would entail taking all the profits from the oil industry -- or, perhaps, from the entire energy sector -- and splitting them up among all Americans. Bremer is operating here in the tradition of the legendary Louisiana populist Huey Long, who proposed to "share the wealth."

These thoughts are offered not to condemn Bremer but to praise him. In an administration for which the free market is sacred doctrine, Bremer is willing to put the pursuit of success in Iraq above considerations of ideology. He knows perfectly well that if Iraq`s oil resources were sold off to ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco, opponents of American intervention in Iraq would rise up as one to shout vindication of their claim that this war really was about oil.

Now, lest I get Bremer into trouble, let`s be clear that he was simply reflecting the U.S. government`s long-stated position that Iraqi oil would be used for Iraqis. And Bremer has also sung all the right free-market tunes. On June 20, he argued in the Wall Street Journal that "higher living standards -- and political freedom -- cannot emerge if economic freedom is denied, . . . so rebuilding the Iraqi economy based on free-market principles is central to our efforts." In his Times essay Bremer called for "a major shift of capital from the value-destroying state sector to private firms." You can imagine the cheers this brought forth in boardrooms and free-market think tanks.

But pragmatism and a decent respect for the opinions of Iraqis have been the hallmarks of many of Bremer`s other public comments. "We have discussed, really, for two weeks running now what to do about the state-owned enterprises and whether to privatize them or not and in what sequence," he said at a news conference in Baghdad a couple of weeks ago. "And I have to say at the moment I don`t see any consensus view among the Iraqis on this matter, which, again, suggests we need to wait until a responsible group of Iraqis can make their views known to us." The promise here is that something approaching democratic deliberation might take precedence over economic dogma.

And if we Americans are honest with ourselves, we`ll acknowledge that we often ignore the ideological claptrap we mouth to the world. Yes, it`s to our benefit that we are largely a free-market country. But two of our most popular and effective government programs are, for all practical purposes, socialist. Medicare socializes the health care costs that the elderly would otherwise face themselves. Taxpayers collectively pick up their tab, and it`s the right thing to do. Similarly, Social Security, as its name implies, socializes part of the cost of financing pensions.

Most of our water and mass transit systems, roads, bridges and parklands are in the hands of government. We don`t even think about that as socialism, but it is. And, by the way, those who scream their loyalty to free enterprise the loudest are often the first in line for public-sector subsidies. Wealthy farmers, last I checked, do very well off the government, and so do many industries that seek trade protection. The Bush administration itself has been eager to lavish new government benefits on the energy industry.

So before we give the Iraqis moralistic lectures about the free market, we might first try to be candid about the messy reality of our own system. That`s why I hope Bremer sticks with democratic pragmatism. The world`s greatest democracy works better because we`re far less rigid about economics than we claim to be. The Iraqi people have a right to the same flexibility.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Taking Truman at His Deed


By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A19


It`s a good thing for Harry Truman that he`s dead. It`s a good thing, too, that he kept his feelings about Jews to himself, confining his bitterness to a diary that has only recently been discovered. It is also a good thing that he did not express his feelings to someone like me, because -- had the Secret Service not been around -- I would have decked him. A little anti-Semitism goes a long way with me.

Truman would understand. He had a short fuse himself and was likely to say what was on his mind. It is precisely that quality that has, retrospectively, so endeared him to the American people and, in particular, the historians who have studied him. Merle Miller did not call his Truman book "Plain Speaking" for nothing.

I confess to shock at what Truman secretly wrote in 1947. The president had just met with Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish former treasury secretary, who appealed to him to help displaced Jews then on a ship heading to Palestine. The British, who then controlled what is now Israel, did not want to let the Jews in. Morgenthau apparently wanted Truman to pressure the Brits.

"The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish," Truman wrote on July 21, 1947. "They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP [displaced persons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political, neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist, he goes haywire."

I suppose it matters some that Truman threw in others, including his own Baptists, in his sweeping condemnation. But it matters more that none of the people he cited had just narrowly escaped extermination in Europe. For him to liken Jews to Hitler -- the victim to the murderer -- was a breathtaking expression of bad taste and ignorance. The Jews on that boat were the stateless survivors of the Holocaust. They really had no country to return to. They had no power.

I am tempted to say that the remark is unforgivable -- but maybe not. That`s not because Truman was merely expressing what the director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum called "typical . . . anti-Semitism that was common at the time." That won`t do. After all, he was no longer a provincial haberdasher but the president of the United States. Typical he was not.

But the president who recorded those ugly sentiments was the very same president who bucked the State Department and recognized the state of Israel. He did so with some reluctance, but he later declared it one of the most important and satisfying decisions of his presidency.

Truman instructs. The contemporary world is unforgiving of the blurted remark, the tossed-off opinion. We make little distinction between the private thought and the public action -- between secretly acknowledging prejudice and refraining from acting on it. We are so enthralled with a simpleton`s version of Freud that we believe the word or the phrase is the window to the psyche or the soul -- the Freudian slip that reveals all.

What`s more, we believe it`s the psyche or soul that counts. We tend to call this "character" and we tend to like it neat. Jefferson declared all men equal while in Philadelphia, and then went home to his slaves in Virginia.

Now, with Truman, we have a man who set down his supposed anti-Semitism on paper. But where is the comparable behavior? Nowhere to be found. Not only did he recognize Israel, but his lifelong friend and former business partner, Eddie Jacobson, was a Jew. It was Jacobson who (uninvited) called on Truman in the White House and implored him to meet with Chaim Weizmann, who later became Israel`s first president. Truman did not want to meet with Weizmann. After the Jacobson visit he did.

Some e-mailer out there is sure to remind me that I jumped on Trent Lott`s adulatory words for Strom Thurmond`s racist 1948 presidential campaign, but in that case there was no countervailing record. Even then, I shied from calling Lott a racist, because that epithet requires some behavioral component. It is the same with Truman. What he wrote in his diary was surely anti-Semitic, but it`s hard to know what to call the man himself. In Truman`s case, he gets the benefit of the doubt. His actions speak a lot louder than those words.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Black Thursday For Bush


By David S. Broder

Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A19


If President Bush is not reelected, we may look back on last Thursday, July 10, 2003, as the day the shadow of defeat first crossed his political horizon. To be sure, Bush looks strong. The CBS News poll released that evening had his approval rating at 60 percent, with solid support from his own party, a 26-point lead among independents and a near-even split among Democrats. Two-thirds of those surveyed could not name a single one of the nine Democrats vying for the right to oppose him.

But "The CBS Evening News" that night was like Karl Rove`s worst nightmare, and the other network newscasts -- still the main source of information for a large number of Americans -- were not much better.

The headlines announced by John Roberts, substituting for Dan Rather on CBS, were: "President Bush`s false claim about Iraqi weapons; he made it despite a CIA warning the intelligence was bad. More Americans say U.S. is losing control of Iraq. Also tonight, food lines in America; they`re back and getting longer."

Brian Williams, filling in for Tom Brokaw on NBC, began: "War zone. Two more Americans dead in Iraq, and now the general who led the war says the troops could be there four more years."

Peter Jennings on ABC gave the administration a break, opening the broadcast with this: "The secretary of state says there was no attempt to deceive the American people about the case for war in Iraq." But then Jennings described Colin Powell`s news conference as "damage control," an effort to explain "why the president used some false information in his State of the Union address to justify attacking Iraq."

All of them -- and cable news -- cited the dissonant voices from within the administration blaming one another for Bush`s use of a report, which the CIA had long since discredited, claiming that Iraq tried to buy uranium for a nuclear weapons program from the African country of Niger.

Even after CIA Director George Tenet tried to take responsibility for the foul-up, the White House faces a credibility gap that reaches down into the non-discovery of the weapons of mass destruction Bush and his top associates said Saddam Hussein was amassing to threaten the United States.

And the doubts don`t stop there. Two and a half months after Bush proclaimed victory in Iraq -- "mission accomplished" -- CBS reported that only 45 percent of the public now believes the United States is in control of events there. On the question of credibility regarding weapons of mass destruction, 56 percent say Bush administration officials were hiding important elements of what they knew or were outright lying.

The next day a Washington Post-ABC News poll reported that while Bush`s approval score was still at a healthy 59 percent, there had been a 9-point drop in less than three weeks both in his overall rating and on the question of confidence in his handling of Iraq. Ominously, the poll found a dramatic reversal in public tolerance of continuing casualties, with a majority saying for the first time that the losses are unacceptable when weighed against the goals of the war.

Eight out of 10 in the Post-ABC poll said they were very or somewhat concerned that the United States "will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission." And this was before the networks showed Gen. Tommy Franks telling Congress the troops would be in Iraq for years.

If Iraq looks increasingly worrisome on TV and in the polls, the economy is even worse. CBS found jobs and the economy dwarfing every other issue, cited by almost four times as many people as cited Iraq or the war on terrorism. On that black Thursday for the administration, first-time unemployment claims pushed the number of Americans on jobless relief to the highest level in 20 years.

And the most troubling pictures on any of the three broadcasts were those of a line of cars, stretching out of sight down a flat two-lane road in Logan, Ohio -- jobless and struggling families waiting for the twice-a-month distribution of free food by the local office of America`s Second Harvest. The head of the agency said, "We are seeing a new phenomenon: Last year`s food bank donors are now this year`s food bank clients." Said CBS reporter Cynthia Bowers, "You could call it a line of the times, because in a growing number of American communities these days, making ends meet means waiting for a handout."

Some may say, "Well, it`s one day`s news," or dismiss it all as media bias. But that does not dissolve the shadow that now hangs over Bush`s bright hopes for a second term.

David S. Broder will answer questions about this column during a Live Online discussion

at 11 a.m. today at www.washingtonpost.com.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[rv_2011]

Zur Abwechslung mal was aus der FAZ, wo die selbstbewusste Außenpolitik von Schröder/Fischer ausdrücklich gelobt wird.
_______________________________________________________________

Kommentar
Stilwechsel
Von Volker Zastrow

Fast gegensätzlich hat die Presse im In- und Ausland auf die Ankündigung des Bundeskanzlers reagiert, seinen Italien-Urlaub abzusagen. In Deutschland galt die Entscheidung durchweg als überzogen und unbeherrscht. Bei den Nachbarn aber wurde derselbe Vorwurf zumeist der italienischen Regierung gemacht. Es wurde auf die mißliebigen Folgen deutscher Verärgerung für die italienische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft hingewiesen, gar deren Scheitern vorausgesagt. Wie kommt der Gegensatz zustande? Die Deutschen sehen sich mit anderen Augen als ihre Nachbarn. Kleiner.

Zumindest gilt das für die sogenannte politische Klasse. Hier wurde die Entscheidung des Kanzlers sogleich als rein symbolisch, wenn nicht lächerlich bewertet. Doch das öffentlich begründete Handeln eines deutschen Bundeskanzlers kann gar nicht in dem Sinn symbolisch sein, daß es folgenlos bliebe. Dazu ist die Bundesrepublik, bei aller Bescheidenheit, zu wichtig. Schröders Gefühl für Macht und Würde speist sich nicht aus seinem Vornamen, sondern daraus, daß er Kanzler der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist. Er hat sich so verhalten, wie sich ein französischer Präsident, ein britischer Premierminister, ein italienischer Ministerpräsident verhalten hätte. Da wird dann in Deutschland gleich wieder an Wilhelm II. erinnert, so wie im vergangenen Sommer, als der Kanzler vom "deutschen Weg" sprach und als er sagte, die deutsche Außenpolitik werde in Berlin gemacht. Doch ist das wirklich schon Wilhelmismus? Kanonenbootpolitik, Panthersprung, Schlieffen-Plan, Blankoscheck?

Die Aufgeregtheit, mit der deutsche Intellektuelle auf Spurenelemente von Patriotismus reagieren, hat Ursachen. Nach den Erfahrungen des vergangenen Jahrhunderts ist es gewiß kein Wunder, daß dieses Volk sich selbst nicht traut. Deutschland war in zwei Weltkriegen unterlegen. Nach dem Ersten war es das Land der Verlierer, nach dem Zweiten das Land der Verbrecher, mit Schande, Schuld und Scham beladen. Aus den moralischen Ruinen sproß der Keim einer bundesrepublikanischen Außenpolitik, einer Politik der Bescheidenheit nach dem nationalistischen Exzeß, der in die Katastrophe geführt hatte. Die neue Politik war überaus erfolgreich. Sie führte Deutschland in den Kreis der freien Völker, als ihresgleichen. Deshalb haben alle deutschen Außenpolitiker von Rang bis zum Ende der Kohl-Ära sorgsam den Stil der Sanftmut gepflegt.

Schröder nicht. Bevor man darüber redet, ob das gut oder schlecht ist, muß man festhalten: Schröder hat einen grundlegenden Stilwandel in der deutschen Außenpolitik eingeleitet. Dieser Kanzler agiert nicht mehr wie seine Vorgänger. Gewiß, er ist ein taktisch extrem beweglicher, in vielen Fragen geradezu wetterwendischer Politiker. Aber man muß als Element von Kontinuität begreifen, daß Schröder nacheinander mit drei Staaten - mit Österreich, mit den Vereinigten Staaten und jetzt mit Italien - angebunden hat, mit denen keiner seiner Vorgänger derart rüde umgesprungen wäre; bestimmt nicht in modo, vermutlich aber auch nicht in re. Nehmen wir das jüngste Beispiel: Auch ein Kanzler Kohl, dem es an Selbstgefühl von Amt und Würde keineswegs gebrach, hätte wohl seinen Italien-Urlaub abgeblasen - aber sicher nicht auf der Fanfare.

Das ist nicht allein ein Unterschied des Temperaments, sondern auch der Generationen. Noch stärker aber wirken die geänderten Verhältnisse. Deutschland ist wiedervereinigt, die Blockkonfrontation ist Schnee von gestern. Das bedeutet, gezwungenermaßen, eine Lösung aus der Subalternität. Damit ist Deutschland mitnichten auf dem Weg zur Weltmacht. Aber es steht, mehr als vorher, auf eigenen Füßen, denn den Tisch, unter den es sie stellen durfte, gibt es in dieser Form einfach nicht mehr. Die Nato ist nicht mehr, was sie einmal war, und die Vereinigten Staaten sind es auch nicht: Auch sie unterliegen nicht mehr der disziplinierenden Wirkung der Blockkonfrontation. Sie sind nicht mehr Schutzmacht, sondern der mächtigste global player unter Verbündeten.

Schröder und Fischer waren darauf nicht schlecht vorbereitet, weil unter geänderten Bedingungen Tugend sein kann, was gestern noch Not war. Die Linke hat die Staatsräson der Bundesrepublik - Westintegration und bejahte Subalternität - schon in Frage gestellt, als das verantwortungslos und gefährlich war. Sie spielte gewohnheitsmäßig, nicht zuletzt aus Antiamerikanismus, mit neutralistischen und eurasischen Modellen; nicht zu Unrecht galt ihr in den siebziger und achtziger Jahren der Vorwurf eines bedenkenlosen Nationalismus. Die biographische Beobachtung trifft ausdrücklich auf den Bundeskanzler wie auf seinen Außenminister zu, auch wenn sie heute keine Linken mehr sein mögen. Was so oder so bleibt: Beide sind gewohnt, Außenpolitik unbeschrankt zu denken. Sozusagen von Berlin aus.

Dazu kommt, daß Schröder und Fischer als ehemalige Linke das deutsche Schuldproblem für sich entsorgt haben. Es gibt ja in Deutschland auch moralische Mülltrennung: Wer es schafft, den Ankläger und Aufklärer zu spielen, kann nicht der Beklagte sein. Die Linke, obwohl sie ständig von der historischen Verantwortung redet, fühlt sich keineswegs verantwortlich für die Nazigreuel. Sie braucht daher auch nicht in die Konsequenzen einzuwilligen, die in der Gründerzeit der Republik in den antitotalitären Konsens mündeten. Aus dem ist die Linke in den sechziger Jahren ausgeschieden; eine fast natürliche Folge der Tatsache, daß sie entgegen ihren Ansprüchen und Erwartungen in der neuen Bundesrepublik fast eineinhalb Jahrzehnte lang von der Macht ausgeschlossen blieb. Doch auch auf diesem Wege läßt sich Selbstbewußtsein generieren, wie es in Brandts seinerzeit hochumstrittenem Warschauer Kniefall letztlich doch zum Ausdruck kam. Dort kniete ein Unschuldiger. Schröder und Fischer entschuldigen sich nicht mehr.

Text: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.07.2003, Nr. 161 / Seite 1

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U.S. Delays Pullout in Iraq
The Pentagon again postpones a withdrawal of 3rd Infantry soldiers. The move comes as India backs out of its promise to send a contingent.
By Esther Schrader and Paul Richter
Times Staff Writers

July 15, 2003

WASHINGTON — Postponing troops` return to their families for the second time in two months, the Pentagon announced Monday that more than 10,000 soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division would not, as they had been told, be coming home by the end of September.

The announcement came as India said it would not send a promised division that would have added 17,000 troops to the forces on the ground, although the Pentagon said there was no connection between the extended deployment and New Delhi`s decision.

Two-thirds of the division will remain in Iraq "indefinitely," said Richard Olson, a spokesman for the division at Ft. Stewart, Ga., its headquarters.

The division, which spearheaded the attack on Baghdad, had expected to receive orders in early June to return to the United States but instead was ordered to tamp down Iraqi resistance in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallouja.

On July 7, commanders told the soldiers of two of the high-profile division`s three combat brigades that they could expect to be withdrawn from the war zone beginning next month.

And last Thursday, Gen. Tommy Franks, who retired last week as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, went even further, telling the House Armed Services Committee that the soldiers would be "out of Iraq by September."

But continuing attacks on U.S. forces by Iraqi insurgents and the reluctance of other countries to commit troops are pressuring the Pentagon to maintain, if not bolster, the American military presence in the nation.

The effort to persuade other countries to supplement U.S. forces suffered a setback Monday with India`s announcement. Pakistan and Portugal — two other countries the Pentagon had been counting on to send substantial numbers of troops — have also balked.

U.S. officials had asked New Delhi for a full division — about 17,000 soldiers — which would have made India the third-largest contributor of troops, after the United States and Britain.

After mulling Washington`s requests for more than two months, officials in New Delhi said they had concluded that they could not take the politically unpopular move without the cover a United Nations mandate would provide.

Instead, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh told reporters in New Delhi that the government would help rebuild Iraqi schools and medical and communications infrastructure, beginning with a hospital.

Relations Unharmed

"We would have hoped that they would have made a different decision," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. But India "remains an important strategic partner for the United States," he said, adding that the move would not harm relations between Washington and New Delhi.

Pentagon officials have declined to provide details on how many troops specific countries are providing for the Iraq occupation, but Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC`s "This Week" that 19 countries were now taking part, 19 had agreed to assist in the future and the United States was talking to 11.

He said the contributors represented "a very large international coalition."

Still, most of the countries that are taking part are contributing small numbers of troops, ranging in many cases from only a few dozen to a few hundred.

Indeed, although the United States has until now opposed the idea of giving the U.N. a powerful role in Iraq, fearing that doing so could complicate rebuilding efforts, one senior U.S. official noted that several countries have said they required the imprimatur of U.N. participation before they would contribute troops.

The official speculated that there could soon be new deliberations at the U.N. about steps to strengthen its role.

"I don`t know how this will evolve overall, in terms of the United Nations, and whether the U.N. wants to consider a different, stronger mandate," the official said. "I wouldn`t say there`s any momentum yet. We`ll just have to see how it evolves."

As of late last week, the 3rd Infantry Division had 15,900 soldiers in Iraq, part of a total U.S. force in the country of 148,000. Pentagon officials said last week that 142,000 military personnel who had been deployed to fight the war had returned to their home bases, although most of those serve in the Air Force and Navy, leaving the burden in Iraq to ground forces. The current ground force figure is down from its peak of 151,000.

As recently as May, the Bush administration had said it hoped to shrink the American military presence in Iraq to two divisions, by about 30,000 to 40,000 troops, by autumn, with a third division from another country also present, Pentagon officials said.

The announcement about the 3rd Division dashes the hopes for reunion by thousands of Army families, who had been separated up to 10 months from their loved ones.

The division has suffered 36 deaths in the war — more than any other unit — and some of its troops have been in the region since September.

"All I know is there`s a lot of disappointed families here, that`s for sure," said Olson, the division spokesman. "There was great hope, and people had really inscribed that September date in their minds and hearts. And the announcement today retracts the hope."

Lawrence Di Rita, a senior Rumsfeld aide and the acting Pentagon spokesman, minimized the significance of the delay in pulling out 3rd Infantry Division troops, saying plans are to bring the soldiers home "in the fall."

"The details of the redeployment are complex and subject to discussion and change, but the expectation remains that the rest of the division will be back to the U.S. by sometime in the fall," Di Rita said.

He said the delay in redeploying the troops was unrelated to the security situation in Iraq.

"That`s absolutely not what`s under discussion," Di Rita said. "What`s under discussion is how do you prepare for an orderly redeployment of these forces? There has been no change in the overall plans for the 3rd Division."

Two-Thirds Affected

The announcement affects about two-thirds of the division`s soldiers. They are the 4,500 troops of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, another 4,500 of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, about 800 of the 3rd Squadron 7th Cavalry, about 500 from the division`s headquarters and headquarters support commands and about 100 from the headquarters engineer brigade.

Those soldiers, a terse announcement from the division`s headquarters said, "will remain in Iraq to maintain the current force level."

A third combat brigade and a number of the division`s smaller companies and battalions, which had already begun leaving Iraq, will return home in August.

Last week Franks and Rumsfeld parried persistent questions from lawmakers on the future of the division`s soldiers — many of whom have recently complained openly about their long deployments — by pointing to the impending return of the troops.

On Wednesday, Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "the rotation out of Iraq is already starting.... The 2nd Brigade is — the plan is they would return in August ... and the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division is scheduled to return in September," he said.

Rumsfeld added that it was important to develop a rotation plan so "that we treat these young men and young women in a way that`s respectful of their lives and their circumstances and the wonderful job they did."

The next day Franks told the House Armed Services Committee that the withdrawal was certain.

"That great division, sir, one of the brigades — there are three brigades in that division, and one of them is beginning its redeployment now ... the second will begin its redeployment next month, and the third and final brigade of the 3rd Infantry will be out of Iraq by September."

The comments by Rumsfeld and Franks were based on a July 7 announcement from the division`s commander in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, that a timeline had been set for the return of the soldiers.

But on Monday, Blount told soldiers the decision to send them home had been reversed.

"Generally speaking, two-thirds of the division will remain there indefinitely. It will be announced when they`re released from their commitment," Olson said.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers said the news was sure to hurt morale in the Army, which has been shouldering the burden in Iraq since President Bush announced an end to major combat operations there on May 1. They also said the news demonstrates that the war on terrorism has overburdened the Army.

"The soldiers were led to believe they would not be long. In fact, they were told they would be going home in September," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. "No. 1, that will not help morale at all. No. 2 ... we need a larger Army. We need more soldiers so we can rotate more readily and more easily."


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THE WORLD



Top Al Qaeda Agent in Iran, Official Says
Spokesman Abu Ghaith and several others are in custody, the source reports. U.S. is skeptical.
By Azadeh Moaveni
Times Staff Writer

July 15, 2003

TEHRAN — Iran has custody of several high-ranking Al Qaeda members, including spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith, a senior reformist official close to Iran`s president said over the weekend. Diplomats in Tehran representing three countries also say that, based on their intelligence, Abu Ghaith is among those in custody.

The senior Iranian official declined to say how or when Abu Ghaith and the others had been apprehended or where they were being held. However, diplomats from another country indicated that Abu Ghaith, a native of Kuwait, had been in custody at least since June.

Diplomats said they believed the detainees were in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, a region in eastern Iran populated by Sunni Muslims sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

U.S. officials were skeptical. "Everybody on the U.S. side has been saying, `Not to our knowledge,` " said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We did have knowledge of a number of Al Qaeda people in Iran under some circumstance, rumors of them being taken into some kind of custody, the nature of which is unclear. Abu Ghaith is one of them."

Abu Ghaith has appeared on a number of video and audiotapes taking responsibility for Al Qaeda attacks, including a bombing at a Kenyan hotel last year that killed 16 people. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, he appeared in a video and vowed that a "storm of airplanes" would continue to strike American targets until the U.S. ended its "crusade" against Afghanistan and Islam.

Western nations, including the U.S., have for months alleged that Al Qaeda members are in Iran. Tehran has said it has arrested a number of suspected Al Qaeda members, but it has kept the number of detainees and their identities tightly guarded.

What Iran intends to do with those in its custody is complicated by long-standing fractures among the different Iranian state institutions, such as the Intelligence Ministry, nominally under the control of reformist President Mohammad Khatami; the Revolutionary Guards, loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and the hard-line judiciary, controlled by powerful clerics.

The senior reformist official said Iran has been seeking to exchange information about those in custody in return for guarantees from Western governments to, in effect, shut down the Moujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian opposition group that wants to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran. The Iranians want the group`s activities to be banned in Iraq, its longtime base of operations, as well as in Europe.

While Iran has been eager to appear cooperative in the war on terrorism and there are indications that it may be willing to extradite those in its custody, it appears highly unlikely they would be handed over directly to the United States.

`Axis of Evil`

Decades-old animosity with Washington, aggravated by President Bush`s labeling Iran a member of an "axis of evil," has left Tehran reluctant to do any favors for the U.S. The hard-line Khamenei has refused to allow militants to be turned over to the United States, the senior Iranian official said. Reformists in the government, however, hope that cooperation over Al Qaeda can ease tensions with the West on a range of issues.

Further complicating any discussion of extraditions, the senior official said, is that the militants` countries of origin are hesitant to accept them.

"Say we return Abu Ghaith to Kuwait," said the official. "It could spark a revolution. Half of Kuwait listens to his tapes in the car, but the Kuwaitis would either have to execute him or turn him over to the U.S. It`s awkward."

Kuwait has revoked Abu Ghaith`s citizenship. Diplomats said Al Qaeda — and Abu Ghaith in particular — were among the subjects discussed when Kuwait`s information minister visited Iran last month.

Iran has also had high-level contacts with Saudi Arabia recently. The head of Iran`s judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, traveled to Saudi Arabia this month; during the visit, unprecedented for an Iranian judiciary chief, Shahroudi met with nearly all of the kingdom`s leadership, diplomats said.

And the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, visited Tehran last month, diplomats said, to talk about Iran`s Al Qaeda detainees, particularly any Saudis among them.

According to the senior Iranian official, optimism for a deal with Western governments was running high this spring, particularly before a suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia`s capital, Riyadh, in May that killed nearly three dozen people and was blamed on Al Qaeda. Iranian hope for such a deal was bolstered when the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq rounded up and disarmed Moujahedeen Khalq members.

Iran`s first step in any deal would have been to tell the West the identity of those it was holding; the hope on both sides was that this might have led to more substantive cooperation. The plan was scuppered at the last minute by a dispute among Iran`s divided political factions over the terms of the bargain, the official said.

Ambitious Plan

Iran`s ambitious agenda for dealing with the suspects — secure a deal over the Moujahedeen Khalq and win points with the West while staying in the good graces of Arab governments and public opinion — has created a set of conditions for any hand-over that one Western diplomat described as "following a classic Iranian pattern of bargaining so hard that the deal is lost."

"As always, we`re losing out on these important chances," the senior Iranian official said, "because we can`t negotiate with the United States directly, and our domestic problems mess things up."

How to deal with the Moujahedeen Khalq — also known by the initials MKO — may be a sticking point in any negotiations. Iranian officials have accused Washington of double standards in the war on terrorism, pressuring Iran to round up suspected Al Qaeda operatives but allowing the MKO — which is on the State Department`s list of terrorist organizations — to retain a presence in Iraq.

Western officials have argued that Iran cannot equate the two organizations and that Tehran would be best served by cooperating rather than trying to drive a hard bargain.

"The MKO doesn`t pose a global, imminent threat on the scale of Al Qaeda," said a Western diplomat in Tehran. "The Iranians accept this, but want to keep the moral high ground so they can link the two issues."

Some countries whose nationals may be among the detainees — Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — are U.S. allies. Tehran fears it cannot rely on assurances from such countries that U.S. officials will not be permitted to interrogate the fugitives and that intelligence relating to their time in Iran will be withheld from Washington. Tehran is concerned that the U.S. could use such information to accuse Iran of support for Al Qaeda.


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Times staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.


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THE WORLD



U.S. Chicken Giveaway Doesn`t Fly in Fallouja
Iraqi imams turn away soldiers offering the frozen birds to win over hearts and minds in a city that has been a center of resistance.
By David Zucchino
Times Staff Writer

July 15, 2003

FALLOUJA, Iraq — Sgt. Jason McGinn`s Humvee convoy pulled up in front of the Saud ibn abi Wakas mosque with a load of frozen chickens Monday.

The chickens, rapidly defrosting in the midday sun, were meant for the needy families of Fallouja. McGinn`s psychological operations unit was making the delivery as part of its efforts to win over clerics and civilians alike in this city west of Baghdad that has been a center of Sunni Muslim resistance to the U.S. military occupation.

The imam, a slender, bearded young man, stared hard at McGinn and shook his head indignantly.

"We would rather eat rocks than eat chickens from Americans," he spat out. "Even the poorest person in Fallouja doesn`t want chickens from you."

McGinn`s unit was brusquely turned away at three of the four mosques it visited. The brushoff was yet another reminder for U.S. soldiers that hostility to the occupation runs deep in many quarters, and that it will take a lot more than frozen chickens to pacify Iraq.

"Hey, it`s a slow process, winning the hearts and minds of the people," McGinn said after driving with the spurned chickens through a hail of rocks and bricks thrown by neighborhood children. "But we`re getting there, slowly but surely."

The 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is charged with controlling Fallouja, has been at it for six weeks. Soldiers have distributed 37,000 gallons of free gasoline and 10,000 military meals. They`re repairing power and water lines and building a park.

Since the brigade arrived here June 4, armed attacks in Fallouja have been dropping steadily.

Fifteen such incidents were reported the first week, and seven in the fourth week, according to brigade figures. Last week, no such incidents were reported, the brigade said.

But Fallouja, which emerged as a center of resistance after U.S. forces killed more than a dozen Iraqis in an April confrontation there, remains emblematic of the stubborn resistance to the occupation. On June 30, a mysterious explosion rocked the Al Hassan ibn Ali mosque, and last week, Iraqi police demonstrated against the continued presence of U.S. soldiers at their compound downtown because the police were concerned about being so close to troops who have been attacked so frequently.

Just to distribute the 2,000 chickens Monday, the brigade sent four Bradley fighting vehicles and nearly a dozen Humvees mounted with machine guns. Soldiers armed with automatic rifles struggled to keep crowds of aggressively curious men and boys from swarming the distribution point.

Mohammed Hamad Fayath, a Fallouja resident who served as an interpreter for McGinn`s unit, said some imams were riled by the sudden arrival of heavily armed soldiers — and did not want to be seen by their followers as cooperating with occupiers.

"Imagine if armed Muslim soldiers went to churches in America to give away chickens," Fayath said. "Would they be welcomed?"

The chicken distribution had been arranged through the city`s mayor and chief imam, U.S. commanders said.

The local leaders — not the Americans — were supposed to have contacted 20 local mosques and come up with names of needy families, but the imams complained that no one had told them that armed American soldiers would turn up at their doors.

The reception was cordial at most of the mosques, said Lt. Robert Woodruff, who directed the distribution of chickens and canned meat. But McGinn`s unit faced a more chilly welcome: Two gunshots rang out as the Americans approached one mosque.

At another, imam Salahideen Khalid Obeid refused to speak to or look at McGinn. Obeid told McGinn`s translator, Fayath, that Americans were not welcome.

McGinn thanked the imam and offered a handshake. Obeid shook his head and coldly folded his arms across his chest.

At a nearby mosque, imam Jasem Abd Alwan was only slightly more conciliatory. After refusing the chickens, he offered an explanation of sorts.

"I can`t satisfy everybody here," he told McGinn through the interpreter. "If I take something from you and there is a problem, I get the blame."

Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, executive officer of the 2nd Brigade, called the hostile reception an aberration. He said most recipients of U.S. humanitarian assistance in Fallouja accept it graciously. He meets regularly with the town`s mayor, police chief and leading imam, Wesley said, and relations are improving.

Woodruff called the chicken operation "90% successful," although he added, "Winning the trust of these people is a long, slow process."

In frustration, McGinn considered using his unit`s Humvee-mounted loudspeakers to invite the town`s residents to come collect the chickens that had been refused by the mosques.

But his interpreter, Fayath, talked him out of it, saying it would attract a huge, unmanageable crowd.

McGinn agreed to allow Fayath to take the Iraqi driver of the refrigerated truck that had originally carried the chickens and deliver the remaining food to the mosques that had turned the Americans down.

"They won`t take it directly from you," Fayath told the sergeant. "But they will take it from me."

McGinn said he was not discouraged by the experience.

"As long as the food gets to the people who need it," he said, "that`s what counts."



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EDITORIAL

Unexplained Leaps

July 15, 2003

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Washington, he shouldn`t hope for respite from the pounding he`s taken over failures to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The U.S. media may be more polite than British tabloidists, but will no doubt grill Blair about British intelligence sources blamed for President Bush`s errant claim in his Jan. 28 State of the Union speech that Iraq was trying to buy enriched uranium from Niger.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer disputes that the administration went to war on the basis of the British claims as "a bunch of bull," while national security advisor Condoleezza Rice uses the word "ludicrous." Fleischer and Rice have a point about the uranium claim`s being a small part of the big picture, but not the one they think.

Other statements about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction program should not be buried in the Niger flap. Many of those claims, although not quite as clear-cut, appear to have been exaggerated. They raise broader questions about the competence of the CIA and about the pressures exerted on the agency.

The most sweeping assessment of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein`s intentions was contained in October`s CIA report "Iraq`s Weapons of Mass Destruction." In it, the CIA made a number of allegations about Iraq`s nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs. The key judgments:

• If left unchecked, Baghdad would probably have a nuclear weapon this decade. If it got enough "fissile material," i.e. uranium, it could build a bomb "within a year."

• Baghdad had begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, including mustard, sarin and VX gases.

• Every aspect of Hussein`s biological weapons programs was "active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War."

• Baghdad was developing missiles capable of delivering weapons payloads, including biological agents, to other nations.

Today, on its Web site, the best the agency can muster is a few pictures of suspected mobile weapons labs. Given this paucity, the jump in the level of CIA alarm from 2001 to 2002 is puzzling. In 2001`s report, the CIA told Congress: "We believe that Iraq has probably continued at least low-level theoretical [research and development] associated with its nuclear program." The 2001 report also said "we are concerned that Iraq may again be producing [biological weapons] agents." Last year, the assertion of such a program was categorical.

The CIA was right to be concerned about Iraq`s intentions, but in 2001 it was not describing an imminent threat to U.S. security. It is far from clear that Congress or ordinary Americans, not to mention the British government, would have supported war to oust a nasty dictator. That is the administration`s real problem.

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EDITORIAL

New Charge for Iraqis

July 15, 2003

Sunday`s inauguration in Baghdad of a 25-person governing council marked a significant step toward what should be a universal goal: Iraq governed by Iraqis. The representative of the United Nations, which opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, called the installation one of the "defining moments in history." That may be hyperbole. But taken with the earlier formation of neighborhood councils and a Baghdad city council, the national panel should start spreading responsibility for governing the country from the U.S. back to Iraqis.

The national panel`s 22 men and three women represent Iraq`s diversity, which can be a source of trouble as well as strength. It is unclear how well representatives of the Kurds will cooperate with the majority Shiite and minority Sunni Muslims and whether these groups will agree on policies. Factions also exist within the religious groups. Democracy is messier than dictatorship.

Quick interviews across the nation showed an unsurprising divide between people happy to see Iraqis getting at least a measure of control and others deriding the council as puppets. The U.S. occupiers chose the new council members, more than half of whom lived in Kurdish-controlled areas or outside Iraq during much or all of Hussein`s reign. The quickest road to acceptance will be for the 25 to take as much power as they can; the occupiers can assist by yielding wherever possible.

The pragmatic retreat in Fallouja could be a model. The city is a Sunni stronghold, rife with admirers of Saddam Hussein and guerrillas trying to kill American troops. U.S. officials reduced the troop presence there last week, a demand of Iraqi police who threatened to walk off the job. If the Iraqis can effectively police the city and prevent attacks on troops and looting of equipment needed to get the electricity turned on, Fallouja can start the return to prewar conditions.

If that progress can be replicated in other cities and regions, the Americans may be able to escape some blame for everything that goes wrong and U.S. troops may become less tempting targets.

The U.S. occupiers retain ultimate authority, but the Iraqi council can appoint interim ministers of government agencies, help draft a budget and set broad national policy. Writing a constitution and keeping the nation from becoming a theocracy on the model of next-door Iran — where Shiites also predominate — will be difficult tasks. But three months after the toppling of Hussein, Iraq is this much more free, facing the challenge of not falling into chaos.



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COMMENTARY


A Firm Basis for Impeachment
Robert Scheer

July 15, 2003

Does the president not read? Does his national security staff, led by Condoleezza Rice, keep him in the dark about the most pressing issues of the day? Or is this administration blatantly lying to the American people to secure its ideological ends?

Those questions arise because of the White House admission that the charge that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was excised from a Bush speech in October 2002 after the CIA and State Department insisted it was unfounded. Bizarrely, however, three months later — without any additional evidence emerging — that outrageous lie was inserted into the State of the Union speech to justify the president`s case for bypassing the United Nations Security Council, for chasing U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and for invading and occupying an oil-rich country.

This weekend, administration sources disclosed that CIA Director George Tenet intervened in October to warn White House officials, including deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley, not to use the Niger information because it was based on a single source. That source proved to be a forged document with glaring inconsistencies.

Bush`s top security aides, led by Hadley`s boss, Rice, went along with the CIA, and Bush`s October speech was edited to eliminate the false charge that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger to create a nuclear weapon.

We now know that before Bush`s January speech, Robert G. Joseph, the National Security Council individual who reports to Rice on nuclear proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger connection was no stronger than it had been in October. It is inconceivable that in reviewing draft after draft of the State of the Union speech, NSC staffers Hadley and Joseph failed to tell Rice that the president was about to spread a big lie to justify going to war.

On national security, the buck doesn`t stop with Tenet, the current fall guy. The buck stops with Bush and his national security advisor, who is charged with funneling intelligence data to the president. That included cluing in the president that the CIA`s concerns were backed by the State Department`s conclusion that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious."

For her part, Rice has tried to fend off controversy by claiming ignorance. On "Meet the Press" in June, Rice claimed, "We did not know at the time — no one knew at the time, in our circles — maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."

On Friday, Rice admitted that she had known the State Department intelligence unit "was the one that within the overall intelligence estimate had objected to that sentence" and that Secretary of State Colin Powell had refused to use the Niger document in his presentation to the U.N. because of what she described as long-standing concerns about its credibility. But Rice also knew the case for bypassing U.N. inspections and invading Iraq required demonstrating an imminent threat. The terrifying charge that Iraq was hellbent on developing nuclear weapons would do the trick nicely.

However, with the discrediting of the Niger buy and the equally dubious citation of a purchase of aluminum tubes (which turned out to be inappropriate for the production of enriched uranium), one can imagine the disappointment at the White House. There was no evidence for painting Saddam Hussein as a nuclear threat.

The proper reaction should have been to support the U.N. inspectors in doing their work in an efficient and timely fashion. We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed — not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered. However, that would have obviated the administration`s key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn`t exist.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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-14-03: News at Home

Column: Things Are Worse Than I Thought
By P. M. Carpenter
Mr. Carpenter holds a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Illinois and is a syndicated columnist.



An appreciable thickness of skin is required to wear the garb of an online correspondent, especially one still inhabiting America`s shrinking isle of sensible progressivism. Write anything on a regular basis that challenges the regnant curiosities of modern conservatism -- itself a 40-year-old admixture of scripture-thumping hypocrites, vapid economic terrorists and taunting man-boy jingoists -- and you`ll become a target for every brow-protruding reactionary who`s learned to manipulate a keyboard without benefit of opposing thumbs.

Almost invariably it is they, the anthropoid ideologues out there, who self-obsess with writing online rebuttals to sociopolitical sanity. Of course, their rebuttals never hit the mark; in fact, these verbal snipers go out of their way to avoid any key argument made in defense or promotion of sanity. Their`s is a tough job, and in that respect only, I feel for them. Tough indeed is the task of intelligently bad-mouthing progressives` reach for such common societal decencies as guaranteed health care, unprivileged education, genuine equal opportunity, a reasonable distribution of national wealth, a competitive marketplace, the subordination of political money to political ideas … you get the drift, even if they don`t.

In lieu of tackling decency head-on -- because, as I say, that`s such an intellectually bruising experience -- our online proctors from the right opt for schoolyard silliness. This commentator, for one, has been called by right-wing overseers all manner of swine: a non-recovering communist, an atavistic leftist moron, a Stalinist and Trotskyite (try reconciling those two), a Saddam Hussein-lover, a Luddite (ok, perhaps a nolo contendere on that), a Leveler and, in general, a bonehead. With proper skin density, we are quite amused.

Yet, I did recently receive an email from a friend -- I`m down to the one in this age of alienation -- whose contents cut me to the quick and ravaged my virginity of emotional distance. What my thoughtful friend forwarded was a comment posted somewhere on History News Network by a gentleman reader of same: to wit, that Ann Coulter is to the right what Maureen Dowd, Michael Moore, Michael Lind -- and here was the spleen-wrenching bomb -- P.M. Carpenter are to the left. I was mortified.

I`d sooner adopt a true Stalinist outlook on life than accept any comparison to that fascist harpy of intellectual dishonesty and meagerness, Ann Coulter -- as I`m sure would Ms. Dowd and Messrs. Moore and Lind. The gentleman`s barb hurt like the dickens, chiefly because said gentleman, unlike the usual vat of uneducated, shoot-from-the-hip right-wing loonies, appeared to be a man of intelligence and seemed to believe what he wrote. Ouch! Stop, you`re killing me here.

This fellow of apparent learning concluded his online knifing with, "Let`s not forget those on the left [in part, the above gang of evil, I guess] who routinely support and excuse vastly more brutal figures [than Joe McCarthy] from both past and present." He should have cut that line before pressing "Send," since its tiresome right-wing choral properties somewhat deflected his main thrust. But that`s a digressive point.

So, I hear you asking, what in hell IS the point of all this? My hurt feelings? Hardly.

The point, which I suspect you`ve already suspected, is that the sad political situation in which we find ourselves today is even sadder than I thought. Here was a man clearly awash in mainstream modern conservatism -- and much, much more important, a man of education -- who had sunk to the level of quasi-defending a rabid female dog who herself is daily growing in stature as an "intellectual" voice of the right.

Until reading this learned gentleman`s opinion I had yet to entirely appreciate the stark similarity between conservative American intellectuals of today and those of an Aryan bent ca. early 1930s. That any bona fide thinker on the right would wade anywhere close to uttering any respect for an imbecilic child of what we thought three-score ago was defeated genocidal madness was a blood-curdling realization to me. Naturally the thought of similarity had occurred before -- and with some frequency -- but this individual really drove it home.

We are in big, big trouble.

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Invasion zur Weltverbesserung

Goedart Palm 15.07.2003

Tony Blairs originelles Konzept, die Souveränität fremder Nationen zur militärischen Knetmasse zu machen

Angriff ist die beste Verteidigung. Anders jedenfalls ist die neueste Selbstverteidigungsstrategie des angeschossenen britischen Premierministers Tony Blair kaum mehr zu verstehen (Alles ehrenwerte Männer [1]), die er auf dem Progressive Governance Summit [2], einem Treffen von 14 Staats- und Regierungschefs in der Nähe von London, zum Besten gab. Wenn es schon nicht gelingt, Massenvernichtungswaffen in den Kellern ehemaliger Saddam-Getreuer zu finden und selbst jeder durchwühlte irakische Komposthaufen die Antwort auf quälende Fragen an die Bush- und Blair-Regierungen schuldig bleibt (Endlich gefunden: Die Wahrheitsvernichtungswaffen im hochmobilen Lügenlabor [3]), muss eine andere Lösung gefunden werden. Eine Lösung, die Blair das politische Überleben sichert.

Tony Blair, der smarte Premier, der nicht nur im Fadenkreuz seiner politischen Gegner steht, sondern inzwischen auch von Mitgliedern seiner eigenen Partei zum Rücktritt aufgefordert wird, glaubt die geniale Antwort gefunden zu haben. Heureka: Es gibt noch ganz andere Gründe, sich über die Souveränität fremder Staaten hinwegzusetzen als lediglich der Besitz von völkerbedrohenden Massenvernichtungsmitteln. Was sind schon Massenvernichtungsmittel, wenn es um die allgemeine Glückseligkeit von Menschen in schlecht regierten Staaten geht?

Militärisches Rettungsprogramm bei Staatsversagen

Nach Blair muss daher auch ein Recht bestehen, ein Volk vor dem Versagen seiner eigenen Regierung zu schützen. Wer fremde Souveränität bestreitet, bestreitet allerdings zugleich seine eigene. Oberflächlicher Betrachtung nach wäre Blairs Doktrin auch dann anwendbar, wenn Bundeskanzler Schröder in Großbritannien nach dem Rechten sehen lässt, weil die britische Regierung in kriegentscheidenden Fragen versagt hat. Aber so hat das Tony Blair sicher nicht gemeint. Zusammengefasst lautet die neue Blair-Doktrin, die er den anderen Regierungschefs schmackhaft machen will:

Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.

In diesem Bonus-Pack von Selbstermächtigungen, das die restriktiven Fallkonstellationen [4] des Völkerrechts für Angriffskriege nun vollends liquidieren würde, sticht vor allem der Begriff "state failure", also Staatsversagen, hervor.

Wann versagt eigentlich ein Staat in Blairs Neuer Weltordnung so sehr, dass ihm mit Gewehrläufen der richtige Weg gezeigt werden muss? Wer setzt die Kriterien fest, wann ein Staat versagt hat und wann er selbst nicht mehr willens oder aber unfähig ist, das zu ändern?

Nach Blairs bisherigen politischen Vorgaben kann das sicher nicht vorrangig die UNO sein, sondern eine international verantwortliche Staatengruppe, vermutlich eben jene, die den Irak-Krieg geführt hat. Mit Blairs Doktrin wird nicht die Weltgemeinschaft, sondern werden die stärksten Militärmachthaber der Erde ermächtigt, über das zukünftige Wohl und Wehe des politischen Globus zu entscheiden. Das Völkerrecht, ohnehin ein zartes Pflänzchen mit schwachen Knospen, könnte also demnächst endgültig so zertrampelt werden wie eben jene Regierungen respektive Staaten, die in den Augen der Mächtigen versagen. Gibt es demnächst etwa analog zu den Maastricht-Kriterien die Regel, dass bei Unterschreitung bestimmter Marken des Bruttosozialprodukts und entsprechenden Armutstendenzen in ökonomisch schwachen Gesellschaften der casus belli ausgelöst wird?

Blairs Neue Weltordnung

Blair marschiert weiterhin in den für ihn erheblich zu großen Fußstapfen von George Bush II., der mit seiner Parole des amerikanischen Internationalismus [5] eine weit reichende Hegemonialpolitik freizeichnen wollte. Das völkerrechtliche Prinzip der Nichtintervention wäre nach dieser neuesten Blankettermächtigung kein Prinzip mehr, sondern in kritischen Fällen allenfalls der Ausnahmefall. So reicht Blairs Neue Weltordnung der Missachtung fremder Souveränität noch erheblich weiter als die ohnehin bereits umstrittene humanitäre Ermächtigung der Völkergemeinschaft, die seinerzeit im Kosovo-Konflikt erfunden wurde, um auch ohne UNO-Mandat einen Krieg zu legitimieren.

Blairs Rettungsprogramm für "failing states" mag zwar unerhört im doppelten Wortsinne bleiben, weil etwa Bundeskanzler Schröder dem angeblich eine sofortige Absage erteilte. Aber jenseits der Konsensfähigkeit der neuesten Blankettformel liegt hier ein weiteres Indiz vor, dass die Tage souveräner Nationalstaaten gezählt sein könnten. Wie soll sich eine echte Souveränität erhalten, wenn der innere Zustand einer Gesellschaft zum Kriterium von Nothilfeaktionen fremder Staaten wird? Souveränität, bisher eine heilige Kuh des Völkerrechts, soll nun also endgültig notgeschlachtet werden.

Der blinde Fleck des Blair-Projekts ist der implizite Glaube, das politische System sei für die gesellschaftlichen Zustände im Guten wie im Bösen verantwortlich. Wird nämlich "Staatsversagen" mit gesellschaftlichem Wohlergehen übersetzt, kann bereits eine marode Wirtschaft in Verbindung mit Armut zum Kriegsgrund werden. Blairs Konzept ist - paradox genug - ein Begriff von Staatlichkeit eingeschrieben, der einem modernen soziologischen Begriff von gesellschaftlichen Konstitutionen und Reproduktionen fremd ist. Gerade in Ländern der Dritten Welt ist das Chaos gesellschaftlicher Zustände nicht lediglich eine Funktion unfähiger Regierungen - die es freilich zuhauf gibt -, sondern ein augenscheinlich perennierender Zustand, der die Wachablösungen von Regierungen bequem überdauert.

Blairs Demontage des Prinzips souveräner Staaten ist verdächtig, jene den vormaligen Kolonialstaaten überantwortete fragile Freiheit nun wieder zurückzufordern. Blair mausert sich zum neokolonialistischen Geschichtsrevisionisten mit gefährlich guten Absichten, wenn man für einen Moment den banaleren Grund, seinen eigenen unrettbaren Erklärungsnotstand in Sachen angloamerikanischer "Selbstverteidigungskrieg" gegen den Papiertiger von Bagdad, vergisst.

Erosion der Nationalstaatlichkeit

Alle Demokratien sind gleich, aber einige Demokratien sind ab heute gleicher (Politische Pädagogik oder der Befehl zur Freiheit [6]). Alle Staaten sind souverän, aber einige Staaten sind souveräner. Für alle Staaten gäbe es danach eine innere und eine äußere Legitimation. Erst wenn auch auf der zweiten Stufe internationaler Anerkennung - d.h. gegenwärtig der Anerkennung durch die angloamerikanischen Globalregulatoren - nicht nur die Rechtmäßigkeit, sondern auch die Tauglichkeit eines Staatsapparats bejaht würde, hätte eine Regierung echte Überlebenschancen. Mit dieser neuen Allzuständigkeit der Alliierten auch ohne UNO-Mandat würde in Zukunft auf militärisch starken Nationen ein permanenter Zugzwang lasten, sich in fremde Angelegenheiten einzumischen.

Asien, Afrika, Südamerika böten zahlreiche neue Anwendungsfälle dieser Doktrin. Ganze Gesellschaften und ihre Staaten müssten umgekrempelt bzw. runderneuert werden. Das alles wäre zudem mit dem unauflöslichen Risiko behaftet, das sich jetzt in Afghanistan und im Irak zeigt, dauerhaft instabile Krisenregionen zu zementieren. Für diese Schwäche der humanitären Aufrüstung fremder Gesellschaften hat die Blair-Doktrin freilich noch keine Lösung gefunden. Paul Kennedys Aussagen zum Aufstieg und Fall der großen Mächte durch immer größere, volkswirtschaftlich nicht mehr zu bewältigende Militärausgaben könnten sich in diesem Selbstverständnis erneut bestätigen, wenn schließlich die selbst ernannten Weltkommissare an eigener Entkräftung untergehen.

So unannehmbar die neueste "carte blanche" erscheint, versteckt sich zumindest aber auch dahinter der Glaube, die Probleme von Gesellschaften aus der Partikularität nationalstaatlicher Perspektiven lösen zu müssen. Auch in Blairs Präskript einer militärisch "befriedeten" Welt nistet ähnlich wie im Antiterror-Kampf [7] die Dialektik, dass die Nationalstaatlichkeit in einer mannigfaltig konnektierten Welt auf beiden Seiten der Front ein antiquiertes Format für gesellschaftliches Handeln ist.

Das macht Blairs Vorschlag gegenwärtig allerdings nicht besser. Völlig überflüssig zu sagen, dass der neu entdeckte britische Internationalismus jetzt nur noch von den Vertretern der Freien Welt gegenzuzeichnen wäre und der wider besseres Wissen vom Zaun gebrochene Irak-Krieg wäre legitim. Tony Blair aber darf weiter regieren. Vielleicht erleben wir indes nur noch die letzten Stoßseufzer des ehedem so relativ geschickt sich selbst inszenierenden Premiers, der den texanischen Tiger reiten wollte und dabei vergessen hat, dass er in Europa lebt. In Alteuropa!

Links

[1] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/mein/15201/1.html
[2] http://www.progressive-governance.net/
[3] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14909/1.html
[4] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14420/1.html
[5] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/13286/1.html
[6] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/mein/14960/1.html
[7] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/11013/1.html

Telepolis Artikel-URL: http://www.telepolis.de/deutsch/inhalt/co/15219/1.html

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COLUMN: The Iraq War, or America Betrayed
James P. Pinkerton





July 15, 2003

One day, this Iraq War will be thought of as the Intellectuals` War. That is, it was a war conceived of by people who possessed more books than common sense, let alone actual military experience.

Disregarding prudence, precedent and honesty, they went off - or, more precisely, sent others off - tilting at windmills in Iraq, chasing after illusions of Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction and false hope about Iraqi enthusiasm for Americanism, and hoping that reality would somehow catch up with their theory. The problem, of course, is that wars are more about bloodletting than book learning.

Tilting at windmills is what Don Quixote did. When I left for Iraq in June, I took along a copy of "The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote," the comic/epic/tragic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. I had never read the book, but I knew of critic Lionel Trilling`s recommendation: "All prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote." And since much of what was said about Iraq was so obviously fiction, I figured that the work would be an enlightening travel companion.

When I got to Cervantes` description of his title character, I knew I was on to something: "He so immersed himself in those romances that he spent whole days and nights over his books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading, his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason."

Quixote`s obsession was chivalry - that is, the medieval knightly code of etiquette and martial arts that supposedly prepared a man for a quest or a crusade. The fact that not much of it had any basis in reality was no deterrent to an active fantasy life. So when Quixote rode off, accompanied by his sidekick, Sancho Panza, he did far more harm than good.

And so it is with the book-fed brainiacs who helped talk George W. Bush into the Iraq War. These people are commonly known as neoconservatives, or "neocons" for short, but they are anything but conservative.

After the Cold War ended, they had a vision of America`s exerting "benevolent global hegemony," in the words of William Kristol and Robert Kagan. To be sure, the United States by then was the world`s only superpower, but bragging about it, exulting in it, was the height of backlash-provoking hubris. It was a radical, not a conservative, stance.

Yet the neocons, armored in academic degrees - well-versed, particularly, in the literature of such past master-propagandists as Leon Trotsky and Leo Strauss - moved easily from their ivory towers to the hearing rooms of Washington. Fired by a sense of mission, driven to spew out as many words as they had taken in, they proved their skills at pamphlet-publishing, sound-biting and bureaucracy-building.

In the 1990s, they expanded or created power bases in existing think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute, or created new operations altogether, such as The Weekly Standard magazine and the Project for a New American Century. Seizing the mantle of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan - neither of whom were around to speak for themselves - they developed their own militant neocon lexicon, a language of American assertion, even aggression, toward China, Russia and, of course, Iraq and much of the Muslim world.

"National greatness," "spreading democracy" and, most portentously, "regime change," were heard from a thousand Beltway tongues. It all sounded good. But all belligerent talk sounds stirring in the abstract, in the web of words that cloaks the realities of warfare.

After 9/11, the neocons went into overdrive. America had been attacked from al-Qaida in Afghanistan, but the intellectuals around President Bush had their own plan for war. According to Bob Woodward`s book, "Bush at War," on Sept. 15, 2001, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz pressed the case to the commander in chief for an immediate attack on . . . Iraq. At that time, Wolfowitz asserted that there was just a "10 to 50 percent chance" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks. But no matter, Iraq, not Afghanistan, was central to the neocon vision of "liberating" the Mideast. Bush wisely chose to move against the Afghan attackers, but apparently, at about the same time, the decision was made to move against Iraq, too.

Meanwhile, neocon word-creations, such as "moral clarity," "axis of evil" and "Bush Doctrine," spread far and wide. These word-weavings were repeated over and over again, in magazines, books and cable news shows. Bush became Winston Churchill, Saddam Hussein became Hitler, the Arabs were ripe for Americanization, and the U.S. military became the sword not only of vengeance, but also of do-gooding and nation-building.

But, in a world that`s mostly gray, "moral clarity" becomes a synonym for tunnel vision. To see something complicated as simple requires that the seer leave out critical details. And thus amid all the intellectual intoxication, a lionized, neocon-ized Bush didn`t worry about such variables as the world reaction to America`s plan, not to mention the Iraqi reaction.

Cervantes would have seen it coming. The tales of chivalric righteousness that Quixote read "took full possession" of his brain, filling the knight-errant with the belief that "the world needed his immediate presence." And so the Man from La Mancha went off to his adventures, plunging into gratuitous battles with the innocent and the harmless - innkeepers, friars, puppeteers, shepherds and their sheep, and, most famously, windmills.

As an aside, one might marvel at Cervantes` gift for pithy phrasing, as well as for memorable images. Phrases such as "every dog has his day," "wild goose chase," "a stone`s throw" and "birds of a feather flock together" pop off the page, like old pals. Yet these phrases linger in the mind because they speak to the human condition. And so when Cervantes indicts Quixote for his willfully monkish removal from practical reality, that`s a lesson for all of us, down to this day.

As the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes has observed, Quixote had a burning faith. What kind of faith? Not really in God; he is a minor part of Quixote`s warped world view. Rather, it is a faith in "universals," derived from his books. "The faith comes from reading," Fuentes concludes about Quixote, "and his reading is a madness."

In their Quixotic madness for war, the Bush people exaggerated, and maybe even fabricated, their "evidence." In their minds, it was all part of the same game. Words had gotten them into positions of power, and now more words, even fictional words, would get them into war.

But there was one saving grace about Quixote: At least he was willing to put his lance where his mouth was; he was willing to live out his thirst for glory. By contrast, few in the Bush Brigade have actually worn their country`s uniform. Their service, even in the Pentagon, consists of sitting in carpeted corner offices. And so it was easy for them to grind out policy, or propaganda, or both, untroubled by firsthand combat experience.

And this is where the Iraq mission passes, in my mind, into the realm of outrage. In my trip there, I met lots of uniformed Americans who had not written any neocon propaganda, but who had obviously read or heard a lot of it. They believed they were there to help the Iraqi people, and they were determined to do their best. To believe that, they had to look past the fact that the United States had to bomb and shoot its way in. But even after "peace" was established, the well-meaning Americans were woefully unprepared for the new mission at hand.

Perhaps because the civilian war-planners believed their own propaganda about a "cakewalk," or perhaps because they just didn`t care about what happened after they got their war, the Americans actually on the hot desert ground had little in the way ofhelping tools. First and most obviously, they didn`t have non-lethal weapons for crowd control, and so many confrontations became deadly incidents, starting up a cycle of violence that spirals further every day.

Second, few of them had been taught the language of the people they were supposedly going to be working with; I did not meet a single American who knew more than a few words of Arabic. Finally, the Pentagon was heavy on tanks for intimidation, but light on techniques for winning hearts and minds, such as immediate plans for rebuilding infrastructure.

Thus the ultimate irony: The war that was schemed and dreamed by eggheads turned out to be just another cracked example of poor planning. The Pentagon may have omnipotence in war, but it lacks common sense in peace.

And so there will be a reckoning, just as there was for Quixote. After 1,000 pages of adventures, Quixote takes sick with a fever. But as his temperature rises, his mind finally clears. "I have acted as a madman," he laments. And he realizes that his nuttiness was brought on by "reading such absurdities." Now, at last, on his death bed, he has come to "abominate and abhor" the books he wasted his life reading.

Will the neocons ever have such a moment of clarity? Maybe some will. But it`s just as likely that in a few years, when the Bush Brigade is out of power, returned to their fellowships and board chairs, they`ll be writing memoirs and giving speeches. They`ll eschew any responsibility for what went wrong in Iraq, even as they settle scores with old interoffice foes. And, of course, they`ll be touting some new "bold plan" for using other people`s children as pawns in some new global gambit.

The honest memoirs will probably come from those who went to Iraq. Indeed, Cervantes himself was a combat veteran; he lost the use of his left hand at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. By the time he published the first volume of Don Quixote in 1605, his Spain had squandered its wealth, its military edge and its great-power status in vainglorious wars across the European continent. So he knew full well just how devastating delusion could be.

My hope is that somewhere in Iraq today, an American in uniform is absorbing it all. And so maybe a novel will be written about men and women on a mission, confident in the righteousness of their cause, doing their best, but nonetheless blundering about. That book will be a comedy, in places, but mostly, it will be a tragedy, because there`s nothing sadder than sincerity and earnestness misled and betrayed.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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Trickle Down Lying; The WMD Hype Gamble Failed and it`s Time for the Bush Regime to Pay, Starting with Cheney`s Impeachment
Rob Kall opednews.com

Wasington Post writer Howard Kurtz says, "But in the bluest of blue-state precincts, it`s hard to tell which emotion is stronger: disgust with Dubya or anger at the American public for failing to share their outrage."


I am outraged. I know, because I hear from my readers that there are many more people who are outraged with the lying in the Whitehouse. It`s a full-fledged, sloppy, incompetent cover-up and it`s only a matter of time before the liars get their due comeuppance. One thing we know is that the CIA told the White house not to use the Nigerian Uranium claims of nuclear threat months before the State of the Union address. Condoleeza Rice already knew. You don`t blame someone for not telling you twice.


It can be a noble gesture, sacrificing yourself for the team. CIA director Tenet may be a stand up guy for falling on the sword for our lying president, but he doesn`t deserve our esteem for covering up for a team that cheats and lies. He already told the president`s people that they shouldn`t use the Nigerian story. They went ahead and used it anyway. They gambled that they`d come up with something, anything that would cover their butts. Sorry team, the gamble failed. Now, even if some weapons of mass destruction are found that still doesn`t cover the cascade of lies that erupted from all over the Bush administration.


The good news is, the longer the Republicans avoid facing the lies, avoid dealing straight on with the fact that Bush`s and Cheney`s and Powell`s and Rice`s and Wolfowitz`s and Perle`s lies mislead the congress into passing the legislation allowing Bush to go to war, the more the American public will see that the unified "team" is a corrupt one. It`s a corrupt team that cheats and lies.

The Post`s Kurtz quotes Wall Street Journal Writer Al Hunt, who says, "
The phony Iraq-Niger deal may be the smoking gun in what was a pervasive pattern of exaggeration and distortion to justify the war against the Iraqi dictator. Some of these claims -- the alleged Baghdad-al Qaeda ties, the extent of his biological and chemical weapons or even his nuclear designs -- reflected selective use of conflicting intelligence.

"The false Niger connection was much more. Yet Congress, under pressure from the White House, is abdicating its responsibility to investigate why the public was misled on such a momentous matter. . . .

"If Bill Clinton could be impeached for lying about sex, or Al Gore discredited for exaggerating his relationship with James Lee Witt, then lying about the reasons for going to war -- whether it was the president or one of his subordinates -- ought to command an inquiry from the people`s representatives."

Kurtz points out and many on the left exasperatedly agree that if Clinton been the perpetrator instead of Bush, the congressional right would be howling shrilly for his head. Instead, they silently allow the pathetic parade of excuses the Whitehouse has brought forward. How long before Bush blames his dog for eating the note from the CIA telling him that the allegations were bogus?

It`s time to start the impeachment momentum. We need to impeach Cheney first. We learned the lesson from Nixon Agnew. What`s the point of getting rid of Bush if Cheney takes his place, since Cheney is far worse than Bush. He`s the man pulling the dummy`s strings. There`s ample evidence that Cheney knew and Cheney lied. Hell, Condoleeza and Rummy will probably be happy to bush, oops, that was a genuine typo. Make that push Dickie to the head of the falling on a sword line.
Agnew was a corrupt vice president and once confronted, he went quietly, leaving little as a legacy except his famous phrase "nattering nabobs" referring to the press. it was good riddance to him and it cleared the way for Nixon to reach a point where he could no longer hide behind lies-- his lies and the lies of his sleazy cronies.

Bush is now in the same boat. Nixon left and Gerald Ford became president. I`d take Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the house and third in succession to the presidency, over Bush in a moment. But, as a reader has pointed out, Nixon appointed Ford to be vice-president after Agnew resigned. The thought of Bush getting to appoint a VP is frightening. I wonder who he`d chose-- Pat Robertson, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh.... or, if he goes tot he house of representatives, there`s Tom DeLay, or from the senate, Rick Santorum.

It will take an outcry from the public to get the impeachment process started, to get the people in the red states, the people who don`t ordinarily follow politics to even find out that Bush lied and soldiers unnecessarily died. . If you wrote to your congressman or senator to protest the war, it`s time to write again to demand at least an investigation. If you protested against the war before, it`s time to protest now against the lies that led us to war. The majority of Americans are not following this story. One poll suggests that over 60% of the population doesn`t know about it. Get the word out.
Rob Kall [e-mail] is publisher of progressive news and opinion website www.opednews.com and organizer of cutting edge meetings , such as the Winter Brain Meeting and the StoryCon Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story, that bring together world leaders in varying fields. He has also been co-developer of several software programs, and inventor of one of the most widely selling biofeedback devices. This article is copyright by Rob Kall, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

http://www.opednews.com/Kall_trickle_down_lying.htm

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from the July 15, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0715/p02s02-uspo.html

Latino vote in `04 is a big enchilada
Democrats make new bid for Hispanic voters - who are now more numerous, independent.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Among all the what-ifs of the contested 2000 presidential election, here`s one: In Miami, the Bush campaign spent more than $800,000 on Spanish-language television ads and Al Gore spent nothing.

If Vice President Gore had fought as hard as George W. Bush did for the Latino vote in Florida, could he have won that critical state? No one will ever know, but Democrats wish they could have that decision over again. Money was partly to blame; the Gore campaign just didn`t have as much as Bush, and chose instead to focus its Florida resources in Tampa and Orlando, where strategists thought they had the best chance of picking up votes.

But the lack of outreach to Miami Latinos - now a far more politically diverse population than just conservative Cuban immigrants - clearly reflected "a misreading of the potential benefit of outreach to the Hispanic community in some of the key battleground states," says Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University.

The Democrats won`t make that mistake again, especially now that Hispanics are the largest minority population in America, at nearly 40 million people. Last Thursday, congressional Democrats unveiled a policy agenda aimed at wooing that voter bloc, highlighting the economy, education, healthcare, civil rights, and immigration.

Democrats have historically commanded a majority of the Latino vote, but not as resoundingly as they win the black vote, which is more than 90 percent Democratic. In 2000, Bush won more of the Hispanic vote (35 percent) than previous Republican presidential nominees. In that election, Hispanics represented 7 percent of voters and blacks 10 percent of voters. If noncitizen Hispanics in the US were to gain citizenship and register, the number of Hispanic voters would double, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington. Hispanics - people of Latin American or Spanish descent - are America`s fastest-growing demographic group. During the 1990s, their population grew 58 percent.

Thus, as never before, the battle is on for this massive swath of voters and potential voters. Democrats acknowledge that their Hispanic agenda contains few new initiatives, and is instead a reaffirmation of their commitment to Hispanic empowerment. Their aim is to make Hispanic voters feel included as part of the larger American mosaic while at the same time targeting issues that particularly affect Latinos, such as immigration.

"Democrats know that Hispanic values are American values," the Democratic plan begins.

"If they [the Democrats] are indeed going to do something, they had better be serious," says Lionel Sosa, a veteran Hispanic media consultant in San Antonio. "They have been giving lip service to the Hispanic vote forever."

He predicts the Democrats will try to woo Hispanic votes with more handouts, and calls that an antiquated approach, dating from the 1960s. Then, Hispanics began identifying with the Democratic Party because of President Kennedy`s Roman Catholic faith and his positioning of the party with the poor and downtrodden. Now, says Mr. Sosa, the Latino community is much more diverse; more Latinos are calling themselves political independents than in the past.

"The message they`re identifying with is opportunity, inclusion in the American dream, being treated as equal Americans," he says.

One area where the Bush administration is seen as having let down Hispanics is in relations with Mexico. During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to make Latin America a foreign policy priority, and as president he followed up with an initiative to grant immigration amnesty to 3 million Mexicans in the US. But the Sept. 11 attacks halted that momentum, and now US-Mexican relations are strained over a variety of issues.

A recent nationwide poll by Sergio Bendixen, a Democratic pollster in Florida, found that 69 percent of Hispanic voters believe Bush has not kept his promise on Latin America. But in the end, it is the same issues that Americans as a whole care about that top the list for Hispanic voters: education (31 percent), jobs and the economy (29), healthcare (10), and Social Security (8).

Within the Democratic Party, the Hispanic vote is also taking on unprecedented importance. For the first time, the first big multi-state primary date - Feb. 3, 2004 - will include two states with large Hispanic populations, New Mexico and Arizona. Dubbed "Hispanic Tuesday," these primaries are presenting the Democrats with an opportunity to fine-tune their message to Hispanic voters.


www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor.

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Teheran (Reuters) - In Iran sind Ölreserven von geschätzten rund 38 Milliarden Barrel (1 Barrel = 159 Liter) Öl und damit eines der größten Reservoire der Welt entdeckt worden.

Die Vorkommen seien in drei benachbarten Ölfeldern in der Nähe der südiranischen Hafenstadt Buschehr gefunden worden, sagte der Generaldirektor der iranischen Oil Development and Engineering Company, Abolhasan Chamuschi, am Montag der Abendzeitung "Kajhan". Ersten Studien zufolge enthalte das Feld Ferdowas rund 30,6 Milliarden Barrel, das Feld Mund 6,63 Milliarden und das Feld Sagheh 1,3 Milliarden Barrel Öl. Eine Sprecherin des Ölministeriums bestätigte Reuters den Zeitungsbericht, nannte aber keine Einzelheiten.

"Die genaue Kapazität wird bald bekannt gegeben werden", sagte Chamuschi. Die Förderung von Schweröl aus diesen Feldern bedürfe einer besonderen Technologie und großer Investitionen. Das Öl ist von hoher Dichte, wodurch es auf dem Weltmarkt weniger wertvoll ist als die meisten der nachgewiesenen iranischen Ölreserven von 90 Milliarden Barrel.

Ein iranischer Experte des Zentrums für globale Energiestudien, Manuchehr Takin, sagte, er denke, das Öl werde wahrscheinlich ein Kandidat für ausländische Investitionen, wenn man die hohen Produktionskosten berücksichtige. "Es ist eine große Menge."

Iran will bis zum Jahr 2005 seine Ölförderung von vier auf fünf Millionen Barrel pro Tag steigern und hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren verstärkt der Erkundung von Reserven und der Gewinnung ausländischer Investoren gewidmet.

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Bitte das Datum des Artikels beachten. Hersh hat Perle erlegt. Ich wünsche ihm weiterhin Waidmansheil.

WHO LIED TO WHOM?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?
Issue of 2003-03-31
Posted 2003-03-24
Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability. It was an important presentation for the Bush Administration. Some Democrats were publicly questioning the President’s claim that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed an immediate threat to the United States. Just the day before, former Vice-President Al Gore had sharply criticized the Administration’s advocacy of preëmptive war, calling it a doctrine that would replace “a world in which states consider themselves subject to law” with “the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the President of the United States.” A few Democrats were also considering putting an alternative resolution before Congress.

According to two of those present at the briefing, which was highly classified and took place in the committee’s secure hearing room, Tenet declared, as he had done before, that a shipment of high-strength aluminum tubes that was intercepted on its way to Iraq had been meant for the construction of centrifuges that could be used to produce enriched uranium. The suitability of the tubes for that purpose had been disputed, but this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, Iraq had attempted to buy five hundred tons of uranium oxide from Niger, one of the world’s largest producers. The uranium, known as “yellow cake,” can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors; if processed differently, it can also be enriched to make weapons. Five tons can produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a bomb. (When the C.I.A. spokesman William Harlow was asked for comment, he denied that Tenet had briefed the senators on Niger.)

On the same day, in London, Tony Blair’s government made public a dossier containing much of the information that the Senate committee was being given in secret—that Iraq had sought to buy “significant quantities of uranium” from an unnamed African country, “despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it.” The allegation attracted immediate attention; a headline in the London Guardian declared, “african gangs offer route to uranium.”

Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also cited Iraq’s attempt to obtain uranium from Niger as evidence of its persistent nuclear ambitions. The testimony from Tenet and Powell helped to mollify the Democrats, and two weeks later the resolution passed overwhelmingly, giving the President a congressional mandate for a military assault on Iraq.

On December 19th, Washington, for the first time, publicly identified Niger as the alleged seller of the nuclear materials, in a State Department position paper that rhetorically asked, “Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?” (The charge was denied by both Iraq and Niger.) A former high-level intelligence official told me that the information on Niger was judged serious enough to include in the President’s Daily Brief, known as the P.D.B., one of the most sensitive intelligence documents in the American system. Its information is supposed to be carefully analyzed, or “scrubbed.” Distribution of the two- or three-page early-morning report, which is prepared by the C.I.A., is limited to the President and a few other senior officials. The P.D.B. is not made available, for example, to any members of the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. “I don’t think anybody here sees that thing,” a State Department analyst told me. “You only know what’s in the P.D.B. because it echoes—people talk about it.”

President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” He commented, “Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”



Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said.

One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.”

The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.

It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.”

The large quantity of uranium involved should have been another warning sign. Niger’s “yellow cake” comes from two uranium mines controlled by a French company, with its entire output presold to nuclear power companies in France, Japan, and Spain. “Five hundred tons can’t be siphoned off without anyone noticing,” another I.A.E.A. official told me.

This official told me that the I.A.E.A. has not been able to determine who actually prepared the documents. “It could be someone who intercepted faxes in Israel, or someone at the headquarters of the Niger Foreign Ministry, in Niamey. We just don’t know,” the official said. “Somebody got old letterheads and signatures, and cut and pasted.” Some I.A.E.A. investigators suspected that the inspiration for the documents was a trip that the Iraqi Ambassador to Italy took to several African countries, including Niger, in February, 1999. They also speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy, after the Ambassador’s return to Rome.

Baute, according to the I.A.E.A. official, “confronted the United States with the forgery: ‘What do you have to say?’ They had nothing to say.”

ElBaradei’s disclosure has not been disputed by any government or intelligence official in Washington or London. Colin Powell, asked about the forgery during a television interview two days after ElBaradei’s report, dismissed the subject by saying, “If that issue is resolved, that issue is resolved.” A few days later, at a House hearing, he denied that anyone in the United States government had anything to do with the forgery. “It came from other sources,” Powell testified. “It was provided in good faith to the inspectors.”

The forgery became the object of widespread, and bitter, questions in Europe about the credibility of the United States. But it initially provoked only a few news stories in America, and little sustained questioning about how the White House could endorse such an obvious fake. On March 8th, an American official who had reviewed the documents was quoted in the Washington Post as explaining, simply, “We fell for it.”



The Bush Administration’s reliance on the Niger documents may, however, have stemmed from more than bureaucratic carelessness or political overreaching. Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections. Then as now, the Security Council was divided, with the French, the Russians, and the Chinese telling the United States and the United Kingdom that they were being too tough on the Iraqis. President Bill Clinton, weakened by the impeachment proceedings, hinted of renewed bombing, but, then as now, the British and the Americans were losing the battle for international public opinion. A former Clinton Administration official told me that London had resorted to, among other things, spreading false information about Iraq. The British propaganda program—part of its Information Operations, or I/Ops—was known to a few senior officials in Washington. “I knew that was going on,” the former Clinton Administration official said of the British efforts. “We were getting ready for action in Iraq, and we wanted the Brits to prepare.”

Over the next year, a former American intelligence officer told me, at least one member of the U.N. inspection team who supported the American and British position arranged for dozens of unverified and unverifiable intelligence reports and tips—data known as inactionable intelligence—to be funnelled to MI6 operatives and quietly passed along to newspapers in London and elsewhere. “It was intelligence that was crap, and that we couldn’t move on, but the Brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world,” the former officer said. There was a series of clandestine meetings with MI6, at which documents were provided, as well as quiet meetings, usually at safe houses in the Washington area. The British propaganda scheme eventually became known to some members of the U.N. inspection team. “I knew a bit,” one official still on duty at U.N. headquarters acknowledged last week, “but I was never officially told about it.”

None of the past and present officials I spoke with were able to categorically state that the fake Niger documents were created or instigated by the same propaganda office in MI6 that had been part of the anti-Iraq propaganda wars in the late nineteen-nineties. (An MI6 intelligence source declined to comment.) Press reports in the United States and elsewhere have suggested other possible sources: the Iraqi exile community, the Italians, the French. What is generally agreed upon, a congressional intelligence-committee staff member told me, is that the Niger documents were initially circulated by the British—President Bush said as much in his State of the Union speech—and that “the Brits placed more stock in them than we did.” It is also clear, as the former high-level intelligence official told me, that “something as bizarre as Niger raises suspicions everywhere.”



What went wrong? Did a poorly conceived propaganda effort by British intelligence, whose practices had been known for years to senior American officials, manage to move, without significant challenge, through the top layers of the American intelligence community and into the most sacrosanct of Presidential briefings? Who permitted it to go into the President’s State of the Union speech? Was the message—the threat posed by Iraq—more important than the integrity of the intelligence-vetting process? Was the Administration lying to itself? Or did it deliberately give Congress and the public what it knew to be bad information?

Asked to respond, Harlow, the C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency had not obtained the actual documents until early this year, after the President’s State of the Union speech and after the congressional briefings, and therefore had been unable to evaluate them in a timely manner. Harlow refused to respond to questions about the role of Britain’s MI6. Harlow’s statement does not, of course, explain why the agency left the job of exposing the embarrassing forgery to the I.A.E.A. It puts the C.I.A. in an unfortunate position: it is, essentially, copping a plea of incompetence.

The chance for American intelligence to challenge the documents came as the Administration debated whether to pass them on to ElBaradei. The former high-level intelligence official told me that some senior C.I.A. officials were aware that the documents weren’t trustworthy. “It’s not a question as to whether they were marginal. They can’t be ‘sort of’ bad, or ‘sort of’ ambiguous. They knew it was a fraud—it was useless. Everybody bit their tongue and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if the Secretary of State said this?’ The Secretary of State never saw the documents.” He added, “He’s absolutely apoplectic about it.” (A State Department spokesman was unable to comment.) A former intelligence officer told me that some questions about the authenticity of the Niger documents were raised inside the government by analysts at the Department of Energy and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. However, these warnings were not heeded.

“Somebody deliberately let something false get in there,” the former high-level intelligence official added. “It could not have gotten into the system without the agency being involved. Therefore it was an internal intention. Someone set someone up.” (The White House declined to comment.)

Washington’s case that the Iraqi regime had failed to meet its obligation to give up weapons of mass destruction was, of course, based on much more than a few documents of questionable provenance from a small African nation. But George W. Bush’s war against Iraq has created enormous anxiety throughout the world—in part because one side is a superpower and the other is not. It can’t help the President’s case, or his international standing, when his advisers brief him with falsehoods, whether by design or by mistake.

On March 14th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally asked Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, to investigate the forged documents. Rockefeller had voted for the resolution authorizing force last fall. Now he wrote to Mueller, “There is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” He urged the F.B.I. to ascertain the source of the documents, the skill-level of the forgery, the motives of those responsible, and “why the intelligence community did not recognize the documents were fabricated.” A Rockefeller aide told me that the F.B.I. had promised to look into it.

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

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Auch was älteres von Chomsky.

ZNet | Terror War

Confronting the Empire

by Noam Chomsky; February 01, 2003


We are meeting at a moment of world history that is in many ways unique – a moment that is ominous, but also full of hope.


The most powerful state in history has proclaimed, loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme. Apart from the conventional bow to noble intentions that is the standard (hence meaningless) accompaniment of coercion, its leaders are committed to pursuit of their “imperial ambition,” as it is frankly described in the leading journal of the foreign policy establishment – critically, an important matter. They have also declared that they will tolerate no competitors, now or in the future. They evidently believe that the means of violence in their hands are so extraordinary that they can dismiss with contempt anyone who stands in their way. There is good reason to believe that the war with Iraq is intended, in part, to teach the world some lessons about what lies ahead when the empire decides to strike a blow -- though “war” is hardly the proper term, given the array of forces.



The doctrine is not entirely new, nor unique to the US, but it has never before been proclaimed with such brazen arrogance – at least not by anyone we would care to remember.



I am not going to try to answer the question posed for this meeting: How to confront the empire. The reason is that most of you know the answers as well or better than I do, through your own lives and work. The way to “confront the empire” is to create a different world, one that is not based on violence and subjugation, hate and fear. That is why we are here, and the WSF offers hope that these are not idle dreams.



Yesterday I had the rare privilege of seeing some very inspiring work to achieve these goals, at the international gathering of the Via Campesina at a community of the MST, which I think is the most important and exciting popular movement in the world. With constructive local actions such as those of the MST, and international organization of the kind illustrated by the Via Campesina and the WSF, with sympathy and solidarity and mutual aid, there is real hope for a decent future.



I have also had some other recent experiences that give a vivid picture of what the world may be like if imperial violence is not limited and dismantled. Last month I was in southeastern Turkey, the scene of some of the worst atrocities of the grisly 1990s, still continuing: just a few hours ago we were informed of renewed atrocities by the army near Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions. Through the 1990s, millions of people were driven out of the devastated countryside, with tens of thousands killed and every imaginable form of barbaric torture. They try to survive in caves outside the walls of Diyarbakir, in condemned buildings in miserable slums in Istanbul, or wherever they can find refuge, barred from returning to their villages despite new legislation that theoretically permits return. 80% of the weapons came from the US. In the year 1997 alone, Clinton sent more arms to Turkey than in the entire Cold War period combined up to the onset of the state terror campaign – called “counterterror” by the perpetrators and their supporters, another convention. Turkey became the leading recipient of US arms as atrocities peaked (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category).


In 1999, Turkey relinquished this position to Colombia. The reason is that in Turkey, US-backed state terror had largely succeeded, while in Colombia it had not. Colombia had the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere in the 1990s and was by far the leading recipient of US arms and military training, and now leads the world. It also leads the world by other measures, for example, murder of labor activists: more than half of those killed worldwide in the last decade were in Colombia. Close to ½ million people were driven from their land last year, a new record. The displaced population is now estimated at 2.7 million. Political killings have risen to 20 a day; 5 years ago it was half that.



I visited Cauca in southern Colombia, which had the worst human rights record in the country in 2001, quite an achievement. There I listened to hours of testimony by peasants who were driven from their lands by chemical warfare – called “fumigation” under the pretext of a US-run “drug war” that few take seriously and that would be obscene if that were the intent. Their lives and lands are destroyed, children are dying, they suffer from sickness and wounds. Peasant agriculture is based on a rich tradition of knowledge and experience gained over many centuries, in much of the world passed on from mother to daughter. Though a remarkable human achievement, it is very fragile, and can be destroyed forever in a single generation. Also being destroyed is some of the richest biodiversity in the world, similar to neighboring regions of Brazil. Campesinos, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians can join the millions in rotting slums and camps. With the people gone, multinationals can come in to strip the mountains for coal and to extract oil and other resources, and to convert what is left of the land to monocrop agroexport using laboratory-produced seeds in an environment shorn of its treasures and variety.



The scenes in Cauca and Southeastern Turkey are very different from the celebrations of the Via Campesina gathering at the MST community. But Turkey and Colombia are inspiring and hopeful in different ways, because of the courage and dedication of people struggling for justice and freedom, confronting the empire where it is killing and destroying.


These are some of the signs of the future if “imperial ambition” proceeds on its normal course, now to be accelerated by the grand strategy of global rule by force. None of this is inevitable, and among the good models for ending these crimes are the ones I mentioned: the MST, the Via Campesina, and the WSF.



At the WSF, the range of issues and problems under intense discussion is very broad, remarkably so, but I think we can identify two main themes. One is global justice and Life after Capitalism – or to put it more simply, life, because it is not so clear that the human species can survive very long under existing state capitalist institutions. The second theme is related: war and peace, and more specifically, the war in Iraq that Washington and London are desperately seeking to carry out, virtually alone.



Let’s start with some good news about these basic themes. As you know, there is also a conference of the World Economic Forum going on right now, in Davos. Here in Porto Alegre, the mood is hopeful, vigorous, exciting. In Davos, the New York Times tells us, “the mood has darkened.” For the “movers and shakers,” it is not “global party time” any more. In fact, the founder of the Forum has conceded defeat: “The power of corporations has completely disappeared,” he said. So we have won. There is nothing left for us to do but pick up the pieces -- not only to talk about a vision of the future that is just and humane, but to move on to create it.



Of course, we should not let the praise go to our heads. There are still a few difficulties ahead.



The main theme of the WEF is “Building Trust.” There is a reason for that. The “masters of the universe,” as they liked to call themselves in more exuberant days, know that they are in serious trouble. They recently released a poll showing that trust in leaders has severely declined. Only the leaders of NGOs had the trust of a clear majority, followed by UN and spiritual/religious leaders, then leaders of Western Europe and economic managers, below them corporate executives, and well below them, at the bottom, leaders of the US, with about 25% trust. That may well mean virtually no trust: when people are asked whether they trust leaders with power, they usually say “Yes,” out of habit.



It gets worse. A few days ago a poll in Canada found that over 1/3 of the population regard the US as the greatest threat to world peace. The US ranks more than twice as high as Iraq or North Korea, and far higher than al-Qaeda as well. A poll without careful controls, by Time magazine, found that over 80% of respondents in Europe regarded the US as the greatest threat to world peace, compared with less than 10% for Iraq or North Korea. Even if these numbers are wrong by some substantial factor, they are dramatic.



Without going on, the corporate leaders who paid $30,000 to attend the somber meetings in Davos have good reasons to take as their theme: “Building Trust.”



The coming war with Iraq is undoubtedly contributing to these interesting and important developments. Opposition to the war is completely without historical precedent. In Europe it is so high that Secretary of “Defense” Donald Rumsfeld dismissed Germany and France as just the “old Europe,” plainly of no concern because of their disobedience. The “vast numbers of other countries in Europe [are] with the United States,” he assured foreign journalists. These vast numbers are the “new Europe,” symbolized by Italy’s Berlusconi, soon to visit the White House, praying that he will be invited to be the third of the “three B’s”: Bush-Blair-Berlusconi – assuming that he can stay out of jail. Italy is on board, the White House tells us. It is apparently not a problem that over 80% of the public is opposed to the war, according to recent polls. That just shows that the people of Italy also belong to the “old Europe,” and can be sent to the ashcan of history along with France and Germany, and others who do not know their place.



Spain is hailed as another prominent member of the new Europe -- with 75% totally opposed to the war, according to an international Gallup poll. According to the leading foreign policy analyst of Newsweek, pretty much the same is true of the most hopeful part of the new Europe, the former Communist countries that are counted on (quite openly) to serve US interests and undermine Europe’s despised social market and welfare states. He reports that in Czechoslovakia, 2/3 of the population oppose participation in a war, while in Poland only ¼ would support a war even if the UN inspectors “prove that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.” The Polish press reports 37% approval in this case, still extremely low, at the heart of the “new Europe.”



New Europe soon identified itself in an open letter in the Wall Street Journal: along with Italy, Spain, Poland and Czechoslovakia – the leaders, that is, not the people – it includes Denmark (with popular opinion on the war about the same as Germany, therefore “old Europe”), Portugal (53% opposed to war under any circumstances, 96% opposed to war by the US and its allies unilaterally), Britain (40% opposed to war under any circumstances, 90% opposed to war by the US and its allies unilaterally), and Hungary (no figures available).



In brief, the exciting “new Europe” consists of some leaders who are willing to defy their populations.



Old Europe reacted with some annoyance to Rumsfeld’s declaration that they are “problem” countries, not modern states. Their reaction was explained by thoughtful US commentators. Keeping just to the national press, we learn that “world-weary European allies” do not appreciate the “moral rectitude” of the President. The evidence for his “moral rectitude” is that “his advisors say the evangelical zeal” comes directly from the simple man who is dedicated to driving evil from the world. Since that is surely the most reliable and objective evidence that can be imagined, it would be improper to express slight skepticism, let alone to react as we would to similar performances by others. The cynical Europeans, we are told, misinterpret Bush’s purity of soul as “moral naiveté” – without a thought that the administration’s PR specialists might have a hand in creating imagery that will sell. We are informed further that there is a great divide between world-weary Europe and the “idealistic New World bent on ending inhumanity." That this is the driving purpose of the idealistic New World we also know for certain, because so our leaders proclaim. What more in the way of proof could one seek?



The rare mention of public opinion in the new Europe treats it as a problem of marketing; the product being sold is necessarily right and honorable, given its source. The willingness of the leaders of the new Europe to prefer Washington to their own populations “threatens to isolate the Germans and French,” who are exhibiting retrograde democratic tendencies, and shows that Germany and France cannot “say that they are speaking for Europe.” They are merely speaking for the people of old and new Europe, who – the same commentators acknowledge -- express “strong opposition” to the policies of the new Europe.



The official pronouncements and the reaction to them are illuminating. They demonstrate with some clarity the contempt for democracy that is rather typical, historically, among those who feel that they rule the world by right.



There are many other illustrations. When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder dared to take the position of the overwhelming majority of voters in the last election, that was described as a shocking failure of leadership, a serious problem that Germany must overcome if it wants to be accepted in the civilized world. The problem lies with Germany, not elites of the Anglo-American democracies. Germany’s problem is that “the government lives in fear of the voters, and that is causing it to make mistake after mistake” – the spokesperson for the right-wing Christian Social Union party, who understands the real nature of democracy.



The case of Turkey is even more revealing. As throughout the region, Turks are very strongly opposed to the war – about 90% according to the most recent polls. And so far the government has irresponsibly paid some attention to the people who elected it. It has not bowed completely to the intense pressure and threats that Washington is exerting to compel it to heed the master’s voice. This reluctance of the elected government to follow orders from on high proves that its leaders are not true democrats. For those who may be too dull to comprehend these subtleties, they are explained by former Ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz, now a distinguished senior statesman and commentator. Ten years ago, he explained, Turkey was governed by a real democrat, Turgut Ozal, who “overrode his countrymen’s pronounced preference to stay out of the Gulf war.” But democracy has declined in Turkey. The current leadership “is following the people,” revealing its lack of “democratic credentials.” “Regrettably,” he says, “for the US there is no Ozal around.” So it will be necessary to bring authentic democracy to Turkey by economic strangulation and other coercive means – regrettably, but that is demanded by what the elite press calls our “yearning for democracy.”



Brazil is witnessing another exercise of the real attitudes towards democracy among the masters of the universe. In the most free election in the hemisphere, a large majority voted for policies that are strongly opposed by international finance and investors, by the IMF and the US Treasury Department. In earlier years, that would have been the signal for a military coup installing a murderous National Security State, as in Brazil 40 years ago. Now that will not work; the populations of South and North have changed, and will not easily tolerate it. Furthermore, there are now simpler ways to undermine the will of the people, thanks to the neoliberal instruments that have been put in place: economic controls, capital flight, attacks on currency, privatization, and other devices that are well-designed to reduce the arena of popular choice. These, it is hoped, may compel the government to follow the dictates of what international economists call the “virtual parliament” of investors and lenders, who make the real decisions, coercing the population, an irrelevant nuisance according to the reigning principles of democracy.



When I was just about to leave for the airport I received another of the many inquiries from the press about why there is so little anti-war protest in the US. The impressions are instructive. In fact, protest in the US, as elsewhere, is also at levels that have no historical precedent. Not just demonstrations, teach-ins, and other public events. To take an example of a different kind, last week the Chicago City Council passed an anti-war resolution, 46-1, joining 50 other cities and towns. The same is true in other sectors, including those that are the most highly trusted, as the WEF learned to its dismay: NGOs and religious organizations and figures, with few exceptions. Several months ago the biggest university in the country passed a strong antiwar resolution – the University of Texas, right next door to George W’s ranch. And it’s easy to continue.



So why the widespread judgment among elites that the tradition of dissent and protest has died? Invariably, comparisons are drawn to Vietnam, a very revealing fact. We have just passed the 40th anniversary of the public announcement that the Kennedy administration was sending the US Air Force to bomb South Vietnam, also initiating plans to drive millions of people into concentration camps and chemical warfare programs to destroy food crops. There was no pretext of defense, except in the sense of official rhetoric: defense against the "internal aggression" of South Vietnamese in South Vietnam and their "assault from the inside" (President Kennedy and his UN Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson). Protest was non-existent. It did not reach any meaningful level for several years. By that time hundreds of thousands of US troops had joined the occupying army, densely-populated areas were being demolished by saturation bombing, and the aggression had spread to the rest of Indochina. Protest among elite intellectuals kept primarily to “pragmatic grounds”: the war was a “mistake” that was becoming too costly to the US. In sharp contrast, by the late 1960s the great majority of the public had come to oppose the war as “fundamentally wrong and immoral,” not “a mistake,” figures that hold steady until the present.



Today, in dramatic contrast to the 1960s, there is large-scale, committed, and principled popular protest all over the US before the war has been officially launched. That reflects a steady increase over these years in unwillingness to tolerate aggression and atrocities, one of many such changes, worldwide in fact. That’s part of the background for what is taking place in Porto Alegre, and part of the reason for the gloom in Davos.



The political leadership is well aware of these developments. When a new administration comes into office, it receives a review of the world situation compiled by the intelligence agencies. It is secret; we learn about these things many years later. But when Bush #1 came into office in 1989, a small part of the review was leaked, a passage concerned with “cases where the U.S. confronts much weaker enemies” – the only kind one would think of fighting. Intelligence analysts advised that in conflicts with “much weaker enemies” the US must win “decisively and rapidly,” or popular support will collapse. It’s not like the 1960s, when the population would tolerate a murderous and destructive war for years without visible protest. That’s no longer true. The activist movements of the past 40 years have had a significant civilizing effect. By now, the only way to attack a much weaker enemy is to construct a huge propaganda offensive depicting it as about to commit genocide, maybe even a threat to our very survival, then to celebrate a miraculous victory over the awesome foe, while chanting praises to the courageous leaders who came to the rescue just in time.



That is the current scenario in Iraq.



Polls reveal more support for the planned war in the US than elsewhere, but the numbers are misleading. It is important to bear in mind that the US is the only country outside Iraq where Saddam Hussein is not only reviled but also feared. There is a flood of lurid propaganda warning that if we do not stop him today he will destroy us tomorrow. The next evidence of his weapons of mass destruction may be a “mushroom cloud,” so National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced in September – presumably over New York. No one in Iraq’s neighborhood seems overly concerned, much as they may hate the murderous tyrant. Perhaps that is because they know that as a result of the sanctions “the vast majority of the country’s population has been on a semi-starvation diet for years,” as the World Health Organization reported, and that Iraq is one of the weakest states in the region: its economy and military expenditures are a fraction of Kuwait’s, which has 10% of Iraq’s population, and much farther below others nearby.



But the US is different. When Congress granted the President authority to go to war last October, it was “to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” We must tremble in fear before this awesome threat, while countries nearby seek to reintegrate Iraq into the region, including those who were attacked by Saddam when he was a friend and ally of those who now run the show in Washington -- and who were happily providing him with aid including the means to develop WMD, at a time when he was far more dangerous than today and had already committed by far his worst crimes.



A serious measure of support for war in the US would have to extricate this “fear factor,” which is genuine, and unique to the US. The residue would give a more realistic measure of support for the resort to violence, and would show, I think, that it is about the same as elsewhere.



It is also rather striking that strong opposition to the coming war extends right through the establishment. The current issues of the two major foreign policy journals feature articles opposing the war by leading figures of foreign policy elites. The very respectable American Academy of Arts and Sciences released a long monograph on the war, trying to give the most sympathetic possible account of the Bush administration position, then dismantling it point by point. One respected analyst they quote is a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who warns that the US is becoming “a menace to itself and to mankind” under its current leadership. There are no precedents for anything like this.



We should recognize that these criticisms tend to be narrow. They are concerned with threats to the US and its allies. They do not take into account the likely effects on Iraqis: the warnings of the UN and aid agencies that millions may be at very serious risk in a country that is at the edge of survival after a terrible war that targeted its basic infrastructure – which amounts to biological warfare -- and a decade of devastating sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and blocked any reconstruction, while strengthening the brutal tyrant who rules Iraq. It is also interesting that the criticisms do not even take the trouble to mention the lofty rhetoric about democratization and liberation. Presumably, the critics take for granted that the rhetoric is intended for intellectuals and editorial writers – who are not supposed to notice that the drive to war is accompanied by a dramatic demonstration of hatred of democracy, just as they are supposed to forget the record of those who are leading the campaign. That is also why none of this is ever brought up at the UN.



Nevertheless, the threats that do concern establishment critics are very real. They were surely not surprised when the CIA informed Congress last October that they know of no link between Iraq and al Qaeda-style terrorism, but that an attack on Iraq would probably increase the terrorist threat to the West, in many ways. It is likely to inspire a new generation of terrorists bent on revenge, and it might induce Iraq to carry out terrorist actions that are already in place, a possibility taken very seriously by US analysts. A high-level task force of the Council on Foreign Relations just released a report warning of likely terrorist attacks that could be far worse than 9-11, including possible use of WMD right within the US, dangers that become “more urgent by the prospect of the US going to war with Iraq.” They provide many illustrations, virtually a cook-book for terrorists. It is not the first; similar ones were published by prominent strategic analysts long before 9-11.



It is also understood that an attack on Iraq may lead not just to more terror, but also to proliferation of WMD, for a simple reason: potential targets of the US recognize that there is no other way to deter the most powerful state in history, which is pursuing “America’s Imperial Ambition,” posing serious dangers to the US and the world, the author warns in the main establishment journal, Foreign Affairs. Prominent hawks warn that a war in Iraq might lead to the “greatest proliferation disaster in history.” They know that if Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, the dictatorship keeps them under tight control. They understand further that except as a last resort if attacked, Iraq is highly unlikely to use any WMD it has, thus inviting instant incineration. And it is also highly unlikely to leak them to the Osama bin Ladens of the world, which would be a terrible threat to Saddam Hussein himself, quite apart from the reaction if there is even a hint that this might take place. But under attack, the society would collapse, including the controls over WMD. These would be “privatized,” terrorism experts point out, and offered to the huge “market for unconventional weapons, where they will have no trouble finding buyers.” That really is a “nightmare scenario,” just as the hawks warn.



Even before the Bush administration began beating the war drums about Iraq, there were plenty of warnings that its adventurism was going to lead to proliferation of WMD, as well as terror, simply as a deterrent. Right now, Washington is teaching the world a very ugly and dangerous lesson: if you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible military threat, including WMD. Otherwise we will demolish you in pursuit of the new “grand strategy” that has caused shudders not only among the usual victims, and in “old Europe,” but right at the heart of the US foreign policy elite, who recognize that “commitment of the US to active military confrontation for decisive national advantage will leave the world more dangerous and the US less secure” – again, quoting respected figures in elite journals.



Evidently, the likely increase of terror and proliferation of WMD is of limited concern to planners in Washington, in the context of their real priorities. Without too much difficulty, one can think of reasons why this might be the case, not very attractive ones.



The nature of the threats was dramatically underscored last October, at the summit meeting in Havana on the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, attended by key participants from Russia, the US, and Cuba. Planners knew at the time that they had the fate of the world in their hands, but new information released at the Havana summit was truly startling. We learned that the world was saved from nuclear devastation by one Russian submarine captain, Vasily Arkhipov, who blocked an order to fire nuclear missiles when Russian submarines were attacked by US destroyers near Kennedy’s “quarantine” line. Had Arkhipov agreed, the nuclear launch would have almost certainly set off an interchange that could have “destroyed the Northern hemisphere,” as Eisenhower had warned.



The dreadful revelation is particularly timely because of the circumstances: the roots of the missile crisis lay in international terrorism aimed at “regime change,” two concepts very much in the news today. US terrorist attacks against Cuba began shortly after Castro took power, and were sharply escalated by Kennedy, leading to a very plausible fear of invasion, as Robert McNamara has acknowledged. Kennedy resumed the terrorist war immediately after the crisis was over; terrorist actions against Cuba, based in the US, peaked in the late 1970s continued 20 years later. Putting aside any judgment about the behavior of the participants in the missile crisis, the new discoveries demonstrate with brilliant clarity the terrible and unanticipated risks of attacks on a “much weaker enemy” aimed at “regime change” – risks to survival, it is no exaggeration to say.



As for the fate of the people of Iraq, no one can predict with any confidence: not the CIA, not Donald Rumsfeld, not those who claim to be experts on Iraq, no one. Possibilities range from the frightening prospects for which the aid agencies are preparing, to the delightful tales spun by administration PR specialists and their chorus. One never knows. These are among the many reasons why decent human beings do not contemplate the threat or use of violence, whether in personal life or international affairs, unless reasons have been offered that have overwhelming force. And surely nothing remotely like that has been offered in the present case, which is why opposition to the plans of Washington and London has reached such scale and intensity.



The timing of the Washington-London propaganda campaign was so transparent that it too has been a topic of discussion, and sometimes ridicule, right in the mainstream. The campaign began in September of last year. Before that, Saddam was a terrible guy, but not an imminent threat to the survival of the US. The “mushroom cloud” was announced in early September. Since then, fear that Saddam will attack the US has been running at about 60-70% of the population. “The desperate urgency about moving rapidly against Iraq that Bush expressed in October was not evident from anything he said two months before,” the chief political analyst of United Press International observed, drawing the obvious conclusion: September marked the opening of the political campaign for the mid-term congressional elections. The administration, he continued, was “campaigning to sustain and increase its power on a policy of international adventurism, new radical preemptive military strategies, and a hunger for a politically convenient and perfectly timed confrontation with Iraq.” As long as domestic issues were in the forefront, Bush and his cohorts were losing ground – naturally enough, because they are conducting a serious assault against the general population. “But lo and behold! Though there have been no new terrorist attacks or credible indications of imminent threat, since the beginning of September, national security issues have been in the driver’s seat,” not just al Qaeda but an awesome and threatening military power, Iraq.



The same observations have been made by many others. That’s convenient for people like us: we can just quote the mainstream instead of giving controversial analyses. The Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate I quoted before writes that Bush and Co. are following “the classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into nationalism," inspired by fear of enemies about to destroy us. That strategy is of critical importance if the "radical nationalists" setting policy in Washington hope to advance their announced plan for "unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority," while conducting a major assault against the interests of the large majority of the domestic population.



For the elections, the strategy worked, barely. The Fall 2002 election was won by a small number of votes, but enough to hand Congress to the executive. Analyses of the election found that voters maintained their opposition to the administration on social and economic issues, but suppressed these issues in favor of security concerns, which typically lead to support for the figure in authority – the brave cowboy who must ride to our rescue, just in time.



As history shows, it is all too easy for unscrupulous leaders to terrify the public, with consequences that have not been attractive. That is the natural method to divert attention from the fact that tax cuts for the rich and other devices are undermining prospects for a decent life for large majority of the population, and for future generations. When the presidential campaign begins, Republican strategists surely do not want people to be asking questions about their pensions, jobs, health care, and other such matters. Rather, they should be praising their heroic leader for rescuing them from imminent destruction by a foe of colossal power, and marching on to confront the next powerful force bent on our destruction. It could be Iran, or conflicts in the Andean countries: there are lots of good choices, as long as the targets are defenseless.



These ideas are second nature to the current political leaders, most of them recycled from the Reagan administration. They are replaying a familiar script: drive the country into deficit so as to be able to undermine social programs, declare a “war on terror” (as they did in 1981) and conjure up one devil after another to frighten the population into obedience. In the `80s it was Libyan hit-men prowling the streets of Washington to assassinate our leader, then the Nicaraguan army only two-days march from Texas, a threat to survival so severe that Reagan had to declare a national emergency. Or an airfield in Grenada that the Russians were going to use to bomb us (if they could find it on a map); Arab terrorists seeking to kill Americans everywhere while Qaddafi plans to “expel America from the world,” so Reagan wailed. Or Hispanic narcotraffickers seeking to destroy the youth; and on, and on.



Meanwhile the political leadership were able to carry out domestic policies that had generally poor economic outcomes but did create wealth for narrow sectors while harming a considerable majority of the population – the script that is being followed once again. And since the public knows it, they have to resort to “the classic modern strategy of an endangered right wing oligarchy” if they hope to carry out the domestic and international programs to which they are committed, perhaps even to institutionalize them so they will be hard to dismantle when they lose control.



Of course, there is much more to it than domestic considerations – which are of no slight importance in themselves. The September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control of Iraq`s immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian Gulf resources that the State Department, in 1945, described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history." US intelligence predicts that these will be of even greater significance in the years ahead. The issue has never been access. The same intelligence analyses anticipate that the US will rely on more secure supplies in the Western hemisphere and West Africa. The same was true after World War II. What matters is control over the "material prize," which funnels enormous wealth to the US in many ways, Britain as well, and the "stupendous source of strategic power," which translates into a lever of “unilateral world domination” -- the goal that is now openly proclaimed, and is frightening much of the world, including “old Europe” and the conservative establishment in the US.



I think a realistic look at the world gives a mixed picture. There are many reasons to be encouraged, but there will be a long hard road ahead.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Focus Iraq: At A Glance
UPDATED: 11:18 a.m. EDT July 15, 2003



IRAQ-POSTWAR

Iraq`s new governing council says it will set up tribunals to hear criminal cases brought against former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime. However, the group, Human Rights Watch, warns against having former victims of Saddam and his regime serve as judges over accused tormentors.
The U.S. administrator for Iraq says the length of time American forces stay in the country is up to the Iraqi people.
An Iraqi town known as a hotbed of U.S. resistance now is openly opposing Iraq`s new governing council. The city council of Fallujah is rejecting the national group`s authority, saying it was selected along ethnic lines.
Iraq`s first postwar national political body will begin forming a Cabinet next week, a spokesman for one group on the council said Tuesday, scoffing at criticism that it won`t have serious authority.
One of the members of Iraq`s newly selected governing council says once Iraq has an elected parliament and security is brought under control, the American and British troops should leave immediately.
A top U.N. weapons hunter says it would have been "virtually impossible" for Iraq to revive a nuclear bomb program with equipment recently dug up from a Baghdad backyard, as the Bush administration contends.
The U.S. Army says thousands of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers will remain in Iraq because of attacks against coalition forces, dashing hopes that the troops would be home this summer. The division`s commander had said last week that he`d hoped they would be going home within the next six weeks.
It`s the second time 3rd Infantry soldiers have seen the Army back off from a tentative return date, and some family members are upset. After President Bush declared the heavy fighting over May first, many families were told to prepare for homecomings in June.
Britain`s foreign secretary says that all Iraq`s hospitals and 98 percent of its schools have reopened. But Jack Straw says attacks by remnants of Saddam Hussein`s regime still hamper reconstruction work. He says attacks by Saddam loyalists in Baghdad have left the capital receiving only 70 to 90 percent of its prewar water supply.

FRANCE-IRAQ
French President Jacques Chirac has dismissed any possibility that French forces will be sent to Iraq without a U.N. mandate. Chirac is quoted as saying that the participation of French troops in Iraq "cannot be imagined in the current context."

TURKEY-US-IRAQ
Turkey and the United States could be facing another diplomatic conflict over the American capture of Turkish soldiers. Turkey has released a statement saying both it and the United States regretted the incident. But a U.S. official says Washington hasn`t yet approved any such statement of regret.

RUSSIA-US-IRAQ
Russia has stressed its demand that the United States provide for the security of the Russian Embassy in Baghdad, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

UN-IRAQ-RITTER
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter released a new book, accusing President Bush of illegally attacking Iraq and calling for "regime change" in the United States at the next election. Ritter, a former U.S. Marine, was a weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration`s policy on Iraq.

BLAIR-IRAQ
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to address Congress Thursday, and he is certain to face questions about now-discredited British intelligence reports used to bolster the case for war.
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

[Joerver]

Sunday, July 13, 2003

P-I Focus: Power of presidency resides in language as well as law

By RENANA BROOKS
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST

George W. Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language.

What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language -- especially negatively charged emotional language -- as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others.

Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration.

While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and theologians, such as Josef Pieper.

But little has been said about the key role it has come to play in political discourse and in such "hot media" as talk radio and television.

Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender to his will. The first is empty language. This term refers to broad statements that are so abstract and mean so little that they are virtually impossible to oppose. Empty language is the emotional equivalent of empty calories.

Just as we seldom question the content of potato chips while enjoying their pleasurable taste, recipients of empty language are usually distracted from examining the content of what they are hearing. Dominators use empty language to conceal faulty generalizations; to ridicule viable alternatives; to attribute negative motivations to others, thus making them appear contemptible; and to rename and "reframe" opposing viewpoints.

Bush`s 2003 State of the Union speech contained 39 examples of empty language. He used it to reduce complex problems to images that left the listener relieved that George W. Bush was in charge. Rather than explaining the relationship between malpractice insurance and skyrocketing health care costs, Bush summed up: "No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit." The multiple fiscal and monetary policy tools that can be used to stimulate an economy were downsized to: "The best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place." The controversial plan to wage another war on Iraq was simplified to: "We will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people." In an earlier study, I found that in the 2000 presidential debates Bush used at least four times as many phrases containing empty language as Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Senior or Gore had used in their debates.

Another of Bush`s dominant-language techniques is personalization. By personalization I mean localizing the attention of the listener on the speaker`s personality. Bush projects himself as the only person capable of producing results. In his post-9/11 speech to Congress he said, "I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." He substitutes his determination for that of the nation`s. In the 2003 State of the Union speech he vowed, "I will defend the freedom and security of the American people." Contrast Bush`s "I will not yield" etc. with John F. Kennedy`s "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

The word "you" rarely appears in Bush`s speeches. Instead, there are numerous statements referring to himself or his personal characteristics of folksiness, confidence, righteous anger or determination as the answer to the problems of the country. Even when Bush uses "we," as he did many times in the State of the Union speech, he does it in a way that focuses attention on himself. For example, he stated: "Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility."

In the Jan. 16 New York Review of Books, Joan Didion highlighted Bush`s high degree of personalization and contempt for argumentation in presenting his case for going to war in Iraq. As Didion writes: " `I made up my mind,` he had said in April, `that Saddam needs to go.` This was one of many curious, almost petulant statements offered in lieu of actually presenting a case. I`ve made up my mind, I`ve said in speech after speech, I`ve made myself clear. The repeated statements became their own reason."

Poll after poll demonstrates that Bush`s political agenda is out of step with most Americans` core beliefs. Yet the public, their electoral resistance broken down by empty language and persuaded by personalization, is susceptible to Bush`s most frequently used linguistic technique: negative framework. A negative framework is a pessimistic image of the world. Bush creates and maintains negative frameworks in his listeners` minds with a number of linguistic techniques borrowed from advertising and hypnosis to instill the image of a dark and evil world around us.

Catastrophic words and phrases are repeatedly drilled into the listener`s head until the opposition feels such a high level of anxiety that it appears pointless to do anything other than cower.

Psychologist Martin Seligman, in his extensive studies of "learned helplessness," showed that people`s motivation to respond to outside threats and problems is undermined by a belief that they have no control over their environment. Learned helplessness is exacerbated by beliefs that problems caused by negative events are permanent; and when the underlying causes are perceived to apply to many other events, the condition becomes pervasive and paralyzing.

Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems. In his Sept. 20, 2001, speech to Congress on the 9/11 attacks, he chose to increase people`s sense of vulnerability: "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. ... I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight. ... Be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat." (Subsequent terror alerts by the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security have maintained and expanded this fear of unknown, sinister enemies.)

Contrast this rhetoric with Franklin Roosevelt`s speech delivered the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He said: "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. ... There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God." Roosevelt focuses on an optimistic future rather than an ongoing threat to Americans` personal survival.

All political leaders must define the present threats and problems faced by the country before describing their approach to a solution, but the ratio of negative to optimistic statements in Bush`s speeches and policy declarations is much higher, more pervasive and more long-lasting than that of any other president.

Let`s compare "crisis" speeches by Bush and Ronald Reagan, the president with whom he most identifies himself. In Reagan`s Oct. 27, 1983, televised address to the nation on the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, he used 19 images of crisis and 21 images of optimism, evenly balancing optimistic and negative depictions. He limited his evaluation of the problems to the past and present tense, saying only that "with patience and firmness we can bring peace to that strife-torn region and make our own lives more secure."

Bush`s Oct. 7, 2002, major policy speech on Iraq, on the other hand, began with 44 consecutive statements referring to the crisis and citing a multitude of possible catastrophic repercussions. The vast majority of these statements imply that the crisis will last into the indeterminate future. There is also no specific plan of action. The absence of plans is typical of a negative framework, and leaves the listener without hope that the crisis will ever end.

Contrast this with Reagan, who, a third of the way into his explanation of the crisis in Lebanon, asked the following: "Where do we go from here? What can we do now to help Lebanon gain greater stability so that our Marines can come home? Well, I believe we can take three steps now that will make a difference."

To create a dependency dynamic between him and the electorate, Bush describes the nation as being in a perpetual state of crisis and then attempts to convince the electorate that it is powerless and that he is the only one with the strength to deal with it. He attempts to persuade people they must transfer power to him, thus crushing the power of the citizen, the Congress, the Democratic Party, even constitutional liberties, to concentrate all power in the imperial presidency and the Republican Party.

Bush`s political opponents are caught in a fantasy that they can win against him simply by proving the superiority of their ideas. However, people do not support Bush for the power of his ideas, but out of the despair and desperation in their hearts. Whenever people are in the grip of a desperate dependency, they won`t respond to rational criticisms of the people they are dependent on. They will respond to plausible and forceful statements and alternatives that put the American electorate back in touch with their core optimism. Bush`s opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism in the coming years. They should heed the example of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter and the "national malaise"; Franklin Roosevelt, who used it against Hoover and the pessimism induced by the Depression ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"); and Clinton (the "Man from Hope"), who used positive language against the senior Bush`s lack of vision. This is the linguistic prescription for those who wish to retire Bush in 2004.

Renana Brooks, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Washington, D.C. She heads the Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion (www.sommetinstitute.org) and is completing a book on the virtue myth and the conservative culture of domination. Reprinted with permission from the June 30 issue of The Nation.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/130534_focusecond13.ht…

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`Hinesville is the armpit of the world. Right now, I`ll take the armpit`
Jonathan Steele in Fallujah
Wednesday July 16, 2003
The Guardian

The doodles on the desk at the guardhouse tell it all. "Stuck here forever," an angry sergeant at the sand-blown US army base outside this desert town has scrawled with a felt-tip pen, alongside some scatological sketches.

As convoys of Humvees with bored and sweaty soldiers manning roof-mounted machine guns trundle remorselessly past them - out for yet another circular patrol, in for another grim night of Fox TV and no alcohol - the sergeants who man the gates mutter over the glum news.

Ten months after they left their home base in Hinesville, Georgia, for what they thought was going to be a six-month peacetime jaunt in Kuwait, they are in Iraq and staying.

This is the headquarters of the 2nd brigade of the 3rd infantry division. Their combat teams have roughly 4,500 soldiers and all were plunged in gloom yesterday.

On Monday their commander, Major General Buford C Blount, told them their tour of duty was not yet over. Their promised return by the end of July had been postponed again.

The reason? The growing attacks on American forces in Iraq and the manifest unwillingness of other professional armies, such as the Germans and French, to share the burden.They would have to soldier on "due to the uncertainty of the situation in Iraq and the recent increase in attacks on the coalition forces", General Blount said in a radio message to the troops and an email message to their spouses back home.

Deep inside the base Staff Sergeant Anthony Joseph, the brigade`s press liaison officer, sits in a makeshift office in what was once a kitchen. Pale green tiles line the walls. The window is too high to look out, and two taps stick out behind him. "We occasionally hear rumblings. If the water ever comes back on, I`m going to be flooded out." he quips.

Casualties

But gloom resumes fast. "We are the only division which fought this entire war and is still in Iraq," he says. "We never knew there would be a war when we left home in September last year. We fought all the way up from Kuwait through southern Iraq. `The quickest way home is through Baghdad`, they told us. So we took the city, and here we are still."

No unit took more casualties than the 3rd infantry during the war: 36 in all. Yet one of the division`s early sources of bitterness was the fact that the Marines took credit for capturing the Iraqi capital.

"The 3rd division`s 1st brigade took Baghdad airport and our 2nd brigade was in Baghdad on April 5," says Sergeant Joseph. "We did a `thunder run` with tanks that day and on April 7 we went into Baghdad with 2,000 troops and took it.

"But it was only when the Marines came in on the east side of the river on April 9 and took up positions outside the Palestine hotel where all the media were that people thought Baghdad had fallen. We were already in there. The Marines even fired on us, thinking our tanks must be Iraqi. We had to radio them to stop it."

The brigade`s second blow came when it was told to move to Fallujah instead of going home. Thirty miles west of Baghdad, Fallujah was a hotbed of tension in April after US troops shot and killed 14 demonstrators.

In the two months the brigade has been in the town, a fragile calm has returned. It has not been through superior fire-power but thanks to an injection of sensitivity. The brigade has helped to train a revamped local police force. It has flooded the town with contracts for repairing looted schools and other public buildings. It has started a dialogue with the mayor.

Last week the mayor asked the brigade to end its patrols through the town and abandon its small base on the main street and leave security to the locals. The brigade commander agreed. Now troops only patrol the areas round the town.

No troops have been killed in attacks. The brigade`s first fatal postwar casualty came early this week - in Baghdad where a convoy was travelling.

But tension is always high, routine is oppressive, and isolation from home growing longer by the day. Phone calls are limited to 10 minutes, and even then soldiers have to queue for three hours to make one. Letters takes a month. Internet access is restricted to 10 minutes.

Officers claim the men`s fighting morale is unaffected by the latest delay in going home. "When we heard General Blount telling us on the radio we had to stay, we shook our heads and said `We knew,we knew it`," says Captain John Ives, who runs the brigade`s civil-military assistance centre from an office in the town hall.

His latest assignment is to take delivery of an army gift of 1,000 bottles of cooking gas to be given to local families. "I left home just after my son`s first birthday. If we go home in September as they promise, he`ll have had a year without me. But that date is like jello.You know, it wobbles back and forth, no stability.

"After we got the news, we just sat in the officers` house, and quit for two hours. We drank coke and seethed. Then we got up. No more complaints. That was our strike."

Vast vehicle parks are spread out across the sand, full of awesome rollingstock. Giant warehouses for ammunition have been built. The massive investment suggests the US is planning to stay.

But the men of the 3rd infantry want none of it. They want out now. In the words of Sergeant Joseph: "Our motto is `Send Me`. We are adding the word `Home`. Hinesville is the armpit of the world. Right now, I`ll take the armpit."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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America wanted war
Dossiers and proof of WMD are a sideshow - Blair backed Bush for one simple reason

Martin Kettle
Wednesday July 16, 2003
The Guardian

The British people were indeed tricked into the Iraq war. But the trickery was not forensic. It was not really about intelligence dossiers, whether sexed up by Alastair Campbell or otherwise. It even had little to do with weapons of mass destruction, whether possessed or programmed by Iraq.

The deception was always political. It concerned the true reasons why Britain went to war, stuck by America`s side, abandoned its principal allies and interests in Europe, and played fast and loose with the United Nations. Like all deceptions, this was not admitted in public. But it was certainly discussed in private. And now it has been revealed. Ladies and gentlemen, it looks as if we have a smoking gun.

According to the slightly unreal argument that continues to bagatelle through parliament and the media, and which did so again at the foreign affairs committee yesterday, the key to war was proof. This international battle with Saddam is argued like a criminal trial. Prove that Saddam had - or might have had - weapons of mass destruction, and there would be a cause of war. Fail to prove it, tamper with the evidence, and the case for war falls. That is why the roles of the weapons inspectors and the intelligence services became so vital in this tussle for public opinion.

But in the real world, this was all rather beside the point. Or, rather, it was all secondary. Hans Blix never held the decision to go to war in his hands at all. Nor did the intelligence chiefs. The struggle in the real world was about power and politics. This was not a trial. But it was punishment. And Tony Blair decided early on where he stood.

The evidence for this has been sitting unremarked in a book published at the start of this month. Peter Stothard`s book, 30 Days, is an inside account of what the subtitle calls "a month at the heart of Blair`s war". It is exceptionally well sourced. The former editor of the Times was given remarkable access to the inner workings of 10 Downing Street for the build-up and duration of the conflict in March and April. His account appeared first in a long article in May, when it was seen by envious rivals as a bit of wasted chance.

Now his account has been extended to book length. And it is one of the previously unpublished passages in Stothard`s account that alters the evidence for the way that we should look at British policy towards the Iraq war.

Over the months, many commentators have alleged that the war with Iraq occurred for one pre-eminent reason - because the United States wanted it. Clare Short recently said as much, too. But this claim has been laughed off by insiders. Now, though, Stothard has provided a compelling piece of evidence that the critics` charge was spot on.

The crucial passage occurs on page 87 of Stothard`s diary-style narrative of the war. It comes as the author reflects on the political thought processes that had gone into the crafting of Tony Blair`s widely admired speech at the start of the vital eve-of-war Commons debate on March 18. Stothard`s reflections are contained in a relatively long passage, but it deserves to be quoted in full:

"Has Tony Blair become some sort of reckless crusader over Iraq? He thinks not. In September 2002 his analysis of relations between Washington, London and Baghdad was clear and cold. It rested on six essential points to which he and his aides would regularly return:

· Saddam Hussein`s past aggression, present support for terrorism and future ambitions made him a clear threat to his enemies. He was not the only threat, but he was a threat nevertheless.

· The US and Britain were among his enemies.

· The people of the US, still angered by the September 11 attacks, still sensing unfinished business from the first Gulf war 12 years before, would support a war on Iraq.

· Gulf war 2 - President George W Bush v Saddam Hussein - would happen whatever anyone else said or did.

· The people of Britain, continental Europe and most of the rest of the world would not even begin to support a war unless they had a say in it through the UN.

· It would be more damaging to longterm world peace and security if the Americans alone defeated Saddam Hussein than if they had international support to do so.

"These six points - when scribbled on the back of an envelope or set out on a printed page - are not exceptional. What is exceptional is the certainty required to follow their logic. It is Tony Blair`s certainty that has been the surprise for many Labour MPs."

Stothard sells himself short here. The six points are exceptionally important. First, because of the date. Second, because of the clear implication that Blair is the source of them (if he is not, then Stothard is sexing up his own dossier). And third, because it shows how passive British policy really was. Britain did not go to war to overthrow an evil regime, or even to control WMD. It went to war to keep on the right side of Washington.

It has long been clear that September 2002 was pivotal. It was the month when American decision-making reached ramming speed. It was when the real decisions were taken - taken before Bush went to the UN, before the UN authorised fresh weapons inspections, and before the government`s first dossier on Iraq`s WMD. All of these were simply efforts to sell a fait accompli.

The two most important of the points are the fourth and the sixth. They tell us, with great clarity, that in September 2002 Blair acknowledged that the US would go to war in Iraq "whatever anyone else said or did". They tell us, too, that Blair believed that Britain should go to war alongside the US, whatever anyone else said or did either.

Weigh those two points carefully. Neither of them has ever been heard publicly in the mouth of a British minister or adviser until now. Yet these points, apparently attributed by Stothard to Blair in September 2002, transform all accounts of the government`s approach.

Not everything about the six points is shocking. That Saddam`s past record made him a threat to his enemies is beyond argument; Saddam himself boasted of it. That the US and Britain were among his enemies is not in contention either; Saddam said this repeatedly too. That US public opinion was up for a war against Saddam is also true; every poll since 9/11 made that clear.

It is therefore not a bolt from the blue to conclude, as Blair did in point four, that the US would go to war whatever anyone else said or did. Bush came extremely close to saying it in the 2002 state of the union. But it is a revelation to have Blair admit it, and then for him to add that it was in the interests of "long-term peace and security" for others - ie Britain - to do the same, whatever the circumstances.

As Blair admits in point five, the British public would only support a war if it was authorised by the UN. For the next six months, he fought to win UN backing for a war that he knew would happen anyway. But this was public relations. As Geoff Hoon made clear recently, the same thing may happen again, for this has now been elevated into a doctrine.

That was the point at which true British interests required the government to go no further. But Blair`s reaction was dictated by points four and six, not by the logic of the failure of point five. The policy was always to make the best of a bad job. Blair continues to make the best of it. But it is still a bad job. And now we appear to have proof that Blair knew this all along.

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The classic dilemma of collaboration
Iraqi leaders have to weigh up the risks of working with the occupiers

Jonathan Steele
Wednesday July 16, 2003
The Guardian

Some Iraqis see them as America`s puppets. But there was a telling moment at the first public appearance by the members of Iraq`s US-appointed "governing council" on Sunday. When Ahmed Chalabi, head of the CIA-funded Iraqi National Congress, took it on himself to "express the gratitude of the Iraqi people" to George Bush and Tony Blair for "liberating Iraq", none of the other 24 members at their joint press conference clapped.

It was not that they were an unappreciative lot. They applauded a colleague who appealed to al-Jazeera and other Arab television stations not to be negative about events in Iraq. They had clapped when another said there was no chance of Saddam Hussein returning to power. But public thanks for Bush and Blair? No thanks.

Unlike Chalabi, a true puppet of America, the other council members realise they have a credibility problem. Many Iraqis are suspicious of US intentions, particularly when it comes to their oil. Others are merely angry that promises to bring security and normality are still so far from being achieved.

In either case potential Iraqi leaders have to be careful how far they identify themselves with the occupying authorities. It is the classic colonial dilemma for local leaders in a country run by foreigners. Today`s Iraqis have to weigh up the same issue of collaboration that has faced many before them, in Africa, Asia and Latin America - and indeed faced an earlier generation of Iraqis when the British invaded after the Ottoman empire collapsed.

Will they become the scapegoats for American and British failings? Will the coalition now shift the blame for delays in getting electricity going by telling Iraqis to complain to their own ministers, whom the council will appoint? Is the council a device for starting the process of writing a constitution and holding elections, or just a fig-leaf for coalition inadequacy and a rubber stamp?

The US administrator, Paul Bremer, has pre-empted several key economic decisions, such as announcing the budget and awarding contracts to Bush administration cronies. Will the council be able to stop any more of this, or block his plans for privatisation?

The biggest question for those invited to join the council was whether to go in or stay out. Would they gain more by a boycott, leaving the coalition to run Iraq on its own with the possibility of a gradual escalation in resistance and an eventual decision by the coalition to use more violence or withdraw? Or would it be better to join the council and use their presence as the thin end of a wedge to enlarge its powers - a point which Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a leader of the powerful Shiite resistance to Saddam Hussein, made on Sunday.

His group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), took longest in deciding whether to come on board. He and other doubters were persuaded by the vigorous diplomacy of the UN special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

It was a measure of the UN`s high standing in Iraq that de Mello was the only foreigner invited to address Sunday`s meeting. The Brazilian-born envoy played a key role, getting its name changed from "political council" to "governing council" and ensuring it would have some executive rather than merely advisory powers, including a qualified right to appoint ministers.

As a native of a third world country who has worked for the UN in Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor, he found it easy to accept that Iraqis feel occupied. He uses phrases such as "managing the hurt pride of Iraqis" and "helping them to recover their sovereignty" which differ sharply from those of Bremer, a Washington neo-conservative.

At the same time, he was careful not to compete with the coalition, even though Iraqis clearly trust the UN more than the occupiers. The top two Shia leaders, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq`s leading cleric, and Mohammed Baqir al Hakim, head of SCIRI, both had long meetings with the UN envoy while declining to see Bremer or the British ambassador, John Sawers.

In a subtle way de Mello took the model by which Afghans chose a government through UN-chaired consultations and grafted it on to the Iraqi situation. The outcome in Iraq is better, since the council`s ethnic and religious make-up, as well as the balance between internal and exiled opposition groups, is more reflective of Iraqi reality than the mujahedin-dominated government which rules Afghanistan.

But the test is yet to come. The council`s collective status contains grave risks of puppetry and some members are manifestly more inclined to be puppets than others. The first showdown will come when the council confronts Paul Bremer and he tries to veto their will, or when any members decide to resign. Then we will see whether this traumatised country can master its destiny at last.

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Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence
Anger grows on both sides of Atlantic at misleading claims on eve of Iraq conflict
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Marie Woolf
16 July 2003


Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration`s most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war.

He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq`s efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear programme be included in George Bush`s State of the Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.

Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the administration sought its authorisation for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein.

The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney`s resignation.

As the clamour for a full inquest into the African uranium claims grew on both sides of the Atlantic, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was accused by MPs of lacking "credibility" after he admitted knowing a month before the war that documents making the assertion were forgeries. Mr Straw said in a statement he had known that letters given to the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, about the Niger claim were fake as early as February.

Mr Straw also claimed that the Government`s case for military action was not based on "intelligence reports".

Labour MPs, including Tam Dalyell, the father of the House, asked why Mr Straw had not told MPs that the documents were fake in advance of the vote to approve military action on 18 March. "He now says the Government knew it was a forgery in February. Why didn`t he tell us before Parliament voted for war?" he said. "Also if the case for war is not based on intelligence, what is it based on?"

Last night the Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee asked Mr Straw to reveal what he knew about the Niger claim.

Donald Anderson, the committee`s chairman, wrote to Mr Straw asking him when the CIA first questioned the Niger connection, and why ministers had not admitted earlier that there were doubts about the claims. The committee also asked whether the CIA had questioned any other claims in the September dossier on Iraq`s weapons.

The letter, signed by 11 MPs of all parties, called on Mr Straw to confirm The Independent`s report that technical documents and centrifuge parts found at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Baghdad had lain buried for 12 years. The letter also asked Mr Straw to reveal when he knew that the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson had found claims about Niger-Iraq links to be false.

Last week the White House admitted that the claim that Iraq was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" - based on faked documents provided by the Italian intelligence services - should not have been included in President Bush`s speech of 28 January.

In Washington there is no conclusive proof that Mr Cheney was responsible for insisting that the claim be made in the speech. But there is clear evidence of Mr Cheney`s interest in the alleged Niger deal. Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador, said he was asked by the CIA to go to Niger and investigate the claim in a request from the Vice-President`s office. Mr Cheney`s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has admitted that during a briefing from the CIA "the Vice-President asked a question about the implication of the report".

There have been reports from CIA officials that in the months before the war Mr Cheney made a "multiple number" of personal visits to its headquarters in Virginia to meet officials analysing intelligence relating to Iraq. "[He] sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior CIA official told reporters.

The CIA director, Mr Tenet, said he accepted responsibility for approving the speech but said his officers had only "concurred" with White House officials that by naming the British Government as the source of the Niger claim it was "factually correct". Britain has stood by the claim, saying it has evidence in addition to the Italian documents.
16 July 2003 09:16


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 16, 2003

US soldiers’ wives revolt as leave is cancelled for third time in a year

‘We want our husbands back now’
by Tim Reid

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-746935,00.html

US ARMY wives were in revolt yesterday after a promised withdrawal from Iraq for thousands of soldiers was postponed for a third time.
Wives at the US army base in Fort Stewart, Georgia, home of the US 3rd Infantry Division, which has been in the Gulf since September, said that they were planning to organise a protest march near the base and run a mass letter-writing campaign to Capitol Hill. The division has suffered 36 deaths in the war and its aftermath, more than any other unit.

The protest from the families, told only last week by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, that their husbands would be home by September, elicited a confused response from the Pentagon and added to the perception that continued attacks on US troops have left post-war plans in disarray.

The delayed withdrawal came as India, Pakistan and France refused to send troops to Iraq, despite requests from the Bush Administration for military support. The countries said that they balked at sending soldiers without a UN mandate, dealing a significant blow to US hopes of reducing its troop numbers in Iraq.

As recently as May the Bush Administration said that it wanted to cut the US military presence there by about 30,000 to 40,000 troops.

Washington had hoped that India would send a full division of at least 17,000 troops, making its contingent the second largest behind the US deployment of 146,000. The Indian Foreign Ministry said: “Were there to be an explicit UN mandate . . . the Government of India could consider the deployment of our troops to Iraq.”

Even before that announcement, 3rd Division headquarters sent an e-mail to wives on Monday night telling them that “due to the current level of violent acts . . . and the potential for violent acts in Iraq” two thirds of the division, or more than 10,000 troops, would stay indefinitely.

The e-mail was followed 30 minutes later by another from the base’s rear detachment commander. It warned wives not to write to politicians “or speak to the media in a negative manner” about the postponement, otherwise they risked “tarnishing the image” of their husbands.

Mr Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, the recently retired coalition commander, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the entire division would be home by the end of next month. On July 7 MajorGeneral Buford Blount, the division commander, told his troops that they could expect to start returning home at the beginning of August.

Denise Gonsales, whose husband is one of the division’s Black Hawk helicopter pilots, said: “Enough is enough. As angry as it’s made us feel, it’s my husband I really feel for. He and his colleagues are feeling betrayed and lied to. He believes that if they have been given a date, they should stand by that date. It’s causing morale to really suffer. There is a tremendous amount of anger here and a tremendous amount of anger among the soldiers also.”

Mrs Gonsales said that she and fellow wives planned to march in the shopping district of nearby Savannah. Hundreds have written to their senators and congressman. “We have to have a voice and we have to be heard, and we have to have a voice for the soldiers that are there. They’re exhausted. Some are suicidal.”

Kim Wallihan, also the wife of a pilot, said: “We were initially told they would all be home by July 4 (Independence Day), then we were told they would be out by August. We just want them to set a date and stick by it, or not set one. It is shocking that they have broken their promise again.”

Another wife, who asked not to be named, said: “The Army cannot bamboozle families anymore. We get e-mails every day from our husbands. These men are emotionally and physically spent. Blount says morale is high, but we know this is balderdash.”

In an attempt to soften the news a Pentagon official said that Mr Rumsfeld was “committed to the intent” of having the division out by the autumn. But he added: “We don’t want to nail it down to a month.”


British troops are also in Iraq for the long haul, with some units on their second deployment in six months (Michael Evans writes). Some reservists, especially NHS consultants and surgeons called up for the war, have had to stay for longer than their expected six-month tours to fill in while regular Army colleagues went home for a rest.
Units on a second tour include a squadron from the 2nd Battalion Royal Tank Regiment. Among the first into Iraq in March, it was sent back after six weeks’ leave.

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July 16, 2003

Blair has broken our marriage vow to the US
simon jenkins

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-746900,00.html

Tony Blair travels to Washington tomorrow with relations between Britain and America never closer — and seldom worse. Congress has been asked not to give him its Medal of Honour now, for fear of embarrassing him at home. This must astonish Americans as much as it should sober Britons.
Britain and America are part of one political and social culture. They share values as they share history. It is a virtue, not a vice, that they stand shoulder to shoulder in time of trouble. I say this over and again these days, because it can sound so hollow. Yet turn on the radio and you hear American voices. Go to a film, see a play, read a book or hear music and it will be Anglo-American in character. Argue reform of education, business or the law and the parallels drawn are with America, not with continental Europe. Britain is truly a pan-Atlantic nation.

The question for Mr Blair is thus not whether Britain and America should be closer or farther apart. Their relationship is not elastic but a fact. The two countries are a marriage made in history, till death them do part.

What has gone wrong is that Mr Blair has, since taking office, broken a key assumption of the marriage. This holds that in form and substance it must be treated as a partnership of sovereign equals. Throughout recent history, leaders in each country have carefully modulated their relations. None could have been closer than Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan during the Falklands war. Yet America played a subtle game. It had supported the Argentine regime. It deplored the seizure of the islands but felt Britain was overreacting in going to war. Mr Reagan refused publicly to side with his friend in London, let alone fight alongside her, confining himself to covert assistance. Britain respected this. It had, after all, taken the same line during Vietnam.

On taking office, Mr Blair converted a marriage of platonic dignity into one of puppy love. His obsession with the Clinton White House was the talk of London and bane of the Foreign Office: he yearned for a proper palace in Whitehall and still yearns for a presidential jet. Not only did he support every American adventure, but did so without qualification. Mrs Thatcher had publicly attacked Mr Reagan for his Grenada invasion of 1983, questioning his motives and intelligence assessments. Mr Blair would have done no such thing. In Iraq he supported containment when America supported it, and abandoned it when America so chose.

Iraq has now proved a tryst too far. To Washington it was the final drawing of the poison of September 11, an act of retaliatory rage. Britain had no such excuse. However evil Saddam Hussein might be, this was in reality a war without motive. The lawyer (and the politician) in him craved reasons. He duly perverted the conduits of intelligence assessment by editing and publishing them. He and George Bush were soon like schoolboys cobbling together alibis in the playground before seeing the headmaster.

It seems bitterly ironic that the falling out should be over Niger uranium “intelligence”. The source, I understand, was France, with close links to Niger’s mining industry. Britain should have been deeply sceptical of anything French at this juncture before the war, hence perhaps the reluctance to reveal the source to Washington. The effect was to give President Bush dodgy material in his State of the Union address. But worse, a nation that was refusing to eat French fries was unknowingly spoonfed French intelligence.

Britain and America are right constantly to assert their shared values. But one value needs daily refreshment, open and honest public accountability. Many Europeans feel that September 11 traumatised not just an American generation but an entire portfolio of democratic liberties. The challenge of terrorism was never primarily military, despite the scaremongering and dissembling from both the White House and Downing Street. Even Israel, subject to suicide attacks almost daily, can survive them at a cost.

The challenge of terrorism is different. It is identical to that which communism posed to America during the McCarthyism of the 1950s. It is to evoke a reactive pollution of democratic institutions, to force a nation down the authoritarian road. In the latest London Review of Books, the historian Anatol Lieven predicts just this, that America’s stance of “militant democracy” will generate a vicious circle of Islamic militancy and ever-more draconian laws to combat it. This will eventually “destroy democracy in America and any state associated with it”.

I share Lieven’s concern if not his conclusion. I disagree with the military stance of the “neo-cons”, who brilliantly converted the failures and fears of September 11 into a doctrine of pre-emptive retaliation at will. Shock-and-awe and insensitivity to overseas opinion are hardly new. They mirror the “ugly Americanism” of the postwar era. But this is the policy of a Pentagon faction within a faction, and will surely pass.

Far more disturbing is the policy’s contempt for the rule of law, at home and overseas. America’s refusal to abide by international agreements on disarmament, trade, environment and war crimes is deeply disturbing to its friends. The use of assassination, the arrest of Arabs without trial, the persecution of academic and media dissent are equally so. Only a government supremely unconcerned with democracy’s global reputation could sustain the obscenity of Guantanamo Bay and its execution chamber. Yet Britain has a prime minister who cannot bring himself to raise a finger in public protest, even when British citizens are the victims. Imagine if Mrs Thatcher were still in office.

Foreign policy may have become stupid but it remains secure within the penumbra of debate. That debate has lost none of its ferocity. There is no question of the sophistication of such apologists for the Pentagon as the strategist Philip Bobbitt. He argues in The Shield of Achilles that pre-emptive intervention is justified by a new, unique threat to the West: nuclear dissemination and terrorism. He is as pessimistic about the vulnerability of the West’s borders as Lieven is of its values.

Which brings me back to the communality of Britain and America. I remain a determined optimist. I do not believe that terrorism “threatens Western democracy”, unless that democracy so loses its self-control as to become its enemy’s best friend. It is still far from doing that. I disagree with Bobbitt that America is so weak that terrorism poses a plausible military threat. I disagree with Lieven that it is so feeble as to risk self-destruction from within.

My optimism goes further. America is still home to as plural a range of peoples and opinions as any state on Earth. America has no need of Britain to “play Athens to its Rome”; it has Athenians and Romans enough. You need not come to Europe to find sceptics of Mr Bush’s policy. Indeed I sense that US democracy is about to teach its British forebear a lesson in accountability.

Rather than give Mr Blair a rostrum, Congress should sit him down before a benefit performance of a congressional hearing on Iraq. It should show him how real democratic assemblies behave, not the patsies and placemen to which he is used at home. Congress is about to tear the presidency apart for misleading it over Iraq. Pollsters may claim that most Americans do not care why they went to war. Their representatives may care very much.

Foreign policy is in thrall to dumbness, but for considered and sustained questioning of the Iraq affair we will soon be turning to the US Congress, the US media and, at some remove, US public opinion. It will not be a democratic Iraq that gets Americans and British soldiers out of Baghdad. It will be a democratic America, stung by false promises, dead soldiers and $4 billion a month vanishing down a Baghdad drain. A new cavalry is riding over the hill, before whom even the mighty Pentagon must quail, the American electorate.

Mr Blair allowed his love affair with White House glitz to cloud his judgment and to invent a threat to his own people. He believed that he could not just walk on water but perform a far harder task, accurately assess intelligence. It caused him to humiliate his American friends before the UN and induce Mr Bush to mislead his Congress. Now he must urgently re-establish the old Anglo-American equilibrium. Then he can stop his manic globetrotting and return to his own back yard. It is fast filling with weeds.

[Joerver]

US soldier killed in Iraq blast

A US soldier was killed and two others were injured when a powerful explosion hit their convoy west of Baghdad. The explosion happened as 20 US vehicles passed a wrecked car that had been abandoned beside the road. Spc Jose Colon said the soldier who died was blown out of the truck nearest to the blast. It is believed a bomb was hidden in the car`s wreckage.

[Joerver]

Zakiya Abd, whose daughter disappeared in May: "Whether she`s alive or dead, I just want to find her."
July 16, 2003
Rape (and Silence About It) Haunts Baghdad
By NEELA BANERJEE


AGHDAD, Iraq, July 15 — In her loose black dress, gold hairband and purple flip-flops, Sanariya hops from seat to seat in her living room like any lively 9-year-old. She likes to read. She wants to be a teacher when she grows up, and she says Michael, her white teddy bear, will be her assistant.

But at night, the memory of being raped by a stranger seven weeks ago pulls her into its undertow. She grows feverish and has nightmares, her 28-year-old sister, Fatin, said. She cries, "Let me go!"

"I am afraid of the gangsters," Sanariya whispered in the twilight of her hallway. "I feel like they are killing me in my nightmares. Every day, I have these nightmares."

Since the end of the war and the outbreak of anarchy on the capital`s streets, women here have grown increasingly afraid of being abducted and raped. Rumors swirl, especially in a country where rape is so rarely reported.

The breakdown of the Iraqi government after the war makes any crime hard to quantify.

But the incidence of rape and abduction in particular seems to have increased, according to discussions with physicians, law-enforcement officials and families involved.

A new report by Human Rights Watch based on more than 70 interviews with law-enforcement officials, victims and their families, medical personnel and members of the coalition authority found 25 credible reports of abduction and sexual violence since the war. Baghdadis believe there are far more, and fear is limiting women`s role in the capital`s economic, social and political life just as Iraq tries to rise from the ashes, the report notes.

Sanariya, 9, was raped seven weeks ago. Now she has nightmares, she says, and her parents and brothers beat her because they are ashamed of her.


For most Iraqi victims of abduction and rape, getting medical and police assistance is a humiliating process. Deeply traditional notions of honor foster a sense of shame so strong that many families offer no consolation or support for victims, only blame.

Sanariya`s four brothers and parents beat her daily, Fatin said, picking up a bamboo slat her father uses. The city morgue gets corpses of women who were murdered by their relatives in so-called honor killings after they returned from an abduction — even, in some cases, when they had not been raped, said Nidal Hussein, a morgue nurse.

"For a woman`s family, all this is worse than death," said Dr. Khulud Younis, a gynecologist at the Alwiyah Women`s Hospital. "They will face shame. If a woman has a sister, her future will be gone. These women don`t deserve to be treated like this."

It is not uncommon in Baghdad to see lines of cars outside girls` schools. So fearful are parents that their daughters will be taken away that they refuse to simply drop them off; they or a relative will stay outside all day to make sure nothing happens.

"Women and girls today in Baghdad are scared, and many are not going to schools or jobs or looking for work," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "If Iraqi women are to participate in postwar society, their physical security needs to be an urgent priority."

Beyda Jafar Sadiq, 17, made the simple decision to go to school on the morning of May 22 and never returned. Her family has been looking for her ever since. They have appealed to every international nongovernmental organization, the Iraqi police and the American authorities. Her eldest brother, Feras, 29, has crisscrossed the country, visiting the morgue in Basra in the south, traveling to Amara and Nasiriya on reports from acquaintances that they saw a girl who looked like Beyda.

"I just want to find her," said Beyda`s mother, Zakiya Abd, her eyes swollen with grief. "Whether she`s alive or dead, I just want to find her."

Some police in Baghdad concede that at this point, there is little they can do to help. Their precinct houses were thoroughly looted after the war. Despite promises from the American authorities, Baghdad police still lack uniforms, weapons, communications and computer equipment and patrol cars.

"We used to patrol all the time before the war," said a senior officer at the Aadimiya precinct house. "Now, nothing, and the criminals realize there is no security on the streets."

The Human Rights Watch report alleges that sometimes when women try to report a rape or families ask for help in finding abducted women, they are turned away by Iraqi police officers indifferent to the crimes. Some law-enforcement officials insist abduction and rape have not increased, while other officials and many medical personnel disagree.

Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner and now an adviser to the Interior Ministry, told of recently firing a precinct chief when he learned that the official had failed to pursue a family`s report of their missing 16-year-old daughter. "The biggest part of the issue is a culture that precludes people from reporting," Mr. Kerik said. "It encourages people not to report."

If an Iraqi woman wants to report a rape, she has to travel a bureaucratic odyssey. She first has to go to the police for documents that permit her to get a forensic test. That test is performed only at the city morgue. The police take a picture of the victim and stamp it, and then stamp her arm. "That is so no one else goes in her place and says that she was raped, that she lost her virginity," said Ms. Hussein, the nurse.

At the morgue, a committee of three male doctors performs a gynecological examination on the victim to determine if there was sexual abuse. The doctors are available only from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. If a victim arrives at any other time, she has to return the next day, without washing away any physical evidence. Hospitals can check victims only for broader trauma, like contusions and broken bones.

Dr. Younis said she had seen more rape cases in the months after the war than before. Yet even when women come to the hospital with injuries that are consistent with rape, they often insist something else happened. A 60-year-old woman asserted that she had been hit by a car. The mother of a 6-year-old girl begged the doctor to write a report saying that her daughter`s hymen had been ruptured because she fell on a sharp object, a common lie families tell in the case of rape, Dr. Younis said.

Shame and fear compel the lies, Dr. Younis said. "A woman`s father or brother, they feel it is their duty to kill her" if she has been raped, Dr. Younis said. "It is the tribal law. They will get only six months in prison and then they are out."

Sanariya`s family took her to a doctor three days after her attack only because the bleeding had not stopped. She had been sitting on the stairs at about 4 p.m. on May 22 when an armed man dragged her into an abandoned building next door. He shot at neighbors who tried to help the girl. He fled when she began screaming during the assault.

Her mother refuses to let her outside now to play. Fatin lied to her family and said an operation had been done to restore Sanariya`s hymen. But when her eldest brother, Ahmed, found out otherwise, he wanted to kill Sanariya, Fatin said.

Out of earshot of her family, Sanariya said she feels no better now, two months after the attack. "I don`t sleep at night," she said in the hallway. "I don`t sleep."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

[Joerver]

July 16, 2003
C.I.A. Chief to Face Panel on Dubious Iraq Data
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, July 15 — George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, is expected to testify before a Senate panel on Wednesday about the reliability of intelligence indicating Iraq tried to obtain uranium, as administration officials raised new concerns about information his agency gave the White House on the matter last fall.

On Oct. 1, the nation`s intelligence agencies circulated to senior administration officials and to Congress a classified "National Intelligence Estimate" that described how Iraq might have been seeking uranium in Niger, Somalia and Congo.

That reference has become the center of a controversy.

According to White House and some intelligence officials, four days after the report was issued and was in the hands of a number of lawmakers, Mr. Tenet called a Bush aide and asked that any reference to allegations that Iraq had sought to obtain 500 metric tons of uranium yellowcake in Niger be removed from a speech President Bush was to give in Cincinnati.

That is a central question Mr. Tenet appears likely to face in the closed session with the Senate select committee on intelligence on Wednesday.

The warning, administration officials said, came in several phone calls to the deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley.

Mr. Tenet told Mr. Hadley that the C.I.A. was not sure about the credibility of the information.

The White House, asked tonight whether Mr. Hadley had read the National Intelligence Estimate before Mr. Tenet warned him that the section on Niger might be unreliable, declined to comment. But one administration official said that it appeared that Mr. Hadley had not read the report before he spoke with Mr. Tenet, or finished reviewing the Cincinnati speech.

While that call was disclosed last weekend, White House officials were asking today why the information about uranium from Niger had been published in the intelligence estimate at all. The White House has said repeatedly over the past eight days that the estimate was one of the reports that they relied upon as evidence that Iraq had a global program to get an atomic weapon in the president`s State of the Union speech.

"This report was supposed to be the gold standard of our intelligence about Iraq," said one senior administration official. Asked why the agency backed away from it days after it was circulated, the official replied, "Who knows?"

C.I.A. officials explain the discrepancy by saying that classified intelligence reports sometimes include information that does not necessarily rise to the level of certainty required of a public address by the president. The report contained a footnote that made clear that there were doubts at the State Department about the uranium evidence.

"It`s one thing to have information in a classified document with caveats and footnotes, and another to have the president flatly assert something," an intelligence official said.

Intelligence officials have also said that the intelligence estimate, which provided an overview assessment of the status of Iraq`s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, was put together hastily and only at the request of Senate Democrats, who wanted to see the report before they voted on a war resolution.

The document was assembled in just three weeks, "record time" said one official, who added that it included imprecise language on the Niger uranium reports.

C.I.A. officials now acknowledge that the estimate should have included more complete caveats about the quality of the information. The C.I.A.`s inspector general has begun an investigation of the C.I.A.`s handling of the Niger information, officials said.

When Mr. Tenet arrives on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, he may encounter suspicion from conservative Republicans who charge he has undermined the president and from liberal Democrats who say his warnings underscore the degree to which the White House sought to twist information to fit its arguments.

Democrats sought today to keep the pressure on President Bush, saying the issue extended beyond the statement over the uranium, which Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, said had been "calculated to create a false impression."

"Even more troubling," he added, "is the fact that the uranium statement appears to be but one of a number of questionable statements and exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration officials that were issued in the buildup to the war." Mr. Levin has pressed for a more open inquiry into the use of American intelligence leading up to the war.

Looting at Iraqi Nuclear Site

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 — Looting at the Tuwaitha nuclear power complex in Iraq was less damaging than initially feared, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported to the United Nations Security Council in a letter dated July 14.

The I.A.E.A. inspected the complex last month and reported that about 10 kilograms of "uranium compounds" remained unaccounted for, adding, "The quantity and type of uranium compounds dispersed are not sensitive from a proliferation point of view." The letter did not address what use might be made of the missing material.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

July 16, 2003
The Deficit Floats Up and Away

Having done its utmost to choke back the revenue flow into the Treasury, the Bush administration offered a running tab on this year`s exploding budget deficit yesterday. To hear the casual patter of White House aides about the deficit, one would think it was pocket change. In fact, the shortfall has ballooned 50 percent in just five months, to $455 billion and counting. This historic high shows no sign of cresting, certainly not while the president`s detaxation mania rolls forward. The White House firmly insists that the growing wad of government costs and debt being rolled across the years toward tomorrow`s taxpayers is eminently "manageable." Actually, what was manageable was the $127 billion surplus the fledgling administration enjoyed just two years ago.

That surplus has disappeared into the Potomac mists, along with the Republicans` creaky posture as deficit hawks. A decade of deficit spending now awaits the nation, rooted in an anemic economy, pervasive joblessness, the rising costs of the American occupation of Iraq and Mr. Bush`s tax cuts for the upper brackets. Independent estimates suggest that the deficit will grow to the half-trillion-dollar level next year and barrel on through the next decade at a cost in excess of $4 trillion once Congress`s hypocritical commitment to "sunset" various tax cuts is quietly reversed.

The White House never fails to seize on optimistic predictions that the economy will tick back up zestfully next year in Mr. Bush`s "jobs and growth" program, an agenda that has so far delivered far more tax cuts than recovery. A sobering estimate of the detax-and-spend policies of the president and the Republican-controlled Congress is offered by the Concord Coalition, the budget watchdog group, which warns of devastating long-range effects from "a schizophrenic pursuit of small-government tax policies and big-government spending initiatives." Politicians have broken vows not to tap Social Security funds, leaving costly entitlement promises to baby boomers looming at the shore of red ink that now pools forth into the nation. The White House hardly scans that shore, offering no details in its newly minted promise to cut the deficit in half "over the next few years."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

July 16, 2003
Nuclear Doubts in the House

Thanks to an unexpected vote by a House appropriations subcommittee, the Bush administration`s ill-considered plan to study the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons has been at least temporarily stalled. These warheads, less powerful than those built during the cold war, would be designed to penetrate hardened underground command centers or weapons sites or for possible use in regional conflicts. The plan threatens to blur the line between nuclear and conventional arms. Instead of looking for new uses for nuclear weapons, the administration should be directing its research toward creating advanced conventional bombs capable of the same missions.

Last week the subcommittee, led by David Hobson, an Ohio Republican, stripped more than $50 million from Energy Department spending requests that would have initiated design work on these new weapons and begun preparations for possible manufacturing and testing. The lawmakers said the administration was moving too swiftly toward developing new nuclear weapons while not doing enough to care for the existing stockpile and to clean up nuclear waste. Yesterday, the full Appropriations Committee included the subcommittee`s cuts in the bill it is sending to the House floor.

Nuclear bombs should not be casually re-engineered for ordinary battlefield use. Washington must be wary of appearing to lower the psychological threshold for nuclear weapons use at a time when countries like Pakistan, India and probably North Korea have added nuclear weapons to their arsenals and a chief objective of American policy is to make sure these weapons are never used.

The administration insists that it wants only money for research and has no plans to build new warheads, at least for now. Yet the history of nuclear weapons suggests that successful research would soon be followed by demands for production and then testing, threatening the voluntary nuclear test moratorium the United States has observed since 1992. Congress authorized new nuclear weapons research this spring, but it cannot go forward unless both houses provide financing.

There will be plenty of pressure from the White House and Republican leaders to restore the funds on the House floor next week and to make sure they are included in the Senate version of the legislation. Independent-minded legislators of both parties should resist.






Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

July 16, 2003
Winning the Real War
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN


Last Sunday was the most important day in Iraq since the start of the war, and maybe the most important day in its modern history. It was the first day that one could speak about the "liberation" of Iraq. It was the day that a multireligious, multiethnic Governing Council of Iraqi men and women began to assume some power and responsibility for their own country — the most representative leadership Iraq has ever had.

And what was their first act? It was to declare that April 9, the day Saddam Hussein`s regime was toppled, would be a national holiday. President Bush, Gen. Tommy Franks and The Weekly Standard could all call April 9 Iraq`s V-E Day, but it became real only when the first representative Council of Iraqis embraced that day as their liberation. It is way too early to know whether this appointed Iraqi Council will flourish and pave the way for constitutional government and elections in Iraq, which is its assignment. It will first have to prove itself to the Iraqi people — and prove that while most Iraqis may not want us or Saddam, they do want one another. But these are not quislings, and therefore the Council`s formation is a hugely important first step. This is what we came for. There is hope.

Had you been watching most American news shows or cable TV last Sunday, though, you would not have gotten a sense of this. They were focused almost exclusively on who was responsible for hyping Saddam`s nuclear arms potential. This is understandable. The notion that the president may have misled the nation into war, and then blamed it on the C.I.A., is a big story.

For me, though, it is a disturbing thought that the Bush team could get itself so tied up defending its phony reasons for going to war — the notion that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that were undeterrable and could threaten us, or that he had links with Al Qaeda — that it could get distracted from fulfilling the real and valid reason for the war: to install a decent, tolerant, pluralistic, multireligious government in Iraq that would be the best answer and antidote to both Saddam and Osama.

If the Bush team wants to win the real war, it must keep its eyes on the prize and that means the following:

First, U.S. forces need to finish the war. Sorry, Mr. President, but "major combat" is not over as you declared. Because major combat never happened in the core Sunni Muslim areas of Baghdad and the Sunni triangle to the west, where 80 percent of the attacks on U.S. forces now come from. What happened instead is that two divisions of Saddam`s Republican Guards, which dominated these areas, simply melted away, and are now killing U.S. troops. These regions need to be reinvaded and then showered with reconstruction funds.

Second, we must provide massive support for the new Council in Iraq to enable it to assume more powers as quickly as possible. The more power it assumes, the more it speaks for Iraq and Iraqis to the Arab world, the more it will be clear that America is the midwife of Iraq`s liberation, not its occupier, and those who shoot at us are shooting down Iraq`s (and the Arab world`s) future. Russia, France and Germany hold most of Iraq`s $60 billion in foreign debt. Most of this needs to be forgiven. The Bush team needs to get off its high horse and challenge, and reach out to, Russia, France, Germany and the Arabs — to get those who were so ready to coddle Saddam`s dictatorship to support a self-governing Iraq.

Third, according to Peter Bouckaert, senior researcher for emergencies at Human Rights Watch, over 20 mass graves have already been uncovered in Iraq, and there may be as many as 90. One grave alone in Hilla is estimated to contain 10,000 people murdered by Saddam`s regime. Human Rights Watch estimates that there are 300,000 people missing in Iraq. President Bush is flailing around looking for Saddam`s unused weapons of mass destruction, when evidence of his actual mass destruction is all over the place in Iraq. Yet the Pentagon has done almost nothing to help Iraqis properly exhume these graves, prepare evidence for a war crimes tribunal or expose this mass murder to the world.

Eyes on the prize, please. If we find W.M.D. in Iraq, but lose Iraq, Mr. Bush will not only go down as a failed president, but one who made the world even more dangerous for Americans. If we find no W.M.D., but build a better Iraq — one that proves that a multiethnic, multireligious Arab state can rule itself in a decent way — Mr. Bush will survive his hyping of the W.M.D. issue, and the world will be a more hospitable and safer place for all Americans.




Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Democrats Sharpen Attack on Bush Over Iraq
Political Assault Focuses on Current Instability and Intelligence Used to Justify War

By Jim VandeHei and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A17


Democrats yesterday sharpened what is becoming their broadest and most unified attack on President Bush over Iraq, demanding a full accounting of the intelligence used to justify the war and calling on the White House to seek greater international assistance in stabilizing the country.

Many Democrats, who remain deeply divided over the wisdom of going to war in the first place, are putting aside their differences to accuse Bush of using a discredited allegation that Iraq tried to buy nuclear material in Africa, and of failing to adequately protect U.S. troops with his postwar policies.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who led the fight against last year`s congressional resolution authorizing military action in Iraq, said Bush`s postwar policy was "built on a quicksand of false assumptions, and the result has been chaos for the Iraqi people, and continuing mortal danger for our troops." In his speech to the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Kennedy said the administration is in danger of losing the peace after winning the war. He urged the administration to seek United Nations approval for NATO to take over the job of stabilizing Iraq.

Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who supported the war resolution, told reporters: "We shouldn`t minimize this; it shouldn`t be buried; it shouldn`t be left to the confusion that is now so much in evidence. I think that the administration needs to be forthcoming and provide the best information they can about how all of this happened."

The most immediate issue is whether the president misled the American people by citing, in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address, an allegation that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa in a bid to rebuild its nuclear weapons capability. At the CIA`s recommendation, the same allegation had been deleted from a Bush speech the previous October.

Democrats will ratchet up the pressure today. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), one of four Democratic presidential candidates who voted for the 2002 war resolution, said CIA Director George J. Tenet will be pressed hard for greater clarity when he testifies before the intelligence committee in a closed session. "This is a very serious issue that should be dealt with in a very serious way," Edwards said. In "some ways the administration has a problem with the truth."

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), another of the four, will accuse Bush in a speech today of making the country less secure with his Iraq policy, according to a person familiar with the draft.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who returned this week from a trip to Baghdad, said yesterday, "the intelligence case for war relied more than it should have on circumstantial indicators of Iraq`s WMD [weapons of mass destruction] program." She told reporters that her "tentative conclusion" about the prewar intelligence is that the "administration consistently omitted the caveats and qualifiers that the intelligence community generally attached to its assessments" of Iraq`s weapons programs and ties to terrorists.

The committee chairman, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), said he had "complete confidence" in Tenet. Harman agreed.

With polls showing an increasing number of Americans questioning the administration`s veracity about Iraq`s weapons, Republicans are rushing to Bush`s defense, accusing Democrats of politicizing the war. "They are being incredibly political in their approach to the policy on Iraq," said incoming Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. "They are trying to energize the antiwar activists who tend to be the core of the Democratic Party."

Bush remains popular with most Americans, according to recent polls, but the public is growing increasingly concerned about the mounting casualties among U.S. troops in Iraq. Americans are split over whether Bush exaggerated intelligence reports to justify going to war, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

With the 2004 election season nearing, Democrats are trying to chip away at Bush`s credibility with voters, not just on the Iraq issue but on the economy, education and Medicare. Democratic focus groups show that voters, even many Democrats, continue to view Bush as trustworthy.

Democrats, who have searched for a soft spot on Bush since he took office, said the Iraqi intelligence flap could be the breakthrough issue they have sought. But past attacks on Bush over corporate corruption, the economy and his close ties to the energy industry didn`t seem to stick.

In this case, Democrats are in a somewhat awkward position because four of their presidential candidates and most Democratic senators supported the war resolution. "I think those [Democrats] who supported the war are having a credibility problem," antiwar Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor, said in an interview. "It`s not enough to say the president misled them."

The issue could backfire on Democrats in other ways, political analysts said. If Bush is proven right, and nuclear, biological or chemical weapons are found in Iraq, Democrats will appear to have wrongly bashed the president for political reasons, according to strategists in both parties.

The most hyperbolic and unhelpful statement so far, some Democrats said, was the suggestion Monday by Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), also a presidential candidate, that if Bush misled the American people, it might rise to the "standard" of an impeachable offense.

The issue will be joined again today, when Tenet testifies, and on Thursday, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush`s closest ally in the war, addresses a joint session of Congress.

In the first of several proposed amendments to the $369 billion bill to fund the Pentagon next year, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) yesterday proposed to limit involuntary overseas deployments of National Guard and reserve personnel to six months, with no more than one deployment in any 12-month period. His proposal was defeated, 64 to 31. As an alternative, Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) proposed to create a commission to study deployment issues for all military forces. There was no vote on his proposal.

Staff writer Dana Priest contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[stockmarketbull]

Hat Bush eigentlich auch so eine geile Praktikantin?

Miauuuuuuuuuuu!


So und jetzt geh ich erstmal los,mir ne Praktikantin suchen!

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Questions On Missile Defense Plans
Scientists` Report Questions Technology`s Effectiveness

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A02


An extensive study by a national group of scientists raised serious doubts yesterday about the likely effectiveness of some weapons that President Bush is pursuing in his drive to develop a system for defending the United States against ballistic missile attack.

The study, by a 12-member group under the American Physical Society, the largest U.S. association of physicists, focused on a category of weapons intended to knock down enemy missiles soon after launch in their "boost phase."

It concluded that while the boost-phase approach might provide some defense against longer-burning liquid-fueled missiles, such a system would push the limits of what is technically possible. Even more critically, the study found, boost-phase weapons would likely prove entirely ineffective against faster, solid-fueled missiles that potential adversaries -- notably, North Korea and Iran -- are projected by U.S. intelligence analysts to possess within the next 10 to 15 years.

The study did not deal with the central part of Bush`s program -- a plan to install land-based interceptors in Alaska and California that would soar into space and obliterate enemy warheads arcing through their "midcourse phase" of flight. But Pentagon officials have acknowledged limitations to this scheme and spoken of the need to supplement it eventually with boost-phase weapons.

Delivering its findings in a 400-page report, the APS study group stopped short of calling the administration`s expanded work on boost-phase technologies a waste of money. At a news conference in Washington, group members declined to be drawn out on the implications of their analysis, saying the purpose of their nearly three-year study had been simply to address technical issues.

"We just wanted to bring the facts forward," said Daniel Kleppner, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the study group.

But the group`s lengthy critique is certain to complicate administration efforts to win congressional support for boost-phase systems, on which Bush planned to spend nearly $1 billion in 2004 out of a total $9.1 billion proposed budget for missile defense. Appropriations committees in both chambers of Congress already have voted to slash by half or more a Bush request for $301 million to begin developing land- or sea-based boost-phase interceptors.

Another boost-phase program known as the Airborne Laser, which involves mounting a laser in a Boeing 747 jetliner and zapping missiles, is further along in development and expected to receive the $626 million that Bush has sought for it. But weight problems and other technical glitches have bedeviled the program and forced delays in the first intercept attempt, now scheduled for 2005.

The Pentagon`s Missile Defense Agency issued a statement yesterday saying agency officials had not "had an opportunity to digest" the APS study but remained "confident" about the administration`s course. "We continue to believe that boost-phase technology has great potential for playing a vital role in a layered missile defense," the statement said.

Boost phase refers to the first three or four minutes after launch in which a missile`s burners remain lit. Flaming plumes make the missiles easier to detect by overhead satellites.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

In a speech making a case for military action against Iraq, President Bush cited Iraq`s attempts to buy aluminum tubes for centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
washingtonpost.com
Bush Faced Dwindling Data on Iraq Nuclear Bid


By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A01


In recent days, as the Bush administration has defended its assertion in the president`s State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium, officials have said it was only one bit of intelligence that indicated former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear weapons program.

But a review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and former administration officials and intelligence analysts, suggests that between Oct. 7, when President Bush made a speech laying out the case for military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he gave his State of the Union address, almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq.

By Jan. 28, in fact, the intelligence report concerning Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa -- although now almost entirely disproved -- was the only publicly unchallenged element of the administration`s case that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. That may explain why the administration strived to keep the information in the speech and attribute it to the British, even though the CIA had challenged it earlier.

For example, in his Oct. 7 speech, Bush said that "satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at [past nuclear] sites." He also cited Hussein`s "numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists" as further evidence that the program was being reconstituted, along with Iraq`s attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes "needed" for centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

But on Jan. 27 -- the day before the State of the Union address -- the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to the U.N. Security Council that two months of inspections in Iraq had found that no prohibited nuclear activities had taken place at former Iraqi nuclear sites. As for Iraqi nuclear scientists, Mohamed ElBaradei told the Security Council, U.N. inspectors had "useful" interviews with some of them, though not in private. And preliminary analysis, he said, suggested that the aluminum tubes, "unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing centrifuges."

The next night, Bush delivered his speech, including the now-controversial 16-word sentence, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Of his October examples, only the aluminum tubes charge remained in January, but that allegation had a subtle caveat -- he described the tubes as merely "suitable" for nuclear weapons production. Without the statement on uranium, the allegation concerning aluminum tubes would have been the only nuclear-related action ascribed to Hussein since the early 1990s.

And the tubes had already been questioned not only by IAEA, but also by analysts in U.S. and British intelligence agencies.

The idea that Iraq was acquiring tubes for a nuclear program became public in September, shortly after the Bush administration began a campaign to marshal public, congressional and U.N. support for authority to attack Iraq if it did not disarm.

On Aug. 26, Vice President Cheney, the official most publicly vocal about Iraq as a nuclear threat, began the campaign when he told a Veterans of Foreign Wars audience: "Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon we cannot gauge."

On Sept. 8, the New York Times disclosed that intelligence showed that Iraq had "embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb" by trying to purchase "specially designed aluminum tubes" that unidentified administration sources believed were for centrifuges to enrich uranium.

The story referred to Bush "hardliners" who argued that action should be taken because if they waited for proof that Hussein had a nuclear weapon, "the first sign of a smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud."

That day, Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on CNN`s "Late Edition" and confirmed the Times story. She said the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." She also said, "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don`t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Cheney also confirmed the Times story that day, on NBC`s "Meet the Press," saying that "we don`t have all the evidence," but enough of a picture "that tells us that he [Hussein] is in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons."

What neither Rice nor Cheney said at the time was that Baghdad`s first attempts to purchase the aluminum tubes, more than a year earlier, had by Sept. 8 led to a fairly open disagreement in the U.S. intelligence community on whether the tubes were for centrifuges or for artillery rockets in Iraq`s military program.

Analysts from the State and Energy departments said the tubes were too long and too thick for centrifuges; CIA and Pentagon analysts said they could be cut down and reamed out. Their debate was continuing as the agencies were putting together the still-classified national intelligence estimate on Hussein`s weapons program.

In July, the United States had intercepted one shipment and obtained a tube; it was coated with a protective chemical that would have had to be removed if it were to be put to a nuclear purpose.

The intelligence estimate, completed in mid-September, reflected the different views, but the final judgment said that "most" analysts leaned toward the view that the tubes had a nuclear purpose. When the British dossier on Iraq`s weapons program was published on Sept. 24, it referred to the tubes, but noted that "there is no definitive intelligence that it is destined for a nuclear program."

In his State of the Union address, Bush did not indicate any disagreement over the use of the tubes. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, however, outlined the arguments involved when he spoke eight days later before the Security Council, where inspectors already had challenged the U.S. position on them.

On March 7, ElBaradei gave his final report to the Security Council before his inspectors were removed from Iraq on March 18. His conclusion was that "the IAEA had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq." He also said the documents that gave rise to the allegation that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium were forged.

On March 16, Cheney appeared again on "Meet the Press" and reiterated his views of the previous August about Hussein`s nuclear program. "We know he`s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." The war began three days later.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Wait for the Facts




Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A22


ACOUPLE OF questions have crystallized about the Bush administration`s handling of intelligence information on Iraq. First, were U.S. and allied intelligence agencies wrong when they reported that Saddam Hussein continued to possess weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them? Second, did the Bush administration deliberately distort the intelligence reports to convince Americans that war was necessary? A yes to the first of those questions would confirm a major failure by U.S. intelligence, one that would cause serious damage to U.S. foreign policy and demand a strict accounting of what went wrong. If the second supposition proved true, those war opponents and Democratic presidential candidates who claim a major presidential scandal is unfolding might find some traction. For the moment, however, the answer to the first question is not yet known, though the failure of U.S. forces to find banned weapons is disturbing. And so far there is no hard evidence that President Bush or his top aides knowingly falsified the case for war.

In the absence of evidence, there has been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to marginal issues -- most recently, those 16 words in President Bush`s State of the Union speech that said, accurately, that British intelligence believed Iraq had been seeking to obtain uranium in Africa. In fact, British intelligence did believe that -- and still does, even though one set of documents purporting to show an Iraqi procurement mission in Niger proved to be forgeries. Last week the White House announced that the sentence should not have been included in the speech, because the CIA knew of the Niger forgery and had not been able to confirm the broader British report. The claim was deleted from other administration statements, but some White House officials, banking on the British, apparently pressed for its inclusion in spite of the CIA`s doubts. If so, that would represent one of several instances in which administration statements on Iraq were stretched to reflect the most aggressive interpretation of the intelligence.

Yet that does not mean the decision for war was based on false information. The Africa nugget, after all, formed a small part of the president`s argument -- and like other questionable parts of the administration`s case, it was widely disputed before the war. The heart of the argument -- that Iraq had repeatedly defied disarmament orders from the United Nations -- was endorsed in December by all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, and remains indisputable. Similarly, the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had retained chemical and biological weapons was one shared by the Clinton administration as well as every major Western intelligence service. That conclusion is now being challenged, but it hasn`t yet been disproved; nor has it been established that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program. Indeed, the recent unearthing of designs and machinery for producing bomb-grade material in a scientist`s garden seems more suggestive than the discrediting of the report on Niger.

The excessive heat generated by this secondary issue reflects the troubling but, for the moment, unresolvable uncertainty about why Iraq`s WMD have not been found. Mounting anxiety in Congress and among the public about how the postwar occupation is going feeds this surrogate debate as well. It is vital that a debate go forward, and that the Bush administration be prepared to respond to it constructively. If intelligence assessments were wrong, Congress must probe why they were, and whether political pressures had any influence. But first it is necessary to determine the facts. Despite what some of the rhetoric from both sides might suggest, that job has not yet been done.

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washingtonpost.com
A Classic Case of Incompetence . . .


By Jim Hoagland

Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A23


With significant help from his top aides, President Bush has managed to shoot himself and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in their combined four feet in a minor intelligence controversy that threatens to obscure the real problems of U.S. assessments of Iraq before and during the Second Gulf War.

The flap over what the CIA told the Bush White House about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Africa is a classic Washington case of going for the capillary rather than the jugular -- of pounding on a superficial but politically symbolic issue rather than examining the tougher and more complex institutional questions about intelligence that the Iraq crisis raises.

Part of the "yellowcake" controversy is payback by intelligence professionals trained in the arts of disinformation and spreading confusion. The political leadership of the administration declared war on the careerists at the CIA soon after Bush`s election. There should be no surprise that analysts who feel their insights have been scorned and attacked would use this opportunity to get even.

But their efforts would have made little headway without two more important factors: a spreading uneasiness in public opinion with the nasty incipient guerrilla war in Iraq, where American soldiers continue to die, and the sudden tone-deafness of a Bush team that had been pretty good at not giving its enemies ammunition to use against it.

Bush seemed not to have registered the growing disquiet about U.S. casualties inflicted by Baathist loyalists when he brashly declared on July 2, "Bring `em on." Such red-meat rhetoric has generally played well for the president since 9/11. This time it made him seem either out of touch with or not sympathetic toward the dangers faced by American troops.

More puzzling is the decision by Bush and his top aides to respond with finger-pointing of their own to anonymous leaks accusing them of ignoring CIA doubts about a 16-word assertion in the president`s State of the Union address, when Bush said Britain had learned that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa. The White House sought to shift full responsibility to the CIA and pushed Director George Tenet into the middle of an escalating political crossfire.

Worse, in a subsequent series of shifting and at times contradictory accounts, the White House called the information about Africa incorrect -- even though Blair stands by a case that is on its face still entirely plausible. The impression left has been one of a president seeking to deflect all blame onto others -- and not doing a very good job of it.

Competence is fast becoming the central issue on Iraq. The resonance of the uranium controversy represents a blinking warning light for Bush, who needs to reestablish for Americans that he knows where he is going in Iraq and that the destination is reachable in a reasonable amount of time.

Bush can ill afford to give the controversy new life by letting Tenet go in these circumstances. Moreover, Tenet has responded with agility and skill to Bush`s orders to transform the CIA`s operations directorate into a paramilitary force, which has contributed to U.S. battlefield victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tenet and the agency deserve understanding for the sudden mission changes they have had to absorb.

The White House, congressional oversight committees and the public must not let the intramural quibbling over footnotes and disputed briefings distract attention from the serious intelligence failure that surfaced during the war. That failure was the long-standing lack of human intelligence sources developed by the CIA to predict with accuracy the intentions and capabilities of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

This is not to underestimate the difficulty of espionage operations in a totalitarian police state. That effort requires years of dangerous and detailed preparation.

In that sense, the essential "politicization" of the agency on Iraq occurred long before Bush`s last State of the Union speech. It occurred in the decade in which the Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 administrations minimized the threat Iraq posed to U.S. interests and frowned on assertions to the contrary. Hussein was "in a box." The agency understood it did not need to exert extraordinary efforts to penetrate that box. Only the horror of 9/11 changed this view.

Tenet himself is given to describing the CIA`s basic job as "stealing other people`s secrets." The surprises posed by still-missing weapons of mass destruction, the Baathists` guerrilla-style insurgency and the initial political turmoil of central and southern Iraq suggest that the agency did not meet Tenet`s own standard in this crisis. That is the real intelligence problem. It cannot be swept under the rug.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
...Or More Lies From The Usual Suspects?


By Michael Kinsley

Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A23


Once again a mysterious criminal stalks the nation`s capital. First there was the mystery sniper. Then there was the mystery arsonist. Now there is the mystery ventriloquist. The media are in a frenzy of speculation and leakage. Senators are calling for hearings. All of Washington demands an answer: Who was the arch-fiend who told a lie in President Bush`s State of the Union speech? No investigation has plumbed such depths of the unknown since O.J. Simpson`s hunt for the real killer of his ex-wife. Whodunit? Was it Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with a candlestick? Condoleezza Rice in the Situation Room with a bottle of Wite-Out and a felt-tipped pen?

Linguists note that the question "Who lied in George Bush`s State of the Union speech" bears a certain resemblance to the famous conundrum "Who is buried in Grant`s Tomb?" They speculate that the two questions may have parallel answers. But philosophers are still struggling to properly analyze the Grant`s Tomb issue -- let alone answer it. And experts say that even when this famous 19th century presidential puzzle is solved, it could be many years before the findings can be applied with any confidence to presidents of more recent vintage.

Lacking any real-life analogy that sufficiently captures the complexity of the Speech-gate puzzle and the challenge facing investigators dedicated to solving it, political scientists say the best comparison may be to the assassination of Major Strasser in the film "Casablanca." If you recall, Humphrey Bogart is standing over the body, holding a smoking gun. Claude Rains says, "Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects." And yet the mystery of who killed the general is never solved.

Ever since Watergate, a smoking gun has been the standard for judging a Washington scandal. Many a miscreant has escaped with his reputation undamaged -- or even enhanced by the publicity and pseudo-vindication -- because there was no "smoking gun" such as the Watergate tapes. But now it seems that standard has been lifted. You would think that on the question of who told a lie in a speech, evidence seen on TV by millions of people, might count for something. Apparently not. The Bush administration borrows from Groucho: "Who are you going to believe -- us or your own two eyes?"

The case for the defense is a classic illustration of what lawyers call "arguing in the alternative." The Bushies say (1) it wasn`t really a lie, (2) someone else told the lie and (3) the lie doesn`t matter. All these defenses are invalid.

(1) Bushies fanned out to the weekend talk shows to note, as if with one voice, that what Bush said was technically accurate. But it was not accurate, even technically. The words in question were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Bush didn`t say it was true, you see -- he just said the Brits said it. This is a contemptible argument in any event. But to descend to the administration`s level of nitpicking, the argument simply doesn`t work. Bush didn`t say that the Brits "said" this Africa business -- he said they "learned" it. The difference between "said" and "learned" is that "learned" clearly means there is some preexisting basis for believing whatever-it-is, apart from the fact that someone said it. Is it theoretically possible to "learn" something that is not true? I`m not sure. But it certainly is not possible to say that someone has "learned" a piece of information without clearly intending to imply that you, the speaker, wish the listener to accept it as true. Bush expressed no skepticism or doubt, even though the Brits qualification was added as protection only because doubts had been expressed internally.

(2) The Bush argument blaming the CIA for failing to remove this falsehood from the president`s speech is based on the logic of "stop me before I lie again." Bush spoke the words, his staff wrote them, those involved carefully overlooked reasons for skepticism. It would have been nice if the CIA had caught this falsehood, but its failure to do so hardly exonerates others. Furthermore, the CIA is part of the executive branch, as is the White House staff. If the president can disown anything he says that he didn`t actually find out or think up and write down all by himself, he is more or less beyond criticism. Which seems to be the idea here.

The president says he has not lost his confidence in CIA Director George Tenet. How sweet. If someone backed me up in a lie and then took the fall for me when it was exposed, I`d have confidence in him too.

(3) The final argument: It was only 16 words! What`s the big deal? The bulk of the case for war remains intact. Logically, of course, this argument will work for any single thread of the pro-war argument. Perhaps the president will tell us which particular points among those he and his administration have made are the ones we are supposed to take seriously. Or how many gimmes he feels entitled to take in the course of this game. Is it a matter of word count? When he hits 100 words, say, are we entitled to assume that he cares whether the words are true?




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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#46
Ich hab mal einen Cartoon gesehen, da kam er ziemlich zerzaust mit Condi aus dem Oral Office. Aber Condi ist keine Praktikantin.

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The press gives Bush a free ride on his lies


By Robert Kuttner, 7/16/2003

`M GLAD THAT the press is finally making an issue of President Bush`s knowing use of a faked intelligence report on Iraq`s supposed nuclear weapons program. But most of the press keeps missing the behind or who actually benefits from the tax cuts or what kind of drug coverage the administration`s Medicare amendments will really provide or how the Bush Clear Skies Act actually degrades clean-air standards, the press has given the administration an astonishingly free ride.


The back story of the politicization of intelligence has been hidden in plain view for months. Last fall, investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The American Prospect, where I am co-editor, exposed the efforts by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to take control of intelligence summaries from the CIA. In March, The New Yorker`s Seymour Hersh exposed the forgery of the report, now belatedly in the headlines, that Saddam was trying to buy uranium from Niger.

John Judis, in The New Republic, a magazine that supported the war, pieced together other efforts to politicize intelligence to justify the Iraq war. The New Yorker has also exposed how George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, has compromised his mission in his fawning efforts to ingratiate himself with Bush and the Pentagon.

So last week when Tenet agreed to take the fall for Bush`s use of a long-discredited intelligence report, the maneuver stank to high heaven. But the press initially played the story with a straight face. On Friday, Bush declared that his speech ``was cleared by the intelligence services.`` Tenet, in a minuet that was obviously rehearsed and orchestrated, then issued a statement taking responsibility and expressing regret. Then, on Saturday, the president magnanimously expressed his full confidence in Tenet.

An innocent reader might have been forgiven for concluding that this ``error`` was the CIA`s lapse. In fact, the CIA was well aware that the Niger uranium story had been fabricated. The reference to the report in the Bush speech was the work of the war hawks at the Pentagon and the White House, not the CIA. Indeed, intelligence experts were so upset about this reference that the text was the subject of word by word negotiation. In the end, Bush`s actual text, disingenuously, attributed the report to British intelligence.

The New York Times, recently buffeted by a news fabrication scandal and a management shake-up, has been particularly cautious about reporting the larger story of the politicization of intelligence and the role of Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. That task has fallen mainly to Times columnists.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof has advanced the story more than the Times news staff. The inimitable Maureen Dowd declared, ``The president and Condi Rice can shuffle the shells and blame George Tenet, but it smells of mendacity.`` Mendacity is a polite synonym for lying. Even Bush`s toughest critics find it hard to print the words, ``Bush lies.`` But that`s the larger story.

The op-ed pages are intended for the expression of opinion. But in the Bush era, much of the reporting and analysis that should be Page 1 news are treated as if they were mere opinion.

Normally the press is not reluctant to challenge the lies of a president. The press hardly shrank from this challenge in the Vietnam and Watergate eras. And much of the press, overzealously, made a crusade of the Whitewater real estate affair, virtually all of which turned out to be a phony. Poor Al Gore got toasted for minor exaggerations.

But Bush gets a free pass time after time. The press holds back partly because of America`s vulnerability to terrorism, which Bush`s handlers exploit shamelessly. The administration is also very effective at pressuring and isolating reporters who criticize Bush, so working reporters bend over backwards to play fair. And the administration benefits from a stage-managed right-wing media machine that has no counterpart on the liberal left.

The press has even stopped making a fuss over the fact that this president has all but stopped holding press conferences. In his Africa trip, Bush intervened to limit questions, even as his African presidential hosts were indicating that press questions were welcome.

Investigations of administration deceptions about how many jobs the tax cuts will create or the actual effects on children of high-stakes testing combined with funding cuts or the saga of how the Pentagon tried to take over the CIA - these are not opinions. They are what journalism is all about.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 7/16/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/197/oped/The_press_gives_B…" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/197/oped/The_press_gives_B…

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CIA: Assessment of Syria`s WMD exaggerated
By WARREN P. STROBEL and JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - In a new dispute over interpreting intelligence data, the CIA and other agencies objected vigorously to a Bush administration assessment of the threat of Syria`s weapons of mass destruction that was to be presented Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

After the objections, the planned testimony by Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, a leading administration hawk, was delayed until September.

U.S. officials told Knight Ridder that Bolton was prepared to tell members of a House of Representatives International Relations subcommittee that Syria`s development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons had progressed to such a point that they posed a threat to stability in the region.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies said that assessment was exaggerated.

Syria has come under increasing U.S. pressure during and after the Iraq war for allegedly giving refuge to members of Saddam Hussein`s regime, allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq to attack U.S. troops and for backing Palestinian militant groups that were conducting terrorist strikes on Israel. After Saddam`s government fell, some Bush aides hinted that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus might be the next U.S. target.

The objections by the intelligence community come as the Bush administration is defending itself over complaints that it embellished intelligence secrets to justify the war against Iraq.

Bolton`s planned remarks caused a "revolt" among intelligence experts who thought they inflated the progress Syria has made in its weapons programs, said a U.S. official who isn`t from the CIA, but was involved in the dispute.

He and other officials who provided similar accounts spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the issue`s sensitivity and because they aren`t authorized government spokesmen.

The CIA`s objections and comments alone ran to 35 to 40 pages, the official said.

Officials declined to provide more details of the disputes over the testimony, some of which was secret and scheduled to be delivered in closed session. The House panel is considering a bill that would toughen trade and diplomatic sanctions against Syria, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring nations.

Officials provided conflicting explanations of why the hearing was canceled.

A Bolton aide said it was because of a scheduling conflict - Bolton was called to a White House meeting Tuesday afternoon - and that the hearing had been reset for September. Others said it was because the bitter dispute couldn`t be immediately resolved.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

But other officials in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill said the White House Office of Management and Budget, which coordinates government officials` public statements, wouldn`t give final approval to the planned testimony.

The conflict appears to illustrate how battles over prewar intelligence on Iraq have spread to other issues and have heightened sensitivity among Bush aides about public descriptions of threats to the United States.

The White House acknowledged last week that it shouldn`t have included in President Bush`s January State of the Union address a dramatic contention that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa. Other administration claims about Iraq`s banned weapons program and alleged ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network are now in question.

Several officials said another reason for the cancellation of Bolton`s testimony was that he might have been subjected to sharp questioning about Iraq intelligence, a controversy the White House is trying to lay to rest.

There is more attention to "dotting I`s and crossing T`s," said a State Department official, adding that Bolton`s draft statement was the subject of "extensive edits."

Bolton set off a controversy in May 2002 when he asserted in a speech that Cuba has a biological warfare program. A State Department intelligence expert, Christian Westermann, recently told a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that available intelligence data don`t support that assertion, U.S. officials have said.

The first U.S. official said that after months of complaining about pressure to skew their analyses, rank-and-file intelligence officials "have become emboldened" by the recent public debate over Iraq.

"People are fed up," he said.

Another official confirmed that the CIA had "a good deal of concern" over the classified portion of Bolton`s testimony.

In speeches and congressional testimony over the past year, Bolton has identified Syria among a handful of countries whose alleged pursuit of biological and chemical weapons makes them threats to international stability. His assessments attached more gravity to the danger that Syria poses than did a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment that covered the first six months of 2002.

In testimony in June before the House International Relations Committee, Bolton said U.S. officials are "looking at Syria`s nuclear program with growing concern and continue to monitor it for any signs of nuclear weapons intent."

A CIA report submitted to Congress in April contained more cautionary language. Noting that Syria and Russia have reached preliminary agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation, the CIA report said only, "In principal, broader access to Russian expertise provides opportunities for Syria to expand its indigenous capabilities, should it decide to pursue nuclear weapons."

In his June testimony, Bolton asserted that U.S. officials "know that Syria is pursuing the development of biological weapons." The CIA report said only that it`s "highly probable that Syria is also continuing to develop an offensive BW (biological weapons) capability."

Finally, Bolton told the congressional committee that "North Korean entities have been involved in aiding Syria`s ballistic missile development." The CIA reported that Syria was trying to build Scud-C ballistic missiles "probably with North Korean assistance."

CIA Director George Tenet, in an annual worldwide assessment of threats against the United States that he presented to Congress in February, referred to Syria by name only once, and that was in connection with its support for Palestinian extremist groups.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6310763.htm

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-army16j…
THE WORLD


For U.S. Soldiers in Iraq, Long Haul Grows Longer
The latest deployment extension stirs new complaints that troops are already overtaxed. In Baghdad, another GI is killed.
By John Hendren
Times Staff Writer

July 16, 2003

FALLOUJA, Iraq — They`re hot, they`re cranky, and they`re not leaving any time soon. Spc. Steven Outen has phoned his parents in Dalton, Ga., twice since his original six-month tour in the Persian Gulf was due to end in March to say his stay had been extended. This week, he didn`t bother to call after he was again told to remain, this time through September. They expected it, he said.

"I didn`t like it at all," he said.

Between bites of a breakfast of eggs and sausage in heat already topping 110 degrees, Spc. Joseph Lynes added, "Going home for me isn`t even reality anymore."

Their exhausted outfit, the 3rd Infantry`s 2nd Brigade, will have completed a full year in the Persian Gulf in September. Tens of thousands more U.S. soldiers are expected to face equally long deployments. The U.S. Central Command is expected to announce as soon as next week that deployments to Iraq will now last a year, military officials said on condition of anonymity.

And the duty is dangerous: Early today a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded in an apparent bombing west of Baghdad, witnesses said.

Griping by soldiers is as old as warfare itself, but military officials say longer stays for soldiers such as Outen and Lynes, whose brigade stormed Baghdad in early April and played a major role in toppling Saddam Hussein`s regime, are a symptom of an Army that is stretched too thin. At a time when Pentagon strategists are considering cuts in the overall size of the Army, a broad range of soldiers — from senior brass in Washington to ground-pounding GIs in Fallouja — think that the Army should instead be growing to take on the expanding tasks the Bush administration has handed it.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that retention rates are already beginning to suffer in the face of the grueling Iraq duty, Army officials said on condition of anonymity.

There simply aren`t enough soldiers for the job as it is, Army insiders argue.

"You`ve got to take an appetite suppressant, or you`ve got to size the force appropriately," an Army officer serving in Iraq said on condition of anonymity, adding that peacekeeping commitments posed a greater strain on the service than fighting wars. "If anything, this war shows we need a larger Army."

The office of Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) says it has fielded hundreds of calls and letters from angry families at Ft. Stewart, Ga., which is the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Division. Other lawmakers have expressed similar concerns.

Military experts said that such significant numbers of soldiers or entire units have not been asked to serve in combat for such an extended period of time since the Vietnam War.

"For major combat units, this is clearly the longest sustained combat deployment since Vietnam," said Michael O`Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution.

The Pentagon routinely deploys troops overseas in peacetime for months at a time but rarely without their families.

Although a single unit is often continuously deployed, individual soldiers rotate in and out to keep the unit fresh and keep the careers and training of the troops from stagnating.

The well-publicized woes of the 3rd Infantry Division appear to have given the nation`s oldest armed service an edge in a battle within the Defense Department. Pentagon officials are expected to drop consideration of a plan to cut the size of the Army from 10 divisions to eight, at least for the foreseeable future, defense officials and military analysts said.

Army leaders complain privately that they have been punished for defeating Iraq more quickly than Pentagon strategists had anticipated with about half the troops that Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks had initially sought.

After a series of clashes with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki left in June with a parting shot at Rumsfeld, whom Army officials accuse of doing too much with too few soldiers: "Beware the 12-division strategy for a 10-division army."

Rumsfeld has not decided whether to trim the overall number of GIs, a senior aide said recently, but Army officials say that before the war, senior Pentagon leaders showed an inclination to cut. The defense secretary is openly criticized by privates and officers alike in Fallouja, where soldiers face rifle fire, mortar shells or rocket-propelled grenades almost daily.

"People say Rumsfeld needs to get out of office," one soldier said, to nods from two fellow GIs.

Lawrence Di Rita, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that the plan was still to bring the 3rd Infantry Division home this fall and that there had been no change in the overall plans for the division. He said Pentagon officials were focused on ensuring an orderly redeployment of forces.

Of the Army`s 10 divisions, about half — the 3rd Infantry, the 4th Infantry, the 101st Airborne, the 1st Armored Division and a nearly division-sized assortment of smaller units such as a brigade from the 82nd Airborne and the 2nd and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiments — are deployed in Iraq.

Even the approximately 150,000 troops — backed by the Air Force, Navy and troops from other countries — are not enough, many members of Congress say.

Some of the remaining divisions are tied up in military hot spots in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Philippines, South Korea and possibly soon in Liberia. Others are posted in Germany, Japan and Italy. And still more remain at their home bases, training for their next deployments and aiding the Bush administration`s war on terrorism.

The gaps are often filled by Army Reserve and National Guard units called away from their civilian jobs.

"What are we doing here?" asked a Rhode Island National Guardsman on an overnight patrol in Fallouja that had come under repeated rifle and rocket-propelled-grenade fire. "They got the Special Forces, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 3rd Armored Division, the 101st Airborne, the 4th Infantry Division, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment — and the 115th MP Company of the Rhode Island National Guard."

Spc. Patrick Camp was more blunt.

"We don`t want to be here anymore," said Camp, whose company left for the gulf Feb. 7. "I don`t think even God knows when we`re leaving."

It`s a particularly sore subject in the 3rd Infantry`s 2nd Brigade, which was credited with bringing the war to an early end and was then sent to quell a growing uprising in Fallouja.

The 3rd Brigade is already in Kuwait, on its way home. But the soldiers of the 2nd now will remain beyond their expected tour in Fallouja as well because the Central Command considers the city too insecure to allow them to pull out before a similarly large and heavily equipped unit can replace it, officials said.

The mood was made all the worse after Maj. Gen. Buford Blount III, the division`s commander, told his troops that they would be going home soon, followed by a similar statement to Congress from Rumsfeld. Senior Army officials say the decision came from the top, after little consultation with Army brass.

Nevertheless, brigade officials say that mood is one thing, morale another.

"Absolutely, they`re disappointed. And you wouldn`t expect anything else," said Lt. Col. Eric Wesley, the brigade`s executive officer. But he added: "There is not a morale problem It is only a morale issue if this unit cannot go to its next mission and perform as effectively."

Even if the storied "Spartan" brigade finishes this mission with its morale undiminished, its affection for the Pentagon`s civilian leaders might not fare as well.

"Tell Donald Rumsfeld the 2nd Brigade is still stuck in Fallouja," said Sgt. Siphon Phan, "and we`re very angry."

*

Staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE WORLD


Administration Can`t Verify N. Korea Claim
Officials say Pyongyang may be bluffing about treating spent rods. U.S. still divided on strategy.
By Sonni Efron
Times Staff Writer

July 16, 2003

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Tuesday that it cannot verify North Korea`s claim to have reprocessed all 8,000 of its spent nuclear fuel rods, an action that would produce enough plutonium for about six nuclear weapons.

Senior officials said the North Koreans may be bluffing about the claim, made last week in talks between U.S. and North Korean diplomats, to try to extract concessions from the United States.

Tests for a telltale gas produced by plutonium reprocessing have been inconclusive, although intelligence agencies continue to monitor the situation, U.S. officials said.

The consensus in the intelligence community has been that the North Koreans have consistently claimed to be further along in producing nuclear weapons than they actually were, one official said.

"The point is, they`re not going to spook us," the official said. "They`ve got to understand that they don`t get anywhere just by trying to up the level of blackmail." The CIA has concluded that North Korea already has two nuclear weapons.

The fuel rods were stored at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which was closed in 1994 after Pyongyang agreed to end its nuclear program in return for energy assistance from Washington. It was reopened in December, after the U.S. suspended that aid upon learning that a secret uranium-enrichment program had continued.

Sources say the administration remains divided over what to do. Meanwhile, it insists that a diplomatic solution is possible — if Pyongyang sits down with the U.S. and other nations threatened by its nuclear ambitions.

President Bush has said he wants a diplomatic solution, and the administration has been demanding that North Korea agree to verifiable, permanent dismantling of its nuclear programs in exchange for economic aid and security assurances.

At the same time, Washington and some of its allies are trying to build a consensus for the strategy of increasing pressure on Pyongyang by halting North Korean ships carrying missiles or contraband. And, two sources said, some U.S. officials want to, in effect, goad Pyongyang into lashing out and bringing on its own demise.

"People have come up with all kinds of half-baked ideas on how to raise the confrontation level, but the president has been very clear all along he wants to solve this diplomatically, and we are pursuing that course," a senior administration official said.

Administration officials agree that North Korea`s possession of weapons-grade plutonium that it could export to the highest bidder poses an unacceptable threat to U.S. security.

"Where the consensus breaks down is what do you do about it," one well-placed source said. "Do you allow yourself to just say there`s nothing you can do, or do you try to see if a negotiated settlement is possible, knowing they might cheat on any deal they sign up to? Or do you use the military option? Or do you combine these in some way with threats and promises of benefits?

"The president has made clear what he wants," the source said, referring to a negotiated settlement, "and people are not fulfilling his mandate."

L. Gordon Flake, a Korea expert and head of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs in Washington, said some hard-liners want to provoke North Korea into belligerent statements or actions that would solidify the emerging coalition of nations directly threatened by a nuclear-armed Pyongyang: South Korea, China, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Russia and Australia.



Other experts said North Korea`s withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its boast to be producing nuclear weapons demand action by the United Nations.



After North Korea kicked nuclear inspectors out in December and unilaterally withdrew from the treaty in January, the International Atomic Energy Agency referred the matter to the Security Council. But Russia and China have opposed U.N. action, arguing that it would backfire.

"We need to identify and treat North Korea as a violator of [the treaty] at the U.N.," argued Henry Sokolski, a former Reagan administration official who now runs the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "If we`re waiting upon the Chinese before we do anything, we are also in deep trouble."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-nuke…
THE WORLD


Uranium Missing From Iraq Plant, Report Says
The material, totaling 22 pounds, cannot be used for nuclear weapons, U.N. inspectors say.
From Associated Press

July 16, 2003

UNITED NATIONS — At least 22 pounds of uranium compounds may be missing from a looted Iraqi plant, said a report from U.N. nuclear inspectors obtained Tuesday. But they said the material couldn`t be used to make nuclear weapons.

The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency said the vast majority of uranium feared stolen from Iraq`s largest nuclear research facility at Tuwaitha after Iraqi troops fled on the eve of the U.S.-led war had been recovered, though it gave no figure.

The Tuwaitha facility was thought to contain hundreds of tons of natural uranium and nearly 2 tons of low-enriched uranium, which could be further processed for weapons use.

The IAEA report said the missing uranium compounds may have been dispersed as dust or particles when looters emptied about 200 containers at Tuwaitha, which has not operated for more than a decade.

"The quantity and type of uranium compounds dispersed are not sensitive from a proliferation point of view," IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.

The nuclear material at the Tuwaitha facility, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, had been monitored and inspected by the IAEA until the U.S.-led war.

But the facility was left unguarded after Iraqi troops fled the area. Looters stripped the facility of uranium storage barrels they later used to hold drinking water. The U.S.-led interim administration in Iraq allowed the IAEA to send a team last month to secure the uranium.

The assessment that almost all the uranium is accounted for is likely to allay concerns that looters specifically went after uranium to possibly use it for nuclear weapons, or that it fell into the wrong hands.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-danzige…
COMMENTARY


Tour of Duty or Deplorable Deployment?
By Jeff Danziger

July 16, 2003

In 1969, it took between 10 and 18 hours to get to Vietnam on the Flying Tiger contract planes. A long, numbing flight to a war with no liquor, not even a beer. The stewardesses, who were the last American women we thought we would see, served low-bidder airline meals, a little sorrowfully I thought, treating us like doomed children. Stops were made in Hawaii, where a special lounge separated us from the tourists and honeymoon couples.

At Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, the main entry point for American troops, the first whack of reality was the heat. We walked down the stairs from the plane into the boil of the Saigon humidity, weighted by duffle bags and weapons, swaddled in fatigues and canvas boots.

This was going to be awful.

But the one thing that kept us mildly sane was the knowledge that it would last only a year. That was guaranteed. You could, you told yourself, put up with anything for a year. Three months later, especially in combat units, you weren`t so sure. Even so, it was the knowledge that every day brought you closer to deliverance from the heat and the noise and the violence and the death that kept most of us from losing it.

This week, the Pentagon informed the 3rd Infantry Division troops in Iraq that they would not be going home on the dates previously promised. In fact they will be extended in their duty "indefinitely."

Errors of judgment and planning have been made in the Iraq operation, but I can think of no other error so grave. What this means to the average soldier, being cooked by the Iraqi summer sun under his flak jacket and helmet, is that there`s no longer any schedule against which they can hope for escape.

This Baghdad hideousness, this confusion and the damned heat will go on and on. It means, further, that the U.S. government, which acclaimed them heroes a few months back, has failed in its predictions about the war and is solving the problem by leaving them there to pay for the failure.

In Vietnam, every soldier had his short-timer calendar, carried in his plastic wallet. These curious documents, which counted 365 days like weird little advent calendars, were often humorous and sometimes ribald, drawn up by local wags with artistic talent. Every morning meant crossing off another day. And the calendars held the promise that if you could just get through however many days were left, then regular life — with families and cars and air-conditioning and cold beer — would start again. If you got down to less than three months you were termed "short," the cartoon for which was a helmet sitting on two boots.

The Army could guarantee this one-year tour because there was a draft in place. There were always more infantrymen and clerk-typists coming along. But now, of course, there aren`t. And those on the ground in Iraq are paying for the ultimate and cleverly disguised truth about George W. Bush`s war. Nobody really wanted to fight it. Not really. We want to extend American power and smash terrorists, mostly by listening to the radio and cheering. But actually going and taking part in the miserable day-to-day work well, no thanks. Let somebody else`s kid do it.

Somebody else`s kid doesn`t want to do it. The enlistment numbers are down. They don`t want to be there for the one-a-day lottery that the casualty reports have become. They`ve seen this war on TV, and they prefer the video game. The White House has asked for help among the coalition of the willing, the Pakistanis, for example. They don`t want to go. They`ve asked among the coalition of the unwilling, Germany and India, for example. They are still unwilling. And slowly but surely the willing are being transmuted into the unwilling. So what happens now?

The Pentagon can`t extend the 3rd Infantry forever. In truth, it can`t even extend it for more than a few months without serious reaction from families, some of whom have already begun bringing this unsolvable problem to the attention of their members of Congress. Congress members do not like this question.

In the later years of the Vietnam War, the weekly casualty rate was slightly under 100 U.S. troops killed a week. Gen. William Westmoreland had thought, out loud unfortunately, that if he could get that number under the weekly highway death toll back in the States, the American people would tolerate it. In this thinking, he betrayed a military proclivity for thinking of statistics as merely numbers, not actual people. If you are surrounded by enough generals you can start thinking this way too. But normal people do not think this way. And normal people these days find even the daily toll of one or two American soldiers killed horrible.

The Pentagon has a habit of solving its problems on the backs of those least able to refuse. But the generals have their own subtle ways of making a political point. Our troops in Iraq are acutely aware that the longer they are there, the greater the chances that they will be hit by something: a bullet, a rocket grenade or a suicide bomber. Naturally, morale falls apart. The entire syndrome that wrecked the Army in Vietnam could begin again.

The Pentagon remembers Vietnam, even if the White House doesn`t. Commands are questioned, dedication to the mission falls apart, the heat bakes away the lubricant of civility between officers and men. Worse, troops get letters from wives, "When? When are you coming home? I need you "

One or two people go crazy, and everyone realizes that they are not that far behind. Reporters sense the story has changed. When will the 3rd Infantry come home? Not in August as expected. Not in September as promised. For Christmas? Well, we can`t say. Army spokesman Richard Olsen at Ft. Stewart described it in this oblique way: "The time frame has gone away, and there is no time frame."

This is a hideous mistake. There are no short-timers` calendars, no end of this assignment to look forward to. Nothing you can promise the folks back home. Or yourself, for that matter. The one thing that kept people sane in Vietnam has been taken away. The time frame has gone away, the man says. Not mentioning who took it away.

Besides, as Donald Rumsfeld has told us, the Vietnam syndrome is over. This isn`t Vietnam.

He could be right. It might actually be worse.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Danziger is a political cartoonist. He served as an intelligence officer with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam in 1969-70.




Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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COMMENTARY


If His Words Are His Bond, We`re in a Bind
By Arianna Huffington

July 16, 2003

Quick, somebody get the Bush White House a copy of "All the President`s Men." A slow drip, drip, drip of incremental revelations and long-overdue admissions is not the way to stem a brewing scandal.

But that`s exactly the approach the administration is taking with the firestorm arising from the president`s Misstatement of the Union fiasco, a.k.a. Yellowcake-gate.

Suddenly everyone is asking: What didn`t the president know, and why didn`t he know it? And why does he know less and less every day?

The White House`s handling of the yellowcake-uranium-from-Niger deception has been atrocious, and its attempts to spin the aftershocks have been even worse. The White House just doesn`t seem to grasp the concept that, when you`re sending American soldiers to die, the reasons given — all of the reasons — should be true.

In July 1973, at the height of the Watergate hearings, Richard Nixon announced: "What we were elected to do, we are going to do, and let others wallow in Watergate."

George Bush seems to be taking the same head-in-the-sand approach, letting it be known that, with the CIA`s director taking responsibility for the Niger snafu, he considers the matter closed.

In the spirit of Tricky Dick, let me make myself perfectly clear: I`m not saying that Yellowcake-gate is the equivalent of Watergate.

I`m saying it`s potentially much, much worse.

At its core, Watergate was about making sure that Nixon won an election. Yellowcake-gate is much more than a dirty trick played on the American public. It`s about the Bush administration`s pattern of deception as it shoved this country into a preemptive war — from the much-advertised but nonexistent links between Iraq and Al Qaeda to the hyping of Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction.

No one died as a result of Watergate, but more than 200 U.S. soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded to rid the world of an imminent threat that wasn`t. To say nothing of the countless Iraqis who have lost their lives.

And those numbers will only rise as we find ourselves stuck in a situation that Gen. Tommy Franks predicts will continue for at least four more years.

Bush is coming across as very presidential indeed.

Like his dad, he`s out of the loop; like Bill Clinton, he`s become a world-class word weasel; and like Nixon, he`s shown a massive propensity for secrecy and dissembling.

Clinton was impeached for seven words he should not have uttered: "I never had sex with that woman." What price will Bush have to pay for his 16-word scam?


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Arianna Huffington writes a syndicated column. E-mail: arianna@ariannaonline .com.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Iraq`s best option may not be unity
James P. Pinkerton, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Service
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/16/ED50…


"THIS MONTH will be a political turning point for Iraq," proclaims Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. That`s great news, if true.

But maybe Feith`s words contain what logicians refer to as a "planted assumption." And that planted assumption is that Iraq should be Iraq -- a single political unit.

The Pentagon is a font of happy talk about that country these days. Things are "taking hold" there, talking heads say, as new advisory councils are being created. "Incredible progress," they add, has been made toward restoring the Iraqi infrastructure.

But even if that`s the case -- and there`s some evidence to the contrary -- progress might be greater if the 24 million people involved were divided up according to their natural ethnic and religious dividing lines.

In my visit there last month, many people I met expressed skepticism that Iraq would ever be a viable country. After all, there`s no long-standing tradition of Iraqi nationhood. A thousand years ago, Baghdad was the capital of the Arab caliphate, ruling over the Muslim umma, or realm. But then came the Mongol conquerors, and after them, the Turks. The Turkish masters established three vilayets, or administrative districts, in the territory that is now Iraq. These divisions made sense -- since Mosul, in the north, was mostly Kurdish, while Baghdad, in the middle, was mostly Sunni Muslim, and Basra, in the south, was mostly Shia Muslim.

During World War I, the Turks were defeated by the British, who had imperial ambitions of their own. It was British colonialists who drew the lines of "Iraq" in 1919, combining those three Turkish vilayets. So that`s it. That`s how far back in time Iraq goes -- barely over 80 years.

And those eight decades haven`t been particularly happy. For most of that time, the Sunni Muslims, who make up one-fifth of the population, have kept their foot on the necks of both the Kurds and the Shia. So it`s no wonder that most Sunnis live in fear of a democracy in which their victims would be able to exercise majority rule and victimize them as payback. This is one reason progress toward genuine democracy -- as opposed to mere advisory committees -- has been so slow. The Americans want to avoid the sort of ethnic and religious violence that has marred so many other Third World countries.

But, of course, it`s a time-consuming process to figure out how to protect minority rights while establishing a fair rule of law, and it might not work in any case.

Last month I put a question to L. Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Baghdad. If Iraqis have the right to self-determination, I asked, could they have the right to self-determine themselves into different entities?

It would be fair to say that Bremer didn`t think much of the question. "President Bush has said that he wants to see a free, unified Iraq," he answered, adding, "I know of no responsible Iraqi who has a different view." Well, I know some, but from the look on Bremer`s face, none of them is about to get through to him.

Back in the United States, I put the same question to James Carafano, a former Army officer who wrote a new Heritage Foundation report on lessons learned in Iraq. Carafano is a supporter of the American effort, but since he`s not on the government payroll, his answers were more candid. Why is Iraq unified? "Because the British said so," he said flatly.

Carafano added that if Iraq were to be divided, other countries in the region -- most of them unfriendly to the United States -- might make a power grab. But if the United States is now committed to protecting 24 million people, they could be protected in three units, just as they were for 400 years under the Turks.

It is "fear of the unknown," Carafano said, that is now driving Iraq policy.

That is, having made a military leap of faith, the Bush people are hunkering down. But "in a perfect world," he conceded, "it probably would be better off as three countries."

Alas, we don`t live in a perfect world. But if the goal is decent, albeit imperfect, life for Iraqis, they are more likely to find it according to their ethnic and religious self-determination, not according to borders drawn by long-dead colonialists.

Pinkerton is a Newsday columnist.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Nothing Left To Lie About
With BushCo reaming the nation on just about every possible front, is implosion imminent?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/



And the lies, the flagrant GOP bitch slappings of the American public, the maniacal jabs straight in eye of truth with the icepick of utter BS, have just reached some sort of critical mass, some sort of saturation point of absurdity and pain and ridiculousness and you just have to stand up and applaud.

Really. It`s almost as if you should cheer the invidiousness, it is so spectacular, unprecedented, the tower of lies reaching the point where you, Jaded and Benumbed American Citizen, are forced to either recoil and ignore and deny, succumb and scream and laugh, or, like Bush himself, just sort of stand there, wide eyed, dumfounded, blinking hard, looking more blank and confused than ever, as the unified BushCo front begins to gloriously unravel.

This much we now know, as compiled by the CIA and the U.N. and U.S. military leaders and Bush`s own teams of experts and scientists and lackeys and pretty much anyone with any sort of common sense or astute observation as yet unclouded and unmisled by the raging masturbatory pro-war gropings of, say, Fox News. A brief summary:

Saddam was all over 9/11. Funny how U.S. intelligence never found a single connection. Funny how BushCo knowingly led the nation on to believe there was one. Funny how the only role Saddamn actually played in 9/11 was to watch it unfold on CNN and exclaim, "Holy Allah with a case of Cuban cigars, Hashim, a million dinars says BushCo uses that as an excuse to come swipe our oil and pump up Halliburton and build a Starbucks in downtown Baghdad! Prepare the escape pod!"
Iraq was al Qaeda`s bitch. See above. Fact is, U.S. intelligence found no proven link between Iraq and any recent terrorism threats against the U.S. Fact is, bin Laden hated Saddam and denounced his socialist Baath party as "infidels.". Fact is, BushCo worked extremely hard to manipulate the media to make you think the two were so close they might as well have been gay lovers. Curiously, this sinister obfuscation is still not clear to millions of Americans most of whom tend to live in Texas and/or anywhere near major military manufacturing plants. Go figure.
Those 9/11 terrorists? Buncha snarling Iraqis. Well, no. Most were, in fact, Saudi. There were no Iraqis at all. Saudi Arabia remains a desperately important American ally, one that provides billions in U.S. investment and hence BushCo loves them and kisses their rings and doesn`t say a peep about the millions they also give to terrorist cells -- like, say, those of al Qaeda -- to protect their oil fields. Shhh.
Saddam has millions of drumfuls of scary chemicals ready at a moment`s notice to poison the entire world and most of EuroDisney. Not even close. Huge chunks of "proof" of Iraq`s purported chemical-weapons and nuclear-weapons programs have already been dismissed by U.N. inspectors and weapons experts. Saddam did, however, possess large quantities of bootlegged Britney Spears posters, which, if dropped on Israel, would have certainly caused pandemonium if not outright giggling and many heavy longing sighs.
Saddam scored uranium from Niger to make nukes. This is so cutely wrong it`s painful. The document stating this was forged and bogus and BushCo knew it and referenced it anyway in the State of the Union address to help justify the war, and now he`s all flustered and denying everything and the CIA director is bumbling in as the fall guy, and oh my freaking God do they ever think you are stupid.
The war on Iraq will be as easy as lancing a boil on Dick Cheney`s forehead. Yes! Instant and painless and easy it will be, and it will inflict minimal casualties and we`d be all done in a week and America will be back home and happily watching "The Bachelorette" and the world would love us and see how glorious and righteous we are and everyone will convert to Christianity and join Promise Keepers and the 700 Club and never have sex and we will ban all icky gay people to Canada. Whee!
Or not. Never you mind that thousands of soldiers are to be stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq "indefinitely," for years to come. Or that more than half of the U.S. Army`s entire combat force is bogged down in Iraq right now. Or that U.S. soldiers are still dying in Iraq every day, more than 80 so far (33 in hostile fire), with more to come, endless guerrilla warfare possibly requiring even more U.S. troops, months after BushCo declared the war essentially over. Whoops. Gosh. Sorry.

The Jessica Lynch "rescue" was all-American heroism at its finest. So cute. The "rescue" was actually all-American Pentagon PR bulls** at its finest, a rather embarrassingly staged hoax so full of overblown stunts and dumb machismo and awkward twists that not even Fox News would touch the story after a while, and they`ll run anything. No wonder the Pentagon has refused to release the unedited video footage of the "rescue."

Iraq`s oil money will go straight to "liberated" Iraqi people. Seriously now. Did anyone really ever believe this, even in their most drunken and heavily Xanaxed state? The money, of course, is going straight into U.S. and U.K. coffers as "payment" for the Gulf War, with only a fraction going for "rebuilding." But the bottom line is, we control the oil. We control Iraq`s billions. We do not care who knows it. Special note from Donny "Beady Eyes" Rumsfeld to all you people who somehow genuinely believed we bombed Iraq for the betterment of the Iraqi people: Tthhppbbbhhhppbb.
Oh my God look just look at all those scary WMDs. There are no WMDs. There are no WMDs. There are no WMDs. And there never were. Two little words from BushCo, straight to you: Ha-ha, suckers.
The list goes on. This list is nearly endless. The list is growing and expanding and now threatens to split and explode and spread like some sort of giant viscous blob and invade small towns and kill plants and induce women to slap their hands to their faces and scream while it slowly steamrolls innocent children as they innocently stand there in the street playing innocent Frisbee, innocently.

And there are others. There are flagrant lies and cover-ups and misprisions not even related to the war, more about increasingly nauseating domestic issues, major budget crises and unabashed pro-corporate decisions and anti-gay anti-women anti-sex fun for the whole terrified white Christian family.

There is, for example, the recent hacking to death of the EPA`s major greenhouse-gas/air-quality study. There was the (failed) attempt to kill the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that tracked factory closings in the U.S. There is the secret $135 mil in budget moneys set aside to cram invidious sexless Christian "abstinence only until marriage" programs down the throats of jaded American teens and desperate budget-reamed schools.

There was, as Slate so effortlessly delineates, the regular and rather sneering deep-sixing of serious economic data and fiscal forecasting -- much of it generated by Bush`s own teams -- because it didn`t match the GOP`s makeshift rosy scenarios.

There is massive unemployment. There is the largest budget deficit in history, now a staggering $455 billion, over $50 billion more than the administration predicted just five months ago.

There are state and local governments broke to the point of having to cut back essential services like police and fire departments, hospitals, public schools, road maintenance and sewers. There is Lynne Cheney. `Nuff said.

There appears to be no end. There appears to be a limitless supply of lies and half-truths and misinformations BushCo can invent on the spot, and is now a good time to recall how Clinton was savaged and vilified and attacked and nearly impeached because he lied about having big dumb sex with a rather unappealing intern?

And yet here is BushCo, openly and shamelessly lying about leading this nation into a vile and petroleum-drunk war, massacring tens of thousands, killing hundreds of U.S. soldiers (and counting), gutting the budget, favoring the rich with useless tax cuts, hiding and prevaricating and dodging and treated the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution the way a crusty abusive Catholic priest treats an altar boy.

This is where you have to laugh. This is where you applaud. Stand up and cheer, for it has been a masterful performance, a rather unprecedented series of major cover-ups and well-orchestrated PR maneuvers and outright fabrications unmatched in recent history. Hell, the epic scale of BushCo`s strocities make Clinton`s little oral-sex fixation seem like a jaywalking violation.

Is now the time? Is this is where we start to notice how it is all coming unraveled, Bush`s snide web of lies just too flagrant and too insulting for too long, CIA directors and intelligence experts and military leaders and scientists and the like all coming forward now to refute any number of false BushCo claims, the chinks in the armor now becoming cracks and fissures and flubs and stumbles and ultimate raging implosions?

Is this why impeachment proceedings have yet to begin in earnest against BushCo? Because we`re just too stunned, too frozen in disbelief at the mounting mountains of evidence that we have been duped and misled and lied to on a scale we can`t really begin to assimilate? Could very well be.

Because the tower of lies, oh how it teeters, how it quivers, how it feels oh so ready to fall.


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©2003 SF Gate

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POLL ANALYSES
July 16, 2003


Americans Divided on Bush`s Handling of the Economy
Majority say he is not paying enough attention to the economy


by David W. Moore
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are evenly divided in their rating of President George W. Bush`s handling of the economy, with 48% indicating their approval and 50% their disapproval. But more generally, a substantial majority, 58%, believe the president is not paying enough attention to the economy, while just 40% say he is paying the right amount. By contrast, relatively few Americans believe that Bush is not spending enough time on Iraq or the war on terrorism.


George W. Bush’s Job of Handling the Economy -- 2003

How Much Attention is President Bush Paying to the Economy?

George W. Bush’s Job of Handling Foreign Affairs -- 2003


http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr030716.asp

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Fas sind die Artikel, die für Stimmung sorgen.

A Big Letdown
Soldiers Learn They’ll Be in Baghdad Longer Than Expected

By Jeffrey Kofman
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq030715_2ndBriga…

F A L L U J A H, Iraq, July 15
— The sergeant at the 2nd Battle Combat Team Headquarters pulled me aside in the corridor. "I`ve got my own `Most Wanted` list," he told me.

He was referring to the deck of cards the U.S. government published, featuring Saddam Hussein, his sons and other wanted members of the former Iraqi regime.

"The aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz," he said.

He was referring to the four men who are running U.S. policy here in Iraq — the four men who are ultimately responsible for the fate of U.S. troops here.

Those four are not popular at 2nd BCT these days. It is home to 4,000 troops from the 2nd Brigade of the Army`s 3rd Infantry Division. The soldiers were deployed to Kuwait last September. They were among the first troops in Baghdad during the war. And now they`ve been in the region longer than other troops: 10 months and counting.

They were told they`d be going home in May. Then in early July. Then late July. Then last week they heard that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had mentioned them on Capitol Hill.

"The 2nd Brigade is — the plan is that they would return in August, having been there something like 10 months," said Rumsfeld.

He added: "The services and the Joint Staff have been working with Central Command to develop a rotation plan so that we can, in fact, see that we treat these terrific young men and young women in a way that`s respectful of their lives and their circumstances."

Solid words from a solid source. Soldiers called their families. Commanding officers began preparations.

‘I Don’t Care Anymore’

Now comes word from the Pentagon: Not so fast. The 2nd Brigade will be staying in Iraq "indefinitely." The earliest they could return home is October.

"If Donald Rumsfeld were sitting here in front of us, what would you say to him?" I asked a group of soldiers who gathered around a table, eager to talk to a visiting reporter.

"If he was here," said Pfc. Jason Punyahotra, "I would ask him why we`re still here, why we`ve been told so many times and it`s changed."

In the back of the group, Spc. Clinton Deitz put up his hand. "If Donald Rumsfeld was here," he said, "I`d ask him for his resignation."

Those are strong words from troops used to following orders. They say they will continue to do their job, but they no longer seem to have their hearts in the mission.

"I used to want to help these people," said Pfc. Eric Rattler, "but now I don`t really care about them anymore. I`ve seen so much, you know, little kids throwing rocks at you. Once you pacify an area, it seems like the area you just came from turns bad again. I`d like this country to be all right, but I don`t care anymore."


Wondering Why

What they care about is their families. Sgt. Terry Gilmore had to call his wife, Stacey, this week to her that he wouldn`t be home in a few weeks to see her and their two little children.

"When I told her, she started crying," Gilmore said, his eyes moistening. "I mean, I almost started crying. I felt like my heart was broken. We couldn`t figure out why they do it. Why they can keep us over here right after they told us we were coming home."

Sgt. Felipe Vega, who oversees the platoon, sat alone in the platoon quarters, writing a letter. A photo of his wife, Rhonda, was taped to the wall above him.

It is Vega`s job to maintain morale. That`s not easy, he told me, when the Army keeps changing the orders.

"They turn around and slap you in the face," he said.

When asked if that`s the way it feels, he said, "Yeah, kicked in the guts, slapped in the face."


Losing Faith

The 2nd Brigade originally came to Kuwait for six months of exercises. Then they stayed to fight the war. Like the others, Vega thought that would be the end of it.

"What was told to us in Kuwait," he said, "was the fastest way to go home was through Baghdad. And that`s what we did."

But more than three months later they are still here.

"Well it pretty much makes me lose faith in the Army," said Pfc. Jayson Punyhotra, one of the soldiers grouped around the table. "I mean, I don`t really believe anything they tell me. If they told me we were leaving next week, I wouldn`t believe them."

Fighting words from men who are eager to put down their weapons.


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Ignorance is No Excuse


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By: Jay Sherman - 07/15/03



In defending his claims made in the January State of the Union address, George W. Bush has stated, "I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/938245.asp#BODY

Now, hypothetically, if I were to publish a dissertation or report containing data that is at best questionable, and at worst a forgery, it wouldn`t matter if the paper was cleared by my professor or editor. I`m the one who would be held accountable. Ignorance would be no excuse. My reputation and career would likely be ruined, and deservedly so. Yet, our sorry excuse for a president and human being basically says, "Well, they told me it was OK," and walks away.

Case closed. "The president has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on as well."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/international/worldspecial…

How dare he?! What nerve George W. Bush has to pawn off the responsibility for his actions on George Tenet and the CIA! Every day of my life, I`m told "Ignorance in no excuse," that I have to take responsibility for my actions. We the common people are consistently held to the highest public standard of accountability on the job, the street, and increasingly in our own homes. When we screw up, either knowingly or unknowingly, the sanctions are often quite severe. We are pounced upon by academic, corporate and judicial authorities of the elite, who frequently seek the stiffest possible penalties for our crimes against society.

But the boy-king didn`t know so that makes it ok.

Witness the case of Jayson Blair, "A troubled black journalist whose overweening ambition, fueled by the politics of race and inflamed by substance abuse, led him to lie and mislead the public in story after story, singeing the reputation of the hallowed New York Times-quite a tale!"

http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/frontpage6.asp

The differences between the Jayson Blair and George W. Bush cases illustrate what is a fundamental (no pun intended) problem in our society: that is the double standard of accountability certain individuals, particularly wealthy public figures on the right, continually live and prosper under. At least Jayson Blair resigned his position when he got caught misleading the public. He deserved to lose his job for what he did, but he was not much more than an average reporter, a working slob like most of us, getting by and not doing a particularly good job at it. Not fortunate enough to be born into wealth, well-connected, or (son of) the President of the United of the United States of America, his crimes were serious enough to merit a federal probe.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/05/13/ny.times.investig…

We`re still waiting for the federal probe of George W. Bush.

Here is a man who has never been held accountable for a single action in his life. He has walked away from every mess he has ever made smelling of roses and freshly minted cash. His arrogance knows no bounds. Over the past week it has reached stupefying new heights.

It`s time for him to be "brought to justice."

http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/newsat3/la-fg-usiraq3jul03,…
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=66…" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/newsat3/la-fg-usiraq3jul03,…
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=66…

The presumptuous arrogance of George W. Bush, in feigning ignorance then walking away without taking any responsibility whatsoever for misleading the American public into supporting a war that has left thousands dead, is absolutely infuriating. It is also outright frightening. As a head of state, especially a state that wields so much destructive power as the United States, ignorance should be no excuse for him. If Bush knew the statements were false, then he lied to the nation and should be impeached. If he was as ignorant to the dubious nature of the intelligence as he claims, then he is simply unfit to be President and should be impeached.

Case closed.

When Bill Clinton was getting impeached for lying about an affair, all the right wing cried about was what a bad example of responsibility he was setting for our children. Bush has shirked off his responsibility for lies that are getting my peers killed. What reaction is it eliciting from the right?

I hear crickets.

It is a collective arrogance on the part of this amoral majority, a corporate mentality of leaving the smoking gun in the lackey`s hands and walking off, epitomized in one George W. Bush.

What kind of example does Mr. Bush set for our children? Ignorance won`t be an excuse for them, it`s not an excuse for me or Jayson Blair, and it shouldn`t be an excuse for Bush or anyone else.

If we as citizens are to be held to a standard of accountability that the leaders of our country can`t even meet, maybe we should be the ones running the show.

That would only happen in a democracy.



Jay Sherman is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant.

http://www.liberalslant.com/js071503.htm

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[rv_2011]

Das war doch schon beim Vorläufer, dem SDI-Programm von Reagan, genau so. Damals antwortete einer der beteiligten Informatiker auf die Frage, warum er sich an solch offensichtlichem Unsinn beteiligen würde, es sei doch klar, dass das nicht klappen könne: "Da ist ein großer Topf voll Geld. Wir wären doch blöd, da nicht reinzugreifen."
Daran hat sich nicht viel geändert.

Es ehrt die aps, dass sie jetzt warnt, obwohl sie mit Entzug von Forschungsgeldern rechnen muss.
______________________________________________________________________________

Das Raketenabwehrschild ist wahrscheinlich eine Geldverschwendung

Florian Rötzer 16.07.2003

Nach einem Experten-Bericht der American Physical Society ist auch der Abschuss von Langstreckenraketen während der Brennphase technisch kaum zu realisieren

Die Nationale Raketenabwehr [1] ist das teure Lieblingsprojekt der Bush-Regierung. Die Idee stammt noch aus Reagans Zeiten, ebenso wie viele der Mitglieder der US-Regierung. Kritik hat das teure Projekt seit Anfang an nicht nur wegen der politischen und sicherheitsstrategischen Auswirkungen, sondern auch wegen der technischen Realisierbarkeit begleitet. Nachdem der Abschuss von Langstreckenraketen während der Flugphase durch ein "Kill Vehicle" selbst unter optimalen Bedingungen schwieriger als vorgesehen ist, setzt das Pentagon jetzt mehr auf ein Abwehrsystem, das die Raketen mitsamt ihren Sprengköpfen bereits während der Brennphase des Triebwerks zerstören soll. Ein Bericht der American Physical Society [2] (APS) erklärt, dass auch dies nicht wirklich ein gangbarer Weg ist.


So sieht man den geplanten Airborne Laser beim Pentagon im Einsatz

Die Bush-Regierung hat es eilig, auch wenn die Technik bei weitem noch nicht ausgereift ist. Schon ab nächstem Jahr sollen die ersten Abwehrsysteme für Kurz-, Mittel- und Langstreckenraketen in Alaska und auf Schiffen installiert und Alliierte dafür gewonnen werden, auch unter den Sicherheit versprechenden, aber teuren Schirm zu kommen ( Die große Mauer [3]). Weil das aber alles noch ein wenig unausgereift ist, versteht man die Entwicklung evolutionär. Man fängt also einmal mit der Produktion und Installation an und verbessert/modernisiert dann das System nach und nach. Billiger freilich dürfte dies dadurch auch nicht werden.

Der letzte Versuch im Juni mit dem seegestützten System Aegeis ist allerdings gescheitert ( Test für Raketenabwehrschild gescheitert [4]). Das "exo-atmospheric kill vehicle" traf das Ziel nicht. Auch der letzte Versuch mit dem landgestützten System Ende 2002 war kein Erfolg. Realistisch wäre freilich, dass eine feindliche Macht nicht nur mit einer Langstreckrakete einen Sprengkopf und eine Attrappe abschießt, so bislang die Testbedingungen, sondern dass nach der Brennphase im Flug zahlreiche Sprengköpfe und Attrappen freigesetzt werden. Daher erscheint eine Abwehr, die Langstreckenraketen bereits in der Brennphase des Triebwerks zerstört, wobei noch alle Sprengköpfe und Attrappen mitgeführt werden, sinnvoller. Das aber muss nicht heißen, dass sie deswegen technisch auch machbar sein muss.

Nach dem jetzt vorgelegten umfangreichen Bericht [5] der größten amerikanischen Physikergesellschaft, den 12 Experten über drei Jahre lang ausgearbeitet haben, stehen die Chancen aber auch bei den Varianten des Raketenabwehrschilds schlecht, die die feindlichen Raketen noch kurz nach dem Start während der Brennphase des Antriebs zerstören sollen. Gedacht wird dabei an land-, see- und luftgestützten Systemen - beispielsweise soll ein Laser zu diesem Zweck in eine Boeing 747 eingebaut werden -, aber langfristig auch an Abwehrsysteme im Weltraum. Das Pentagon will für die Entwicklung von Brennphase-Abschusssystemen allein im nächsten Haushaltsjahr eine Milliarde investieren, für den Airborne Laser ist eine halbe Milliarde vorgesehen. Erst einmal teilte die Missile Defense Agency mit, dass man den Bericht noch nicht habe lesen können, aber dass man zuversichtlich sei, eine solche Technologie zu entwickeln, die ein wichtige Rolle im geplanten Raketenabwehrschild spielen werde.

Die Experten bestreiten, dass eine Abwehr, die auf den Abschuss von Langstreckenraketen während der Brennphase setzt, wirklich wirksam sein könne. Das Problem ist vor allem das kurze Zeitfenster, denn die Phase dauert gerade einmal drei oder vier Minuten. Um die startenden Raketen, die allerdings in dieser Phase leichter zu erkennen sind, abschießen zu können, müssen die Abschussraketen nicht nur sehr viel schneller als jetzt sein, sondern auch in der Nähe des Abschussortes sich befinden. Hier gäbe es nach den Experten noch eine gewisse Möglichkeit, wenn die feindlichen Raketen mit einem Flüssigbrennstoff-Antrieb ausgestattet sind, die länger brennen. Doch in 10 bis 15 Jahren, bis die entsprechende Raketenabwehr von den USA eingerichtet sein würde, würden Länder wie Nordkorea oder Iran möglicherweise bereits im Besitz von Festtreibstoff-Antrieben sein, die die Zeit der Brennphase so verkürzen, dass ein Abschuss nicht mehr möglich ist.

Eine Abwehr von Raketen mit solchen Antrieben ist, so der Bericht, "praktisch unwahrscheinlich, wenn alle Faktoren berücksichtigt werden, unabhängig davon, wo die Abschussraketen sich befinden". Nötig wären große, extrem schnelle und sich beschleunigende Raketen selbst im Fall eines kleinen Landes wie Nordkorea, wo die Distanz zwischen der Abschuss- und der Zielrakete nicht groß ist. Auch bei im weltraumbasierten Kill-Raketen liege der Fall nicht anders. Mit der Technologie, die vermutlich in 15 Jahren entwickelt sein könnte, müsste nicht nur ein entsprechend schnelles und großes kill vehicle abgeschossen werden, sondern Tausende, um eine einzige feindliche Rakete zuverlässig zu treffen. Der Airborne Laser wäre zwar für den Abschuss von Flüssigbrennstoff-Raketen geeignet, wenn er nahe genug ist, aber gegen Festtreibstoff-Raketen hilflos.


Frühwarn-Radarstation des Raketenabwehrschilds

Auch bei einer Zeit von vier Minuten von der Zündung der Rakete bis zum Ende der Brennphase ist das Zeitfenster in Wirklich noch kleiner. Mindestens 45 Sekunden, wenn nicht 65 Sekunden oder länger sind nötig, um den Abschuss einer Rakete zu entdecken und deren Flugrichtung zu erkennen. Schon 40 Sekunden vor dem Ende der Brennphase kann die Rakete den mitgeführten Sprengköpfen den erforderlichen Antrieb gegeben haben, um beispielsweise die USA zu erreichen. Bevor eine Abwehrrakete gestartet werden kann, ist jedoch auch eine gewisse Entscheidungszeit allein zur technischen Abstimmung notwendig. Da aber beispielsweise Langstreckenraketen und Weltraumraketen ähnliche Flugeigenschaften haben, können sie von den Systemen nicht unterschieden werden. Es müssten also sicherheitshalber alle Raketen abgeschossen werden, wenn nicht zuvor bekannt ist, dass es sich um eine ungefährliche Rakete handelt.

Allgemein geht der Bericht davon aus, dass etwa das seegestützte Aegeis-System nur sinnvoll gegen Kurz- und Mittelstreckenraketen eingesetzt werden kann, die höchstens wenige Dutzende von Kilometern entfernt abgeschossen werden. Und völlig ungelöst sei, wenn denn Raketen bereits in der Brennphase zerstört werden können, was mit den nuklearen, chemischen, biologischen Sprengköpfen passiert, die über dicht bevölkerten Gegenden herabfallen können.

Daniel Kleppner, Physiker vom MIT und Co-Chair der Expertengruppe, betont, dass man lediglich die Fakten zusammen stellen wollte. Myriam Sarachnik, Präsidentin der APS, erklärt, dass es bei großen Investitionen in Waffensystemen entscheidend sei, ihre technische Durchführbarkeit zu bedenken: "Die APS hofft, dass dieser Bericht zur Evaluation beitragen wird, ob man Brennphasen-Abwehrsysteme entwickeln soll." Sehr viel deutlicher lässt es sich nur noch direkt sagen, dass das Rüstungsprojekt eigentlich eine gigantische Geldverschwendung ist.

Links

[1] http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/nmd.html
[2] http://www.aps.org/
[3] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/14889/1.html
[4] http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/15034/1.html
[5] http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/popa/reports/nmd03.html

Telepolis Artikel-URL: http://www.telepolis.de/deutsch/inhalt/lis/15230/1.html

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16 Words And What Do You Get?
by W. David Jenkins III

"Another Damn Lie and We`re Deeper in Debt"

I apologize to Tennessee Ernie Ford. But I`ve had that song going through my head for the last few days. Of course the words have changed - obviously.

Okay, so now we`re supposed to buy another Bush lie because it was only "sixteen words." And words have become the defense of Bush and his fellow liars. Now, please, let`s try to keep a straight face through all of this, okay? First, let`s try to follow the spin.

When the word first came out that Bush had made a false claim of Saddam trying to buy uranium from Africa (Niger) during the State of the Union address (actually there were several false claims), there was the usual "pooh-poohing" and denial that we`ve become so accustomed to. Then we started to hear about how it was the CIA`s fault. So, as if nobody expected it, George Tenet comes out late last week and says, "Yup, I screwed up - it`s my fault."

Well, you`d think all would be well with the Bush gang when all of a sudden the story comes out that George T. tried to stop George W. from using this bogus information back in October of last year. Not to mention the articles by Kristof of the NY Times, amongst many others, spelling out how Dick, Condi and Don knew the information was false almost a year before the SOTU speech. So what happens next?

Well, as we saw, Condi and Don (where was Dick?) hit the Sunday talk shows on the 13th and basically stated that the Bush claim was "accurate at the time." In fact - now, here`s the really beautiful part - according to Condi, because Bush stated that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from an African country (instead of Niger, mind you) that his statement was "accurate." Talk about manipulating the English language.

Now, let`s remember, these are the people who constantly giggle at Clinton`s remark about what the meaning of "is…is."

Another thing these goofs are trying to fall back on is blaming the British. Remember them? They were our only supporters of this ridiculous and unorganized invasion. But because Bush mentioned that it was "British intelligence" that reported this attempt by Iraq to buy uranium….well, Bush can say that "it wasn`t my fault!" Of course, what hasn`t come out yet is that it was decided by the Bush gang to use the phrase British intelligence in the speech in order to get the CIA`s official "ok" on using this well known bogus information. Tenet basically said, "Well…if you`re gonna blame it on the British....well I guess that`s okay." And that`s how the Bush gang decided to go.

Because they wanted to go into Iraq since long before 9/11, they decided to make the only "ally" we had in their reckless plan the scapegoat! But it`s really no big deal. Of course, Tony Blair is due here in the states pretty soon. I wonder if he`s gonna be ticked off? Well, he`s been the poodle of the little snot-in-chief long enough. Besides, he should have learned by now the nature of the people he`s dealing with. Get over it, Tony! Hell, it`s only sixteen words!

Well, as the Bush gang said on the 14th……..Bull!

I have to admit, I thought I`d never see it happen. But I watched Condi and Don actually shaken last Sunday morning. Even lap dog Russert seemed to be tasting blood. It seemed as though the two of them were appalled at the absurdity of the spin they were obliged to put forth to cover the lies they and others are guilty of; lies that have cost thousands of lives. Democrats and Republicans are not pleased. And the polls show that America is not pleased. Sure took folks long enough, don`t you think?

In the last few days I`ve heard people like Chuck Hagel, John McCain, Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodruff say things I thought I`d never hear. This cannot stop. The pressure needs to stay on these people who lied to further a hopeless agenda. They lied. They knew they were lying.

America is spending over 4 billion dollars a month because of lies. Thousands of innocent people have died because of lies. This little "problem" the Bushies have has real legs. As it should. And they are going to spin like they never have before. And, so far, it`s not working. As it shouldn`t.

But the beautiful part of today`s events was when Bush stated that he had "Darn good Intelligence." Well, obviously not.

And I`m not referring to the CIA.

America and the media gave them enough rope. And so far, they`re doing a damn fine job. --07.16.03

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Zu den Artikeln von heute aus der Wapo (#447) und dem Artikel von Heise (#472) eine Sammelseite aus der WaPo mit vielen Artikel zum Thema Raketenabwehr und Krieg der Sterne

An extensive study by a national group of scientists raised serious doubts Tuesday about the likely effectiveness of some weapons that President Bush is pursuing in his drive to develop a system for defending the United States against ballistic missile attack.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/nationa…

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washingtonpost.com
White House Foresees 5-Year Debt Increase Of $1.9 Trillion


By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A01


The federal government will pile up $1.9 trillion in new debt over the next five years and will still be running an annual deficit of $226 billion by 2008, long after White House economists assume current war costs will have subsided and the economy will have recovered, the Bush administration projected yesterday.

The White House Office of Management and Budget officially pegged the 2003 budget deficit at a record $455 billion, up sharply from $158 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2002. It is expected to rise to $475 billion in fiscal 2004, even without additional costs for the occupation of Iraq. The deficit is then expected to dip swiftly to $213 billion in 2007 before rising again in 2008, the last year of the White House forecast.

White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten labeled the new deficit figures "a legitimate subject of concern," but he called the red ink "manageable." He offered no new proposals to bring the budget back into balance.

"Restoring a balanced budget is an important priority for this administration," he said, "but a balanced budget is not a higher priority than winning the global war on terror, protecting the American homeland, or restoring economic growth and job creation."

Bolten, offering his first deficit projections since taking over as budget director last month, would not concede a point private budget experts have been making for months: Absent significant budget cuts or tax increases, the deficit is now built into the fabric of the government`s finances and is here to stay.

"We are truly in a structural deficit as it`s usually defined," said Rudolph G. Penner, a Republican and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, "and this is not going to right itself."

There has been a dramatic reversal of the government`s fiscal fortunes since President Bush took office in 2001. That year, the government posted a $127 billion surplus, and the CBO projected surpluses between 2003 and 2008 totaling $2.9 trillion. That means projections have shot downward by $4.8 trillion.

Just what caused that erosion is the subject of fierce partisan debate. The White House pinned the blame on three years of sluggish economic growth and the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. During Bush`s first months in office, the White House projected a $334 billion surplus for 2003. Of the $789 billion swing to a $455 billion deficit, Bolten attributed 53 percent to the economic downturn, 24 percent to war, homeland security and other new programs, and 23 percent to the three successive tax cuts enacted since 2001.

Republicans said the tax cuts will boost economic growth and ultimately shrink the deficit. "The tax cuts proposed by the president and enacted by Congress are not the problem," Bolten said. "They are and will be part of the solution."

Democrats disagree. Between 2002 and 2011, the government will have racked up $3.6 trillion in deficits, House Budget Committee Democratic aides project. During the same time, Bush-era tax cuts and the interest they add to government debt will have cost $3.7 trillion.

Those numbers will likely animate the political debate over the president`s fiscal policies throughout the election season. Democratic candidates sought yesterday to put the swelling deficit into the context of their attacks on Bush`s credibility over the justifications for invading Iraq.

"Just as disturbing as the news today about the record deficits the Bush administration has run up is the White House`s response to the situation. President Bush is repeating two dangerous habits: misleading the American people and ducking responsibility for his mistakes," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a candidate for the 2004 presidential nomination. "Everyone knows what is really responsible for these deficits," he concluded, "the unfair, unaffordable, and ineffective Bush tax cuts."

Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, lamented, "There seems to be no shame, no shock and no solution."

For both the Democrats and Bush, addressing the deficit presents a quandary. Mindful of his father`s deficit-reduction experiences of 1991 and 1992, when President George H.W. Bush broke his "no new taxes" pledge, the president will be loath to reverse course on his own tax cuts. But he has also proved reluctant to demand deep spending cuts and risk alienating moderate voters.

Because the tax cut enacted last month locked in tax reductions that otherwise would have been phased in long after next year`s election, Democratic candidates would have to advocate raising taxes to have much impact on the deficit. That also is politically perilous.

"We`re in a very tough bind now," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group. "A lot of the stuff that caused this problem has been sort of baked in the cake."

Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, suggested yesterday some form of "tax reform" that would help close the gap between the amount of taxes owed and the amount actually paid. That "tax gap" is approaching $300 billion a year, he said, hinting that tougher enforcement of the tax code could substantially reduce the deficit without a tax increase.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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U.S. soldiers guard the body of a soldier killed in an attack on a convoy on main highway, Wednesday in west Baghdad. (Wally Santana - AP)
Jetzt werden auch die Kollaborateure umgebracht. Jeder der behauptet, es sei eine Beruhigung in Aussicht irrt. Da hilft auch die Puppenverwaltung nicht.

washingtonpost.com
Attacks Kill U.S. Soldier, Pro-American Mayor in Iraq


By Borzou Daragahi
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; 10:51 AM


BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A U.S. soldier and an eight-year-old Iraqi child were killed in and around the capital Wednesday, while a Pro-American mayor of Hadithah in western Iraq was shot to death along with one of his nine sons, the U.S. military says.

The soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a supply convoy west of Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison, a U.S. military spokesman said.

Pro-Saddam Hussein insurgents unleashed the string of violent attacks on the eve of a recently banned Baath Party holiday.

The grenade blasted into the soldier`s truck, hurling him out, as the 20-vehicle convoy passed along a main highway Wednesday morning. Soldiers at first believed a bomb was remotely detonated as the convoy passed.

In regard to the attack on the mayor, the U.S. military confirmed reports by the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera that Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi`s car was shot up by unidentified attackers as he drove through the city of about 150,000 about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The Qatar-based broadcaster said al-Jurayfi`s car caught fire after the attack. Al-Jazeera also said residents of the city had accused the mayor of collaborating with coalition forces.

Hadithah sits on the main road to Syria and lies within the so-called "Sunni Triangle" that stretches to the west and north of Baghdad, where pro-Saddam Hussein insurgents have routinely attacked U.S. soldiers.

Sgt. Diego Baez, who escaped without injury from the attack on the convoy that killed the U.S. soldier, wept over his comrade`s death.

"We slept next to each other just last night. He was my best friend," Baez said.

U.S. soldiers have come under increasingly ferocious attacks by suspected Saddam loyalists in recent weeks - reaching an average of 12 attacks a day. A total 33 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostile action since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1.

The attacks Wednesday came a day before a holiday marking the 1968 coming to power of Saddam`s now-dissolved Baath Party. U.S. officials have warned of possible stepped up attacks to mark the anniversary, and the new Iraq Governing Council canceled the holiday, along with others from Saddam`s regime.

A half hour after the blast, the truck was still burning on the road near Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, site of Saddam`s most notorious prison. The convoy, made up of reservists from a supply unit based in Puerto Rico, had been heading to a U.S. base near the Jordanian border.

"We need more protection. We`ve seen enough. We`ve stayed in Iraq long enough," said Spc. Carlos McKenzie, a member of the convoy.

After the attack, troops began house-to-house searches in nearby villages. One resident, Mohammed al-Qazi, said the bombing was the work of men from the tense cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, farther down the road. "It was not people from Abu Ghraib," he said.

Those cities are part of the so-called "Sunni Triangle," an area west and north of Baghdad where pro-Saddam insurgents have been carrying out attacks against the American occupation force at a rate of 12 each day.

In the attack that killed the Iraqi child, an assailant threw a grenade into a U.S. military vehicle guarding a bank in the upscale al-Mansour neighborhood in west Baghdad. The soldier was injured and taken to a military hospital along with four adult Iraqi bystanders who were also injured, said Maj. Kevin West of the 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery.

"They`re killing more Iraqis than they are Americans," West said, shaking his head.

In the extreme south of Baghdad, an explosion badly damaged a U.S. Humvee and three U.S. casualties were seen taken away by an Iraqi witness. The coalition had no information on that incident.

"We were home when we heard a strong explosion and we came out and we saw a U.S. vehicle on fire," said Ameer Jabar, a 22-year-old student.

Also Wednesday, a U.S. Marine died in the southern city of Hilla when he fell from the roof of a building he was guarding, the military said. The soldier was taken to a hospital but died of his injuries.

The deaths highlighted the long and painful road left for coalition forces as they try to stabilize Iraq.

On Tuesday, the American administrator of Iraq linked the length of the U.S. occupation to Iraq`s political process, saying that American forces would remain in the country until Iraqis agree on a new constitution and set up a democratic government.

"We have no desire to stay a day longer than necessary," L. Paul Bremer said. "The timing of how long the coalition stays here is now in the hands of the Iraqi people."

The new Governing Council - Iraq`s first postwar national body - was meeting again Wednesday to discuss security and education matters, said Nouri al-Badran, spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord, which holds several seats on the council. On Tuesday, it decided to set up special courts to try former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime who are accused of involvement in mass executions, torture and other human rights violations.

U.N. officials said a council delegation will visit the U.N. Security Council on July 22, when the world body is to discuss its role in postwar Iraq.

The Governing Council, whose members were selected rather than elected, is meant to be the forerunner to a 200-250 member constitutional assembly that would start drafting a constitution in September. That is expected to take nine months to a year and free elections to pick a government are expected to follow.

But even talk of removing coalition soldiers from Iraq seemed premature while guerrilla-style attacks against U.S. forces are increasing and many major countries are balking at the idea of sending peacekeepers to replace exhausted American troops.

Many American soldiers thought they`d be home this summer, but their hopes were dashed in a U.S. Army e-mail to spouses Sunday.

"I`m tired of going to bed wondering if I`m going to wake up in the morning," said Spc. David Myers Jr. of the 3rd Infantry Division`s 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment in Habaniyah, west of Baghdad.

Late Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command said in a news release that it still intended to remove 3rd Infantry soldiers "by September, pending international or U.S. replacement units. As always, the security situation could affect deployments and redeployments."

The increasing frequency and sophistication of the attacks - and growing doubts about the basis for the war - have contributed to the decision by some countries not to contribute troops.

On Tuesday, France ruled out sending troops, following India and Germany.

The Bush administration has scored some success in recruiting other countries to help patrol Iraq. Poland will contribute 2,300 soldiers to a brigade that will also include units from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Lithuania.

A second brigade will have 1,640 Ukrainians and the third 1,100 Spanish troops as well as units from Honduras, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador and Nicaragua.


© 2003 The Associated Press

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Focus Iraq: At A Glance

UPDATED: 11:53 a.m. EDT July 16, 2003

IRAQ-POSTWAR

The U.S. military says the pro-American mayor of a town in western Iraq has been killed along with one of his nine sons. The Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera reports the mayor`s car was shot up by unknown attackers as it drove through the city of Hadithah, about 150 miles from Baghdad.
At least one U.S. soldier and an eight-year-old Iraqi child were killed in a series of attacks on American forces in and near the capital. Pro-Saddam insurgents have unleashed a string of violent incidents on the eve of the recently banned holiday that marked the 1968 Baathist coup.
Also Wednesday, a U.S. Marine died in the southern city of Hilla when he fell off a building he was guarding. The soldier was rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries.
Australian troops in Iraq started a new operation under the U.S.-led coalition Wednesday designed to boost security for the transition to self-government in the country.
A leading Italian newspaper reports an African diplomat offered Italian intelligence services documents that allegedly were behind President George W. Bush`s assertion that the British government had learned Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium in Africa. Italian prosecutors are looking into reports that Italian intelligence agencies gave the documents, now considered to be forgeries, to U.S. and British intelligence.
The U.S. has endorsed a statement expressing regret over the detention of eleven Turkish soldiers, a day after Turkey apparently slipped up and released the statement without Washington`s approval. The joint statement was meant to patch up ties strained by the July 4 capture of the soldiers.
Iraq`s new Governing Council is meeting again Wednesday to discuss security and education matters. On Tuesday, it decided to set up special courts to try former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime who are accused of involvement in mass executions, torture and other human rights violations.
A human rights group says U.S. troops must do more for rape victims who are being turned away by Iraqi police and hospitals and the country`s reconstruction should include reform of sex crime laws. Human Rights Watch says coalition forces should establish a unit of men and women trained to investigate sex crimes and sex trafficking.
A former chief U.N. weapons inspector says the search for weapons of mass destruction should concentrate on the capacity to make weapons in "war situations" rather than focus on old weapons and weapons systems. Rolf Ekeus says hoping to find barrels with chemical weapons is unrealistic, because that type of weapon cannot be stored.
The U.S. Central Command says it still intends to remove 3rd Infantry Division soldiers by September, pending international or U.S. replacement units. A news release said that as always, "the security situation could affect deployments and redeployments."
The Senate has rejected an effort to limit the overseas missions of National Guard and Reserve forces to six months, one time a year. The attempt by war critic Sen. Robert Byrd came as Democrats stepped up their criticism of President Bush`s actions in Iraq during the weeks after war.
A family spokesman says former POW Jessica Lynch is expected to return home to West Virginia next week. Lynch is to be released July 22 from a Washington D-C hospital. Randy Coleman says "She`s quite excited about going home."
Iraq`s new governing council is sending a delegation to the Security Council next Tuesday, when the top U.N. envoy is to report on the world body`s role in postwar Iraq. The delegation will include Ahmad Chalabi, founder of the once-exiled Iraqi National Congress.
The military strategist who coined the term "shock and awe," which describes tactics in the U.S.-led war against Iraq now says the expression became a "PR nightmare" that was misunderstood and misapplied during the conflict. Harlan Ullman says the term ended up backfiring on the Pentagon.

IRAQ INTELLIGENCE
Democrats renewed calls Tuesday for an investigation into the Bush administration`s handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq`s weapons programs, some of which turned out to be bogus. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says her committee`s inquiry into intelligence on Iraq will look into President Bush`s claim in his State of the Union speech that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. Central Intelligence Agency head George Tenet is expected to testify on the matter before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door session Wednesday.


WAR COSTS
So far the war in Iraq has cost taxpayers roughly $48 billion. The Defense Department`s comptroller says the price tag includes pre-war expenses such as moving troops to the region and building facilities for them, the combat phase that began March 20, and postwar security efforts through April. Once more current figures are added in, the cost is expected to grow by $10 billion by the end of September, which is the end of the fiscal year.

U.N.-IRAQ-RITTER
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter released a new book, accusing President Bush of illegally attacking Iraq and calling for "regime change" in the United States at the next election. Ritter, a former U.S. Marine, was a weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration`s policy on Iraq. However, a U.S. official dismisses the criticism, saying Ritter doesn`t know what he`s talking about.

BLAIR-IRAQ
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to address Congress on Thursday, and he is certain to face questions about now-discredited British intelligence reports used to bolster the case for war.
Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Off to See the Wizard

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Special investigation
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The spies who pushed for war
Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force

Julian Borger
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration`s second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI`s inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses. This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior members of the administration created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.

The agency, known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP) was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the state department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.

Mr Tenet has officially taken responsibility for the president`s unsubstantiated claim in January that Saddam Hussein`s regime had been trying to buy uranium in Africa, but he also made it clear his agency was under pressure to justify a war that the administration had already decided on.

How much Mr Tenet reveals of where that pressure was coming from could have lasting political fallout for Mr Bush and his re-election prospects, which only a few weeks ago seemed impregnable. As more Americans die in Iraq and the reasons for the war are stripped bare, his victory in 2004 no longer looks like a foregone conclusion.

The president`s most trusted adviser, Mr Cheney, was at the shadow network`s sharp end. He made several trips to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more "forward-leaning" interpretation of the threat posed by Saddam. When he was not there to make his influence felt, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby was. Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times, and it put pressure on CIA officials to come up with the appropriate results.

Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.

An intelligence official confirmed Mr Gingrich made "a couple of visits" but said: "There`s nothing at all unusual about people both in and out of government coming here to engage in a dialogue and to exchange views on a range of subjects."

In that guise he visited Langley three times in the run-up to war, and according to accounts, the political veteran sought to browbeat analysts into toughening up their assessments of Saddam`s menace.

Mr Gingrich gained access to the CIA headquarters and was listened to because he was seen as a personal emissary of the Pentagon, and in particular, of the OSP.

In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully.

William Luti, a former navy officer and ex-aide to Mr Cheney, runs the day-to-day operations, answering to Douglas Feith, a defence undersecretary and a former Reagan official and Washington lobbyist for Israel and Turkey.

The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence. It came in part from "report officers" in the CIA`s directorate of operations whose job is to sift through reports from agents around the world, filtering out the unsubstantiated and the incredible. Under pressure from the hawks such as Mr Cheney and Mr Gingrich, those officers became reluctant to discard anything, no matter how far-fetched. The OSP also sucked in countless tips from the Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, which were viewed with far more scepticism by the CIA and the state department.

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They including like-minded lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in the US capital. Few had experience in intelligence.

"Most of the people they had in that office were off the books, on personal services contracts. At one time, there were over 100 of them," said an intelligence source. The contracts allow a department to hire individuals, without specifying a job description.

As John Pike, a defence analyst at the thinktank GlobalSecurity.org, put it, the contracts "are basically a way they could pack the room with their little friends".

"They surveyed data and picked out what they liked," said Gregory Thielmann, a senior official in the state department`s intelligence bureau until his retirement in September. "The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defence had this huge defence intelligence agency, and he went around it."

In fact, the OSP`s activities were a complete mystery to the DIA and the Pentagon.

"The iceberg analogy is a good one," said a senior officer who left the Pentagon during the planning of the Iraq war. "No one from the military staff heard, saw or discussed anything with them."

The civilian agencies had the same impression of the OSP sleuths. "They were a pretty shadowy presence," Mr Thielmann said. "Normally when you compile an intelligence document, all the agencies get together to discuss it. The OSP was never present at any of the meetings I attended."

Democratic congressman David Obey, who is investigating the OSP, said: "That office was charged with collecting, vetting and disseminating intelligence completely outside of the normal intelligence apparatus.

"In fact, it appears that information collected by this office was in some instances not even shared with established intelligence agencies and in numerous instances was passed on to the national security council and the president without having been vetted with anyone other than political appointees."

The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon`s office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam`s Iraq than Mossad - a highly professional body - was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith`s authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel`s Likud party.

In 1996, he and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

The Israeli influence was revealed most clearly by a story floated by unnamed senior US officials in the American press, suggesting the reason that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq was that they had been smuggled into Syria. Intelligence sources say that the story came from the office of the Israeli prime minister.

The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a "product", a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice`s deputy.

In turn, they leaked some of the claims to the press, and used others as a stick with which to beat the CIA and the state department analysts, demanding they investigate the OSP leads.

The big question looming over Congress as Mr Tenet walked into his closed-door session yesterday was whether this shadow intelligence operation would survive national scrutiny and who would pay the price for allowing it to help steer the country into war.

A former senior CIA official insisted yesterday that Mr Feith, at least, was "finished" - but that may be wishful thinking by rival organisation.

As he prepares for re-election, Mr Bush may opt to tough it out, rather than acknowledge the severity of the problem by firing loyalists. But in that case, it will inevitably be harder to re-establish confidence in the intelligence on which the White House is basing its decisions, and the world`s sole superpower risks stumbling onwards half-blind, unable to distinguish real threats from phantoms.


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Cost of occupation: £5m a day - human cost extra
Up to £150m a month to keep troops in Iraq adds to strains on government

Richard Norton-Taylor and Larry Elliott
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

The cost to British taxpayers of invading and occupying Iraq will be far in excess of £5bn, with £1bn being spent even before the first shot was fired, defence sources said yesterday.

This far exceeds the size of the special "war chest" which the Treasury has offered.

With the government already budgeting for a £27bn deficit this year, some estimates put the cost of maintaining 11,000 troops in Iraq and the Gulf region at about £150m a month.

That would put the post-war cost of keeping troops in the region for two years - the absolute minimum according to defence thinking - at £3.6bn.

The total estimated pre- and post-war costs - £4.6bn - do not include the expense of the fighting itself, defence sources admitted, and will put added strain on the public finances in the run-up to the next election, when Labour was hoping to use any spare cash to top up spending on schools and hospitals.

Treasury sources hinted last night that they understood the financial pressures on the MoD but confirmed that any spending on Iraq in excess of the £3bn set aside by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, would have to come out of the Treasury`s reserve. This is a modest "rainy day" fund, worth £6bn over the next three years, which allows the government to finance emergencies or its priority areas without having to borrow more or raise taxes.

However, the latest figures from the MoD suggest that a prolonged commitment in Iraq could be a drain on scarce resources at a time when the government is under mounting pressure to prove that public services are improving.

Defence sources said the cost of the six-week war, including ammunition, lost equipment, accidents and fuel, had yet to be calculated.

About £1bn was spent deploying weapons systems and troops to Kuwait and aircraft to the Gulf, and "desertifying" Challenger battle tanks before operations had even started, a defence official said.

The Treasury puts the cost of keeping Britain`s forces in post-war Iraq at a slightly more conservative £120m a month - around half what the United States is spending.

A Treasury spokesman said that the MoD was "some way away" from using up the rest of the special reserve and that so far there had been no requests to the Treasury for extra cash.

"If the MoD does come and ask for access to the reserve, we will consider that at the time," he said. "But we are not in that territory yet."

The spokesman said that the extensive overseas commitments of the armed forces in recent years meant that it was necessary for the MoD to receive £3bn for the Iraq campaign, and that long-term peacekeeping and reconstruction costs would feature in next year`s comprehensive spending review, covering government spending in the three years from 2005/06.

The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told MPs yesterday that the government remained "committed to maintaining appropriate forces in Iraq for as long as necessary and no longer".

Defence sources admitted that the presence of British troops in Iraq was open-ended and they could be there at present levels in four years` time.

In addition, the MoD was allocated £300m for immediate humanitarian aid. The Department for International Development has earmarked £270m in aid for Iraq, including £60m provided by the Treasury.

Before the war, Keith Hartley, professor of economics at York University and an expert in the cost of military operations, estimated that the cost to British taxpayers of a war against Iraq would total at least £3.5bn, not including occupying and stabilising Iraq after an invasion. "Occupation could be for years," he added.

A senior military source who foresaw British forces in Iraq for a long time told the Guardian: "Conflict is much cheaper than post-conflict."

Unless the Treasury agrees to pay for the extra costs of the Iraqi conflict, the existing defence budget - already squeezed - will come under even more severe pressure. The Treasury is already questioning large procurement projects, including the Eurofighter, now called Typhoon, which was designed in the 1980s with dogfights against Soviet aircraft in mind.

The £19bn project has been dogged by budget overruns and delays. The first RAF Typhoon squadron is unlikely to enter service until 2005, nine years after the original deadline.

The MoD this week confirmed that the estimated cost of two aircraft carriers planned for the Royal Navy had escalated from £2.8bn to £4bn. Under last year`s comprehensive spending review, Britain`s defence budget will rise from £29.3bn last year to £32.8bn in two years` time - an average annual 1.2% growth in real terms. It would be the biggest rise in military spending since the cold war era 20 years ago.

With America`s projected budget deficit revised up $150bn on Tuesday, war costs have become an increasingly thorny issue in Washington.

So far, the military campaign in Iraq has cost $48bn, according to Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon comptroller.

The latest Pentagon estimate is that military costs in both Afghanistan and Iraq are running about $5bn a month. Yet budgets beyond this fiscal year do not make any provision for keeping troops in the Gulf or Afghanistan.

Democrats yesterday attempted to make political capital out of the ballooning costs, with Democrat senators calling on the Bush administration to specify precisely the cost of continuing military operations in Iraq.


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Tell it like it is time
UN role in Iraq must be expanded

Leader
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair`s visit to Washington today is not exactly the triumphal occasion that was perhaps initially envisaged after the first flush of victory in Iraq. Nor is his host, George Bush, quite the all-conquering hero that he appeared to many at home when US troops entered Baghdad.

Mr Blair can still expect to be feted by Congress and lauded by the White House as a brave and loyal ally. Mr Bush will no doubt take the opportunity to impress upon the US public his international leadership skills.

But when they meet privately, the two men would be well advised to reflect carefully and honestly on the reasons why a successfully concluded, low-casualty war against a despised and now deposed tyrant is continuing to cause them such serious personal, political damage - and retains considerable potential to do yet more.

This damage is not the product of political opportunism; in both the US and Britain, the principal opposition parties backed the war and still broadly support the overall policy. This damage is not to any significant degree the result of hostile media comment or malevolent journalism. Most mainstream media in both countries have toed the line to a dismayingly unquestioning extent.

Rather, the damage arises from the public`s sensible perception, steadily mutating according to polling on both sides of the Atlantic into a firm conviction, that Mr Bush and Mr Blair were not totally straight with the people they represent. At best, they were short on candour, foresight and facts. At worst, they knowingly misled.

In Britain, at least, the reasons for this belief are several and varied - but they mainly arise from three areas of ongoing concern. One relates to the war`s principal trigger: the urgent threat allegedly posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. One does not have to be an expert on mobile weapons labs or Niger yellowcake or missile launch times to grasp that irrefutable evidence of this urgent threat is wholly lacking, despite three months of unrestricted searches. As matters stand, the inescapable, common sense conclusion is that pre-war intelligence assessments were either badly wrong or badly exaggerated. Either way, an independent inquiry is essential. And if the WMD issue is ever to be laid to rest, Mr Bush and Mr Blair must allow UN weapons inspectors to finish their job.

Public concern also centres on the undermining of multilateralist and legal principles and the way the UN`s role remains circumscribed in Iraq despite the evident wishes of its new governing council.

The UN envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, has begun well. But he needs more clout. It is in the US-British interest that a UN security mandate be created, enabling the likes of France, India and Muslim countries to contribute peacekeepers (and thereby possibly reduce the attrition rate against coalition troops).

It is in the US-British interest that reconstruction funds be managed by or via the UN, or else the money, like the soldiers, may not be forthcoming. The UN, not US bureaucrats, should oversee a new constitution and free elections. The proposed Iraq war crimes tribunal would benefit from the expertise of the international criminal court. Mr Blair should urge all of the above on Mr Bush.

The degree to which he does or does not do so will be a measure of his understanding of the third key area of public concern: Britain`s self-destructive kow-towing to a rightwing US administration, exemplified by but not confined to Iraq. The plight of the British Guantanamo detainees is not unrelated in this context. Mr Blair`s political forelock-tugging must cease. Today is a good day to stand up.


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Britain must hold the line over Iran
US hawks are now recklessly talking up the `threat` from Tehran

Isabel Hilton
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

If Tony Blair`s conversation with Ariel Sharon is a reliable guide, he appears to be shifting his position on Iran from one of constructive engagement to one of more overt concern about Iran`s nuclear programme. Are we seeing a re-run of the long approach to war, or just an increase in already established diplomatic pressure?

The problem with crying wolf, of course, is that when the hot breath is really on your neck, scepticism results. In fact, there are many reasons why governments are concerned about Iran: there are serious and longstanding suspicions about Iran`s nuclear programme, though nobody has yet tried to argue that Tehran is close to developing weapons. Iran has offered only limited cooperation with inspections and has not yet signed the protocol that would allow a more rigorous inspection regime. In this argument, it is intent that counts.

Iran also continues to support groups such as Hamas that Sharon would like to see disappear from the map before he signs any Middle East peace agreement and, the US alleges, it still harbours al-Qaida suspects. And, as the home of the Shia revolution, Iran carries weight among the world`s millions of Shia - notably, of course, in Iraq. If the occupying power in Iraq was ever to permit elections, it would have to accept the risk of an Islamic government more friendly to Tehran than to Washington and, in the short term, it has to deal with sections of Iraqi influence that are guarding the Iranian interest in the politics of Iraq.

All or any of the above might trigger a rise in the rhetorical temperature. But as with Iraq, the fundamental question is whether the US is already set on military action.

There is no doubt that the US is determined to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear capability, but in view of current difficulties in Iraq even the hardliners stop short of advocating a full-scale war. Instead, the hawks in the administration have argued for pre-emptive strikes against Iran`s nuclear facilities at Bushehr, Natanz and Arak. Until now, the British approach has been to try to use international regulation and inspection rather than military threat.

So far, Blair`s position is still consistent with a multilateral raising of the diplomatic temperature to bring pressure to bear on the regime, rather than a signal that Iran is an imminent military target. It is an approach that has the support of Russia and the EU - no doubt in the hope that the US might be persuaded there is more to gain by a multilateral approach than by a B52.

Russia, the chief promoter and supplier of nuclear technology to Iran, has been persuaded to hold out for assurances that the reactors it is supplying are peaceful, and for close accounting of the associated nuclear material. The EU is holding off on trade and cooperation with similar demands, plus pledges on reducing support for organisations deemed terrorist, on human rights and on peace in the Middle East.

Washington may not have undergone the full road-to-Damascus moment on a multilateralist approach, but the US has declined Iran`s offer of bilateral talks and - for now - is leaving it to the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite the Bush administration`s long record of undermining the IAEA`s work.

But inside the administration there are signs of division that go beyond military action: it publicly encourages dissent in Iran - including those who have been demonstrating in support of the progressive President Khatami against the mullahs. But hardliners within the administration want to adopt the People`s Mujaheddin, the extremist opposition group supported by Saddam Hussein, for use against Tehran. The group is on the US list of terrorist organisations, but it has recently been credited as the source of intelligence on Iran`s clandestine nuclear programme. Supporting the People`s Mujaheddin would alienate EU member states that have so far been willing to cooperate in applying multilateral pressure and strengthen the contention of Iran`s hardliners that there is nothing to be gained by cooperation with the US.

In the aftermath of the Iraq war, the evidence continues to mount inexorably in support of what many suspected through those long months of shifting official argument: that the desire for military action existed in neo-con circles, that the decision to make it happen was taken when 9/11 presented the administration with the opportunity, and that the arguments that followed were a long attempt to justify a decision already taken but not yet implemented.

Other leaders placed in the awkward position of having to decide between the two unpalatable options of being with or against the US, had to make their own accommodation between the bullying of a superpower bent on fullspectrum dominance and domestic public opinion. It was a destabilising choice for many of them, as it proved for Blair. If doing Washington`s bidding yielded any influence at all, he should use it now - for his own sake - to keep the pressure on Iran diplomatic.

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We are now a client state
Britain has lost its sovereignty to the United States

David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

Britain has by now lost its sovereignty to the United States and has become a client state. As Tony Blair flies in to Washington today to be patted on the head by the US Congress, this is the sad truth behind his visit. No surprise, therefore, that the planned award to him of a congressional medal of honour for backing the US invasion of Iraq has been postponed. To be openly patronised in that way, under the circumstances, would be just too embarrassing.

Is it fair to accuse the US of destroying our national sovereignty? The issue is so little discussed that even to make the claim has parallels with the ravings of the europhobes that Brussels plans to make Britons eat square sausages. Yet consider the following seven facts, none of which depends directly on the way the US dragged Britain into Iraq, nor on the current MI6-CIA intelligence blame game about the war.

Firstly, we cannot fire cruise missiles without US permission. The British nuclear-powered submarine fleet is being converted wholesale so that it is dependent on Tomahawks, the stubby-winged wonder-weapons of the 21st century. They transform warfare because of their awesome video-guided precision. But Britain can`t make, maintain or target Tomahawks. The US agreed to sell us 95 cruise missiles before the Iraq war, the first "ally" to be thus favoured. They are kept in working order by Raytheon, the US manufacturer in Arizona. Tomahawks find targets via Tercom, the American terrain-mapping radar, and GPS, its ever-more sophisticated satellite positioning system. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is trying to block Galileo, a European rival to GPS, which the French think will rescue their country from becoming a "vassal state".

Sir Rodric Braithwaite, former head of the joint intelligence committee and former ambassador to Moscow, published earlier this year a little-noticed but devastating analysis in a small highbrow magazine, Prospect, of the price we are now paying to the US in loss of sovereignty. Of the Tomahawks purchase, he wrote: "The systems which guide them and the intelligence on which their targeting depends are all American. We could sink the Belgrano on our own. But we cannot fire a cruise missile except as part of an American operation."

The second in this list of sad facts is better known. Britain cannot use its nuclear weapons without US permission. The 58 Trident submarine missiles on which it depends were also sold us by the US. Just as Raytheon technicians control the Tomahawk, so Lockheed engineers control Trident from inside a Scottish mountain at Coulport, and from the US navy`s Kings Bay servicing depot in Georgia, where the missiles must return periodically. "Cooperation with the Americans has robbed the British of much of their independence," Braithwaite observed. "Our ballistic missile submarines operate by kind permission of the Americans, and would rapidly become useless if we fell out with them. Since it is no longer clear why we need a nuclear deterrent, that probably does not matter. But it makes our admirals very nervous about irritating their US counterparts."

The third awkward fact is that Britain cannot expel the US from its bases on British territory, or control what it does there. Some, such as RAF Fairford, are well known - surrounded by armed guards as the huge B52s roared off nightly to bomb Baghdad. Others are remote, particularly Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where any British citizen who attempts a landing will rapidly find himself arrested. The bases are given bogus British names - such as RAF Fairford or RAF Croughton - because Britain is ashamed of all this. "The British have never questioned the purposes for which the Americans use these bases," Braithwaite wrote. "The agreements which govern them leave us little scope to do so. It is yet another derogation from British sovereignty."

The fourth fact is about intelligence. The row over scraps of British material used for public propaganda purposes - alleged uranium from Niger, alleged 45-minute Iraqi missile firing times - shows, if nothing else, that MI6 does still run independent spying operations. But it obscures the big truth: the policy-determining, war-fighting intelligence on which Britain depends is all American. The US has the spy satellites and the gigantic computers at Fort Meade in Maryland which eavesdrop on the world`s communications. Britain gets access to some of these because GCHQ in Cheltenham contributes to the pool and collects intercepts which the US wants for its own purposes. This is cripplingly expensive: Britain has just invested a wildly over-budget £1.25bn in rebuilding Cheltenham. Yet it brings us no independence.

Braithwaite again: "The US could get on perfectly well without GCHQ`s input. GCHQ, on the other hand, is heavily reliant on US input and would be of little value without it."

Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, recently - and somewhat drily - let it slip to the foreign affairs committee how the US wears the trousers in the intelligence marriage. America receives all the intelligence that Britain gathers, he said. "On our side, we have full transparency." Britain, on the other hand, merely "strives to secure" transparency from its supposed partners.

These points lead inexorably to the fifth fact about our loss of sovereignty. Britain can no longer fight a war without US permission. Geoff Hoon, Britain`s defence secretary, said humbly last month that "the US is likely to remain the pre-eminent political, economic and military power". Britain would concentrate, therefore, on being able to cooperate with it. "It is highly unlikely that the UK would be engaged in large-scale combat operations without the US," he said. As Rumsfeld brutally pointed out, however, the US could easily have fought the Iraq war without Britain.

The sixth fact is that Britain cannot protect its citizens from US power. Blair faces an outcry as he flies into America because the US refuses to return two British prisoners for a fair trial; rather, they have to face a Kafkaesque court martial at Guantanamo Bay.

And the seventh and final fact is that Britain is reduced to signing what the resentful Chinese used, in colonialist days, to call "unequal treaties". At the height of the Iraq fighting, David Blunkett went to Washington to be praised by John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, for what he termed Blunkett`s "superb cooperation".

Blunkett agreed that the UK would extradite Britons to the US in future, without any need to produce prima facie evidence that they are guilty of anything. But the US refused to do the same with their own citizens. The Home Office press release concealed this fact - out of shame, presumably. Why did the US refuse? According to the Home Office, the fourth amendment of the US constitution says citizens of US states cannot be arrested without "probable cause". The irony appears to have been lost on David Blunkett, as he gave away yet more of Britain`s sovereignty. If we really were the 51st state, as anti-Americans imply, we would probably have more protection against Washington than we do today.

· David Leigh is the Guardian`s investigations editor, and Richard Norton-Taylor is security affairs editor

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Leaders face growing pressure for answers over Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell, Washington Bureau Chief
17 July 2003


Only three months ago, they were the smiling masters of the universe, liberators who had watched their armies roll up a supposedly formidable Middle Eastern foe as easily as a child swats away a fly. How different it will be when George Bush and Tony Blair meet in Washington today.

Reports of the end of a political love affair are premature. On Iraq, the President and the Prime Minister are locked together, and they know it. But was there ever a meeting more unhappily timed? The last person, surely, that Mr Blair would want to be seen with is the ally he is accused of following meekly into the increasingly costly and unhappy Iraq adventure. For his part, Mr Bush must share the podium with the leader of the country whose intelligence services, which are quoted as the authors of the uranium-from-Africa fantasy, have indirectly led him into the hottest water of his presidency.

But any reciprocal doubts will probably remain hidden. Their abilities to express themselves in public may differ, but the two men share above all a fierce and unquestioning self-belief in the rightness of their common cause.

And make no mistake, Americans love Mr Blair (though what with the row over the Guantanamo Bay prisoners and the difficulties faced by British companies in securing Iraq reconstruction contracts, the affection is less than obvious). When he addresses the assembled Senate and House today, the cheers will be genuine, grateful and deeply admiring.

Barely a day passes without a clip of Mr Blair on the news, defending himself before a raucous array of critics, giving at least as good as he gets. How much easier for Mr Bush, protected by Americans` innate respect for his office, and with a phalanx of proxies to defend him - the polished, oh-so- reasonable Secretary of State Colin Powell, the tenacious Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, and George Tenet, CIA chief and (thus far) willing fall-guy for the Niger fiasco. And just as well. This week a limp and stumbling Mr Bush managed to make the ludicrous claim that he only decided on war after he "gave Saddam Hussein a chance to allow the inspectors in and he wouldn`t let them" (when of course it was Mr Bush who ordered the UN team out so he could launch his war).

But cracks are opening in the façade of the most monolithic, best-disciplined White House of modern times. Ms Rice and Mr Tenet point fingers at each other. The neo-con hawks have fallen silent. Even the bullying Donald Rumsfeld was subjected to what passes for a "grilling" on Capitol Hill about the current Iraq shambles, (though compared with what Mr Blair must handle in London it was tame). But for how much longer will able courtiers take the heat for the tongue-tied monarch? Will Mr Bush take the hit our Prime Minister has taken? The answer depends less on who-knew-what-and-when about the Niger forgeries than on events on the ground, in Iraq and beyond.

For the moment, the Bush machine rolls mightily along. Money, they say, is a politician`s best friend. The President has raised more of it - $34m (£21m) for his re-election campaign in the past three months - than his nine declared Democratic rivals combined.

His approval rating remains a healthy 60 per cent or so. But the intelligence and organisational mess over Iraq has led to the first serious, sustained criticism of his competence on national security issues, since 11 September, his greatest political asset.

Yesterday another US soldier died in a "hostile incident" near Baghdad, a US military transport plane was shot at by insurgents using a surface-to-air missile as it landed in Baghdad, and in western Iraq the pro-American mayor of Hadithah was gunned down. This means that 33 US troops have been killed by Iraqis in the 10 weeks since Mr Bush landed on an aircraft carrier to proclaim an end to the "Battle of Iraq". Yesterday`s incident brought to 147 the number of troops killed in combat in this war, equalling the total killed in combat in the 1991 Gulf War.

What was it in aid of, Americans increasingly wonder, asking themselves the question John Kerry, a leading Democratic candidate posed in public: "Are we safer today than we were on September 11?" For many the answer is, no.

Other Democratic candidates are piling in - not only Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who opposed the war from the outset, but even strong advocates of it, such as Senator Joe Lieberman and Richard Gephardt, the former House majority leader.

They, and some Republicans, feel they were duped when the President sought congressional backing for war in October, on the basis of what now looks a grossly exaggerated case. Suddenly Mr Bush`s credibility, so important for a self-styled "straight shooter", is under challenge. And suddenly, the White House no longer seems out of reach to Democrats in 2004.

To his discomfort, Mr Bush is learning that there is more to international affairs than brute force. Daily it grows clearer that if overstretched US troops are to get serious help in Iraq, Washington will have to cede more authority to the United Nations. Mr Bush is not a man who readily admits he was wrong. But, with no WMD and, manifestly, no threat from Saddam, reality is ever harder to avoid. As Groucho Marx asked: "Who are you going to believe - me, or your own two eyes?"
17 July 2003 09:11


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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UN attacks Britain for withholding evidence
By Ben Russell Political Correspondent
17 July 2003


Officials from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have accused Tony Blair of operating an "information black-out" by refusing to hand over evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger.

The Government says it has "additional evidence" which shows Saddam Hussein was seeking to purchase "significant quantities" of the nuclear fuel as part of his effort to develop a weapons programme. But it refuses to disclose the additional evidence because it says it came from third country which did not wish to reveal itself.

It says this evidence, which was not shared with the Americans, was used when it made the claim about the Niger connection in its September dossier. Other documents provided to the British and American governments by the Italian intelligence services purporting to show a deal between Iraq and Niger, were found to be forgeries when copies were passed to the IAEA by Washington.

Under the international legislation which ordered the IAEA to investigate whether Iraq had nuclear weapons programmes, all signatories must co-operate with the agency`s officials. Sources say there is no exemption for countries that claim evidence was provided by a third party.

A Western diplomat close to the workings of the IAEA, said: "Despite requests, the British Government has provided no such evidence. Senior officials at the agency think it is involved in an information black-out." The Italian documents were provided to the IAEA in February by the US. It took the agency just 10 days to conclude they were not genuine.

In Washington yesterday, the CIA director, George Tenet ­ blamed by the White House for approving a false claim over Iraq`s nuclear programme ­ was questioned by senators over the controversy. Mr Tenet was summoned to a closed-door session by the Senate`s intelligence committee to explain how a claim that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa ­ known to be false and based on forged documents provided by the Italian intelligence services ­ was included in the State of the Union address.

In a statement, Mr Tenet accepted that he bore overall responsibility for approving the speech but said there was pressure to make the claim

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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July 17, 2003

We`re still at war, says US general
From Tim Reid in Washington



THE new commander of coalition troops in Iraq declared yesterday that America was “still at war” and that it was facing classic guerrilla tactics.
The admission from General John Abizaid, the new head of US Central Command, contradicted repeated claims by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, that US troops did not face a guerrilla war. General Abizaid, speaking nearly three months after President Bush declared major combat over, said: “We’re at war. It’s war, however you describe it.

“We’re fighting mid-level Baathist Iraqi intelligence service people, special security organisation people, special Republican Guard people, organised at the regional level in cellular structure . . . a classical guerrilla-type campaign.”

In Washington, the House Intelligence Committee reported that “large numbers of US troops were likely to remain in Iraq” for years.

Soldiers in Iraq began openly calling for the Defence Secretary’s resignation, after their withdrawal was delayed for a third time this week. One told ABC television: “If Donald Rumsfeld were here, I’d ask him for his resignation.”

Since Mr Bush’s declaration 78 US soldiers and 10 British troops have died in Iraq, 39 from hostile action.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-748165,00.html

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Bilder aus der NYTimes


Monica Almeida
Tents and makeshift shelters line the blocks of Skid Row in Los Angeles, a city with 41,000 homeless people.


Monica Almeida
A homeless man read a newspaper in his cardboard box on Skid Row in Los Angeles. With housing scarce and rents high, there is a major effort to revitalize the area


James Estrin
A child passing homeless people and their belongings on benches at 28th Street and 9th Avenue in New York City.

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July 17, 2003
Yearlong Tours an Option for `Guerrilla` War in Iraq
By THOM SHANKER


WASHINGTON, July 16 — American troops in Iraq are under attack from "a classical guerrilla-type campaign" whose fighters, drawn from Saddam Hussein`s most unyielding loyalists and foreign terrorist groups, are increasingly organized, the new commander of allied forces in Iraq said today.

The commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, pledged that the United States and its allies would not be driven from Iraq by the guerrilla attacks, which today killed one American soldier and wounded at least six others around Baghdad. But he cautioned that pacifying Iraq might require fresh American troops to spend yearlong tours there, double the normal duration of Army forces on peacekeeping duty.

The assessment of Iraqi resistance by General Abizaid was a significant change from previous comments by senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has said that the insurgents` raids were too haphazard to qualify as a guerrilla war or organized resistance.

"I believe there`s midlevel Baathist, Iraqi intelligence service people, Special Security Organization people, Special Republican Guard people that have organized at the regional level in cellular structure and are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us," General Abizaid said.

"It`s low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it`s war, however you describe it," he added during his first news conference since being sworn in last week as the Central Command`s senior officer.

Pentagon planners disclosed today that a number of new or unusual options are under consideration to replace battle-weary American ground forces in Iraq like the Army`s Third Infantry Division and the First Marine Expeditionary Force.

The Army`s first Stryker Brigade Combat Team, built around a new, lightly armored vehicle named Stryker, might be ordered to Iraq this fall, and Pentagon officials are analyzing whether to activate, early next year, any of the National Guard`s enhanced brigades, which are specially designated units that train with the active-duty Army and are assigned its most modern combat equipment.

Pentagon officials said other options included assigning the Marine Corps a major piece of the long-term peacekeeping operation — though it has traditionally been an expeditionary force that seizes territory but does not hold it for lengthy periods — or turning to individual Army battalions or brigades if they have not yet seen duty in Iraq.

The focus on assigning marines to Iraq peacekeeping duties — as well as pressing allies for contributions of forces — is driven at least in part by the fact that of the Army`s 33 active-duty combat brigades, 21 already are deployed: 16 in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, two in South Korea and one in the Balkans, a Pentagon official said today.

In an effort to rally allies to contribute forces for the stabilization mission in Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that he was discussing with his foreign counterparts and the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, the possibility of introducing new United Nations resolutions that might make it possible for countries like India to take part in the coalition in Iraq.

India, as well as France and Germany, has said it will send troops only under United Nations auspices.

"I`ve had some discussions with other ministers, as well as with Secretary General Annan, whether or not it would be appropriate to start discussions about other U.N. resolutions," Mr. Powell said. "But that`s as far as these preliminary discussions have gone."

At the United Nations, Mr. Annan spoke of the Security Council`s efforts on this issue, saying, "I am sure, if there is will, they will find the language to broaden and internationalize the process."

Stress on American ground combat units has been evident in recent days as members of the Third Infantry Division, the longest-serving Army unit in Iraq, were quoted in television and other interviews as being openly critical of Mr. Rumsfeld and their mission after hearing that the promised return home of their final two brigades might slip into late autumn. One brigade has begun its journey home.

General Abizaid, himself an Army officer, complimented the combat prowess and courage of the division, and pledged again that his commanders would try to send the troops home by September — but showed no patience for public criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld by men and women in uniform.

"None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense or the president of the United States," General Abizaid said during his Pentagon briefing. "We`re not free to do that. It`s our professional code. Whatever action may be taken, whether it`s a verbal reprimand or something more stringent is up to the commanders on the scene and it`s not for me to comment."

American troops in Iraq today or those to be deployed should expect more attacks — not only from Iraq guerrillas, but from foreign terrorists as well, the general said.

General Abizaid said, "It`s unclear, but it`s troubling, that Al Qaeda either look-alikes or Al Qaeda people are making an opportunity to move against us." The Ansar al-Islam terrorist group, whose camps in northeastern Iraq were attacked during the war, is also trying to reconstitute within Iraq, and foreign money is underwriting some of these terrorist efforts, General Abizaid said.

Of the anti-American forces operating in the central and north-central parts of Iraq, where American forces have come under heaviest attack, General Abizaid, "They`re better coordinated now."

The insurgents, he said, are showing "some level of regional command-and-control" that indicates planning beyond individual small groups striking only at targets of opportunity.

General Abizaid refused to be drawn into discussing whether his assessment of the insurgent threat in Iraq contradicted that of Mr. Rumsfeld or other officials; he said that the description of "guerrilla tactics" was proper "in strictly military terms."

But General Abizaid said that, at present, the force of about 147,000 American troops and 13,000 allied forces on the ground in Iraq was sufficient.

"I think our current force levels are about right," he said. "If the situation gets worse, I won`t hesitate to ask for more."

General Abizaid also said that anti-American forces had fired two surface-to-air missiles at American aircraft within the last two weeks; one of them was today. Those attacks on C-130 cargo planes also indicate an escalation in the weapons used against allied forces, beyond automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

"Matter of fact, I was on the deck of a C-130 the other day, and we had a missile warning," General Abizaid said. "And the guy made a hard right bank. And we fired off all of our flares and, you know, we looked out there. And these were guys from the Oklahoma National Guard, and they actually thought it was fun. I was terrified."

Pentagon officials also disclosed today that there have been about five deaths among troops assigned to the Iraq mission that commanders say might have been suicides. As inquiries continue, one official said the suspected suicides were not clustered in any single time period that might indicate a related cause.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 17, 2003
Blair Arrives in U.S. on Thursday, Trailing Controversy Over Iraq
By WARREN HOGE and DON VAN NATTA Jr.


LONDON, July 16 — Prime Minister Tony Blair travels to Washington Thursday on a mission to underline Britain`s close and dependable relationship with the United States without reinforcing his critics` portrayal of him at home as an unquestioning follower of President Bush.

Both Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush are battling charges that they misrepresented the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and exaggerated intelligence findings to bolster their case for a military strike on Iraq.

The two leaders will meet against a backdrop of claims and counterclaims about the justification for going to war and a continuing failure to find the unconventional weapons that both men said were a menace requiring immediate action.

British public opinion, which swung behind the war effort once British troops entered Iraq in March, has now turned back into opposition, and the leadership of Mr. Bush enjoys scant support among Britons.

In a rowdy House of Commons session today, the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, told Mr. Blair, "You are rapidly becoming a stranger to the truth," as lawmakers bellowed disapproval, waved their papers in the air and accused him of having "duped" them into going to war.

"You have created a culture of deceit and spin at the heart of government," Mr. Duncan Smith said, exploiting the government`s most vulnerable aspect as portrayed in new polls showing public trust of Mr. Blair at the lowest point of his six years in power.

Mr. Blair told the House that he stood entirely behind the intelligence information that his government put forward in two disputed dossiers over the past year, and he turned aside repeated calls for an independent judicial inquiry into the government`s case for war. Two committees of Parliament — which are dominated by the Labor Party majority — are currently holding hearings on the subject.

In a speech he is scheduled to deliver before a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Mr. Blair will appeal for continued American efforts to engage Europe and the United Nations as broadly as possible in the reconstruction of Iraq, a senior British official said.

The official, who is familiar with Mr. Blair`s message, said the prime minister planned to argue that the best path for Britain and the United States was "spreading our shared values — not just American values, or British values, but universal values — throughout the world."

Mr. Blair rejects the notion that the Bush administration`s assertive policy in the Persian Gulf is unilaterist, and, to make that point anew, he may speak of the shared responsibilities of the United States, Britain and their allies as "muscular multilateralism," the official said.

Mr. Blair is expected to argue that it was those shared values that justified the invasion of Iraq and the removal from power of Saddam Hussein, as well as the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that removed the Taliban. "There is this myth that these countries don`t want freedom, and that Saddam or the Taliban are popular, but then it becomes apparent that they were not at all popular after they fall," the official said.

Mr. Blair will probably not address the controversy over the intelligence about Iraq`s weapons programs in his prepared remarks, though he expects to be asked about it in a joint news conference with Mr. Bush, the official said.

"There has been a lot of discussion over the past few days about this," the official said. "He expects to be absolutely in lock step with the president when it comes up at the press conference," the official said, adding that Mr. Blair was "keen on putting the whole thing behind him."

While Mr. Blair has been credited with helping persuade the Bush administration to seek United Nations backing last fall and with generally shoring up less hawkish elements of the Bush administration, he is faulted by his critics here for having little influence in Washington and providing international cover for an administration bent on unilateralist interventions around the world.

He has been repeatedly lampooned in the British press as Mr. Bush`s "poodle." Simon Jenkins, a columnist for The Times of London, wrote today that Mr. Blair had shortchanged Britain`s special relationship with the United States, making "a marriage of platonic dignity into one of puppy love."

This week, Mr. Blair has had to confront controversy over the validity of intelligence on Iraq`s bid to seek uranium for a possible nuclear weapons program from Niger, a claim that Mr. Bush used in his State of the Union speech but from which the administration has now distanced itself.

Britain has insisted that its information was correct.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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July 17, 2003
U.S. Teenagers Win World Geography Title
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 3:11 a.m. ET

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Who says Americans are lousy at geography?

Three U.S. teenagers won the gold medal Wednesday in the National Geographic World Championship, beating teams from Germany and France to successfully defend the U.S. title in a contest held every two years.

The teenagers beat Germany in the finals by identifying Bahrain from a series of clues about the oil-producing nation and then naming Crete as the island where oranges, grapes and olives are grown and is associated with the worship of Zeus.

``It`s kind of nerve wracking,`` said U.S. team member John Rice, 15, who is home schooled at his family`s Maddock, N.D., wheat farm. ``We took it one question at a time.``

Dallas Simons, 13, of Nashville, Tenn., and Alexander Smith, 15, of Burlington, N.C., were the other U.S. competitors. It`s the fourth time the United States has won the competition since it was first held in 1993.

Eighteen countries from as far away as Singapore and Nigeria sent three-student teams to the two-day tournament at Busch Gardens. The United States, Germany and France advanced to the finals after beating the other countries in an elaborate, geography-based scavenger hunt through the amusement park Tuesday.

U.S. students become candidates for the team through a series of local, regional and national geography bees sponsored by National Geographic. Top finishers in the U.S. national championship are selected based on an essay.

Wednesday`s questions, created by a team of National Geographic writers and teachers, were heavily based on the geography of Africa, southeast Asia and Pacific island nations. The competition specifically excluded questions about the finalists` home countries.

The students were asked to name cities marked on a map devoid of any names and locators, and find which lakes, rivers and islands were misplaced on other maps. In one round, animals including an African wildcat and a small boa constrictor were brought on stage and the competitors had to answer questions about the animals` natural habitat.

The U.S. team said there was no formula for preparing for the contest. They studied world almanacs, Internet geography sites and newspapers to boost their knowledge of places, people and events.

``If you`re interested in it, you remember it,`` Simons said.

^------

On the Net:

The Bee: http://www.nationalgeographic.org/geographybee

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July 17, 2003
We`re Still the One
By ROBERT LANE GREENE


A quick read of the European Union`s draft Constitution provides plenty of evidence of the creation of a world power. The draft, which will be formally presented to European leaders tomorrow, calls for a bill of rights, a foreign minister and a single trade policy. It even proposes a motto, "United in Diversity." But those who hope for the emergence of a Superpower Europe that can rival the United States — and those who fear such an entity will be an anti-American menace — will have their expectations disappointed.

True, the union next year will have 450 million citizens and an economy the size of America`s, the consequence of expanding to 25 member states from 15. But the Constitution, which will be debated and then put in its final form by next summer, falls well short of creating a full, superpower-sized actor on the international stage.

The union will wield a great deal of influence through its status as a single trade bloc, but it has done so for decades — nothing new here. As for a single "foreign and security policy," the draft represents a failure for those — especially the French, but also notably the Belgians — who want to see a unified Europe strong enough to stand up to the United States on the world stage. There may be a foreign minister, but foreign policy will remain subject to unanimity. This means that when members disagree, as they did over Iraq and will surely do over any controversial issue in the future, foreign policy will effectively remain with individual national governments.

National governments will also maintain control of the two biggest elements of state power: money and the military. The union has a large budget (nearly 100 billion euros, about $111 billion), which it spends on things like subsidies to poor areas, agriculture and foreign aid. But that spending is dwarfed by the size of the national budgets put together, and even under the new Constitution the union will gain no power to raise its own taxes — it will remain dependent on the member states. And though the union plans a new rapid-reaction military force, which could see duty in places like Macedonia (where several union members now have troops under a union flag), the creation of a truly sizable "euro army" that could rival America`s remains unthinkable, not least because it would require Europeans to spend money they do not have on upgrading military hardware.

There are areas where the draft would significantly expand the union`s powers, especially in the area of criminal law. This would be added to areas like trade, monetary policy and farming where the union already has a dominant role. And some worry that a provision requiring the European Union to promote economic "cohesion" among the member countries could be a Trojan horse for ever-increasing powers. However, other provisions, much like the 10th Amendment to America`s own Constitution, declare that powers not given to the union should remain with the member states. This could lead to wrangling between those members that want to do more at the union level and the skeptics — especially Britain and the Scandinavian countries — that want to keep powers closer to home.

All this is to say that the Constitution is not the radical leap forward to a United States of Europe. It is telling that this very name was considered and rejected. Most Europeans still feel their national identity more strongly than their European one. Cooperation at the union level makes sense on technical issues like agriculture, fisheries, the environment, trade and so forth. But until a truly European people is created, many of the union`s citizens will rightly prefer that decisions closer to the heart and the wallet — whether to go to war, or to raise taxes — be made by the national governments they think they know well, not by the distant and bafflingly complex set of institutions of the European Union.


Robert Lane Greene is an editor at Economist.com.



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