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Justice for a Tyrant




Tuesday, December 16, 2003; Page A36


THE TRIAL of Saddam Hussein could deliver an enormous boost to Iraq`s reconstruction. It could air in meticulous detail the record of his atrocities, provide millions of his victims and their relatives a measure of justice and allow Iraq`s new authorities to demonstrate their commitment to human rights and the rule of law. It also could be a destabilizing disaster. If, as one member of the Iraqi Governing Council suggested yesterday, the trial is rushed into the courtroom in weeks, or if Saddam Hussein, like former Yugoslav warlord Slobodan Milosevic, manages to use his tribunal as a platform for rallying his diehard supporters, the United States and its allies could find themselves worse off than when the dictator was hiding in his hole. In detention but very much alive, Saddam Hussein remains a danger. He must be handled and prosecuted in a way that balances the needs of Iraqi and foreign victims, the promotion of a new political order, and international standards of justice.

A good first step would be to confirm that the former dictator will be tried in Iraq and that Iraqis will play a leading role -- but that international assistance and legitimation will also be necessary. President Bush`s statement yesterday that his administration would "work with Iraqis to develop a way to try [Saddam Hussein] that will withstand international scrutiny" was reasonable but vague. One risk is that the prosecution will become another ideological cause for administration officials bent on opposing transnational justice, promoting the death penalty and excluding the United Nations and major European governments from Iraq.

Saddam Hussein will not and should not be turned over to an international tribunal. But a pragmatic formula is needed: International war crimes experts, including both prosecutors and jurists, should be recruited to participate in his trial, as consultants or as guarantors of fair standards. Foreign governments affected by his crimes, including Iran and Kuwait, should be allowed a role, at least in supplying evidence. And U.S. and Iraqi authorities would be wise to delay any trial until a more representative and sovereign Iraqi government is in power and can seek both domestic and international mandates for the process.

Some members of the governing council have expressed support for what interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called an "international dimension" to the prosecution. But the council`s actions so far are not encouraging. Last week it promulgated regulations for trying crimes by the old regime that were drawn up in private by a small group of Iraqi and U.S. lawyers. The rules provide for some international participation but exclude the United Nations. Human rights groups charge that protections for defendants fail to meet international standards. If the council sticks to such practice, the trial of Saddam Hussein could come to resemble the current governance of Iraq: an improvised affair monopolized by the Bush administration and Iraqis of its choosing that lacks credibility with many Iraqis and foreign governments. That would be a loss, and not just for Saddam Hussein`s victims; it would make the task of stabilizing Iraq that much harder.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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When Decapitation Isn`t Fatal


By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, December 16, 2003; Page A37


This is a good news and bad news column. The good news is that Saddam Hussein is in the slammer. All the rest is bad.

It`s bad news that Hussein was caught in a hole near a farmhouse and was accompanied by only two men. He had a modest cache of weapons and $750,000 in cash, which is about what Paris Hilton burns through on a Rodeo Drive spree. Not only is that far from what it takes to direct a far-flung insurgency but Hussein himself appeared wholly incapable of doing so. If he had surfaced in New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg would have sent him to a homeless shelter.

The really bad news is that it now seems likely the insurgency has been operating free of Hussein and his money. Indeed, on the day that Hussein`s capture was announced, a car bomb at an Iraqi police station killed 17 people and wounded 33. Suicide bombers hit twice the next day. It`s not likely Hussein had a hand in that.

Hussein is the embodiment of many things -- the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction, raw aggression and, in his case, evil -- but he also represents much of what has gone wrong with the U.S. effort in Iraq. It was, after all, the attempt to kill him with bomb and missile strikes that triggered the war last spring. The strikes were a failure, and it meant that the United States and its vaunted (mini) coalition of the willing invaded Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division -- rerouted from Turkey -- not yet in place.

Among other things, that meant the coalition did not have sufficient manpower to secure its rear or, when Baghdad swiftly fell, to secure the city itself. Looting broke out. Government ministries were trashed -- electrical and telephone facilities, too. The United States could not maintain order or, for that matter, the basic services the Hussein regime had provided before the war.

The attempt to take out Hussein evinced a certain kind of thinking, the personalization of foreign policy that held that without him, Iraq would become malleable. It`s true, of course, that there were good military reasons to try to decapitate the regime by killing the nation`s leader, but we now know that even without him -- even with him in hiding and isolated -- a resistance movement materialized. From all accounts, we still do not know who these fighters are.

On occasion the administration has said they are Arab or Islamic terrorists from outside Iraq. At other times we have been told they are bitter-end Baathists. Sometimes we are told they are paid common criminals -- although common criminals are not likely to conduct suicide missions.

There`s probably some truth to all these theories -- and to one hardly mentioned at all. Some of the insurgents may well be Iraqi nationalists who resent the U.S. presence and are willing to fight it. Nationalism in Iraq is often discounted, but it exists -- fostered first by Ottoman and then British occupations and, more recently, by the wars of Saddam Hussein, which were followed by United Nations sanctions. Hussein was to blame for much of this, but that does not mean that some -- maybe many -- Iraqis did not come to resent the United States even while hating their own leader. The Arab sense of grievance is hard to overstate.

At least twice now, Americans have celebrated the end of the war in Iraq -- once last April when the statute of Hussein was toppled in Baghdad`s Firdaus Square and again the next month when Bush himself declared major combat operations over. "Mission Accomplished," the banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln proclaimed. Since then, more than 300 Americans have died in Iraq.

Bush clearly learned from that mistake. In his speech to the nation on Sunday, he specifically warned that "the capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq." On the USS Abraham Lincoln, he had proclaimed the war all but over and linked it repeatedly with Sept. 11 and al Qaeda. He mentioned Roosevelt and Truman, Normandy and Iwo Jima. This time, Bush was restrained. In fact, Hussein may turn out to be like weapons of mass destruction -- much less there than anyone thought.

The good news is that we got the bastard -- and who cannot cheer? But the bad news -- even as I continue to believe the United States will prevail -- is that we found him, craven, disheveled and, fittingly, in a hole. Because of the mistakes of the Bush administration, that`s where we are too.

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Published on Monday, December 15, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Uncle Sam’s Guantanamo Prison: Outside the Rule of Law
by Brigid O’Neil

The latest news from Guantanamo Bay is beginning to sound like a modern-day Simpsons’ episode. After two years of imprisoning more than 600 alleged enemy combatants without charge or counsel in a Cuban prison camp, the Administration announced earlier this month that two detainees -- one a U.S. citizen -- would be permitted limited access to an attorney. As any Simpsons buff will tell you, it’s a classic Mr. Burns move: put on a show of improving work conditions at the nuclear power plant by dressing Homer in thermal underwear.

While it might be an amusing tag line typical of the most noxious character in the Simpsons repertoire, it’s a sad metaphor for the U.S. government’s abysmal treatment of designated enemy combatants.

News of the American prisoner’s counsel came one day before the Justice Department filed a brief at the Supreme Court, adding to suspicions about the Administration’s motives. Their brief asks the court to affirm the government’s indefinite detention of Americans declared “enemy combatants,” without counsel or the ability to dispute the allegations. The Constitutional liberties at risk in this case, including the right to a fair trial and due process, constitute a grave danger for Americans and foreign nationals alike. And nowhere is the startling consequence of Constitutional “concessions” more apparent than the state of Guantanamo Bay.

From the beginning, Guantanamo Bay was wrought with strife. The Geneva Convention, with its guarantee of certain fundamental rights for all prisoners of war, was quickly sidelined by the Administration in favor of its own rules for the treatment and investigation of detainees. In the absence of any rule of law, it didn’t take long for the media to pick up reports of inhumane treatment -- or what one former intelligence officer brazenly called, “torture-lite.” These reports include: firing rubber bullets at those in restraints, beatings for anyone who “made a call to prayer,” sleep deprivation, and forced confessions. The situation became so dire that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only non-government organization to visit the camp, broke a long-standing policy of silence and called the prisoner circumstances an “intolerable situation.” After reading the latest official statements on the health of the detainees, it becomes shockingly clear why the ICRC took such an unprecedented move. According to national news reports, 35 detainees have attempted suicide, 110 have been placed on a suicide watch list, and 1 out of every 5 detainees now receive medication for what one military official can only describe as “clinical depression.”

In response to such damning reports, the Administration contends that the detainees are dangerous terrorists and thus do not deserve any legal protections, much less liberal sympathies. But after two years of investigations at the camp, the Administration has yet to charge any detainee with a crime or bring a case before a military tribunal. Thus, the public has no way to determine what alleged crimes these men are charged with committing, much less whether or not they are guilty.

In the absence of any formidable opposition to the Executive Branch’s actions, the Supreme Court has finally stepped into the ring. In a matter of months the Justices will decide two cases that will rule on a host of alleged constitutional abuses. In the first case, Padilla v. Rumsfeld, the Court will determine whether a U.S. citizen has the right to an attorney before disappearing into a military stockade without charges or contact with the outside world. The second case, involving the two appeals of Rasul v. Bush and Odah v. U.S., will decide if Guantanamo detainees can have access to civilian courts to challenge their detention. The most pressing issue in both cases calls into question the newly claimed Executive Branch power to detain any person indefinitely and without any recourse to judicial review.

Given the blatant lack of any legal protections for these alleged combatants, it is no wonder that former prisoner-of-war Senator John McCain expressed concern this week about what he saw after a recent visit to Guantanamo. Even prisoners suspected of serious crimes deserve fair and open legal proceedings -- after all, our very Constitution was founded on the right to due process and a presumption of innocence. By holding suspected enemies to our highest rule of law and honoring established international treaties, we set a precedent for the treatment we expect of U.S. troops in enemy hands. To undermine this rule of law risks the very livelihood of our Constitution and threatens the way our citizens are treated both at home and abroad. No minor concessions by the U.S. government can change the impression that the secrecy and lack of due process for detainees at Guantanamo Bay resembles that of the Soviet gulags of old. And it doesn’t take the antics of a Mr. Burns or the gullibility of Homer Simpson to figure it out.

Brigid O’Neil is a researcher at the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, California.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraq16dec…
SADDAM HUSSEIN IN CAPTIVITY



U.S. Says Hussein Is Cooperating
Ex-dictator provided information leading to several arrests, officials say. Documents found at his hide-out are being scrutinized for clues.
By Carol J. Williams and Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writers

December 16, 2003

BAGHDAD — Jailed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been cooperating with U.S. military interrogators, providing intelligence that has led to the arrests of several high-ranking officials of his former regime and confirming details of guerrilla cells operating in Baghdad, U.S. officials said Monday.

Investigators also are studying documents seized during Hussein`s arrest Saturday for further clues about his possible role in directing the insurgency that has claimed nearly 200 American soldiers` lives since President Bush declared the end of major combat May 1.

As Iraqis struggled with the realization that the brutal former dictator was in U.S. custody, many, including officials appointed by the U.S. administration, insisted that Hussein be turned over to them so they could begin preparations to put him on trial. Many saw Hussein`s capture as an indication that the U.S.-led occupation might end soon.

"Now that Saddam is out of the picture, we have a better chance of getting Iraq on its own feet and the Americans will be leaving sooner rather than later," said Saber Fareed, a 29- year-old Islamic law student.

The American military said the intelligence supplied by Hussein was the major breakthrough Monday, one that gave them hope they could start eliminating secret cells whose guerrilla tactics have disrupted efforts to restore basic goods, services and safety to Iraq.

The suicide bombings of two Baghdad-area police stations in which 10 people, including the two attackers, were killed and at least 22 others hurt were reminders that the battle to root out guerrillas was far from over.

Because interrogators had spent less than 24 hours questioning the deposed Iraqi leader, they had only just begun converting clues gleaned from Hussein into military operations aimed at eliminating insurgent cells, said Army Capt. Aaron Hatok, a spokesman for the 1st Armored Division, which is responsible for American troops in Baghdad.

The circumstances in which Hussein was discovered, in a dirt hole with no means of communication, raised doubts about the extent to which he might have been directing attacks on U.S. troops.

But Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of the 1st Armored Division, said he believed Hussein was in some way coordinating insurgent cells.

The general, in an e-mail exchange with a Washington-based Los Angeles Times reporter, said the information culled from Hussein and from documents he had with him confirmed several theories American intelligence analysts had already been pursuing.

Hertling said the 1st Infantry will use other newly gathered intelligence "to further connect the dots of cells that operate in Baghdad." He said the next phase will be working with the Iraqi police to hunt down car theft rings in the capital to help restore security there.

Investigators also said they were trying to determine whether Hussein was linked to a money trail funding insurgents. The informant who during interrogation turned in the deposed dictator has been connected to the seizure of $1.9 million in Samarra last week — money possibly earmarked for underground fighters, officials said. U.S. officials said the informant is from a prominent family involved in guarding Hussein when he was president.

While the initial haul of information encouraged interrogators, persistent attacks on U.S.-led forces Monday reinforced the fact that those attacking American troops were a diverse group with varying agendas.

"We hope this intelligence will lead to the breakup or at least disruption of a significant number of these cells," Hatok said. He described the insurgents in Baghdad as "very complex," with factions other than those loyal to Hussein.

"That is only one component," Hatok said. "We`re also seeing foreign fighters and religious extremists and some of these are not necessarily fighting for Saddam Hussein, but they are fighting the coalition."

Hatok said investigators have yet to establish any link with the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

On Monday, at least four car bombs were left at various Iraqi police stations being readied to assist U.S. troops in providing security in the vicinity of Baghdad. Two of them detonated, one at a station in Husseiniya, 18 miles north of the capital, killing eight policemen and wounding 15 people. Another blew up near a station in the Baghdad suburb of Amiriyah, injuring seven Iraqis. Another car bomb was defused in Amiriyah after police fired on an approaching vehicle, forcing its driver to flee. Security forces also found an abandoned vehicle packed with explosives in the eastern part of Baghdad.

In an unrelated incident, a coalition soldier died in Baghdad at about 7:30 a.m. Monday from a "non-hostile gunshot wound" — often a euphemism for suicide or friendly fire — authorities reported. They did not disclose the victim`s name or nationality.

While U.S. military investigators have been pleased with the first fruits of their interrogation of Hussein, Iraqi officials are concentrating on his hand-over for trial. They want Hussein transferred to an Iraqi jail as soon as feasible so they can begin preparations to put him on trial at a special tribunal newly created to prosecute war crimes.

At the White House, President Bush confirmed Monday that Hussein will be tried in Iraq rather than extradited to an international tribunal or a U.S. court.

"We will work with Iraqis to develop a way to try him that will withstand international scrutiny," Bush told reporters in Washington.

Bush expressed skepticism that Hussein could be trusted to supply truthful information about guerrilla cells or alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration was forced to try to counter criticism Monday that it had violated the Geneva Convention by releasing video footage of Saddam Hussein taken after his capture.

The convention says prisoners should not be humiliated by displaying them to satisfy public curiosity. Some European commentators have criticized the videotape of Hussein being examined by a military doctor.

But a State Department official said the videotape was released to reassure Iraqis that the dictator was in captivity, and was a justifiable step to improve security in the country.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday called Hussein`s capture "a positive development" that had removed the shadow of fear that was keeping Iraq`s transition from moving forward. But he also said the Iraqi tribunal must meet international standards and that the U.N. would lend its expertise to set it up, if asked. But the U.N. would not support a tribunal that included the death penalty.

Iraqi authorities want to expedite prosecution of their jailed former leader and avoid the time-consuming procedures of an international tribunal such as the one still trying Yugoslavia`s Slobodan Milosevic more than a decade after some of his alleged crimes.

The only contact between Hussein and leaders of the new Iraqi government that has succeeded him was a half-hour visit Sunday by four governing council figures at the "secure location" where he was being held.

Key members of the Iraqi Governing Council said Hussein could be put on trial in the next few months and later executed, if found guilty, after Iraq recovers its sovereignty from the U.S.-led occupation July 1.

But some Iraqi leaders, such as Dara Noureddine, who heads the governing council`s legal committee, estimated that a few more weeks are necessary to prepare a secure detention facility for the 66-year-old Hussein, one of more than 40 former regime figures in U.S. custody here.

"We have agreed with the Americans that such criminals will be handed over to the Iraqi people," said Noureddine, a retired judge who was once jailed by Hussein for refusing to issue convictions on the dictator`s orders. "Evidence will be collected and sent to the tribunal, where he will be tried in a just forum, in an open court with the press and the public in attendance or watching it on TV."

U.S. officials said they would need several weeks to try to elicit intelligence from Hussein on the whereabouts of other Baath Party fugitives, his role in orchestrating attacks on the coalition and the location of any weapons of mass destruction.

Another Governing Council member said Iraqi leaders had been assured by U.S. officials that Hussein would be made available for interrogations.

"When we want to see him, we will be able to," said Mouwafak Rabii, a member of the council`s legal committee and one of the four Iraqis who saw Hussein in his cell shortly after his capture.

It is not yet known what charges Hussein would face. Rabii and Noureddine said the death penalty would be sought against Hussein because of the scope of his abuses. New York-based Human Rights Watch estimates that Hussein is responsible for the deaths of 250,000 Iraqis, including 100,000 Kurdish men and boys shot dead in the 1988 Anfal genocide.

Agencies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been lobbying for the trying of Iraqi war crimes suspects at an international tribunal. Iraqis vehemently oppose this, largely because such a tribunal would reject capital punishment.

The streets of Baghdad, which had seen scenes of chaotic jubilation Sunday, were mostly business as usual Monday, as shops reopened and frustrated drivers went looking for what little gasoline they could find.

However, pro-Hussein demonstrations broke out in various Sunni areas of Iraq, including Tikrit, Fallouja and the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiyah. Young men protested Hussein`s arrest by firing into the air.

Many Iraqis expressed regret that the U.S.- led occupation forces and not Iraqi citizens or police found him.

"We would like to see him humiliated in an Iraqi court dock. We don`t want the Americans to send him to Guantanamo like the Al Qaeda fighters. We want to prosecute him in our own land," said Azawi Karadi, a 45-year-old engineer.

Since Hussein`s overthrow, an array of newspapers and radio and TV stations have sprung up. On Monday, many ran the same picture published around the world — of the disheveled and disoriented Hussein.

The weekly independent Kulul lraq, ran this headline in red: "People live their great happiness with the capture of their tyrant and executioner."

*

Williams reported from Baghdad and Schrader from Washington. Also contributing were staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell in Baghdad, Paul Richter in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jenning…
COMMENTARY



In Iraq, Hussein Goes Bone Deep
By Ray Salvatore Jennings
Ray Salvatore Jennings is a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

December 16, 2003

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad this August was how eerily quiet it was. A knot of Iraqis crushed around a television at the far end of the normally chaotic lobby. A defiant Saddam Hussein was on the set, urging resistance and threatening collaborators. Of the transfixed guests and hotel staff the manager said, "We watch him like we watch a terrible accident, afraid our bones could break if we do not pay attention — because his bones are our bones."

Hussein will continue to draw a crowd, less out of fear now than out of a desire to know what becomes of him. Reviled as he is by so many in Iraq, he still shares the marrow of a suspicious and impatient nation. He is a tyrant who no doubt will adopt the pained demeanor of a wronged great- uncle in coming weeks.

For better or worse, he is as close to a national symbol as it gets. With such symbolism comes perils and advantages.

The first advantage of capturing Hussein alive is that the mystique he has manicured over several decades can now be dismantled rather than embellished in martyrdom. Yet it would be perilous to humiliate the man. Around him churn a complex set of emotions. To gloat over his capture or to repeatedly shame him in a public fashion risks visiting additional disgrace on Iraqis who are already uncomfortable with not taking him down themselves, or insulting those who still see in him the symbol of the state. Instead, recent events provide the opportunity to demonstrate that the rule of law applies even to individuals as pitiless as Hussein.

His capture offers the chance to discredit the infectious and enduring culture of corruption, exploitation and violence exemplified by him and his ruthless, self-absorbed and unaccountable cronies. This class of individuals defined and epitomized a distorted set of values that promoted personal achievement by theft, betrayal, smuggling, plunder and violence. As a Baghdad University student confided one summer evening, "We have to recognize what we became under Saddam Hussein before we can make a new peace and democracy in Iraq."

It would be wrong to make Hussein the personification of what has gone wrong in Iraq. In any court proceeding, the code of conduct that he promoted, that others exemplified and many reluctantly embraced should be shrewdly put on trial with him. To discredit Hussein`s mystique, perhaps dual trials could be held. The first should be local and focus on his violation of Iraq`s own extensive legal code, including charges of extortion, murder and torture, to demonstrate he is as accountable as anyone for criminal violations. Once his myth is punctured, then let him face a war-crimes trial.

For the U.S., the peril is that after the celebrations have stopped, Iraqis will wake up to find the gas lines still there, the electricity still in short supply and sewers still overflowing. Crime and resistance may get even worse. And Iraqis may feel that the U.S. commitment to secure Iraq is ever more fragile. Hussein`s capture may lessen the fear that undermines a transition to peace, or it might make matters more difficult. How to correctly handle Hussein may prove as complicated as finding him in the first place.


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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer1…
COMMENTARY



We Got Him ... Now What?
Robert Scheer

December 16, 2003

The capture of Saddam Hussein is being treated as a celebratory occasion, but it is one that the Bush administration might come to regret.

The onus is on the United States to accord this former ally and head of state all the rights due a high-level prisoner of war, as established at Nuremberg and The Hague. His testimony in open court could prove fascinating if he is allowed to detail his past relationships with top U.S. officials — including the president`s father and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who worked out terms of cooperation with Hussein in 1983.

And now that the "fear factor" of Hussein`s ghostly presence has been removed, there is no longer any valid explanation for why former members of Hussein`s regime and key scientists cannot show us where all those infamous weapons of mass destruction went. After all, this invasion — based on a new doctrine of preemptive war that bypassed United Nations inspectors — was not pitched to the American people as a mercy mission.

We were told that Hussein posed an imminent threat to the world and was close to building nuclear weapons that he might give to Al Qaeda. Occupying Iraq, it was stated over and over again by the White House, was a legitimate response to the horror of Sept. 11 and a way to prevent, as Condoleezza Rice once put it, "a mushroom cloud" from appearing over an American city.

Of course, President Bush was finally forced to concede that there was no evidence that linked Hussein to 9/11. Yet, in his brief statement after the capture of Hussein, he again connected the secular dictator to the threat of fundamentalist terrorism. He did this while continuing silence on the Bush family`s old business buddies in Saudi Arabia, backers of Al Qaeda and other religious fanatics, who numbered Hussein among their enemies.

We have lost valuable time and resources in the struggle to quell Al Qaeda and similar groups while creating a morass in Iraq. Hussein`s removal was a politically motivated exploitation of our nation`s anger and fear over the 9/11 attacks. With the historical footnote of his arrest now in the books, the White House needs to stop its daily lies of commission and omission regarding the war on terror. For example, the administration must stop its stonewalling of the panel Bush reluctantly formed to examine the origins of 9/11.

This official obstruction would seem to be a clear indication that Bush is worried about embarrassing details emerging that could threaten his reelection. Yet Congress and the public must know the truth about 9/11 so that we may make our judgments about what happened and about how similar tragedies can be prevented.

The capture of Hussein, while providing the president with fantastic propaganda footage, does nothing to make us safer from international terrorism. It could, however, shine a harsh light on Washington`s decade-long military and economic support of the barbaric Hussein in his war against Iran`s religious fanatics, who were making inroads with their brethren in Iraq.

For example, Bush has made frequent reference to Hussein`s gassing of his own people, yet those incidents occurred when Bush`s father and President Ronald Reagan were using the Sunni Baathists as a foil against Shiite Iran in a war that Hussein launched. Reagan removed the designation of Iraq as a terrorist nation and established diplomatic relations with Hussein`s regime. The first President Bush extended $1.2 billion in credits to Hussein after the dictator used poison gas against Kurdish civilians.

This is a dirty history that calls into question our current motives in Iraq.

The threat of Hussein`s return to power has been a key reason given by the United States for its hesitation to turn over any significant authority to Iraqis. Surely internationally supervised fair elections are now in order, and decisions about the rebuilding of Iraq and the disposition of its oil resources should be made by an Iraqi — not an American — government.

To linger in power over Iraq now is to suggest that our motives are imperial, rather than an affirmation of self-determination for the Iraqi people.


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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/152309_firstperson15.h…

Belief and faith are human attributes
Monday, December 15, 2003

By MOIN KADRI
GUEST COLUMNIST

I climbed the steps of the synagogue slowly, with the disconcerting feeling that, as a Muslim, I was not supposed to go in there. I had visited other places of worship, but this was my first visit to a synagogue. Most Jews or Christians do not visit masjids, or mosques; most Muslims do not visit churches or synagogues.

I was visiting as a guest of the Interfaith Council of Washington, whose members were invited to listen to a rabbi explain Judaism and experience the prayer ritual.

As I listened to the rabbi`s words, I was catapulted back to my childhood and my indoctrination into Islam. Although the religion does not have the hold on me it did in adolescence, by observing Jewish rituals I was reliving my past, and the rekindling of emotions was very raw.

Intellectually, I knew of similarities between Judaism and Islam. Listening to his passionate description of Judaism and observing the prayer rituals, I saw delightful parallels with Islam. But it also was quite unsettling. How ironic, I thought, that the similarities have not brought these two loyal groups closer together. Instead, as in the Middle East, the focus on differences has robbed each group of its humanity.

In the synagogue, I was witnessing passionate adulation and yearning in worship of the creator of this universe. Power of belief and faith have unparalleled influence on us. It is the faith and belief that underlies passionate adulation and yearning in the worship of the creator by adherents of all the world`s religions. Just as love is a human attribute, so are belief and faith.

Belief is so profoundly powerful that we can even heal ourselves from deadly diseases, as seen through the placebo effect. For those who truly believe, rational analysis takes a back seat. Standing and praying in front of the Wailing Wall can be a profound and intimate spiritual experience for a Jew, though to a Maori who does not share that belief, it is just a wall. A believer who accepts a literal biblical interpretation of flat Earth will not be dissuaded by the scientific view of round Earth. And no rational train of thought can dissuade a zealot from becoming a martyr.

A child taught to worship a particular god is indoctrinated in a literal meaning of that god. Although we may think more rationally and metaphorically in adulthood, belief and faith help us cope with existential anxiety. We become a loyal group following and in the process, we can deny outsiders the moral protections that apply within the group.

I witnessed such an exclusionary mindset about 21 months ago during a visit to Gujarat, India. The ethnic carnage that erupted there killed more than 1,000 innocent human beings. I spent the first 48 hours of that religious exploitation trying to come to terms with the pervading brutality, masked by the religious fervor of zealots. My memories are of rampaging mobs running amok in a lawless city -- killing and hurting innocent human beings and destroying their property.

Once we become part of a loyal group, it is possible to enter a belief-driven trance in which members of other groups become less than human, especially in times of conflict. That mindset allows individuals to cross moral and ethical bounds in killing and destruction.

When an atmosphere of religion-bound group loyalty has been created, it is as easy for opportunists to manipulate educated and wealthy Americans as the poor and illiterate masses of India. History has shown time and again that our spirituality-driven tendency to gather forces in a loyal group is an irresistible temptation to those willing to exploit it for political gain.



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Moin Kadri is a writer in Seattle. Submissions for First Person, of up to 600 words, can be e-mailed to [e-mail]; faxed to 206-448-8184 or mailed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909.

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Justice for Hussein
Debra J. Saunders
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/16/EDGQV3KOH21.DTL


I WOULD TRUST the producers of "Survivor" to put together a fitting trial for Saddam Hussein before I would trust the United Nations.

To start, any solon who worries about giving Hussein a "fair" trial should not be allowed near the tribunal. For such people, Hussein`s trial is an opportunity to establish how fair-minded they are as jurists, rather than a chance to redress the rivers of blood spilled in this thug`s name.

It takes a special kind of person to insist -- as U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan said Monday -- that there be no death penalty for a strongman responsible for, according to a New York Times report in January, possibly "a million dead Iraqis." It`s one thing to believe a free state shouldn`t kill civilians. It`s another to argue that a murderous head of state should be immune from the only punishment he fears -- meeting his maker.

Any trial would be problematic. For one thing, there is no need to "solve" the crimes. There`s no Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. The world knows that Hussein is guilty, that when he ruled Iraq, his government gassed Kurds, his henchmen executed political enemies, his prison guards tortured and killed dissidents and his military invaded Kuwait - - a move that precipitated two Persian Gulf wars.

The purpose of putting Hussein on trial then would be to determine the appropriate punishment, and perhaps more important, to prompt Iraqis to acknowledge the carnage that occurred in Hussein`s Iraq and recognize that it is carnage they failed to prevent.

This is where I wouldn`t trust the United Nations. The august body has a name for Hussein`s misdeeds -- "crimes against humanity." The term, alas, turns a thousand murders into one statistic.

Under U.N. auspices, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Milosevic has turned the trial into a farce. A lawyer by training, Slobo has been having a ball cross- examining witnesses and highlighting deaths caused by NATO bombing. He has used the United Nations` fear of appearing to mete out "victors` justice" to prolong his trial and mock his accusers.

Nothing would make Hussein happier than a U.N. trial in The Hague. It`s clear that, for all his promotion of jihad and martyrdom, Hussein is afraid to die. That`s why he surrendered, when a nearby pistol could have made him a martyr.

It would be insane to give Hussein a trial that spares him the threat of capital punishment and bestows an international spotlight on his two-ton ego.

President Bush said Monday that the United States would work with Iraqis to try Hussein in a way that would withstand international scrutiny. By all means, let Iraqis judge Hussein`s fate. If they choose the death penalty, his crimes will have warranted it.

The important thing, however, is a trial that doesn`t politicize Hussein`s many crimes. Iraq needs a trial that humanizes Hussein`s victims.

Try Hussein for genocide, and the tribunal will feature one expert after the next opining on the motives behind genocidal crimes and historical enmities that spurred the hate. Try Hussein for each murder, however and the story will focus on the Kurdish child who was gassed, the Shiite boy who saw his mother raped, or the scientist who was carted away and never seen again. It could take decades for all of Hussein`s victims to tell their tales.

I want Hussein to get a fair trial -- but it won`t be fair to Iraq if Hussein is allowed to turn his trial into a circus.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains definitely not smoked out
Posted on Tuesday, December 16 @ 10:20:48 EST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrain, support give Al Qaeda leader edge Hussein didn`t have

By Liz Sly, Chicago Tribune

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Whether he is holed up in a mountain cave or enjoying the hospitality of a local tribesman, Osama bin Laden has little reason to fear the same fate as Saddam Hussein any time soon, according to Afghan officials involved in the hunt for Al Qaeda`s leader.

More than two years and $20 billion after U.S. forces set out to find the mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks, bin Laden remains as elusive as ever, officials said.

"If they catch him, it will be by accident," said Gen. Hilaluddin Hilal, deputy interior minister in charge of security in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials promised Monday that Hussein`s capture would re-energize the hunt for bin Laden and his Al Qaeda associates and allies.



"Saddam is no longer a problem now, so bin Laden is the focus," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said. The capture of Hussein "shows that with determination and good work it can happen," he added.

But there is no reason to believe U.S. forces are any closer to finding the Saudi exile than they were when he gave them the slip in the mountains of Tora Bora in 2001.

Since then, the rumor mill has put him in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kashmirand even China. He also has been reported to be dead, from kidney disease or injuries received in the intensive U.S. bombardment of Tora Bora.

Afghan and U.S. officials said they believe he most likely is roaming the frontier straddling the Afghan-Pakistani border, home to the fiercely independent-minded Pashtun tribe.

The area stretches 1,500 miles from the bleak deserts of Baluchistan in the south to the peaks of the Hindu Kush in the north. The hunt is complicated by the forbidding nature of the terrain, and also by the complex history of the tribal region, which was divided by the British but has never been brought under the authority of any sovereign government.

Far less vulnerable

Whereas Hussein and his coterie always were vulnerable to betrayal by their fellow Iraqis, bin Laden remains protected by Pashtun customs as well as Islamic loyalties on both sides of the border.

The offer of a $25 million reward, an unimaginable fortune in this impoverished region, means nothing against the rigid code of tribal honor that requires tribesmen to offer hospitality to any stranger in need, said Mohammed Omar Babrakzai, a Pashtun who is Afghanistan`s deputy minister for border and tribal affairs.

No Pashtun could afford to betray a guest, for he would become an outcast from his tribe and family forever, he said

"They have to obey their customs, and if they were offered hundreds of millions of dollars, no Pashtun would hand over even an enemy," Babrakzai said.

Bin Laden spends most of his time on the Pakistan side of the border, where U.S. troops do not have freedom of movement, Hilal said.

"If sometimes he comes into Afghan territory he does not stay long, and he does not stay in one place. He keeps moving," he said.

Privately, U.S. officials have expressed doubts about the degree of cooperation from the Pakistani government in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. U.S. forces must defer to Pakistani sovereignty when taking the hunt across the border, and they are reluctant to share intelligence with Pakistani officials for fear it will be leaked by Islamic sympathizers.

The U.S. military also never poured the resources into Afghanistan that it devoted to Iraq. The last time U.S. forces pinned down bin Laden`s whereabouts was in December 2001, when fleeing Al Qaeda fighters had taken refuge in a complex of mountain caves. Instead of committing ground troops to the battle, the U.S. relied on Afghan allies who might have helped bin Laden and his associates slip away.

Resources lagging

Also, U.S. troops have always been more thinly spread out in Afghanistan compared with Iraq. The $10 billion per year military operation comprises 8,500 U.S. soldiers, about 4,500 of whom are combat troops, compared with more than 130,000 in Iraq, a country of equivalent size. Even at its peak, the coalition force in Afghanistan never numbered more than 16,000.

There also are an unspecified number of Special Forces soldiers strung out along the border zone, but many of them were relocated to Iraq starting over a year ago.

Even with more troops, it might not be any easier to find bin Laden. U.S. forces quickly narrowed the search for Hussein to a relatively small triangle of territory around his hometown, a flat, farming region crisscrossed by roads that made it easier to respond swiftly to intelligence about his whereabouts.

Bin Laden is thought to be hiding in terrain so rugged that there are no roads, amid peaks so high that they can be scaled only on foot or in ravines so deep that they cannot be penetrated by satellite surveillance. Sightings of the terrorist leader are rare, and when reliable ones do occur, they often reach officials long after he has moved on, Afghan intelligence officials say.

Search includes others

Bin Laden is not the only man being hunted in Afghanistan.

While U.S. forces in Iraq were able to pick off Hussein`s inner circle until the trail led to the deposed dictator, they have captured none of the senior leaders targeted in Afghanistan since the initial rout of the Taliban in late 2001.

The fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, may be hiding in Zabul and Uruzgan provinces in southeastern Afghanistan, where he is inspiring a resurgence of his followers.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the radical fundamentalist leader who declared jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan last year, is also high on the wanted list. Believed to be hiding in northeastern Kunar province, he was the target of a major U.S. offensive in November. The operation was called off this month, with Hilal noting that Hekmatyar had left the region a month before the operation started.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

Reprinted from The Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/
chi-0312160234dec16,1,4612740.story

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Tuesday, December 16, 2003
War News for December 16, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link.
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Three US soldiers wounded by roadside bomb near Tikrit.

Bring `em on: US soldier wounded in ambush near Fallujah.

Bring `em on: US soldier wounded, two Iraqis killed during riots in Ramadi.

Bring `em on: Eleven Iraqis killed during ambush of US troops in Samarra. CENTCOM report of this incident.

Bring `em on: US patrol ambushed near Ramadi. (Last paragraph.)

CENTCOM reports one US soldier died in a vehicle accident near al Asad. But this news report, which quotes a US military sopkeswoman, makes it clear this was more than an "accident."

CENTCOM reports one US soldier died from a "non-hostile gunshot wound."

Revenge of the exiles.

Analysis: Insurgent leadership remains at large.

US troops expected to remain in Iraq for “a couple of more years.”

Halliburton gets another no-bid contract. "To avoid having to put the work out to tender, the contract is being funded from the Development Fund for Iraq."

Analysis: A Bush family feud. Kinda like Freddo settling old family business.

Lieutenant AWOL abandons “no-gloat” policy.

Down at the VFW, some veterans aren’t joining the Bush gloat-fest. “One Vietnam War veteran from Brattleboro, whose 37-year-old son is currently serving in Iraq, called President Bush a ‘coward’ and a ‘playboy.’ ‘He was AWOL during Vietnam but he has no problem sending our sons and daughters into war,’ said the man, who asked to remain anonymous. ‘He`s not a good leader.’”

The view in Iraq. "We`ve just been up the street to film some television, the queues are still there at the petrol stations, people are still queuing for gas, the American soldiers are still patrolling the streets, the resentment about the occupation is obvious from people you talk to on the streets. Saddam is captured but really nothing has changed." I guess they don`t get FOX News in Baghdad.

Commentary

Opinion: Saddam Hussein is not Osama bin Laden. “Despite an overwhelming paucity of evidence to support himself, President Bush has been disturbingly successful at hoodwinking the American public into believing that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected with the murderous assault on Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.”

Casualty Reports

Local story: Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: South Carolina soldier died in Iraq.

Local story: Missouri soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Ohio soldier wounded in Iraq.

Army changes status of Ohio soldier listed as "missing" after vehicle accident to "killed."




# posted by yankeedoodle : 2:37 AM

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Neil Clark: The war we never should have fought

17dec03

It didn`t take long for the capture of Saddam Hussein to be hailed as a great triumph by coalition leaders and the pro-war lobby.

The news, we are told, will be a powerful boost for President George W. Bush`s re-election prospects, and will increase public support for the hard-line positions of John Howard and Tony Blair.
In the short term, this may well be true. But if we look beyond the next few weeks, there are strong grounds for believing that last weekend`s dramatic developments will only add to the coalition`s problems.

First, the unpalatable fact for those crowing most loudly over Hussein`s capture is that the worst of the crimes he is likely to be charged with took place at a time when he was enthusiastically sponsored by the West. If Hussein does receive a fair and open trial, as both Bush and the Iraqi Governing Council have promised, it will surely reveal just how much support, both moral and material, the Iraqi dictator received from Washington and its allies during his murderous heydays of the 1980s.

Details of how the US encouraged Hussein to attack Iran in 1980 and start a war that would cost a million lives, and how the US Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad in December 1983, not only to assure the Iraqi dictator of continued US support in the Iranian war, but also to tout the case of a specific US co-operation for building a new pipeline in his country.

And most embarrassingly for the present government of Israel, details of how Rumsfeld carried on his 1983 visit a letter from the then Israeli prime minister Itzak Shamir offering to sell arms to a man whose capture Israel now regards as great news "for the democratic world and for the fight for freedom and justice".

Fairfax columnist and former Howard adviser Gerard Henderson claims that "without intervention an appalling regime would still be in power". Yet he conveniently overlooks the fact that without the assistance of the CIA four decades ago, the appalling regime would never have come to power in the first place.

Second, it is clear that from his hidey-hole in the ground near a deserted farmhouse, the haggard-looking Methuselah we have seen paraded on our television sets in recent days was not, as was claimed on repeated occasions this year, co-ordinating the Iraqi resistance to the US-led occupation. Tim Hames, a columnist at The Times in London believes that after the weekend`s developments "the war is over".

But with Hussein under lock and key, and the prospect of a return to his dictatorship gone for good, the non-Baathist section of the Iraqi resistance is sure to become even more emboldened. And we are likely to see an escalation, and not a reduction, of hostilities on coalition targets. The bombing of police stations in Baghdad after Hussein`s capture is yet more evidence to back up the conclusion of a recent CIA report that "the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".

Globally, of course, the main terrorist threat to the US and its allies was never posed by the secularist Iraqi dictator and his government, but by the religious fanatics of al-Qa`ida, whose global operations will be unaffected by the Iraqi dictator`s seizure.

Hussein may have been a domestic tyrant, but aside from his payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, the man denounced by Osama bin Laden as a "socialist infidel" had no connection to international terrorist networks and his violence was strictly not for export.

Third, we must remind ourselves that despite this week`s headlines, the war against Iraq was not fought to capture Hussein. As late as last February, Howard and Blair were still insisting that if Hussein came clean on his WMD program, there would be no need for war. Furthermore, they argued that although regime change was desirable, it was not a casus belli.

Now, it appears that, lo and behold, the war was about the Iraqi leader after all.

Despite the triumphalism of the past few days, Hussein`s capture in no way diminishes the arguments against war, as Henderson and other pro-war activists contend. On the contrary, the case against war, strong enough in March, grows more compelling with each passing day.

The coalition may have Hussein (hardly a Herculean achievement considering the $US25 million - $33.6 million - bounty on his head) but there is still not a scrap of credible evidence that Iraq possessed the WMDs that in Howard`s words were "capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale".

That Hussein was a brutal and ruthless dictator is not in doubt. That he posed a threat to our security that justified an illegal $US100 billion war that has killed thousands and made the world an even more dangerous place than it was before - most certainly is.

Neil Clark is a tutor in history and politics at Oxford Tutorial College in England.



privacy © The Australian

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Published on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 by Newsday / Long Island, NY
Saddam on Lips At Ground Zero
by Jimmy Breslin

The guide from the tour bus stood in the center of a crowd in winter hats and announced, "This used to be called Ground Zero. We don`t use that anymore. We now call it the World Trade Center."

Behind him yesterday was the Russian steppes.

Brooding and empty, with nothing to stop the icy wind coming off the river.

In the wild exulting over the capture of a defeated man, Hussein, you`d think that the trade center would not be as continually and vigorously inspected by sightseers. After all, Hussein had nothing to do with this. Bin Laden is your man.

Yet small crowds such as this one with their tour guide gathered through the afternoon for the length of the fence looking out at the famous and frozen real estate.

Each person you spoke to, and they were from all over the country, were pleased that the new trade center would be the world`s tallest building. Also, they were supremely happy because Saddam Hussein had had something to do with blowing up the Twin Towers.

Here was a woman in the cold, Linda Jacobs, standing with her husband, Ken, from Newport News, Va., and saying, "He probably did. Who knows. But he probably did."

Her husband said, "Oh. yeah. He was in on it."

A couple from Knoxville, Tenn., Elaine and Will, agreed. "I believe he was in on it on some level," she said. "He was around there someplace," the husband said. Betty Hipp, San Antonio. "Of course Saddam was responsible."

I was out there for some time, taking notes and hometowns, and it was all the same. Saddam is bin Laden.

To thaw out, I went into the Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church, where Mary Garcia, 53, was behind the counter and looking out the big window and right at the trade center and the people there to look at it.

"For me Hussein did it, the other guy, too. These people both is together in Iraq and in the trade center," Garcia said. "If Saddam don`t do nothing, why he go into a hole? Because he is afraid we catch him for the World Trade Center that he did with bin Laden? The both of them together."

She said she has a son in Iraq, Sgt. Peter Garcia.

"He was from Italy, they send him to Iraq. He`s married already in Italy. His wife doesn`t stay at the base in Italy. She goes home to Puerto Rico with the baby.

"Yesterday I get up in the morning and I hear they caught this Saddam. I go, oh, thank you God. Oh, how happy could you make me? Now maybe my son comes home."

It is a rule of mine not to use man on the street interviews, but this was so unanimous and forceful that I had to listen. And as I did, I could hear George Bush and his people all saying: "We went and got Saddam because it is better to fight terrorists in Iraq than in Manhattan."

No matter that Saddam had nothing to do with the attack. There were 15 Saudi Arabians who were in the suicide attack. Then immediately, the FBI gathered up those members of bin Laden`s sprawling family who were in America and got them on planes to Switzerland. And soon, the Saudi Arabian prince was at Waco, Texas, for an amiable day with Bush.

How could you not blame Saddam Hussein for everything? He murdered his own, yes. And he was going to kill all of us with nuclear weapons. "I know they are there," Bush announced.

There was nothing nuclear about Saddam hiding in his hole. There was no anthrax or smallpox, just rats and lice.

But the unmistakable feeling is that more and more of the American public will consider Saddam Hussein a partner in terror with Osama bin Laden and that it was a wonderful thing we did, going to war to catch one of them.

This belief in two enemies probably is going to be welcomed by Larry Silverstein, the builder who by mouth alone, has made it appear that he owns the land, the buildings, the sky above and the water below. Silverstein has $3.5 billion coming as insurance for the raid. He contends that they were two separate attacks, one on Tower One, a second on Tower Two. Therefore, he wants to be paid double. Seven billion. The insurance companies involved are inclined to do battle. Without the double insurance payment, people around him say, he won`t be able to build a front stoop to a building made of thin air. "Two attacks," Larry says.

"Larry, it is the World Trade Center attack," he is told, including by judges in early rulings that were at least ominous for Silverstein.

Perhaps there was a chance in the freezing air yesterday. He can claim that Osama bin Laden made one attack on a tower and then Saddam Hussein`s suicide bombers went into the second tower. Two people. Two attacks. Two payments!

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

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Published on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Saddamania
by Bill C. Davis

Like a figure you love to hate in Wrestlemania operas, Saddam is a pumped-up hyped reality whose intense wattage is useful to the extent that it gives a patina of heroism to the very people who have given him his star status on the international stage. His resume is downloaded daily – hourly – so that his capture gives honor and morality to the immoral and the dishonorable.

Saddam was a symptom caused by a condition. The condition remains - the symptoms will change names and locations – and the likes of Bush will dress themselves in white and mount the military like a mighty steed and sally forth to distinguish themselves by conquering the reality they themselves helped to create.

The war and occupation lay the groundwork for the next Saddam. Whoever it is will be installed, encouraged and harnessed and he’ll behave until he either gets a vision, a message from God, a delusion of grandeur or a better offer. Then his villainy, which at one point was characterized as an asset, will be billed as intolerable evil.

Saddam needs to be given stature so that Bush as conqueror will also appear to have stature. Saddamania and Wrestlemania use the same marketing tactic: make the villain fabulous so the hero is super heroic. When Bush talks about Saddam he drips with disgust and disdain. His ability to be moved by Saddam’s evil implies that he is the champion not only of the Iraqi people but also of all things good in the world.

It’s easy to join the fever pitch of the fight. It’s not unlike watching a cock fight. You can find yourself rooting for one bird over the other but the nagging question is what am I doing watching and investing in it in the first place.

Bush creates a primitive tug. He prefers you would be ashamed that you would question any tactic that would cause the desired result of bringing down the villain. To Bush, questioning how and who wanted the sociopath to become what he was is as irrelevant as the UN. Bush deals with symptoms not conditions. He sees evil as a proper noun.

Like throwing a piece of red meat to a hungry crowd the capture plays like a blockbuster. It’s irresistible, satisfying and climactic – but the Iraqi narrative will continue. As Michael Ware of Time magazine warns – this is not over – the insurgents, many of whom saw Saddam as a Western creation, care less about the capture and more about the occupation. This occupation they perceive to be a continuation more than an antidote to Saddam.

Saddamania is red hot. His billing is as preemptive as the war itself. The cover of Newsweek and Time bumped Howard Dean and Jesus Christ respectively for the image of the homeless dictator. Like Bush and company those venerable publications know what sells.

Bill C. Davis is a playwright.

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New powers, old habits in Iraq

By Humphrey Hawksley
BBC world affairs correspondent

Six months before the planned transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, new political forces have been filling the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam. But a brush with the new authorities can mean a familiar encounter over identity cards and threats.


Zaid Abdul Karim cut a tall, arresting figure on the deck of the old ferry which was taking us from Dubai to southern Iraq.
He was amiable, urbane and full of curiosity, but when alone, he became deeply pensive, staring for long periods at the wake of the ship which was churning up the murky waters of the Gulf.

It was not until the end of the three-day journey that Zaid approached me and told me what was on his mind.

Earlier I had chatted with a whole group of Iraqis (including Zaid) who were coming home for the first time since the war.

The insurgency against the American occupation force had done little to dent their overall optimism.

"This is my dream", Zaid had told me: "When I enter Iraq I won`t see any pictures of Saddam.

"The Americans - they came and removed Saddam Hussein - I would like to thank them."

Now, as we sailed slowly past the flat, mud-grey landscape of southern Iraq, Zaid said: "Mr Humphrey, my daughter - she`s 15 years old - she has Thalassemia. It`s a blood disease."

"I`m going back to help her. I`m very worried."

From Saddam to Ayatollahs

We left Zaid in the port of Umm Qasr.

He lived further north in Babylon, near the holy Islamic city of Kerbala, so we said we would drop by on our way to Baghdad.

The murals of Saddam had gone, but they had been replaced everywhere by faces of Islamic leaders.


In the Basra market they were selling posters of Ayatollahs as they had once been selling Saddam memorabilia.
Restaurants were banned from selling alcohol and in the mosques the Imams were recounting historic battles as if they had happened the day before and not hundreds of years ago.

They must have known it in Washington but, amazingly, by getting rid of Saddam, the Americans have seamlessly given birth to Islamic fundamentalists.

Then, heading north, it was as if the war had only ended yesterday.

Billions of dollars might have been allocated to construction but nothing was being rebuilt.

It was a totally dreadful landscape of despair: uncleared rubbish watched by the unemployed, so unmotivated that they would do nothing about it.

It was as if New Yorkers had thrown up their hands and said they were too tired to rebuild after 11 September 2001.

Blood transfusion shortage

Zaid proudly welcomed us into his house to show off a poster of David Beckham and an American flag draped over the sofa.

Fatima, his daughter, had brilliantly sparkling eyes but because of her disease, her face was pale.


The hospital used to treat Fatima like dirt, but now we can ask any questions and everyone is very nice to us
Fatima`s mother
She looked more like 10 than 15 years old.
"I only really feel strong after I`ve had a blood transfusion", she said, then smiling cheekily: "I don`t tell my friends. I don`t want to be boring about it".

It turned out that since 1995 the UN had been giving Fatima the key drugs she needed, but the problem was getting blood for transfusions and a bone marrow match for a transplant.

"The hospital`s so much better now that Saddam`s gone," said Fatima`s mother.

"They used to treat Fatima like dirt, but now we can ask any questions and everyone is very nice to us."

I asked Fatima what she wanted to be when she left school and without hesitation she said: "A teacher. I want to be an Islamic teacher."

Then I asked whether she would like to come and see the holy sites of Kerbala with us. Her eyes lit up, so off we all went.

Kerbala is to the Shia Muslim what Rome is to the Catholic. The central square buzzes with worship, hawkers and tourists - many on package trips from neighbouring Iran.

Questioning the future


We had arranged to meet a leader from the Daawa party, an Islamic movement banned under Saddam, but now re-emerging as one of the biggest forces in the new Iraq.

I was keen to find out what their policies were, not from religion, but on the practical things like health, like blood transfusions for Fatima, for example.


Baghdad fell on 9 April 2003


I left Fatima to sightsee for a bit while I went to check if it was all right for her to sit in on the interview.
Abu Mohamed was a short stocky man in an ill-fitting suit. He greeted me with a smile, but his was a face of hardship and suffering."Yes of course", he said, "there`s no problem in bringing the little girl".

But he did not mean a word of it. As soon as he saw Fatima in the square he backed off and turned against us.

He took no interest in her, but poured plenty of invective at me, making Fatima grip her father`s hand and recoil.

"Our agreement was to meet just you, not this woman and child", he said.

Stupidly I tried to deflect things by asking what the Daawas` policy was on healthcare, but it only made matters worse - there was no policy, only threats.

"I want you to know that I`m head of security for the Daawa party", he said. "You must show me your identification. The way you`re acting makes me think you`re a spy."

Threats

By now Zaid`s own temper was frayed. "When does any leader of Iraq give help to the normal people?" he snapped.

The police came and stopped us leaving. "Why?" we asked.

The officer shrugged. "The Daawa party is very powerful", he said. "If they tell us to do something we have to do it."


I caught Zaid`s eye as he wisely manoeuvred his wife and daughter into the crowd and out of sight.
He knew what Iraq could be like if you stepped over the line.

Eventually, we negotiated our release. Both Zaid and I had witnessed the face of the new leadership. It was about power, identity cards and threats - not about the healthcare of a sick little girl.

In fact, not that much different from the regime which had been deposed.


From Our Own Correspondent will be broadcast on Saturday, 13 December, 2003, at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_ow…

Published: 2003/12/13 12:09:13 GMT

© BBC MMIII

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Pyrrhic victory?
Marjorie Cohn
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/16/EDG1H3NVRC1.DTL


The "capture" of Saddam Hussein is being hailed as a great victory for President Bush. After all, who needs to worry about the missing weapons of mass destruction or the lack of ties between Hussein and the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, now that we`ve caught the "Butcher of Baghdad"?

Bush is likely to gain some political mileage from Hussein`s arrest. But the terrorism Bush`s war has unleashed in Iraq is likely to continue or increase, and Hussein can no longer be blamed for it now that he`s in custody.

The media have treated us to wall-to-wall coverage of Hussein`s arrest --

including shots of a doctor looking into Hussein`s mouth as he grimaces. This violates the Geneva Convention, which forbids subjecting prisoners to humiliation and public ridicule. We have not, however, been reminded that Hussein was one of the United States` main allies in the 1980s when he used chemical weapons given to him by the United States.

Will Hussein really "face the justice he denied to millions," as promised by Bush the morning after Hussein`s arrest? The new Iraqi criminal tribunal statute under which Hussein will likely be tried was established with $75 million of U.S. money by the administration`s handpicked Iraqi Governing Council and approved by the Pentagon and the State Department. It is the first criminal tribunal that has no international or U.N. involvement. Its decisions will also be tainted because it was created while Iraq was under occupation.

Bush has once again thumbed his nose at the International Criminal Court, which was developed during a 50-year period by international legal experts and scholars to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. None of the three existing tribunals -- the International Criminal Court, the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals -- allow for the death penalty; yet, the new Iraqi court may well permit capital punishment. Will Hussein be executed right before the U.S. election next November?

Moreover, Iraq must afford defendants the fair trial rights guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iraq has ratified. It requires that the accused be brought promptly before a judge, informed of the charges against him, and be afforded a speedy, public and fair trial with the presumption of innocence, counsel of his choice and the privilege against self-incrimination. The United States, which has also ratified this covenant, has denied all of these rights to the prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

Fortuitously, Hussein`s arrest came right after the Bush administration was put on the defensive by the revelation that Vice President Dick Cheney`s former company, Halliburton, overcharged U.S. taxpayers $61 million for delivering oil to Iraq. The arrest of Hussein is also likely to deflect criticism from Bush`s preferential awarding of lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts to countries that backed his war on Iraq, in violation of the rules of the World Trade Organization.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this media spectacle is that it distracts us from the hell our troops are facing for no good reason in Iraq. Not only has the Bush administration denied us the right to mourn with the families of dead soldiers as the caskets return shielded from media cameras, it has withheld some Purple Hearts so the hundreds of wounded cannot be accurately tallied.

Notwithstanding the arrest of Hussein, we must call on our government to turn the administration of Iraq over to the United Nations and bring our troops home immediately.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle |

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Crude Vision:
EXPOSED: How Oil Interests Obscured US Government Focus On Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2393.htm
The Institute For Political Studies
Investigative report by Jim Vallette
with Steve Kretzmann and Daphne Wysham

Click here to go to Adobe Acrobat version of report
http://ips-dc.org/
This brief examines never-before-published government and corporate memoranda, letters, and telegrams, which we found in the National Archives, along with government documents recently published by the National Security Archives. Selected copies of the National Archives correnspondence are indexed below, and available on our website in Adobe Acrobat format. Others are cited herein and are available upon request. The National Security Archives-released documents may be found at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Our examination shines a new spotlight on the incredible revolving door between Bechtel and the Reagan administration that drove U.S.-Iraq interactions between 1983 and 1985. The men who courted Saddam while he gassed Iranians are now waging war against him, ostensibly because he holds weapons of mass destruction. To a man, they now deny that oil has anything to do with the conflict. Yet during the Reagan administration, and in the years leading up to the present conflict, these men shaped and implemented a strategy that has everything to do with securing Iraqi oil exports.

Adobe Acrobat version of report


Scanned memoranda obtained from the National Archives:

File name Date #pages Brief description
072084.pdf 07/20/84 5 Memo from Bechtel to energy ministries of Iraq and Jordan
072684.pdf 07/26/84 1 Internal memo, Bechtel
101584.pdf 10/15/84 4 Correspondence between Bechtel and Placke (State Dept.)
010785.pdf 01/07/85 2 Notes from the first Rappaport/Bechtel meeting
012385.pdf 01/23/85 2 Internal memo, Bechtel
020885.pdf 02/08/85 1 Internal memo, Bechtel
050385.pdf 05/03/85 3 Internal memo, Bechtel
061485.pdf 06/14/85 2 Letter from law firm to Bechtel
071185.pdf 07/11/85 1 Letter from William Clark to E. Robert Wallach
080185.pdf 08/01/85 2 Internal memo, Bechtel
092585.pdf 09/25/85 2 Letter from Shimon Peres to Edwin Meese (coming)
013086.pdf 01/30/86 3 Internal memo, Bechtel (coming)
020786.pdf 02/07/86 1 Internal memo, Bechtel (coming)

Adobe Acrobat version of report (download free Adobe Acrobat reader)

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WMD FOUND IN SADDAM’S BEARD

Bush: Whiskers No Longer a Threat to U.S.


The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq came to an end today as U.S. military officials found chemical, biological and nuclear weapons hidden in the scraggly beard of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi madman had instructed his weapons scientists to create the WMD in microscopic form so that he could carry them around on his person at all times, the officials said.

U.S. General Ricardo Sanchez said that the discovery of WMD nestled in Saddam`s unkempt facial hair closes the book on one of Operation Iraqi Freedom`s most enduring mysteries.

"Now we know why we never found the weapons of mass destruction," General Sanchez told reporters. "We never dreamed they were tiny enough to be hidden on someone`s face."

The general added that Saddam was capable of launching his deadly weapons cache merely by shaking his head.

After he was captured, Saddam received a shave and a haircut from the Halliburton Company, who charged the former dictator the entire $750,000 he had in his possession.

The deadly beard was then stored in an airtight container and transferred to a U.S. military laboratory in Wiesbaden, Germany for future study.

At a press conference in Washington, President Bush praised the military for removing Saddam`s lethal beard once and for all.

"Thanks to the efforts of our coalition, Saddam Hussein`s whiskers will no longer harbor the world`s deadliest weapons," Mr. Bush said.

Later in his press conference, the President revealed that U.S. forces found Saddam after receiving a tip from Tikrit that there was an ass in a hole in the ground.

**** WATCH ANDY BOROWITZ ON CNN`S "AMERICAN MORNING" ****

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das Wichtigste ist das Kleingedruckte.

December 16, 2003
Baker Has `Fruitful` Talks With France and Germany on Debt
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:01 p.m. ET

BERLIN (AP) -- President Bush`s special envoy on Iraq won agreement Tuesday from Germany and France, two of the most ardent opponents of the American-led war, to ease Baghdad`s huge debt burden.

The agreement came after former Secretary of State James A. Baker III overcame serious misgivings during a meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder about the U.S. exclusion of German firms from Iraqi reconstruction. Baker earlier had what he called ``very fruitful`` talks with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris.

France, Germany and the United States agree that there should be substantial debt reduction for Iraq in the Paris Club of 2004, the leaders of the three nations said in a joint statement issued by the White House Monday afternoon.

``Debt reduction is critical if the Iraqi people are to have any chance to build a free and prosperous Iraq,`` according to the statement by President Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The three said they will ``work closely with each other and with other countries to achieve this objective.``

``The exact percentage of debt reduction that would constitute `substantial` debt reduction is subject to future agreement between the parties.``

The three nations have agreed that having a new government in place -- expected next summer -- is not a precondition for moving forward on debt forgiveness, a senior Bush administration official said.

Iraq owes $40 billion to the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and others in the 19-nation Paris Club. Other countries and private creditors are owed at least $80 billion in addition.

The agreement was the first concrete cooperation in rebuilding postwar Iraq from two nations that tried to prevent the war and have refused to contribute troops to the postwar stabilization mission.

It appeared to be an effort to project a united front. Germany and France have been eager to reconcile with the United States despite their misgivings about the U.S. invasion.

Germany repeated its concerns about the contract issue and U.S. officials left open the possibility that they would discuss it further.

``We all share the same goal of helping the Iraqi people build a better future, a future that is free and prosperous,`` White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington.

Baker`s five-nation lobbying mission was complicated by the Pentagon`s exclusion of war opponents from $18.6 billion in U.S.-financed reconstruction projects in Iraq against. His next stops are Rome, Moscow and London.

Russia, which is owed $8 billion by Iraq, said it had no intention of writing off debt after learning it could not participate in the U.S.-funded reconstruction projects.

Asked if the United States might revise its contract policy, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday it was a matter for negotiations between U.S. agencies.

Baker made no comment in Berlin, but was upbeat in Paris after meeting with Chirac.

``We are agreed it is important to reduce that debt within the Paris Club -- if possible in the year 2004,`` Baker said in Paris.

Despite responding to Washington`s call for debt relief, Schroeder expressed concerns about the Pentagon`s exclusion of German companies from Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

``Germany`s position on the awarding of reconstruction contracts in Iraq was clearly expressed in the talks,`` Schroeder`s spokesman Bela Anda said in a statement.

The White House, however, gave no indication that debt forgiveness could result in a slice of the reconstruction deals.

``We`ve made it very clear that when it comes to the U.S. taxpayer dollars, that we believe those tax dollars should be going to the countries that have been involved in helping to liberate the Iraqi people and help them build a free and peaceful and prosperous future, and also to Iraq as well,`` McClellan said.

``If additional countries want to join the efforts of some 60 countries and the Iraqi people in the overall reconstruction, then circumstances can change.``

Senior officials in Schroeder`s government have been among the most critical of the U.S. exclusion of firms from anti-war countries.

Defense Minister Peter Struck expressed hope that Baker`s visit ``would lead the U.S. administration to change its position on the awarding of contracts in Iraq,`` Struck`s spokesman Norbert Bicher said.

Critics in Germany also have questioned the need for massive debt relief given Iraq`s oil wealth. The Foreign Ministry`s top official on German-U.S. relations, Karsten Voigt, said he found it ``hard to explain`` that the United States was now pressing Iraq`s creditors to help out.

``Before the war, the U.S. government always said that reconstruction would finance itself,`` Voigt told The Associated Press.

------

Associated Press reporter Scott Lindlaw in Washington contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

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December 16, 2003
Israel Devised Then Dropped Plot to Kill Hussein, Reports Say
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Dec. 16 — Israel developed a risky plan in 1992 to assassinate Saddam Hussein at a funeral but shelved it after five Israeli soldiers were killed while training for the mission, according to news reports today.

Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Persian Gulf war but Israel, under strong pressure from the United States, refrained from striking back.

Shortly after the war, Israel began investigating the possibility of killing Mr. Hussein, and Israel`s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, approved a detailed study in 1992, according to the reports in the country`s leading newspapers, including Maariv and Yediot Ahronot.

That same year, one of Mr. Hussein`s closest relatives, his uncle — and father-in-law — Khairallah Tilfah, became terminally ill. According to the Israeli newspaper reports, Israel`s military believed Mr. Hussein could be targeted at Mr. Tilfah`s funeral, because the Iraqi leader would not consider sending one of his doubles to such an event.

The plan, codenamed Operation Bramble Bush, called for helicopters to drop members of an elite military unit, Sayeret Matkal, outside Mr. Hussein`s hometown of Tikrit, where the funeral was likely to take place. They were to dig in and camouflage themselves a few hundred yards from a spot where Mr. Hussein was considered likely to travel.

At an Oct. 2, 1992, meeting on the plan, Mr. Rabin "went into the tiniest details," according to Nadav Zeevi, a major in the Army reserves, who was quoted by Yediot Ahronot. "He checked and questioned and investigated and was very interested. At the end of the meeting he demanded certainty of at least 98 percent before he would approve the operation."

The Israelis subsequently staged a simulation in the country`s southern desert on Nov. 5, 1992. But in a deadly mixup, the unit that was to carry out the attack fired a real missile at Israeli soldiers serving as stand-ins for Mr. Hussein and his bodyguards, the reports said.

Following the 1992 disaster, the plan was dropped without ever being presented to the government for approval, the reports added.

The deaths of the five soldiers were reported at the time simply as a training accident. Israel`s military censor did not lift a ban on publication of the full story until after Mr. Hussein`s capture by American troops on Saturday.

Ephraim Sneh, a retired brigadier general and a member of parliament with the left-leaning Labor Party since 1992, said he learned about the plan after the training accident. "I think it was a good idea," he said. "Eleven years later, the United States was trying to do the same thing."

The military declined any formal comment on the reports, which dominated Israeli newspapers and broadcasts today.

But the army`s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, was asked about the reports while attending a conference near Tel Aviv.

"The publication is irresponsible," the general said. "I think there are things that are right to keep to ourselves for security reasons and not bring them out for the whole world."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Enter saddam`s lair



By Robert Fisk

Ad-Dawr, northern Iraq - There was a kind of satisfaction, lying inside Saddam`s last hole in the earth. Seven months ago I sat on his red velvet presidential throne in the greatest of all his marble palaces.

And so there I was yesterday, lowering myself into the damp, dark and grey concrete interior of his final retreat, the midget bunker buried beside the Tigris - all of 2m by 1,5m - and as near to an underground prison as any of his victims might imagine.

Instead of chandeliers, there was just a cheap plastic fan attached to an air vent. Ozymandias came to mind. This, after all, was where the dreams finally crumbled to dust. And it was cold.

He had food, of course - tins of cheap luncheon meat and fresh fruit - and I found his last books in a hut nearby: the philosophical works of Ibn Khaldun, the religious - and pro-Shi`ite - doctrines of the Abassid theorist Imam al-Shafei, and a heap of volumes of Arab poetry.

There were cassettes of Arabic songs and some cheap pictures, of sheep at sunset and Noah`s Ark crowded with animals.

But this was no resistance headquarters, no place from which to run a war or start an insurgency.

To climb inside this most famous of all bolt holes - and this, remember, was no Föhrer-bunker with SS guards and switchboards and secretaries taking down last words for posterity - I had to sit on the wooden entrance ledge and swing my legs into a narrow aperture and find my footing on four steps made of earth.

You use your arms to lower yourself into this last remnant of Iraqi Ba`athist history. Then you are sitting on the floor. There is no light, no water, only the concrete walls, the vent and a ceiling of wooden boards.

Above the boards is earth and then a thick concrete floor which - up above - is covered by the thick concrete yard of a dilapidated farm hut.

It must have taken a long time to build - weeks at least - and I suspect there are many other bolt holes along the reed banks of the Tigris.

Yet above this sullen underground cell was a kind of paradise, of thick palm fronds and orange trees dripping gold with mandarins, of thickets of tall reeds, of the sound of birds buried in the treetops.

There was even an old blue-painted boat tucked away behind a wall of fronds, the last chance of escape across the silver Tigris if the Americans closed in.

Of course, they closed in from two directions on Saturday night, both from the river and down the muddy laneway along which soldiers of the US 4th Infantry Division led me yesterday.

As Captain Joseph Munger of the 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery, pointed out, Saddam was easy to ambush but it was equally easy for him to hear them coming. He must have rushed from the hut where he ate his food - spilling a plate of beans and Turkish Delight onto the mud floor - and squirrelled his portly self down the hole.

When the Americans searched the hut, they found nothing suspicious - except a pot plant oddly positioned on top of some dried palm fronds, placed there presumably by the two men later seized while trying to escape.

Underneath, they found the entrance to the hole.

So what could we learn of Saddam yesterday in this, his very last private residence in Iraq.

Well, he had chosen a hide only 200m from a shrine marking his own famous retreat across the Tigris river in 1959, on the run as a wounded young guerrilla after trying to assassinate an earlier president of Iraq.

Here it was that he dug the bullet out of his body and on a low hill within eyesight of this palm-grove is the mosque that marks the spot where, in a coffee shop, Saddam vainly pleaded with his fellow Iraqi tribesmen to help him escape.

Saddam, in his last days as a free man, had retreated into his past, back to the days of glory that preceded his butcheries.

He had the use of a tiny generator which I found wired up to a miniature fridge. The fridge was in one half of the hut and contained water bottles and a bottle of medicine with a label marked "Dropil".

There was a tube of skin cream on the top, a tub of moisturising cream, a sewing kit in a cellophane bag and - how Saddam must have been plagued by mosquitoes unimpressed by Ba`ath party punishments - a can of "Pif-paf". There were two old beds and some filthy blankets.

In the little kitchen next door, there were sausages hanging to dry, bananas, oranges and - near a washing-up bowl - tins of Jordanian chicken and beef luncheon meat, heaps of "Happy Tuna".

Flies swarmed beneath the roof of corrugated iron and I wasn`t surprised to discover the bottles of vegetable and fruit steriliser liquid in the cupboard.

Only the Mars Bars looked fresh.

So what did Saddam discover here in the last days? Peace of mind after the years of madness and barbarity?

A place to reflect on his awesome sin, how he took his country from prosperity through foreign invasion and isolation and years of torture and suppression into a world of humiliation and occupation?

The birds must have sung in the evening, the palm fronds above him must have clustered against each other in the night.

But then there must have been the fear, the constant knowledge that betrayal was only an orchard away.

It must have been cold in that hole. And no colder than when the hands of Washington-the-all-Powerful reached out across oceans and continents and came to rest on that odd-looking pot plant and hauled the would-be Caliph from his tiny cell. - Independent Foreign Service

Published on the web by the Star on December 16, 2003.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Star 2003. All rights reserved.

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Raid on hideout `named after cold war film`
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Wednesday December 17, 2003
The Guardian

The operation to capture Saddam Hussein was called Red Dawn, the title of a gung-ho, anti-communist film made 20 years ago. Although the Pentagon did not confirm yesterday whether the film had inspired the operation`s title, the movie`s director, John Milius, was in no doubt.

Red Dawn, which starred Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Harry Dean Stanton, was about a a nuclear attack and Soviet invasion of the US which is thwarted by a group of Colorado teenagers who call themselves the Wolverines. The code names given to the two huts at Saddam`s hideaway were Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2.

Milius, 59, said yesterday that he was flattered the title had been chosen. "The movie has a definite following in [military] sectors," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It`s a patriotic movie; it`s a very American movie." He suggested that the soldiers who captured Saddam were "Wolverines who have grown up and gone to Iraq".

Red Dawn came out in 1984 at the height of the cold war and at a time when Ronald Reagan was trying to persuade the world that the revolutions taking place in central America were part of a communist conspiracy. Radical activists in London thought it so obnoxious that they let off a firecracker in a West End cinema while it was showing.

Halliwell`s Film Guide describes the movie as "ludicrous ... violent teenage nonsense", but it is popular among the American right wing. Milius believes that liberal bias in Hollywood has counted against him since. "If it [the Saddam operation] had been called Operation Forrest Gump, I think that would have been front-page news."

The director, who once applied to be a US marine but was turned down because of chronic asthma, hopes to make a film about air force general Curtis LeMay, who once suggested that the US should bomb Vietnam "back to the stone age".


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Deadeye Dick
Leader
Wednesday December 17, 2003
The Guardian

At the recent national Thanksgiving day ceremony at the White House, George Bush was in forgiving mood. As is traditional on these occasions, he "pardoned" the official Thanksgiving turkey, called Stars, and its partner, Stripes (the names were chosen in a poll of White House website readers, narrowly squeezing out Pumpkin and Cranberry). As governor of Texas, Mr Bush made a point of not pardoning anybody, including death-row prisoners.

Much the same attitude now applies in Iraq. Turkeys, apparently, are different. Yet the limits of presidential compassion were quickly re-established with a wisecrack at Dick Cheney`s expense. Mr Bush explained that Stripes was an "alternate turkey", needed in case the number one turkey, Stars, could not fulfil his role in the ceremony. "It`s kind of like being the vice-president."

Mr Cheney is not infrequently the butt of Mr Bush`s attempts at humour. All he can do is grit his teeth and pretend to be amused. A sense of helplessness might explain the Veep`s resort to butts of a different kind in his favourite hunting grounds of South Dakota and, most recently, at the private Rolling Rock Club in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr Cheney downed more than 70 ringneck pheasants and an undetermined number of ducks during a shooting spree there last week. Altogether his 10-man party, whose other members remain unidentified, killed 417 birds. Mr Cheney and bulging game-bag then headed back to Arnold Palmer airport in a Humvee.

If shooting defenceless birds can be described as relaxation, it is possible Mr Cheney`s expedition was cathartic. After all, he has many worries. His old firm, Halliburton, is accused of profiteering in Iraq. His private contacts with energy industry executives are now subject to a supreme court lawsuit. Far smarter than the present White House incumbent, Mr Cheney harboured presidential ambitions before his heart grew dicky. Perhaps he still does. Silently suffering his boss`s unkind jibes, perhaps he secretly dreams of quite a different, higher-value target when he flicks off the safety catch.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Blood feud ends in the spider hole
The transformation of all-powerful president to cornered wild man is the stuff of parables and will echo forever

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday December 17, 2003
The Guardian

I know that we are all meant to have moved on, that we are supposed to focus now on high-minded matters of justice and international jurisprudence, but I`m not quite there yet: I am still stuck on the pictures.

The transformation of a man, last glimpsed in a suit or in military uniform, from president into Monty Python hermit is just too shocking to forget. When last we saw him, he was on a presidential platform, waving to the masses below, unsheathing a sword or firing a ceremonial rifle. Now we see him as a wild man, dirty and mangy as a stray dog. And we have to keep reminding ourselves: it is the same person.

It makes sense that the news networks keep playing that footage of his medical examination, over and over in a loop. It remains fascinating each time you see it, prompting new questions. Is Saddam Hussein being pushed and prodded, or is the US military doctor handling him with the gentleness he might show a child or feeble geriatric? What can that experience have been like for the doctor, to touch so intimately a man identified only with wickedness?

But the power of the current crop of images goes rather deeper than that. Taken together - the bearded Saddam and his underground living grave - they are almost mythic, redolent of legends and fables that are hard-wired into the human mind. With this twist, the Saddam story has become a blend of Bible parable, folk tale, Greek and Shakespearean tragedy - and it is unexpectedly powerful.

The tale of a once-mighty leader who evades a conquering army by hiding in a hole certainly has a Biblical ring to it: " ... and the King of Mesopotamia fled unto the city of Tikrit and from there to the village of Ad Dawr which he knew, for nearby was al-Awja where he had been born more than three score years before. And he came to his cook and said: `Keep me, here,` and it was done. And the King dug a hole eight cubits by six cubits, and there he was tormented by many rats and many mice and his beard grew long ... "

In our own time, dictators do not cower in caves, bedding down with the creatures of the earth. Slobodan Milosevic was taken into custody wearing a blue suit; he testifies in the Hague looking the same as he always did. Saddam and his dugout seem to belong to a much earlier era, the age when David was on the run from Saul, or, many centuries later, the prophet Mohammed was chased out of Mecca - both finding refuge in a cave. (Both men are also said to have been saved by a divinely sent spider, who weaved a web across the cave`s entrance: when their pursuers saw the web intact they assumed no one could be inside. How fitting that the US military immediately described Saddam`s hideaway as a "spider hole".)

The former dictator`s capture should also draw to a close a family feud that is the stuff of Greek drama. Since the first Gulf war in 1990, the stand-off between the US and Iraq has also been a battle of dynasties. Saddam`s hatred for George Bush Snr was transferred to the man he called the "son of the viper" or "little Bush". For the American president too, Operation Iraqi Freedom was, in part, a family affair. Last year he reminded an interviewer of Saddam`s 1993 assassination attempt on his father: "There`s no doubt he can`t stand us. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad." Now the Bushes have their revenge: Saddam`s sons are slain and he is their captive. As one Bush family associate told the New York Times yesterday: "It`s a psychologically nice moment." A theatre full of ancient Greeks would understand that perfectly.

And what would Shakespeare have done with the scene played out on Sunday afternoon in a US military base, when Saddam awoke on his metal army cot to find he had four visitors: opponents, some of whom had paid a desperate price for their dissent, now installed as leaders of the new Iraq? The men had been brought there formally to confirm the identity of the prisoner, but rather than simply peer at him through a window, they demanded the right to see him up close - and confront him.

One, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, had been in Saddam`s torture chamber in 1979. Now he faced his persecutor with not a bodyguard between them. He asked what Saddam would say on the day of judgment. How would he account for the lives lost in the Iran-Iraq war, for the gassing at Halabja, for the mass graves? "What are you going to tell God?" Apparently, Saddam`s response was defiant and foul-mouthed.

Everything about this story seems designed to endure, even as a parable that future generations might teach their children. What better illustration of the cowardice of the bully than the story of Saddam Hussein, who strutted and threatened - only to surrender meekly? In the end, when there were no henchmen at his side, he showed none of the bravery of the Arab heroes he had so frequently invoked but put his hands in the air and asked to cut a deal. He had a pistol, but did not fire a single shot, neither at his pursuers nor at himself. For months, the Iraqi rumour mill had spoken of a Saddam of seven masks, secretly directing the resistance, disguised sometimes as a Muslim woman, sometimes as a taxi driver, sometimes as a nomad. Peasants would take him in for the night; when they awoke they would find their guest vanished and a vast bundle of cash under the bed. Now, though, we know the truth: Saddam was cowering, saving only his own skin. So listen well, children, and learn the moral of the story.

The combination of all these elements is a potent one. On the Arab street, those few seconds of footage will be humiliating to some, but exhilarating to others, keen to see the back of their own tyrants. In the US, the imagery will be no less powerful. Alongside the shots of President Bush with the Thanksgiving turkey for American troops in Baghdad, these are surely the pictures that will secure Bush`s re-election.

Why? Because we are not as sophisticated as we like to think we are. We like to imagine that, in the 21st century, our politics is all about systems and institutions and legal frameworks. But the Saddam episode proves that international relations is still a pretty elemental business: tribes do battle and the battle cannot end until the opposing chief is brought low. This is how we remember wars - the Battle of Hastings was over when, we`re told, Harold took an arrow in the eye - and probably how they have always worked. Look at Saddam`s wild eyes and scraggy beard and realise: it is still true.

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Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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`Hateful` allegations mar Dean`s bid for the White House
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
17 December 2003


Attempts to smear Howard Dean and thwart what looks increasingly like an unstoppable bid for the Democratic presidential nomination grew uglier yesterday. An incendiary television advert highlighted his lack of national security experience and an internet gossip-monger hinted at possible cam- paign finance irregularities.

The new attacks on the front-runner were murky in origin and had no effect on the soaring morale of the candidate as he finished a 48-hour swing through California, with Democratic office-holders, showbusiness entertainers and grassroots supporters falling at his feet like teenagers in love.

Rather, the smears represented, on the Democratic side, a last-ditch attempt to break the aura of inevitability surrounding Mr Dean`s candidacy and, on the Republican side, the opening salvos of what promises to a be a long and bruising fight for the White House.

The advert, aired in the crucial primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, mingles sinister music, a close-up of Osama bin Laden`s eyes, and a series of slogans flashed up on the screen: Dangerous World, Destroy Us, Dangers Ahead, No Experience. "Americans want a president who can face the dangers ahead," an announcer says. "But Howard Dean has no military or foreign policy experience. And Howard Dean just cannot compete with George Bush on foreign policy."

The advert was sponsored by a previously unknown Democratic Party group headed by a former Ohio congressman who has refused to divulge the names of his financial backers. The Dean campaign dismissed it as hateful and cynical, "exactly the kind of ad that keeps people from voting".

The campaign finance questions were raised by Matt Drudge, the internet columnist who hounded Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and centred on the legality of foreign contributions to political websites such as MoveOn.org which are close to the Dean campaign and General Wesley Clark`s campaign.

Drudge questioned the truth of MoveOn.org`s recent assertion that it was turning down all foreign contributions, arguing that roughly one-third of MoveOn`s two million members are non-Americans, and pointed out the existence of websites in Britain and Sweden campaigning for President George Bush`s defeat next November.

There was no immediate reaction to the Drudge column within the Dean camp or elsewhere. On the campaign trail, the former Vermont governor trumpeted the fact that most of his contributions have come in small donations of $100 or less, saying his popular movement was the only thing that could hope to compete with the Bush juggernaut that has already raised $200m, largely from corporate sources.

Denouncing President Bush for running an administration "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations", he thrilled his supporters with his pledge to re- energise the Democratic Party base and bring out up to three or four million new voters.

"Fifty per cent of the people don`t vote in elections because they can`t tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats," he said to a typically exuberant young crowd at the House of Blues, a celebrated Los Angeles music venue. "We need to stop apologising for being Democrats and give them a reason to vote again."

Political pundits have wondered whether the Dean campaign, with its wellsprings in the anti-war movement, might be weakened by Saddam Hussein`s capture. There was no sign of that on the ground, however, as Mr Dean insisted that the capture had not changed his overall view of the Iraq conflict, received a warm reception at a high-powered international affairs think- tank for his first detailed foreign policy speech, picked up valuable new endorsements from Latino members of Congress and thrilled a lunchtime meeting of the Democratic National Committee.

To overstate the enthusiasm and renewed sense of possibility that Mr Dean`s cam- paign has provoked in a demoralised Democratic Party is hard. Xavier Becerra, one of the Latino lawmakers who endorsed him, spoke of a new "air going around that we are all beginning to breathe".

Even Terry McAuliffe, the DNC chairman who is officially backing nobody yet, found containing his enthusiasm hard as he talked about the party`s electronic databases of supporters, swing voters, the issues they care about, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

The House of Blues felt like a campaign event on the eve of an election, not 11 months away. The place was packed with banner-waving supporters as Mr Dean was introduced by the film director Rob Reiner and serenaded by both The Bangles, the 1980s girl band, and The Folksmen, the spoof trio featured in Christopher Guest`s recent mock documentary A Mighty Wind.

Mr Dean said it was time to give Mr Bush "a one-way ticket to Crawford, Texas" and replace him with a programme that would appeal to the best in America, not the worst. "And this time," he added, "the person with the most votes is going to the White House." The crowd went wild.
17 December 2003 10:28



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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December 17, 2003
Bush`s Approval Ratings Climb in Days After Hussein`s Capture
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER
The New York Times/CBS News Poll
December 10-15, 2003
Wednesday, December 10-Saturday, December 13
N=1,057
Sunday, December 14 – Monday, December 15
N=635
The capture of Saddam Hussein has lifted Americans` view of the state of the nation and their opinion of President Bush, while at least momentarily halting what had been a spiral of concern about the nation`s economic and foreign policy, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Alle Zahlen bei NYT-Online, kann ich nicht verlinken.

But even in the glow of Mr. Hussein`s capture, Americans worry that United States forces will be mired in Iraq for years, are concerned that the attacks on American troops will continue and say that President Bush has no plan to extricate the United States from Iraq, the poll found. And 60 percent of Americans said the United States was as vulnerable to a terrorist attack as it was before Mr. Hussein was pulled from a hole in Ad Dwar.

Times/CBS News polls spanned the days before and after Mr. Hussein`s capture, offering a vivid demonstration of the extent to which public opinion can shift in reaction to a momentous event. From Saturday night to Sunday night, Americans` view of the success of the war soared, as did their opinion about whether the nation is on the right track and their approval of Mr. Bush.

There was even a slight bump bein the number of Americans who thought the economy was on the mend, a number that had already been growing in polls since October.

In the most apparent demonstration of the shift, 47 percent of respondents said the war was going well for the United States in the poll that ended Saturday night. That number jumped to 64 percent in the second poll. Before the weekend, 47 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Mr. Bush was handling foreign policy, the worst rating of his presidency. After the weekend, that number had slid to 38 percent.

Mr. Bush`s approval rating jumped to 58 percent after Mr. Hussein was captured, from 52 percent, and the number of Americans who disapproved of his performance fell to 33 percent, from 40 percent.

The first poll`s findings included red flags for President Bush as he heads into next year`s re-election campaign, particularly in the measure of people who thought the country was heading in the right direction, a historically reliable early indicator of the political strength of an officeholder. In that poll, 56 percent of respondents said the nation was heading in the wrong direction, compared with just 39 percent who said it was on the right track.

But by Monday, that measure had nearly flipped, with the number of Americans who said the nation was heading in the right direction rising to 49 percent, with 43 percent saying things were going awry, the second poll found.

Even the perception that the economy is getting better, which has been something of a weak suit for Mr. Bush, improved to 39 percent this week from 34 percent last week.

The two nationwide telephone polls were taken back to back, one going from Wednesday to Saturday and the other Sunday to Monday. The sample in the first poll was 1,057 adults, and it had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Another 635 adults were questioned in a second poll, and that had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Public opinion can sometimes react dramatically in the days after a big event, and the findings of the second Times/CBS News Poll could reflect excitement and patriotism stirred by the images of Mr. Hussein being taken into custody.

Even through the prism of this victory, the poll reflected continued ambivalence in the American public about the war, and Mr. Bush`s handling of it. That sentiment that was reflected in follow-up interviews with poll respondents.

"It`s a great thing; it`s one less threat to the world," said Shari Cook, 44, a school cook from Farnam, Neb., and a political independent. "He`s a horrible, horrible man, but I don`t know that his capture makes up for all the lives that are being lost every day over there."

Michael Grimaldi, 34, a Republican who is an ambulance dispatcher from Fairfield, N.Y., predicted that the capture of Mr. Hussein would result in a decrease in the bombings in Iraq. But Mr. Grimaldi said he was concerned that the United States was now stuck there.

"It seems to me that another Vietnam is happening," he said. "I`m just hoping that since we`ve caught him, we can get our soldiers back home and let them deal with their problems on their own."

Nearly half the respondents said that they now believed that the United States, with the capturing of Mr. Hussein, had won the war. A majority said that the war was not over yet and that they expected troops to stay in place for years, rather than months. Most of those polled said they believed that Mr. Hussein had orchestrated the attacks on American soldiers, but a majority also expected those attacks to continue.

About 53 percent of respondents said the administration did not have a plan for rebuilding Iraq, and respondents were evenly divided over whether the White House had a plan to deal with terrorism or was only reacting to events.

Before Mr. Hussein`s capture, the number of Americans who said the war was a mistake had jumped 19 points since last April, to 43 percent. It slipped back to 30 percent in the second poll this week.

There was also clear public disapproval about some ways that Mr. Bush has responded to the war at home. For example, two-thirds of Americans, including most Republicans, said they disagreed with the White House policy of prohibiting news photographers from ceremonies where the coffins of Americans troops are brought home.

The White House says that the policy is intended to protect the privacy of the families of the deceased; Democrats and some critics of the White House say it is intended to avoid the publication of emotionally charged photographs that might harden opposition to the war.

Along those same lines, two-thirds of respondents said Mr. Bush should make it a practice to attend the funerals of some Americans killed in Iraq. (That said, a quarter of respondents said, incorrectly, that Mr. Bush was attending those funerals.)

Democratic presidential candidates have been stepping up their attacks on Mr. Bush`s policies on terrorism and Iraq, in the face of some criticism by Republicans who suggest that such attacks are improper at a time of war. But a clear majority of respondents, 64 percent, said such criticism was appropriate.

Kim Baatz, 25, an independent voter from Sheldon, La., said in a follow-up interview that her opinion of Mr. Bush had shifted because of the success in Iraq this weekend.

"I was leaning away from approval until the capture because I felt like the progress in Iraq was going nowhere; there were so many of our military men getting killed," Ms. Baatz said, adding, "One of the goals has been achieved."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

US-Polls haben ein sehr hohe Fehlerquote, da sie eine zu geringe Zahl von Leuten befragen.
In diesem Fall waren es zwei Befragungen einmal mit 1000 Leuten und einmal mit 600 Leuten.
Die Werte +/- betragen 3% bzw.4%.
Wenn ich das overall Rating von Bush zu Grunde lege, das bei der 1.Umfage 52% oder mit der Abweichung 49-55% und bei der 2.Umfrage 58% oder mit der Abweichung 54-62%, dann kann man genausogut behaupten es gab keine Veränderung, genauso aber auch es waren 13%.
Diese Problem taucht bei allen US-Polls auf(die beiden Polls vom Montag hatten Abweichungen von 5%).
Es kommt darauf an wie gut oder schlecht die Poller bei der Auswertung sind.
Eine gute Abhandlung zu diese Themen mit Beispielen gibt es von Prof. Ulmer siehe:
http://www.wahlprognosen-info.de/#oben



December 17, 2003
How the 2 Polls Were Conducted

he latest New York Times/CBS News Poll is based on two surveys conducted back to back immediately before and after it became known that Saddam Hussein had been captured.

Telephone interviews were conducted Wednesday through Saturday with 1,057 adults throughout the United States. Mr. Hussein`s capture was announced on Sunday morning. A separate sample of 635 adults was then interviewed from Sunday afternoon through Monday night.

The sample of telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a complete list of more than 42,000 active residential exchanges across the country.

Within each exchange, random digits were added to form a complete telephone number, thus permitting access to listed and unlisted numbers alike. Within each household, one adult was designated by a random procedure to be the respondent for the survey.

The results have been weighted to take account of household size and number of telephone lines into the residence and to adjust for variation in the sample relating to geographic region, sex, race, age and education.

In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, the results based on such samples will differ by no more than a few percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking out all American adults. The margin of sampling error for the first poll was three points; for the second, it was four points.

In comparing the two polls, a shift in responses of five points or more is statistically significant.

For smaller subgroups the margin of sampling error is larger.

In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey of public opinion may introduce other sources of error into the poll. Variation in the wording and order of questions, for example, may lead to somewhat different results.

Complete results are available at nytimes.com/politics.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Iraqi youths stole packages of food yesterday after a rocket damaged a United States Army supply train in Falluja, Iraq. No one was injured. The teenagers fled when railway workers arrived
December 17, 2003
VIOLENCE
Iraqis Ambush a U.S. Convoy; G.I.`s Raid Cell
By IAN FISHER

FALLUJA, Iraq, Dec. 16 — American troops killed at least 17 Iraqis in ambushes and violent rallies on Monday and Tuesday, the military reported, as repercussions of the capture of Saddam Hussein continued to be felt from Washington to the seething Sunni Muslim heartland of Iraq.

New details emerged Tuesday about documents found when Mr. Hussein was captured, contributing to a clearer picture of those organizing guerrilla attacks. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the Central Intelligence Agency would oversee Mr. Hussein`s interrogation.

Eleven of the dead in Iraq were reported killed Monday when Iraqis attacked an American convoy in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. Samarra has been the site of fierce resistance to American troops. The other six Iraqis died in scattered incidents.

Then on Tuesday, the military said, troops broke up what appeared to be an insurgent cell in Abu Safa, near Samarra, in a raid in which at least 73 people were arrested as they attended a meeting. Among those detained was a man identified as Qais Hattam, believed to be a midlevel financier and organizer of attacks on American troops.

Along with the arrests, the military said, soldiers seized a significant amount of matériel used in attacks against Americans, including TNT, blasting caps, detonation cord, car batteries, mortars and artillery shells. "We believe it was not just your local neighborhood meeting," said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for the Fourth Infantry Division.

The documents found in a briefcase at the scene of Mr. Hussein`s capture on Saturday in Ad Dwar were said to reveal a broad association of guerrilla cells. "What the capture of Saddam Hussein revealed is the structure that existed above the local cellular structure — call it a network," Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, said as quoted by the American Forces Press Service, a Defense Department outlet. "We now know how the cells are financed and how they are given broad general guidance."

General Dempsey, commander of the First Armored Division, which is in charge of security in Baghdad, said it appeared that Mr. Hussein did not exert direct control over the insurgents, but had received information on their actions through reports delivered by courier. Among the documents recovered was a list with names of those who attended a meeting of an insurgents` network.

General Dempsey said that 10 to 14 cells had been operating in Baghdad, and that his troops had been successful against six, although he gave no dates for those actions. He said the next target was a leadership network senior to those cells.

Despite the recent successes, senior American military officials damped hopes that the arrest of Mr. Hussein would deflate the resistance overnight.

"We expect it will be some time before we see any possible effects of what we`ve accomplished," the top commander of allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, told reporters in a joint appearance in Baghdad with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers. "As I`ve stated over and over, we expect the violence to continue at some level for some time. We`re prepared for that."

In Washington, the Bush administration grappled with questions of how to handle Mr. Hussein, whom Secretary Rumsfeld characterized as resigned to his fate.

President Bush stated more explicitly than he did in his news conference on Monday that he believed Mr. Hussein deserved the death penalty. "He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice," Mr. Bush said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News.

Mr. Bush added, though, as he had on Monday, that the decision about Mr. Hussein`s punishment would be made "not by the president of the United States, but by the citizens of Iraq, in one form or another."

The citizens of Iraq, at least in the rebellious Sunni stongholds north and west of Baghdad, protested vociferously on Monday and Tuesday over the detention of Mr. Hussein, and in some cases even denied he had been caught.

Many held his pictures as they overran the main municipal office building here in Falluja on Monday night, ejecting the police force as they fired off guns, ransacked the building and burned files. American soldiers took back control of the building early Tuesday, killing at least one person in the process.

The rally was fueled partly by rumors that Mr. Hussein was still free, and had not surrendered in humiliation from inside a small pit.

"Last night Saddam Hussein was in Falluja," said a worker, 30, who would give only a nickname, Abu Ahmed. "I didn`t see him. But some people swore on the Koran at the mosques they saw him. What was on television was not true."

Secretary Rumsfeld defended the military`s decision to show those video images of a subdued Mr. Hussein undergoing a medical exam, which some critics said could violate the Geneva Convention prohibition of "parading" prisoners of war.

No aspect of Mr. Hussein`s handling came even "up on the edge" of violating the convention, Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding that the Iraqi was being treated professionally and humanely.

Mr. Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon briefing that he had asked the Central Intelligence Agency to oversee the interrogation of Mr. Hussein.

"They have the competence in that area," he said, "they have professionals in that area, they know the means that we have in terms of counterterrorism, they know the threads that have to come up through the needlehead."

The firefight on Monday afternoon in Samarra began as a "complex ambush" against a convoy there, the military reported. The attack was signaled by a flock of pigeons released as the vehicles neared the ambush point. Then two men opened fire from a motorcycle that was passing a group of children leaving school, which the military said was a deliberate plan to discourage return fire.

Beyond the school, the convoy was attacked from several sides: with gunfire from a field, with a roadside bomb, then with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. A nearby military patrol was alerted and the two units "fought through the ambush and eliminated the threat," according to a military statement. No soldiers were killed or injured.

Violence was reported at several rallies in support of Mr. Hussein. In Mosul, in the north, where attacks on American soldiers have worsened in recent weeks, an Iraqi policeman was reported killed in a rally on Tuesday.

In Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said, troops killed two Iraqis and wounded two others on Monday in a crowd of as many of 750 people demonstrating in front of the main municipal building. One soldier was wounded by gunfire, the military said.

The capture of Mr. Hussein has churned up strong emotions, from delight and calls for an immediate public trial, to disgust, even among those who hated him, both at television images showing him undergoing a medical exam and the fact that he surrendered without firing a shot.

And while some Iraqis praised the Americans for finally catching him, there seemed no palpable increase in support for the occupation.

"We hope that the Americans will put Saddam on trial, form a free and democratic Iraqi government, then end the occupation and leave us alone," said Muhammad al-Majedy, 32, who attended a rally on Tuesday in Baghdad to celebrate Mr. Hussein`s capture. The rally was organized by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a body of Shiite Muslims, a majority in Iraq, who have been broadly tolerant of the American presence.

In Falluja, the anti-American protests began on Monday afternoon, as crowds gathered on the main street, many carrying weapons and chanting slogans in support of Mr. Hussein. About 4:30 p.m., the police said, the protesters stormed the municipal building and began looting it as the police retreated.

"There were more of them than police," said one officer, First Lt. Aiman Muhammad, 26.

Capt. Farouk Challoub, 34, added: "What could the police do? We had one choice: to attack them with tear gas. But we didn`t have any tear gas."

In a swirl of reports that some police officers joined the protest, Captain Challoub made it clear where his sympathies lay. "Why did they show Mr. President Saddam Hussein on television and humiliate him?" he asked. "He is our president. There must be some kind of immunity."

American soldiers, he said, took back the building around 8 p.m. with no resistance. But troops setting up a barrier around the building were attacked with six rocket-propelled grenades, the military said. The soldiers fired back, killing one man.

On Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported, rockets hit a freight train near the Falluja station. There were no injuries, but one wagon was damaged and youths began looting what appeared to be packages of food before railway workers arrived and chased them away.

In Tikrit, Mr. Hussein`s hometown, which has also rallied to his support, a roadside bomb exploded, wounding three soldiers, two seriously, the military reported.


Thom Shanker and Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington for this article and Eric Schmitt from Baghdad.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 17, 2003
HEARTS AND MINDS
Coming Soon to Arab TV`s: U.S.
By JIM RUTENBERG

PRINGFIELD, Va. — The United States` next great hope for winning Arab hearts and minds hides in a squat two-story building in a generic industrial park here, just off I-95. The only hint of what may lie within is the black-tape lettering on the front door that reads "News."

Inside, construction crews are working seven days a week to complete studios for the most ambitious United States government-sponsored international media project since the Voice of America began broadcasting in 1942.

It is to be called Al Hurra, a slickly produced Arab-language news and entertainment network that will be beamed by satellite from this Washington suburb to the Middle East. The name translates to English as "The Free One."

Al Hurra is meant to be America`s "fair and balanced" pan-Arab answer to outlets like Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite network that White House officials accuse of fanning anti-Americanism in the Persian Gulf region.

The network may start broadcasting as early as next month. But it already faces skepticism, even from an outside Middle East expert appointed by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to review American public relations efforts in the Arab world.

Many Middle East scholars have questioned whether its target audience, suspicious of all things American, would ever accept it, especially when its main hub is in Virginia.

Even if it does gain acceptance, some scholars said they doubted that a single television network could have enough impact to justify $62 million in first-year costs.

The team behind Al Hurra, an odd mix of American media executives and longtime Arab journalists, said it would be editorially independent, in keeping with other outfits of its kind: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

Acknowledging the challenges, they say it will exemplify the best values of American journalism and present the best chance so far to deepen understanding of America in the region.

"We`re contending with a media environment that includes hate speak in radio and TV," said Norman J. Pattiz, who heads the Middle East committee of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the United States agency that is financing and overseeing the project, as it does Voice of America and several other ventures.

"It`s in that environment that the Arab street gets its impression of our policies, our culture, our society," Mr. Pattiz said. "We simply cannot ignore the indigenous media."

Al Hurra will be available everywhere in the Middle East that Al Jazeera is, said Mr. Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, the largest radio network in the nation.

By midwinter, he said, the network will have a separate outlet and studios in Iraq, paid for by a $40 million appropriation included in the president`s $87 billion financial aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan. It will have other bureaus throughout the Middle East.

The network, along with an Arabic-language radio venture that began nearly two years ago, Radio Sawa, was put on the fast track after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American officials recognized a need to address anti-United States sentiment in the Arab media.

Other projects born of the time have failed or faltered, a source of considerable frustration and disappointment in American diplomatic circles.

In one of the more embarrassing examples, an Arabic video produced last year by the State Department highlighting Muslims living prosperously in the United States was met with skepticism by Arab viewers.

Officials behind Al Hurra said this project was better thought out, built with American marketing and production skills. Yet they hope it will have an Arab sensibility, delivered by its Lebanese-born news director, Mouafac Harb, a former Washington bureau chief for the London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat. Mr. Harb is in the process of hiring a largely Arab staff of more than 200 people.

Bert Kleinman, the network president, said people in Egypt and Bahrain who had taken part in focus groups had reacted positively to a description of Al Hurra — "fair and balanced," "empowering," "tolerant." But he acknowledged, "When we asked if a fair and balanced channel like this could be American, some said absolutely not."

With that sort of data in mind, Edward P. Djerejian, director of the James A. Baker III Public Policy Institute of Rice University, said, "We`re skeptical that it will be able to jump over this barrier, this obstacle of credibility, in terms of being a state-run media outlet."

Mr. Djerejian, appointed by Mr. Powell to study American public relations efforts in Muslim countries, reported back those concerns. But M. C. Andrews, acting director of the White House Office of Global Communications, said the administration fully supported the network. Two senior State Department officials said they disagreed with Mr. Djerejian`s assessment of the venture.

Executives of the broadcasting board said they were heartened that Radio Sawa, a youth-oriented radio station that mixes Western and Eastern pop and was also supposedly doomed, had built an audience of at least 15 million throughout the Middle East.

And, they said, some members of focus groups criticized Al Jazeera for being overheated and said they would give Al Hurra a chance if it was credible.

Establishing credibility falls to Mr. Harb, 36, a Muslim whose parents live in Beirut. Mr. Harb said he had come up with the idea to name the network Al Hurra instead of the more Western sounding "Middle East Television Network."

"This is a very Arabic name, `The Free One,` " he said. "Not `The Freedom Network.` That would sound militant. This says, `I am free, and if you want to be free, come and watch me.` "

Al Hurra`s identifying symbol is an Arabian horse, which will trot onto the screen during programming breaks.

Getting people to watch, Al Hurra officials acknowledge, will be a major challenge. They say the channel should stand out in the 150-channel environment in part because it will have the highest production values in the region.

But the most important distinguishing feature, Mr. Harb said, will be its journalistic approach.

"In all Arabic newspapers, the op-ed section is on Page 1," he said. "It`s created a culture where you can`t tell the difference between news and opinion."

He added: "We have to disseminate objective, balanced news. In the West this might sound like Journalism 101, but in that market it`ll be a departure." For instance, Mr. Harb said, in a report about an Israeli raid into one of the Palestinian territories, Al Jazeera tends to point out that the Israelis were flying "American-made" aircraft. Al Hurra will not do that.

"Why say that?" he asked. "You can feel which way they are leading you."

He and other officials say the channel will not pull its punches when it comes to the United States. For instance, Mr. Pattiz said the channel might feature a translated version of the BBC documentary "Blair`s War," which extensively broadcast the views of critics of the Iraq war.

Al Jazeera officials took issue with Mr. Harb`s criticism and said Arab viewers would see the network for what it was, a tool of the American government.

"His mandate is clear — that`s to promote American points of view," said Jihad Ali Ballout, a Jazeera spokesman. "We are two different beasts altogether: Al Jazeera`s job is not to promote anybody`s point of view."

Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland who served on an advisory group convened by Mr. Djerejian, predicts that the network will come under pressure in Washington if it proceeds the way it says it will.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board, said he would shield the network from external pressure, though he said he did not expect any.

"The people aren`t stupid," he said. "If we`re slanting the news, they`ll figure it out. If we establish long-term credibility, people will begin to ask questions. What went wrong? What retarded a civilization that was once far ahead of the West? And we`ll be there to answer them."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 16, 2003
Saddam Hussein `linked to resistance`
By Peter Spiegel in Baghdad

Intelligence gathered before and during the capture of Saddam Hussein at the weekend has shown the former Iraqi dictator may have had closer links to the ongoing resistance than previously believed, according to US military officials.

Colonel James Hickey, the officer who headed the brigade which eventually found Mr Hussein, said the man who eventually tipped off US forces to his whereabouts had had direct involvement in the insurgency. A series of raids earlier this month, hunting for the informant, turned up some of his key associates, many of who were involved in financing and arming the guerrilla forces.

Col Hickey said the informant was one of only several links his intelligence officers had found tying Mr Hussein to the resistance.

"There are links," he said. "There are so many links I don`t have time to go into them." Asked if he was playing any co-ordinating role in the campaign, Col Hickey said: "My estimate is he was, but I don`t know for sure."

Senior officers in the 1st Armoured Division, the Baghdad-based army unit that captured the informant on Saturday, said documents found in Mr Hussein`s personal briefcase contained the names of senior former Ba`athists who were believed to have helped finance resistance cells in Baghdad.

In interviews with Associated Press and CNN, the officers said they had been able to capture top cell organisers and financiers - long the hardest for US intelligence to penetrate - in the capital since Saturday`s capture.

"We`ve completely confirmed one of the cells," said Brigadier General Mark Hertling, deputy commander of the 1st Armoured, in an interview with AP. "It`s putting the pieces together and it`s connecting the dots. It has already helped us significantly in Baghdad." Gen Hertling added: "I`m sure he was giving some guidance to some key figures in this insurgency."

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, the division`s commander, added that the individuals captured were believed to be "the network that was providing the financial support for the cell structure in Baghdad". One of them is believed to be a former general in the Iraqi army.

Gen Dempsey said, however, that rather than Mr Hussein giving guidance to insurgents, the identities of many had been in the former dictator`s possession because former officials wanted to inform him of their activities in case of a return to power.

Until last month, senior US commanders had cast doubt on Mr Hussein`s links to the resistance, saying they believed he was merely a morale booster at best. Indeed, Mr Hussein was captured with no communications equipment and only two guards.

But the fact his hut contained new clothes - shiny black leather sandals still in their box, for example - led some of the unit`s officers to believe he was regularly being resupplied.



© Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2003.
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of The Financial Times

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December 17, 2003
Trying Saddam Hussein

The trial of Saddam Hussein must do several things at once. It must educate Iraqis and the world about the nature of his regime, adhere to the highest international standards of fairness, and provide a mechanism for appropriate punishment. The best way to achieve those goals is by creating a tribunal inside Iraq under United Nations authority, staffed by Iraqi and international judges and prosecutors.

Under different circumstances, Mr. Hussein could be tried by a purely Iraqi court. Yet Iraq is an occupied country, with no legitimate government. It has trained lawyers and judges, but few with experience under anything resembling the rule of law, let alone a case raising the complex legal issues posed by this trial.

The Bush administration rightly endorses openness, Iraqi participation and international legal norms, but it has expressed a preference for a trial conducted by Iraqis. It should instead support an internationally sanctioned tribunal based on the model of the one in Sierra Leone, which uses a mix of local and international jurists.

The main alternative would be a trial in the new special tribunal established last week by the American-appointed Governing Council. That would not provide the needed international imprimatur or scope for prosecuting Mr. Hussein`s war crimes against Kuwaitis and Iranians.

While the statute establishing the Iraqi tribunal provides for participation by international jurists, it does so on an unduly circumscribed basis. More practically, the Iraqi tribunal`s embrace of the death penalty will make many specialists in human rights and war crimes issues reluctant to take part.

Another potentially serious problem is that while its final rules have not yet been drafted, the Iraqi tribunal is supposed to rely largely on legal principles drawn from Baathist-era Iraqi criminal codes.

This trial must make the details of Mr. Hussein`s many crimes as widely known as possible. Establishing the full truth of those years and putting it squarely in view of the whole Iraqi public can be a crucial step in making it possible for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to live together peacefully and democratically for the first time in Iraqi history.

Clarifying the record is particularly important for Iraq`s Sunni Arab minority community, where residual support for Mr. Hussein is highest and respect for the credibility of the appointed Governing Council lowest. The trial should convince this community, through an abundance of carefully presented and fairly judged evidence, that Mr. Hussein committed atrocious crimes against them as well as against Shiites and Kurds. If conducted wisely, the trial of Mr. Hussein can help build a new, less fearful Iraq, where the rule of law prevails over the divisions of dictatorship.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 17, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Saddam Is Ours. Does Al Qaeda Care?
By BRUCE HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON — While President Bush was careful to remind Americans that even with Saddam Hussein behind bars, "we still face terrorists," the White House and Pentagon have characterized the arrest as a major victory in the war on terrorism. But is Iraq really the central battleground in that struggle, or is it diverting our attention while Al Qaeda and its confederates plan for new strikes elsewhere? There`s strong evidence that Osama bin Laden is using Iraq the way a magician uses smoke and mirrors.

News reports that Al Qaeda plans to redirect half the $3 million a month it now spends on operations in Afghanistan toward the insurgency in Iraq lent credence to the view that it is turning Iraq into center stage for the fight against the "Great Satan." That might actually be good news: Iraq could become what American military commanders have described as a terrorist "flytrap."

But there`s a better chance that Osama bin Laden is the one setting a trap. He and his fellow jihadists didn`t drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan by taking the fight to an organized enemy on a battlefield of its choosing. In fact, the idea that Al Qaeda wanted to make Iraq the central battlefield of jihad was first suggested by Al Qaeda itself. Last February, before the coalition invasion of Iraq, the group`s information department produced a series of articles titled "In the Shadow of the Lances" that gave practical advice to Iraqis and foreign jihadists on how guerrilla warfare could be used against the American and British troops.

The calls to arms by Al Qaeda only intensified after the fall of Baghdad, when its intermittent Web site, Al Neda, similarly extolled the virtues of guerrilla warfare. In urging Iraqis to fight on, the site invoked prominent lessons of history — including America`s defeat in Vietnam and the Soviet Army`s in Afghanistan.

But as useful as Iraq undoubtedly has been as a rallying cry for jihad, it has been a conspicuously less prominent rallying point, at least in terms of men and money. The Coalition Provisional Authority may be right that thousands of foreign fighters have converged on Iraq, but few who have been captured have demonstrable ties to Al Qaeda. Nor is there evidence of any direct command-and-control relationship between the Qaeda central leadership and the insurgents.

If there are Qaeda warriors in Iraq, they are likely cannon fodder rather than battle-hardened mujahedeen. In the end, Qaeda`s real interest in Iraq has been to exploit the occupation as a propaganda and recruitment tool for the global jihadist cause.

While America has been tied down in Iraq, the international terrorist network has been busy elsewhere. The various attacks undertaken by Qaeda and its affiliates since the occupation began have taken place in countries that are longstanding sources of Osama bin Laden`s enmity (like Saudi Arabia) or where an opportunity has presented itself (the suicide bombings in Morocco in May, Indonesia in August and Turkey in November).

In fact, Saif al-Adel, the senior Qaeda operational commander who was credited with writing the "Shadow of the Lances" articles, is widely believed to have been behind the May attacks that rocked Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but he has yet to be linked to any incidents in Iraq.

And even if Osama bin Laden has now decided to commit some new funds and Qaeda forces to Iraq, it is unlikely to be a significant drain on his wallet or the vast reservoir of operatives trained in Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere. According to a Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks, an estimated 70,000 to 120,000 jihadists passed through those training camps. So even if a few thousand are sent to Iraq, Osama bin Laden will retain a healthy reserve capable of sustaining his global jihad.

As we bear down on Iraq, Al Qaeda is bearing down on us. Chatter on Web sites affiliated with Al Qaeda reveals that the jihadists are constantly monitoring America, studying and gauging our reactions to intelligence we gather on them and adapting their plans accordingly. One recent posting read: "The enemy has set up special bodies to analyze and correlate all this information and deduce the conclusions from them. If we know the importance of the information for the enemy, even if it is a small piece of information, then we can understand how important are the information that we know."

For America, the fundamental challenge remains our willingness and our ability to fight our adversaries across several fronts. Turning Iraq into a viable democracy is of course important, but we must not be drawn into concentrating on one battleground to the exclusion of all others.


Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism expert with the RAND Corporation.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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washingtonpost.com
Italy Targeted By Recruiters For Terrorists
Attacks Tied to New Alliance

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A35


MILAN -- Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic underground organization based in Iraq, and al Qaeda have joined forces to recruit Arab volunteers in Europe to fight the United States and its allies in Iraq, according to Italian investigators.

A suicide bomber from Italy helped carry out the attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August, the officials said. Another recruit from Italy was involved in a rocket attack on the city`s al-Rashid Hotel in October.

Precisely how foreign fighters have been able to enter Iraq has been one of the big mysteries of the guerrilla campaign against occupation forces. Investigations in Italy suggest that Ansar and al Qaeda set up a pipeline that flows from here to Syria and then into the Sunni Triangle region of central Iraq, where some of the fiercest and most persistent attacks have occurred.

Recruitment goes on in several other European countries as well, including Germany, Norway and Spain, they added.

Italian authorities do not regard these activities as having been directed by former president Saddam Hussein, who was seized by U.S. troops on Saturday. Rather, the recruits appear to be a part of a loose network that is dedicated to attacking the United States and its supporters wherever possible.

The recruitment reflects a shift in Italy`s long-standing role as a staging ground for terrorist groups, investigators in Milan contend. Previously, Italian territory was used only to provide false documents and as a transit point for militants from elsewhere traveling to and from the Middle East.

Italy`s false-document industry made the country a natural place to recruit and dispatch volunteers, the investigators said. Several militant underground Islamic groups -- comparable in size and sophistication to groups in France, Germany and Britain -- have been uncovered since 2001.

Italian officials worry about threats to security in Italy, which sent troops to Iraq after the capture of Baghdad to help the United States and Britain pacify the country. "One can`t definitely exclude the possibility that these violent actions would be directed against objectives in Italy," Milan prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso recently told Panorama magazine.

In connection with the Ansar-al Qaeda network, the Italian police detained a Tunisian and a Moroccan last month on charges of providing false documents to terrorist recruits. At about the same time, German authorities captured an Algerian member of al Qaeda who officials say worked with the Ansar cell in Italy. All three suspects are in custody pending trial.

Ansar began its journey to center stage in Iraq in 2001 when armed fugitives fleeing the U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan took refuge in Kurdish camps along the Iraqi border with Iran, U.S and Italian officials believe. The fugitives belonged to al Qaeda as well as the fundamentalist Taliban movement.

In March of this year, U.S. Special Operations officers directed an assault on the mountain redoubts, with a pro-American militia, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, providing the foot soldiers. Most of the 1,000 militants in the area were dispersed, but not killed or captured.

The importance of Ansar`s activities in Iraq has gradually become clear. U.S. military intelligence officials in Mosul have reported that Ansar provides guide services and expertise in bombmaking to foreign infiltrators. An Ansar member helped organize last month`s deadly truck bombing of the Italian forces` headquarters in Nasiriyah, Italian intelligence officials reported.

"They can keep the bad guys from taking a wrong turn," said a U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq.

Ansar recruitment activities and planning for anti-U.S. attacks began in advance of the war, Italian investigators say.

Some of the richest evidence of the group`s operations has come from Italian intercepts of the cell and satellite phone calls of Mohammed Majid, an Iraqi Kurd. Also known as Mullah Fouad, he was a key Ansar organizer in Italy, according to documents provided by Italian investigators. A longtime resident of Parma, he fled to Syria a year ago when he heard Italian police were looking for him.

From Syria, he continued to help control the pipeline. In a phone conversation recorded by the Italians last March, at about the time that the U.S. invasion was beginning, Majid ordered a follower in Milan to send suicide bombers to him, officials here say. He asked for "people who strike the ground and bring up iron," according to a transcript of the conversation examined by a reporter.

He said he was looking for "people who were in Japan," a statement that investigators called a coded reference to kamikazes.

Majid has visited Italy secretly at least once during the past year and continues to arrange trips for Arab volunteers from Europe, the investigators say.

Investigators say they have found a pattern of meetings between Ansar and al Qaeda members. Last spring in Italy, Majid met with Abderrazak Mahdjoub, an Algerian and alleged member of al Qaeda, to coordinate recruitment and to arrange a visit to Italy by an al Qaeda operative named Chise Mohammed, investigators report.

The role of Chise, a Somali, was to provide al Qaeda operatives in Europe with funds that had been sent from Arab countries through Britain, according to Italian investigators. The Italians arrested Chise last spring on charges of belonging to a terrorist group. Authorities in Hamburg detained Mahdjoub on Nov. 28.

One of Majid`s main contacts in Italy was Mohammed Tahir Hamid, another Kurdish resident of Parma. He was arrested last March. On Oct. 29, he outlined Ansar activities in Italy for interrogators.

An Egyptian named Radi Ayashi, an al Qaeda member, helped direct recruitment in a Milan mosque, investigators said. The recruits were trained at a camp near the northeastern Iraqi town of Tawel. "I personally was in charge of helping some persons go to Syria and then get to the camps in [Iraqi] Kurdistan," Hamid said, according to an affidavit.

Italian investigators and U.S. intelligence officials in Iraq say that Abu Musab Zarqawi, another alleged al Qaeda leader and associate of Osama bin Laden, has forged a working relationship with Ansar in Iraq.

Last June, informers for the Americans spotted Zarqawi in Mosul, Iraq, where Ansar was working to set up a resistance force on his behalf. Italian investigators say that a satellite phone used by Zarqawi was also used by Ansar agents to contact recruiters in Italy.

Italian identity papers discovered by U.S. troops who raided an Ansar training camp last March independently confirmed an earlier Italian connection, investigators here said.

Ansar grew out of a history of factionalism and infighting among Kurdish Islamists. In the 1980s, various Kurdish Islamic groups split and reunited. Sometimes they fought the Hussein government, sometimes secular Kurdish parties that opposed Hussein. The groups all promoted independence for Kurds in northern Iraq under rule by Islamic law.

In September 2001, fractious Kurdish Islamic organizations merged into a single unit called Jund al-Islam, or Soldiers of Islam. A few months later, under the guidance of a Kurdish cleric, Mullah Krekar, it changed its name to Ansar al-Islam, or Supporters of Islam.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Hussein Document Exposes Network
Seizure Reveals Structure For Financing Resistance

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, Dec. 16 -- A document discovered during the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has enabled U.S. military authorities to assemble detailed knowledge of a key network behind as many as 14 clandestine insurgent cells, a senior U.S. military officer said Tuesday.

"I think this network that sits over the cells was clearly responsible for financing of the cells, and we think we`re into that network," said Army Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division.

Acting quickly after realizing the significance of the document, which Dempsey likened to minutes of a meeting, troops of the 1st Armored Division conducted raids Sunday and Monday that netted three former Iraqi generals suspected of financing and guiding insurgent operations in the Baghdad area.

Dempsey declined to name the three officers who were detained. He said none was on the Pentagon`s list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis but said their family names were familiar to U.S. authorities, suggesting that relatives of the men had come under suspicion.

Other Iraqis cited in the document are still being sought, the general added.

Dempsey said other documents found with Hussein could end up exposing other enemy networks. While cautioning that much analysis remained to be done, he said a picture of Hussein`s relationship with the insurgency was emerging that showed the former Iraqi president playing an inspirational but largely passive role, receiving reports about guerrilla operations but not guiding attacks.

"I doubt very much that he was directing daily operations. It`s just not feasible," Dempsey said. "But he was clearly the symbolic figure, and these networks reported to him in a way that might" be characterized as "a son reporting to his parents."

Most of the communication, the general added, "seemed to be one-way, and it seemed to be by courier, not electronic."

The view of Hussein as removed from the operational planning of insurgent attacks was endorsed by Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq.

"As I`ve always stated, repeatedly, our expectation was that Saddam was probably involved in intent and in financing, and so far that is still my belief," Sanchez told reporters Tuesday at a news conference at the Baghdad airport.

Sanchez appeared with Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who visited the Iraqi capital for five hours Tuesday. Neither general would confirm the existence of the documents or be drawn into discussion of the intelligence windfall afforded by Hussein`s capture. Both voiced concern that disclosure of such information could interfere with efforts to track down additional Iraqis resisting the U.S.-led occupation.

But Dempsey, who spoke earlier in the day with reporters, could barely contain his excitement at the find. Acknowledging his own enthusiasm, he said that while U.S. intelligence analysts had been able to discern a number of insurgent cells in Baghdad, they had been stumped for weeks over what kind of structure might link them and provide financial support and broad guidance.

"Now we know," he said.

In recent weeks, U.S. forces have broken up six cells, leaving another eight, Dempsey said. The suspected total number of cells, though, has fluctuated. Two weeks ago, during a visit by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Dempsey told reporters that U.S. forces had defeated four of a suspected 10 cells in Baghdad.

In all, Dempsey estimated Tuesday, the insurgents number about 1,000 in the capital, of whom 100 to 200 could be considered "passionate about it." The others, he said, "are taking advantage of the situation," possibly for money.

The large majority of insurgents, he said, are still believed to be Iraqis who served under Hussein -- most of them former military officers, intelligence operatives and Baath Party members. Islamic militants from outside Iraq have played limited roles, often conducting any suicide missions. Fewer than 10 percent of those captured or killed have been non-Iraqis, Dempsey said.

Dempsey cautioned that much remains to be learned about the insurgency network in Baghdad and its links to other networks outside the capital. He also held out the possibility that another organization of financial backers could appear and take the place of the group discovered this week.

"It could be this was -- to borrow [Hussein`s] phrase -- the mother of all networks," Dempsey said. "But we just don`t know. We`re only 48 hours into this."

Since the announcement Sunday of Hussein`s capture, U.S. military authorities have been bracing for a possible surge in attacks. But Sanchez reported Tuesday that the level of violence against U.S. and allied forces has remained about the same as immediately before the capture, averaging fewer than 20 attacks a day.

Dempsey said that the number of attacks in the Baghdad area has actually declined, possibly reflecting a decision on the part of some insurgents "to go to ground" and hide, and see what new intelligence U.S. authorities have been able to glean.

"We`re changing some of our operations," said Brig. Gen. Mike Scaparrotti, a deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division. He cited a shift in the tempo and location of U.S. patrols to avoid predictable patterns.

At his news conference, Myers predicted that Hussein`s capture would hurt the insurgency by undercutting its ability to recruit new members.

"When you take this leader who at one time was a popular leader in the region and find him in a hole in the ground, that is a powerful signal that you may be on the wrong team and maybe should be thinking about some other line of work," the general said.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Dreams of a Monster
To defeat extremism we must understand that extremists have a vision, too.

By Daniel Chirot

Wednesday, December 17, 2003; Page A43


We Americans are ill-equipped to understand the phenomenon of monstrous tyranny. We prefer to believe that Saddam Hussein, like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin before him, was merely a psychopathic, corrupt killer. That is why our leaders believed that if we overthrew the tyrant, his liberated people would rejoice and thank us. Most Iraqis certainly are relieved that Hussein can never return to torture and kill hundreds of thousands more, but how long they will thank us is another matter.

Saddam Hussein was not just a criminal who happened to get his hands on a whole country to use its army and police to feed his greed. Unlike the Mafia dons he supposedly admired, he was also an ideologue, and like other great tyrants of the 20th century, a thinker with a historical vision that resonated with many of his people and throughout his region.

Hussein was obsessed with the stories of the great Mesopotamian empires, and with Saladin, the (Kurdish) Muslim warlord who defeated the Christian Crusaders. His was the dream of the Baathist Party he joined as a young man, to create a great Arab secular, socialist state able to take from the arrogant West its technological prowess, to overcome it and restore the Arabs to their rightful place. His early personal sense of humiliation (he was beaten often by a brutal father) and his lust for revenge merged into a grander historical vision that was shared by political idealists all over the Arab world.

In this respect he closely resembled Hitler and Stalin, who, in their own minds, came to personify lofty, utopian goals of grandeur and who died confident that all the suffering they had imposed was justified because only by repression and mass murder could they make their weak people truly strong and victorious. Like these other monsters, Hussein was convinced that those who opposed him were not only personal enemies but traitors to a great cause.

Many U.S. thinkers and leaders believe in lofty historical goals too, but ours has been such a successful history that revenge is rarely part of that vision. Our democratic institutions are too strong to let any leader get away with anything close to Saddam Hussein`s excesses. Also, Americans shy away from electing those who thrive on hate or who mobilize support by reminding us of times when we were humiliated. We can understand sacrifice for the sake of security and personal liberty, but not simply to avenge dishonor. Only in the South, with its tradition of oppression, honor and bitter defeat, can a bit of this be understood, but the Civil War and slavery, after all, ended 138 years ago.

Hussein`s vision, like those of the other secular Arab nationalists, his fellow Baathists in Syria and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, had failed by the 1980s. Socialism never worked. The Christian West, particularly the United States and its hated client proxy, Jewish Israel, forged farther ahead in science and technology, and became more unbeatable than ever. After two unsuccessful wars against Iran and Kuwait, and a long, humiliating embargo, Hussein`s more corrupt, less idealistic side emerged. His thoroughly debased sons, who shared his lust for power without his ideological and historical vision, were allowed to run amok. But underneath the tawdry lies and weakened army, Saddam Hussein continued to hope that he would be able to regain the upper hand. He still wanted to father a great Arab empire.

Long before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, the likelihood of realizing such dreams had almost vanished. His entourage had become little more than an extended family of crooks profiting from the old man`s delusions. They lied to him about the true situation; tyrants` men rarely risk telling their bosses the dangerous, unpleasant truth.

Unfortunately Saddam Hussein`s defeat does nothing to eliminate the sense of dishonor and shameful failure so widespread in the Arab countries and elsewhere in the Muslim world. Religion is seen by many of the most idealistic Arabs and Muslims as the last, best hope. Hussein`s embarrassing end will certainly increase resentment of U.S. arrogance, demonstrate once more that his way was too secular, and feed the desire for revenge.

To think of radical Islamists as mere criminals or psychopaths entirely misses the point. We misjudged Saddam Hussein in his early days in power because we failed to understand his vision, and we risk making the same error if we fail to appreciate the idealism behind the new extremists. Their religious ideology will produce a new set of tyrants prepared to inflict death and destruction in order to advance their utopian dreams.

The first step toward a better policy is admitting that some of those who oppose us have a vision, too, no matter how grim it may seem. Do our leaders recognize this? Are we, as a people, prepared to deal with the consequences?

The writer is a professor at the Henry Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington and the author of "Modern Tyrants."




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Der Senat: Club der Millionäre. Seltsame Geschäftspraktiken sind keine Ausnahme. Oligarchen des US-Systems.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-stevens…
THE NATION

Senator`s Way to Wealth Was Paved With Favors
Circle of Influence
By Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper
Times Staff Writers

December 17, 2003

ANCHORAGE — He wielded extraordinary power in Washington for more than three decades, eventually holding sway over nearly $800 billion a year in federal spending.

But outside the halls of the U.S. Senate, which is a world of personal wealth so rarified some call it "the Millionaires` Club," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had struggled financially.

Then, in 1997, he got serious about making money. And in almost no time, he too was a millionaire — thanks to investments with businessmen who received government contracts or other benefits with his help.

Added together, Stevens` new partnerships and investments provide a step-by-step guide to building a personal fortune — if you happen to be one of the country`s most influential senators.

They also illustrate how lax ethics rules allow members of Congress and their families to profit from personal business dealings with special interests.

Among the ways that Stevens became wealthy:

• Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator`s $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years.

• An Alaska Native company that Stevens helped create got millions of dollars in defense contracts through preferences he wrote into law. Now the company pays $6 million a year to lease an office building owned by the senator and his business partners. Stevens continues to push legislation that benefits the company.

• An Alaskan communications company benefited from the senator`s activities on the Commerce Committee. His wife, Catherine, earned tens of thousands of dollars from an inside deal involving the company`s stock.

Stevens, in a written response to questions submitted by The Times, said that in all these cases his official actions were motivated by a desire to help Alaska, and that he played no role in the day-to-day management of the ventures into which he put money.

"I am a passive investor," Stevens said of his real estate dealings. "I am not now nor have I been involved in buying or selling properties, negotiating leases or making other management decisions."

With Stevens’ support, an Anchorage developer won a big contract at Elmendorf Air Force Base. The two are partners in a lucrative real estate venture

All in the Family

In these deals and others, Stevens` brother-in-law, William H. Bittner, played a pivotal role. An Anchorage lawyer and lobbyist, Bittner represents major business interests for whom the senator has repeatedly gone to bat. In one instance, Stevens engineered a $9.6-million federal appropriation that chiefly benefited a Bittner client, part of South Korea`s Hyundai conglomerate.

Stevens tucked a single line into a must-pass appropriations bill that used federal tax dollars to buy the company out of a coal-loading facility in Seward.

Stevens said he did it to lower the company`s costs and keep it from canceling an agreement to buy Alaskan coal. Bittner did not respond to questions from The Times.

Stevens` relationship with Bittner fits an increasingly widespread pattern in Washington: Senior senators do favors for special interests that pay hundreds of thousand of dollars in lobbying and consulting fees to the senators` children, spouses and other relatives.

As The Times documented in a series of articles in the summer, Sens. John B. Breaux (D-La.), Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) did favors for companies and groups that paid their sons as lobbyists and consultants. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has pushed through federal land trades and other provisions benefiting Nevada interests that employ his sons and son-in-law.

The Times also reported that Stevens had continually supported interests that paid his youngest son, Ben, hundreds of thousands of dollars as a consultant.

Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native company, pays $6 million a year to lease out this Anchorage office building that Sen. Ted Stevens invested in.


The senators all said their decisions on policy issues and legislation had not been influenced by their relatives.

But Stevens` dealings have carried him a step further. His official actions have helped individuals and companies from which he himself draws financial benefits, a six-month Times examination found.

His required financial statements have fallen short of complete disclosure — especially on the activities of a small investment corporation owned by his wife and her family, a company that is covered by the reporting rules.

The Senate has few ethics rules governing such arrangements. Although accepting expensive gifts and speaking fees is banned, the conflict-of-interest rules are much less explicit. For example, nothing clearly bars a senator from sponsoring legislation that benefits the clients of family members who lobby. Nor are lawmakers prohibited from going into business with people receiving legislative favors.

Mainly, the Senate relies on an ill-defined injunction not to bring shame upon the body.

Senate Ethics Committee Chairman George Voinovich (R-Ohio) declined to discuss the issues raised by The Times articles.

House Ethics Committee Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said he hoped to convene an advisory panel of current and former House Ethics Committee members next year to examine a range of ethics questions, including how to address the issue of lobbying by relatives.

"I do think we ought to revisit this," he said. He declined to comment on the issue of lawmakers` financial partners.

Sen. Ted Stevens pushed $28 million through Congress for an Alaska Railroad terminal, above, at Anchorage’s airport, and $40 million for a commercial satellite facility. His efforts in Congress have benefited virtually every institution, region and segment of the population in Alaska.

Lawmakers should be careful about their business relationships, John D. Saxon, a former Senate Ethics Committee counsel, said, speaking generally and not about Stevens in particular.

"It`s a very slippery slope for a member of Congress to be entangled with someone in a business dealing and then use their official position to help them, even if it`s on something completely different," he said.

`Stevens Money`

Today, Stevens is the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, and as president pro tempore stands just behind the vice president and the speaker of the House in the constitutional line of succession to the Oval Office.

For more than 20 years, he has been chairman or ranking member of the Senate`s Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Since 1997, he has been chairman or ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, which must approve every dollar of federal discretionary spending each year.

Stevens` position as a senior member of the Commerce Committee adds to his clout — especially in telecommunications policy, which is under the committee`s jurisdiction.

In Alaska, Stevens exerts unparalleled influence. No state is so dependent on federal dollars and decisions. The federal government still owns 60% of all its land, generates one-third of all jobs, and holds the keys to economic growth through regulation of its major industries — oil and gas, fishing, timber and tourism.

Federal spending in Alaska, known locally as "Stevens money," runs as much as 70% above the national average on a per capita basis.

Since his first day in the Senate in 1968, Stevens has delivered for Alaska.

He has won tax breaks for Native businesses, bailouts for fishermen, a pipeline for an oil consortium and restoration of an abandoned Army post as a tourist attraction for a Yukon village.

He got $28 million for a rail terminal open only during the summer and $40 million for a commercial space satellite facility.

Almost every institution, region and segment of the population in the state has benefited from Stevens` efforts, from its schools and social programs to its transportation system, its urban areas and the far-flung villages of Alaska`s Native peoples.

But during the period Stevens has grown wealthy, some longtime supporters say, the senator has become less willing to hear their views.

"I`ve been here a long time, and always had a great deal of respect for Sen. Stevens` enormous power and the good he`s done for Alaska," Terry Haines, a veteran commercial fisherman from Kodiak Island, said recently. "But lately he`s become extremely rigid and doesn`t seem to be listening to his constituents much."

Hard Times

Theodore Fulton Stevens was born Nov. 18, 1923, in Indianapolis. At the outset of the Great Depression, when Stevens was 6 years old, his parents divorced, according to his campaign biography.

Stevens went to live with his grandparents after the divorce, helping out by selling newspapers and working evenings and weekends in a drugstore. He later moved in with an aunt and uncle in Manhattan Beach, Calif., where he graduated from high school. Both his father and grandfather died of cancer, Stevens has said.

Stevens joined the Army Air Corps during World War II, flying cargo planes "over the Hump" in the Himalayas — some of the most dangerous missions of the war. He won two Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals, his biography says.

The biography describes how he graduated from UCLA and Harvard Law School. After working in the 1952 Eisenhower campaign, he was hired by a Washington lawyer, but soon took a new job as a lawyer in Alaska, which was still a territory.

He played a leading role in the successful campaign for statehood, but Alaska`s voters rejected Stevens the first two times he ran for the Senate.

Winning a seat in the state Legislature, he became House majority leader and go-to man for Gov. Walter J. Hickel. In 1968, when Sen. E.L. "Bob" Bartlett died unexpectedly, Hickel picked his ally to fill the vacancy.

In the Senate at last, Stevens worked hard to master legislative details and committee politics.

But increasing political success was accompanied by personal tragedy.

In 1978, his first wife, Ann, died along with four others when the executive jet carrying them home crashed at the Anchorage airport. Stevens was one of two survivors.

At that point, the Stevens` five children were adults. Two years later, he remarried, and soon had a daughter, Lily, who recently graduated from college.

In the 1980s, Stevens and his new wife, the former Catherine Bittner, suffered a serious financial reversal.

Along with her younger brother, William Bittner, and other partners, Stevens invested in the construction of a $2-million crab boat, records show. Before it was finished, costs soared and the crab market crashed, plunging Stevens into debt.

The unexpected inheritance of a 54-foot yacht helped Stevens to regain his financial footing. Records show the boat was a bequest from the late Charles Willis "Bill" Snedden, publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, a longtime friend of Stevens`. Stevens sold the boat for about $400,000, according to a source involved in the transaction who did not want to be named.

Stevens` financial problems underscored the disparity between his personal situation and that of his wealthy Senate colleagues.

In a news interview in the late 1980s, he lashed out at Alaska voters for failing to appreciate the personal and financial sacrifices he had made for them.

A $50,000 Investment

In 1997, Stevens began making up for lost time.

"Money was never what Ted Stevens was about," one close associate said of Stevens` sudden focus on accumulating wealth. The associate attributed it to Stevens` age — he turned 80 last month — and to concern about his family.

Whatever the reasons for the change, sometime in 1997 — acting at the senator`s request — brother-in-law Bittner contacted a friend, Anchorage real estate developer Jonathan B. Rubini, about investment opportunities for the senator, Rubini said.

At the time, Stevens was making about $130,000 a year as a senator, and his wife reported annual earnings of about $100,000.

Rubini said he would be honored to help, the developer recalled recently during extensive interviews in his Anchorage office.

A lawyer and a Democrat known for representing liberal clients, Rubini had a gift for engineering complex deals.

Rubini and his partner, Leonard B. Hyde, made it a practice to form a separate syndicate of investors for each project. Bittner had often been among those participants. Rubini arranged for Stevens to put up $50,000, giving him a 7.7% interest in a new syndicate called JLS Properties.

Rubini, Hyde and another partner who came in on the deal were required to personally guarantee, if necessary, debts the partnership took on. They also agreed to contribute more capital if needed.

Stevens was not asked to guarantee notes or promise more money because he was brought in as a passive investor, Rubini said. The senator said he asked for that status because it shielded him from the kind of open-ended financial obligation that had caused his "bad experience" in the crab boat venture.

The deal began in characteristic Rubini fashion, with the purchase of an $11-million collection of what he called "ragtag" properties, whose out-of-state owners wanted to unload. Rubini quickly resold several of the properties to pay down debt.

Among the properties retained were a small office park near the Anchorage airport and a modest two-story office building downtown. Within three years, Rubini said, Stevens` equity climbed to about $250,000.

Stevens also invested $50,000 in a separate Rubini syndicate to acquire an apartment complex in Fairbanks in 1999, records show. Stevens` equity in that property has grown too, Rubini said.

With Sen. Ted Stevens’ help, developer Jonathan B. Rubini was hired to work on housing at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

A Federal Contract

Stevens was soon in a position to do a favor for Rubini.

When Elmendorf Air Force Base, immediately north of Anchorage, was selected to participate in a new Pentagon program to privatize base housing, Rubini and another set of partners bid on the $450-million contract in 2000.

The chosen developer would take title to the existing housing, upgrade and expand it, then rent the houses back to service families. At 828 units, the Elmendorf contract was far larger than anything Rubini had built before — "a big reach for us," as he put it.

Yet with low-interest government construction loans and the Air Force pledging to pay tenants` housing allowances directly to the contractor for the next 50 years, it looked like a moneymaker.

Bittner became an investor in the Elmendorf group that Rubini put together, records show. Stevens did not, and he said Monday that he had been unaware of Bittner`s involvement.

The senator said he "strongly supported" privatization because it improved housing for military families and "it would greatly enhance the likelihood that Elmendorf would not be closed in the next round of base closures."

When Rubini sought more time to prepare his bid, Air Force officials noted in their records, he sent the senator a copy of the request.

"I purposely CC`d Sen. Stevens to send a signal to the Air Force that we would raise the issue with the Alaska delegation if the Air Force acted unreasonably," Rubini said.

Although it was less than he wanted, Rubini was given a two-week extension.

With only the final paperwork to wrap up, Rubini was told he`d won.

Then, in September 2000, days before the deal was to become final, the Air Force reneged. One government memo said the Air Force thought Rubini`s group "lacked capacity and adequate financing" — claims Rubini strenuously rejects.

Rubini, whose group had already spent $1 million on preparation work, fought back. He filed a formal protest and also wrote to Stevens, explaining the problem and requesting help. Then he flew to Washington. First, he tried to talk to Air Force officials, who refused to see him. Next, he visited Stevens on Capitol Hill.

The meeting went so well that Stevens invited Rubini home, where they watched one of the presidential candidate debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush, Rubini said.

Military Offensive

Stevens said he decided to get involved with the Elmendorf project.

"My involvement with the Elmendorf project was motivated to ensure that the Air Force moved forward," he said in his written response.

In addition, he said, he was "looking out for an Alaskan company that was getting short shrift from the Department of Defense."

Stevens did not answer questions about the specific actions he took. He was quoted in an August Anchorage Daily News article as saying he called Air Force generals. The article reported on his relationship with Rubini.

Whatever he did, the Air Force began to feel some heat.

As chairman of Appropriations, Stevens is an ex officio member of its Military Construction Subcommittee. The chairman of that subcommittee, Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.), is one of Stevens` fishing buddies.

In October 2000, Burns wrote to the secretary of the Air Force, F. Whitten Peters, threatening to take away the Elmendorf privatization money because of the glitch in awarding the contract.

Burns arranged for a similar letter to go to the Air Force from the chairman of the corresponding House committee, and House aides said they knew Stevens was interested in the matter.

Burns did not respond to calls or written questions about his actions.

Meanwhile, Rubini tried one more move: joining forces with the only other Elmendorf bidder — Hunt Building Corp. of El Paso. Hunt was an established builder of military housing, though the government had forced the company to pay $8 million in compensation for construction problems on an earlier project.

In early December 2000, the Air Force put aside its reservations and decided Rubini and his new partner were acceptable.

Rubini said he did not know specifically what Stevens did on the Elmendorf project. Whatever it was, "Sen. Stevens would have stepped up to assist any Alaska business," he said.

Air Force officials say they are happy with the work Rubini`s firm has done at Elmendorf, and recently announced the Rubini group would get to do a second round of housing upgrades without further competition — this phase 50% larger than the first.

Inside Track

Stevens` efforts to help Rubini with Elmendorf came just as Rubini was making a decision that transformed Stevens from a modestly successful investor into a millionaire.

In October 2000, while Rubini was enlisting the senator`s help with the Air Force, the developer acquired 30 acres in midtown Anchorage that he planned to cover with gleaming office towers.

Like Elmendorf, this deal was a big step up for Rubini — larger both in size and potential profits than his earlier ventures.

And Rubini chose to make Stevens and JLS Properties part of it. He said JLS had accrued equity in the properties it already owned and thus could help with the new financing.

Rubini could have financed the new development in many ways. He could have used the financial resources of almost any of his numerous successful holdings. Or, as he frequently did in such cases, he could have attracted an entirely new set of investors.

Why did he choose to use JLS to help with financing instead of one of the other options? It was just a decision he made, Rubini said.

Once again, the senator did not have to agree to guarantee the new venture`s debts, as the other JLS partners were required to do.

The first new building to be constructed, called Centerpoint I, is a striking $35-million edifice with commanding views of snow-capped mountains. The remainder of the 30-acre parcel is being developed as Centerpoint II. Stevens is part of that project too.

Stevens has reported that his investments in JLS, Centerpoint I and Centerpoint II, all stemming from his initial $50,000 investment, are now worth between $750,000 and $1.5 million.

Rubini said there was no connection between Stevens` intervention on Elmendorf and Rubini`s decision to move the senator into the Centerpoint deals.

"Clearly, a phone call from Sen. Stevens does not hurt," Rubini said, referring to the senator`s contacts with the Air Force on his behalf.

"But there was no quid pro quo, plain and simple," he said.

Lifetime Annuity

Today, Centerpoint I is fully occupied as the new headquarters of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which is paying $6 million a year on a 20-year lease.

Arctic Slope is no ordinary tenant. A $1-billion-a-year business, it is the largest Alaskan-owned company in the state. More important, the company — along with 12 other regional Native corporations — was created through legislation the senator took the lead in drafting. And it has prospered through his continuing efforts in the Senate.

Arctic Slope and the other Native regional corporations were born in 1971 as part of a landmark bill called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, hailed as a humanitarian alternative to the failures of traditional reservations.

Under the act, about 40 million acres and almost $1 billion in working capital went to Native corporations and to some 200 much smaller village bodies to settle their claims to land. They were to help their shareholders, the Native people living in their regions, by making investments, starting businesses and in other ways generating economic activity.

Many of the Native corporations have found it hard to fulfill their mission, but Arctic Slope, which represents Inupiat Eskimos on the oil-rich North Slope, gradually built a strong base providing support services to the giant oil companies at Prudhoe Bay.

And Stevens is now fighting to authorize oil extraction from the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where Arctic Slope owns petroleum rights to 92,000 acres.

Thanks to Stevens, Arctic Slope and the other Native corporations also enjoy preferences when seeking federal contracts that go well beyond anything available to blacks or Latinos, even though Arctic Slope ranks among the nation`s 500 largest privately owned companies.

One set of preferences that Stevens inserted into his annual defense appropriations bills recently enabled Arctic Slope and another Native corporation to land a $2-billion Pentagon deal without competitive bidding.

Now money is flowing the other way — to Stevens.

A company executive, Conrad Bagne, said Arctic Slope did not find out about Stevens` ownership in Centerpoint until the company had finalized the deal. He said Stevens` involvement had no effect on the company`s decision to sign the lease and that there was no impropriety.

"No one is more committed to public service than Sen. Stevens," Bagne said.

Stevens now has a personal stake in his tenant`s future. At the same time, he continues to aid the company`s bottom line through his position as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. This year, for example, he pushed through legislation renewing the federal defense contract preferences.

In addition, Stevens has inserted a provision in this year`s pending appropriations bill that directs federal agencies to consult with Arctic Slope and the other Native corporations on equal footing with tribal governments. This gives Arctic Slope, for one, new legal standing when pushing to open the Arctic wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling — a position opposed by at least some tribal leaders.

"I have and will continue to work with all Alaska Native corporations — both individually and collectively — in my official capacity," said Stevens, noting that he does not deal directly with Arctic Slope on its lease.

An Arctic Slope subsidiary has paid Bittner $120,000 since 2002 to lobby on appropriations and government contracts.

Hidden Interest

Business interests that look to her husband for support have also enriched Catherine Stevens in a series of transactions that went through Chamer Co., the private family investment firm run by Bittner.

Sen. Stevens did not report some of these deals on his financial disclosure reports; others were reported only sketchily — without the details required by law.

One of the transactions was a quick stock deal involving the Alaska Communications Systems Group that earned Catherine Stevens at least $47,000, records show.

The company has benefited from the senator`s influence over communications policy as a senior member of the Commerce Committee.

For example, Stevens pushed through legislation in 1996 that created a subsidy for remote telephone service, and he has fought efforts to dilute Alaska`s sizable share of the subsidy. Alaska Communications considers the subsidy, called the universal service fund, an important revenue source.

Alaska Communications Chairman Charles Robinson said, "The universal service fund is important to every telephone company in Alaska." He said Stevens had "done a great job in preserving it."

The senator said his actions had "benefited all Alaskans and all Alaska communications companies."

Stevens stands to be an even more valuable ally in 2005, when he`s scheduled to take over as Commerce Committee chairman.

Robinson combined the Fairbanks and Anchorage phone companies to create Alaska Communications in 1999, and took it public in the fall of that year.

As is common before companies go public, a select group of insiders was allowed to buy stock at a bargain price, in this instance $6.15 a share, the documents show. In this group were several financiers and others involved in creating the company, including Bittner, who was and is the company`s Washington lobbyist.

Though she was not on record as an officer or financier for the company, Catherine Stevens ended up with some of the bargain shares. Robinson said he knew she had shares but did not remember how she obtained them.

Alaska Communications issued 42,248 shares to Chamer Co., which Catherine Stevens owns with Bittner, their sister and their mother. She purchased 16,250 of those shares and sold them a year later, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ted Stevens did not report the shares on his ethics report for 1999, the year Chamer acquired them.

Ethics rules require disclosure of activity by a family-owned business, in detail and in the same year a transaction occurs.

The deal was not reported until 2000, after Catherine Stevens had sold her shares, most of them at $9.25, for a profit of at least $47,000.

Rubini, the developer of Centerpoint I, said Chamer also had an interest in that project. He said Chamer put up $250,000 for a 3% short-term stake in Centerpoint I that earned a 15% return on investment.

Records show Chamer also invested $125,000 in an earlier Rubini syndicate.

Stevens did not disclose either of these investments on his Senate financial forms.

Although Senate ethics rules encompass his wife`s financial activities as well as his own, Stevens sought to distance himself from Chamer.

"I have no interest in that company, do not participate in its meetings, nor do I participate in any decisions related to its business activities," he said Monday. His wife did not respond to telephone messages on Tuesday.

Back in Washington

Stevens continues to push for money and other benefits for Alaskan interests — including nearly $400 million in pending legislation to help tourism, education, the environment, scientific research, roads, fisheries and the war against fetal alcohol syndrome.

There`s also $2.5 million to survey the seabed for a fiber-optic cable connecting Kodiak Island, Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula; Alaska Communications Systems serves both Anchorage and Kodiak.

*

Researcher Mark Madden in Washington assisted in this report. Staff writer Judy Pasternak in Washington also contributed.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Gerichte sind die letzte Möglichkeit, um Bu$hCo aufzuhalten, deshalb auch die Versuche äußerst rechte Richte an die höchsten Gerichte zu berufen. Die Dems haben da Möglichkeiten das Verfahren zu blocken. Das Regeln kenne ich nicht.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-snowmob…
THE NATION



Expanded Snowmobile Use in Yellowstone Halted
Judge scraps a Bush administration policy to block a Clinton-era ban on the machines.
By Julie Cart
Times Staff Writer

December 17, 2003

On the eve of the opening of snowmobile season at Yellowstone National Park, a federal judge Tuesday ordered the park to scrap a Bush administration plan to expand snowmobile use there and called for a re-imposition of a Clinton-era policy phasing out the machines.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, in a strongly worded 48-page brief, ruled that overturning the Clinton ban, which was never allowed to take effect, was "arbitrary and capricious" and ran contrary to the National Park Service`s scientific analysis of the effects on air quality and wildlife.

The ruling, in a lawsuit brought by several environmental groups, also applies to neighboring Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, which connects the two parks in northwest Wyoming.

The plaintiffs, including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, argued that the park service in reversing the ban had ignored its own research, which concluded that prohibiting snowmobiles would be the best way to protect the parks` resources.

The decision to allow snowmobiles has been one of this administration`s most hotly debated environmental policies and a focal point for critics who accuse it of favoring commercial interests over the protection of the country`s most cherished natural landmarks.

The administration defended its policy, saying that even though the new rule would have allowed about 35% more snowmobiles into the park than historical averages, those would have been required to have cleaner and quieter engines.

Park service officials said the administration sought to balance its duty to protect the park and its responsibility to allow the public to visit and enjoy it.

Sullivan cited the park service`s findings that even if cleaner, quieter engines were used, the damage to the health of visitors, wildlife and park employees would be too great.

In the District of Columbia court ruling, Sullivan wrote that the rationale offered for the policy change was "weak at best" and said that "the decision to overturn the ban was completely politically driven and result oriented."

Snowmobiling has been the most popular method of touring Yellowstone in the winter. Although visitors also explore on skis and snowshoes and in park-operated snow coaches, three of four winter visitors enter the park on snowmobiles.

Nevertheless, public opinion has run overwhelmingly in favor of a ban in three separate public comment periods during the past two years. The most recent comments sought by the park service this fall showed people in support of a total snowmobile ban by a 99-1 margin.

The ruling, made only 12 hours before the start of the two parks` winter season, calls for a 50% reduction in snowmobiles this winter and a total ban for the 2004-05 season. Snow coaches, the park`s mass transit alternative to snowmobiles, will become the primary way for visitors to tour Yellowstone in winter.

Under the ruling, 490 snowmobiles per day will be able enter Yellowstone this winter and 50 per day in Grand Teton. The judge`s decision allows older-model snowmobiles to enter the parks this year — the same machines that would have been phased out under the Bush administration plan.

However, park Supt. Suzanne Lewis said late Tuesday that only snowmobiles that are part of commercially guided tours will be allowed in the park, a policy that was part of the Clinton administration plan to gradually eliminate the machines.

Lewis said that because each tour can only accommodate 10 snowmobiles, many riders who made reservations to visit the park on their own on opening day would be turned away.

Lewis did not give reservation figures, but said, "Needless to say, the non-commercially guided reservations were heavy."

She said park rangers would refer visitors to trails in adjacent national forests. Park officials were working late Tuesday to contact snowmobile rental agencies to let them know of the policy change.

Officials of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a motorized recreation advocacy group that has sued to retain snowmobile access to the parks, could not be reached for comment late Tuesday. Lewis would not comment when asked if the park service intended to appeal the judge`s decision.

Long-time critics of snowmobiling in the parks applauded the ruling. Denis Galvin, deputy director of the National Park Service under Presidents Reagan and Clinton and during the first year of the current Bush administration, said the ruling reflected common sense.

Rep. Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who co-sponsored unsuccessful legislation this year to ban snowmobiles in the parks, said the ruling did what the administration should have done. "It is a sad commentary on this administration`s environmental record that the courts have had to intervene to make sure that the Department of Interior is fulfilling its mission to protect our national lands," he said. "It should never have come to this."





In the last few years, studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded that snowmobiles would create unhealthy levels of noise and air pollution. The EPA found that emissions from a single snowmobile can equal that of 100 cars.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-afgh…
THE WORLD



Afghanistan Marks a Milepost on Long Road Back to Security
The country`s Kabul-to-Kandahar highway reopens with fanfare -- and guns at the ready to fend off any Taliban rebels.
By Paul Watson
Times Staff Writer

December 17, 2003

DURANI, Afghanistan — The road rebuilt to symbolize Afghanistan`s rebirth is also proof that the country has a long way to go before it is at peace.

On Tuesday, it took hundreds of U.S. and Afghan troops, backed by attack helicopters, antitank weapons, snipers and bomb-sniffing dogs to make it safe for President Hamid Karzai to cut the ribbon on the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway.

Suspected Taliban guerrillas have killed or kidnapped at least nine Afghan and foreign workers during reconstruction of the highway, so no one was taking any chances at the official opening ceremony.

Before the formalities, troops set up roadblocks to stop traffic in both directions for more than three hours. That was just long enough for dignitaries to arrive in heavily guarded convoys and on Chinook helicopters, celebrate a job well done and rush back to safer ground in Kabul, the capital, 25 miles northeast.

During the speeches, U.S. troops rushed to a dirt parking lot and told Afghan drivers there that someone had "called terrorists from here," driver Abdul Rasool said. The soldiers checked the men`s cellphones but said none of the numbers matched the call they had traced, Rasool said.

As the dignitaries spoke, driver Mohammed Aslam was stuck at a roadblock with five passengers in his taxi packed to the ceiling with their belongings. They were headed for Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold.

"Karzai is our president. We agree with that," Aslam said as he waited to be allowed back on the road. "We also like him, and would not harm him, so he should have let us pass."

Aslam said the three-hour delay had cost him about $23 — enough to feed his family for more than a week. But that may have been a small price to pay for a road that should be good for business: What used to be a 30-hour, bone-rattling journey from Kabul to Kandahar, often over potholes as big as ponds, is now a six-hour trip on smooth asphalt.

Foreign travelers appear to run the highest risk of being killed, kidnapped or, if they`re fortunate, simply robbed. The victims have included a United Nations aid worker from France, who was slain Nov. 16 as she was traveling in Ghazni, a city along the highway; two Indian road workers kidnapped Dec. 6; and a Pakistani road engineer killed two days later. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for those attacks and others on the road.

"We have repeatedly said that no work should be done in Afghanistan in the presence of Americans," Mullah Sabir Momin, the Taliban`s deputy operations commander in the south, said after the Pakistani was killed.

"It does not matter whether those involved in such works are engineers, drivers, doctors or others. Anyone who assists America or the Afghan government is liable to death. American agents will not be spared even if they are Muslims."

Karzai`s ribbon-cutting ceremony was held near a roadside monument of marble and stone that honors four Afghan workers killed Aug. 30 in an ambush on the highway.

Foreign troops are a rare sight on the road. Nearly 1,000 Afghan Interior Ministry police patrol the 300-mile, two-lane highway, but critics say real security is impossible without foreign forces.

The international troops in Afghanistan are focused elsewhere. The U.S. contingent is concentrating on searching for Taliban fighters and their allies in the south and east. An international security force led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization operates mainly in Kabul and with small reconstruction teams in several provincial cities.

The highway, built by the United States in the 1960s, is part of a network called the ring road, a vital trade link between Afghanistan`s main cities.

Karzai and President Bush had made rehabilitating the Kabul-to-Kandahar section of the roadway a top priority.

The former Taliban regime repaired about 25 miles of the highway before it was deposed in December 2001. Japan paid to rebuild 30 miles of the road, and the Louis Berger Group, a U.S. firm, oversaw reconstruction of 233 miles.

The U.S. Agency for International Development pledged about $250 million for the project, of which $190 million has been spent. Additional layers of asphalt and other final touches are to be completed after winter ends. About 2,000 Afghans helped rebuild the road.

The project was plagued by delays in its early stages. Afghan sappers had to clear land mines from both sides of the road, and to speed the process, the U.N. brought in armored vehicles that collected roadside air samples, which were sent to labs to be sniffed by dogs. If the dogs detected the scent of mines or unexploded ordnance, de-mining teams went in for a closer look. Sappers have removed more than 100 mines and 900 pieces of ordnance.

As the deadline for completion neared, pressure from the White House kept things moving. Karzai recalled Tuesday that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told him two months ago that Bush asked every day about the progress, insisting, "Hurry, or you`ll be dismissed."

On Tuesday, no one could remember ever having seen so many foreign and Afghan dignitaries in one place in this barren countryside. The governor of Wardak province, Raz Mohammed Dalili, couldn`t resist making a pitch for more help.

"I don`t want to complain about anything, because it`s enough for me that all these respectful personalities have gathered here. But I want to mention a few points and problems.

"There are poor people here in Wardak who don`t have work. Water is very difficult to reach because of the drought. The dams have all been destroyed. There is no electricity, and at the moment we don`t have radio in Wardak."

The governor politely reminded U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that moments earlier, as the two men chatted, the envoy had promised to build the people of Wardak a dam and their own radio station.

"I don`t want to complain a lot," the governor repeated. "But still, I want government officials to pay attention to Wardak."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Saddam, So Not Worth It
Dubya, now that you`ve got your dime-store thug, can you stop the warmongering and death?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/12/17/notes121703.DTL



Well gosh golly it took only upward of 500 dead U.S. soldiers (and counting) and more than 2,500 U.S. wounded (and counting) and more than 10,000 dead innocent Iraqi citizens (and counting) and countless tens of thousands of hapless dead Iraqi soldiers (and counting).

And it`ll only cost U.S. taxpayers at least a staggering $350 billion along with the complete gutting of our foreign policy and our national treasury and the appalling blood sacrifice of our national pride and our international status and global sense of self-respect.

Oh, and the truth is, it turns out Saddam actually did have some old stashes of weaponry, a bit of rusty, small-scale WMDs, after all -- because we sold them to him, 20 years ago. But they were never any sort of direct danger to America -- or anyone else, for that matter -- and regardless all evidence points to the fact that the stash was completely destroyed more than a decade ago.

Remember that time? Right about when the U.S. hushed up all those sales of biological weapons and computer technology to Iraq? Right about when all those American corporations, from Bechtel to Kodak to AT&T, from Dow Chemical to Hewlett-Packard to IBM and at least 100 more, decided it might be best to begin shredding their records detailing all their Iraq business deals? Hey, why is Donny Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam and smiling in this photo? Shhh.

And now, long after his political usefulness to us has expired, we up and invade his unhappy nation and lay waste to the entire region for no justifiable reason, and we inflate his global stature into this massive inhuman Hitler-esque monster when in fact he was really just an old, tired, small-time thug, and now finally Saddam Hussein, the brutal pip-squeak dictator/former beloved U.S. ally who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, has been captured alive. Yay yay go team.

It was a proud moment in American history. Almost as proud as when Dubya secretly flew to Iraq a few weeks back to spend 2.5 hours pretending to serve a fake, inedible plastic turkey to that handful of carefully selected, prescreened soldiers for that Thanksgiving PR stunt that will forever embarrass anyone with any sense of decency and pride -- which is, according to Bush`s instant surge in the polls after the photo op, fewer and fewer of us.

As if this changes a single thing. As if Saddam`s capture suddenly means BushCo is some sort of nimble or subtly intelligent leader, and that nine months of brutal ongoing gut-busting war was all worth it.

As if we are safer from terrorism. As if we are safer from Karl Rove and John Ashcroft. As if the nation can now stand proud.

Think again. Even Bush himself is not quite so stupid as to go that far. Note how just after Saddam`s capture, his army of handlers rushed in to make sure Americans don`t expect any lessening of U.S. casualties in Iraq, no slowdown in the number of dead American soldiers or the killing of innocent Iraqis who just happen to be trying to get some clean water or a gallon of fuel when U.S. forces blow another building apart while they`re looking for guerrilla insurgents.

Oh yes, Saddam needed to be captured. Oh yes, his capture is a swell thing for the world. Oh yes, Bush desperately needed the ratings boost. But we as a nation have been utterly pulverized with the lie that this war was the only way. We have been slammed for more than two years with relentless hammer of fear and inflated terrorist threats and bogus Orange Alerts, until we all just give in and our resistance crumbles and we say, fine.

Fine, just get it over with, Dubya, go slaughter yet another nearly defenseless nation and catch your impotent bad guy and eviscerate your own country`s economy and embarrass us the world over and protect your oil cronies and your military portfolio. Get it over with.

By the way, from Bush Sr. forward (and, yes, that includes Clinton), the U.S. has to date killed far, far more Iraqi civilians than Saddam ever could. Along with the United Kingdom, we`ve been bombing Iraq almost nonstop for the past decade. Not to mention the more than half a million Iraqi children who`ve died from lack of medicine or decent health care since the brutal, U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions were imposed 12 years ago. Shhh.

The capture does not justify the savagery, nor the humiliation. Not by a long shot. The ends do not justify the means. Nor do they justify the staggering, steaming pile of BushCo lies about why we went to war in the first place.

Remember those? Remember how not one single motive BushCo gave for launching this insane war has actually been proven true? Does this even matter anymore, the string of falsehoods and treasonous fabrications? Apparently not. This is America`s biggest wonder, and its ugliest flaw: a nasty short-term memory.


But whatever. Most lockstep Americans do not care that Saddam was never a threat. Most do not care about how many Iraqi children have died, or that in just the first days of the war, U.S. forces killed far more innocent civilians than were killed by those non-Iraqi terrorists in the WTC (4,300, to be more specific). Most do not care that the other 25 despotic heads of state out there right now who are far worse than Saddam are not, apparently, quaking in their dictatorial boots.

Most Americans do not care that somewhere, Osama is probably cheering (hey, he hated Saddam, too). They do not care that, what with our outward display of savagery, new America-loathing terrorists are being spawned faster than BushCo`s war machine can possibly keep up with them.

They care only for waving the bloody flag. They care only for the jingoistic PR spin and the hollow sophomoric neocon punditry of Fox News and enough oil to fuel the Expedition for another year. This is what matters most. Kill `em all, let Halliburton sort `em out.

Maybe I`m wrong. Maybe Saddam`s capture really will mean an earlier end to this tragic and painful war. Maybe it will mean we can get our soldiers home sooner. Maybe it will mean we can get the U.N. and NATO and our international allies involved in setting up a reasonably stable, noncorrupt government in Iraq, one not so obviously in the back pocket of ExxonMobil and Shell. Whoops, too late.

Maybe now that Saddam`s captured, we can begin to focus on what`s really important: the mandatory and deliberate ouster of another truly ruinous global threat, a shockingly disastrous political puppet.

After all, Saddam`s not the only dreadful world leader who`s abused his allies, ravaged his economy, launched two blood-drenched wars in as many years, authorized the bombing of tens of thousands, allowed hundreds of U.S. soldiers to die, cut the benefits of war veterans, poisoned the environment, invoked the name of God to justify it all and smirked away every notion of his obvious ineptitude. Can we send Special Forces to the Oval Office now?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mark Morford`s Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. He also writes the Morning Fix, a deeply skewed thrice-weekly e-mail column and newsletter. Subscribe at sfgate.com/newsletters.

[Joerver]

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Mission Accomplished Again, Well Sort Of
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



WASHINGTON (IWR News Satire) - President Bush told the nation Sunday that our troops have caught the tinhorn dictator Saddam Hussein. The President also reminded the American public of the reasons why we went to war in Iraq.
Here is the text on Mr. Bush`s speech:

The President: Good Afternoon.

The Good News: We have caught Saddam Hussein! Mission Accomplished!

The Bad News: We still haven`t found those pesky WMD yet.

I know it may still seem to many of you out there that I may have overstated, a teensy bit, the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to most powerful country in the history of the world.

So let me take a second to remind everybody of the shifting reasons of why we launched this preemptive war in the first place.

Saddam tried to kill Poppy. At least, that`s what Cheney and I think anyway. More importantly, Poppy`s reputation needed fixing, because he was responsible for telling the Shiites and Kurds to rise up against Saddam in 1991. Too bad he forgot to tell them that they were on their own, and that they got mowed down by Saddam`s henchmen.

Saddam has a nucular weapons program. We should find it any day now.

Saddam has thousands of tons of WMD. We should find those any day now too.

Saddam is Directly Connected to 9/11. That is, according to the Weekly Standard anyway! I mean, if you can`t trust Rupert Murdoch, who can you then?

Aluminum tubes. I forget why those things were important, but it sounded like a good reason to kill thousands people at the time.

Wahhabism. Wait a minute that`s those crazy Islamic people that our ally Saudi Arabia supports. Sorry, how did that get on my list.

Funding Terrorism. Shucks, that`s Saudi Arabia too. I`ll have Jim Baker talk to them or something.

Oil. Bingo! You don`t think old Halliburton and Bechtel would have subsidized my run for presidency if they thought I wasn`t gonna deliver the goods to them do you?
So there are several good reasons why we went to war.

And now that we have captured Saddam Hussein, everything is going to turn up roses. The guerilla war will magically end. The Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis will bury their hatchets, and the troops will all be home by election day!

END

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DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Still no mass weapons, no ties to 9/11, no truth
By Derrick Z. Jackson, 12/17/2003

THE INVASION was still a lie. The capture of Saddam Hussein changes nothing about that. There were too many forked tongues in the road to his lair. The way we removed the dictator, we became a global dictatorship.

No major reason for the war has been proven. The deadly WMDs became weapons of mysterious disappearance. In August 2002, Vice President Cheney said: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

In the 48-hour warning to Saddam on March 17, 2003, 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. . . . The terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other."

On March 30, a week and a half after the start of the invasion, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted about the weapons of mass destruction, "We know where they are. They`re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat."

Nine months later, no chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction have been found.

There were the administration`s attempts to tie Saddam to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. They worked so well that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam was "personally involved" in the attacks. On March 21, two days after announcing the invasion, Bush wrote a letter to congressional leaders in which he said: "The use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001."

By the fall, after Cheney revived a discredited claim that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence agent prior to the attacks, Bush was forced to admit, "We`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in September the 11th."

Bush scared Americans with fears of an Iraq armed with nuclear weapons. In his State of the Union address last January, Bush said: "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That claim had been discredited months earlier by many US intelligence sources. Bush used it anyway.

Bush was so successful in putting mortal fear into Americans that there never was a pause to wonder if this was carnage without cause. We could not wait for United Nations weapons inspectors to finish their job. We could not wait for diplomats to try a last appeal. As with the environment and arms control, there was no attempt to listen to the world at all. There is a thin line between arrogance and shame. Because we are the preeminent power in the world, we assumed that our arrogance would not shame us.

Bush told the world we were going to secure America and liberate Iraqis at the same time. With no weapons of mass destruction, with no nuclear weapons, and with no tie to 9/11, Saddam`s capture could not possibly have been worth the lives of 455 US and 80 European soldiers. With no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons, and no tie to 9/11, it could not possibly been worth the lives of 7,600 to 45,000 Iraqi soldiers. With no rationale for the invasion, you could consider this a massacre.

As murderous as Saddam was, an invasion with no reason was not worth the killing of unknown thousands of Iraqi civilians. At the beginning of the war, Rumsfeld said: "To the Iraqi people, let me say that the day of your liberation will soon be at hand." Halliburton has been liberated to profit off Iraq, but I have yet to read a news report where a grieving Iraqi family clutches the body of an innocent loved one and hugs an American soldier in appreciation of their "liberation."

With no weapons, no ties, and no truth, the capture of Saddam was merely the most massive and irresponsible police raid in modern times. We broke in without a search warrant. Civilian deaths constituted justifiable homicide. America was again above the law. We have taught the next generation that many wrongs equal a right. In arrogance, we boasted, "We got him!" The shame is that we feel none for how we got him. The capture of this dictator, driven by the poison of lies, turned America itself into a dictator.

Derrick Z. Jackson`s e-mail address is [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Joerver]

Who Will Testify At Saddam’s Trial?
by Joe Conason



President George W. Bush and the provisional Iraqi authorities have promised that before Saddam Hussein is executed, he will most certainly receive a fair trial. Conveniently enough, the Iraqis set up a war-crimes tribunal in Baghdad for this purpose just last week. So sometime after Saddam’s Army interrogators are finished sweating the old monster, the preparations shall begin for what promises to be a courtroom spectacular.

Advocates of human rights and international law hope that the prosecution of Saddam will improve somewhat upon his regime’s standard of criminal justice, which generally entailed horrific torture followed by confession and punishment. They have urged that Saddam’s trial be conducted with complete fairness and transparency. Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon’s favorite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, says that Saddam must be afforded the lawful treatment he denied his victims.

Those laudable aims presumably require that he be permitted to defend himself legally, no matter how indefensible he actually is. Human Rights Watch, which demanded action against Iraqi atrocities before such concerns became fashionable in Washington, now insists that the captured dictator "must be allowed to conduct a vigorous defense that includes the right to legal counsel at an early stage."

Apart from blaming his underlings for the genocidal crimes on his indictment, what defense can he (or his lawyers) offer? Following in the style of Slobodan Milosevic, he may well wish to spend his final days on the public stage bringing shame to those who brought him down.

Unfortunately, it isn’t hard to imagine how he might accomplish that if he can call witnesses and subpoena documents.

Charged with the use of poison gas against Kurds and Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam could summon a long list of Reagan and Bush administration officials who ignored or excused those atrocities when they were occurring.

An obvious prospective witness is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who acted as a special envoy to Baghdad during the early 1980’s. On a courtroom easel, Saddam might display the famous December 1983 photograph of him shaking hands with Mr. Rumsfeld, who acknowledges that the United States knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. If his forces were using Tabun, mustard gas and other forbidden poisons, he might ask, why did Washington restore diplomatic relations with Baghdad in November 1984?

As for his horrendous persecution of the Kurds in 1988, Saddam could call executives from the banks and defense and pharmaceutical companies from various countries that sold him the equipment and materials he is alleged to have used. He might put former President George Herbert Walker Bush on the witness stand and ask, "Why did your administration and Ronald Reagan’s sell my government biological toxins such as anthrax and botulism, as well as poisonous chemicals and helicopters?"

Saddam could also subpoena Henry Kissinger, whose consulting firm’s chief economist ventured to Baghdad in June 1989 to advise the Iraqi government on restructuring its debt. "After my forces allegedly murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians in 1988," he might inquire, "why would you and other American businessmen want to help me refinance and rearm my government?"

Indeed, Saddam could conceivably seek the testimony of dozens of men and women who once served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, starting with former Secretary of State George Shultz, and ask them to explain why they opposed every Congressional effort to place sanctions on his government, up until the moment his army invaded Kuwait during the summer of 1990. Pursuing the same general theme, he might call Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought to remove sanctions against Iraq when he served as the chief executive of Halliburton Corp.

The long, shadowy history of American relations with Saddam would be illuminated not only through witness testimony but literally thousands of documents in U.S. government files. Memos uncovered by the National Security Archive show that Reagan and Bush administration officials knew exactly how the Iraqi government was procuring what it needed to build weapons of mass destruction, including equipment intended for construction of a nuclear arsenal.

From time to time, during those crucial years when Saddam consolidated his power and prepared for war, U.S. diplomats issued rote condemnations of his worst actions. Then, as the record shows, they would privately reassure Saddam that the United States still desired close and productive relations. The other governments that were Saddam’s accomplices include both opponents and supporters of this administration’s pre-emptive war—from France, Germany and Russia, to Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Pertinent as these issues are to Saddam’s case, they do not mitigate his record of murder and corruption. And the man dragged from his pathetic hideout near Tikrit hardly seems to possess the will or the capability to raise them. Either way, he will get what he deserves. Yet it will be hard to boast that justice and history have been fully served if his foreign accomplices escape their share of opprobrium.

You may reach Joe Conason via email at: [e-mail].

back to top
This column ran on page 5 in the 12/22/2003 edition of The New York Observer.

[Joerver]

Insurgents or protesters? 18 are killed in clashes with US troops

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

17 December 2003: (The Independent) While Washington and London were still congratulating themselves on the capture of Saddam Hussein, US troops have shot dead at least 18 Iraqis in the streets of three major cities in the country.

Dramatic videotape from the city of Ramadi 75 miles west of Baghdad showed unarmed supporters of Saddam Hussein being gunned down in semi-darkness as they fled from Americans troops. Eleven of the 18 dead were killed by the Americans in Samarra to the north of Baghdad.

All the killings came during demonstrations by Sunni Muslims against the American seizure of Saddam, protests that started near Samarra on Monday evening. The first demonstrators blocked roads north of Baghdad when armed men appeared alongside civilians who believed - initially - that US forces had arrested one of Saddam`s doubles rather than the ex-dictator of Iraq. But their jubilation turned to fury when the Americans opened fire in Samarra a few hours later.

As usual, the American military claimed that all 18 dead were "insurgents" and that US forces had come under fire in all three cities. But this is what they claimed in Samarra just over two weeks ago when they boasted they had shot 54 "terrorists". Journalists investigating the killings concluded then that while US forces in the city had been ambushed while taking currency notes to two banks in the city, the only victims of American gunfire that could be confirmed were nine civilians, one of them a child, another an Iranian pilgrim.

US forces said yesterday that they were ambushed in Samarra again on Monday, this time by guerrillas who released pigeons to signal to comrades that a US patrol was in range. Two gunmen who opened fire on troops with rocket-propelled grenades, the Americans claimed, took cover among children leaving a school. The soldiers, the US authorities said, "suppressed enemy fire and hit no civilian", an odd statement since no one had suggested civilians were wounded. An American company commander in Samarra later said 11 "insurgents" had been killed although he provided no proof. During the last gun battle in the city, not a single guerrilla`s body was found.

In Fallujah, the scene of the other mass killing, of five Iraqi men, pro-Saddam demonstrators stormed into the pro-American mayor`s office and forced the American-paid policemen inside to flee for their lives. Two Abrams tanks, Bradley troop carriers and hundreds of American troops moved towards the building which is supposed to be controlled by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne. Airborne troops maintain rooftop positions only 200 metres from the mayor`s building but there was no indication last night if they participated in the killings.

The Americans were yesterday trying to smother news of the deaths with further statements about the capture of Saddam. After journalists were taken in circumstances of great secrecy to Baghdad airport for "a story you won`t be sorry to cover", General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted it would take "some time" before there were any military effects of Saddam`s arrest. "When you take this leader, who is (sic) at one time a very popular leader in this region, and you find him in a hole in the ground, that`s a pretty powerful statement that you`re on the wrong team."

This kind of statement, however, could not obscure the continuing decline in security. In Mosul, for example, a policeman working for the American-organised local Iraqi security forces was killed and another wounded during a pro-Saddam demonstration. Further south, near Saddam`s home town of Tikrit, a roadside bomb wounded three American soldiers, two of them seriously. Occupation security documents - which were not publicly released - show there have been 30 attacks on US forces around Baghdad alone in the past 24 hours.

A disturbing new phenomenon in this environment of growing military violence has been the appearance of hooded and masked gunmen - working for the Americans - on road checkpoints north of Baghdad. Five of them now check cars on the Tigris river bridge outside Samarra, apparently fearing their identities will be discovered if their faces are not concealed. They wear militia uniforms and, although they say they are part of the new American-backed "Iraqi Civil Defence Corps", they have neither badges of rank nor unit markings. The same hooded men are now appearing on the streets of Baghdad.

Copyright: The Independent

[Joerver]

ZNet | Iraq

Twenty Years Too Late
Saddam is removed from power

by Robert Fisk; UK Independent; December 17, 2003

Was this really the man with whom I shook hands almost a quarter of a century ago? I`ve spent 24 hours looking again and again at those videotapes. The more I look, the more Saddam turns into a wild animal. An American interviewed by the Associated Press said he`d gone straight to church to pray for him. The face I remember from my meeting with him almost a quarter of a century ago was chubby in an insolent sort of way, the moustache so well trimmed that it looked as if it had been stuck on his face with paste, the huge double-breasted suit the kind that Nazi leaders used to wear, too empty, too floppy on the shoulders.

So I went back again to those video pictures. True, the haunted creature in them could not rewind the film. His days were, as they say, over. Or supposed to be. There was a kind of relief in his face. The drama had ended. He was alive, unlike his tens of thousands of victims. Was a volume of memoirs in his fatigued mind? Having found his little library beside his last Tigris bolt-hole yesterday, I wouldn`t be surprised. During his long and terrible reign, he would deluge us journalists with treatises on foreign affairs and women`s rights and he ended his rule by deluging his own people with cheap women`s romances. Yesterday, I found the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun among his books.

Back in the late seventies, I had stood next to him at the "Confrontation Front" summit when Baghdad led the resistance to Anwar Sadat`s peace initiative to Israel. Hafez Assad of Syria was there and King Hussain and a host of now dead Gulf luminaries. How are the mighty fallen.

I recall how, when he smiled--which he did far too much--his lips would slide back from his teeth too far, so that his warmth turned into a kind of animal leer. It didn`t look like this on television. But when you were there, next to him, breathing the same bit of air, that is what you saw.

This was the occasion when Saddam drove my colleague Tony Clifton into central Baghdad in his own Range Rover and challenged him to find a single man who opposed his rule. Needless to say, every quivering serf brought before my friend for interrogation offered to give both his blood and his soul for the father figure of the Baathist revolution standing beside him.

In those days, we called him an autocrat--the Associated Press used to call him "the Iraqi strongman"--because he was a friend of America. But we knew all about him, the raping rooms, the tooth extractors, the knives and the concrete hanging chambers with their clanging doors, and the execution pits. His suits were finer now, French made, better cut, grey rather than brown. He had even learned how to smoke a Havana--between two fingers rather than four fingers and thumb.

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq this year, we journalists--and all praise to Paul Wood of the BBC for his part in this--got our hands on videos of some of the most pornographic violence any of us would be able to stomach. For 45 minutes, Saddam`s security police whipped and beat half naked Shiite prisoners in the courtyard of their "Mukhabarat" headquarters. They are covered in blood, screaming and whimpering. They are kicked and their testicles crushed and pieces of wood forced between their teeth as they are pushed into sewers and clubbed on the face.

The videos show that there were spectators, uniformed Baathists, even a Mercedes parked in the background under the shade of a silver birch tree.

I showed a few seconds of these films at lectures in Ireland and America this summer and some members of the audience left, nauseated by the evidence of Saddam`s perverted nature. Who, after all, were these videos made for? For Saddam? Or for the victims` families to watch, so that they may re-suffer the torture of their loved ones?

And it`s easy, looking at these images of Saddam`s sadism, to have expected Iraqis to be grateful to us this week. We have captured Saddam. We have destroyed the beast. The nightmare years are over. If only we could have got rid of this man 15 years ago--20 years ago--how warm would be our welcome in Iraq today. But we didn`t. And that is why his capture will not save America`s soldiers. He lives on. Just as Hitler lives on today in the memories and fears of millions. And it is in the nature of such terrible regimes to replicate themselves in the mind.

Last night, driving back from Saddam`s home city of Tikrit, the highway was blocked by thousands of Sunni Muslims, screaming Saddam`s name, brandishing his portrait, firing automatic rifles into the sky. "Saddam has just broadcast another tape," a young man shrieked at me. "He is still with us. The Americans captured his double!"

I could find no-one who had actually heard this tape, but I understood what it meant. Dictators remain in the mind, to poison again, to torture once more. Saddam has gone. Saddam lives. And we think the war is over.

[Joerver]

Wednesday, December 17, 2003
War News for December 17, 2003

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed, nine wounded in bomb ambush near Mosul.

Bring `em on: One Iraqi policeman killed, one wounded during riots in Mosul.

Bring `em on: More oil pipeline attacks reported.

Bring `em on: Roadside bomb kills 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Rocket attack on US supply train near Fallujah. (Last paragraph.)

US troops begin counter-insurgency operation in Samarra.

Iraqis blame US for insurgency violence.

Lieutenant AWOL focuses Iraq propaganda campaign against US electorate.

The Year of The War Reporter. Actually, this is more of a criticism of American media failure than self-congratulation.

Lieutenant AWOL says Saddam should die. Do you ever get the impression that when he talks about killing people Bush gets a stiffy?

Commentary

Editorial: Little Red Hen lays an egg.

Cartoon: Tony Auth.

Opinion: Saddam`s capture was good thing. "But it won`t end the insurgency. It won`t deliver stable government to Iraq. It will not turn America`s Iraq commitment from a vote loser into a vote winner for George Bush. And with these issues still unresolved, Saddam`s capture will not answer the big question of 2003 - was the invasion a good idea?"

Casualty Reports

Local story: Oregon soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Ohio soldier dies in Iraq.

Local story: North Dakota soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Georgia soldier killed in Iraq.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

The Twelve Days of Bushmas
(sung to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)



On the first day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
the federal budget surplus.


On the second day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Clean air and water, and the federal budget surplus.


On the third day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
three million jobs, clean air and water, and the federal
budget surplus.


On the fourth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Freedom of speech, three million jobs, clean air and water,
and the federal budget surplus.


On the fifth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
All of our allies, freedom of speech, three million jobs,
clean air and water, and the federal budget surplus.


On the sixth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Rights of privacy, all of our allies, freedom of speech,
three million jobs, clean air and water, and the
federal budget surplus.


On the seventh day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Trust in the system, rights of privacy, all of our allies,
freedom of speech, three million jobs, clean air and water,
and the federal budget surplus.


On the eighth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Hope for the future, trust in the system, rights of privacy,
all of our allies, freedom of speech, three million jobs,
clean air and water, and the federal budget surplus.


On the ninth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Overtime pay, hope for the future, trust in the system,
rights of privacy, all of our allies, freedom of speech,
three million jobs, clean air and water, and the
federal budget surplus.


On the tenth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Well-funded schools, overtime pay, hope for the future,
trust in the system, rights of privacy, all of our allies,
freedom of speech, three million jobs, clean air and water,
and the federal budget surplus.


On the eleventh day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
endangered species, well-funded schools, overtime pay,
hope for the future, trust in the system, rights of privacy,
all of our allies, freedom of speech, three million jobs,
clean air and water, and the federal budget surplus.


On the twelfth day of Bushmas, Dubya took from us,
Many soldiers` lives, endangered species, well-funded
schools, overtime pay, hope for the future, trust in the
system, rights of privacy, all of our allies, freedom of speech,
three million jobs, clean air and water, and the
federal budget surplus.


By the talented OZ

[Joerver]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Joerver]

Das Gerücht läuft schon seit gestern, die USA wußten schon seit längerem, wo sich Saddam aufhält.
Tuesday, December 2, 2003

LaHood: Hussein`s capture imminent

Pantagraph Staff



BLOOMINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart and said, "We`re this close" to catching Saddam Hussein.
Once that`s accomplished, Iraqi resistance will fall apart, said the five-term Republican congressman from Peoria who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

A member of The Pantagraph editorial board -- not really expecting an answer -- asked LaHood for more details, saying, "Do you know something we don`t?"

"Yes I do," replied LaHood.

LaHood spent an hour at the newspaper Monday, discussing the war on terror, the 2004 elections, Central Illinois` regional economic development and his less-than-enthusiastic appraisal of Gov. Rod Blagojevich`s performance.

The comment about the deposed Iraqi president came while LaHood discussed next year`s elections.

The congressman said he`s been disappointed with U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and believes the Republican senator isn`t seeking a second term because "he can`t get the votes."

LaHood hopes his party can hold the Senate seat because, he said, "President Bush is popular south of I-80, and that will help our Republican Senate candidate."

The economy -- barring a cataclysmic event like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- will be central to the presidential race, he said.

"People working, making money, taking care of their families, health-care costs" -- those are the key issues, LaHood said.

He said the war is a major issue, but not as important as the economy.

LaHood said polls still show most Americans support the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Then he added, "Once we get Saddam ... and we`re this close."

He said members of Congress who return from trips to the war zone all say the Iraqi people are very thankful to the United States and added, "You don`t hear about that too often."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2003, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

[Joerver]

Ein Flash zu #10558


http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/saddamcaptur…

.

[Joerver]

Is America sick?

December 15, 2003
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article5388.htm
In "Stupid White Men" and "Bowling For Colombine", Michael Moore introduced millions of readers and moviegoers worldwide to some of America`s ills: guns, corrupt politicians, fearful citizens, unchecked corporations, crumbling social services. These are big problems for a nation that plays such a dominating international role.

Understanding them is one thing, but what can be done to fix them?

In his unpublished manuscript, The IHO Syndrome, Julien Ninio suggests the best way to understand America`s ailments is to study their symptoms, in the same way a doctor examines a patient - and that the diagnosis is of a disease that can be cured by both Americans and non-Americans.

In the five excerpts here, Ninio examines America`s self-image: the "cradle of democracy", the "land of plenty", the "beacon of justice", the "best way of life", the "land of the free". He finds gaps between the self-image and the reality, which he calls the "symptoms" of the disease. He argues that the symptoms can be traced to a powerful cocktail of ignorance, hypocrisy and obedience - the "IHO syndrome". As a cure for this disease, Ninio proposes that people replace ignorance with knowledge, hypocrisy with sincerity and obedience with resistance.

* Both French and American, Julien Ninio has an MBA from Harvard. He was a financial markets trader in Tokyo and a start-up CEO in San Francisco. He left the United States for Australia six weeks after the September 11 attacks and now lives in Sydney.


Excerpt from The IHO Syndrome, chapter 2: The cradle of democracy

Julien Ninio


One man, 68 votes

American democracy had deep flaws long before the 2000 election. For instance, each of our 50 States elects two of the country`s 100 senators. Wyoming`s 500 000 residents elect two senators. California has 68 times the population of Wyoming; its 34 million residents also elect two senators. This means each Wyoming resident has 68 times more weight than a Californian in choosing the country`s 100 senators. Instead of `one man one vote`, we have `one man 68 votes`. Because of the many low density conservative States in the middle of the country, this one issue has a major influence on the tone of our national debate. It gives conservatives a voice out of proportion with their numbers. It also gives them an unfair weight in questions the Senate settles without input from the House of Representatives, like confirming federal judges. (For laws, the House of Representatives balances the Senate somewhat because we elect its members in proportion to population.) To make matters worse, the high cost of senatorial campaigns gives us a Senate that resembles a millionaires` club. The 100 members of the 108th Senate include at least 40 millionaires--taking the low end of official financial disclosures that exclude the value of senators` homes.[1] The 100 senators include 86 men, 59 law school graduates, no Hispanics and no blacks, a composition that hardly mirrors the population.[2]

Apologists for our system of two senators per State say that the citizens of each State should have equal weight in one of the houses. Under the same logic, others could say that the citizens of each gender, religion or ethnicity should have equal representation in one of the houses: 50 senators chosen by men, 50 chosen by women; or 20 chosen each by whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans. We could end up with four houses: one giving each citizen equal weight (the House of Representatives); one giving each State equal weight (the Senate); one giving each gender equal weight; one giving each race equal weight. Taking even more groupings (like age, religion, favourite colour), houses would multiply; the houses would never agree, laws would never get passed. There is nothing magical about the division of the citizenry into States rather than races, genders or any other grouping, nothing that justifies upsetting plain democracy to give one man 68 votes. If we chose all members of Congress democratically, could the more populous States outvote the less populous States? Sure, just like today whites can outvote blacks. One man one vote, the many outvote the few--that is called `democracy`.

Even if some view the design of Congress as compatible with a form of democracy, one glance at our voter turnout should convince them that our democracy has broken down in practice. Only half of eligible Americans ever vote in a typical election, a performance that earns us the 140th spot out of 163 nations that held elections in the 1990s.[3] And those who vote do not represent the population, since our likelihood to vote increases in direct proportion to income and education. Only one in four of our lowest earners bothers to vote.[4] In America, the poor seem to view elections as civic exercises that concern others.

This may shock our democratic instincts. A ruler who looks after the rich may help them with secondary needs like acquiring condos at the mountain, but a ruler who looks after the poor can help them with basic needs like food and housing, so the poor should have the most reason to vote. When they don`t, we cannot just take easy shots at their education, we must look for deeper reasons.

One reason lies in the position low earners occupy in our culture. Status proceeds mostly from wealth: Low earners have no wealth and no status. From our youngest age, we learn that we must look out for ourselves, that we must focus on `getting ahead`, so we train our attention on the rich. If a middle class boy ever thinks of poverty, he probably views it as another place to board the American dream`s mighty train, and he forgets about it at once. From reading magazines and watching television, a low earner in America could conclude she exists only as a derogatory epithet like `white trash`, or as a crime statistic if she has black skin. She feels not like a valued member of society, but more like a broken machine that contributes nothing to the economy, like a dispensable piece of humanity to be thrown in jail, fed to the army, or left to fester in her juices. The national debate bypasses her, so she feels like a foreigner in her own land. Foreigners do not vote: Why should she?

And if she did vote, who should she vote for? Our political system has two major parties, and neither represents the interests of low earners. Democrats stand at Republicans` left elbow, but they represent neither the poor nor even anyone who earns less than upper middle class wages. Of the 40 millionaires in the Senate, 18 (including the five richest) are Democrats. Republicans could not have dismantled social services like Clinton did over eight years: Democrats would have protested. When Democrats demolished our social services, we lacked a major party to their left, a force strong enough to stop them.

The adjective activist serves to dismiss anyone to the left of the Democrats, like students who knocked on doors to create grassroots support for Nader in the 2000 election. In a well-ordered society, only `radicals` could possibly want to campaign for or against anything. Fearing association with `radicals`, Democrats have expelled the more progressive from their ranks. This partly explains American politics` continuous shift to the right. By now, the Democratic Party represents what every foreign country calls the right: the party that cuts back social services and makes cosy deals with big business, as opposed to the party that campaigns for job security and longer vacations. I do not say that the people who vote Democrat all embrace right wing views--indeed many of them lean frankly to the left; I say that the party they vote for promotes right wing policies instead of the social policies of the traditional left. Things might settle in the middle if the same dynamics operated on Republicans. But Republicans embrace extreme-right views instead of evading them, and indeed by now the Republican Party represents what every foreign country calls the extreme right: the party whose politicians cannot have a rational debate, the party whose leaders want to drive the population to church, keep women out of abortion clinics, shut the borders, silence opponents, and bomb brown people.

We call our low earners disenfranchised as though they suffered from a mysterious disease we can do nothing about, but the word describes a precise condition: No one represents the poorest Americans. Voting means choosing between the right and the extreme right. It makes as much sense to low earners as flipping coins, so they abstain; in practice, our system robs them of their voting rights.

Symptoms

Instead of elections `by the people`, we have a system of `one man 68 votes` in the Senate, and elections that only concern half of the population.

Notes

1. Sean Loughlin & Robert Yoon, `Millionaires populate US Senate`, CNN.com, 13 June 2003, [9 September 2003].

2. Mildred L. Amer, Membership of the 108th Congress: a profile, Congressional Research Service, 8 May 2003.

3. For the ranking of average voter turnouts in the 1990s, see the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance`s website at [27 July 2003]. In the eight US presidential elections between 1972 and 2000, voter turnout ranged between 49 and 55 per cent. Only 49 per cent of the eligible voters turned out for the presidential election in 2000. In 1998, a non-presidential year, only 35 per cent came out to the polls. [27 July 2003].

4. Twenty-eight per cent of the lowest earners (adults with family incomes of $5000 or less) reported voting in 2000, compared to 51 per cent for those earning between $25 000 and $35 000, and 72 per cent for those earning more than $75 000. Twenty-seven per cent of Americans who never finished junior high school reported voting, compared to 50 per cent for high school graduates, 70 per cent for college graduates and 76 per cent for those with a master`s degree. US Census Bureau, `Voting and registration in the election of November 2000`, tables 5 & 8, available at [27 July 2003].

Weiter:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article5388.htm

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.trial17d…

During trial, Hussein may try to implicate Western leaders
U.S. and other nations that supported him in past could be vulnerable



By Mark Matthews
Sun National Staff

December 17, 2003

WASHINGTON - The trials of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders could produce embarrassing reminders of past American support for his government and of the West`s failure to punish him despite mounting evidence of Iraqi atrocities.

Lawyers familiar with war crimes trials say attorneys for Hussein and his aides might try to introduce damaging evidence against Western leaders as a pressure tactic against their accusers or to shift responsibility away from the dictator`s actions.

The tactic is unlikely to work in his favor, they said, because Hussein`s defense team would have a hard time persuading a tribunal that such evidence is relevant in judging whether he was responsible for war crimes, genocide or human rights abuses, the charges likely to be leveled against him.

Nevertheless, the prospect that he will try to implicate other nations presents a powerful reason for the United States not to appear to be orchestrating the trial, said Diane Orentlicher, an international justice specialist at American University`s Washington College of Law.

"It underscores the importance that this not be seen as an American stage-managed process," Orentlicher said. "It`s in the interests of both Iraqis and the United States to invite international participation."

The public record is replete with instances of high-ranking American policy-makers adopting a soft line toward Hussein, viewing him as the lesser of evils they were confronting at the time.

The United States provided battlefield intelligence to Iraq during Hussein`s war against Iran during the 1980s, joining with Arab states in seeking to curb the spread of Iran`s brand of Islamic fundamentalism and its perceived ambition to dominate the oil-rich Persian Gulf region.

In 1988, Reagan administration officials found persuasive evidence that Hussein had used poison gas against Kurds in the village of Halabja, in northern Iraq, and joined with allies in seeking a United Nations inspection. Hussein refused to allow inspectors in. That same year, the United Nations found that Iraq had used poison gas in the final throes of its war against Iran.

But the Reagan administration resisted an effort by some in Congress, led by Sen. Claiborne Pell, a Rhode Island Democrat, to impose sanctions on Iraq, preferring to use diplomacy in a bid to halt Hussein`s use of chemical weapons.

The Reagan administration and its successor under President George Bush granted billions of dollars in credits to Iraq, enabling it to buy U.S. agricultural products, while Hussein simultaneously expanded his weapons arsenal and tried to develop nuclear weapons.

A 1990 Human Rights Watch report quoted a senior State Department official as describing the Iraqi government as "possibly the worst violator of human rights anywhere in the world today."

And as Hussein made threatening moves against Kuwait in 1990, Bush`s ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, failed to warn him that he would face serious punishment if he invaded his neighbor, which Iraq soon did. After the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the United States stood by as Hussein brutally crushed uprisings by Kurds and Shiite Muslims.

Other countries might not be exempt from possible Hussein efforts to spread blame. France helped Iraq build a nuclear facility that was bombed by Israel in 1981, and Russia sold Iraq weapons that were paid for with help from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Persian Gulf states. Nations might also be exposed as having allowed illicit weapons to slip through their customs controls to Iraq.

Hussein could try to dredge up some of this history during his trial, in an argument that the West was somehow complicit in his actions.

Whether tribunal judges would allow such information into evidence will depend on how narrowly they define what is relevant to the charges.

Salem Chalabi, a Baghdad-based legal adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council, said he and others involved in preparing rules for the tribunals want to keep the trials narrowly focused "on the crimes in question."

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a practiced litigator, said such a tactic by Hussein would be "a real reach for relevancy" and doubted that it would seriously embarrass the U.S. government.

"Was it inconsistent to have worked with Stalin during World War II and then to oppose him during the Cold War? So what? That`s statecraft," he said.

But legal strategy might not be Hussein`s intent, said Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international law at the Johns Hopkins University. "It can`t help him legally. It can only help his design concept for his historical role, provide exculpatory fiction for the Baathists or play on the theme of betrayal," she said.

Orentlicher said the Bush administration, aware that such a tactic might be in store, "ought to be prepared to say, `We made mistakes in the past, but this is legally irrelevant.`"

The Bush administration took a step toward such an admission in September, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Halabja and spoke to several hundred Kurdish families.

"I cannot tell you that the world should have acted sooner. You know that," Powell said. "What I can tell you is that what happened here in 1988 is never going to happen again."


Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun

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Wednesday, December 17th, 2003
Spider`s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq
Deshalb hat die USA offiziell so wenig Waffen geliefert, weil das meiste illegal lief.

Watch 256k stream nach 42,30 min. http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2003/dec/256/d…


Für ISDN:------------------------------------------------------------http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/17/1615235--------------------

We hear a Democracy Now! interview from last year with global economics correspondent Alan Friedman about how the United States helped illegally arm Iraq in the 1980s in a scandal involving George Bush Sr., James Baker, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Mueller and others.

Alan Friedman, global economics correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and author of the book Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq.
Listen to entire interview with Alan Friedman.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: . We`re going to turn now to Alan Friedman, global economics correspondent to The International Herald Tribune and author of the book - The Spider’s Web, the secret history of how the White House illegally armed Iraq. We played this interview last November where he talked about the U.S. arming Iraq. We thought it would be instructive to look at that again. This is Alan Friedman.

ALAN FRIEDMAN: We need to go back to the beginning of the 1980`s to understand how the United States created the monster that Saddam Hussein is today. In the early 1980`s, remember the United States was violently against the Islamic fundamentalists of Iran, of Ayatollah Khomieni. At the time the United States, using the power of the White House with particular interest by Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, using the intelligence services and the Pentagon, was embarked upon a tilt to Iraq. Nobody really liked Saddam Hussein. Everybody knew that he was a dictator who had gassed his own people but the United States made the decision to back Iraq in order to use Saddam Hussein as a - you know, as a cynical balance of power against Iran. The tragic result, of course, was that as the United States armed Iraq in the early 1980`s, a war continued throughout the 1980`s between Iran and Iraq, that cost the lives of more than 1 million people. What really happened then is as the 1980`s progressed, and as George Herbert Walker Bush moved from the vice presidency in the Reagan administration to the White House himself, the war in Iraq -- the war between Iraq and Iran ended, and, of course, what had been created was a kind of auto pilot, if you will.

My book and my research and the work that I did at the time with people like Ted Koppel of ABC’s Nightline where we did a joint investigation and the work done at the time by William Safire in The New York Times and my own work in breaking the Iraq gate scandal showed essentially how the netherworld, the dark world of intelligence agents, arms dealers, crooked financiers that had been used in the 1980`s to get military equipment from the United States and Europe to Saddam Hussein when it was considered a good thing to do, because he was being used as a bulwark against Iran continued to function after the Iran-Iraq war ended. So, essentially, a machinery of global dimension was put in place.

Now, I discovered this at the end of the 1980`s when I was reporting for The Financial Times of London and we uncovered the scandal of more than $5 billion of American taxpayer backed credits that had been funneled by the Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank to Saddam Hussein with the full knowledge of the C.I.A. and later on of the White House, under the Bush administration. That’s because that bank, it later transpired, an Italian bank called B & L, its Atlanta, Georgia branch was being used to surreptitiously finance Saddam Hussein`s purchase of both agricultural goods and weaponry. And the very frightening part of it is that this group of intelligence agents outside the government, but working with the blessing of the government as it later turned out with the blessing of people like James Baker and George Herbert Walker Bush, this organization of arms dealers and transshipment specialists continued to sell a whole variety of equipment to Saddam Hussein, including U.S. military rocket cluster bombs that were transshipped from Pennsylvania through Chile to Iraq, nuclear and chemical weapons technology, and missile technology and the United States didn`t really do anything to stop this shipment because at the time the argument used by the C.I.A. and the White House was that if you allowed a limited amount of military weapons and technology to flow to Iraq, even though it was completely illegal against U.S. law, against international treaties, if you allowed this to happen, as an intelligence operation, the rationalization in the Bush administration went, then you could keep better track of what kind of weaponry Saddam was developing.

What really happened, of course, is that there were people along the way who were greedy, who were making money off of it, and there were people in governments in Italy and Britain and in the Thatcher government and in the Andriotti government in Italy who were working with their American counterparts and they continued the flow of equipment. Some of this is very sophisticated stuff and one of the scandals -- the way the scandal was developed was I first uncovered financial documents for a British company called Matrix Churchill based in Coventry in England that was sending what seemed to be innocent machine tool equipment to Saddam Hussein. But it wasn`t. It was dual use technology that the C.I.A. and the British intelligence knew was going into Saddam`s missile program and his nuclear program, but they allowed it to happen. So, the real problem is that we had a Frankenstein monster that got out of control, a Bush administration between 1988 and "Operation Desert Storm” in 1990 1991, that essentially turned a blind eye to this continuing shipment to Iraq, and then, of course, when we had the invasion of Kuwait, and the United States under Colin Powell and Schwarzkopf went in and then President Bush decided not to finish the job, but to leave Saddam alone, unfortunately, then it became time to cover up the tilt to Iraq, to cover up the way the United States has helped to shape and build Iraq`s military strength and then ensued a traditional cover up which nobody cared about when I brought it out with Ted come in 1991, 1992, and the book, Spider`s Web, 1993, because people in America thought it was more interesting to look at Whitewater.

AMY GOODMAN: Alan Friedman speaking to us by videophone from Rome last November. Alan Friedman, global economics correspondent for The International Herald Tribune. The book is Spider`s Web, the secret history of how the White House illegally armed Iraq. You can go to our website at democracynow.org to hear the full hour interview. You can either listen to it, audio streaming or watch it video streaming at democracynow.org.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 [phone].

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EU agrees to give air passenger data to US
Ian Black in Brussels
Thursday December 18, 2003
The Guardian

The EU has agreed to hand over the personal data of air travellers to the United States, after a long running transatlantic dispute over civil liberties and security.

Permanent arrangements for sharing data on passengers are to come into effect next spring after a deal narrowed differences over civil liberties and security.

The European commission confirmed yesterday that it was ready to authorise the handover of personal data gleaned from airline booking records, after the US offered "adequate" privacy safeguards.

The Bush administration has seen such information as a key tool in the "war on terror" since the September 11 attacks, but came up against the EU`s approach to data protection.

The deal - long opposed by the European parliament as a "unilateral" American demand, and still worrying civil liberties groups - ended months of difficult talks. One MEP wants to refer the matter to the European court of justice.

"There was pain on both sides, but we have come up with a very solid middle ground," said Stewart Verdery, assistant secretary in the US department of homeland security.

Under the agreement, the US will be allowed to collect 34 types of data from the records, including a passenger`s name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, travelling companions, and the amount of luggage checked in. Details about passengers` health or dietary requirements, which might reveal their religion or ethnic origin, cannot now be turned over.

Washington has given assurances that the data will only be used in fighting terrorism and other "serious crimes", including international organised crime. Domestic crime is expressly excluded. Data may be passed, though not in bulk, to agencies such as the FBI and CIA.

The agreement ends a period of legal uncertainty for airlines, which since November 2001 have faced fines of $6,000 (£3,400) per passenger, or potential loss of landing rights in the US, if they failed to provide passenger data within 15 minutes of a flight`s departure.

Carriers such as British Airways, Lufthansa and Air France started sharing data with the US despite the risk of being sued by passengers for breaching EU laws.

Frits Bolkestein, the EU internal market commissioner, who is in charge of data protection, said Brussels had extracted important concessions. Initially the US had wanted to store the data for 50 years, but had agreed in the end to a limit of three and a half years.

"The EU cannot refuse its ally in the fight against terrorism ... but a balance had to be found," said Mr Bolkestein. The system is to be jointly reviewed after three years.

As part of the deal, the privacy officer for the US department for homeland security will deal with representations from data protection authorities in EU countries.

The agreement means that airlines may refuse to sell a ticket to a passenger who will not give the information, or that a passenger whose details are incomplete may face questioning on arrival in the US.

In a related development, the commission said it was planning to table its own EU-wide proposals on data protection and the fight against terrorism by the middle of 2004.



Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush backs bar on gay marriage
Gary Younge in New York
Thursday December 18, 2003
The Guardian

President George Bush is to support a change in the US constitution to block same-sex marriage, overriding the legal advances towards gay rights made in the courts this year.

He said he would "support a constitutional amendment which would honour marriage between a man and a woman, codify that".

The issue of gay marriage seems likely to become an important issue in the next year`s presidential election, because of the the US supreme court`s decision in June to repeal the anti-sodomy laws and the Massachussett`s supreme court`s ruling in favour of gay marriage last month.

The Christian right, fearing that these rulings could eventually make gay marriage legal nationally, responded by calling for a change to the constitution endorsing only heterosexual marriage and effectively denying official recognition to same-sex couples.

To change the constitution they will need a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and then the support of three-quarters of the states.

Mr Bush has voiced his opposition to gay marriage before, but until now he has refused to back a change to the constitution, trying to maintain a fine line between indulging the prejudices of his political base in the Christian right and scaring off swing voters.

But in a television interview on Tuesday night he offered qualified support for a constitutional amendment, and criticised the Massachusetts supreme court for overstepping its jurisdiction.

The issue should be left to states to decide, he said. "The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they`re allowed to make, so long as it`s embraced by the state or at the state level.

"Except and unless judicial rulings undermine the sanctity of marriage; in which case we may need a constitutional amendment.

"The [Massachusetts] court, I thought, overreached its bounds as a court," he said. "It did the job of the legislature. It was a very activist court in making the decision it made."

Gay rights groups reacted angrily to the suggestion that the president might lend his name to a amendment which they believe is designed to specifically exclude them.

"It is never necessary to insert prejudice and discrimination into the US constitution, a document that has a proud history of being used to expand an individual`s liberty and freedom, not to take them away," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign.

The spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Roberta Sklar, told the New York Times: "If he endorses amendments such as this, which blatantly discriminates against a class of people, you would then have to wonder who and what is next."

Nonetheless, Christian conservatives believe he has still not gone far enough, since his statements still gave the states leeway to allow gay couples some of the rights enjoyed by heterosexuals.

Tony Perkins, president of the rightwing Family Research Council, said Mr Bush`s statement "sounds as though the administration would support civil unions, which are counterfeits of the institution of marriage".

The opinion polls suggest that Americans are inclined to give lesbians and gays legal rights as couples but not the right to marry; 42% favouring a legal ban on gay marriages.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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US interrogators increase pressure on Saddam in preparation for possible trial
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
18 December 2003


US interrogators are stepping up their pressure on Saddam Hussein, probing his involvement of the guerrilla insurgency against the occupying forces and seeking to prepare the ground for a possible war crimes trial.

Guided by documents found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, US forces have seized almost 80 people in raids in Samarra and elsewhere, including three former generals.

The arrests, by about 3,000 US troops, in a massive sweep code-named "Operation Ivy Blizzard", have helped uncover a well-funded resistance network, comprising up to 14 individual cells, officials say. Last night checkpoints had been installed on roads out of Samarra - about 70 miles north of Baghdad - as US troops and special units combed neighbourhoods for suspects.

It is understood that Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam`s former aide and sixth on the Pentagon`s list of most wanted fugitives from the former Baathist regime, was not arrested. Douri is accused of masterminding many attacks on foreign troops and their Iraqi collaborators, which have killed about 195 US servicemen since George Bush ended major combat operations in May.

The documents suggest clearer links between Saddam and the continuing violence than had been suspected. The US military believed that Saddam`s reduced circumstances and his desire to avoid capture, led to a limited role, more as symbol of the resistance than its planner. If he was among the co-ordinators, there could be repercussions for his own status. The Pentagon says he is being given the protection entitled to a prisoner of war under the Geneva conventions. But if Saddam proves to have been involved in the post-war attacks, he would be indistinguishable from those being held in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, with no legal rights.

The US is questioning Saddamin the Baghdad area - possibly at the compound at the capital`s airport where other high-value targets are detained. Interrogators are said to be showing Saddam videotapes of executions of prisoners, mass graves of victims of his regime, and demonstrations against him after US and British forces conquered the country.

The goal, according to USA Today, is to test Saddam`s honesty by measuring his answers against facts already known, and to prompt an unguarded statement that may help prosecute him in the war crimes trial that now seems certain.

Saddam`s reactions to the tapes are being minutely scrutinised - "every sweat gland, word and twitch" - an official told the newspaper.

They are also being compared with psychological profiles of him prepared by the CIA.

The trial`s forum and scope is already the subject of heated debate. After President Bush said the former dictator deserved "the ultimate penalty," death penalty opponents around the world expressed their opposition. The United Nations, the Vatican and many countries say Saddam must not be tried by a court that could sentence him to death.
18 December 2003 10:29



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Poll: Almost half of Americans see Israel as threat

By The Associated Press

12/17/03: Almost half the American people believe Israel is a threat to world peace, according to a poll presented Wednesday by a Jewish group, but many more are concerned about North Korea, Iraq and Iran.

The Anti-Defamation League said its survey showed much less concern about Israel among Americans than a recent poll in Europe, where Israel was at the top of the list of countries perceived as threatening world peace.

The ADL poll showed that 43 percent of Americans believe Israel is a threat to world peace, placing it behind seven other countries. In last month`s Eurobarometer poll, 59 percent of Europeans chose Israel, ranking it number one.

North Korea ranked first in the U.S. poll at 77 percent, with Iraq and Iran tied for second at 76 percent. About 37 percent of Americans said the United States itself was the greatest threat.

A Boston-based research firm interviewed 1,200 American adults by phone earlier this month for the ADL. The survey`s margin of error was 4 percentage points. The poll was presented during a national security conference in Herzliya attended by Israeli leaders and world figures.

"These attitudes may strengthen America`s position" in favor of Israel, said Abraham Foxman, the ADL`s director.

The poll showed about 40 percent of Americans primarily sympathize with Israel in the Mideast conflict, compared to just 15 percent that sympathize with Palestinians, numbers Foxman said have remained consistent since 1991.

About 73 percent said the United States was more likely to be attacked by terrorists because of its support of Israel, but 62 percent who gave that answer said the support should continue anyway.

The poll did not gauge opinion on controversial areas of policy, like settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip or construction of a security fence in the West Bank, both of which have come under sharp criticism from Palestinians and foreign governments.

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December 18, 2003
Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons
By JAMES RISEN and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials.

It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government arrested by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the war in Iraq.

Many of the prisoners are still being held in a network of detention centers ranging from Afghanistan to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Officials described it as a prison system with its own unique hierarchy, one in which the most important captives are kept at the greatest distance from the prying eyes of the public and the media. It is a system in which the jailers have refined the arts of interrogation in order to drain the detainees of crucial information.

Mr. Hussein`s new address is still a closely guarded secret, although he is still inside Iraq, American officials said Wednesday. No one will say precisely where, but it seems likely that he is at a highly secure detention facility established at Baghdad International Airport, where the United States is holding the other top Iraqi leaders it has captured. When asked if Mr. Hussein was at airport, American officials declined to comment.

The C.I.A. has quietly established its own detention system to handle especially important prisoners. The most important Qaeda leaders are held in small groups in undisclosed locations in friendly countries in the developing world, where they face long interrogations with no promise of ever gaining release. For example, at least two of the top Qaeda figures captured since the Sept. 11 attacks — Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh — were held for a time in a secure location in Thailand. They were later moved to another country, officials said.

C.I.A. officials refuse to say precisely how many Qaeda operatives the agency has in detention, but they say about 75 percent of the top two dozen Qaeda leaders in place at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks have been killed or captured. That suggests the agency`s detention capacity is far smaller than the large system established by the Pentagon.

In dealing with its captives, the C.I.A. has the advantage of almost complete isolation. Officials say that allows the agency`s interrogators to alter the physical surroundings of the Qaeda detainees to try to disorient them and also convince them that they are being held by Arab security services feared for their use of torture. Guards are sometimes dressed in the uniforms of the native countries of the detainees, a technique that may be particularly effective on captives who have experienced jail time back home. Officials said the C.I.A. might not be able to use the full range of interrogation techniques on Mr. Hussein that have been employed with Qaeda leaders. Unlike Qaeda operatives, Mr. Hussein seems destined to face some sort of public judicial review, either through an international war crimes tribunal or other trial, and so the agency`s handling of him may eventually come under scrutiny.

Pentagon and C.I.A. officials have denied that they use torture against detainees captured in either Iraq or the wider campaign against terror. The agency`s officials have declined to comment on the techniques they use with detainees, but a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday that interrogations conducted by the Pentagon followed "well-established techniques" that do not violate the human rights of the detainees.

Certain techniques that interrogators may wish to apply to elicit information from important detainees require "a higher level of scrutiny" by officials before they can be used, the Pentagon official said.

One military officer said the use of sleep deprivation, for example, must be approved by senior Pentagon officials.

American military officials said Wednesday that 38 of the 55 most wanted Iraqi leaders had either been killed or captured, and several hundred lower-level government officials and Baath Party operatives are also being held. While the most senior officials captured are being held at the Baghdad Airport, many of the lower-level Iraqis are now in Abu Gharib prison west of Baghdad, which was infamous as a torture den under Mr. Hussein`s rule but has since been refurbished by American forces. Smaller, regional facilities have also been set up around Iraq temporarily to handle Iraqis caught up in street-level military operations intended to stem the insurgency.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the United States military is running a large detention center at Bagram Air Base, where Taliban, Qaeda and other foreign fighters caught in the country are held and questioned. Smaller, short-term detention centers have also been run in both Kandahar and Kabul.

Many of those caught in Afghanistan were eventually flown to Guantánamo, which has become the best-known prison in the global campaign against terror. Guantánamo now holds about 660 prisoners, although that number is expected to decline as some of them are turned over to their home countries.

Still, Guantánamo`s inmates are among the least significant of any detainees captured since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several American counterterrorism experts. The C.I.A. has not sent any of the highest-ranking Qaeda leaders it has captured to the base, officials said.

A final category of detainees are those Qaeda operatives who really are being held by Arab countries, like Egypt, which then provide debriefing reports to the United States.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Die Beine werden kürzer und die Nasen werden länger. Augenblicklich beobachte ich die Entwicklung der Wichtigkeit der "Tagebücher" von Saddam Hussein.

December 18, 2003
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
Remember `Weapons of Mass Destruction`? For Bush, They Are a Nonissue
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

ASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — In the debate over the necessity for the war in Iraq, few issues have been more contentious than whether Saddam Hussein possessed arsenals of banned weapons, as the Bush administration repeatedly said, or instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat.

On Tuesday, with Mr. Hussein in American custody and polls showing support for the White House`s Iraq policy rebounding, Mr. Bush suggested that he no longer saw much distinction between the possibilities.

"So what`s the difference?" he responded at one point as he was pressed on the topic during an interview by Diane Sawyer of ABC News.

To critics of the war, there is a big difference. They say that the administration`s statements that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons that it could use on the battlefield or turn over to terrorists added an urgency to the case for immediate military action that would have been lacking if Mr. Hussein were portrayed as just developing the banned weapons.

"This was a pre-emptive war, and the rationale was that there was an imminent threat," said Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat who has said that by elevating Iraq to the most dangerous menace facing the United States, the administration unwisely diverted resources from fighting Al Qaeda and other terrorists.

The overwhelming vote in Congress last year to authorize the use of force against Iraq would have been closer "but for the fact that the president had so explicitly said that there were weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to citizens of the United States," Mr. Graham said in an interview on Wednesday.

As early as last spring, Mr. Bush suggested that the Iraqis might have dispersed their biological and chemical weapons so widely that they would be extremely difficult to find. And some weapons experts have suggested that Mr. Hussein may have destroyed banned weapons that he had in the early 1990`s but left in place the capacity to produce more.

This week, at a news conference on Monday and in the ABC interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bush`s answers to questions on the subject continued a gradual shift in the way he has addressed the topic, from the immediacy of the threat to an assertion that no matter what, the world is better off without Mr. Hussein in power.

Where once Mr. Bush and his top officials asserted unambiguously that Mr. Hussein had the weapons at the ready, their statements now are often far more couched, reflecting the fact that no weapons have been found — "yet," as Mr. Bush was quick to interject during the interview.

In the interview, Mr. Bush said removing Mr. Hussein from power was justified even without the recovery of any banned weapons. As he has since his own weapons inspector, David Kay, issued an interim report in October saying he had uncovered extensive evidence of weapons programs in Iraq but no actual weapons, Mr. Bush said the existence of such programs, by violating United Nations Security Council resolutions, provided ample grounds for the war.

"If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," Mr. Bush continued, referring to Mr. Hussein. "That`s what I`m trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man`s a danger."

Pressed to explain the president`s remarks, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said Mr. Bush was not backing away from his assertions about Mr. Hussein`s possession of banned weapons.

"We continue to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction programs and weapons of mass destruction," Mr. McClellan said on Wednesday.

Mr. Bush has always been careful to have multiple reasons ready for his major policy proposals, and his administration has deployed them deftly to adapt to changing circumstances.

In trying to build public and international support for toppling Mr. Hussein, the administration cited, with different emphasis at different times, the banned weapons, links between the Iraqi leader and terrorist organizations, a desire to liberate the Iraqi people and a policy of bringing democracy to the Middle East.

When it came to describing the weapons program, Mr. Bush never hedged before the war. "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" Mr. Bush asked during a speech in Cincinnati in October 2002.

In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad in April, the White House was equally explicit. "One of the reasons we went to war was because of their possession of weapons of mass destruction," Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, told reporters on May 7. "And nothing has changed on that front at all."

On Wednesday Mr. McClellan, when pressed, only restated the president`s belief that weapons would eventually be found. Mr. Bush, despite being asked repeatedly about the issue in different ways by Ms. Sawyer, never did say it, except to note Mr. Hussein`s past use of chemical weapons. He emphasized Mr. Hussein`s capture instead.

"And if he doesn`t have weapons of mass destruction?" Ms. Sawyer asked the president, according to a transcript provided by ABC.

"Diane, you can keep asking the question," Mr. Bush replied. "I`m telling you — I made the right decision for America because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. But the fact that he is not there is, means America`s a more secure country."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Senator Storm Thrumond ist vor kurzem 100jährig gestorben. Er war sein Leben lang bekennender Rssist und wohl auch Klan-Mitglied und hat sich auch noch nicht lange vor seinem Tod durch rassistische Äußerungen hervorgetan. Sein Tod war für viele auch die Chance mit dem hässlichen Amerika des Südens abzurechnen.
Deshalb ist das Bekanntwerden seiner Vaterschaft für eine jetzt 78jährige Tochter ein großer Aufreger.

December 18, 2003
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Senator Strom Thurmond`s Not-So-Secret Black Daughter
By BRENT STAPLES

African-Americans and white Americans are so deeply entangled by blood that racial categories have become meaningless. When discussing the issue in public, I typically offer my own family as an example. We check "black" on the census and appear black to the naked eye, but we are also descended from white ancestors on both sides. Despite appearances, I told an audience not long ago, "I am as `white` as anyone in this room."

White people — mainly blank-faced and perplexed — typically don`t get it. But black people get it fine: they chuckle, cover their faces in mock embarrassment or nod in quiet agreement. Racial ambiguity is a theme they have heard discussed in their families and communities throughout their lives.

Black families have always talked openly about white ancestors and relatives. In hotbeds of race-mixing like New Orleans or Charleston, S.C., black and white branches of a family sometimes lived so close at hand that they ran into one another on the street, and black children were warned that their pale relatives could react violently if approached. Black parents who passed on news of white ancestry to their offspring were not trying to arrange family reunions. They were debunking racism by showing their children that black families and white families were more closely connected by ancestry than racists liked to admit.

White families, by contrast, were terrified by blackness in the family tree. Relationships that could not simply be ignored were deliberately buried. The cover-up hatched 200 years ago by Thomas Jefferson`s family was blown away a few years back after genetic evidence showed that Jefferson almost certainly fathered Sally Hemings`s final son, Eston, born in 1808. This led historians to conclude that Jefferson fathered all of her children in a relationship that lasted more than 35 years.

The big lesson for historians in the Hemings-Jefferson case was that the oral histories passed down by slaves and their descendants were more reliable than the official written record. This put historians on notice that they should give the oral tradition more credence, especially when working on issues of interracial intimacy.

The point was underscored dramatically last week when the family of Strom Thurmond, the former United States senator, dropped decades of denials and acknowledged that Mr. Thurmond, who died last summer at the age of 100, had fathered a daughter with a black maid in the family household in 1925. The daughter, a retired teacher named Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 78, had periodically denied Mr. Thurmond`s paternity for the public record but had passed on the truth to her children, who pressured her to come forward after Mr. Thurmond`s death last June.

Like most stories of its kind, this one would have died out long ago had it not been carried for nearly a century on the tongues of black South Carolinians, who recognized the story of Strom Thurmond and Essie Mae Washington-Williams`s mother as a universal story of black families across the state.

It was not, however, the official story. The biographer Nadine Cohodas dismissed it as a "legend in the black community" a decade ago in her book "Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change." Another writer of the South described it as apparently without foundation — a phrase that is used all the time to dismiss the black oral tradition as apocryphal.

In the 1998 biography, "Ol` Strom," however, a journalism professor, Jack Bass, and a Washington Post reporter, Marilyn Thompson, went back to the oral stories of black South Carolinians, some of whom knew the household, as well as the accounts of a black elevator operator who recalled seeing a light-skinned black woman riding the elevator to visit Mr. Thurmond when he was governor.

How could Mr. Thurmond, who sought the presidency on a segregationist platform in 1948, have lived publicly as a racist while secretly helping to support a black daughter? This was a common practice in the South, where slaveholders and their descendants produced mulatto children. While some white fathers treated their mixed-race children like dirt, others supported and educated them. They refused to acknowledge them to keep the nonexistent barrier between the races firmly intact.

Like the Jefferson story, this one seems more sensational because of who Strom Thurmond was. In truth, it is the story of the entire American South — and the great secret of race that until just recently dared not speak its name.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Friedman ist und bleibt ein Neocon Sprücheklopfer.

December 18, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Moment of Truth
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

ISTANBUL — Of all the fascinating reactions to Saddam Hussein`s capture, the one that intrigues me most is the French decision to suddenly offer some debt forgiveness for Iraq. Why now? I believe it`s an 11th-hour attempt by the French government to scramble onto the right side of history.

I believe the French president, Jacques Chirac, knows something in his heart: in the run-up to the Iraq war, George Bush and Tony Blair stretched the truth about Saddam`s weapons of mass destruction — but they were not alone. Mr. Chirac also stretched the truth about his willingness to join a U.N.-led coalition against Iraq if Saddam was given more time and still didn`t comply with U.N. weapons inspections. I don`t believe Mr. Chirac ever intended to go to war against Saddam, under any circumstances. So history will record that all three of these leaders were probably stretching the truth — but with one big difference: George Bush and Tony Blair were stretching the truth in order to risk their own political careers to get rid of a really terrible dictator. And Jacques Chirac was stretching the truth to advance his own political career by protecting a really terrible dictator.

Something tells me that the picture of Saddam looking like some crazed werewolf may have shocked even Mr. Chirac and his foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin: yes, boys, this is the creep you were protecting. History will also record that while the U.S. and Britain chose to be Saddam`s prosecutors, France chose to be his defense lawyer. So, no, it doesn`t surprise me that the French are now offering conscience money in the form of Iraqi debt relief. Something tells me Mssrs. Chirac and de Villepin were just assuming Iraq would end in failure, but with Saddam`s capture they`ve decided they`d better put a few chips on success.

But we and the Iraqis are also going to have to step up more ourselves — otherwise the French could still have the last laugh. No question, the capture of Saddam merits celebration in and of itself, not only because this terrible man will be brought to justice, but also because it really does improve the chances for a decent outcome in Iraq. But while Saddam`s removal is necessary for that decent outcome, it is not sufficient.

We have entered a moment of truth in Iraq. With Saddam now gone, there are no more excuses for the political drift there. We are now going to get the answer to the big question I had before the war: Is Iraq the way it is because Saddam was the way he was? Or was Saddam the way he was because Iraq is the way it is — ungovernable except by an iron fist?

We have to give Iraqis every chance to prove it is the first, not the second. For starters, I hope we don`t hear any more chants from Iraqis of "Death to Saddam." He`s now as good as dead. It`s time for Iraqis to stop telling us whom they want to die. Now we have to hear how they want to live and whom they want to live with. The Godfather is dead. But what will be his legacy? Is there a good Iraqi national family that can and wants to live together, or will there just be more little godfathers competing with one another? From my own visits, I think the good family scenario for Iraq is very possible, if we can provide security — but only Iraqis can tell us for sure by how they behave.

The way to determine whether Iraqis are willing to form the good family is how they use and understand their newfound freedom. The reason Iraqi politics has not jelled up to now is not only because of Saddam`s lingering shadow. It is because each of the major blocs — the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites — has been pushing maximalist demands for what it thinks is its rightful place in shaping and running a new Iraq. The Iraqi ship of state has broken up on these rocks many times before.

By risking their own political careers, George Bush and Tony Blair have, indeed, given Iraqis the gift of freedom. But it is not the freedom to simply shout about what they oppose. That is anarchy. Freedom is about limits, compromise and accepting responsibility. Freedom is the opportunity to assert your interests and the obligation to hear and compromise with the interests of others.

How well Iraqis absorb that kind of freedom will determine whether the capture of Saddam is the high point of this drama — and it`s all downhill from here — or just a necessary first chapter in the most revolutionary democracy-building project ever undertaken in the Arab world.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Iraqis Shocked, Shamed by Hussein`s Sullied Image
Theories Abound Over Why `Saddam the Lion` Failed to Resist Capture by U.S. Soldiers

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A40


BAGHDAD, Dec. 17 -- Karim Abu Yasser was schooled in front of heroic portraits of Saddam Hussein that hung in every classroom. First as a boy, then as a soldier for more than a decade in Hussein`s army, he was nurtured on tales of Saddam the Lion, and he accepted the official image of the Iraqi president as a stalwart commander with nerves of steel.

So when he learned that Hussein had emerged meekly from his burrow last weekend and surrendered to U.S. forces without firing a shot, Abu Yasser said he was aghast.

"We feel he either should have fought, or if he was surrounded and there was no other way, committed suicide. That`s what we were expecting," he said. "When he didn`t, it wasn`t a surprise for us. It was a shock."

Since Sunday, Baghdad has been buzzing with talk of the ousted president`s surrender. Some Sunni Muslim supporters are suggesting that he did not fight because he was drugged by the CIA. Some detractors are wondering whether they could have ousted Hussein on their own. A feeling that Hussein had shamed all Iraqis by failing to stand his ground was expressed by both supporters and opponents in a series of conversations here.

Abu Yasser, a 40-year-old owner of a watch shop, said he was no fan of the fallen president. A member of Iraq`s long-repressed Shiite Muslim majority, he said the end of Hussein`s rule was welcome. But not this way. "He was the head of state, the symbol of the country. It was his duty to fight," Abu Yasser said. "Frankly, he let us down."

Hassan Aboud, 35, a bookseller in downtown Baghdad, said, "We`re asking ourselves, is this the man who ruled us for 35 years? This man was ruling us with an iron fist and he ends up in such a submissive way in a ditch."

He bitterly cited Hussein`s most recently audio tape, released to the media a month ago, urging his fighters to resist the U.S. occupation. "But he didn`t fight," Aboud said. "He is lies, lies to the end."

Aboud sells books from a wooden pallet along a crowded, colonnaded street named for Mutanabi, perhaps the Arab world`s greatest classical poet and, to many Iraqis, an exemplar of honor. Mutanabi embodies the valor that many now discover lacking in their former president.

The 10th-century poet was famed for his flowery panegyrics, praising the rulers of his time for their bravery and battlefield exploits, but he was also a blistering satirist. According to a tale familiar to many Iraqis, Mutanabi was waylaid during a journey south of Baghdad and was confronted by a tribal chieftain whose relatives he had ridiculed. Mutanabi turned to run. But his servant challenged him, asking Mutanabi how he could write of courage and then flee. Mutanabi returned to face the chieftain and was killed, along with his son.

Iraqis note with irony that Hussein chose to live even after his own two sons, Uday and Qusay, died battling U.S. soldiers. They were killed in July along with a bodyguard and Qusay`s 14-year-old son during a long, intense firefight that erupted when U.S. troops raided the house where they were hiding in the northern city of Mosul.

"We respect them," said Abu Yasser. "Even the little guy died fighting."

Amir Nayef Toma, standing in the shade of the portico along Mutanabi Street, said Hussein should have killed himself rather than be captured. "Iraqis were astonished and saddened," said Toma, 52, a former military radar mechanic who ran afoul of Hussein`s intelligence agents about 10 years ago when he tried to leave the service. "We didn`t know that Saddam had no pride in himself as a man." Nowhere in Baghdad does sympathy for Hussein run as deep as in the overwhelmingly Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya in the northern part of the city. Graffiti on the walls proclaim "Long live Saddam" and facades of buildings are heavily pocked from gunfire, attesting to the resistance U.S. forces faced in this quarter. Residents remain skeptical of U.S. claims that Hussein succumbed without a struggle.

Khalid Haidar, 31, owns a modest grocery along the main commercial street where Hussein loyalists have staged protests over the past three days to demand his release. Haidar recalled that Hussein attacked Israel with Scud missiles during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and said he is sure Hussein would have confronted his U.S. pursuers if only given a chance.

"The CIA is all powerful," said Haidar, dressed in a leather jacket, arms crossed, next to a large carton of Nestle`s chocolate bars. "We think they must have used some kind of nerve gas or drug on him. There`s no way he would go in this manner."

Speculation that U.S. forces drugged Hussein has been gaining currency in recent days as an explanation for his passive behavior and bewildered appearance in television footage. Hussein`s daughter, Raghad, endorsed this view during an interview Tuesday with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television station.

Taha Abdullah, 30, a religious student at the Adhamiya`s Islamic University with a white turban resting above thick, black eyebrows, suggested that the man captured Saturday might have been Hussein`s double. Or perhaps the explanation for Hussein`s apparent surrender was that he was secretly apprehended weeks ago, and the raid Saturday was staged to "discredit the Arab`s sense of honor and manhood," he said.

This speculation did not convince Abdul Wahab Hassan, 18, a lanky high school student still trying to grow a beard. He recalled seeing Hussein come to Adhamiya in broad daylight on the day before Baghdad fell in April, with the war closing in, to rally his supporters on a street corner. "We were very impressed with his courage that day," he said.

This time, he said, Hussein seemed to choke.

"With all the people he executed, with all the wars he fought, this is a humiliating way to see him. The least he could have done is blow himself up," Hassan said. Sadly, he added, "He is our president and should have put up a fight."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Bush`s Waffeninspector Kay wirft das Handtuch!

washingtonpost.com
Kay Plans to Leave Search for Iraqi Arms
Members of Survey Group He Heads Being Diverted to Fight Against Insurgents

By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A42


David Kay, the head of the U.S. effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has told administration officials he plans to leave before the Iraq Survey Group`s work is completed and could depart before February, U.S. military and intelligence officials said.

The move comes as more of Kay`s staff has been diverted from the weapons hunt to help search for Iraqi insurgents, and at a time when expectations remain low that any weaponry will be discovered.

Kay requested the change for personal and family reasons, officials said. When he accepted the job in June, they said, he expected to quickly find the expansive evidence that the administration had claimed as its primary reason for going to war. Rather, Kay`s preliminary report in October said the group had so far discovered only that Iraq was working to acquire chemical and biological weapons, had missile programs under various stages of development and possessed only a rudimentary nuclear program.

Two officials confirmed that Kay is planning on leaving early, and said the question remaining is how soon. Kay, who is on holiday leave in the Washington area, could not be reached for comment.

"Kay is thinking of leaving before a final report and perhaps before the next interim report," which is due in February, a senior administration official said yesterday. The survey group is slated to submit its final report next fall. The official said there will be a meeting next week at CIA headquarters where "the next steps will be discussed."

U.S. government officials said Kay`s departure will have little practical impact on the day-to-day work of 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group. More worrisome for the administration is that his departure may foster an impression -- incorrect in their view -- that the search is effectively over. His departure leaves the administration looking for a replacement at a time when it is dogged by questions about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

In an interview Tuesday night with President Bush, ABC correspondent Diane Sawyer asked why the administration stated as a "hard fact" that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had such weapons when it appears now he only had the intent to acquire them.

"So what`s the difference?" Bush responded. "The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger."

In recent weeks the U.S. search for weapons has been hampered by the insurgency in Iraq. The threat of attack has impeded the ISG`s ability to move around easily. "You can`t go where you want to go when you want to go," one senior administration official said.

The insurgency has forced the Pentagon to divert personnel from Kay`s team to help commanders identify and question insurgents.

"They took away a lot of his folks, some critical people, the linguists and analysts," Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in an interview yesterday from Israel.

In mid-October, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed to a request by Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, to make more ISG resources available to the hunt for insurgents, according to a defense official who has seen the order Rumsfeld signed.

The insurgency "now has the same priority as WMD," said another U.S. government official, who added that members of the ISG had interrogated the men who helped identify Hussein`s location, for example.

Three intelligence officials said Kay may not return to Iraq from holiday leave, but said he firmly believes the search for weapons should continue.

"Our hope and belief and desire is that he will be going back," said CIA deputy director John McLaughlin said in a recent interview. "If he isn`t, it will have to be his call, and we will work with him to choose" a successor.

Charles A. Duelfer, former deputy director of the U.N. weapons inspectors in the early 1990s, said Kay "signed up for six months and I don`t think he was keen on staying the [length of] time he was there."

Kay publicized his expectations on Iraq in January, in a Washington Post article, before he was appointed: "When it comes to the U.N. weapons inspection in Iraq, looking for a smoking gun is a fool`s mission. That was true 11 years ago when I led the inspections there. It is no less true today. . . . That`s because the answer is already clear: Iraq is in breach of U.N. demands that it dismantle its weapons of mass destruction."

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and who worked on Iraq inspections in the 1990s, said Kay went to Iraq "with preconceived notions that were so strong" that the weapons programs existed but were hidden. Albright, who recently was in Iraq talking with scientists, said it was important, however, that the ISG work be completed to make sure Iraqi weapons data or expertise is not overlooked "so that a terrorist group could in fact get help."

Harman said that Kay`s departure would be "a big loss" because he has been "apolitical and thorough." But, she added, "I don`t think it will set back the effort a lot; I`m not personally convinced there`s anything there."

The ISG`s staff continues to take soil samples, collect suspect equipment, interview Iraqi scientists and analyze hundreds of thousands of documents in a warehouse in Qatar. On Tuesday, for example, they interviewed a dozen Iraqi scientists in detention -- yet again. The interviews have not yielded information that has allowed U.S. authorities to pinpoint the location of weapons caches and related equipment.

The fact that no weapons have been found has become a sore point at the CIA, which is under scrutiny for its assessment by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

In a Nov. 20 memo to employees, CIA Director George J. Tenet defended the agency`s analysis. "I continue to believe, as I have said all along, that the work of the intelligence community in assembling the Iraq WMD" National Intelligence Estimate "was solid and professionally done and that this will be borne out."

Responding to a USA Today article asserting that Tenet had ordered investigators to probe whether the agency missed telltale signs on WMD issues, Tenet said he had asked a former top CIA official, Richard J. Kerr, to review intelligence on Iraq and judge it next to what Kay ultimately finds.

The ordering of Kerr`s review demonstrates open-mindedness and "confidence rather than implies any excessive concern about performance as the news story suggests," the Nov. 20 memo says.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Let Saddam Live


By Richard Cohen

Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A35


This column may be the most futile of my long career. I am about to plead for Saddam Hussein`s life. I do so not because I have the slightest doubt that he is a killer, responsible for taking the lives of many thousands, but because sparing his life would send a message to the world that judicial death -- so often abused -- is no longer acceptable.

Such a day will come, no doubt about it. The death penalty is already illegal in most of Europe, and renunciation of it is required for admission to the European Union. Many other countries keep the death penalty on their books but have not had an execution in so long that the prospect of one is remote.

This, of course, is not the case in the United States. Here, the death penalty not only remains on the books but executions are common. Along with such pariah nations as Sudan, the United States still executes children (under 18) and the mentally feeble -- and, inevitably, the innocent.

President Bush has already endorsed the death penalty for Hussein. "I think he ought to get the ultimate penalty," he told ABC`s Diane Sawyer. But Bush, a primitive in such matters, was somehow not the first to call for Hussein`s death. That honor may belong to Joe Lieberman, who, in the manner of John Ashcroft with the Washington snipers, said the United States ought to shop for a jurisdiction that permits the death penalty. For some reason -- probably an oversight -- he did not suggest Virginia or Texas.

Instead Lieberman merely ruled out the International Criminal Court in The Hague, because it is not empowered to impose the death penalty. The court is now trying the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic -- and has already convicted others from the wars in the former Yugoslavia -- but it sorely lacks a gallows, and for that matter a torture chamber.

"So my first question about where he`s going to be tried will be answered by whether the tribunal can execute him," Lieberman said in response to a question from Tim Russert on "Meet The Press." Calling Hussein evil, the Connecticut senator said, "This man . . . has to face the death penalty."

Probably most of the Democratic presidential candidates agree. In the United States the right of the government to take life is almost universally accepted -- if not applauded. In Europe there is no such consensus. That`s because in the past century, much of the continent suffered under fascist or communist governments that routinely murdered their own citizens, often "legally." It`s true, of course, that these governments also jailed and tortured people without killing them, but only death is irrevocable. Life in prison is a lifetime of punishment.

In many ways Iraq was the equivalent of a European totalitarian country. Call it Baathist if you will, but Iraq under Saddam Hussein was essentially fascist, with the death penalty meted out willy-nilly, sometimes for serious crimes, sometimes for trivial infractions such as possession of a cell phone. The Iraqis no doubt expect to treat Hussein as he treated them. It would be marvelous if they were disappointed. We can do better than an eye for an eye. We can establish the principle of limited government that should be so dear to American conservatives such as Bush: Among the things government should not do is take a life.

Except for the principle, I don`t care about Saddam Hussein`s life. I care about him the same way I care about your more prosaic murderer -- not at all. But the principle is important. The death penalty vindicates the killer`s mentality: Life can be taken. When a California killer named Hung Thanh Mai, who had murdered a cop at a routine traffic stop, faced the jury during the penalty phase of his trial, he said he was prepared to die.

"Personally, I believe in an eye for an eye," he said. "I believe in two eyes for an eye. If you take down one of my fellows, I`d do everything to take down two of yours."

President Bush, Joe Lieberman and much of America will probably have it their way. Saddam Hussein will be tried -- probably in Iraq -- found guilty and executed. In his reptilian brain, he will understand. He would have done the same thing himself.

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The Sunnis` Choice


By Jim Hoagland

Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A35


Don`t go wobbly on the Sunnis now, George.

Margaret Thatcher`s famous words of advice to George W. Bush`s father about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 bear updating in the wake of Saddam Hussein`s capture. The dictator`s surrender does help open the way to national reconciliation. But it could also lead to misjudgments about how best to accomplish that noble goal while winning a guerrilla war.

Politics involves the manipulation of symbols in all complex societies, and Iraq is more complex than most. Hussein behind bars, seemingly waiting to be sent to the gallows by Iraqis he once tortured, is both a sign of and a catalyst for change in Arab and Iraqi politics.

The Bush administration has a golden opportunity -- actually, a clear need -- to accelerate the granting of significant new authority and power to an interim Iraqi government in advance of the formal transfer of sovereignty next June. Failure to empower Iraqis now to deal with the dictator`s fate will make the occupation even more unpopular and difficult to manage.

Saddam`s trial, which should be carried out in multiple phases and perhaps several different venues, must also at some point be a trial of the Baathist system and ideology that sustained and sought to justify his atrocities -- atrocities that went undenounced by many who now profess shock that Iraqis might want to exercise sovereignty by having a death penalty.

The dictator`s arrest was a direct result of a change in tactics by the U.S. military, and an indirect result of a change of heart by administration decision-makers about the strategy for terminating an occupation that seemed to be bogging down only a few months ago.

The change in tactics was visible. Saddam was tracked down as part of an escalating military roundup of his kin and other Baathist fugitives who had previously moved with impunity in the Sunni heartland around Baghdad. The get-tougher tactics replaced CIA-inspired efforts to buy off or otherwise co-opt Sunni influentials and tribes, who took the money but never delivered.

The Sunni Arabs make up less than 20 percent of Iraq`s 25 million people, but they have for a millennium monopolized privilege and power in the territory of Mesopotamia, lording it over a Shiite Arab majority based in the south and a Kurdish Sunni minority in the north.

Less apparent was the dawning realization in Washington that the Sunni strategy favored by the intelligence and diplomatic bureaucracies was bringing no results but was increasingly alienating the Shiite majority, which had acquiesced to or supported the coalition occupation.

"In the summer it became clear that if we lost the Shiites we would lose the country," says one U.S. official. "The priority became understanding and trying to respond to their political needs rather than winning hearts and minds in the Sunni Triangle. That`s important. But this was important and urgent."

The change in attitude cleared the way for Washington to set a firm deadline for transferring sovereignty back to Iraqis and to overhaul the coalition transition plan. An interim executive would exist alongside an interim parliament that would inevitably reflect a Shiite majority. This new thinking also brought authorization for the tougher tactics in the Sunni heartland that led to Hussein`s capture.

The Sunnis now have a fundamental choice. They can come to terms with a democratic Iraq in which other groups will also wield power. Or they can continue to tolerate or even shield the Baathist remnants and foreign terrorists responsible for appalling carnage in their country. The pressure on the Sunni community to make the right choice should not be relaxed.

A new argument is brewing within the administration over rescinding or modifying the coalition`s "de-Baathification" decree, which bars many former party members from the government jobs and other privileges they held under Saddam Hussein. The Sunnis almost exclusively would benefit from a rollback, which they would no doubt credit to the pressure being exerted on Bush by Sunni Arab rulers and their friends in office in Washington. Thus are delusions fostered. Liberalizing the decree to make exemptions easier is to be expected at some point. But it must be preceded by new signs of Sunni acceptance of a democratic Iraq and, more importantly, a rejection of the terrorists in their midst.

More than 80 percent of the country`s population has not joined an insurgency that is at this stage little more than a reactionary attempt to regain power and privilege. Ending the occupation sooner and letting Iraqis determine Hussein`s fate will help inspire the shared sense of destiny that all Iraqis need to overcome a tragic and humiliating past.

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Präsidentschaftskandidat Dean wird mehr von den Konkurrenten, besonders Lieberman, angegriffen, wohl mehr als von Bush, der ganz zufrieden sein soll mit Dean als Gegner.
Dean ist für europäische Verhältnisse immer noch eher wirtschaftsliberal, würde aber in der Außenpolitik am meisten europäischen Wünschen entsprechen.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-dean18dec18,1,725…
THE NATION


Dean`s Conflicting Iraq Comments Draw Scrutiny
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer

December 18, 2003

As his rivals have stepped up their criticism of his stance on Iraq, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean`s public statements about the war are under increasing scrutiny, revealing a candidate whose off-the-cuff style has sometimes led him to take contradictory positions.

A close examination of Dean`s comments during the last 15 months shows that he has consistently voiced opposition to the United States invading Iraq without the support of the United Nations and repeatedly argued that President Bush did not make the case for going to war.

But Dean, who acknowledges that his outspoken manner often gets him in trouble, has made conflicting statements about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein and the conditions under which he would support going to war.

In a Dec. 10 news conference in Concord, N.H., Dean insisted that he "never said Saddam was a danger to the United States, ever."

But in an appearance on CBS` "Face the Nation" on Sept. 29, 2002, Dean said, "There`s no question Saddam is a threat to the U.S. and our allies."

On the campaign trail, he frequently argues that he is the only major Democratic candidate who opposed the war.

But Dean voiced support for legislation in the fall of 2002 that, had it passed, would have ultimately given Bush authorization to invade Iraq unilaterally.

Increasingly, some of Dean`s opponents are spotlighting those differing stances as they try to slow the momentum of the Democratic front-runner. This week, both Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry and Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt charged that Dean`s inconsistency reflected his inexperience with foreign policy.

"Gov. Dean can do all the repositioning he wants, but the fundamental truth is that he made many contradictory statements about the war on Iraq and the aftermath," Gephardt said Tuesday.

In an interview with The Times this week, Dean acknowledged that he shouldn`t have spoken in "absolutes" about whether he ever said Hussein was a threat.

"I was thinking about an imminent threat," he said.

More broadly, Dean dismissed his rivals` criticism of his statements on Iraq as "grasping at straws and silliness."

"You`ve just got to stand up for what you believe in, and I did," he said as he rode in a minivan to a fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Monday evening. "I was very clear that I did not support this."

Dean emerged as a vociferous critic of the administration`s march toward war in the fall of 2002, when Bush was taking his case against Iraq to the U.N.

Bush "has said Saddam is an evil man," then-Gov. Dean said during a news conference in Montpelier, Vt., on Sept. 19, 2002. "Well, there are a lot of evil people. Before our sons and daughters come home in pine boxes, I think it`s incumbent upon us to have a better reason than `he`s an evil man.` "

His strong denunciation of the president`s push toward war with Iraq, which the administration ultimately launched in March, fueled much of Dean`s rise earlier this year and separated him from the crowded pack of Democratic candidates vying for the presidency.

"Howard Dean took a bold and courageous step that wasn`t popular for anybody in politics to do so," Hank Johnson, a county commissioner in Atlanta, said on Saturday as he and other local leaders announced their support for Dean. "When he came out against that unjust war, I was sold right there on the spot."

Despite his antiwar image, Dean never was against an American invasion of Iraq in all circumstances.

"I`m not against attacking Saddam Hussein, but we can`t do it without a good reason, and so far the president has not made the case," he told reporters in Montpelier on Sept. 19, 2002.

During a trip to Iowa a few weeks later, Dean said that he wanted Bush to put more effort into diplomacy with other nations.

"It`s conceivable we would have to act unilaterally, but that should not be our first option," Dean told reporters before the state Democratic Party`s Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Des Moines.

It was there that Dean said he supported a proposal co-sponsored by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.). An alternative resolution, it narrowed the rationale for war to the need to dismantle Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction instead of justifying an attack on the basis of Hussein`s human rights violations or other arguments for regime change.

The measure would have required the Bush administration to make another effort to get the U.N. Security Council to support using force to destroy Iraq`s weapons program, although it still reserved the right for the United States to act unilaterally. The proposal also asked the president to provide congressional leaders with a written determination that the threat posed by Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction was so grave that the United States had to attack.

But as the White House secured support for a broader war resolution, support for the Biden-Lugar alternative stalled, and the measure was never formally introduced.

Kerry, who ultimately voted for the resolution authorizing Bush to use force, also said at the time that he preferred the Biden-Lugar proposal.

"I believe this approach would have provided greater clarity to the American people about the reason for going to war and the specific grant of authority," he said on the floor of Congress on Oct. 9, 2002, a day before he and other legislators granted Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

Aides to both Biden and Lugar said that despite its emphasis on multilateralism, the proposal would have ultimately allowed the United States to invade Iraq on its own, because Bush did make an attempt to get a Security Council resolution.

"Without a question, Biden-Lugar would have granted the president the authorization to use force, with some conditions," said Norm Kurz, Biden`s communications director.

Andy Fisher, communications director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said one of the reasons the amendment failed was that more liberal Democrats would not go along with it.

"Biden wasn`t sure he could deliver many Democrats for this resolution because it was an act of war," said Fisher, a Lugar aide. "This would have been all the president needed."

Dean viewed the amendment as a tactical maneuver that would have slowed the rush to war and forced the U.S. to seek international support.

Last week, he argued that the war would never have happened if the legislation had been adopted because Bush would have had to attest to the fact that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which have not been found.

"He would have had to certify why Saddam was a danger and he would have had to certify all those claims that he made that turned out not to be true," he said in Concord last week.

But at the time, Bush was strongly arguing that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the U.S.

"Saddam Hussein`s regime is a grave and gathering danger," the president told the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, 2002. "The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one."

There is no evidence that Bush would not have given congressional leaders the same rationale for going to war that he was making publicly at the time.

Dean advisor Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institute, said that at the heart of Dean`s support for Biden-Lugar was an effort to put more constraints on the administration.

"When Biden-Lugar went down, unlike other candidates for president, Howard Dean said, `I don`t think we should vote for what`s on the table,` " Daalder said.

"There is no inconsistency. No one has ever accused Howard Dean of being in favor of the war."

Thomas Mann, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institute, agreed that Biden-Lugar could have dampened the momentum for war and ultimately allowed time for a diplomatic solution.

"If they had hung to that proposal, war might well have been averted," Mann said. "On the other hand, there was no guarantee of it."

Although Dean`s challengers have pounced on the inconsistency between his opposition to the war and his support for the Biden-Lugar proposal, some experts said it was unlikely that argument would shake the image many voters have of Dean.

"He`s been such an eloquent speaker on the antiwar position that whatever he`s said, that is what he is stamped with," said John Hulsman, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

That sentiment was echoed by Nancy Hull, an attorney from Overland Park, Kan., who drove to Winterset, Iowa, last week to hear Dean speak.

Dean, she said, was the only one among the major Democratic candidates who stood his ground against a war she believes is misguided.

"He spotted it before any of the others," Hull said, "and that`s what matters."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times researcher Vicki Gallay contributed to this report.

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(Begin Text of Infobox)

Dean`s comments on the war in Iraq

On whether Saddam Hussein was a danger to the U.S.:

• "There`s no question Saddam is a threat to the U.S. and our allies. The question is, is he an immediate threat? The president has not yet made the case for that." — "Face the Nation," Sept. 29, 2002

• "Is the security of the United States affected by what`s going on in Iraq today? … I don`t believe it is." — "Meet the Press," March 9, 2003



• "Now we`re stuck there, because there was no serious threat to the United States from Saddam Hussein, but there is a threat from an Iraq with Al Qaeda in it or with a fundamentalist Shiite regime." — debate, Durham, N.H., Dec. 9, 2003

• "I never said Saddam was a danger to the United States, ever. Saddam was a regional danger." — news conference, Concord, N.H., Dec. 10, 2003

• "The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer." — foreign policy speech, Los Angeles, Dec. 14, 2003



On whether the U.S. should ever invade:

• "I`m not against attacking Saddam Hussein, but we can`t do it without a good reason, and so far the president has not made the case." — news conference, Sept. 19, 2002

• "We may very well have to go into Iraq. What is the rush? Why can`t we take the time to get our allies on board? Why do we have to do everything in a unilateral way? It`s not good for the future of the foreign policy of this country to be the bully on the block and tell people we`re going to do what we want to do." — "Face the Nation," Sept. 29, 2002



• "It`s conceivable we would have to act unilaterally, but that should not be our first option," — Des Moines Register, Oct. 6, 2002



• "I think Saddam must be disarmed. The problem I have is that I have a deep reluctance to attack a country unilaterally without a pretty high standard of proof." — Associated Press, Feb. 5, 2003



• "I believed that the proper way to remove him, should he need to be removed, was through the United Nations. And I never wavered from that." --news conference, Concord, N.H., Dec. 10, 2003

*

Compiled by Times researcher Vicki Gallay

*

Los Angeles Times


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Die EDV ist an Allem Schuld, wie immer bei jeder Firma!

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-hall…
THE WORLD



Halliburton Overcharge Not Intentional, Pentagon Says
The firm`s `antiquated` accounting system caused the billing error, comptroller says.
By John Hendren
Times Staff Writer

December 18, 2003

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon`s comptroller said Wednesday that he saw "no basis whatsoever" to believe Vice President Dick Cheney`s former company deliberately overcharged the Pentagon for oil deliveries to Iraq.

The potential overcharge appeared to stem from an outdated accounting and cost-estimating system within Halliburton Co., said the comptroller, Dov Zakheim. The company`s KBR unit, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc., failed to fully analyze the price it was charged by a Kuwaiti supplier, he said.

A recent Defense Department audit found that KBR sought as much as $61 million in excess charges for oil deliveries to Iraq.

An aide said Zakheim told defense writers at a breakfast that "the issue is not one of concealment."

"The issue isn`t just the $61 million. The issue is that they`ve got a rather antiquated accounting system."

The Pentagon has said that any overbilling would come out of Halliburton`s pockets. The Houston-based oil and gas company would then have to wrest the money back from a Kuwaiti subcontractor suspected of overcharging it for the oil.

"If they cannot recover, if auditors determine that there was X dollars in overpricing, then it`s the company that will be out, not the taxpayer," Zakheim said.

He is the latest Bush administration official to suggest that the apparent overcharging was initiated not by Halliburton but by a Kuwaiti subcontractor. More recently, attention has focused on whether Halliburton was pressured to do business with the firm, identified as Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co.

The Wall Street Journal, citing Army Corps of Engineer documents, has reported that KBR tried to negotiate lower prices with Altanmia and sought a different contractor. But a Corps of Engineers official said there was possible "political pressure" on Halliburton by the Kuwaiti government and the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait to deal exclusively with Altanmia.

After serving as secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney became Halliburton president and chief executive in 1995 and held the positions until he ran for vice president in 2000.

Cheney holds 433,333 unexercised stock options and received $162,000 in deferred salary in 2002. Halliburton said the vice president bought an insurance policy that guaranteed his deferred compensation regardless of how the company performed. And he "irrevocably" assigned any future profit from the sale of his stock options to charities, the company said.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-poll…
THE NATION



Bush Team Announces Last Phase of Pollution Control Plan
By Elizabeth Shogren
Times Staff Writer

December 18, 2003

WASHINGTON — Announcing the second of its two steps to overhaul the way the Clean Air Act forces power plants to cut pollutants, the Bush administration on Wednesday proposed a market-based, cap-and-trade system to reduce emissions from electric utilities in the East and the Midwest.

"The pollution cuts we propose today will help states and cities across the nation achieve national, health-based air-quality standards," Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael O. Leavitt said after signing the proposed rule in St. Louis.

The proposed "Interstate Air Quality" rule, which is scheduled to take effect in 2005, is intended to curb power-plant emissions that significantly pollute the air in states downwind, causing respiratory illnesses and smog.

The rule would reduce sulfur dioxide by 72% and nitrogen oxide by 64% from current levels in 29 states and the District of Columbia by about 2018, the EPA said.

Wednesday`s action follows an announcement in August that the Bush administration was easing a provision of the Clean Air Act that forced power plants to install modern pollution controls whenever they made any significant modifications that would result in increased pollution.

The two actions, neither of which required congressional approval, represent an effort by the Bush administration to accomplish through regulation what it has been unable to gain legislatively. The administration`s clean-air legislation, known as "Clear Skies," has stalled in Congress because many Democrats and some Republicans say it is too weak.

The utility industry generally endorsed the administration`s approach, but it was cautious about some of the details and stressed that a legislative solution would be preferable.

"The best course of action will guarantee significant and quick emissions cuts, while minimizing the footprint left on consumers` electricity bills," said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based utility association that lobbies on behalf of the industry. "In that regard, `Clear Skies` remains preferable to the new rules."

Environmentalists said the policy changes would result in a slower cleanup of the air than current law requires.

"The transport rule does not provide deep and timely enough pollution cuts to enable states to achieve clean air by the time the Clean Air Act requires," said John Walke, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group.

Most states will be required to improve their air quality over the next decade to meet new health-based standards for ozone and fine particulates.

Under the proposal, states could choose to reduce emissions by requiring power plants to participate in an interstate cap-and-trade program or by adopting their own pollution-reduction plan. The states would be required to meet the first emissions reduction target in 2010 and the second in 2015.

The EPA estimated that the rule would cost utilities more than $5 billion in pollution controls but would result in more than $80 billion in health and environmental benefits.

If they opted for the trading program, EPA would give each state emission allowances for each pollutant. The states would distribute those allowances to power plants, and plants that reduced pollution faster could trade their allowances for cash with plants that lagged.

The utility industry likes the cap-and-trade approach, but it prefers that it be adopted as part of a legislative initiative that would provide them with relief from existing Clean Air Act regulations.

While urging the EPA to make even deeper cuts in pollution, some environmental activists acknowledged that the proposal was a move in the right direction.

"EPA`s proposal to cut interstate power-plant air pollution must be strengthened to fully protect public health," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, a national environmental group. "However, EPA is taking an important step forward in the nation`s fight against air pollution by moving to require substantial reduction" of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides.

Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant EPA administrator for air programs, said the agency projected that the proposed rules would enable 90% of the affected counties to meet the air-quality standards by the 2015 deadline. Most of the other counties would be able to meet their deadline by additionally controlling local pollution sources, he added.

California, which does not receive much pollution from other states, is not expected to take more time to meet the new air-quality standards.

"This is the biggest thing we could ever do," Holmstead said in an interview. "This is far and away the biggest reduction of air pollution that EPA has ever done through regulation."

Earlier this week, the administration announced a cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, another piece of the "Clear Skies" proposal.

Efforts to control power-plant pollution are important for public health; as of 2001, the EPA said, power plants were responsible for 69% of the sulfur dioxide and 22% of the nitrogen oxide emissions nationwide.

Emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide can be transported by wind, causing environmental and health problems hundreds of miles from the sources. They contribute to fine particles, which pose serious health risks, including exacerbating asthma and causing tens of thousands of early deaths annually among people with heart and lung ailments, the EPA said.

Power-plant pollution also contributes to ground-level ozone, a respiratory irritant that aggravates asthma and other lung illnesses.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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COMMENTARY



Who to Blame When the Next Bubble Bursts
Greenspan has been helping to inflate the housing market.
By Dean Baker
Dean Baker is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research in Washington.

December 18, 2003

Any assessment of Alan Greenspan`s long tenure at the Federal Reserve has to present the stock bubble as his biggest failure. If Greenspan had effectively and consistently warned investors of the irrationality of stock prices in the late 1990s, the bubble never would have reached such dangerous proportions. His "irrational exuberance" comment just wasn`t enough.



The collapse of the bubble, which destroyed more than $8 trillion in paper wealth, was the immediate cause of the 2001 recession and the economy`s subsequent period of weak growth and failure to create jobs. The collapse also left pension funds unbalanced and forced millions of workers to delay retirement. After his failure regarding the largest financial bubble in the history of the world, it looks like Greenspan is now actively promoting the world`s second-biggest bubble: the housing market.

The basic story is simple: Over the last eight years housing prices have outpaced the overall rate of inflation by more than 35 percentage points. There is no precedent for this sort of rise in home prices. In the past, home prices largely kept even with the general rate of inflation.

The housing bulls have a number of explanations for this increase in home prices: a growing population, a limited supply of urban land, environmental restrictions on development. But these stories are no better than the "new economy" yarns of those who defended the stock market bubble. We have always had a growing population and limited supplies of urban land, and environmental restrictions predated the mid-1990s. These factors never led to elevated home prices in prior decades, which is why experts are warning about a housing bubble.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to get into these details to prove that there is a housing bubble. If underlying factors, rather than irrational exuberance, are the basis for the increase in home prices, then these factors should be having the same effect on rental prices. Studies have shown that, historically, rents and home prices have appreciated together. In other words, underlying factors will drive up home sale prices and rental prices by roughly the same amount. The rental markets tell a different story.

From 1998 to 2001, rental prices rose more rapidly than the overall rate of inflation, but not nearly as fast as home prices. If higher home prices are the result of a real shortage of housing, then rental prices should continue to rise to catch up with homes prices. That isn`t happening. Rental prices are barely moving as record vacancy rates nationwide force landlords to hold the line on rents. In bubble areas, such as Seattle and San Francisco, rents are falling.

Where does Greenspan fit in?

He has promoted the housing bubble by reassuring people in public statements that there is no bubble. He also helped drive mortgage interest rates to 40-year lows earlier this year — allowing people to spend more money on houses, which adds to price inflation and to the bubble.

The health of the economy will be the key to George W. Bush`s reelection. Over the last three years, the housing market has been the driving force in the economy. Greenspan appears determined to have it keep playing that role as long as possible. But the bubble will eventually burst, leading to another recession and destroying the main source of savings for tens of millions of families. Could a responsible public official possibly pursue such a policy?

When President Bush`s first tax cut was being debated before Congress in January 2001, the public anxiously awaited Greenspan`s views. He told Congress that the tax cuts were a good idea and that he was worried that without them the budget surpluses would be too large and that the government would pay off the national debt too quickly.

Three years later, we face huge budget deficits. There is no reason to ask whether Greenspan — who doesn`t have to answer to anyone — would pursue a destructive economic policy for political reasons because he has already done so.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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US attorney general fined for breaking law
By Marcus Warren in New York
(Filed: 18/12/2003)
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/…

John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, has been fined £21,000 for breaking election laws during his defeat by a dead rival for a seat in the Senate.

During his unsuccessful campaign in 2000, America`s top lawman illegally accepted £62,700 from a body set up to support a run for the presidency, the Federal Election Commission found.


John Ashcroft
A controversial, deeply religious figure, Mr Ashcroft was standing for re-election as a senator from Missouri. Humiliatingly, he was beaten by an opponent who died in a plane crash before polling day.

His rival`s widow, Jean Carnahan, was later awarded the seat. One dissenting Democrat member of the FEC protested against the size of the fine, calling it "so low that I do not believe it adequately reflects the severity of the conduct at issue".

However, two Republicans on the commission described the offence as "a garden-variety complaint . . . blown far out of proportion".

Mr Ashcroft`s Senate campaign fell foul of the law by using a mailing list compiled by a committee to explore a bid for the White House. The resulting contributions exceeded the legal limit and, to make matters worse, his campaign failed to disclose t

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Published on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Bush Administration Newspeak on Iraq
by Matthew Harwood

George Orwell was an uncommonly perceptive man.

Because of his fiction and essays, words and concepts such as newspeak and doublethink have been ingrained into the popular political lexicon. Orwell concerned himself with the party’s, the politician’s or the activist’s ability to take a word and make it mean its opposite unknowingly to the citizenry. When this occurs on a mass scale, Orwell believed, the population was susceptible to the lure of authoritarianism in the guise of democracy.This was the point of his novels 1984 and Animal Farm along with his excellent essay Politics and The English Language.

The Bush Administration has adopted this method of newspeak with much vigor. If you believe what you read and hear, the most important value to President Bush is liberty. In five major speeches given since the bombing of Iraq, President Bush says the word liberty or its synonyms “free” or “freedom” 131 times. No longer does Bush concentrate on WMDs as a catalyst for the Iraq campaign, but rather he argues the campaign was to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. Bush apparently believes in the age-old adage, “If you repeat it enough, people will believe it.”

In Bush’s recent “Freedom in Iraq and Middle East” speech on November 6th at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy he makes a bold statement that the “Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council are also working together to build a democracy.” A statement many on the ground in Iraq contradict.

For instance, Fox news commentator Major Bob Bevelacqua, an initial supporter of the war, said in a recent interview that the Iraqis perceive the CPA as a corrupt institution that enables US contractors and their foreign subcontractors to seize most of the rebuilding contracts in Iraq. To further legitimize this perception, members of the Iraqi interim council are searched before entering CPA buildings (the same buildings and palaces Hussein ruled from), while foreign subcontractors merely flash ID cards to gain access. Recently, the U.S. decided to close the bidding on all new contracts strictly to those countries that supported the invasion and occupation. To Iraqis on the street, the only ones seeming to benefit from the bombing and occupation of their country are the U.S. and their cronies.

The message couldn’t be clearer, American economic gain in Iraq weighs more pressing than the successful and democratic transfer of power to Iraqis. The essence of democracy is that the people of the politico-economic entity must construct the society upon their own rules reached cooperatively. If the society is constructed from the outside, then the people feel no allegiance to the government and naturally civil strife follows along with suppression.

On a more pragmatic note, many political scientists contend democracies’ do not have good survival rates when people cannot reach middle-class living standards. So how can the U.S. create a prosperous Iraq if Iraqi firms and labor are not the main participants in the rebuilding process? Scarcity and want are not the building blocks of democracy, jobs equaling prosperity are.

The word “liberty” coming from the President’s mouth registers as an obscenity to most Iraqis. The only “liberty” Iraqis know is the freedom of poverty, unemployment, and insecurity. Many Iraqis argue the U.S. and its multinational corporations have come to liberate Iraq’s resource wealth and economic potential from them – in a sense to plunder. Because of this perception, disenfranchised and disillusioned Iraqis have taken arms with the fanatics and the remnants of the old regime to throw the U.S. out of Iraq.

No one can say for sure whether the Bush Administration targeted Iraq as a lucrative prospect for select corporations close to the White House. The point is the people of Iraq believe this and the U.S. continues to lose the battle to gain hearts and minds at the cost of American soldiers and innocent Iraqi lives.

At the close of Politics and the English Language George Orwell wrote, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Right now, Iraqis suffer from an extreme case of windburn blowing from the mouth of our President. Until power is transferred to a government composed of Iraqis, and jobs are made available to a majority in Iraq, “liberty” will be the pillow talk that allowed Americans to lie down with a policy of plunder in a new era of colonialism.

Matthew Harwood can be reached at [e-mail].

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Bush To Be Treated For Gait Problem
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



WASHINGTON (IWR News Satire) - White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirmed today the President Bush will receive behavioral therapy to cure an anomaly with his gait. The President will be treated over the holidays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
"Karl Rove feels that the President`s natural walking style conflicts with the macho image the re-election campaign is trying to project. Karl thinks Mr. Bush looks too much `like he is auditioning for the lead role in Tootsie` when walks in public," said Mr. McClellan.

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9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main58…
For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we`ve got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.

"As you read the report, you`re going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn`t done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.

To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president`s top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration – that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.

"I don`t think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002.

"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.

The widows want to know why various government agencies didn`t connect the dots before Sept. 11, such as warnings from FBI offices in Minnesota and Arizona about suspicious student pilots.

"If you were to tell me that two years after the murder of my husband that we wouldn`t have one question answered, I wouldn`t believe it," Breitweiser said.

Kean admits the commission also has more questions than answers.

Asked whether we should at least know if people sitting in the decision-making spots on that critical day are still in those positions, Kean said, "Yes, the answer is yes. And we will."

Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.



© MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

William Pfaff: Saddam`s capture bodes ill for Bush`s re-election
William Pfaff TMSI
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Iraq and the U.S. election

PARIS Contrary to what many are saying, Saddam Hussein`s capture is a negative omen for President George W. Bush`s re-election campaign and points toward continuing disorder and resistance in Iraq.

Saddam`s ignominious circumstances when he surrendered - hiding in a hole in the ground when he wasn`t living in a shed heaped with dirty clothes, eggshells and unwashed pans, with a refrigerator stocked with candy bars and soft drinks - made it clear to all that the resistance to the American occupation was not being commanded from there. So it is wishful thinking to expect his capture alone to slow or end the violence. It may spur the resistance.

As long as the Shiite majority thought there was a remote possibility that he could return to power, and with him the Baath party apparatus whose remnants survive throughout the country, they had reason to stay on good relations with the American occupation authority hunting him down.

With Saddam gone, the Shiite authorities are free to express their real ambition: power in a new Iraq proportionate to their majority in the population.

Until now, the most important Shiite leaders have remained, objectively, allies, or at least neutrals, in Washington`s effort to control the country.

They now will become active players in the emerging political power struggle. Since they can bring millions into the streets, as demonstrators or as fighters, practicing a version of Islam with a powerful emotional component of suicidal self-sacrifice, they are potentially a more important force than Saddam could ever have mobilized as underground leader or as martyr.

The minority Sunni community, which had dominated Iraq since the time of the Ottoman Empire, has more urgent reason than ever to fight to regain power and privilege.

A new government might be a federation in which the communities - Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish, but also Turkmen, Christians of several denominations and others - coexist on representative and more or less democratic terms.

The United States might prefer this solution, at least in principle, but would also probably expect (or be needed) to remain in Iraq in order to maintain the balance. A continued American presence would run into the obstacle of Iraqi nationalism, which this war has inflamed, and rob the Shiites of the dominant political role.

A second possibility is restored centralized and probably authoritarian government, quite possibly with the better-educated Sunni community back on top. Americans are accustomed to dealing with this kind of government in the Arab world. Nationalism and sectarian interests again are the obstacles.

Shiite majority rule would incorporate a powerful bias toward theocratic government of the Iranian kind, which is what Washington does not want.

On the other hand, there is a limit on what the United States can do, short of continued direct rule. The June departure is supposed to end with a sovereign Iraq on its way to democracy, although how this desirable end is to be accomplished I do not know.

An Iraqi author, Zaki Laidi, sums it up by saying that "the Shiites, who in the majority seem to have at least implicitly backed the American intervention, cannot find durable political legitimacy other than by opposing the United States, while the Sunnis, who lost most in the American intervention, would be Washington`s best allies against the Shiites` taking power."

As for Bush, Saddam`s capture symbolically changes the president from war leader to the builder of a new Iraq. Electorally, he is likely to regret this change.

If questioning Saddam Hussein doesn`t produce the famous weapons of mass destruction that were threatening Jerusalem, and British and American bases in the region - not to mention New York and Washington - the question of what the war was all about is reopened.

The failure to get new information will confirm what so far has been the unanimous testimony of Iraqi scientists and officials, who no longer have any reason to lie and every reason to tell the truth: The weapons programs were all terminated after the first Gulf War. Washington, significantly, had already let the issue of weapons of mass destruction drop even before Saddam`s capture.

Had Karl Rove, Bush`s chief domestic political adviser, been consulted in time, he probably would have told the president to seize Saddam but hide him until the first week of next November, and produce him - trussed on a turkey platter - on the eve of the election. But as 600 soldiers were involved in the capture and rumors fly, that was not practical.

As things stand, the triumph of Saddam`s capture has 11 months during which to ebb. By next November it risks being covered over by an accumulation of bad news from a liberated but unpacified Iraq.

Tribune Media Services International

Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune

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Published on Wednesday, December 17 2003 by CommonDreams.org
U.S. "Torture Lite" Led To Saddam`s Capture
by Ira Chernus

"This guy was in interrogation. He wasn`t willingly giving stuff up." That` s what an officer involved in Saddam`s capture told the Washington Post. If the informant who led U.S. forces to Saddam wasn`t giving information willingly, why did he give any information at all? It is hard to avoid thinking about the the dirty word that everyone is too polite to mention, the "T-word": torture.

Col. James Hickey, who commanded the capture operation, tells the story a bit differently, according to the Chicago Sun-Times: "`Once in our custody the informant was cooperative, and he did provide the crucial information. But will he receive the $25 million?` he laughed. `I seriously doubt it.`"

If he cooperated voluntarily, why not give him the reward? The guy who fingered Saddam`s two sons got $30 million, because he came forward voluntarily. Apparently, the guy who fingered Saddam cooperated involuntarily. CNN explained: "It is unclear whether anyone will receive the $25 million bounty because the information leading to his capture came under duress." A "senior administration official" confirmed to Newsday that the man "didn`t provide any information willingly." Col. Hickey told reporters that the informant first gave false information, and "there was three or four hours of questioning before he blurted Saddam`s location."

What happened in those three or four (some reports say five or more) hours? Probably not torture, in the technical jargon of U.S. officialdom. No electric shock, no hot irons, no fingernails pulled. At least that`s what U.S. officials insist.

They say it was just "interrogation," which is torture lite. Things like bags over the head, tight handcuffs, no light (or constant bright light), no food or bathroom, endless shouting or blaring music or noise, bits of light violence. And, of course, the constant psychological torture of fearing that serious physical pain might start at any moment.

But it wasn`t only this one key informant who got torture lite. According to Newsday: "Weeks ago, U.S. forces decided to identify anyone who might have current knowledge of where Hussein was, including former bodyguards, and then to go after them with a vengeance, rounding up their families and friends -- women, children, grandparents, everyone. Many of the key clues came in involuntary interrogations of informants."

A U.S. official told the L. A. Times: "Some people were impossible to find, but we`d find their relatives. One interrogation led to another raid, which led to another interrogation." Another official (who "asked not to be named") told the Chicago Sun-Times: ``You`d squeeze them: `Where is Saddam?` They`d say, `I don`t know, but my cousin knows somebody who knows somebody else who might know.`"

That`s how The Good Guys hunted down the Number One Bad Guy, "squeezing" children and grandparents. It`s the same kind of "squeezing" they do at Guantanamo Bay -- all sorts of unpleasant things done to people merely suspected of some undefined link with some undefined evil.

Of course, the U.S. also ships some suspects out to third countries that definitely do torture. And the models for the more aggressive U.S. policies in Iraq, the Phoenix Program and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, certainly involve torture. The line between torture lite and torture heavy can be very thin, indeed.

Was it crossed in those last hours before the capture of Saddam, in the heat of the chase? What made the informant change his story and blurt out the truth, knowing that his friends and family might forever hate him for it? What methods were used to persuade him to "cooperate"? We will never know. But we do know that plenty of innocent people were terrified with torture lite to get to that point. And it was all done in our name, by our employees, paid with our tax dollars.

It is time to have a full open debate about the policies our employees follow. If we had that debate, no doubt the pro-torture side would win, here in the land of the free and home of the brave. Isn`t it worth a little bit of torture to capture one of the world`s great torturers? That argument would probably prevail. But at least we would have to consider the moral issues involved.

No one would equate the U.S. military with Saddam`s torture squads. I am certainly not arguing that our side is as bad as Saddam. Imagine, though, that it was your grandmother or grandfather or spouse or child, seized by the secret police as bait, to lure you in for "interrogation." You would not know for sure that they were being tortured. But you would not know for sure they weren`t. I bet you would turn yourself in.

Once you call that ethically OK, where does it stop? Once you torture or threaten to torture the first person, once you say, "Well, it`s only a little bit of torture," you are on a slippery slope that leads nowhere but down. If morality is a just matter of degree, who gets to say how much evil a moral person can do and still remain moral? How do you justify just a little torture, or even the threat of a little torture? If that is OK, then what about a little murder, or a little rape, or just a little sexual assault lite on somebody`s daughter?

Saddam Hussein is evil, but he`s not stupid. He understands all this. When he sits in the defendant`s dock and hears the charges against him, he can say: "Yes, I had people tortured. But those people were a threat to the good society I was trying to create. Sometimes, unfortunately, one must use bad means to achieve a good end. Every government leader knows that. Surely George W. Bush knows it."

If we respond, "Yeah, but we only used a little torture, and you are REALLY evil," we will flunk Ethics 101. Until we demand to know the truth about Saddam`s capture and are prepared to speak the dirty little T-word, we have already flunked Ethics 101.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder [e-mail]

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Ein irakischer Blogger, wie identisch er ist, weiß ich nicht. Als Information.

Baghdad Burning
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_riverbendblog_a…

... I`ll meet you `round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

The Latest...
The electricity only returned a couple of hours ago. We`ve been without electricity for almost 72 hours- other areas have it worse. Today we heard the electricity won`t be back to pre-war levels until the middle of next year.

We heard about Saddam`s capture the day before yesterday, around noon. There was no electricity, so we couldn`t watch tv. The first sign we got that something abnormal was occurring was the sound of a Klashnikov in the distance. I remembering pausing in my negotiations with E. over who should fill the kerosene heaters and listening hard to the sounds of shooting. I grabbed the battery-powered radio and started searching the stations, skipping from one to the other. I finally located a station that was broadcasting in Arabic and heard that Saddam may have been caught.

We thought nothing of it at first… another false alarm. It happened on an almost weekly basis. When the sounds of shooting became more frequent, curiosity got the better of E. and he ran to our neighbor`s house where they had a small generator running. Fifteen minutes later, he came back breathless with the words, "They`ve caught Saddam…" Everyone was shocked. We all clamored for the radio once again and tried to find out what was happening. The questions were endless- who? What? When? How?

It was only later in the evening that we saw the pictures on tv and saw the press-conference, etc. By then, Baghdad was a mess of bullets, and men waving flags. Our area and other areas were somewhat quiet, but central Baghdad was a storm of gunfire. The communist party were scary- it`s like they knew beforehand. Immediately, their red flags and banners were up in the air and they were marching up and down the streets and around Firdaws Square. My cousin was caught in the middle of a traffic jam and he says the scenes were frightening.

The bullets are supposed to be an expression of joy… and they probably are- in a desert, far from buildings, streets crawling with vulnerable people and cars. In Baghdad, they mean chaos. People were literally ducking and running, trying to get out of the rain of firepower because what goes up must, eventually, come down.

Yesterday was almost as messy. Most parents kept their kids home. There have been pro-America demonstrations in some areas, and anti-America demonstrations in other areas. At around 6 pm yesterday evening, the chaos began in Amriyah, a residential area in Baghdad. The streets were suddenly filled with anti-American demonstrators, some holding up pictures of Saddam. It lasted until around 11 pm and then the tanks pulled up and things settled down somewhat. Similar occurrences in A`adhamiya in Baghdad, and one or two other areas.

Today there were pro-America demonstrations in Baghdad organized by SCIRI and there were anti-America demonstrations in Tikrit, Falloojeh, Samirreh (where 11 Iraqis were killed- CPA claim they were `insurgents`), Baghdad, Imsayab and the biggest one was in Mosul. Thousands of students from the University of Mosul took to the streets with an anti-occupation demonstration and some of the residents joined them… the university president had to shut down the university- it was huge. I was surprised the CNN wasn`t covering it. The troops broke it up by firing above the crowd and bringing in the helicopters. The demonstration in Samirreh had a similar ending, except the firing was *in* the crowd and several people were wounded severely.

The question that everyone seems to be asking is the effect it will have on the resistance/insurgence/attacks. Most people seem to think that Saddam`s capture isn`t going to have a big effect. Saddam`s role was over since April, many of the guerilla groups and resistance parties haven`t been fighting to bring him back to power and I think very few people actually feared that.

Political analysts and professors in Iraq think that Saddam`s capture is going to unite resistance efforts, as one of them put it, "People are now free to fight for their country`s sovereignty and not Saddam."

The rumors have been endless ever since yesterday- and they all seem to be filtering in from Tikrit. Some of the rumors include people claiming that Saddam was actually caught a week ago, but the whole thing was kept quiet. Another rumor is that some sort of nerve gas was used in a limited sort of way on the area he was hiding in. Another rumor goes on about how he was `drugged`- something was added to his food… Others say he`s being interrogated in Qatar… and on and on.

The GC seem equally confused with the commotion. Talabani claims it was a combined effort between the Bayshmarga (the Kurdish militia) and the troops, Chalabi, on the other hand, insisted the whole thing was completely an American effort. It`s hard to tell who has the story right and who`s getting it wrong…

People have differing opinions on where he should be tried and by whom- in Iraq or an international court? Others are wondering about the legitimacy of a court under occupation. The one thing everyone seems to agree upon is that it should be an open court and *everything* should be discussed. The question is, will the US allow that? Won`t it bring forward certain political dealings with America in the `80s? Only time will tell…

Things are very frightening these days in Baghdad. Going from one area to another is like going from one city to another- the feelings and emotions vary so drastically it feels like only a matter of time before we may see clashes...


- posted by river @ 9:58 PM

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Published on Thursday, December 18, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Einige Links:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1218-02.htm

Is It Really Hussein? Does It Matter?
by Heather Wokusch

Now that the Evil Prince of Iraqi Darkness has been captured by valiant US military forces, the Middle East is free to democratize and the world at large is a much safer place. As Bush put it, Hussein`s capture means "sovereignty" for Iraq, "dignity for ... every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence."

Any problems with this rosy assessment? Maybe my bullshit detectors go into overdrive every time the Bush administration announces a success, but this latest scenario just doesn`t stack up.

For one, how do we know that the dusty old guy dragged out of the ground really is Saddam? Hussein was known to have had multiple "doubles," exact lookalikes who, for security reasons, took his place in meeting foreign dignitaries and in mingling with the public. Could the famous prisoner just be a double? A stooge set up to take the heat while Hussein lives lavishly-ever-after in some other country?

DNA tests will apparently be conducted on the prisoner to prove he`s Hussein, but it`s unclear where the necessary comparative DNA samples will be obtained or how independent the verification process will be.

One could argue, of course, that the Bush administration would look pretty dumb later on if an impostor testified in court, so the prisoner must be Saddam. But face it: if Hussein ever does go on trial, how public will it be? Imagine the testimony:

"Well Your Honor, during the 80`s I got all kinds of battlefield intelligence and weaponry from my buddies in the White House. Reagan and Poppy Bush gave me billions of dollars in credits for US agricultural products, so I could buy more weapons on the side, and a whole slew of stateside corporations sold me biological and other weaponry. Gassing Kurds, crushing Shiite uprisings ... no problem for my American friends! Wanna see a picture of me and Donald Rumsfeld?"

Won`t happen. We will not be hearing detailed depositions from Hussein, any more than we`ll be seeing open trials for Guantanamo inmates.

But suspend doubt for a moment and assume the prisoner really is Hussein. Imagine he didn`t escape with untold wealth to a mansion in Moscow, a villa in Naples, wherever, and really did end up moving from hovel to underground hovel in bombed-out Iraq. Then who revealed his location and what were the true circumstances of his capture?

The official version (brought to us by the same folks who presented Jessica Lynch as a Barbie action figure) is that superior US intelligence led Operation "Red Dawn" forces to their dusty prey. Little mention is made of the $25 million bounty on Hussein`s head (namely if it was forked over, as was the $30 million for information on his two sons), but the fact that information was reportedly obtained "under duress" to discover his whereabouts would indicate harsh interrogation, if not torture, was used to find him. The L.A. Times reported a US official saying, "Some people were impossible to find, but we`d find their relatives. One interrogation led to another raid, which led to another interrogation."

And then there`s the matter of Hussein`s spaced out, arguably drugged, appearance upon capture. Conspiracy theory has it he was actually being held prisoner, and the White House was just waiting for the most politically expedient time to "find" him. None other than Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently told a Fox news analyst she suspects Bush knows where Osama Bin Laden is too.

Bribery, mass raids/interrogations, political kidnappings? Who knows the truth behind this sordid affair, but it appears "sovereignty" and "dignity" for Iraqis were not the operating principles in capturing Hussein.

Bottom line: Prisoner Saddam is nothing more than a distraction, a prop used to bolster sagging White House ratings, much like the plastic turkey Bush offered troops in photo-ops last Thanksgiving. Hussein will be dangled every now and then (just in time for Christmas, next year`s elections, Halliburton`s latest accusation of corruption ...) and then locked away in a dungeon for life, or maybe even bumped off, "Jack Ruby" style.

Because surely the White House won`t need him for long. The US will soon invade other countries way more evil, depose their dastardly leaders, and win more hearts, minds, respect and security in the process.

Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted via her web site: www.heatherwokusch.com

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http://www.atimes.com

Middle East

THE ROVING EYE
THE RAT TRAP
Part 1: How Saddam may still nail Bush
By Pepe Escobar

BAKU - The Christmas blockbuster from the Pentagon studios was a dream. This was the new Roman Empire at its peak - better than Ridleys Scott`s Gladiator: a real, captive barbarian emperor, paraded on the Circus Maximus of world television. The barbarian was not a valiant warrior - but a bum. He was not hiding in a nuclear-proof bunker armed to his teeth - he was caught like "a rat" in a "spider hole". He was nothing but a pathetic ghost taking a medical for the world to see. What the bluish pictures did not show, though, is that former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Saddam Hussein is a reader of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. An Arabic copy of Crime and Punishment was found in a shack near the "spider hole" where he was captured.

Saddam surely now know very well what he needs to do. He won`t be consumed with remorse like Dostoevsky`s character Raskolnikov, who committed murder. For the moment Saddam may be "taking the Fifth" - in the words of an American interrogator, referring the the fifth amendment of the US constitution under which a person has the right to remain silent until charged in court. But Saddam will wait until he gets some rest, a very good lawyer, and then he will start talking.

The capture of Saddam was the best Christmas gift that President George W Bush could expect from his foreign policy adviser - God. Or was it? AlJazeera television has quoted Egyptian writer Sayyid Nassar saying that "by shaving his beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolizes humiliation in our region". Revenge could be imminent - and it will pour in avalanches, not from Saddam of course, but from wounded Iraqi and Arab pride.

Holes big enough to accommodate armies of spiders remain in the carefully-choreographed Pentagon screenplay. Suppose Saddam - well versed in the treachery levels in the Arab world and well aware that a close family friend had denounced his sons Uday and Qusay - had indeed chosen to hide in a hole in the ground only a few hours before his capture. It`s still remarkable how the "rat" managed to elude capture when thousands of American soldiers were combing every inch of the Sunni triangle for months. And if he really had US$750,000 with him in $100 bills, it wouldn`t take a lot of human intelligence to just follow the money.

It`s also remarkable that someone who foiled all sorts of assassination plots chose to be holed up in a farm near his hometown - the most obvious place where he could be found - and without any protection. Only two of his cousins from the al-Douria tribe were with him at the time of the arrest. Unlike the Pentagon version, sources tell Asia Times Online that they were simply peasants, not Saddam`s bodyguards. Where were the protecting hordes of paramilitary Fedayeen of Saddam, and the still-loyal Mukhabarat intelligence agents?

Not only one of his daughters, but local villagers, are absolutely convinced that he was drugged before the capture, a vital element in the Pentagon choreography to show to the world - especially the Arab world - the picture of a disoriented bum. Saddam was carrying his pistol. So no one will ever know whether he had any intention of using it - against his attackers or against himself. The "documentation" found with Saddam is also very suspicious, as it might conveniently contain a list of names of people leading the Iraqi resistance in the Sunni triangle.

But all of this is speculation. The reality is that Saddam is in US custody, so what now? From Saddam`s point of view, he has a better chance to tell his side of the story - including the real circumstances of his capture - now that his legacy as a courageous Saladinesque warrior facing up to America is in ruins. Living the rest of his life as a nightmarish remake of The Fugitive was definitely not an option. He may not have chosen it, but he may not regret public humiliation in an American commercial instead of doing a James Cagney in White Heat under a hail of bullets.

Only three months ago, this correspondent met scores of people in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle whom were absolutely convinced that former CIA friend Saddam and Washington were still involved in some sort of secret deal. Now European, Asian and Arab diplomats and businessmen are commenting off the record that there`s every possibility that the CIA, or even Bush himself, may have struck a deal with his number two embodiment of evil - number one being the still elusive Osama bin Laden. They are all suspicious of the impeccable timing: and if a deal was not in the cards, then the CIA knew exactly where Saddam was for days or weeks, and were just waiting for the moment of maximum impact. Saddam was captured exactly when Halliburton was under extreme pressure for effectively swindling American taxpayers. Bush himself said on the record that if there was any proof of wrongdoing - and there is conclusive proof of overcharging - the company would face consequences. It didn`t: the story - too dangerous, too close to vice president and former Halliburton boss Dick Cheney - simply disappeared from the news.

Whatever his ghastly criminal record, already debated to exhaustion, Saddam understands power extremely well: that`s how he managed to keep it for three decades. He had plenty of time to prepare his exit - before the "fall" of Baghdad - and he certainly had plenty of time to prepare his re-entry in case he was caught. He may well have piles of compromising documents to use in his defense in what will certainly be the trial of the centuries - current and previous.

World leaders are now falling over themselves calling for a fair trail, in Iraq, under international standards. The Iraqi occupation is absolutely illegal, so Washington will not even consider trying Saddam in the Hague, like Slobodan Milosevic.

Unlike George W Bush - whose Texas state allowed executions when he was governor - United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan was quick to say that the UN never sets up a court which carries the death penalty. Amnesty International insists that Saddam should "not be subjected to torture or ill-treatment" and must "receive a fair trial". An Iraqi version of the post-World War 2 Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals will be totally illegitimate and a political disaster for the Americans. So the consensus is moving towards a public trial, in an Iraqi court, conducted by Iraqis, with some international judges, and meeting international standards. The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) is also in favor of this latter option. But there`s a huge problem: a tribunal in Iraq, like everything else at the moment, will have no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis and the Arab world because it will be subservient to the occupying power. One can already see the daily guerrilla attacks outside the courtroom. The trial will only make sense if there is a real representative Iraqi government in place, which will not happen until June next year at the earliest.

Saddam`s j`accuse
Saddam then will finally have an international platform. Everybody knows in advance the heinous crimes of which he will be accused. But at least then he could finally expose the hypocrisy and double standards of the West as a whole, and specifically America.

With the help of a battery of legal eagles, he can prove that there were never any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and he can prove there`s no evidence to support Bush`s claims, last March, that he had "trained and financed al-Qaeda".

He can expand on how, in February, slightly before the onset of "shock and awe", his negotiators were delivering everything to Washington on a plate: free access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look for WMD anywhere in Iraq; full support for the American-penned road map in the Middle East; and the right for American companies to exploit Iraq`s oil. The neo-conservative "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle, who had been calling for an invasion of Iraq for years, was one of the contacts of Saddam`s negotiators. The defense will certainly call Perle to testify.

On March 17, Bush said that "should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war". Bush lied - and it would be very easy for Saddam to prove that he did everything to find a diplomatic alternative, while Washington did everything to prevent it. He can prove that Bush and his European allies - Britain`s Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and President Jose Aznar of Spain - lied to a world public opinion which was overwhelmingly against the war.

He can talk of endless collusions with Washington, right up to the day he invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Still today, nobody has told the real story preceding the invasion of Kuwait. He will say how at the time Washington led him to the conclusion that an invasion was "acceptable". The defense will certainly call April Glaspie, the American ambassador in Baghdad and the last American official to see Saddam eye-to-eye five days before the invasion. She was "retired" by the State Department and has been conveniently silent ever since.

Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft`s company, Kuwait was involved in slant-drilling in Iraq in 1989, and was pumping out something like US$14 billion in oil from underneath Iraqi territory. The territory from which Kuwait was drilling had indeed been Iraqi territory. Saddam will say that Glaspie told him the US was neutral in the dispute. Saddam will also say that in 1989, while the CIA was advising Kuwait to put pressure on Iraq, a CIA-affiliated think tank was advising him to put pressure on Kuwait. And at the same time, Bush senior`s administration was issuing a secret directive that resulted in billions of dollars of arm sales to Saddam.

He can talk about how, why and by whom the Shi`ite intifada was betrayed after the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. He will give American names. He will detail the American deal under which the US was to have helped the Shi`ites. He will prove that those exhumed bodies incriminate the Anglo-American alliance as much as himself.

He will keep talking all the way back to 1989, to the famous meeting on December 20, 1983 in Baghdad with his friend Donald Rumsfeld, now Pentagon chief. The fuzzy photo of Rumsfeld eagerly shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, observed by foreign minister Tarik Aziz - which simply vanished from corporate media - will be one of the stars of the trial. Rumsfeld was sent by then president Ronald Reagan to mend relations between the US and Iraq only one month after Reagan had adopted a secret directive - still partly classified - to help Saddam fight the Islamic revolution in Iran. Saddam will detail how this close cooperation led to Washington selling loads of military equipment and also chemical precursors, insecticides, aluminum tubes, missile components and anthrax to him. Of course he will be condemned for using the lot to gas Iranian soldiers and then civilian Kurds in Halabja, northern Iraq, in 1988. But he will also prove that the selling of these chemical weapons was organized by Rumsfeld.

He will prove that American - and European - companies exported biological viruses for at least four years to various Iraqi government agencies and other companies, with licenses from the US Commerce Department, and thus helped him to build up his crude weapons of mass destruction program - totally dissolved after the first Gulf War.

He will prove that Washington was perfectly aware at the time that he was using chemical weapons. He will remind anyone how, after the Halabja massacre, the Pentagon engaged in a massive disinformation campaign, spinning that the massacre was caused by Iran. He will prove how Dick Cheney, as Pentagon chief from March 1989 onwards, continued to cooperate very closely with him. He will prove how the military aid - secretly organized by Rumsfeld - also enabled him to invade Kuwait in 1990. He will remind anyone again of how, between 1991 and 1998, UN weapons inspectors conclusively established that the US - as well as British, German and French firms - had sold missile parts and chemical and bacteriological material to him.

He will recall the Iran-Iraq war in great detail, and how, during the war, the CIA always sent him a team to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance planes. The defense will call CIA officials who signed documents sharing US satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran - so Washington could be sure of a permanent military stalemate.

Incriminating evidence against all levers of power in Washington will be immeasurable. There will be a non-stop roll-call of civilian deaths and non-stop supply of arms. It will go all the way back to 1959, when a young Saddam was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad which botched the assassination of then Iraqi prime minister General Abdul-Karim Qasim.

Saddam on his way to the courtroom does not mean democracy has arrived in Iraq. Let`s make it absolutely clear. The last thing that the White House, the euphemistic Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the ICG (dubbed "the imported government" by Iraqis) want is real democracy in Iraq. Shi`ite and Sunni alike are in the streets shouting "free elections now!" - leading to the formation of a constituent assembly. The occupiers and their local collaborators know very well that an elected constituent assembly would naturally demand what the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want: the immediate end to the occupation, total Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and first choice for Iraqi companies in the rebuilding process.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shi`ite religious authority, also wants direct elections. In an unprecedented move for someone as "beyond politics" as Sistani, he accused the CPA of being non-democratic. Sistani is totally supported by Shi`ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the rare members of the IGC not suspected by ordinary Iraqis of being a crook. Al-Hakim`s official position is that a provisional national assembly should be elected by the Iraqi people, and this assembly should choose the government. The credibility of the IGC is less than zero. Iraqis, Shi`ite and Sunni alike, are convinced there is absolutely no difference between Saddam`s former thugs and the current, power-hungry majority of IGC members.

"When the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and you crawled in," said Bush of his public enemy number two. Like Shi`ite and Sunnis all over Iraq, former CIA asset Saddam Hussein is also plotting his revenge. One can bet he is sure that when he talks he may be able to hurl George W Bush all the way back to his ranch in Crawford - along with Saddam`s close collaborator Dick Cheney and Saddam`s old friend Donald Rumsfeld.

TOMORROW: Part 2 - why the resistance will increase

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [e-mail] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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Thursday, December 18, 2003
War News for December 18, 2003

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: US soldier killed, one soldier and Iraqi civilian wounded in Baghdad ambush.

Bring `em on: Shi`ite leader assassinated in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Shi`ite mob kills former Baathist near Najaf.

Bring `em on: Two US soldiers wounded in RPG attack in central Mosul.

Bring `em on: One US soldier wounded in mortar attack in Mosul.

Bring `em on: US convoy ambushed near Kirkuk.

Bring `em on: US troops under fire in Tikrit. "...shootings that Staff Sergeant John Minzer described as `a dime a dozen.`"

CPA tightens gasoline rationing.

White House scrubs website to revise history. "After the insurrection in Iraq proved more stubborn than expected, the White House edited the original headline on its Web site of President Bush`s May 1 speech, "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended," to insert the word `Major` before combat."

Bremer`s CPA botched the information war. "Rather than complaining about an anti-US and pro-Hussein bias in reporting from established Arab broadcasters like Al Jazeera, analysts say, the US should have been more aggressive in building its own network. `This should have been done sooner and better,` said Gary Sick, senior research scholar at Columbia University. `It`s a good idea, as most people in the Middle East don`t have a sophisticated understanding of what democracy is all about. But it sounds odd coming eight months into the occupation.`" Actually, it has been clear since the beginning of Bush`s War that the information warfare component of the campaign has been focused exclusively on hoodwinking the American electorate than on influencing Iraqi public opinion.

Reconstruction in shambles; Bremer wants another 1,000 "administrators." "The recent request by L. Paul Bremer, which is being fiercely debated by the president`s aides, underscores growing alarm in some sectors of the government that Bush`s exit strategy for Iraq is in trouble."

Baker`s debt deal may not work for the Bushies. "Iraq will need an internationally recognised leadership to sign a debt relief deal with the Paris Club group of creditor states, Paris Club President Jean-Pierre Jouyet said on Thursday."

Putin says Bush`s War was "unjustified."

Analysis: Lieutenant AWOL again revises the rationale or war.

David Kay may leave ISG empty handed.

Commentary

Opinion: The war goes on for a battered Army. "So, yes, Saddam`s in the cage he so richly deserves. We`ll be getting to know him rather well at his trial. But he`s no longer the enemy. And this venture has weakened us far more, and for far longer, than we care to admit."

Opinion: If the US "loses" in Iraq, it`ll be thanks to Rummy and Bremer. "If it goes south it will be due to the extraordinary interagency bickering, bureaucratic constipation, self-imposed isolation and misguided personnel policies of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that runs civil administration and nation-building in a place where everything is broken...Eight months were lost while the original mistakes were compounded. One of Bremer`s first actions was to dissolve the Iraqi army, offering no hope to a bunch of newly unemployed soldiers, armed, trained and angry. An Iraqi Governing Council was installed without sufficient representation of the Sunni Arab minority, a quarter of Iraq`s 24 million people. The false impression that the Sunni members of Saddam`s Baath Party would be purged from public life down to the last member took hold because the CPA`s strategic communications plan to communicate with the Iraqi people was broken. It remains broken. Meantime, the CPA took on administrators and officials who serve only 90 days in Iraq before rotating home, severely limiting their ability to make three-month tours while American soldiers do a year."

Opinion: Even conservative traitor Robert Novak, the right-wing press flunky who aided and abetted the White House conspiracy to reveal the identity of an American CIA agent, says Bremer`s CPA is a mess. "The Bush administration has spent a lot of time saying how well things have gone in Iraq, contending the happy truth has been obscured by negative news media coverage. This is privately described by officials as the `smoke and mirrors` technique." By the way, has Lieutenant AWOL made any progress on identifying the traitor in the White House who commited a grave breach of national security?

Opinion: Christmas came early for Lieutenant AWOL. Enjoy it while you can, Lieutenant AWOL, because you`re still a miserable failure.





# posted by yankeedoodle : 6:01 AM

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December 18, 2003
Robert Fisk: Another bomb creates its obscene theatre in Baghdad
By Robert Fisk
18 December 2003
The Independent

The thump of air pressure on the window wakes me up, a blast of sound that gently shakes the walls; the sound of 17 lives disappearing. Bombs in Baghdad are a daily heartbeat, the aftermath a kind of obscene theatre.

I reach the crossroads minutes later. There`s a shattered minibus with the pulverised remains of its passengers inside, a screaming fireman, pieces of a lorry - blown apart with such impact that the engine block is shorn in half - and two burning cars, the flames licking at their wheels and something terrible below the driver`s seat. The bomb was in the truck. But the bus. Why would anyone bomb a busload of Iraqi civilians? There is flesh on the road, and vast shards of iron and metal and sandals and women`s handbags around the bus where several of the dead passengers - or what is left of them - are still sitting in their seats. Shrapnel has cascaded into the slums of Al-Bayaa, a pathetic warren of brick houses and sewage-filled laneways whose broken windows now sparkle in the streets

A group of US soldiers has just arrived, three of them prowling through the muck and the oil-splattered road for the bomb-detonator. Sergeant Joel Henshon of the 11th/65th US military police guards what might have been part of the mechanism, a grenade that glistens grey and sinister on the mud of a traffic island. There must be a thousand shouting people standing in the dawn of smoke and flames, men, kuffiaed` in Arab scarves, many of them in black leather jackets.

I find some cops by the burning cars, friendly, American-paid policemen with smart little yellow identification badges and pale blue uniforms. A brand-new fire engine arrives and a torrent of water swamps what`s left of the truck and the bus. New Iraq, it seems, responds efficiently to its growing violence. A policeman - for this is the flip side of every constabulary in the world - walks up and, incredibly, asks me if I would like to know what he has discovered. A cop in Baghdad is a good guy. Is that what we are now to learn?

"The truck belonged to the Ministry of Oil, it was a tanker without a trailer, registration number 5002, and we found this in what was left of the cab." He gives me a golden sticker with "Allah" written in Arabic on one side and "Mohamed" on the other. God and his Prophet withstood the blast. Nothing else did. A dozen men have clustered ghoulishly around the nearest car. There is a mass of glistening bones beneath the blackened steering shaft; femurs and bits of backbone.

The Mercedes minibus had come from the province of Dyala, east of Baghdad. My friendly, balding cop proves this from the registration plate - "Number 9530," he reads from his notebook - 10 men and women and a driver who must have woken before dawn for a routine journey to the capital. The cop has already discovered the owner of the bus - a man called Nadji - and the identity of the driver, an Iraqi named Amad Jabr. Amid the anarchy of Iraq, a policeman is doing his job.

But surely the bomber was en route to another target. Premature explosion. Was there a police station near here? Sergeant Henshon gives a Baghdad reply. "There was," he says with a beautiful Alabama twang in this grim dawn. "But it has already been bombed." Then a shopkeeper says he saw an American convoy driving down the road and the truck trying to catch up with it, colliding with one of the cars beside the minibus.

Was this the target? Baghdad does not easily produce replies to such questions. We still do not know how many Iraqis died this week under American gunfire in the Sunni cities around Baghdad as they protested against the capture of Saddam Hussein. I drive through the grey wastes of desert to Fallujah, going carefully through my notebook, adding up the lists of deaths from local hospitals. In all, I count 40 dead since Saddam`s capture. The Americans say the men they shot are all "insurgents" - they always do - and the tally includes 10 or 11 dead in Ramadi, another 11 in Samarra, up to nine in Khaldiyah and four in Fallujah.

The Americans said they were attacked in Fallujah and a local police captain agrees. "The resistance opened fire on an American vehicle that was set on fire," Captain Taha al-Fallahi tells me. "The Americans fired back at the crowds, killed four - one of them a child - and wounded many others." At the hospital, I find a small boy being helped into his father`s car.

Fourteen-year-old Ra`ad Rabiah al-Joubouri had been in the market buying groceries for his mother when the Americans began firing down the road. He is sitting now in the back of the car next to his black-cowled mother, his right, bandaged leg stretched out on to the arm rest of the driver`s seat. "I had my bicycle and I wanted to cross the square and I saw the Americans," he says. "Then I felt the bullet hit my leg and it felt wet and hurt." He gives me a grin and his father says he is a brave boy. Another "insurgent" who almost bit the dust.

http://www.bestofdesign.co.uk/antiwarblog/archives/000095.ht…

Posted by Keyvan at December 18, 2003 03:38 AM

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THE TRIAL OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

Selected Highlights From a Future Transcript
BAGHDAD--AHMED CHALABI: Good morning, Mr. Hussein. I am Ahmed Chalabi, chairman of the Iraqi National Congress, President-in-Waiting of the Islamic Republic of Occupied Mesopotamia and special prosecutor in The People of Iraq vs. Hussein.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: I know who you are.

AC: Are you Saddam Hussein, most recently to have resided at No. 4 Chicken Run Road, Basement Apt. 1, Ad Dwar, Salahuddin Province?

SH: The one and only!

AC: Very well. As you are aware, you have been charged with a number of serious offenses. Let`s begin with your war against Iran, which killed more than a million Iraqis and Iranians between 1980 and 1988 and destroyed our national economy.

SH: Ah, well, I can explain that. I wanted to give up that stupid war as soon as the Iranians began fighting back, but Secretary of State George Schulz kept bugging me about it. He called me up all the time, in the middle of the night--like the whole world is on Washington time, you know? Keep on rockin`, Saddie, he said. Don`t be a wuss. You`re our strategic bulwark against Iran. I admit it. I was flattered. When the Great Satan tells you he needs you to become his "strategic bulwark," what are you gonna do, say no? Plus President Reagan kept sending me cash and bombs.

AC: Did you use a nerve gas called tabun against the Iranians, in violation of the 1925 Geneva protocol against the use of chemical weapons?

SH: Well, yeah, but Donald Rumsfeld gave me a note.

AC: Why don`t we just--

SH: You see, Rumsfeld was Reagan`s special Middle East envoy--`83, I think it was--and he came over to visit me at the palace. We celebrated Ramadan together, saw a few shows. We were tight, though you`d never know it to hear the way he talks now! Back then, though, Rummy was my dog. He told me that the president had authorized him to do "whatever`s necessary" to help me go all the way to Teheran. The Americans knew that I was gassing those Shiite Iranians like nobody`s business, and they loved it! You have to understand, they were still pissed about that hostage thing. That`s why they offered me full diplomatic relations. I figured hey, it`s a tough neighborhood, what with psycho Israelis bombing my brand-nuke plant and the Saudis chopping off their princesses` heads down south--I needed a friend, Rummy needed a friend, it worked out.

AC: You gassed 5,000 Kurds at the town of Halabja in 1988.

JUDGE KATHERINE HARRIS: Phrase queries in the form of a question, counselor. Like in "Jeopardy."

AC: Sorry, your honor. Mr. Hussein, did you gas 5,000 Kurds at Halabja?

SH: Actually, that was the Iranians. Hold on...(fumbles through papers)...here it is. Stephen Pelletiere, the main CIA political analyst on Iraq during the 1980s, wrote about this in The New York Times last January. He says yes, Kurds were gassed during one battle between us and Iranian troops, but the CIA "cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds...The condition of the dead Kurds` bodies however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent--that is, a cyanide-based gas--which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time." Rumsfeld gave me permission to for mustard gas.

AC: Still, your soldiers used poison gas! Didn`t you realize that you`d gone too far?

SH: The Americans kept telling me I hadn`t gone far enough! I told them I wanted to end the war, but Reagan didn`t want me to submit to "regime change"--that was Ayatollah Kholmeini`s main demand to stop the fighting. Reagan had his CIA director Bill Casey ship me zillions of Chilean cluster bombs, but they still didn`t stop the Iranians. Some "strategic bulwark," huh? (bitter laughter)

AC: Um--OK. When did you decide to invade Kuwait?

SH: That was a terrible misunderstanding. Look, the other OPEC guys were leaning on me to do something about Kuwait because they were exceeding production limits and driving down prices. They`re your problem, they said. I figured, why not kill three birds with one stone--reunite with a province artificially partitioned by the Brits, sate OPEC and stop the Kuwaitis` nasty habit of drilling sideways into our oilfields? But I was a good CIA employee. I would never have done something like that without talking to my bosses in the Bush Administration first.

AC: This would be George H.W. Bush?

SH: Yeah, yeah, the slightly smarter one. Anyway, I had my intelligence people analyze statements coming out of the White House to figure out whether they`d mind if I invaded. On July 24, 1990, a week before we went in, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said, "We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait." On July 31, Representative Lee Hamilton asked Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly, testifying before a House foreign affairs subcommittee, whether it was true that the U.S. would not send troops to defend Kuwait if I invaded. "That is correct," Kelly said. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie--they both told me it was OK to take out Kuwait! Then, when I did, they pretended we`d never talked about it first. It all goes to show, never deal with a middleman. I didn`t want to bother President Bush during his August vacation. That`s what you get for showing a little consideration. By the way, do you think there`s any chance I could get my old job back? Tell Rummy I miss him!

AC: Your honor, I`d like to request an adjournment.

SH: But you haven`t asked about my weapons of mass destruction!

(Ted Rall is the editor of the new anthology of alternative cartoons "Attitude 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists," containing interviews with and cartoons by 21 of America`s best cartoonists. Ordering information is available at amazon.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2003 TED RALL

RALL 12/16/03

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[bares@nobles]

Von einem Engländer aus einem anderen Board:

Channel 4 news screened a report from Samara, Iraq. They followed "Charlie Company" for a week as they policed the town, situated in the middle of the "Sunni Triange".

This is what we saw:

After a mortar round landed near a unit of US vehicles, a man was found 10 minutes later `loitering` around the area of town where they thought it came from. He was overweight and middle aged. In full view of the camera, he was beaten to the ground, punched then bound. He was saying repeatedly in Arabic "I didn`t do anything". An arabic speaking US soldier told him, whilst pointing his rifle in his face, that if he didn`t shut up he would put him against the wall and shoot him in the head. They then put a bag on the suspects head, and left him sitting isolated in a field in the blazing sunshine for two hours befroe taking him away for further questioning. They later let him go.

We saw several raids into houses looking for weapons. Familes were woken at two in the morning by a dozen shouting Americans, none of whom in this case could speak Arabic. On one occasion, whilst the women and children were screaming, thinking their husband, their father was about to be shot, an American soldier pointed a rifle to the man`s head, shouting "lie down!". The man didn`t understand and got kicked to the ground and bound. The soliders emptied the contents of drawers and cupboard and found nothing. They put a bag on the man`s head and took him away. They wouldn`t even let the wife put his shoes on his feet.

Another search raid began with a tank demolishing the wall of a house after they couldn`t kickied the door down. Inside was another terrified family.

They talked to several young US servicemen and it was clear they are being scarred by their experiences.

After the report a retierd British general expressing his concern at the tactics being followed. He remarked that they had adopted the same tactics used by the Israelis in the West Bank where winning "hearts and minds" was not a concern.

It was thoroughly depressing and deeply concerning. There is no leaving Iraqi now, this is a long haul operation. But this is not the way to win friends. This is the way to make people fear you, then hate you.

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"They found several pairs of Saddam`s boxer shorts in the hut and, by the way, that is the closest we have come to finding weapons of mass destruction." —David Letterman

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US-Besatzungsarmee verhaftet irakische Gewerkschaftsführer
von David Bacon
US Labor Against the War / ZNet 15.12.2003

Bagdad, Irak (10.12.2003)-- Die US-Besatzungstruppen haben an diesem Wochenende ihre Bemühungen ausgedehnt, die neuen irakischen Gewerkschaften durch eine Reihe von Verhaftungen zu lähmen. Am Samstag überfiel ein Konvoi, der aus zehn Humvee-Jeeps und Mannschaftswagen bestand, das alte Hauptquartier der Transport- und Kommunikationsarbeitergewerkschaft im Bagdader Busbahnhof, das seit Juni als Büro des Irakischen Gewerkschaftsbunds (Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions) genutzt wurde. Zwanzig Soldaten sprangen aus den Wagen, stürmten ins Gebäude, legten acht Mitgliedern des Gewerkschaftsvorstands Handschellen an und nahmen sie fest.

"Obwohl wir sie immer wieder fragten, nannten sie keinen Grund", sagte der Sprecher des Gewerkschaftsbunds Abdullah Muhsin. Soldaten überstrichen den Namen des Gewerkschaftsbunds am Eingang des Gebäudes mit schwarzer Farbe. Da es den neuen irakischen Gewerkschaften an grundlegenden Mitteln wie Büromöbeln und -maschinen fehlt, gab es in dem Gebäude nur wenig, was beschlagnahmt werden konnte. "Aber wir hatten neue Akten angelegt und die haben sie mitgenommen", fügt Muhsin hinzu. Ironischerweise hingen an den Wänden des Büros Poster, auf denen der Terrorismus verurteilt wurde, die dann von den Soldaten bei dem Überfall abgerissen wurden.

Obwohl die drei am folgenden Tag frei gelassen wurden, gab es von der Provisorischen Verwaltung der Koalitionstruppen (CPA) keine Erklärung für die Festnahmen.

Der Überfall auf den Busbahnhof folgte der Festnahme von zwei anderen Gewerkschaftsführern am 23. November: Qasim Hadi, der Generalsekretär der Gewerkschaft der Arbeitslosen (UUI) und Adil Salih, ein weiterer Führer der Organisation. Hadi war schon zwei Mal zuvor von Koalitionstruppen verhaftet worden, weil er Demonstrationen arbeitsloser Werktätiger anführte, auf denen Arbeitslosenunterstützung und Arbeitsplätze gefordert wurden. Bei dem letzten Überfall behaupteten die Koalitionstruppen, sie hätten im Büro der Gewerkschaft zwei Gewehre gefunden, wo nur eins genehmigt war. Hadi erklärte, dass die Organisation Gegenstand von Drohungen und Fatwahs (Todesurteile) seitens irakischer religiöser Parteien gewesen sei und Waffen zur Selbstverteidigung brauche, da die US-Truppen nicht in der Lage oder nicht bereit seien, Sicherheit zu gewähren.

Die beiden wurden nach eintägiger Haft entlassen.

Beide Gewerkschaftsgruppen organisieren seit Monaten irakische Arbeiter. Der Irakische Gewerkschaftsbund hielt im Juni in Bagdad eine Konferenz ab, auf der Gewerkschaften in zwölf Industriesektoren gegründet wurden. Die Gewerkschaft der Arbeitslosen gehört zur Gruppe der Arbeitergewerkschaften und -räte, die auch seit dem letzten Sommer aktiv ist.

Die Welle der gewerkschaftlichen Organisierung im Irak ist das Ergebnis der Lage der Arbeiter des Landes. Mehr als sieben Millionen Menschen oder siebzig Prozent der Arbeitskräfte sind der Gewerkschaft der Arbeitslosen zufolge ohne Arbeit, leiden Hunger oder sind sogar obdachlos. Obwohl der US-Kongress 87 Millionen Dollar für den Wiederaufbau zugewiesen hat, kann Dr. Nuri Jafer, der stellvertretende Minister für Arbeit und soziale Angelegenheiten "kein Land finden, dass bereit ist, unsere Pläne für ein minimales Arbeitslosenunterstützungssystem zu finanzieren". Vom Wiederaufbau sieht man in Bagdad nichts. Die Arbeit an Pipelines und Häfen für den Ölexport mag vorangehen, aber riesige Mengen Kriegsschutt liegen unberührt auf den Straßen der Hauptstadt. Mit den Geldmitteln aus den USA werden eine erdrückende Militärpräsenz und die Transformation der irakischen Wirtschaft bezahlt. Beides mit dem Ziel, das Land für ausländische Investoren attraktiver zu machen. Auf einer Telefon-Pressekonferenz am 08. Oktober gab Thomas Foley, der Direktor für die Entwicklung des privaten Sektors bei der CPA, eine Liste der ersten irakischen Staatsbetriebe bekannt, die verkauft werden sollten, einschließlich Zement- und Düngemittelfabriken, Phosphat- und Schwefelminen, Arzneimittelfabriken und die irakische Luftfahrtgesellschaft. Am 19. September veröffentlichte die CPA den Befehl Nr. 29, der - mit Ausnahme der Ölindustrie - einen 100-prozentigen ausländischen Besitz an Unternehmen und den Transfer ausländischer Profite aus dem Land gestattet.

Die irakischen Arbeiter haben Angst vor den Folgen, die eine Privatisierung für ihre Arbeitsplätze haben wird und fürchten, dass der Ausverkauf zu massiven Entlassungen führt. Der Manager der Ölraffinerie Al Daura, Dathar Al-Kashab, sagte voraus, "im Falle einer Privatisierung muss ich 1500 Arbeiter (von den 3000 bei der Raffinerie beschäftigten) entlassen. Wenn in Amerika eine Firma Leute entlässt, gibt es eine Arbeitslosenversicherung und sie müssen nicht verhungern. Wenn ich jetzt Beschäftigte entlasse, töte ich sie und ihre Familien."

Wie in den meisten anderen Fabriken, arbeiten in der Raffinerie diejenigen, die noch Arbeit haben 11- und 13-Stunden-Schichten für ein Gehalt von 60 Dollar im Monat. Es gibt keine Sicherheitsschuhe, Schutzbrillen, Masken oder Schutzkleidung. Der Irakische Gewerkschaftsbund half den Raffineriearbeitern beim Aufbau einer Gewerkschaft und der Wahl ihrer Führer, das Gleiche geschah auch in anderen Industriesektoren. In Basra haben die Arbeiter einen zentralen Arbeiterrat gewählt und Protestdemonstrationen organisiert. Die Gruppe der Arbeitergewerkschaften und -räte half den Arbeitern unter anderem bei der Wahl von Komitees in der staatlichen Lederfabrik, der größten Schuhfabrik im Nahen Osten, sowie der Pflanzenölfabrik in Mamoun.

Jedes Mal wenn die neuen Gewerkschaften versuchen, mit den Managern in den Fabriken Gespräche zu führen, wird ihnen mitgeteilt, dass ein von Saddam Hussein erlassenes Gesetz aus dem Jahre 1987 den Arbeitern in Staatsbetrieben (wo die Mehrheit der Iraker arbeitet) verbiete, Gewerkschaften zu bilden. Die Provisorische Verwaltung der Koalitionstruppen sorgt zusätzlich für die Einhaltung dieses Gesetzes. Ein von der CPA erlassener Befehl vom 06. Juni droht damit, dass jeder, der "zur zivilen Unordnung aufruft", als Kriegsgefangener nach der Genfer Konvention verhaftet wird. Die jüngsten Verhaftungen sind die neuesten Episoden bei diesem Bemühen der Besatzungsbehörden, die Gewerkschaften zu unterdrücken.

Die Kampagne gegen die Gewerkschaften offenbart die ökonomischen Absichten, die der Besatzung zugrunde liegen: die Privatisierung der Unternehmen, welche die meisten Arbeiter beschäftigen. Während einerseits die Gewerkschaften unterdrückt werden, finden andererseits jede Woche internationale Konferenzen in Washington und London statt, auf denen diese Besitztümer zum Verkauf angeboten werden. Auf einer dieser jüngsten Konferenzen bekundeten ExxonMobil, Delta Airlines und die American Hospital Group ihr Interesse. Da man von den neuen ausländischen Besitzern erwarten kann, dass sie die Lohnkosten kürzen werden, indem sie Arbeiter entlassen, wurde der Widerstand seitens der Arbeiter durch Gesetze, die Gewerkschaften verbieten, für unrechtmäßig erklärt und ihre Führer verhaftet.

Mit einem weiteren Schritt, Investitionen attraktiv zu machen, hält die CPA die Löhne der irakischen Arbeiter niedrig. Die 60 Dollar, welche die meisten Beschäftigten erhalten, sind das gleiche Gehalt, das unter Saddam Hussein gezahlt wurde, aber die Zahlung von Prämien, Gewinnanteilen und Unterstützung für Nahrungsmittel und Unterkunft wurden mit Beginn der Besatzung eingestellt, was eine drastische Kürzung der Einkommen zur Folge hatte. "Die Koalitionstruppen kontrollieren die Finanzen und unsere Löhne", sagt Detrala Beshab, der Präsident der neuen Gewerkschaft bei Al Daura.

Die neue irakische Arbeiterbewegung ist entschlossen, den Verkauf der Unternehmen, den Verlust der Arbeitsplätze und das Verbot von Gewerkschaften und Streiks zu stoppen. Jassim Mashkoul, der Leiter der Abteilung für interne Kommunikation beim Irakischen Gewerkschaftsbund beklagt, dass "wir anfangs dachten, unsere Lage würde sich bessern, da wir Saddam Hussein los waren. Aber sie ist nicht besser geworden." Nach Auskunft eines weiteren Gewerkschaftsführers, Muhsen Mull Ali, der zwei Mal im Gefängnis saß, weil er Gewerkschaften organisierte, "liegt unsere Verantwortung darin, sich den Privatisierungen so weit wie möglich zu widersetzen und zum Wohle der Arbeiter zu kämpfen."

Aber für die Bush Administration und die Besatzungsbehörde ist dieses Engagement ein Verbrechen.





[ Übersetzt von: Tony Kofoet | Orginalartikel: "U.S. Arrests Iraq`s Union Leaders" ]

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[/url]

World knows our foreign policy better than we do

Sometimes, when you catch a glimpse of yourself through the eyes of friends, the perspective is sobering.
Earlier this week, I sat down to talk with more than 20 young men and women from nations ranging from China and Nigeria to Colombia and Egypt. They work in U.S. embassies in their native countries and are traveling the United States to learn something about their new employer. For about an hour, they pelted me with questions about the American media, the American public and, most of all, American attitudes toward the rest of the world.

I can`t say how much they learned from my answers; I do know that I learned an awful lot from their questions. While they seemed to have a strong attraction to this country, or at least to the idealism and hope that America offers, it was undercut by a deep frustration approaching anger.

One question in particular struck home. I wasn`t taking notes, but I`ll try to paraphrase it:

"We watch the American government be friends with this dictator over here and support him, because he will give you the oil or minerals or something that you want," one person stood up to say. "But then with this other dictator over there, who is not so friendly and cooperative, you will start talking about democracy just so you can get rid of him. This is so hypocritical, to use democracy this way, like a weapon. Do Americans think that the world does not understand what it is you are doing?"

Boy, now how would you answer that one? As he knew and I knew, he`s right. In the past, we have used talk of democracy not as a core American principle, but to justify and disguise attacks on leaders who dare to defy us. Even the Bush administration, with its push for what the president calls a "global democratic revolution," acknowledges the history but promises that those days have ended. The short version of its new pro-democracy policy is, "This time we really mean it."

But we don`t. Our discussion took place Monday. That very day, 80-year-old Heidar Aliyev, the longtime ruler of Azerbaijan, was being buried in the capital city of Baku. A former KGB general who had run Azerbaijan when it was part of the Soviet Union, Aliyev had continued his harsh rule as dictator after the country became independent in 1993. His funeral was attended by his successor as president of Azerbaijan -- his 41-year-old son, Ilham Aliyev.

The younger Aliyev had been "elected" president in October with 80 percent of the vote in an election that international observers dismissed as a sham. Afterward, street protests were brutally suppressed, opposition figures tossed in prison and opposition press muzzled. And yet, shortly after the fake election, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Baku to congratulate Aliyev on his victory, express support and, according to Azerbaijani officials, to negotiate the stationing of thousands of U.S. troops on bases in Azerbaijan.

Why? Because Azerbaijan possesses enormous reserves of oil and natural gas, hosts a strategically critical oil pipeline and shares a border with Iran. It`s a troubling echo of events that occurred 20 years ago this week, when Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad to greet a man named Saddam Hussein.

Rumsfeld`s 1983 visit came mere weeks after Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran, a crime against humanity that Rumsfeld was polite enough not to mention to Saddam. In 1984, after Saddam used nerve gas against the Iranians, the United States punished Iraq by restoring full diplomatic relations. In 1988, when Saddam used poison gas against his own people, U.S. officials at first tried to shift public blame to Iran, then squashed a Senate resolution condemning Saddam. A little while later, we gave Saddam $1 billion in agricultural credits.

That history is unfamiliar to most Americans, but the rest of the world knows it all too well. They know that when we finally moved against Saddam, it was not to advance democracy or human rights, but because it suited our national interests, just as today it suits us to back a dictator such as Aliyev. They know, because they watch what we do with the same intensity that you would watch a 600-pound tiger locked in the same room with you. They watch every move, and they remember.

That explains, I think, why Americans are so often surprised when other countries express resentment, distrust and even anger at U.S. policies. We look at ourselves in the mirror and see a decent citizen of the world, strong but fair and devoted to the cause of democracy. But increasingly, even our friends look at us in dismay at our capacity for self-delusion.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays and Mondays.

Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/index.htm…

[Joerver]

Jubel, Trubel, Heiterkeit und was passiert nach Weihnachten, wenn alle Weihnachtsmänner wieder entlassen werden?

U.S. Leading Indicators Rise, Jobless Claims Fall to Near Three-Year Low
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy is enjoying a burst of energy heading into the new year, three reports showed today. A gauge of Philadelphia-area manufacturing soared to the highest in a decade, the index of leading economic indicators rose and jobless claims last week matched an almost three-year low.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia`s measure of manufacturing rose to 32.1 this month from November`s 25.9. The New York-based Conference Board`s leading index increased 0.3 percent in November, the sixth rise in the last seven months. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance dropped by 22,000 to 353,000 last week, the Labor Department said.

``The economy has a pretty full head of steam going into 2004,`` said Peter Hooper, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York.

Best Buy Co. and Agilent Technologies Inc. are among companies hiring as the economy is forecast to grow about 4.4 percent next year, a percentage point faster than the average of the 10-year economic expansion that began in 1991. The decline in claims in the week that the government conducts a monthly survey of employers suggests the economy this month added more than the 57,000 jobs gained in November, economists said.

``We will be getting up into the 200,000 area in payrolls, if not in December, then certainly by early next year,`` Hooper said.

Claims of about 370,000 are historically consistent with a monthly gain of 100,000 to 150,000 payroll jobs, according to research by economists at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York. The December employment report is to be released on Jan. 9.

Factory Jobs

The Philadelphia Fed`s report showed more factories in December hired workers than at any time since April 1973. The index of current manufacturing employment increased to 21.9 during the month from 3.3 in November. An index measuring the average workweek rose to 18.4 from minus 1.0.

The region comprises Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Economists and investors watch the report for clues about the performance of nationwide manufacturing, which accounts for one-seventh of the economy. The overall index was the highest since December 1993.

``There`s no question that we have seen, really beginning probably in the September timeframe, a noticeable uptick in business,`` said Craig Arnold, head of the fluid power business at Cleveland-based Eaton Corp., the world`s second- largest maker of hydraulic equipment, last week.

The new orders index surged to 41.8 from 20.8. Unfilled orders jumped to 17.5 this month from 9, and the shipments index rose to 41.1 from 26.8 last month.

Market Reaction

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 62 points, or 0.6 percent, at 2 p.m. New York time. Treasury securities rose for a third day on prospects inflation will stay low. The 4 1/4 percent Treasury note maturing in November 2013 rose 1/8 point, pushing down the yield 2 basis points to 4.17 percent.

Six of the 10 indicators the Conference Board uses to derive the leading indicators index contributed to the rise. In addition to fewer jobless claims, rising consumer confidence and an increase in factory hours boosted the reading.

Slower vendor performance, a sign of stronger demand, a wider spread between the federal funds target and the yield on the 10- year Treasury note, and higher stock prices also contributed to the gain.

Tax cuts championed by President George W. Bush and a 45-year low in the Federal Reserve`s benchmark interest rate may embolden companies to buy equipment and consumers to keep spending.

`Significant Growth`

``We are expecting significant growth also as we go into the upcoming year,`` said Brad Anderson, chief executive of Best Buy Co., the largest U.S. electronics chain, in a televised interview with Bloomberg News yesterday.

The Richfield, Minnesota-based retailer is planning on opening 80 stores next year as earnings more than doubled last quarter. The openings will mean ``more hiring and a continued kind of robust investment in inventories,`` said Anderson.

In addition to picking up the pace of hiring, companies may begin replacing aging computers and related equipment. Worldwide spending on such gear will rise as much as 8 percent next year, market researcher IDC said.

Spending will increase 6 percent to 8 percent, more than the company`s November forecast of 4.9 percent, IDC analyst Stephen Minton said in an interview. He estimated growth at less than 1 percent this year after declines in 2001 and 2002.

``Not only is the economy coming back, but there is a lot of old gear out there that needs to be replaced,`` Minton said. ``There`s a lot of pent up replacement demand, which is perhaps one of the reasons why in 2004 information-technology spending will grow faster than a lot of people expect.``

Jobless Claims

Economists had expected claims would fall to 365,000, based on the median of 40 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, from the 378,000 initially reported for the week earlier. The level of claims was the same as the last week of October, an almost three- year low.

The number of people continuing to collect state jobless benefits rose to 3.34 million in the week that ended Dec. 6 from 3.31 million a week earlier. The four-week average of continuing claims dropped to 3.33 million, the lowest since September 2001.

Two-thirds of U.S. chief financial officers said their companies plan to boost hiring in 2004, according to the results of a survey issued yesterday of 236 executives and conducted by Financial Executives International and Duke University`s Fuqua School of Business.

The number of employees is expected to increase 2 percent next year, compared with their projections six months ago that there would be no increase, the survey showed. About 14 percent said their payrolls would shrink.

Fed

Members of the Federal Reserve`s rate-setting Open Market Committee said signs of economic growth, while encouraging, still may not generate substantial numbers of new jobs until late 2005, according to minutes from their Oct. 28 meeting that were released last week.

The economy added 57,000 jobs last month, a fourth consecutive gain, according to figures from the Labor Department. The unemployment rate dropped to an eight-month low of 5.9 percent.

An index of New York manufacturing employment rose this month to match the highest reading since its inception in July 1997, according to figures earlier this week from the New York Fed. The reading held above zero for a third month, signaling factory employment in that region was expanding.

``We will be selectively hiring back engineers and customer- support staff,`` said Ned Barnholt, chief executive of Agilent, the world`s biggest maker of scientific testing equipment, in an interview last week.

Last Updated: December 18, 2003 14:04 EST

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December 18, 2003
Courts Deal Blow to Bush on Treatment of Terror Suspects
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — Bush administration tactics in the campaign against terrorism suffered a pair of setbacks today in two federal appeals courts thousands of miles apart.

An appellate court in San Francisco ruled that prisoners held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the American court system.

Hours earlier, an appellate court in Manhattan ruled that President Bush does not have the power to detain as an enemy combatant a United States citizen who was seized on American soil and to deny him a lawyer.

Both decisions, by three-judge panels from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, and from the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, were by 2-to-1 margins.

The Justice Department said today that it would seek a stay of the Manhattan ruling as government lawyers consider whether to appeal to the full Second Circuit or try to go directly to the Supreme Court. The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, called the ruling "troubling and flawed" and "really inconsistent with the clear constitutional authority of the president and his responsibility."

There was no immediate administration reaction to the San Francisco ruling, but an appeal to the full Ninth Circuit or to the Supreme Court is very likely.

Taken together, at least for the moment, the decisions amounted to a day of stinging judicial defeats for the administration, which has also experienced several recent embarrassing episodes in its approach to fighting terrorism. The decisions also constituted the latest chapters in a constitutional drama that has been playing out since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Second Circuit panel rejected the administration`s treatment of Jose Padilla, who is accused of plotting to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb."

The Ninth Circuit rejected the administration`s arguments that because the 660 men being held at Guantánamo were picked up overseas on suspicion of terrorism and being held on foreign soil, they might be held indefinitely, without charges or trial.

"We share the desire of all Americans to ensure that the executive enjoys the necessary power and flexibility to prevent future terrorist attacks," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the Ninth Circuit majority, ruling on a suit brought by a California relative of a Libyan being held in Cuba.

"However," Judge Reinhardt said, "even in times of national emergency — indeed, particularly in such times — it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike." He was joined in his ruling by Judge Milton I. Shadur.

At one point, the majority decision amounted to a rebuke. "In our view," the decision said, "the government`s position is inconsistent with fundamental tenets of American jurisprudence and raises most serious questions under international law."

But the dissenting Ninth Circuit judge, Susan P. Graber, argued that a 1950 Supreme Court decision makes it clear that an enemy alien detained overseas by the American military does not have standing in American civilian courts.

In the Second Circuit case, the issue was somewhat different, since it deals with an American citizen held on American soil.

Mr. Padilla, a convert to Islam, was arrested last year at O`Hare International Airport near Chicago on his return from Pakistan after extensive travel in the Middle East. Attorney General John Ashcroft drew worldwide attention soon after when he said the government believed that Mr. Padilla, who has a long criminal record as a gang member in Chicago, had been planning to explode a bomb that would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive particles over a wide area.

Subsequently designated an "enemy combatant" by the government, Mr. Padilla was briefly held in Manhattan before being sent to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where he has been denied access to a lawyer and held incommunicado ever since — treatment that the Second Circuit panel said today was wrong despite the fact that the government had ample reason to charge Mr. Padilla.

"As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center once stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat Al Qaeda poses to our country and of the responsibilities the president and law enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation," Judges Barrington D. Parker Jr. and Rosemary S. Pooler declared today.

"But presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum," two jurists wrote, "and this case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued, but whether the president is obligated, in the circumstances presented here, to share them with Congress."

Alluding to the constitutional import of the Padilla case, the majority wrote: "Where, as here, the president`s power as commander in chief of the armed forces and the domestic rule of law intersect, we conclude that clear Congressional authorization is required for detentions of American citizens on American soil."

Today`s ruling does not mean that Mr. Padilla will go free, even if the ruling is sustained on appeal. The two judges said, rather, that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should release Mr. Padilla from military custody within 30 days, after which he could be prosecuted in civilian courts or held as a material witness.

"Under any scenario, Padilla will be entitled to the constitutional protections extended to other citizens," the appellate court majority wrote today, a clear reference to access to counsel.

In dissent, Judge Richard C. Wesley wrote, "In my view, the president as commander in chief has the inherent authority to thwart acts of belligerency at home or abroad that would do harm to United States citizens."

At another point, Judge Wesley said the majority had failed to cite constitutional precedent for the notion that Congress is given "exclusive constitutional authority to determine how our military forces will deal with the acts of a belligerent on American soil.

"There is no well-traveled road delineating the respective constitutional powers and limitations in this regard," Judge Wesley wrote.

The administration has encountered several embarrassing episodes related to the campaign against terrorism. A federal judge in Virginia recently ruled that the government could not seek the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. That ruling is being appealed.

The administration has also been criticized at home and abroad for its handling of detainees at the Guantánamo naval nase in Cuba. And most recently, the government`s case against Capt. James J. Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo, has seemed unsteady, as prosecutors have had trouble sustaining charges that he may have been guilty of security violations.

Mr. Padilla is the only American who has been taken into custody on American soil and declared an "enemy combatant." While the Second Circuit majority said it had no conclusion on his guilt or innocence, it pointedly noted that "the government had ample cause to suspect Padilla of involvement in a terrorist plot."

The dissenter, Judge Wesley, contended that the Congressional resolution passed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, gave President Bush all the authority he needed to hold Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant, his American citizenship notwithstanding. The judge rejected any suggestion that the resolution was a broadside attack on basic constitutional rights.

"The president is not free to detain U.S. citizens who are merely sympathetic to Al Qaeda," Judge Wesley said. "Nor is he broadly empowered to detain citizens based on their ethnic heritage. Rather, the joint resolution is a specific and direct mandate from Congress to stop Al Qaeda from killing or harming Americans here or abroad."

The words of the majorities and dissenters in the two cases made it abundantly clear that the issues do not concern just the separate, sometimes conflicting powers of the president and Congress, but something perhaps even more fundamental — the delicate balance between personal freedoms and the security of the nation, especially in wartime.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 18, 2003
Chief of Arms Hunt in Iraq May Be Leaving His Post
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:14 p.m. ET

CAMP SLAYER, Iraq (AP) -- Weapons hunters are spending more time on base, intelligence experts have been reassigned to work on the counterinsurgency and the man leading a so-far unsuccessful search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is thinking of stepping down.

A nine-month search for the weapons of mass destruction President Bush said he went to war to destroy has been conducted by a succession of U.S. teams that have all failed to find any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The lack of evidence has led critics to suggest the Bush administration either mishandled or exaggerated its knowledge of Iraq`s alleged arsenal. Since the war, White House officials have at times claimed weapons were found, or that evidence of programs, rather than actual weapons, would be enough for them.

Still, nothing substantive has materialized and after an exhaustive search, the weapons hunt appears to have slowed.

``For a while this place was really active, but that`s changed in the last month,`` said Charles McKay, a member of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency who has been involved in the search since May.

``Now we`re lucky if there`s a mission once a week around here,`` he said at Camp Slayer, the nickname weapons hunters have given to their base on the grounds of one of Saddam Hussein`s former Baghdad palaces.

David Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector, was named by the CIA in June to lead the search for weapons of mass destruction. His appointment, and the creation of his operation, the Iraq Survey Group, was supposed to be the key to finding the weapons Iraq long denied having.

Kay returned to the United States last week and on Thursday, a U.S. intelligence official in Washington said he was considering quitting his post. Kay did not return an e-mail message seeking comment and recently turned down a request for an interview.

During a visit Wednesday to Kay`s headquarters at Camp Slayer, a senior military officer with the weapons hunt tried to offer assurances their work was continuing. ``We`re still here,`` Roland Mulligan said.

U.S. intelligence officials in Washington said the search would continue. New leads could come from the interrogation of Saddam, who was captured Saturday.

The weapons hunt is staffed by more than 1,000 intelligence analysts, interrogators and translators who pore over documents, investigate suspect sites and conduct interviews with Iraqis.

The work hasn`t been easy and there was recently a large staff turnover, those involved with the search said on condition of anonymity.

Some people went home and others were reassigned to work on the counterinsurgency the U.S. military is waging in Iraq, U.S. officers said.

Kay`s teams have complained about everything from logistical and transportation problems to an inability to find and keep track of Iraqi scientists. One top Iraqi missile maker who was believed to have gone to Iran in May was actually working the entire time with British military officers in Iraq. Only recently was he questioned by team members, he said.

So far, Kay`s teams have talked to hundreds of Iraqis. Some have been detained, but the overwhelming majority have been cleared. In many cases, they were rehired for their old jobs; others will be eligible for U.S. government-funded projects.

Currently, fewer than 10 former weapons scientists, with expertise in biological weapons or missiles, are in custody for suspected work or knowledge of proscribed programs. None have led inspectors to any weapons.

``It`s probably time to call it quits,`` said Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector, whose teams were given one-third of the time the United States has already spent looking for weapons.

``The U.S. and the U.K. are so wedded to the idea that the Iraqis were hiding things that they are not willing to explore the possibility that they`re wrong,`` Blix said.

In October, Congress approved $600 million for the weapons hunt to continue. Kay predicted then that definitive conclusions would be reached within six to nine months -- by spring 2004.

``I just can`t understand the figures, given how little they`re finding,`` said David Albright, a former weapons inspector, noting the U.N. operation cost far less.

While money is clearly being used for testing equipment, data entry, facilities and transportation, it is also going to big-name U.S. contractors working at Camp Slayer.

Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney`s former company Halliburton, has a large operation at Camp Slayer, running a fueling station, a new dining hall and portable lavatories.

The base, which was bombed out and looted after the war, was littered with broken glass, unexploded ordnance, and the remnants of Saddam`s regime. There was little electricity or running water in June.

Today, it has a volleyball court, a barber shop, a country store, laundry and alterations services; it is stocked with sports utility vehicles and pickup trucks the weapons hunters use to get around.

Fluor Daniel, a subsidiary of the California-based Fortune 500 company Fluor, is putting in new windows at Camp Slayer, turning palace suites into office space and helping repair damage around the grounds. Other subcontractors include Egyptian and Jordanian engineers and construction workers.

------

Associated Press Writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this report from Washington.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

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Cult author Moore scores more than Beckham in book sales
John Ezard
Friday December 19, 2003
The Guardian

Michael Moore`s root-and-branch onslaught against George Bush and the globalised economy yesterday brought off a coup in publishing, if not politics.

It topped David Beckham`s biography among bestselling non-fiction titles for 2003. Moore`s Stupid White Men, lamenting that "the government has been seized by a ne`er-do-well rich boy and his elderly henchmen", came second to the Atkins New Diet Revolution.

It sold 481,343 copies, compared with 438,175 for David Beckham: My Life in third place, according to figures from book trade researchers Nielsen BookScan.

Moore`s book has been in shops longer, but without a fraction of the hype and marketing operation which should have led Beckham`s book to top all lists. The Real Madrid star`s tome rates only fourth even among bestselling bio graphies this Christmas. It is being beaten at the tills by Martin Johnson`s and Paul Burrell`s stories, and by EastEnders actor Shane Richie`s From Rags to Richie.

Last night Rosie Glaisher, a spokeswoman for Moore`s publisher, Penguin, said the author`s UK tour this year had drawn 20,000 people.

"Michael has always said he speaks for a lot of people," she said. "He has a real audience among the young, particularly those who want to change the world. His book is about the US, but its scepticism can be applied to the country of anyone reading it."

In all 2003`s titles, the Atkins diet book, with sales of 826,000, came second only to the new Harry Potter, which sold 3.31m.

Another coup was achieved by independent publishers, who scooped huge sales in several categories. Yann Martell`s Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi was third top seller of all titles. This feat helped its tiny Edinburgh publisher Canongate to 67.5% growth in the year, according to today`s Bookseller magazine.

Profile Books staff are celebrating the emergence of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss`s dissection of bad English, as the No 1 Christmas bestseller. Shane Richie is published by Contender Books, an independent founded less than two years ago.

"These are examples of successful, daring publishing that is easier to achieve within small companies," said Sheila Bounford of the Independent Publishers Guild.

"The chain of command is short. There is far less of a culture of corporate procrastination, they can act quicker when they spot an opportunity. They are probably less likely to be brought down by bad commissioning decisions because there is simply not funding to take huge risks."


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We must honour the dead
Thousands of Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the occupation. So why is there no official death toll?

John Sloboda
Friday December 19, 2003
The Guardian

Despite the capture of Saddam Hussein, civilian deaths in Iraq may prove to be the true Achilles heel of the US and Britain`s intervention. The bodies pile up in morgues around the country, and reliable press and media reports put the total civilian death toll since March 19 as approaching 10,000.

More than 2,000 occupation-related deaths have occurred in Baghdad since President Bush announced the "end of major combat" on May 1. This bloodshed is inflaming anti-coalition passions in Iraq and beyond it, encouraging paramilitary organisations and provoking acts of revenge from ordinary Iraqis driven beyond moderation by the deaths of friends and family under the Coalition Provisional Authority`s military rule.

Many commentators fear Saddam`s capture will lead to an increase in violence and disorder. Those who refrained from joining the insurgent attacks on the US, for fear this would be aiding Saddam, may now feel no such restraint. Nearly 30 Iraqi civilians were killed in suicide attacks in the 24 hours after Saddam`s capture was announced, including the largest number of deaths in a single attack on a police station.

The official response to civilian deaths has long been one of artless evasion and obfuscation. In September 2003, Adam Ingram, the UK defence minister, offered the following non sequitur as government policy: "Through very strict rules of engagement, the use of precision munitions and the tactical methods employed to liberate Iraq`s major cities, we are satisfied that the coalition did everything possible to avoid unnecessary casualties. We do not, therefore, propose to undertake a formal review of Iraqi casualties sustained."

Like the UK, the Pentagon maintains that it does all it can to minimise civilian casualties, a claim incompatible with, among other things, its use of cluster bombs.

Last week, it was reported that the CPA has ordered the Iraqi health ministry to stop collecting statistics on civilian deaths. Dr Khudair Abbas, the Iraqi health minister, claimed such a study would not be feasible "because hospitals cannot distinguish between deaths that resulted from the coalition`s efforts in the war, common crime among Iraqis, or deaths resulting from Saddam`s brutal regime."

None of the statements from Washington, London, or Baghdad, make sense.

First, niceties are being applied that were not applied in the war itself. Military commanders did not refrain from dropping bombs or firing missiles in situations where it was impossible for them to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. On the contrary, they declared it was a regrettable necessity that civilians should die.

Secondly, if a task is important, it should be done regardless of the possibility of "mistakes". Error margins can be estimated and reported along with the results of a survey, as is common practice. In commenting on recent adjustments (downwards) to the official casualty total for 9/11, Jonathan Greenspun, commissioner of the New York mayor`s community assistance fund, told the New York Times that investigators were "so intent on determining the true and sacred number of the dead that they properly took their time, even if it meant that a few fraudulent names, or the names of the living, were sprinkled among those of the many dead. Better that, they reasoned, than to exclude the name of one true victim." The same reasoning applies in Iraq.

Third, the humanitarian imperative must be to locate and name the dead, regardless of how they died. Coalition claims that some categories of deaths were "justified" and others "caused by Saddam" cannot be used as an excuse to obstruct data collection. Disputes about who shares responsibility will drag on for years, but they are irrelevant to the task at hand. All conflict-related deaths in Iraq since March 19 2003 have come about through a deliberate, unilateral decision by the US and UK to invade Iraq without the authority of the UN. By doing this, and by later accepting the role of "Occupying Authority" under the provisions of the Geneva conventions and the Hague regulations, Britain and the US have assumed the responsibility for these deaths and how they are now handled, no matter who on the ground pulled the trigger.

Fourth, the coalition response ignores the existence of a range of surveys of civilian deaths that have already been conducted by independent agencies, including Human Rights Watch and the Mines Advisory Group. These projects show that high-quality research is possible. What is lacking in the White House and Number 10 is not the means but the will.

Since the start of hostilities, Iraq Body Count has been tracking civilian deaths through worldwide media reports. We will continue this work until some official agency fulfils its responsibilities to the memory of those who have died since March 19 2003. The innocent victims of the Iraq conflict must be recorded and honoured - and their relatives compensated - for it is they who have paid most dearly for the decisions of our politicians.

· John Sloboda is co-founder of Iraq Body Count and incoming executive director of the Oxford Research Group

www.iraqbodycount.net


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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US `need not have suffered` attacks of 9/11
Inquiry chairman calls for sackings over intelligence failure

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday December 19, 2003
The Guardian

The head of an independent commission investigating the September 11 attacks yesterday said that they could and should have been prevented, and that the officials responsible for the failure should be fired.

His full report is not due to be published before May, but the comments by the commission`s chairman, Thomas Kean, suggest its conclusions are likely to be politically explosive.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we`ve got to tell it right," Mr Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey appointed by the Bush administration, told CBS television. "As you read the report, you`re going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn`t done and what should have been done... This was not something that had to happen."

A less ambitious congressional report into the attacks published a year ago found evidence that leads were overlooked but stopped short of ruling that the hijackings could have been prevented. That report examined pre-9/11 warnings from the intelligence community that al-Qaida had for years been planning a hijacking attack, that extremists were using flying schools to train, and that two were tracked as they entered the United States - and then lost.

Mr Kean said the officials responsible for the intelligence failure should have been fired. So far, no one in the CIA and FBI found to have shelved repeated warnings that an attack like September 11 was being planned by al-Qaida, have suffered setbacks in their careers.

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Mr Kean said.

The White House had no comment on Mr Kean`s remarks yesterday, and said only: "The president wants to learn everything possible about what happened."

The 10-member bipartisan commission last month struck a compromise with the White House over access to secret documents, in particular the president`s daily intelligence brief. The tussle focused on a brief given to the president on August 6, 2001, in which the CIA warned about the possibility that al-Qaida could be planning hijackings in the US. After the commission threatened to issue a subpoena, the president`s staff agreed to hand over the documents to a commission sub-committee.

The administration suffered another setback yesterday when a federal appeals court ordered the release of a US terrorist suspect Jose Padilla from military custody within a month. Mr Padilla was arrested in June 2002 on suspicion of plans to build a "dirty" radioactive bomb, although intelligence officials later said there was no evidence he had made any progress.

Since being designated an "enemy combatant" he has been held at a military base without access to lawyers or relatives. Yesterday`s ruling found that the executive had no right to designate a US citizen arrested on American soil as an "enemy combatant" and deprive him of the normal rights of a criminal defendant, without specific permission of Congress. Mr Padilla, a Hispanic gang member from Chicago, converted to Islam in jail.

In his interview yesterday, Mr Kean said that his commission`s public hearings, starting next month, will produce important revelations, as its members question officials from the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, Pentagon, and possibly President Bush and former president Bill Clinton.

Against the backdrop of a presidential election campaign, the hearings could damage the president if it emerges that his administration failed to take reasonable steps to defend the country against such a devastating attack. However, the final report in May could also find fault with the preceding Democratic administration.

Under particular scrutiny will be public statements like the claim by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no way the administration could have known that al-Qaida would hijack US airliners and fly them into crowded buildings.

However, the 2002 congressional report examined a string of warnings from foreign intelligence agencies and FBI field agents, that al-Qaida had been contemplating doing just that for nearly a decade.

It also emerged that two of the future hijackers had been spotted at an al-Qaida meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, but the CIA failed to pass on their identities to immigration and customs officials before the two, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, arrived in California. The FBI was still on their trail on September 11, 2001.

The commission could also investigate another sensitive issue removed from the congressional report in December 2002 - the possible knowledge or role of Saudi officials in the September 11 plot.

Unheeded warnings

1995 Abdul Hakim Murad, an accomplice of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre, tells Philippine authorities that he learned to fly at US flying schools as part of a plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia. Philippine police inform the FBI immediately. "Murad`s idea is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger, then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit, and dive it at the CIA headquarters," a police report from 1995 says.

January 2000 Two future hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, are observed arriving in Kuala Lumpur for a meeting with al-Qaida suspects there. The two men then fly to California, but the CIA does not inform customs or immigration about its suspicions.

July 2001 Ken Williams, an FBI agent in Phoenix, Arizona, sends a memo to his superiors warning that Middle Eastern terrorists could be using American flying schools to train for future hijackings. The memo says the possibility has been examined by US law enforcement since April 2000. The "Phoenix memo" makes it as far as FBI HQ but no action is taken.

August 2001 As part of his morning briefing on August 6 during a "working holiday" on his Texas ranch, the president is told that al-Qaida might be planning hijackings against US targets.

August 2001 Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested in Minnesota after a flight instructor calls the FBI to voice his suspicion that the Frenchman is training to hijack a plane full of passengers. French intelligence quickly confirms Moussaoui has links with extremist groups.

FBI HQ turns down a request to search his possessions which would have revealed links to other hijackers. A Minnesota FBI official, Coleen Rowley, later issues a whistleblowing memo saying her office "identified [Moussaoui] as a terrorist threat from a very early point". On hearing about the September 11 attacks, the CIA director, George Tenet, reportedly says: "I wonder if it has anything to do with this guy taking pilot training."


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Is the search for weapons over?
After eight months with no discoveries, mission chief quits;

Fewer than 40 of the 1,400 inspectors still in the field;

As attacks on US military grow, WMD hunt no longer a priority
By Rupert Cornwell, Andrew Grice and Anne Penketh
19 December 2003


After eight months of fruitless search, George Bush has in effect washed his hands of the hunt for Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction, in whose name the United States and Britain went to war last March.

David Kay, the CIA adviser who headed the US-led search for WMD, is to quit, before submitting his assessment to the US President in February.

The departure of Mr Kay, a strong believer in the case for toppling Saddam Hussein because of his alleged weapons, comes as a particular embarrassment to Tony Blair. This week he maintained that Mr Kay had uncovered "massive evidence" of a network of WMD laboratories.

For Mr Bush, the missing weapons are a politically charged issue. Pressed to explain why his administration had asserted Saddam possessed weapons, when at best fragmentary evidence of programmes had been found, Mr Bush replied: "So what`s the difference? "If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," he said in an interview with ABC News` Diane Sawyer.

Mr Bush`s public dismissal of the weapons issue is the latest move by Washington and London to changethe justification for war. Weapons of mass destruction, and even weapons programmes, are no longer being put forward as the reason for the invasion.

Senior US and British officials now dwell almost exclusively on the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam against his people, and the opportunity provided by his removal for a regeneration of the Middle East.

Opinion polls point to the strategy working. The US public has forgotten what it was being told every day only nine months ago about the "imminent threat" the former Iraqi leader posed to the US, while the capture of Saddam last Saturday had boosted the President`s approval ratings to a healthy 60 per cent-plus.

Mr Kay`s departure as head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) is said to be for family and personal reasons. He is not in Iraq at present but on holiday in Washington.

Mr Kay himself sounds increasingly doubtful that chemical or biological weapons will be found, and is said to be resentful that the US military was less than helpful to his experts, preferring to prioritise the counter-insurgency.

Publicly, Mr Kay insists, and points to his first interim report this autumn as proof, that the ISG has already unearthed evidence of ongoing weapons programmes. But he acknowledged on the BBC`s Panorama programme three weeks ago he was prepared to be proved wrong that no weapons existed.

Downing Street played down reports of Mr Kay`s departure as "rumour, not fact", and denied that Mr Blair had given up hope that evidence of WMD would be found. Privately, British ministers cling to the hope of finding evidence of weapons programmes rather than the actual chemical or biological weapons systems. They hope Saddam`s capture will end the "climate of fear" among Iraqi scientists and enable them to be honest about his regime.

This week Mr Blair was accused by the Tories and Lib Dems of "spinning" the ISG`s interim report after he said they had "found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles".

The ISG, set up in June, has a nominal staff of 1,400 specialists, analysts and translators, all theoretically dedicated to the search for WMD. But the numbers in the field have been less: two teams of 20 at most. In October, the group`s strength dwindled further when Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, ordered many personnel to be transferred to the regular forces to help counter the growing rebellion.

Despite the capture and interrogation of many senior Iraqi officials, there has been no breakthrough. Saddam is said to have told investigators what Iraq told the UN before the invasion: that it no longer had banned weapons.

But the seizure of Saddam has given some American officials new hope that banned materials will be found.

Peter Kilfoyle, a former Defence minister, said Saddam`s capture had not relieved the pressure on Mr Blair for weapons to be tracked down.

The former deputy chief UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said: "What is important is Saddam`s intentions. The case can be made that he may not have had existing weapons, but his intention was to outlast the inspectors and reconstruct his weapons capabilities."
19 December 2003 08:55



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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December 19, 2003
Explosion Rocks Office of Iraq Shi`ite Party
By REUTERS

Filed at 2:43 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A blast ripped through a house belonging to Iraq`s main Shi`ite Muslim political group early on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring seven, witnesses said.

A top official of SCIRI, which cooperates politically with Iraq`s U.S. occupiers, was assassinated in Baghdad Wednesday by what the group called loyalists of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The witnesses said the explosion struck a residence at a compound of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) at about 0200 GMT.

A SCIRI official confirmed the explosion, but had no further details on the incident.

One witness said the structure was blown up by a large explosive device.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military on the incident.

Other residents of the area said the building had been a headquarters of Saddam`s Baath Party that was taken over after Saddam`s fall by SCIRI`s militia, the Badr Corps, but that families also lived there.

U.S. military officials once demanded Badr -- nurtured by Iran during years of exile to fight Saddam -- disarm, but it has taken part in security patrols in largely Shi`ite areas and expects to be part of a U.S.-approved security force composed of various Iraqi militias.

Political violence has flared among Iraq`s Shi`ites, who make up 60 percent of the population and hope to play a top role in a future government, since the fall of Saddam. SCIRI leader Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim was killed along with about 80 others by an August car bomb in the Shi`ite holy city of Najaf.



Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd.

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December 19, 2003
FUTURE SECURITY
U.S. Negotiating Over Role of G.I.`s in a Sovereign Iraq
By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — The Bush administration has begun delicate negotiations with Iraq`s transitional leaders on the freedom American-led military forces will have to carry out operations against insurgents after the transfer of sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad on June 30, officials say.

While the Coalition Provisional Authority is scheduled to go out of business by the middle of next year, military officials have said recently that their forces may have to remain in Iraq for at least "a couple more years," in the words of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq.

Administration, Pentagon and military officials acknowledge that security operations must be conducted within inevitable new political constraints when Iraqis take charge of their own affairs, whether by next summer`s deadline or later.

That concern is a prime motivation for the American push to rebuild Iraq`s civil defense corps, army and police force, putting an Iraqi face on the security mission. "Our tactics are going to have to change to some degree," a Bush administration official said. "We are going to have to take the concerns of Iraqis into account."

As discussions with Iraq`s transitional authorities are being pushed ahead on security affairs, the American authorities are proceeding on a separate, more political track, to insure that the Iraqi constitution, which is to be written by the government that takes power next year, embodies democratic and secular values.

The negotiations on the future military relationship between Washington and Baghdad, and on the principle of its future constitution, are widely seen as tests of whether Iraq can stand on its own next year and eventually serve as a model of democracy in the Middle East.

The Iraqi Governing Council, the group of Iraqi leaders chosen by the Coalition Provisional Authority to oversee Iraq, has set up a subcommittee to write a "transitional administrative law" to take effect next year before the June 30 transfer, according to administration officials.

The transitional law is intended to flesh out the principles that the Iraqi Governing Council agreed to in its discussions with L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, on Nov. 15. Translating the principles into a sweeping set of laws is proving difficult, however, some officials said. The sticking point, they said, is how far to incorporate Islamic law into the constitution.

Whatever the council decides would, in turn, be rewritten by the government that is to take office next year. But American officials hope that the "transitional administrative law" is written so strongly that it will be adopted by the sovereign government. How much leverage the United States can bring to bear is a matter of conjecture.

Still, the military negotiations are considered the most urgent priority by many administration officials.

On his visit to Baghdad on Dec. 6, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took the lead in pushing the process forward at a meeting with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the Governing Council`s rotating presidents.

A senior Pentagon official who attended the session said the two men had discussed creation of a new government-to-government relationship and coordination of economic development, as well as the form of a new security agreement.

"We will work out, over the next six months, arrangements whereby military operations can continue and the continued training of Iraq`s own security forces can take place," one official said.

A new mutual security pact — or even a formal invitation from the Iraqi authorities to the American-led military forces to remain — may quiet Washington`s critics in the Arab world and around the globe, officials said.

"The transfer of sovereignty clearly will have an impact on security, because you rid yourself of the `occupation` label," an official said. "That is one of the claims that these so-called insurgents make, that they are under American occupation. So you remove that political claim from the ideological battle."

American officials say that even though the new Iraqi government may be pleased to have foreign forces help secure its territory, internal and international political considerations may prompt Iraq to limit the kinds of missions that allied forces carry out.

The precise rules of the security agreement between allied forces and the emerging Iraqi government have not been negotiated, but officials pointed to numerous precedents: the status-of-forces agreements that define rights and responsibilities of large American military forces in Japan or Germany, and the military-technical agreements or access deals that govern the smaller American presence in smaller nations, including many in the Middle East.

"They could be military-technical agreements; they could be status of forces agreements; they could be a whole range of things that could be broad, or that could be detailed," one official said.

In the meantime, the allied military is "marching straight ahead on building up five Iraqi security sectors," a Pentagon official said, referring to the new Iraqi Army, civil defense corps, border patrol, facilities protection service and police.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 19, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Learning to Break the Rules
By BRUCE BERKOWITZ

WASHINGTON

The capture of Saddam Hussein was a much-needed shot in the arm for American intelligence services. President Bush made special mention of our intelligence analysts in his address after the capture. Yet, as a onetime C.I.A. analyst, I think it`s important to examine why this mission was so successful. In large part, it was because analysts were allowed to ignore many long-held beliefs about how intelligence is "supposed" to work.

For example, over the past weeks analysts worked alongside the military planners and special operations forces who seized Mr. Hussein. This is a break with the tradition of analysts keeping their distance from the players in the field so they maintain their objectivity. (Recall the brouhaha when Vice President Dick Cheney was accused of intimidating analysts by meeting with them face to face to discuss Iraqi weapons programs.)

Similarly, intelligence workers developed new methods on the fly in their efforts to uncover Mr. Hussein`s support network. In trying to depict the links between members of Mr. Hussein`s enormous extended family, some analysts used a commercial software package that law-enforcement agents have long used to analyze crime rings. The software helped them visualize non-obvious family relationships, and eventually pinpoint the families in Tikrit who were hiding Mr. Hussein. Usually, organizations have to wait months or even years to develop or adapt a new tool or methodology — this time they were able to adapt an off-the-shelf product in just a few weeks.

Need more bodies to study a problem? No problem for the team hunting Saddam Hussein. To the public, this might seem only natural in such a high-priority mission. But according to the Congressional inquiry into the 9/11 intelligence failure, the inability of the C.I.A. to promptly reassign analysts to major new cases played a big role in Al Qaeda`s effectiveness.

And those hunting for Mr. Hussein overcame another problem that played a role in 9/11: the failure of intelligence organizations — C.I.A., National Security Council, F.B.I. and military intelligence — to share information, because security rules prevented analysts from talking to one another. In this case, the agencies were on the same page, and press accounts suggest that the usual concerns about interagency turf and excessive preoccupation with secrecy were set aside.

In short, the hunt for Saddam Hussein was so important that it forced everyone to cut the red tape and adapt the rules to let our analysts show just how good they really are. If only the system always worked so well. In our new age of terrorism, nuclear proliferation and rogue states, we will need the agility to redirect an intelligence organization before an attack.

At the same time, the hunt for Mr. Hussein highlights some of our weaknesses. The search was conducted more like a police dragnet than a traditional intelligence investigation. Because our military controls Iraq, our personnel could roam the countryside freely, cordon off areas and interrogate sources repeatedly, and no one really had to be concerned about exposing his identity as an American.

However, in most countries that concern us today, we cannot operate this way. Iran and North Korea resemble the Iraq of a year ago — we have no official presence there. Because our intelligence officers rely mainly on official cover, and get much of their information from cooperative foreign intelligence services, our network is weakest in countries where the American flag does not fly.

Meanwhile, our determination to focus so effectively on Mr. Hussein leads one to wonder about our efforts in other hotspots like Pakistan. Do we have sufficient analysts on the job? Are we balancing the risks of losing an intelligence source with the benefits of sharing information?

Everyone involved in finding Saddam Hussein should pay close attention to the changes in strategy that allowed the achievement — such practices should be the routine, not the exception.


Bruce Berkowitz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and senior analyst at the RAND Corporation, is author of "The New Face of War."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Sie haben alle Möglichkeiten, aber nutzen sie wenig.

December 19, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Change the Channel
By BOB HERBERT

addam is now a staple of the Leno and Letterman shows.

And Paris Hilton outgunned President Bush in a prime-time shootout between Fox and ABC.

And we`re already choosing up sides on Kobe`s and Jacko`s guilt or innocence.

We really are amusing ourselves to death, as Neil Postman pointed out a couple of decades ago. He might as well have been speaking into the void. It`s only gotten worse.

Americans are the best-informed people in the history of the world. But we are experts at distancing ourselves from any real unpleasantness. Most of us behave as though we bear no personal responsibility for the deep human suffering all around us, and no obligation to try and alleviate it.

Paris, Jacko, Saddam. The world is like one big media show, a made-for-TV spectacular. We can change the channel if things get too ugly. Or just turn the television off. Genuine social consciousness is for squares.

Example: The nation`s at war. Is there any reason to share in the sacrifices wars usually require? Nah. The grunts can do the fighting and the dying. And we can put the costs on a credit card. Future generations will pay for it.

And here at home? The headlines tell us things are pretty good. The economy`s turned around and the president`s poll numbers are up. Let`s head for the mall.

The problem is, if you peel away the headlines and look more closely at reality, you`ll see some things that aren`t so amusing. In New York City, which is just now emerging from the recession, there are more homeless people than at any time since accurate records started being kept in the late 1970`s.

Each night more than 39,000 people — nearly 17,000 of them children — seek refuge in the city`s shelters. "It`s the greatest number of homeless since the Great Depression," said Patrick Markee, a policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless.

The faces of the destitute are changing as more and more families with children — in New York and across the nation — find themselves without the money necessary for food or shelter.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report yesterday showing that over the past year hunger and homelessness continued to rise in major American cities. A survey of 25 cities showed an increase of 17 percent in requests for emergency food assistance and an increase of 13 percent in requests for emergency shelter.

A surge in the Dow is big news. Surges in hunger and homelessness are not.

A broader look at the levels of serious distress being faced by increasing numbers of Americans comes from the latest Index of Social Health, which is published annually by the Institute for Innovation in Social Policy at the Fordham University Graduate Center in Tarrytown, N.Y.

The institute analyzes government statistics in a wide variety of areas, including infant mortality, children in poverty, teenage suicide, health insurance coverage and homicide rates, as a way of monitoring the "social well-being of the nation."

The latest index, which covered the year 2001 (the latest year for which complete statistics were available), showed the social health of the nation taking a steep dive. It was the biggest decline in the index in two decades. And preliminary data for the years since 2001 show the decline continuing, according to Dr. Marc Miringoff, the institute`s director.

The categories that worsened in the latest index were children in poverty, child abuse, average weekly earnings, affordable housing, health insurance coverage, food stamp coverage, the gap between rich and poor, and out-of-pocket health costs for those over 65.

Two indicators reached their worst levels on record, food stamp coverage (which correlates with increases in hunger) and income inequality.

"These numbers are usually invisible to us," said Dr. Miringoff. "They tell us an untold story, not just about the poor but the working poor and the middle class as well. It`s shocking to see such a sharp decline in just one year. It tells us that something`s going on with the basic fabric of our society."

We might actually pay attention to problems like hunger, homelessness, housing and health costs, if only we could find a way to make them amusing.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 19, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Telling It Right
By PAUL KRUGMAN

This is a very, very important part of history, and we`ve got to tell it right." So says Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Kean promises major revelations in testimony next month: "This was not something that had to happen." We`ll see: maybe those of us who expected the 9/11 commission to produce yet another whitewash were wrong. Meanwhile, one can only echo his sentiment: it`s important to tell our history right, not just about the events that led up to 9/11, but about the events that followed.

The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He`s no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn`t let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam`s capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war.

Even the Iraq war`s critics usually focus on the practical failures of the Bush administration`s policy, rather than its morality. After all, the war came at a heavy cost, even before the fighting began: to prepare for the Iraq campaign, the administration diverted resources away from Afghanistan before the job was done, giving Al Qaeda a chance to get away and the Taliban a chance to regroup.

And while the initial invasion went smoothly, since then almost everything in Iraq has gone badly. (Saddam`s capture would have been a smaller story if it had happened in the first flush of victory; instead, it was the first real piece of good news from Iraq in months.) The security situation remains terrible; the economy remains moribund; gasoline shortages and power outages continue.

To top it all off, the ongoing disorder in Iraq is a clear and present danger to our own national security. A large part of the U.S. military`s combat strength is tied down in occupation duties, leaving us ill prepared for crises elsewhere. Meanwhile, overstretch is undermining the readiness of the military as a whole.

Now maybe, just maybe, Saddam`s capture will start a virtuous circle in Iraq. Maybe the insurgency will evaporate; maybe the cost to America, in blood, dollars and national security, will start to decline.

But even if all that happens, we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn`t matter whether you tell the truth.

By now, we`ve become accustomed to the fact that the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — the principal public rationale for the war — hasn`t become a big political liability for the administration. That`s bad enough. Even more startling is the news from one of this week`s polls: despite the complete absence of evidence, 53 percent of Americans believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, up from 43 percent before his capture. The administration`s long campaign of guilt by innuendo, it seems, is still working.

The war`s more idealistic supporters do, I think, feel queasy about all this. That`s why they lay so much stress on their hopes for democracy in Iraq. They`re not just looking for a happy ending; they`re looking for moral redemption for a war fought on false pretenses.

As a practical matter, I suspect that they`ll be disappointed: the only leaders in Iraq with genuine popular followings seem to be Shiite clerics. I also wonder how much real commitment to democracy lies behind the administration`s stirring rhetoric. Does anyone remember that Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for Nelson Mandela`s release from prison? As recently as 2000 he defended that vote, saying that the African National Congress "was then perceived as a terrorist organization."

Which brings me to this week`s other famous prisoner. While the world celebrated the capture of Saddam, a federal appeals court ruled that Jose Padilla must be released from military custody. Mr. Padilla is a U.S. citizen, arrested on American soil, who has been held for 18 months without charges as an "enemy combatant." The ruling was a stark reminder that the Bush administration, which talks so much about promoting democracy abroad, doesn`t seem very concerned about following democratic rules at home.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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War on Terrorism`s Legal Tack Is Rejected
Court Challenges Declaration and Detention of U.S. Citizen as Enemy Combatant

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A22


In ordering the Bush administration to charge al Qaeda suspect Jose Padilla, declare him a material witness or set him free within 30 days, a New York federal appeals court has directly challenged the administration`s legal approach to the war on terrorism -- and intensified the clash between the executive and judicial branches, which will ultimately have to be settled at the Supreme Court, legal analysts said yesterday.

The administration`s assertion of authority to declare a U.S. citizen within the United States an enemy combatant, and to hold him or her indefinitely and incommunicado, has always been the most controversial of its legal claims, attracting criticism from across the ideological spectrum.

And the 2 to 1 decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit attacked that claim at its roots.

In an opinion that encapsulated the misgivings about the administration`s assertions of executive power that many judges and lawyers have expressed almost since the war began, Judges Rosemary S. Pooler and Barrington D. Parker rejected President Bush`s view that the Constitution gives him the authority as commander in chief to decide on his own who is an enemy of the United States in wartime -- or even to decide where the battlefield begins and ends.

"Presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum," Pooler and Parker wrote.

Rather, the court ruled, Bush needs express authorization from Congress to fight the war at home by detaining U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. The Sept. 18, 2001, joint resolution authorizing the president to use force against all "persons" linked to al Qaeda is not sufficient -- especially given that a federal law passed in 1971 bans the detention of citizens without express congressional authorization.

The court noted that the 1971 law had been passed in part to make amends for the mass detention of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Yesterday`s ruling was the first time any court of appeals had rebuked the president so directly and so broadly on these issues. And Padilla, as the only U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil and declared an enemy combatant, presents a clearly defined test case of a policy whose wider application will probably depend on what the courts say.

Even the dissenting judge on the 2nd Circuit court, Richard C. Wesley -- while agreeing that the president does have the authority to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant -- rejected the administration`s claim that he should have no right to counsel.

As a result, legal analysts said, the 2nd Circuit ruling was a more significant event than the ruling yesterday by the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which said that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees being held by U.S. authorities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to sue for their freedom in federal court. The Supreme Court has already agreed to rule on that question next year, so its opinion will quickly overtake the 9th Circuit`s.

"The 2nd Circuit has struck a body blow to the whole theory of fighting the war on terrorism, which was to move it out of the criminal justice system and treat it as a war," said John C. Yoo, a former Justice Department official who helped design the administration`s approach. "The 2nd Circuit essentially said, no, this is like crime. And if that sticks, a lot of other pieces that underlie what the government does in the war on terror are going to collapse, too."

That is precisely what civil libertarians are hoping for.

"War with terrorists is a metaphor that takes you too far," said Susan Herman, general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, which supported Padilla in the 2nd Circuit. "Presidential powers during war are usually limited because it`s war with another country, Congress has declared war . . . and the war has a time limit. At some point, it`s clear when you release detainees and repatriate them."

The 2nd Circuit opinions demonstrated how much the constitutional issues in Padilla`s case hinge on difficult, subjective questions of place and time. A key question is: If the United States is at war, where is the battlefield?

Bush -- pointing to the obvious fact that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are on U.S. soil, and that the attacks on them were carried out by terrorists acting from within the United States -- argues, in effect, that American soil is a war zone.

The 2nd Circuit majority rejected that, saying Padilla, who was unarmed when he was picked up by the FBI in Chicago, had been detained "outside a zone of combat."

Pooler, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, and Parker, who was nominated by Clinton and appointed by Bush, after his nomination stalled in the waning days of the Clinton administration, treated the Sept. 18 joint declaration by Congress as essentially an authorization for Bush to use force abroad against terrorism -- noting that the declaration lacked any specific mention of detaining people in the United States.

But Wesley, appointed by Bush, countered in his dissent that "t seems clear to me that Congress understood in the light of the 9-11 attacks the United States had become a zone of combat."

He added that "congressional authorization is not necessary for the Executive to exercise his constitutional authority to prosecute armed conflicts when, as on September 11, 2001, the United States is attacked."

Congress could not have intended to authorize the president to send soldiers to shoot al Qaeda suspects around the world while denying him the right to detain them in the United States, Wesley wrote.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
What`s the Difference?




Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A36


LAST YEAR the U.S. intelligence community produced a formal estimate concluding that Iraq possessed large stocks of chemical and biological weapons and that it had reconstituted its nuclear bomb program. But a concerted postwar search by a U.S. survey team so far has found no weapons or nuclear program -- only suspicious facilities and a continuing intention to acquire such arms.

"So what`s the difference?" President Bush demanded of ABC`s Diane Sawyer in an interview broadcast Tuesday. "The possibility that [Saddam Hussein] could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger." In fact, the difference is much larger than that -- and the president`s cavalier dismissal of it is shocking.

Start with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) the administration delivered to Congress in October 2002, just as it was considering whether to authorize war. Mr. Bush told Ms. Sawyer it was "very sound" -- yet by now it is obvious that it was not. Not only did the NIE mistake the seriousness of Iraq`s nuclear program, but it concluded that Iraq was still producing such deadly chemical agents as mustard, sarin and VX and had hundreds of tons of chemical weapons stockpiled. These have not been found, and the CIA-directed postwar survey group has surmised that Iraq did not have a large or centrally controlled chemical weapons program after 1991.

We are inclined to doubt that these erroneous estimates were made knowingly or for political reasons, if only because the Clinton administration and several European governments opposed to the war reached the same conclusions. But there is a critical need to discover how and why the intelligence community was so wrong about a target as important as Iraq. When the proliferation of dangerous weapons to terrorists or rogue states may be the most serious threat to U.S. security, and when an administration has adopted a policy of preempting such threats, there can be no more important role for intelligence than accurately determining where the weapons are -- and where they are not.

Pressed by Ms. Sawyer, Mr. Bush fell back on a rote response: "Saddam Hussein was a threat, and the fact he is gone means America is a safer country." That statement, at least, is true, as is Mr. Bush`s argument that the postwar findings prove that Saddam Hussein violated the U.N. resolution offering him a "final opportunity." But the degree of the threat, as described by Mr. Bush and his administration to Congress, the American public and the world, matters enormously. It matters because some in Congress and the public who supported the war might not have done so had they been given a more accurate account of Iraq`s weapons. And it matters because the gap between the administration`s words and the emerging truth has done serious damage to its credibility, both at home and abroad. Mr. Bush already must live with the probability that future warnings he may make about "gathering threats" will be greeted with considerable skepticism. By denying the problem, he merely makes it worse.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Divided on the War? Not Really


By Robert Kagan

Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A37


Faithful consumers of the American media can be forgiven for believing that the Iraq war has created searing divisions in the American body politic of a kind not seen since the nation was torn apart in the later years of the Vietnam War. But is the reality division or consensus? In fact, Americans have been remarkably supportive of the Iraq war, both on the original decision to invade and on the need to keep troops in Iraq for years to come if necessary. This support was on the rise, moreover, even before Saddam Hussein was pulled out of his hole this past week.

You could see the public mood reflected in the statements of Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) a couple of weeks ago. One of the most popular Democrats in the country, and also one of the shrewdest, Clinton dismissed the antiwar argument: "I think that Saddam Hussein was certainly a potential threat" who "was seeking weapons of mass destruction, whether or not he actually had them." Her husband, another popular Democrat, said the same last July.

Clinton`s pro-war statements shocked some, but she was only expressing the mainstream view. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken over the weekend of Dec. 5-7 -- before Hussein`s capture -- 59 percent of respondents said they believed it was "worth going to war" in Iraq; 39 percent said it was not. That poll reflected a steady trend that pre-dated Hussein`s capture. Support for the war, which had briefly fallen from more than 60 percent in the summer to 50 percent in early September, had been climbing back up ever since. Hussein`s capture bumped the numbers a bit -- 62 percent now believe the war was worth it; 33 percent think it wasn`t -- but they might have risen anyway. The CBS/New York Times poll shows the same results: Before Hussein`s capture, 64 percent believed the United States did "the right thing" going to war in Iraq, while 28 percent believed the war was a mistake. The percentages remain roughly the same after Hussein`s capture.

This is a pretty solid pro-war consensus in historical terms, especially given the casualties U.S. troops have suffered in Iraq since the official end of the war, not to mention the endless stream of Iraq-related scandals involving alleged lies and the lying liars who tell them. By comparison, in June 1999, about a week after the war in Kosovo ended in a casualty-free victory for the United States and its NATO allies, a Washington Post poll showed that 52 percent of Americans believed the United States had done the "right thing" by going to war while 40 percent still believed it was a "mistake." According to CNN`s polls this year, only once has support for the Iraq war fallen as low as 50 percent, despite the steady stream of relatively bad news. This suggests that even if the fight in Iraq remains a tough slog in the coming months, public support may not drop that much.

The consistent pro-war numbers are even more surprising given the failure, so far, to uncover any chemical or biological weapons stocks in Iraq. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, 57 percent of Americans believed the war "will have been worthwhile" even if weapons of mass destruction are "never" discovered -- and that was before Hussein`s capture. Now the number is 60 percent. Imagine where the poll numbers would go if even a shred of new evidence about Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction, or about connections with al Qaeda, appeared in the next few months.

Perhaps more amazing is the strong public support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq as long as necessary. In the latest NBC poll, 55 percent of respondents believe U.S. troops should "stay as long as necessary to complete the process" in Iraq -- "even if it takes as long as five years"! Another 23 percent are willing to give it another year and a half. Only 20 percent want to withdraw "as soon as possible." Those numbers, too, are virtually unchanged from a month ago.

You have to wonder, moreover, about the roughly one-third of the country that says it opposes the war. How much of that opposition is antiwar, and how much is anti-Bush? In 1999 a significant portion of the opposition to Clinton`s war in Kosovo was simply Clinton-hating Republicans expressing their hatred. The same phenomenon is surely at work now. If a Democratic president had gone to war in Iraq, even without a U.N. resolution -- as Bill Clinton did on a much smaller scale in 1998, and as a President Al Gore and his hawkish Vice President Joe Lieberman might well have done had the vote in Florida gone differently -- some percentage of today`s antiwar Democrats would have been supportive. (And some pro-war Republicans would have been opposed.)

So when some Democrats argue that Howard Dean can`t win the general election, they would seem to have a point. As predicted, Dean has now surrounded himself with respected centrist advisers from the Democratic establishment. The big foreign policy speech they wrote for him masterfully tried to cast him as a moderate, which on some issues other than Iraq, he may well be. But Dean undid all his advisers` efforts when he insisted that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." A landslide`s worth of Americans really don`t agree.

The writer, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, writes a monthly column for The Post.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Dec. 18, 2003. 01:00 AM

Live from the new Iraq: Happy talk


ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

Every December, media organizations comb their archives for the iconic images of the past 12 months. They`re used for the "year-enders`` that obsess us in the slow news period during the holidays.

As if anybody wants to relive 2003 and its almost relentlessly depressing headlines. Not that good news is ever real news, no matter how much the White House wishes it were so.

That`s why the Pentagon is currently building what I call its own GNN — for Good News Network — to do an end run around the networks and beam directly from its press centre in Iraq. Just in time for election year 2004, the satellite service will counteract all those terrible stories of bombings, shootings, killings and maiming from the, you know, war.

Instead, TV stations stateside that pick up its feeds will be able to telecast happy tales of school or clinic reopenings. (Not that journalists are allowed unfettered access to Iraqi hospitals but that`s another matter.)

As Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Joe Yoswa told the New York Times yesterday: "It`s to provide the full news story."

Meanwhile, some 40 million tax dollars are being invested in a TV studio complex in Virginia. This new Arab-language news and entertainment station, to be named Al Hurra (The Free One), will go head-to-head with the all-news Al Jazeera, only with greater resources and slicker production values.

And, of course, an American point of view. For example, as the Times reported, Al Hurra will refrain from pointing out that, when Israeli forces raid Palestinian refugee camps, they`re flying American-made aircraft.

Which brings us back to the pictures of the year.

Throughout my life I can recall all kinds of indelible images: Lyndon Baines Johnson being sworn in on Air Force One while a shell-shocked Jackie Kennedy stood by in her bloodied pink suit; Neil Armstrong landing on the moon; Canadian soldiers in Montreal during the October Crisis; a naked 9-year-old Kim Phuc running from a napalm attack; Margaret Trudeau kicking up her heels at Studio 54; the brutalized corpse of that American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu ...

This year, there`s plenty of competition for the picture of the year.

Will it be the toppling of Saddam Hussein`s statue by a small claque of Iraqis aided by U.S. tanks and troops? Will the winner be U.S. President George W. Bush doing his topside Top Gun "Mission Accomplished`` strut aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln?

Or his triumphant Thanksgiving Day turkey trot through that Baghdad mess hall where, by the way, only handpicked soldiers were allowed to gain entry?

So many more to choose from: The dramatic rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which turned out to be more drama than rescue?

The stitched-together corpses of Saddam`s sons Uday and Qusay, on display to show that they were really most sincerely dead. And on and on.

This week, we have a new contender to add to the short list: a grizzled Saddam looking like one of those evil drunken rapists of "squaws" that Clint Eastwood shoots in Sergio Leone westerns. Is there anybody who hasn`t seen that brief video of Saddam getting his tonsils tickled replayed over and over? Even as I write this, I can see it again. And again. (Which makes me wonder: How come we haven`t seen any more images of his capture because it`s clear that plenty was shot?)

Memorable as all these photos may be, they all prove one thing: The camera does indeed lie. That`s because all these images only tell one side of the story, the one that the White House wants you to see. And all are, in some sense, just as manufactured as the next.

Me, I`d prefer to see those images that nobody wanted to pose for: the U.S. and British troop casualties, in their coffins and their hospital beds; the Iraqi civilians whose homes, lives and limbs were demolished; the Americans who will suffer economic hardship to pay for it all.

A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Too bad one is false while the words are too often lies.


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Sweet revenge: Canadian journalists appreciate the irony of the Montreal Gazette`s Sue Montgomery winning an Amnesty International Canada media award yesterday for an October, 2002 column about an Algerian family being deported minus their Canadian-born baby. Her editors recently put Montgomery through hell after penning a column critical of the (now-late) Izzy Asper, head of CanWest Global, which owns the Gazette.

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morris1…
COMMENTARY



Ounce of Preventive War, Pound of Destruction
Notion of `strike first` helped fill the 20th century with violence
By Errol Morris
Errol Morris` documentaries include "The Gates of Heaven" and "The Thin Blue Line." "The Fog of War" opens in Los Angeles and New York City today.

December 19, 2003

In the spring of 2001, I started interviewing Robert McNamara, the secretary of Defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, for the film "The Fog of War." I have often been asked: "Why McNamara? Why make a movie about this man, a man reviled by many as the architect of the Vietnam War?" Because I had read McNamara`s "In Retrospect" in 1995 and was surprised that the book I read was different from the mea culpa that was described in countless reviews and editorials.

The book wasn`t an apology but an anguished attempt to look back on history and to imagine whether history could have been different. At its heart, it also raised these questions: "Can we learn from experience? Can we learn from history?"

McNamara`s earliest memory is of Armistice Day, 1918. "I was 2 years old," McNamara says in the film. "You may not believe I have the memory, but I do. I remember the tops of the streetcars being crowded with human beings cheering and kissing and screaming — end of World War I, we won — but also celebrating the belief of many Americans, particularly Woodrow Wilson, [that] we`d fought a war to end all wars."

What I find so interesting about this is that it is a memory of "preventive war." This becomes one of the central ironies of the film. The war that was fought to end war ushered in the 20th century, the century of the worst carnage in human history. Far from ending future war, World War I engendered war.

Now that the concept of "preventive war" has entered the vocabulary again in the context of the latest war in Iraq, it is interesting to note that it has been a recurring theme through the last century.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, preventive war was seriously discussed because of the advent of nuclear weapons. It was argued that because the United States had nuclear superiority, we would be well advised to fight the Soviets sooner rather than later, before they could match our nuclear arsenal.

One of the advocates of this policy was Curtis LeMay, the Air Force general under whom McNamara served during World War II. In 1957, LeMay was head of the Strategic Air Command. He was warned that few SAC bombers could survive a surprise Soviet attack, and the men who told him the news remember his response: "I`ll knock [them out] before they get off the ground…. It`s not national policy, but it`s my policy."

And it was LeMay who essentially advocated preventive war during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Everyone is familiar with the tape recordings Nixon made in the White House, but it`s less well known that both Kennedy and Johnson selectively recorded phone conversations and Cabinet meetings. In one recording made during the missile crisis, LeMay (by then Air Force chief of staff) comes across as angry and bellicose. He tells Kennedy that what Kennedy is doing — forgoing immediate military action in hopes of negotiating a settlement — is worse than Munich; that is, worse than the way British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave in to Hitler and set up World War II. Essentially, LeMay calls Kennedy an appeaser, a weakling. And LeMay never backed down. In a story that McNamara tells, after the Cuban Missile Crisis is resolved, Kennedy compliments his generals on having "won" by keeping the nation out of war. LeMay blurts out, "Won, hell, we lost. We should go in and wipe them out today!"

Such stories are particularly instructive because of new information that has come to light in recent years. In 1962, the CIA told Kennedy and his advisors that there were no nuclear warheads in Cuba. It was wrong. In fact, there were 162 nuclear warheads on the island that could have been used against an American invasion force and the U.S. homeland.



LeMay`s belief that it was important to strike then — to fight a preventive war when the odds were supposedly with us — would have in all likelihood led to disaster. It could have led to a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Someone recently said to me, "Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis was not that important." I replied, "It depends on how important you think Florida is."

So here we are, at the beginning of a new century, and preventive war has made a comeback. I look at it with a jaundiced eye. Haven`t we been there before? Isn`t "preventive war" an oxymoron? Shouldn`t we have learned by now that war doesn`t reduce hostility, anger and instability but instead creates more of the same? And we might ask ourselves: Do we want more of the same for this next century?


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

Was saddam wohl noch alles in seinem "Spider Hole" aufbewahrt. Demnächst auch noch einige WMD`s?

‘Gold Mine’
Saddam Hussein’s Loyalists Infiltrated U.S. Operations in Iraq

By Martha Raddatz


Dec. 18
— Agents for deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have penetrated the U.S. command in Iraq, ABCNEWS has learned. As a result, they have the potential to undermine U.S. authority.


Among the documents found in Saddam`s briefcase when he was captured last weekend was a list of names of Iraqis who have been working with the United States — either in the Iraqi security forces or the Coalition Provisional Authority — and are feeding information to the insurgents, a U.S. official told ABCNEWS.

"We were badly infiltrated," said the official, adding that finding the list of names is a "gold mine."

The United States has been rapidly recruiting Iraqis to take over security in the war-torn nation. Some 162,000 Iraqis have been trained in the areas of civil defense, police and other security activities since May.

On a recent trip to Baghdad, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was told by the commander of the U.S. Army`s 4th Infantry Division that every two or three weeks the military discovers someone who should not have made it through the vetting process.

William Rosenau, who once served in the Pentagon`s Office of Special Operations, says the spies could have caused great harm.

"They could conceivably disrupt operations directed against you. They can throw sand in the gears, they can spread disinformation," said Rosenau. "They are going to be able to tell you what those forces are trying to do, what their equipment is like, what their tactics are going to be and so on."

With the attacks continuing in Iraq, the U.S. military can now use the list to seek out the infiltrators and, officials hope, stop some of the damage they may be causing.

Pentagon officials with whom ABCNEWS spoke were not surprised about the infiltration. It is a common tactic that certainly happened in Vietnam, they said. But what they continue to worry about are infiltrators whose names are not on the list.


Copyright © 2003 ABC News Internet Ventures.

[Joerver]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153122_thomas19.html

Saddam should face international court
Friday, December 19, 2003

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Saddam Hussein should be tried by the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

That court has a record of meting out justice to people accused of genocide and other gross violations of human rights.

A trial at The Hague would help the United States reassert its membership in the post-World War II community of collective security and win back the allies it shunned when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq.

Bush also could reaffirm the United States` past pledges to honor international law as framed in the United Nations Charter and various treaties.

Since he took office, Bush has shown little use for our past commitments to international covenants. Instead he projects an arrogant philosophy based on the notion that a military superpower can call all the shots.

The International Court was established to try dictators like Saddam for their heinous crimes.

It is where former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in on trial for war crimes and genocide.

So Bush need look no further as he gropes for a venue to handle the Saddam case. There is a standing international court that deals with this kind of defendant.

Bush told a news conference Monday that his legal advisers would work with the 25-member U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to fashion a way to bring Saddam to trial "that will stand up to international scrutiny."

A trial at The Hague would meet that standard and would be perceived as above reproach. There is no need to invent a new court.

At his news conference, Bush said of the trial: "Of course we want it to be fair. And of course, we want the world to say, `Well, this -- he got a fair trial.` "

Bush wouldn`t say whether he thought Saddam should face the death penalty. "My personal views aren`t important in this matter," he declared. "What matters is the views of the Iraqi citizens."

That was Monday. On Tuesday, Bush dropped the veil and called for a death sentence against Saddam.

In an interview with ABC News, Bush said Saddam should face "the ultimate penalty for his crimes" against the Iraqi people and the world.

"I think he ought to receive the ultimate penalty," Bush said.

This comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Bush`s career as governor of Texas. He gave no mercy to death-row inmates and presided over the executions of 152 inmates during his six years in office.

In the case of Saddam, Bush should have stayed on the high road that he took during his news conference Monday instead of pre-judging the outcome of the trial and the punishment.

Many European countries and the head of the United Nations oppose the death penalty. Bush`s enthusiasm for the ultimate penalty is a further sign of the estrangement between the United States and the rest of the world.

Bush has a personal grudge against Saddam. "He tried to kill my daddy," Bush once said, referring to a car bomb targeted for his father in Kuwait in 1993. The FBI linked the would-be bomb to Iraqi intelligence.

History shows that it was not only the Iraqis who suffered under Saddam -- it was also the people of Kuwait and Iran who were ravaged as a result of his military invasions. Because his crimes were international, the International Court of Justice should preside over his trial.

If the U.S. military government in Baghdad decides to run a show trial as part of a propaganda exercise, with hand-picked Iraqi jurists and a carefully written American script, we will have made a mockery of our own sense of justice.

The trial should be open and on the record for the world to see. That may present an embarrassing problem to the United States.

During the Cold War days, we were cozy with a lot of dictators -- as long as they were anti-communist. Corrupt? Tyrannical? Not a problem.

Saddam used to be our friend -- we were especially happy to have him take on Iran when Ayatollah Khomeini was running the Islamic Republic.

American businesses were firmly established in Iraq in that era. The Reagan administration tilted toward Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, even to the extent of sharing U.S. intelligence with Saddam.

Bush says he`s concerned about the appearance of justice. If that`s the case, then he should lead the way for the deposed Iraqi dictator to be tried by an independent war crimes tribunal at The Hague. That option would clear up the appearance problems created by a tribunal that is an appendage of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Jetzt könnte man ihn brauchen – den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof

Aber weil die USA ihn nicht wollten, stehen sie nun vor dem Problem: Wie soll Saddam Hussein verurteilt werden – per Siegerjustiz, durch seine Nachfolger, seine Opfer?

Von Robert Leicht für ZEIT.de

Saddam Hussein ist gefasst. Aber bevor wir zur Sache selber kommen, eine kleine Bemerkung zur medialen Seite des Vorgangs, also dazu, mit welchen Bildern die Weltöffentlichkeit aus diesem Anlass – ja: – regelrecht ins Bild gesetzt wurde. Denn es muss ja eine Absicht dahinter stecken, wenn man uns Stund um Stund mit dieser Zahnarzt-Szene füttert. In meiner Münchner Journalistenzeit hatte ich einen vorzüglichen Zahnarzt, wenngleich er, der übrigens auch in Gemeinwohlfragen eine ausgeprägte Persönlichkeit war, in vielen politischen Dingen total andere Meinungen vertrat als ich. Also: Nehmen Sie bitte Platz! Zu Beginn jeder Konsultation hatte ich den Mund weit zu öffnen, woraufhin er mir das platzierte, was man etwas vulgär eine Maulsperre nennt, um dann zu sagen: „So, und jetzt red’n m’r erscht mal über Ihren letzten Leitartikel!“ Da musste ich mir dann Verschiedenes anhören, ohne viel mehr erwidern zu können als etwas, was man nur beim besten Willen als Muh oder Mäh entziffern konnte. Das Gefühl der Machtlosigkeit meinerseits und das der Allmacht des Zahnarztes bei diesem Arrangement war grenzenlos. Irgendwie mussten die Leute, die für die Präsentation der Saddam-Festnahme sorgten, gewusst haben, weshalb sie diese Dentisten-Szene arrangierten: Der Mann hat künftig eine Maul- und Machtsperre…

Aber nun haben sie ihn eben! Damit enden einige Schwierigkeiten – neue fangen an. Es ist nun gewiss für den Letzten klar: Es wird keine Rückkehr zu Saddams Regime (oder das seiner Erben) geben. Ob damit der Terror aufhört? Mir scheint, die gegenwärtig aktiven Terroristen wollen weniger Saddam zurück an die Macht, als vielmehr die ausländischen Truppen aus dem Land bomben. Und ob die Festnahme Saddams dazu führt, dass all jene politischen und religiösen Gruppen, die den Irak von morgen regieren wollen, zu friedfertigen Kompromissen – anstatt zu einem neuen Bürgerkrieg – finden? Diese zweite Frage hat nun aber für das Hauptproblem große Bedeutung.

Denn: Wer soll über Saddam Hussein urteilen? Wenn es ein irakisches Gericht sein soll, dann muss es erst einmal eine irakische Verfassung, ein stabiles politisches System und ein glaubwürdig legitimiertes Justizwesen geben – und das mag dauern. Wenn aber die US-Besatzer über den Ex-Dikator zu Gericht sitzen wollten, wäre der propagandistisch leicht aufzuheizende Vorwurf der „Siegerjustiz“ leicht zu erheben, zumal gar nicht einfach darzustellen ist, wie ein solches Verfahren plausibel als rechtsstaatlicher Prozess zu ordnen wäre. Und Guantanamo zeigt uns, wie viel die USA in ähnlichen Dingen von einer korrekten Justiz halten. Früher hieß es: „Die Nürnberger hängen keinen, sie hätten ihn denn.“ Nun heißt es: „Wir haben ihn. Aber wer darf ihn hängen?“ Oder doch wenigstens richten…

Bei dieser Gelegenheit zeigt sich nun recht plastisch, wie verfehlt es war, dass die USA dem Statut für einen Internationalen Strafgerichtshof der UN nicht zugestimmt haben. Das wäre das richtige Forum gewesen, vor dem man solche Fälle hätte verhandeln können – ohne Siegerjustiz und ohne voreiliges Vertrauen darauf, dass man Diktatoren am besten von ihren Opfern (oder Nachfolgern) verurteilen lässt. Macht ist eben nicht identisch mit Vernunft. Großmacht auch nicht.

(c) ZEIT .de

[Joerver]

DIE ZEIT
52/2003
irak

Das Ende des Allgegenwärtigen

Seit der Festnahme von Saddam Hussein spürt George W. Bush Aufwind. Ist jetzt der Weg frei für die Demokratie im Irak? Darüber wird der Prozess gegen den Exdiktator entscheiden

Von Susanne Fischer und Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff

Vom Scheitern bedroht, des Fraktionskampfes in seiner Regierung müde, vollzog Präsident Bush in den vergangenen Wochen eine dramatische Wende seiner Besatzungspolitik. Er tat, was Präsidenten in so einer Lage zu tun pflegen: Sie konzentrieren die Macht im Weißen Haus. Es begann damit, dass der Präsident den hemdsärmligen Besatzungschef Jay Garner gegen den geschliffenen Paul Bremer austauschte. Das ist mehr als eine Stilfrage. Der zweite Statthalter im Irak gilt nicht als Günstling der Hardliner aus dem Verteidigungsministerium und hat, anders als sein Vorgänger, einen direkten Draht ins Weiße Haus. Er geht zuweilen mit dem Präsidenten joggen.

Im zweiten Schritt entzog der Präsident dem Pentagon die Irak-Planungshoheit. Im Weißen Haus wurde ein alter Feund des Präsidenten, Robert Blackwill, zum Irak-Koordinator ernannt. Der jüngste Irak-Beauftragte des Präsidenten, James Baker, ist ein alter Freund der Familie Bush. Er soll zaudernde Staaten zur Entschuldung des Iraks bewegen. So hat der amerikanische Präsident die verfeindeten Fraktionen seiner Regierung entmachtet und eine frische Elite der Bush-Boys eingesetzt.

Die Runderneuerung des außenpolitischen Teams ist eben abgeschlossen, als im frisch verschneiten Washington die Nachricht von der Verhaftung Saddam Husseins eintrifft. Am Sonntag morgen um Viertel nach fünf weckt das Telefon den amerikanischen Präsidenten. Am Apparat ist seine Sicherheitsberaterin. Was sie ihm mitteilt, ist die beste Nachricht, die George Bush seit dem Fall von Bagdad erhalten hat. „Aber noch mal“, wird Bush später witzeln, „soll sie mich nicht so früh wecken.“ Bush zieht sich an und läuft hinüber in sein Büro, das Oval Office, wo er einen Aruf von seinem Vater erhält: „Gratuliere. Ein großer Tag für Amerika.“ Und vielleicht der größte Tag für ihn selbst. „Die Verhaftung Saddams“, sagt George Bush, „hat die Gleichung im Irak verändert.“

Noch ist davon in den Straßen Bagdads nichts zu sehen. So wenig die Iraker vor acht Monaten die einmarschierenden US-Soldaten mit Blumen begrüßten, so wenig bricht nach Saddam Husseins Festnahme spontan Volksfeststimmung aus. Hier und da tanzen Menschen auf der Straße, hier und da sind Salutschüsse aus Kalaschnikows zu hören, geben Imbissbesitzer eine Runde Kebab aus. Von jubelnden Massen aber, die das lang ersehnte Ende eines Tyrannen feiern, wie manche Fernsehbilder es glauben machen wollten, ist in Bagdad nichts zu sehen. „Es wäre besser gewesen, wenn Iraker Saddam gefasst hätten – für unsere Würde und auch für seine“, meint der Bagdader Geschäftsmann Basil al-Ateia. „Jetzt müssen wir für immer in dem Bewusstsein leben, dass jemand anders uns von ihm befreien musste.“

Vor der Moschee in Adamiya, einem SunnitenViertel in Bagdad, das als ein Zentrum des Widerstands gilt, gehen am Sonntag abend rund dreihundert Männer auf die Straße. Sie feiern nicht, sie sind auf Krawall und Protest gegen die Besatzer aus. Schwarz vermummt, ziehen sie durchs Viertel, voller Wut gegen die Amerikaner und alles, was auch nur im entferntesten westlich wirkt. Selbst die irakische Polizei schaltet lieber Blaulicht an und sucht das Weite. US-Soldaten sperren schließlich mit Panzern alle Zufahrtstraßen ab. Im Irak bricht nicht plötzlich Frieden aus, nur weil Saddam Hussein nicht mehr in einem Loch, sondern in einem geheim gehaltenen Gefängnis sitzt.

Viele Iraker h0aben ein seltsam masochistisches Verhältnis zu sich selbst. Als wüssten sie, dass ihnen nicht zu trauen ist, wird bis heute jener Statthalter Hudschadsch als würdige Figur der Geschichte verehrt, den vor über 1000 Jahren Kalif Muawiya aus Damaskus entsandte. Der Legende nach kam Hudschadsch nach Bagdad, sah die Menge, die sich zu seiner Ankunft versammelt hatte, und sprach: „Ich sehe eine Menge Köpfe, die reif sind, abgehackt zu werden!“ So geschah es dann auch, und was die Brutalität des Herrschens angeht, hat sich bis in die Gegenwart nicht allzu viel verändert.

Vor kurzem kam der legendäre Hudschadsch zu Ramadan noch einmal in die irakischen Wohnzimmer. Als Historiendrama mit 30 Folgen zeigte ein privater arabischer TV-Satellitensender das Leben des verehrten Statthalters. „Der Irak ist schwer zu regieren, wir sind ein sehr hartnäckiges Volk“, sagt Sabri al-Nadeen, der Besitzer eines Internet-Cafés in der Innenstadt von Bagdad. „Das haben die Amerikaner unterschätzt. Demokratie ist schön und gut, aber wir brauchen einen starken Herrscher. Wir sehnen uns nach einem guten Diktator.“

In Washington spricht man seit Sonntagmorgen von einer zweiten Chance. John Kerry, Präsidentschaftsbewerber der Demokraten, sagt: „Dies ist eine zweite Chance für den Präsidenten, die Sache richtig zu machen.“ Bill Kristol, ein neokonservativer Kommentator, glaubt: „Dies ist der zweite endscheidende Moment, um den Krieg zu gewinnen.“ In beiden Fällen steht dahinter die Vorstellung, ein Neuanfang im Irak sei nötig – und auch möglich. Amerikas Analytiker sind sich darin einig, dass Saddam Husseins Gefangennahme Bush allerorten helfen kann: im Irak, in der Welt und zu Hause in Amerika. Saddam Hussein in Haft, schreibt die New York Times, sei „ein Schritt auf dem Weg zum Sieg über die Aufständischen“, aber noch nicht „der Sieg selbst“. Das amerikanische Militär gewinne verlorenen Respekt zurück und könne auf ein wenig mehr Geduld der Iraker hoffen. Vor allem aber, meint Richard Haass, bis vor kurzem Planungschef im Außenministerium, würden „mehr Iraker mit uns zusammenarbeiten und uns Tipps geben“. Haass warnt zugleich davor, auf ein Ende des Aufstandes zu hoffen. Saddam Husseins Lumpen-Look deute darauf hin, dass er selbst wohl nicht der Anführer des Nachkriegsterrors gewesen sei.

Die Verhaftung Saddam Husseins, heißt es jetzt in Washington, verleihe dem amerikanischen Vorgehen im Irak neue Legitimität. Der konservative Senator John McCain glaubt, man müsse den Kriegsgegnern nun sagen: „Schaut auf diesen Tyrannen, und helft uns.“ Dieser Moment, sagt der demokratische Senator Joseph Biden, sei eine „exzellente Gelegenheit, sich an Deutschland und Frankreich zu wenden“. Man müsse die Gunst der Stunde nutzen, die Nato und die UN in den Irak zu holen.

Die Verhaftung des ehemaligen irakischen Präsidenten kann auch Bushs Ansehen in den USA nützen. „Der Irak-Krieg war bisher wie ein Satz ohne Punkt“, meint der Harvard-Politologe David Gergen. „Irgendwas fehlte.“ Saddam Hussein hinter Gittern zu sehen, sei „psychologisch ein Meilenstein“ für die Amerikaner. Nun könne man von „gewonnenem Krieg“ sprechen, wenn auch noch nicht von „gewonnenem Frieden“. Fast zwei Drittel der Amerikaner glauben nach Blitzumfragen, es sei richtig gewesen, in den Irak-Krieg zu ziehen – so viele wie schon lange nicht mehr.

In Albu Heschme, einem Dorf etwa 80 Kilometer nördlich von Bagdad, ist den Menschen nicht feierlich zumute. Seit etwa einem Monat umgibt ein Stacheldrahtzaun das gesamte Dorf, der einzige Weg hinaus führt durch die Betonsperren eines Polizei-Checkpoints. Eine Sicherheitsmaßnahme, heißt es vom amerikanischen Militär, von diesem Dorf aus sei es wiederholt zu Angriffen auf US-Truppen gekommen. Nach fünf Uhr nachmittags darf deshalb niemand mehr in Albu Heschme das Haus verlassen, bis zum nächsten Morgen um acht. „Die Amerikaner haben angedroht, jeden zu erschießen, den sie nach der Ausgangssperre auf der Straße sehen“, sagt der 24-jährige Polizeioffizier Thar Halaf, der mit drei irakischen Kollegen den Zugang zum Dorf bewacht. Zum Abendgebet ruft der Muezzin deshalb vergeblich, die Moschee bleibt leer, alle müssen zu Hause beten. Weil mal wieder der Strom ausgefallen ist, liegt das Dorf in völliger Dunkelheit. Nur die Taschenlampen der Polizisten erhellen ab und zu das Gestrüpp hinterm Stacheldraht.

„Unser Führer im Gefängnis, das ist ein Albtraum“, sagt mit leiser Stimme Haytham Ahmed, mit achtzehn Jahren der jüngste der vier Polizisten. Aber arbeitet er als Polizist nicht mit den Amerikanern zusammen? Wäre es folglich nicht auch seine Pflicht gewesen, Saddam Hussein festzunehmen? Der 18-Jährige zuckt mit den Schultern und sagt: „Wir brauchen alle Arbeit.“

Glaubt man dem amerikanischen Historiker Allan Lichtman, der in seinem Buch Keys to the White House 13 Kriterien für die Vorhersage einer Präsidentschaftswahl aufstellte, dann ist George W. Bush jetzt „einfach unschlagbar“. So weit gehen nur wenige Beobachter in den USA. Dennoch: Sollte sich Saddam Husseins Festnahme als Wendepunkt im Irak erweisen, wird es besonders der Favorit der Demokraten schwer haben. Denn Howard Dean ist jener Kandidat, der Bushs Krieg von Anfang an laut kritisiert hat. Deshalb führt er nun in den Umfragen.

Was Dean im Kampf gegen Bush jetzt bevorsteht, konnte er am Wochenende schon hören. „Wenn es nach Howard Dean gegangen wäre, befände sich Saddam Hussein an der Macht und nicht im Gefängnis.“ Dieser Satz stammt aber nicht von George Bush, sondern von Joe Lieberman, einem anderen Bewerber der Demokraten. Der unterstütze den Krieg und fühlt sich jetzt bestätigt. Liebermans Satz steht symptomatisch für die Krankheit der Demokraten: Sie zerfleischen sich gegenseitig. Am Tag der Festnahme Saddam Husseins schickt zum Beispiel der Stab des Kandidaten John Kerry E-Mails mit Äußerungen des Konkurrenten Howard Dean ins Land. Am Ende stehen alle demokratischen Kandidaten als geifernde Wadenbeißer da. Verglichen damit, erscheint George Bush als bedächtiger Staatsmann.

Immer, wenn ein Amerikaner im Irak stirbt, zeigen Demokraten mit dem Finger auf George Bush. Jeder amerikanische Erfolg ist ihnen eine persönliche Niederlage. Diese Haltung wird mancher Wähler als zynisch empfinden. Die Demokraten machen sich damit von der Fortdauer des anti-amerikanischen Aufstandes im Irak abhängig. Dauert der bis zum kommenden Herbst, steigen ihre Wahlchancen.

Hinter den Attentaten stecken keine Anhänger Saddam Husseins

„Widerstand“. Ein unpassendes Wort für Terroristen im Irak, die mit Bomben nicht allein gegen eine Besatzungsmacht kämpfen, sondern bewusst Zivilisten, Frauen und Kinder töten. Ohnehin gibt es im Irak keine organisierte Front des Terrors, auch keine irakische Guerilla mit klarem Ziel. Von seinem Loch unter der Erde wird Saddam Hussein schwerlich die zwei bis drei Dutzend Anschläge am Tag organisiert haben können. Da sind nicht nur Saddam Husseins Günstlinge, die, mit Geld und Waffen gut ausgerüstet, ihren Krieg gegen die Besatzer führen. Da sind auch schiitische Milizen, die sich in blutige Machtkämpfe verstrickt haben. Und da sind radikale, sunnitische Gruppen, die ihren Heiligen Krieg gegen alles und jeden führen. Sie opfern auch sich selbst, wie erst am Montag bei Selbstmordanschlägen vor zwei Polizeistationen. Hinter der wachsenden Zahl von Selbstmordanschlägen, davon sind viele Iraker überzeugt, stecken keine Anhänger Saddam Husseins, sondern ausländische Terroristen. Tatsächlich haben Amerikaner und irakische Sicherheitskräfte in den vergangenen zwei Monaten mehrere hundert ausländische Kämpfer festgenommen, die in Gefangenencamps auf dem Bagdader Flughafen oder in Saddams Palast eingesperrt wurden.

Saddam Hussein selbst wird über kurz oder lang vor Gericht gestellt. Zum ersten Mal in der irakischen Geschichte muss sich ein Herrscher für seine Taten zur Rechenschaft ziehen lassen. „Was das für unsere Zukunft bedeuten wird, können wir heute noch gar nicht ermessen“, meint der Bagdader Geschäftsmann al-Ateia. „Vielleicht ist das der wichtigste Schritt auf dem Weg zur Demokratie, vielleicht können wir damit endlich das Gesetz der Serie brechen, dass im Irak immer nur ein Dikator regiert.“

Die meisten von Saddam Husseins Vorgängern waren am Ende ihrer Amtszeit tot, die Leiche von König Keisal wurde an einem Auto durch die Straßen geschleift. Sollen die Amerikaner Saddam Hussein ruhig erst befragen und ihn dann die hohen Richter zu seinen Schandtaten als Staatschef vernehmen. Was danach kommt, steht für viele Iraker längst fest. „Wenn es Gerechtigkeit gibt auf dieser Welt, dann muss er hängen“, verlangt in einem Teehaus von al-Beia ein junger Mann, der sich als Anwalt, aber ohne Namen vorstellt. Auch der Kellner Ali Khalaf meint: „Nur wenn Saddam hängt, am besten auf dem Tahrir-Platz mitten in Bagdad, werden wir glauben, dass er wirklich nie wiederkommt.“

Todesstrafe oder nicht? Irakisches oder internationales Gericht? Die Debatte leidet darunter, dass die Streitfrage vorentschieden zu sein scheint. Denn just am Mittwoch vergangener Woche, ein paar Tage vor SaddamHusseins Verhaftung, hat der irakische Regierungsrat das Statut für ein Sondertribunal verabschiedet – mit Zustimmung der amerikanischen Besatzer. Danach würde der größte Kriegsverbrecherprozess seit den Nürnberger Tribunalen im Bagdader Sondergericht stattfinden. Amerikas Präsident Bush hat am Montag allerdings den Eindruck erweckt, als seien noch nicht alle Fragen geklärt. Man wolle „mit den Irakern zusammenarbeiten“ und „einen Mechanismus entwickeln, der internationaler Prüfung standhält“. Die Iraker, so Bush, müssten „ganz stark beteiligt sein“.

Sofern es sich die Amerikaner nicht noch anders überlegen, wird dem Tribunal das irakische Strafrecht als Rechtsgrundlage dienen, freilich um etliche Paragrafen aus der Phase von Saddam Husseins Diktatur bereinigt. Der Gewaltherrscher soll nicht unter seinem eigenen Unrechtskodex zu leiden haben. Das Statut sieht Rechte für die Angeklagten vor. Sie sind mit jenen im internationalen Recht vergleichbar. Das Tribunal besteht aus einem Strafkammer, einer Berufungskammer sowie Ermittlungsrichtern. Sie werden unter anderem wegen Völkermord, Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit verfolgen, Bestimmungen, die das irakische Strafrecht nicht kennt. Es wird wird deshalb um Vorschriften des Völkerstrafrechts ergänzt werden. Die Delikte müssen in der Zeit zwischen Saddam Husseins Machtergreifung am 17. Juli 1968 und dem 1. Mai 2003 begangen worden sein. Angeklagt werden vor allem jene Führungsfiguren des Regimes, deren Steckbriefe von den Amerikanern auf Spielkarten gedruckt wurden – darunter das Pik Ass, das sich am Wochenende in einer Höhle fand.

Seit langem schon fordern irakische Exil-Oppositionelle, den Diktator im Irak zu richten. Sie sehen darin ein Symbol für die Überwindung der Diktatur. Die amerikanischen Besatzer betrachten ein irakisches Tribunal als „Herzstück der Demokratisierung – wie einst Nürnberg“. So erklärt es Pentagon-Beraterin Ruth Wedgwood, eine Völkerrechtlerin von der Johns-Hopkins-Universität. Die „didaktische Qualität der Übung“ sei nicht zu unterschätzen. Ein Saddam-Hussein-Tribunal zeige der Bevölkerung, dass die Macht in ihre Hände übergegangen sei. Es führe „inmitten einer Vendetta-Kultur“ vor, meint Wedgwood, dass „Gerechtigkeit nicht Selbstjustiz sein muss“. So helfe das Sondergericht, Menschenleben zu retten.

Ein Tribunal in Bagdad aber hat auch Nachteile. Der Irak ist voll von Saddam Husseins furchtbaren Richtern. Er hatte 35 Jahre lang Zeit, seine Kader heranzuzüchten. Ein neue Justiz existiert noch nicht. Und die Exil-Juristen haben derart komplexe Verfahren nur im Fernsehen gesehen. „Im Irak gibt es keinerlei Erfahrung mit Prozessen, die länger als ein paar Tage dauern“, meint Kenneth Roth, Geschäftsführer von Human Rights Watch. Das Verfahren dürfe „kein Schauprozess“ werden und müsse „internationalen Standards genügen“. Human Rights Watch hat deshalb vorgeschlagen, ein Team aus irakischen und internationalen Juristen zu bilden. Es hätte sich der Erfahrungen aus den internationalen Tribunalen für Ruanda, Sierra Leone und das frühere Jugoslawien bedienen können.

Die Iraker selbst wollten jede fremde Beteiligung ausschließen. Nur auf Druck der Amerikaner fügten sie noch kurz vor Verabschiedung des Statuts einen Satz ein: „Der Regierungsrat kann ausländische Richter ernennen, wenn er es für notwendig hält.“ Die Iraker können damit das Tribunal internationalisieren, müssen es aber nicht.

Ein globaler Showdown zur Frage der Todesstrafe

Die Amerikaner haben nicht plötzlich ihre Liebe zum internationalen Recht entdeckt. Sie möchten selbst Einfluss auf das Verfahren behalten und sicherstellen, dass „die Welt sagt: ,Er hat ein faires Verfahren bekommen.‘“ So sagte es George Bush am Montag. Ansonsten tun die Amerikaner alles, um ein internationales Tribunal zu verhindern. Gegen den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag, den die USA nicht anerkennen, müssen sie diesmal nicht kämpfen. Denn der Internationale Gerichtshof ahndet nur Straftaten, die nach dem 1. Juli 2002 begangen wurden. Allerdings lehnen die Vereinigten Staaten inzwischen auch ein Sondergericht wie das Haager Jugoslawien-Tribunal ab, obwohl sie dieses einst selbst gründen halfen. Es müsste nämlich vom UN-Sicherheitsrat eingerichtet werden. Und Amerikas konservative Regierung will sich nicht noch einmal im Sicherheitsrat vom Einspruch Deutschlands und vom Veto Frankreichs abhängig machen.

Und über allem schwebt die Frage der Todesstrafe, die internationales Recht nicht vorsieht, aber Iraker wie Amerikaner vollstreckt sehen wollen. Gut möglich, dass es nun zum globalen Showdown über die Frage der Todesstrafe kommt. Die Kritiker der Todesstrafe werden in der schwierigen Lage sein, das Leben eines der größten Menschenschlächters seit Pol Pot verteidigen zu müssen. Und sie werden zu begründen haben, warum sie Saddam Hussein in einer warmen Zelle sehen wollen, während die Vollstrecker seines Willens im Irak zum Tode verurteilt werden. Ähnlich war es schon im Ruanda-Tribunal, als die Verantwortlichen des Genozids vom UN-Gericht zu Haftstrafen verurteilt wurden, ihre Handlanger aber von ruandischen Gerichten zum Tode – der größte ungelöste Widerspruch internationaler Justiz.

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U.S. courts rein in terror war


By PAUL KORING
From Friday`s Globe and Mail


Friday, Dec. 19, 2003


Washington — U.S. appeals courts dealt George W. Bush twin defeats yesterday, ruling that Washington was wrong to strip rights from detained suspects -- the latest judicial rollbacks of the sweeping powers the President has wielded in his war against international terrorism.

A New York appellate court ruled that Mr. Bush has overstepped his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief by ordering an American citizen arrested on U.S. soil held as an "enemy combatant." Another court in San Francisco said all alien detainees at the grim U.S. military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to a lawyer.

The New York ruling means that the Pentagon must either free Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber" who is alleged to have been part of an al-Qaeda plot to explode a radioactive device in a U.S. city, or turn him over to a civilian court.

"We find that the President lacks inherent constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to detain American citizens on American soil outside a zone of combat," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals said yesterday in releasing its 2-1 decision.

The White House called the ruling "troubling and flawed," and the Justice Department quickly announced it would seek a stay on the 30-day order. It could also appeal the ruling to either the full circuit court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But civil-rights groups cheered.

"There`s a lot of clipping of presidential wings in this decision," said Michael Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland who has closely tracked a slew of cases challenging the White House`s anti-terrorism measures. "The government has taken a legal beating" in the Padilla ruling and other recent cases, he said.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, called the ruling "a historic and courageous decision."

She accused the Bush administration of treating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as an opportunity to "hoodwink us into thinking that in the name of national security we should give up our rights."

Mr. Padilla, 32, a U.S. citizen and a convert to Islam who also goes by the name Abdullah al-Muhajir, was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002, after arriving from Pakistan.

Less than a month later, Mr. Bush signed an order labelling him an "enemy combatant" and directing Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to put him in a South Carolina naval prison. Mr. Padilla has been there since, without charge and without access to lawyers or family .

In the second case yesterday, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the hundreds being held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to legal representation.

It was considering a suit brought by a California relative of a Libyan being held in Cuba.

That decision "carries much less wallop," Mr. Greenberger said, noting that the often-overturned San Francisco court is widely considered the most liberal in the United States.

Its 2-1 decision was also unusual in that the Supreme Court has already announced it will consider the legal status of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Nevertheless, the ruling`s blunt language reflects the growing judicial unease over the sweeping powers the White House has assumed since 2001.

"We cannot simply accept the government`s position that the executive branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority.

The Padilla decision is narrow in one sense -- he is the only American citizen so far who has been declared an "enemy combatant" after being arrested in the United States. But the court`s Manhattan location gave the ruling a wider symbolism.

"As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center once stood," the judges in the majority wrote, "we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al-Qaeda poses to our country and of the responsibilities the President and law-enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation."

Other high-profile setbacks reflect the current assertiveness by courts from both sides of the political spectrum.

The U.S. government`s case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person yet to be charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, has been in trouble since a judge ruled that the government couldn`t present evidence linking him to the suicide hijackings unless it allowed his lawyers to question al-Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

The U.S. Justice Department has appealed that ruling, but the trend is running against the government, especially when it comes to the fate of those held in Cuba who, legal advocates have noted, have fewer rights than captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Steven Kenny, a lawyer for Australian detainee David Hicks, said he believes that "Saddam Hussein is going to be afforded a fairer system of justice" than his client.

Mr. Kenny, the first civilian lawyer to visit a Guantanamo detainee under a deal struck between Canberra and Washington, said his access to Mr. Hicks has been "a small first step, but it is no substitute for a fair trial."

Yesterday, the U.S. Defence Department provided a lawyer to fellow Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmen Hamdan. The Yemeni citizen and Mr. Hicks are among six detainees declared eligible for possible trial before a military commission. Among the 600 detainees at the base, they are the only two with lawyers.

With a report from David Agren




© 2003 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Dangerous Religion - Bush`s Theology of Empire
by Jim Wallis
Published by Sojourners
http://progressivetrail.org/articles/031218Wallis.shtml
Religion is the most dangerous energy source known to humankind. The moment a person (or government or religion or organization) is convinced that God is either ordering or sanctioning a cause or project, anything goes. The history, worldwide, of religion-fueled hate, killing, and oppression is staggering. —Eugene Peterson (from the introduction to the book of Amos in the Bible paraphrase The Message)

"The military victory in Iraq seems to have confirmed a new world order," Joseph Nye, dean of Harvard`s Kennedy School of Government, wrote recently in The Washington Post. "Not since Rome has one nation loomed so large above the others. Indeed, the word `empire` has come out of the closet."

The use of the word "empire" in relation to American power in the world was once controversial, often restricted to left-wing critiques of U.S. hegemony. But now, on op-ed pages and in the nation`s political discourse, the concepts of empire, and even the phrase "Pax Americana," are increasingly referred to in unapologetic ways.

William Kristol, editor of the influential Weekly Standard, admits the aspiration to empire. "If people want to say we`re an imperial power, fine," Kristol wrote. Kristol is chair of the Project for the New American Century, a group of conservative political figures that began in 1997 to chart a much more aggressive American foreign policy (see Project for a New American Empire). The Project`s papers lay out the vision of an "American peace" based on "unquestioned U.S. military pre-eminence." These imperial visionaries write, "America`s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible." It is imperative, in their view, for the United States to "accept responsibility for America`s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles." That, indeed, is empire.

There is nothing secret about all this; on the contrary, the views and plans of these powerful men have been quite open. These are Far Right American political leaders and commentators who ascended to governing power and, after the trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, have been emboldened to carry out their agenda.

In the run-up to the war with Iraq, Kristol told me that Europe was now unfit to lead because it was "corrupted by secularism," as was the developing world, which was "corrupted by poverty." Only the United States could provide the "moral framework" to govern a new world order, according to Kristol, who recently and candidly wrote, "Well, what is wrong with dominance, in the service of sound principles and high ideals?" Whose ideals? The American right wing`s definition of "American ideals," presumably.

Bush Adds God

To this aggressive extension of American power in the world, President George W. Bush adds God—and that changes the picture dramatically. It`s one thing for a nation to assert its raw dominance in the world; it`s quite another to suggest, as this president does, that the success of American military and foreign policy is connected to a religiously inspired "mission," and even that his presidency may be a divine appointment for a time such as this.

Many of the president`s critics make the mistake of charging that his faith is insincere at best, a hypocrisy at worst, and mostly a political cover for his right-wing agenda. I don`t doubt that George W. Bush`s faith is sincere and deeply held. The real question is the content and meaning of that faith and how it impacts his administration`s domestic and foreign policies.

George Bush reports a life-changing conversion around the age of 40 from being a nominal Christian to a born-again believer—a personal transformation that ended his drinking problems, solidified his family life, and gave him a sense of direction. He changed his denominational affiliation from his parents` Episcopal faith to his wife`s Methodism. Bush`s personal faith helped prompt his interest in promoting his "compassionate conservatism" and the faith-based initiative as part of his new administration.

The real theological question about George W. Bush was whether he would make a pilgrimage from being essentially a self-help Methodist to a social reform Methodist. God had changed his life in real ways, but would his faith deepen to embrace the social activism of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who said poverty was not only a matter of personal choices but also of social oppression and injustice? Would Bush`s God of the 12-step program also become the God who required social justice and challenged the status quo of the wealthy and powerful, the God of whom the biblical prophets spoke?

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Bush`s compassionate conservatism and faith-based initiative rapidly gave way to his newfound vocation as the commander-in-chief of the "war against terrorism." Close friends say that after 9/11 Bush found "his mission in life." The self-help Methodist slowly became a messianic Calvinist promoting America`s mission to "rid the world of evil." The Bush theology was undergoing a critical transformation.

In an October 2000 presidential debate, candidate Bush warned against an over-active American foreign policy and the negative reception it would receive around the world. Bush cautioned restraint. "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us," he said. "If we`re a humble nation, but strong, they`ll welcome us."

The president has come a long way since then. His administration has launched a new doctrine of pre-emptive war, has fought two wars (in Afghanistan and Iraq), and now issues regular demands and threats against other potential enemies. After Sept. 11, nations around the world responded to America`s pain—even the French newspaper Le Monde carried the headline "We are all Americans now." But the new pre-emptive and—most critically—unilateral foreign policy America now pursues has squandered much of that international support.

The Bush policy has become one of potentially endless wars abroad and a domestic agenda that mostly consists of tax cuts, primarily for the rich. "Bush promised us a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion," Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine. "He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic, and cruel." What happened?

A Mission and an Appointment

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum says of the president, "War had made him…a crusader after all." At the outset of the war in Iraq, George Bush entreated, "God bless our troops." In his State of the Union speech, he vowed that America would lead the war against terrorism "because this call of history has come to the right country." Bush`s autobiography is titled A Charge to Keep, which is a quote from his favorite hymn.

In Frum`s book The Right Man, he recounts a conversation between the president and his top speechwriter, Mike Gerson, a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College. After Bush`s speech to Congress following the Sept. 11 attacks, Frum writes that Gerson called up his boss and said, "Mr. President, when I saw you on television, I thought—God wanted you there." According to Frum, the president replied, "He wants us all here, Gerson."

Bush has made numerous references to his belief that he could not be president if he did not believe in a "divine plan that supersedes all human plans." As he gained political power, Bush has increasingly seen his presidency as part of that divine plan. Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, recalls Bush once saying, "I believe God wants me to be president." After Sept. 11, Michael Duffy wrote in Time magazine, the president spoke of "being chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment."

Every Christian hopes to find a vocation and calling that is faithful to Christ. But a president who believes that the nation is fulfilling a God-given righteous mission and that he serves with a divine appointment can become quite theologically unsettling. Theologian Martin Marty voices the concern of many when he says, "The problem isn`t with Bush`s sincerity, but with his evident conviction that he`s doing God`s will." As Christianity Today put it, "Some worry that Bush is confusing genuine faith with national ideology." The president`s faith, wrote Klein, "does not give him pause or force him to reflect. It is a source of comfort and strength but not of wisdom."

The Bush theology deserves to be examined on biblical grounds. Is it really Christian, or merely American? Does it take a global view of God`s world or just assert American nationalism in the latest update of "manifest destiny"? How does the rest of the world—and, more important, the rest of the church worldwide—view America`s imperial ambitions?

Getting the Words Wrong

President Bush uses religious language more than any president in U.S. history, and some of his key speechwriters come right out of the evangelical community. Sometimes he draws on biblical language, other times old gospel hymns that cause deep resonance among the faithful in his own electoral base. The problem is that the quotes from the Bible and hymnals are too often either taken out of context or, worse yet, employed in ways quite different from their original meaning. For example, in the 2003 State of the Union, the president evoked an easily recognized and quite famous line from an old gospel hymn. Speaking of America`s deepest problems, Bush said, "The need is great. Yet there`s power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people." But that`s not what the song is about. The hymn says there is "power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb" (emphasis added). The hymn is about the power of Christ in salvation, not the power of "the American people," or any people, or any country. Bush`s citation was a complete misuse.

On the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush said at Ellis Island, "This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind…. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it." Those last two sentences are straight out of John`s gospel. But in the gospel the light shining in the darkness is the Word of God, and the light is the light of Christ. It`s not about America and its values. Even his favorite hymn, "A Charge to Keep," speaks of that charge as "a God to glorify"—not to "do everything we can to protect the American homeland," as Bush has named our charge to keep.

Bush seems to make this mistake over and over again—confusing nation, church, and God. The resulting theology is more American civil religion than Christian faith.

The Problem of Evil

Since Sept. 11, President Bush has turned the White House "bully pulpit" into a pulpit indeed, replete with "calls" and "missions" and "charges to keep" regarding America`s role in the world. George Bush is convinced that we are engaged in a moral battle between good and evil, and that those who are not with us are on the wrong side in that divine confrontation.

But who is "we," and does no evil reside with "us"? The problem of evil is a classic one in Christian theology. Indeed, anyone who cannot see the real face of evil in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is suffering from a bad case of postmodern relativism. To fail to speak of evil in the world today is to engage in bad theology. But to speak of "they" being evil and "we" being good, to say that evil is all out there and that in the warfare between good and evil others are either with us or against us—that is also bad theology. Unfortunately, it has become the Bush theology.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House carefully scripted the religious service in which the president declared war on terrorism from the pulpit of the National Cathedral. The president declared to the nation, "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." With most every member of the Cabinet and the Congress present, along with the nation`s religious leaders, it became a televised national liturgy affirming the divine character of the nation`s new war against terrorism, ending triumphantly with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." War against evil would confer moral legitimacy on the nation`s foreign policy and even on a contested presidency.

What is most missing in the Bush theology is acknowledgement of the truth of this passage from the gospel of Matthew: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor`s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,` while the log is in your eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor`s eye." A simplistic "we are right and they are wrong" theology rules out self-reflection and correction. It also covers over the crimes America has committed, which lead to widespread global resentment against us.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that every nation, political system, and politician falls short of God`s justice, because we are all sinners. He specifically argued that even Adolf Hitler—to whom Saddam Hussein was often compared by Bush—did not embody absolute evil any more than the Allies represented absolute good. Niebuhr`s sense of ambiguity and irony in history does not preclude action but counsels the recognition of limitations and prescribes both humility and self-reflection.

And what of Bush`s tendency to go it alone, even against the expressed will of much of the world? A foreign government leader said to me at the beginning of the Iraq war, "The world is waiting to see if America will listen to the rest of us, or if we will all just have to listen to America." American unilateralism is not just bad political policy, it is bad theology as well. C.S. Lewis wrote that he supported democracy not because people were good, but rather because they often were not. Democracy provides a system of checks and balances against any human beings getting too much power. If that is true of nations, it must also be true of international relations. The vital questions of diplomacy, intervention, war, and peace are, in this theological view, best left to the collective judgment of many nations, not just one—especially not the richest and most powerful one.

In Christian theology, it is not nations that rid the world of evil—they are too often caught up in complicated webs of political power, economic interests, cultural clashes, and nationalist dreams. The confrontation with evil is a role reserved for God, and for the people of God when they faithfully exercise moral conscience. But God has not given the responsibility for overcoming evil to a nation-state, much less to a superpower with enormous wealth and particular national interests. To confuse the role of God with that of the American nation, as George Bush seems to do, is a serious theological error that some might say borders on idolatry or blasphemy.

It`s easy to demonize the enemy and claim that we are on the side of God and good. But repentance is better. As the Christian Science Monitor put it, paraphrasing Alexander Solzhenitzyn. "The gospel, some evangelicals are quick to point out, teaches that the line separating good and evil runs not between nations, but inside every human heart."



A Better Way

The much-touted Religious Right is now a declining political factor in American life. The New York Times` Bill Keller recently observed, "Bombastic evangelical power brokers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have aged into irrelevance, and now exist mainly as ludicrous foils." The real theological problem in America today is no longer the Religious Right but the nationalist religion of the Bush administration—one that confuses the identity of the nation with the church, and God`s purposes with the mission of American empire.

America`s foreign policy is more than pre-emptive, it is theologically presumptuous; not only unilateral, but dangerously messianic; not just arrogant, but bordering on the idolatrous and blasphemous. George Bush`s personal faith has prompted a profound self-confidence in his "mission" to fight the "axis of evil," his "call" to be commander-in-chief in the war against terrorism, and his definition of America`s "responsibility" to "defend the…hopes of all mankind." This is a dangerous mix of bad foreign policy and bad theology.

But the answer to bad theology is not secularism; it is, rather, good theology. It is not always wrong to invoke the name of God and the claims of religion in the public life of a nation, as some secularists say. Where would we be without the prophetic moral leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Oscar Romero?

In our own American history, religion has been lifted up for public life in two very different ways. One invokes the name of God and faith in order to hold us accountable to God`s intentions—to call us to justice, compassion, humility, repentance, and reconciliation. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin King perhaps best exemplify that way. Lincoln regularly used the language of scripture, but in a way that called both sides in the Civil War to contrition and repentance. Jefferson said famously, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

The other way invokes God`s blessing on our activities, agendas, and purposes. Many presidents and political leaders have used the language of religion like this, and George W. Bush is falling prey to that same temptation.

Christians should always live uneasily with empire, which constantly threatens to become idolatrous and substitute secular purposes for God`s. As we reflect on our response to the American empire and what it stands for, a reflection on the early church and empire is instructive.

The book of Revelation, while written in apocalyptic language and imagery, is seen by most biblical expositors as a commentary on the Roman Empire, its domination of the world, and its persecution of the church. In Revelation 13, a "beast" and its power is described. Eugene Peterson`s The Message puts it in vivid language: "The whole earth was agog, gaping at the Beast. They worshiped the Dragon who gave the Beast authority, and they worshiped the Beast, exclaiming: `There`s never been anything like the Beast! No one would dare to go to war with the Beast!` It held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues, and races." But the vision of John of Patmos also foresaw the defeat of the Beast. In Revelation 19, a white horse, with a rider whose "name is called The Word of God" and "King of kings and Lord of lords," captures the beast and its false prophet.

As with the early church, our response to an empire holding "absolute sway," against which "no one would dare to go to war," is the ancient confession of "Jesus is Lord." And to live in the promise that empires do not last, that the Word of God will ultimately survive the Pax Americana as it did the Pax Romana.

In the meantime, American Christians will have to make some difficult choices. Will we stand in solidarity with the worldwide church, the international body of Christ—or with our own American government? It`s not a surprise to note that the global church does not generally support the foreign policy goals of the Bush administration—whether in Iraq, the Middle East, or the wider "war on terrorism." Only from inside some of our U.S. churches does one find religious voices consonant with the visions of American empire.

Once there was Rome; now there is a new Rome. Once there were barbarians; now there are many barbarians who are the Saddams of this world. And then there were the Christians who were loyal not to Rome, but to the kingdom of God. To whom will the Christians be loyal today?


Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.

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Friday, December 19, 2003
War News for December 19, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Two US soldiers wounded in roadside bomb ambush near Abu Ghraib.

Bring `em on: CENTCOM reports an average of 25 attacks daily on US military and Iraqi police.

Bring `em on: Bremer gets the Wolfie treatment in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Shi`ite party offices bombed in Baghdad.

At least 260 Iraqi police killed since end of major combat.

Rummy approves additional troop deployments to Iraq. "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved the deployment of an extra brigade of the elite 82nd Airborne Division to Iraq in January and extended that of another brigade to maintain combat power as other forces are being swapped out, senior US defense officials said."

News Analysis: US media circulates Bush`s lies. "The latest chapter unfolded this week with wide publicity -- capped by a favorable mention in a William Safire column in The New York Times on Monday and the usual hosannas on Fox News -- concerning a supposed document that linked 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta to Saddam Hussein."

Commentary

Opinion: Saddam`s fate doesn`t justify Bush`s War. "...This whole business of attack now, pick a justification later, squanders American prestige and undermines American moral authority. As does the tendency on the part of the nation and its leaders to claim Iraq as part of the ``War on Terrorism,`` though there is, as of yet, no proven connection between Saddam Hussein and the events of Sept. 11."

Casualty Reports

Local story: Georgia soldier killed in Iraq.







# posted by yankeedoodle : 8:51 AM

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DECEMBER 19, 2003
When Will Press Stop Circulating Dubious Iraq Claims?
Atta-Hussein Document Probably Bogus

By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK -- NEWS ANALYSIS

When will the press stop circulating dubious or fabricated claims -- whether from Bush administration officials or intelligence abroad? The latest chapter unfolded this week with wide publicity -- capped by a favorable mention in a William Safire column in The New York Times on Monday and the usual hosannas on Fox News -- concerning a supposed document that linked 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta to Saddam Hussein.

This sort of "evidence," which surfaces periodically, is significant, as polls have always shown that one of the major reasons the public supported the invasion of Iraq was belief that Saddam helped plan the 9/11 attacks. Even after more than two years have passed -- and no hard evidence of that uncovered -- a poll earlier this week showed that slightly more than half of all Americans still believe that to be true, suggesting that perhaps the press has not really done its job in debunking this belief.

Now appears a document linking Atta to Hussein, which comes amid reports that the U.S. chief weapons inspector is about to call it quits, having failed to uncover any weapons of mass destruction.

There`s only one problem: Just like every other bit of paper linking Saddam to 9/11 (some of them also touted by Safire), the latest document appears to be bogus. Yet many in the press keep taking them seriously.

According to U.S. law enforcement officials and FBI documents, the latest "smoking gun" linking Saddam to 9/11-- purporting to show that Atta visited Baghdad in the summer of 2001-- is probably a fabrication, Newsweek reported this week. In fact, the new document, supposedly written by the chief of the Iraqi intelligence service, is contradicted by U.S. law-enforcement records showing that Atta was staying at cheap motels and apartments in the United States when the trip would have taken place.

The document was hailed by the Sunday Telegraph of London earlier this week in a front-page story written by Con Coughlin, a Telegraph correspondent and the author of the book Saddam: The Secret Life.

But U.S. officials and a leading Iraqi document expert told Newsweek that the document is most likely a forgery -- "part of a thriving new trade in dubious Iraqi documents that has cropped up in the wake of the collapse of Saddam`s regime."

Senior U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence officials said "the claims of an Atta trip to Iraq in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks were highly implausible -- and contradicted by a wealth of information that has been collected about Atta`s movements during the period he was plotting the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Contacted by Newsweek, the Sunday Telegraph`s Coughlin acknowledged that "he could not prove the authenticity of the document. He said that while he got the memo about Mohammed Atta and Baghdad from a `senior` member of the Iraqi Governing Council who insisted it was `genuine,` he and his newspaper had `no way of verifying it. It`s our job as journalists to air these things and see what happens,` he said."

Source: Editor & Publisher Online

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell ([e-mail]) is editor of E&P.

Find this article at:
http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/articl…

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Saddams Festnahme wird den Krieg nicht beenden
von Robert Fisk
Independent / ZNet 17.12.2003

“Friede” und “Versöhnung” lauteten gestern die Parolen in Downing Street und Weißem Haus. Aber all die Hoffnung auf Kollaps des Widerstands, sie dürfte vergebens sein. Weder war Saddam geistiger noch politischer Führer jenes Aufstands, der momentan im Irak soviele Menschenleben kostet - und es sterben wesentlich mehr Iraker als Westler, sollte hinzugefügt werden. So glücklich die Herren Bush und Blair über die Gefangennahme Saddams auch sein mögen - der Krieg geht weiter. In Falludschah, Ramadi und weiteren Zentren der sunnitischen Macht im Irak wird sich der Aufstand gegen die Besatzung fortsetzen. Das System der Angriffe und die Tatsache, dass die Aufständischen so erschreckend rasant dazulernen, hängt mit einer Gruppe sunnitischer Wahabi-Muslime zusammen - dem ‘Glaubenskomitee’. Derzeit planen sie ihre Angriffe auf amerikanische Besatzungstruppen zwischen Mosul und der Stadt Hillah, die 50 Meilen südlich von Bagdad liegt. Selbst schon vor dem Umsturz des Bath-Regimes hatten diese Gruppen - Saddam hatte sie erlaubt, in der Hoffnung, sie könnten die Militanz des sunnitischen Islamismus binden -, die ‘Mukawama’ geplant, den Aufstand gegen ausländische Besatzung.

Die Abschlachtung weiterer 17 Irakis, beim Bombenanschlag auf eine Polizeistation gestern - Stunden nach Saddams Festnahme -, zeigt Iraks künftige Blutagenda, wobei die Bombenattentäter allerdings noch nichts von der Festnahme wissen konnten. Die britisch-amerikanische Version wird künftig noch schwerer durchzuhalten sein: Saddam-”Überreste” bzw. Saddam- ”Loyalisten” als Feinde - diese Version lässt sich sehr viel schwerer aufrechterhalten, wenn es keinen Saddam mehr gibt, demgegenüber sie loyal sein könnten. Die irakische Identität (dieser Leute) wird so offensichtlicher zutage treten. Umso größer wird das Bedürfnis sein, “ausländischen” Al-Kaida-Mitgliedern die Schuld zuzuschieben. Wiederholte Beteuerungen amerikanischer Infanteriekommandanten - besonders, wenn sie um Tikrit u. Mosul stationiert sind -, dass es sich bei den meisten Angreifern um Iraker und nicht um Ausländer handelt, sind Beleg, dass dem amerikanischen Militärkommando im Irak die Wahrheit durchaus bekannt ist - zumindest auf Divisionsebene. Jener Hauptmann der 82sten Airborne in Falludschah, der mir sagte, dass seine Männer von “Terroristen, die von Syrien gestützt werden und irakischen Freiheitskämpfern” angegriffen werden, scheint mehr über die Wahrheit zu wissen, als dem US- Kommandierenden im Irak, Major Ricardo Sanchez, lieb sein kann. Bei diesem Krieg geht es nicht um Saddam sondern um ausländische Besatzung. Berufssoldaten weisen darauf seit langem hin. Da ist zum Beispiel jener Sergeant der 1. Panzerdivision, der in Bagdad Checkpoint-Dienst tut. Gestern erklärte er dem ‘Independent’ die Situation mit erstaunlich klaren Worten: “Weil Saddam gefasst ist, werden wir keineswegs früher heimkommen”, sagte er. “Wir alle sind hergekommen, um nach Massenvernichtungswaffen zu suchen, und jetzt wurde die Aufmerksamkeit davon abgelenkt. Die Verhaftung Saddams ist bedeutungslos. Wir wissen immer noch nicht, weshalb wir hier sind”.

Es gibt hier massenhaft Gruppen, die Saddam zwar nie mochten, die Amerikaner aber dennoch mit Enthusiasmus angreifen. Ein Beispiel: die ‘Unification Front for the the Liberation of Iraq’ (Einheitsfront zur Befreiung Iraks). Diese Gruppe war anti-Saddam, ruft ihre Unterstützer jedoch zum Kampf gegen die amerikanische Besatzung auf. Der ‘Independent’ konnte insgesamt 12 verschiedene Guerilla-Gruppen identifizieren. Sie stehen über ihre Stammesbeziehungen untereinander in losem Kontakt. Nur bei einer Gruppe konnten wir Saddam-Loyalisten bzw. Bathisten identifizieren. Im Sommer war die erste Wegrandbombe explodiert - mitten auf dem Mittelstreifen der Autobahn in Khan Dari; ein Soldat starb. Bald darauf folgten in Kirkuk und Mosul identisch fabrizierte Minen - drei Mörser, zusammengebunden mit Draht. Innerhalb einer Woche dann der nächste Anschlag mit einer Mine, demselben Muster folgend. Die Mine ging neben US-Soldaten nahe Nasiriyah hoch. Da war klar: Hier reisen Aufständische gruppenweise und mit explosiven Vorrichtungen im Gepäck durchs Land; sie sind organisiert, womöglich auf nationaler Ebene.

Vielerorts prahlen Männer, die sich selbst Widerständler nennen, öffentlich damit, in die neue von Amerika bezahlte Polizei eintreten zu wollen. Dort verdienten sie Geld und würden sich Waffenkenntnisse und Informationen über ihre militärischen US-“Verbündeten” verschaffen. Exakt jenes Schicksal der Israelis im Libanon - deren Stellvertreterarmee, die Miliz der ‘Südlibanesischen Armee’, mit dem Feind von der Hisbollah zu kollaborieren begann -, scheint nun wohl auch den Amerikanern zu blühen. Die Männer, die weiter die Amerikaner angreifen, insgeheim im Herzen freuen sie sich natürlich über Saddams Festnahme. Warum, so werden sie sich sagen, sollten wir uns nicht über das Ende unseres größten Unterdrückers freuen, während wir gleichzeitig die Demütigung jener Besatzungsarmee planen, die ihn gefangennahm?





[ Übersetzt von: Andrea Noll | Orginalartikel: "Capturing Saddam Won`t End the War" ]

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Fight to the death
The Sydney Morning Herald.
December 20, 2003

In Khaldiyah, it`s a war of nerves. A three-metre-deep crater marks the explosion point of a careering car bomb that the local police knew was inevitable. Just across and down a highway that cuts through this small town west of Baghdad is the home of a man the US suspects could help bring an end to these relentless attacks - tribal sheik Fanar Al-Kharbit.

The bomb exploded only hours before the first news flash on the most dramatic turn in the Iraq conflict since the fall of Baghdad - the capture last Saturday evening of Saddam Hussein.

Throughout the night each side operated in secrecy, the Americans subjecting Saddam to a humiliating videotaped medical examination that would be released to the world, the insurgents rigging the car with enough explosive to kill 23 Iraqis in a strike on the Khaldiyah police station that also would flash worldwide - until it was blitzed from the media by the news of Saddam`s arrest.

As black smoke cleared over Khaldiyah and its dusty main street was swept of body parts, shattered glass and clothing now reduced to singed rags, locals went through the grim ritual of tallying the dead - more than a dozen policemen, at least one student from a nearby school, a fruit vendor, a few other street-stallholders and a man who worked in a nearby sewage control office.

The police station, shielded only by a lightweight cinderblock wall, was targeted because the insurgents accuse the Iraqi police of collaborating with the US occupation forces. Initially, at least, it had the desired effect - police anger was directed not at the bomber, but at the Americans.

Surviving policemen complained that the US had not sufficiently protected their station, that they had been threatened with the sack for their reluctance to join US raiding parties and that locals constantly abused them as American lackeys. Acutely aware that he is 120 times more likely to die than his counterpart on the beat in New York, police officer Khalid Hammed said: "The best thing the US can do for us is pull out."

The two-storey building is a police station in name only, pushed into action ahead of its time because of a US determination to be seen to be putting Iraqi security forces in place. More than 100 men are stationed at Khaldiyah, but only half have uniforms and fewer have weapons; they share two patrol cars with four other stations in the area and they have one telephone.

Like other guerilla conflicts, Iraq has become a war of attrition.

Super self-protection by the Americans makes them a difficult target. So the insurgents turn more on Iraqis who are seen to be helping the US - police and security workers, the judiciary and local political leaders.

The Americans crack down even harder, now openly adopting tactics used by the Israelis on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip and resurrecting some of the dubious strategies from Vietnam days, seemingly with little regard for how this will play out in the wider battle for hearts and minds in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

The number of attacks against the US is down, but this doesn`t mean that the security situation is any less fraught. While the American forces are poised defensively, like a coiled spring, and while fear grips that proportion of the Iraqi people that doesn`t necessarily support the resistance, it is impossible for the US to pull Iraq out of the social and economic chaos that makes many Iraqis hunger for what they remember as the day-to-day orderliness of Saddam`s Iraq.

And the longer this continues, the greater is the risk for Washington that more ordinary Iraqis will shift from fearing the insurgents to sympathising or participating with them.

Hence the US interest in Fanar Al-Kharbit. There is little doubt that as a sheik in the Sunni hotbed between Ramadi and Faluja, Fanar Al-Kharbit knows more than he lets on. And there`s the rub: the US has him pegged as a potential source of what it likes to call "actionable intelligence", but it doesn`t have enough to pull him in.

American tanks have rumbled into his walled compound on the banks of the Euphrates River no fewer than seven times in the past few weeks, soldiers tumbling out to rummage through his home while, he says, telling him all the time to "shut up".

The sheik is still full of hard talk, but those who know him say he is a shadow of his former self. Reputed to be one of the richest men in Iraq, he used to strut in crisp traditional dress and hobnob with the most senior elements of the regime. Saddam was a frequent guest at his table until a falling out over business in the early `90s. Now he is ill-kempt and gaunt. When the Herald visited, he was more like a bewildered sheep herder, seemingly lost as he sat on his haunches against his front wall, facing the highway through Khaldiyah.

"In the first few months relations with the US were friendly, but now they are trying to provoke me," he said, pointing to the charred remains of reed beds by the Euphrates, which he said he had been ordered to burn so that his activities might be observed more closely from US observation posts.

"They are stupid, because they are listening to their spies who say bad things about me. I`m not a part of the resistance; but those who are are just protecting their country.

"This is not liberation, it is an occupation. People are very tired after Saddam`s three wars. I`m worried if the Americans keep attacking me, that my tribe will react - but for now I have told my people not to cause trouble."

The difficulty for Fanar Al-Kharbit is that in running Saddam to ground, the Americans have displayed a new understanding of Iraqi tribalism and how it dovetails with the resistance.

Tracking more than 9000 people in tribal families loyal to Saddam, US intelligence officers worked on four family names, detaining more than 1200 of them. The information on Saddam`s hole in the ground was extracted only hours before his arrest, from one of his most trusted tribal associates. The associate`s name was on a list of 20 suspects compiled as intelligence officers tested a theory that the families which propped Saddam up in power were most likely to be protecting him.

Number five on the list was Qais Hattam, a businessman in Samara, near Saddam`s home town of Tikrit. The US says that he dined with Saddam 48 hours before his capture and had contributed almost $US2 million ($2.7 million) to the fight. He in turn was captured along with more than 100 others and a huge cache of weapons and explosives when American forces launched a series of massive night-time raids on Samara this week.

The latest resistance attacks and US arrests - including nine who were described by the officer in charge of Saddam`s detention, Major-General Ray Odierno, as "mid-level operatives: financiers, organisers, arms suppliers" - underscore the fluid structure and make-up of the opposition that confronts the US in Iraq.

US officials insist that the strategic direction comes from Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri, a long-serving Saddam lieutenant whose family properties overlook the farm on which Saddam was dragged from his burrow and who this week became the most senior official of the former regime still on the run.

But hampered by poor communications, the evidence suggests great local autonomy and a degree of friction between several competing resistance groups with varying agendas, but all of which are bent on causing trouble for the US. There are Baath Party loyalists, some of whose ardour might be diluted by the finality of Saddam`s capture. But there are also dozens of locally run cells that claim to be vehemently anti-Saddam and to be driven by nationalism and a need to protect their huge natural resources - especially oil - from what they see as an American grab.

Advising and training both these groups are an unknown number from the ranks of Saddam`s well-trained military and from his tenacious intelligence agencies. In the service of some of them is a criminal element that operates on a fee-for-service basis.

Then there are the foreign fighters claimed by the US to be in the service of al-Qaeda and one of its offshoots, Ansar al-Islam. These so-called jihadists come from across the Arab world and are thought most likely to be the parties behind the wave of suicide bombings that started in the summer with the attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad. Responsibility is never claimed for the bombings. The US variously lays the blame at the feet of the foreign terror groups or the Baath Party loyalists. Co-ordination between the resistance groups is little understood, but it is thought to be erratic.

AS THE DUST settled in Samara on Wednesday, a local resident, Hikmat Azzawi, told a reporter: "They cut locks, they blow open doors, they search houses with no evidence. It`s just like the Israelis and the Palestinians."

This was not wild hyperbole on Azzawi`s part. In the past few weeks US forces have openly admitted that they have actively sought Israeli advice on how they might impose security in Iraq.

Now, some Iraqi villages are being encircled with barbed wire. Only those Iraqis with US-issued identity cards may come and go; the relatives of suspected insurgents are being detained and, in some cases, their homes are being demolished. And the Americans are being urged to mirror the Israelis` extensive West Bank and Gaza informants` network, which has underpinned the Israeli campaign of summary execution for terror suspects - but which has failed to end the violence or advance the peace.

Before Saddam`s detention, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq, said he was well pleased with the resort to tougher tactics following the death of 81 US soldiers in November.

He said: "We`ve considerably pushed back the numbers of engagements against coalition forces. We`ve been hitting back pretty hard - the attacks have dropped from 40 a day two weeks ago to under 20 a day."

After the Americans` widely criticised decision to disband, rather than attempt to harness the better elements of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, the US now is calling for help from veterans of Saddam`s feared mukhabarat - the secret police.

Also, it is trying to enlist former Iraqi servicemen into the new Iraqi army. But it has suffered a major embarrassment with the revelation that more than one-third of the first Iraqi battalion in training had gone AWL - only days before it was to begin active service. The US now boasts that it has deployed or is training a greater number of Iraqi security forces than there are US forces in the country - almost 160,000.

But they have a way to go. Apart from the campaign of fear by bombing, the police are subjected to near-ritualistic humiliation in the total refusal of city motorists and others to acknowledge their authority; they are widely accused of threatening bogus charges against motorists who refuse to offer bribes and those who are posted at service stations to control angry petrol queues often sell pole position on the queue to the highest bidder.

Likewise, border control still appears to be a joke. When the Herald crossed into Iraq from Jordan at 3am on December 4, there were no US personnel to be seen at the border post. While I remained in a darkened vehicle, the driver took my passport into the immigration office. There was no attempt to match me with my documentation or to examine my two big equipment boxes.

THE CAPTURE of Saddam put an obvious spring in the step of the US leadership in Baghdad. But it also focused public attention on the clandestine Task Force 121, a mix of operatives from the US Defence Intelligence Agency, the CIA and Special Forces who were involved in the arrest. Informed reports in the US say Task Force 121 is part of an escalation of a covert war in Iraq.

The strategy has rekindled unfavourable memories of Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, when Special Forces teams worked with Vietnamese agents to detain or kill those suspected of working or sympathising with the Vietcong.

Up to 40,000 Vietnamese are estimated to have been eliminated over five years, many of them for spurious reasons. William E. Colby, who ran the program, subsequently told Congress: "A lot of things were done that should not have been done."

The Vietnam parallel in Iraq is the hatred between the majority Shiites and Kurds, and the minority Sunnis, who for decades mistreated the rest in the name of Saddam. There is a frightening risk that Task Force 121 will be sooled on to Sunnis, perhaps people such as Sheik Fanar Al-Kharbit, in settlement of personal grievances as much as for protection of national security.

The difficulty confronting George Bush is that, having taken control of Iraq, he sees toughing it out as the only option. Washington points to the relative peace of the north and the south as a substantial achievement. But while the centre of Iraq - and especially Baghdad - remains a cauldron, it is virtually impossible to create conditions that might give Iraqis even the half-normal existence that would give them hope for the future.

Anger simmers at the prospect of a long wait for adequate supplies of electricity, petrol and cooking gas. If the US stays the course with its timetable for a fully elected new Iraqi government, it could be years before it can be demonstrated that Iraqis are in control of Iraq. Delays on both fronts create a perfect environment for guerilla war.

Whatever he is up to, and however dispirited Fanar Al-Kharbit appears, it seems that the sheik wants to keep punching. Returning to his place against the wall in the pale afternoon sun, he said: "I`ve told the Americans to get out of my neighbourhood. They wouldn`t be here if I was a leader of the mujahideen. And if they keep going like this, a lot more US soldiers will die."


This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/19/1071337160499.html

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Truck Blast Kills 2 U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)--A U.S. military tanker truck exploded on a road outside Baghdad on Friday, and witnesses said it killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded one.

Before dawn Friday, another blast hit the office of Iraq`s major Shiite party, killing one Iraqi woman and wounding five others, witnesses said.

That attack came the day after Shiites buried a senior politician assassinated Wednesday as he left his home in Baghdad. Officials of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution party blamed the killing and explosion on Saddam Hussein loyalists.

The explosion brought down half of a one-story residential building in western Baghdad, which also housed a party branch office.

Rahim Jabar, who lives in the building, said his sister was killed in the attack and five other residents were wounded.

Supreme Council members were rushing to the scene.

An anti-Saddam rally was planned in the capital later Friday.

There was no official confirmation immediately of the tanker truck explosion, near Abu Ghraib on the road from Baghdad to Fallujah, nor of the death toll reported by witnesses.

On Thursday, the military reported that rebels had killed a U.S. soldier in the first fatal ambush for the U.S. military since Saddam`s capture Saturday.

The soldier was killed late Wednesday when a 1st Armored Division patrol came under fire in northwest Baghdad, the military said. A second soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded. According to official reports, 314 U.S. soldiers have been killed in combat since the war began March 20. There have been 199 soldiers killed in hostile action since U.S. President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1. Another 144 soldiers have died in non-hostile incidents, according to the Pentagon.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for a Jan. 15 meeting of major players to discuss what role the international body might play when Iraq makes the transition from U.S. occupation.

Frustrated that neither the Iraqi Governing Council nor the U.S.-led coalition running the country have given him specific answers, Annan said it was time to sit down with representatives from both bodies.

``It has to be a three-way conversation,`` he said. ``Once we have that, I will make a judgment.``

Meanwhile, Moscow signaled its willingness to start negotiations to forgive Iraq`s US$8 billion debt to Russia. And Japan ordered 1,000 troops to pack up for a humanitarian mission to Iraq _ readying ground, air and naval forces for their first operation in a combat zone since World War II.

In Baghdad overnight, some 140 U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Brigade of 82nd Airborne Division raided a middle-class neighborhood near Baghdad international airport and arrested five of seven suspected guerrillas.

They included a suspected bomb maker, according to the raid commander, Cpt. Joel Kostelac of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

At a briefing in Baghdad on Thursday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said there had been 24 engagements with guerrillas in the previous 24 hours. He said attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces were fewer than last month, though attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces had increased.

Since Saddam`s capture, U.S. forces have conducted major operations in Samarra, a focus of guerrilla resistance 60 miles north of Baghdad and about 20 miles south of where the former Iraqi leader was found hiding in a tiny underground refuge.

In Tikrit, 30 miles north of Samarra, 86 people were arrested including 12 on a U.S. target list, Sgt. Robert Cargie, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, said Thursday. Soldiers also discovered a weapons cache of 200 AK47 assault rifles and some bomb-making material.

Two Iraqis trying to attack U.S. soldiers were killed during the Samarra operations, in which troops smashed the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards searching for guerrillas.

Also Thursday, Baghdad residents snapped up copies of an Iraqi newspaper with a front-page photo of Saddam sitting in his jail cell with longtime opponent Ahmad Chalabi, a member of Iraq`s American-picked Governing Council and once a Pentagon favorite to succeed Saddam.

The picture, covering most of the front page of the Al-Moutamar newspaper, which Chalabi publishes, was taken Sunday and shows Saddam sitting on a floor leaning against a bare tile wall, wearing a white robe and a jacket, while Chalabi sits on a chair nearby, leaning forward as if talking to the captured dictator.

The edition sold out on newsstands by midday Thursday, with some vendors selling copies for more than double the price. Iraqi papers have run the U.S. military`s photos of Saddam in custody--but Iraqis are eager for any look at the man who ruled over them for more than two decades.

``I would pay double price, even more, to see the man closely,`` said Kadhim Abdel Razek, 57. ``I just want to see what he is wearing, what shape he is in to compare it to the picture in my mind.``


AP-NY-12-19-03 0449EST

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washingtonpost.com
Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis, Documents Show
Trip Followed Criticism Of Chemical Arms` Use

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A42


Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States` public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington`s attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents.

Rumsfeld, then President Ronald Reagan`s special Middle East envoy, was urged to tell Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that the U.S. statement on chemical weapons, or CW, "was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs," according to a cable to Rumsfeld from then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

The statement, the cable said, was not intended to imply a shift in policy, and the U.S. desire "to improve bilateral relations, at a pace of Iraq`s choosing," remained "undiminished." "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide new, behind-the-scenes details of U.S. efforts to court Iraq as an ally even as it used chemical weapons in its war with Iran.

An earlier trip by Rumsfeld to Baghdad, in December 1983, has been widely reported as having helped persuade Iraq to resume diplomatic ties with the United States. An explicit purpose of Rumsfeld`s return trip in March 1984, the once-secret documents reveal for the first time, was to ease the strain created by a U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons.

The documents do not show what Rumsfeld said in his meetings with Aziz, only what he was instructed to say. It would be highly unusual for a presidential envoy to have ignored direct instructions from Shultz.

When details of Rumsfeld`s December trip came to light last year, the defense secretary told CNN that he had "cautioned" Saddam Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, an account that was at odds with the declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting, which did not mention such a caution. Later, a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Aziz.

Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said yesterday that "the secretary said what he said, and I would go with that. He has a recollection of how that meeting went, and I can`t imagine that some additional cable is going to change how he recalls the meeting."

"I don`t think it has to be inconsistent," Di Rita said. "You could make a strong condemnation of the use of chemical weapons, or any kind of lethal agents, and then say, with that in mind, `Here`s another set of issues` " to be discussed.

Last year, the Bush administration cited its belief that Iraq had and would use weapons of mass destruction -- including chemical, biological and nuclear devices -- as the principal reason for going to war.

But throughout 1980s, while Iraq was fighting a prolonged war with Iran, the United States saw Hussein`s government as an important ally and bulwark against the militant Shiite extremism seen in the 1979 revolution in Iran. Washington worried that the Iranian example threatened to destabilize friendly monarchies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Publicly, the United States maintained neutrality during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which began in 1980.

Privately, however, the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold military goods to Iraq, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological agents, worked to stop the flow of weapons to Iran, and undertook discreet diplomatic initiatives, such as the two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, to improve relations with Hussein.

Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archives, a Washington-based research center, said the secret support for Hussein offers a lesson for U.S. foreign relations in the post-Sept. 11 world.

"The dark corners of diplomacy deserve some scrutiny, and people working in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Uzbekistan deserve this kind of scrutiny, too, because the relations we`re having with dictators today will produce Saddams tomorrow."

Shultz, in his instructions to Rumsfeld, underscored the confusion that the conflicting U.S. signals were creating for Iraq.

"Iraqi officials have professed to be at a loss to explain our actions as measured against our stated objectives," he wrote. "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that U.S. policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel."

The declassified documents also show the hope of another senior diplomat, the British ambassador to Iraq, in working constructively with Hussein.

Shortly after Hussein became deputy to the president in 1969, then-British Ambassador H.G. Balfour Paul cabled back his impressions after a first meeting: "I should judge him, young as he is, to be a formidable, single-minded and hard-headed member of the Ba`athist hierarchy, but one with whom, if only one could see more of him, it would be possible to do business."

"A presentable young man" with "an engaging smile," Paul wrote. "Initially regarded as a [Baath] Party extremist, but responsibility may mellow him."

Staff writer Vernon Loeb contributed to this article.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

Hier die gesamte Dokumentation über die Besuche von Rumsfeld im Irak. Zu dem WP-Artikel in #10648

Für die Links zu den Dokumenten:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/index.htm

Saddam Hussein: More Secret History

Compiled and introduced by Malcolm Byrne

December 18, 2003

Twenty years ago, on December 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, currently the U.S. Secretary of Defense, held the first of two now-famous meetings with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. At the time, the United States was courting Iraq as a buffer to the greater threat the Reagan administration perceived in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As has now been widely reported, the U.S. had already been providing the Iraqi regime with intelligence and other support in its war with Iran. Within a year of Rumsfeld`s first visit, Baghdad and Washington had re-established diplomatic relations.


In light of recent developments in Iraq, most importantly the capture of the former dictator himself, the National Security Archive is posting a compilation of newly declassified documents from American and British sources as part of its new Web product, The Saddam Hussein Sourcebook. The documents below, which come from the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. National Archives and the British Public Record Office provide further fascinating details about the secret history of U.S.-Iraqi relations from the late 1960s, when Hussein emerged as the real power in Iraq, to the 1970s, when Henry Kissinger began probing Baghdad about a warming of relations, to the 1980s, when the U.S. government and private businesses forged ahead with improved ties despite widespread proof of Iraq`s repeated violations of international law through its use of chemical weapons.


The full record of the U.S.-Iraq relationship is not yet accessible to the public. But as the situation on the ground in Iraq and the Persian Gulf continues to evolve, and as American understanding of the nature of U.S. alliances and allies deepens, the need for fuller access to the historical record will only grow. As the Houston Chronicle noted in its December 17, 2003, editions, "a spirited examination of our nation`s murkier alliances needs to be constantly, and most often publicly, re-examined. Attention: Riyadh, Cairo, etc."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: Biographic sketch of Saddam Hussein by British Embassy Baghdad, November 15, 1969
Source: Public Record Office, London, FCO 17/871.

Saddam Hussein`s rise to leadership of Iraq took a significant step in November 1969 when he assumed a number of senior posts in the Ba`ath Party and Iraqi government. Those promotions occasioned this brief sketch of Hussein by the British embassy in Baghdad, which described him as a "presentable young man" who although seen initially as a "Party extremist" might "mellow" with added responsibility.

Document 2: Telegram from British Embassy Baghdad to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "Saddam Hussein," December 20, 1969
Source: Public Record Office, London, FCO 17/871.

The British ambassador to Baghdad wrote this fascinating assessment of Saddam Hussein soon after his "emergence into the limelight" as "the recognized heir-apparent" of the Iraqi president in November 1969. At first, Hussein comes across as "singularly reserved" but eventually begins to speak "with great warmth and what certainly seemed sincerity" about various subjects. He insists Iraq`s relationship with the Soviet bloc "was forced upon it by the central problem of Palestine," and he reveals an apparently "earnest" hope for improved ties with Britain - "and with America too for that matter." Paragraph 7 of the ambassador`s account provides a remarkable portrait of Hussein - "young," with an "engaging smile," "a formidable, single-minded and hard-headed member of the Ba`athist hierarchy, but one with whom, if only one could see more of him, it would be possible to do business."

Document 3: Transcript, "Secretary`s Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting," April 28, 1975 (Excerpt)
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Department of State Records, Transcripts of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger Staff Meetings, 1973-1977.

As part of a routine review of world events, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his State Department advisers briefly discuss a recent spate of diplomatic activity coming from Baghdad. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Alfred L. Atherton, Jr. mentions Iraq`s nascent attempts at "patching things up" with neighbors and generally "projecting the image of a country that wants to play a very dynamic and accurate [sic] role in the Arab World." Kissinger says this new activity "was to be expected anyway when they cleared [the] Kurdish thing," a reference to the March 1975 preliminary agreement between Iraq and Iran that settled the two countries` border dispute at the expense of cutting off Iranian (and U.S.) support to the Kurds -- with tragic results for the Kurds. Atherton specifically mentions the relatively youthful, 38-year-old Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, as someone who bears closer scrutiny by the United States. "Hussein is a rather remarkable person ... he is running the show; and he`s a very ruthless and ... pragmatic, intelligent power."

Document 4: Memorandum of Conversation, Henry Kissinger et al with Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Sa`dun Hammadi, December 17, 1975
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Department of State Records, Records of Henry Kissinger, 1973-1977, Box 13, Dec 1975 NODIS Memcons.

This memorandum records the first face-to-face meeting at the foreign minister level between the two countries` governments in several years. Kissinger asked for the meeting in order to probe the prospects for normalizing relations with Baghdad as part of a larger campaign to warm up to the Arab world. He tells Hammadi "we do not think there is a basic clash of national interests between Iraq and the United States." Hammadi responds: "We of course have different views." Chief among them is Iraq`s opposition to the state of Israel. Kissinger repeatedly declares that Israel`s existence is not up for discussion. "But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate." He paints a picture of diminishing Israeli sway on U.S. policy, partly because of "our new electoral law" which will mean "the influence of some who financed the elections before isn`t so great." The two ministers discuss other regional issues and agree there are no obstacles to improving bilateral economic and cultural ties. Hammadi declares: "On the political level, we broke relations for a reason [the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war] and we think the reason stands." However, he agrees to stay in touch.

Document 5: Cable from U.S. Interests Section Baghdad to State Department, "Ismet Kittani`s Reaction to US Chemical Weapons Statement and Next Steps in US-Iraq Relations," March 7, 1984
Source: Freedom of Information request.

On March 5, 1984, the State Department issued a public statement criticizing Iraq for using chemical weapons in violation of the Geneva accords. This cable describes Iraq`s behind-the-scenes reaction delivered by Iraqi Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs Ismet Kittani to William Eagleton, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Baghdad. Kittani`s complaint has less to do with the substance of the statement than with Washington`s "timing and ... manner" of delivering it. Kittani`s sophistication in the use of diplomatic techniques to soften the impact of public criticism, and his awareness of the importance of the media are notable. The bottom line for both sides is that the incident should not stand in the way of improving bilateral relations; formal diplomatic recognition followed in November 1984.

Document 6: State Department Cable to Embassy Amman and U.S. Interests Section Baghdad, "Kittani Call on Under Secretary Eagleburger," March 18, 1984
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.

During a visit to Washington, Iraqi Under Secretary Kittani met at some length with U.S. Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. The administration`s explicit goal for the meeting was to blunt the impact of the State Department`s March 5 public criticism of Iraq`s use of chemical weapons. As this cable puts it: "[T]he main message of the U.S. side [is that] our condemnation of Iraqi CW use was made as part of [a] strong U.S. commitment to long standing policy, and not as a pro-Iranian/anti-Iraqi gesture." To "reinforce" the point, Secretary of State George Shultz dropped in on the meeting briefly. "The U.S. will continue its efforts to help prevent an Iranian victory, and earnestly wishes to continue the progress in its relations with Iraq," Eagleburger told his counterpart. Among other steps to improve Iraq`s position, Eagleburger indicated he had spoken with Export-Import Bank Chairman William Draper about the importance of financing projects in Iraq - at a time when internal bank objections threatened to scotch plans to provide loans for the Aqaba pipeline.

Document 7: State Department Cable to Donald Rumsfeld Party, "Briefing Notes for Rumsfeld Visit to Baghdad," March 24, 1984
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made two trips to Baghdad as Ronald Reagan`s special Middle East envoy. The first visit took place in December 1983 (see the National Security Archive`s electronic briefing book, "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein"), the second in March 1984. This cable offers Rumsfeld some background information in advance of the latter visit, and includes the suggestion that he reinforce the message delivered by Secretary of State Shultz and Under Secretary Eagleburger in their March 15 meeting with Iraqi Under Secretary Kittani (previous document). The cable indicates Kittani remains "unpersuaded" by private U.S. assertions that the recent public statement against Iraq`s chemical weapons use was necessitated "by our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs." The State Department wants to reassure Baghdad of its interest in improving bilateral ties "at a pace of Iraq`s choosing." The Department tells Rumsfeld, "If Saddam or Tariq Aziz receives you . . . it will be a noteworthy gesture of the GOI`s [Government of Iraq`s] interest in keeping our relations on track." On March 26, Tariq Aziz received Rumsfeld during a brief, six-hour visit to Iraq. (National Security Archive freedom of information requests related to this meeting are still outstanding.) The cable also makes a passing reference to Saddam Hussein`s "support and sanctuary for the Abu Nidhal [sic] terrorists" but gives no indication that Rumsfeld should raise the subject with the Iraqis or that it might stand in the way of warmer relations with Baghdad. One version of this document was previously published as Document 48 in "Shaking Hands with Saddam," but that version was entirely missing the second page with the crucial instruction to Rumsfeld that U.S. interests in improving U.S.-Iraq ties "remain undiminished" despite revelations of Iraq`s use of chemical weapons.

Document 7a: State Department Cable to Middle East Posts, "Department Press Briefing March 9, 1984," March 10, 1984
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.


Donald Rumsfeld`s March 1984 trip to Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries followed speculation earlier in the month that he was returning to his regular job, running the pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle & Co. As of the March 9 State Department press briefing partially reproduced in this cable, the Department either had no indication that he was even planning a trip, or was for some reason keeping it quiet. "I think he . . . has nothing in mind for the moment," spokesman John Hughes said, "but we`ll see how that turns out." Perhaps because of the speculation that Rumsfeld was "backing off the Middle East and backing into Searle," his visit to the region did in fact take place before the end of the month. Two months later, on May 18, Rumsfeld finally resigned as special envoy.


Document 8: Cable from U.S. Interests Section Baghdad to State Department, "Iraqi Attitude toward an Israeli Embarace [sic] on the Aqaba Pipeline," April 16, 1984
Source: Freedom of Information request.

A major project on which U.S. officials worked closely with Baghdad in the mid-1980s was construction of a pipeline to transfer Iraqi oil to the West via the Jordanian port of Aqaba instead of via the Persian Gulf, which was vulnerable to Iranian attack. U.S. officials took various steps, including negotiating with Israel to guarantee the security of the proposed pipeline which would either cross or come near Israeli territory. But as this cable shows, the underlying hostility between Baghdad and Tel Aviv was so acute that U.S. efforts came close to back-firing. So sensitive was the entire subject of dealing with Israel that Saddam Hussein was reported to be "offended" by the fact that Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld had even raised it at an earlier meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Hussein reportedly had wanted to meet with a high-level official - Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs Richard Murphy - during a recent visit to Baghdad "to let him know the depth of Iraqi feeling about Israel."

Document 9: Cable from U.S. Embassy Amman to State Department, "Hussein on Mubarak`s Visit and Their Joint Trip to Iraq," March 19, 1985
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.

One of the key intermediaries between Baghdad and Washington in the period prior to reestablishment of diplomatic ties in November 1984 was Jordan. This cable shows King Hussein`s continuing efforts on behalf of Iraq in its war with Iran and on behalf of Arab solidarity - as witnessed by his invitation to Egypt`s President Hosni Mubarak to join him at a recent meeting with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The king tells the U.S. ambassador in Amman that the Iraqis are "very pleased" with American diplomatic support "and with their overall cooperation with the U.S."

Document 10: Cable from U.S. Embassy Baghdad to State Department, "Views of the Jordanian and Egyptian Ambassadors on Iraq: the War, the Peace Process, and Inter-Arab Relations," March 28, 1985
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.

Providing further information on the recent visit to Saddam Hussein by Jordan`s King Hussein and Egypt`s President Hosni Mubarak (see previous document), the Jordanian and Egyptian ambassadors to Iraq offer their views on Iraqi regional policies. They believe that Baghdad has taken a more moderate course generally and has given "active support" to the Arab-Israeli peace process. Along the way, they offer other insights into Saddam Hussein`s current thinking about the Iran-Iraq War and the uneven support he is receiving from the Arab world.

Document 11: Cable from U.S. Embassy Baghdad to State Department, "Minister of Industry Blasts Senate Action," September 13, 1988
Source: Freedom of Information Act request.

This cable from U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie reports on a haranguing by Saddam Hussein`s Minister of Industry and son-in-law, Husayn Kamil, to representatives of construction giant Bechtel following the U.S. Senate`s passage of the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988." The Senate`s move, on September 8, came on the heels of a series of Iraqi chemical weapons assaults against Kurds - most notably in Halabja in March of that year - atrocities Kamil denied had taken place. Kamil "vented his spleen for one and a half hours," according to the report. The reason for his vehemence was that the Senate Act called for strict economic sanctions against Baghdad including blocking all international loans, credits and other types of assistance - actions that "caught his government completely by surprise." Kamil, the report notes, "insisted that a clear pattern of `Zionist undermining of Iraqi-U.S. relations` is now apparent." Two days later, representatives of Bechtel, which remains a major presence in post-Saddam Iraq, met with Glaspie to describe Kamil`s outburst. Glaspie made note of the fact that as "one of Saddam Hussein`s closest advisors, some say his closest … we take Kamil`s angry reaction … to be an accurate reflection of Saddam`s own reaction." But the ambassador failed to comment on Bechtel`s intention to move ahead with its $2 billion project in Iraq regardless of the provisions of the Act. "Bechtel representatives said that if economic sanctions contained in Senate Act are signed into law, Bechtel will turn to non-U.S. suppliers of technology and continue to do business in Iraq." In April 2003, Bechtel won USAID`s largest grant at the time - worth up to $680 million - to help in the reconstruction of Iraq.

[Joerver]

http://www.atimes.com

Middle East

THE ROVING EYE
THE RAT TRAP
Part 2: Why the resistance will increase
By Pepe Escobar

Part 1: How Saddam may still nail Bush(Siehe Postings von gestern.)

BAKU - Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Saddam Hussein is - already was - totally beside the point. Only in the past few months have we learned the extent to which the Saddam system sub-contracted a great deal of decision-making to different Iraqi elite - from tribal sheikhs to businessmen and Sunni and Wahhabi religious leaders. They may originally have been cajoled by Saddam with carrots and sticks to be incorporated into the Ba`athist regime. But now they are totally free to command their own agendas.

To top it all, they really have a common agenda for the first time in their lives: a war against American occupation. The resistance will persist because Saddam was never its political, religious, spiritual or moral guide. The mukawama - resistance against foreign occupation - is now a full-blown nationalist, religious movement. The most popular political party on the sprawling campus of Baghdad University is not the widely-despised Ahmad Chalabi`s neo-conservative-backed Iraqi National Congress. It is the Iraq Islamist Party.

A recent peaceful mass demonstration in the south-central city of Hilla brought down the local "collaborator" governor. People were shouting: "Free elections now!" Sources in Baghdad tell Asia Times Online that avalanches of people are just waiting for June 2004 to see what kind of government the Americans will allow, and if they are not satisfied, then they will join the resistance. But there are also many people - Sunni and Shi`ite - who fear that some Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) members may turn violent, afraid of losing power. Rival Kurdish chieftains Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani - both on the IGC - keep their strong peshmerga private armies. Chalabi has his own CIA-trained army, complete with American weapons. According to new Iraqi policemen who defected to Amman, Jordan, the bulk of the new Iraqi police is also inclined to join the resistance.

The increasingly sophisticated attacks in the Sunni triangle are being coordinated by the Committee of the Faith. They are Sunni, and most of all, they are Wahhabi - and they had the freedom to proselytize and act even under Saddam. As the relentless mukawama will expose day by day the fallacy of the Anglo-American mantra - according to which the attacks are perpetrated by "remnants of Saddam`s regime" - expect from Washington another change in the screenplay: the blame will shift to "foreign" al-Qaeda or "Syrian-backed terrorists".

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is making things even worse. According to Iraqi-Canadian journalist Firas al-Atraqchi, the CPA wants Kurdish peshmergas patrolling the explosive Sunni triangle and Mosul - which is predominantly Arab: "Sunni religious leaders have expressed outrage over the proposed deal and have warned, in no ambiguous terms, that the Sunni areas will not tolerate being patrolled or policed by Kurdish (or Shi`ite) militia. They warn that a civil war would be inevitable."

The non-aligned mujahideen
Meanwhile, in Europe, anti-terrorist specialists warn that the four bombings in Istanbul last month were also messages to the European Union - because some countries, like Britain, Italy and Spain, are collaborating with the Americans in Iraq, and also because they have dismantled jihadi cells in Europe. Experts at the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC) in Brussels are extremely worried of a fallout from Iraq and an imminent attack on one of the European Union countries.

European investigations are centered on Sheikh Abderrazak, an Algerian who was based in Milan and who is now under arrest in Hamburg, and who was a member of al-Tawhid, an organization directed by Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, a Jordanian and an al-Qaeda planner who was identified before the Iraq war by US Secretary of State Colin Powell as the "missing link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. Nobody in Europe at the time - apart from Britain`s Tony Blair, Italy`s Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Aznar of Spain - was convinced of the link. Now, however, European investigators tell Asia Times Online that things have changed and Zarkawi "is indeed part of the Iraqi resistance. The Americans invaded Iraq as part of their `war on terror`, and ended up bringing terror to Iraq."

Zarkawi - loaded with German contacts - is suspected of recruiting "more than a thousand jihadis to Iraq": they are Arab-Afghans, jihad veterans, with European passports. August Hanning, president of the German security service (BND), told German television that most of these jihadis, and some extra volunteers, have already left to Iraq from Great Britain, Bosnia and Germany, infiltrating via Syria and Saudi Arabia. Hanning is convinced that Iraq is about to become "the crystallization point for extremist Islamists the world over".

Experts in Brussels have even a "top ten" list of countries most likely to be victims of a next wave of terror attacks: they are, from top to bottom, the US, Britain, Israel, Australia, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany and Poland. The experts are all assuming the working hypothesis that al-Qaeda cells which are not directly related to bin Laden anymore are using an "al-Qaeda trademark" to mobilize jihadis and increase the repercussion of their particular attacks.

The ESISC has thus detected the last word in the "war on terror": the emergence of the "non-aligned mujahideen". These people are skilled, totally isolated and practically undetectable. Alain Chouet, in a study from the French Institute of International Relations, stresses that since December 2001, only five attacks can be attributed with full certainty to al-Qaeda. Chouet stresses that al-Qaeda has definitely mutated into "a multitude of small entrepreneurs or local sub-contractors, with tortuous and indirect strategies".

Breakdown: The Iraqi resistance
The invasion of Iraq was widely perceived as an attack on the Arab world. That`s why the resistance is turning pan-Arab. Once again: this is a nationalist and religious resistance movement.

Asia Times Online has ascertained that at least 12 independent guerrilla organizations from different tribes are involved in the mukawama, all vaguely in touch with each other. This loose organization may be about to extend its reach nationwide. But the Iraqi guerrilla movement is extraordinarily complex. These in essence are the main actors:

The former army. The majority of the 400,000 Iraqi soldiers demobilized by US proconsul L Paul Bremer were nothing but victims of the Ba`athist regime. Humiliated and frustrated, they inevitably turned to the resistance - and they were not being financed by Saddam Hussein, as Asia Times Online reported from the Sunni triangle. At least 100,000 soldiers from the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard didn`t even receive a meager financial compensation from the Americans. Big mistake: they were the best trained, the best equipped, the best motivated, and now they are totally engaged in the resistance. They are nationalists demonstrating in practice how the whole thing is not about Saddam`s return to power, but about getting rid of a foreign invader.

The tribes. An extremely complex tribal game is in play in Iraq. Saddam was a master in this business. An example: Ramadi and Fallujah, in the Sunni triangle, home to some of the most vicious anti-American attacks, are controlled by the huge Doulaiymi tribe - which always had a turbulent relationship with Saddam. The reason for the attacks were not $100 bills showered around by Saddam`s henchmen, but repeated blunders and massacres of civilians by the 82nd Airborne Division. The Americans themselves fed the infernal cycle of violence with their string of arbitrary arrests and daily humiliations. Tha`ar (revenge) is the absolute norm for these extremely proud Bedouins. Meanwhile, local tribes around Kirkuk are attacking oil pipelines just as a means of finally getting paid for protecting them. The Americans then dissolved the so-called "oil police" and sub-contracted regional security to a South African private firm, which for its part sub-contracted security to - who else - the local tribes.

Remnants of Saddam`s regime. They are reduced to nothing more than the fedayeen of Saddam - the private militia established by his late son Uday - the surveillance apparatchik and the tribes in Tikrit. It`s fair to expect much accumulated rage to explode in the form of attacks now that Saddam is in captivity. These people are armed to the teeth - with weapons caches dispersed all over the country. It still remains to be discovered how they connect with and how they provide logistical assistance to the professional jihadis that Hanning says are coming from Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The jihadis. An elite among them comprise the instigators and perpetrators of the suicide bombings. There are a few dozen survivors of Ansar al-Islam who crossed to Iranian Kurdistan, fleeing American bombing last March: they don`t make much of a difference. Most of all there may be a few thousand jihadis who came before, during and after the war. They are Yemenite, Lebanese, Sudanese, Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian - the pan-Arab character of the resistance. They are loosely linked with local, small groups of salafis - an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam.

American blunders only inflame the resistance. Samarra was a classic case. The Americans said that the guerrillas were Saddam fedayeen. Asia Times Online has been to Samarra: it`s a very religious, conservative city which never bowed to Saddam. Sources say that the bulk of the local resistance was from a group called the Mujahideen of Mohammed. Residents insist that there are no fedayeen in the city and accuse the Americans of being the terrorists, massacring civilians.

A new resistance tactic is to join the Iraqi police - recruited and paid for by the Americans - earn some $50 a month, train with American-provided weapons and gather valuable intelligence on the foreign invader. Meanwhile, the American military are now performing an exact replay of the Israeli military occupying Palestine: they surround large tracts with barbed wire and ultra-intimidating security checks, bulldoze houses and round up all men for lengthy interrogations. Tha`ar will come.

The American tactic of now Iraqifying the war is nothing but a replay of "Vietnamization". Washington`s push to make over a complex society in its own image will fail - as it failed in Vietnam. Iraqis, politically very sophisticated despite decades of dictatorship, detect crystal-clear the American plan, imposed at tank point, to privatize the whole country by selling its assets and fabulous natural resources to American - and a few European - corporations. This, most of all, is what is fueling the resistance. They know they cannot let people like Chalabi or Talabani in the IGC decide the future of the nation.

As author and commentator Tariq Ali has forcefully pointed out on the website Counterpunch, this is the "21st-century colonial model: Specialist companies are now encouraged to provide `security`. They employ the mercenaries, and their profits are ensured by the state that hires them. They are backed up by the real army and, more importantly, by air power, to help defeat the enemy. But none of this will work if the population remains hostile. And large-scale repression only helps to unite the population against the occupiers. The fear in Washington is that the Iraqi resistance might attempt a sensational hit just before the next presidential election. The fear in the Arab east is that [President George W] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney might escalate the conflict to retain the White House in 2004. Both fears may well be justified."

While Saddam awaits his trial, this is what the headlines will be about: a massive popular resistance movement fighting 21st-century colonization, while the new actors of jihad bet on a context of endless war. Saddam may be history, but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. It ain`t over till this desert "rat" sings.

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [e-mail] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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December 19, 2003
Purported al - Qaida Tape Warns of Attacks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:33 p.m. ET

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden`s deputy in al-Qaida, aired on Arab television Friday, warned that the terror group would target Americans ``in their homeland`` and would drive U.S. forces from bases in the region.

The pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera broadcast excerpts from a 10-minute tape it said was recorded by Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 figure in al-Qaida. The channel`s editors said they received the tape earlier Friday through the mail.

The speaker on the tape, whose voice resembled al-Zawahri`s, mentioned a visit to by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz -- which took place in late October. The speaker did not mention last weekend`s capture of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The speaker also denied that the resistance U.S. troops are facing in Iraq comes mainly from Saddam loyalists. He said the resistance fighters were ``holy warriors.``

``It is a real and authentic holy war of the Iraqi people,`` he said.

The speaker noted that two years have passed since the battle of Tora Bora, a major clash between U.S.-led forces and al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

``Two years after Tora Bora, the American bloodshed started to increase in Iraq, and the Americans have become unable to defend themselves or even defend their big criminals such as Wolfowitz,`` he said.

He was referring to an Oct. 26 rocket attack that barraged the Baghdad hotel where Wolfowitz was staying. A U.S. colonel was killed in that attack, and Wolfowitz escaped unharmed.

``We are still chasing the Americans and their allies everywhere, even in their homeland,`` he said.

The weeks before and after the rocket attack on Wolfowitz saw an upsurge in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq -- making November the bloodiest month for U.S. forces since the fall of Saddam. Attacks lessened as the U.S. military launched an offensive in late November. Violence has continued after Saddam`s capture on Dec. 13.

Al-Jazeera`s newscaster quoted the tape as saying: ``Those renegades who offered the Americans military bases and support to kill Muslims should prepare for the day of settling scores because the Americans are ready to flee.``

Montasser el-Zayat, an Egyptian lawyer who knows al-Zawahri, heard the tape and said it was undoubtedly al-Zawahri`s voice.

El-Zayat spent three years in an Egyptian prison with al-Zawahri in the early 1980s on charges related to President Anwar Sadat`s 1981 assassination.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press |

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Ann Coulter`s RNC Christmas Carol

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WASHINGTON (IWR News Satire) - The Republican National Committee (RNC) today released its annual inspirational Christmas Carol by Ann Coulter on it`s website today.
Here is the Ann Coulter`s holiday message:

My Republican friends, I would like to take a little time here and honor the wisdom spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge, the business man, in what I like to call - A Cronyism Carol.

Like all good Neocons, I can never bring myself watch Scrooge`s transformation in A Christmas Carol into slobbering liberal, so I always turn the damn tape off before he wakes up.

But I always remember Scrooge`s insightful reaction when he was asked by some gay charity dork to help the poor and destitute:

``Are there no prisons?`` asked Scrooge.

``Plenty of prisons,`` said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

``And the Union workhouses?`` demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?``

``They are. Still,`` returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.``

``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?`` said Scrooge.

``Both very busy, sir.``

``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,`` said Scrooge. ``I`m very glad to hear it.``

Yes. Scrooge was way ahead of his times and indeed anticipated our courageous Neocon Revolution.

At this mushy time of year, we need to remind ourselves that we owe the poor and aged of this country nothing at all!

As Scrooge quite correctly pointed out when asked if he was concerned about the fate of the poor and unemployed:

``If they would rather die,`` said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.``

Isn`t that the most beautiful sentiment that you have ever heard?

I mean we should never listen to treasonous liberals who would have our tax cuts rolled back or try to extend unemployment benefits so that we could help other people.

That, my friends, is the red spider-trap of socialism that the crony capitalist must always lobby against!

Thank God for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News!

Yes. Let`s follow Scrooge`s lead and let natural selection run its course and reduce this surplus population of loafers.

In fact, if we just started hanging a few senior citizens and their liberal supporters, that would stop this compassionate nonsense once and for all!

Now my good friends go and count your ill gotten profits in peace and remember to have a nice guilt-free Republican Christmas!

[Joerver]

_______________________
The view of the proposed Freedom Tower at the site of New York`s former World Trade Center.

[Joerver]

`Secret` detainee tells of jail despair
Terror suspect held for two years says he suffered mental breakdown that led to transfer to Broadmoor from high-security prison

Sarah Boseley
Saturday December 20, 2003
The Guardian

A man detained in Britain without charge or trial for two years on the basis of secret evidence he can neither know about nor challenge has told of his despair at his treatment under anti-terrorist legislation.

Exactly two years after he was arrested at his family home in the early hours and taken to Belmarsh high-security prison, Mahmoud Abu Rideh is the first of 14 detainees held on suspicion of terrorism to speak out publicly, through a letter sent to the Guardian.

In it, he tells of his horror at his arrest, his humiliation in prison and the deterioration of his mental health. He has now been moved to the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.

The home secretary, David Blunkett, says the detainees are all suspected international terrorists with links to al-Qaida or related groups and that the anti-terrorist legislation under which they are held, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, is essential to safeguard the public.

Human rights groups, however, have condemned detentions based on secret evidence without a criminal trial. On Thursday, the privy counsellors review committee, a cross-party group of MPs set up by Mr Blunkett, which spent 18 months reviewing the act, called for it to be scrapped.

Mr Blunkett alleges Mr Abu Rideh has been involved with associates of Osama bin Laden and was a fundraiser for terrorist purposes. Mr Abu Rideh, a Palestinian who denies the allegations, says in his letter to the Guardian that he hates terrorism and that he was arrested without warning or explanation at his home in Surrey on December 17 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks.

"The British security services arrested me at 5.30 in the morning. They broke the door while I am sleeping and scared my children - I have five children between the ages of three years and nine years." He was taken straight to Belmarsh prison in south-east London, with no access to a lawyer.

"At 7 o`clock in the morning they told me that you are going to stay all your life in Belmarsh. There is a unit inside it, it is like a prison in the prison. They put me alone in a small room where you face bad treatment and racism and humiliation and biting and swearing.

"They prevented us from going to Friday prayers and every 24 hours there is only one hour walk in front of the cells and half an hour walking inside a cage. You do not see sun. You cannot tell whether it is night or day. Every thing is dark."

Mr Abu Rideh claims his experiences since his arrest are an indictment of Britain. "Is this the civilisation of London? Is this Europe civilisation in the 21st century?" It was a month before he was allowed to call a lawyer and six months before he saw his wife and children.

Seventeen men have been detained under emergency measures passed since September 11. The introduction of the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act meant Britain had to suspend its obligations under the European human rights convention, which guarantees the right to liberty.

The act covers only foreign nationals and allows the home secretary to detain them in high-security prisons indefinitely. The detainees have the right to leave the UK at any time. Two have done so and are fighting an appeal from abroad. One has been removed from the UK under other legislation.

Others are refugees or asylum seekers and the government acknowledges it cannot deport them because they could be in danger in their home country. Lawyers for 10 of the men have lodged appeals against their detention. In October, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the home secretary`s decision to detain them after hearings where much of the evidence was given in private.

Mr Abu Rideh, who lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan after leaving Palestine, was well known in the Islamic community for his charitable activities, including setting up schools and digging wells, which may have led him into contact with extremists. But, say his lawyers, his voluble personality meant he was open about his work and the people he met.

He had a history of mental illness before he was arrested. In his Guardian letter he says that in Belmarsh "my mental health became worse and worse and they moved me to [Broadmoor] where they put the most dangerous criminals in Britain - people who commit crimes like murder and rape of children".

Amnesty International`s UK director, Kate Allen, said yesterday: "The home secretary has created something close to a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard." The cases of Mr Abu Rideh and the other 13 detainees were in defiance of basic human rights.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said she could not comment, but said the detainees would be held under the same conditions as all other Belmarsh prisoners.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Bush wants Saddam to hang, but we must resist
The US president is reflecting his own brutish view of the world

Max Hastings
Saturday December 20, 2003
The Guardian

It has always seemed mistaken to perceive Iraq as the epicentre of the "Iraq crisis". Events there represent only one manifestation of a much more profound issue: how the rest of the world should manage its relationship with the United States. This will be our great foreign policy dilemma for at least the first half of the 21st century.

America`s wealth and power are inescapable realities. It seems self-indulgent to lavish emotional and intellectual energy on deploring the shortcomings of the world`s only superpower. From Tony Blair downwards, all of us must focus on coming to terms with the US, rather than figuratively waving placards to demand that this great nation should be something other than it is.

Yet, it is hard not to hate George Bush. His ignorance and conceit, his professed special relationship with God, invite revulsion. A few weeks ago, I heard a British diplomat observe sagely: "We must not demonise Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz." Why not? The US defence secretary and his assistant have implemented coalition policy in Iraq in a fashion that makes Soviet behaviour in Afghanistan in the 1970s appear dextrous. The British are hapless passengers on the Pentagon`s juggernaut.

The president`s personal odyssey touched a new low this week, when he asserted publicly that Saddam Hussein should die. After a fair trial, he says, Iraq`s former dictator should swing or be shot, though Washington thinks it expedient to delegate Iraqis to do the business.

There will be no trouble with the British government about this scenario. Downing Street`s line suggests a script originally written for Pontius Pilate. Tony Blair declares that what an Iraqi administration chooses to do with Saddam is absolutely no business of Britain`s. If the powers-that-will-be in Iraq decide he should take an early bath on the scaffold, then what can Britain`s prime minister do, save shrug?

This posture seems less worthy of respect than that of the US president. Bush is a long-standing enthusiast for capital punishment, who believes there is nothing like a good hanging to purge the soul. Blair is alleged to be an opponent. Surely this is an indivisible position. If one believes judicial killing is wrong, then how is it possible to make exceptions? What price Ian Huntley`s neck if especially horrible crimes justify temporary suspension of principled objections to execution?

About now, somebody from Downing Street will murmur: "Come on, get real. The White House is determined that Saddam will take the jump anyway, so where`s the sense in Tony being seen to break ranks on something he can`t stop?" This argument has got Britain and its government into a great deal of trouble already. It looks shakier by the day.

Yet Blair would also privately justify his behaviour on the usual basis, that a satisfying proportion of Labour focus groups are untroubled about Saddam`s fate. Why should he not hang? It may be crass of a US president publicly to prejudge the outcome of judicial proceedings, but nobody is likely to face the wrath of Sue, Grabbit and Runne for declaring Saddam to be one of the most unpleasant dictators of the past generation - a mass murderer whose crimes place him in the same historical category as Mao or Stalin, albeit with fewer foolish western sympathisers.

We can agree, perhaps, that Saddam Hussein does not deserve to live. It is a pity that he made no show of resistance when American soldiers found him, to justify tossing a grenade into his spider hole. But he did not fight, and was captured alive. Next year, some sort of tribunal will find him guilty of unspeakable crimes. Thereafter it will be inconvenient and expensive to guard him through a long captivity.

Yet those of us who reject judicial killing can support no sentence other than life imprisonment. The coalition`s avowed purpose in Iraq is to change the political culture of centuries, above all the region`s conviction that problems are capable of solution only by administering violent death. Already, the Americans` tactical conduct of anti-guerrilla operations compromises this objective, by showing how little the US army esteems the lives of innocent Iraqis.

Every British soldier deemed responsible for unjustifiably causing death by his own actions on opera tional duty faces at least disciplinary charges, and not infrequently criminal prosecution. American soldiers, by contrast, are granted a wide-ranging dispensation for silly mistakes when they get their licences to kill.

A friend in the counter-insurgency business recently met some spooky friends in Washington whose organisation was responsible for the Predator strike in which a guided missile killed a group of innocent Afghans, in the mistaken belief that they were Osama bin Laden. "Who faces the murder charges?" my friend teased the spooks. They looked blank. Nobody does, of course.

The neo-cons in Washington deserve credit for getting one big thing right. For too long, Europeans have acquiesced in the view that democracy is a luxury beyond the means of most second and third world countries. Paul Wolfowitz and his friends are surely correct, that only democracy can offer hopes of building societies that behave towards one another with decency and moderation, whatever the evidence to the contrary in the performance of Ariel Sharon.

The neo-cons fatally compromise their purpose, however, by placing their faith in force to impose democracy. Even those of us who were deeply sceptical about US intervention in Iraq should acknowledge that the country is better without Saddam. But US policy since the war ended has emphasised firepower and cash, rather than hearts and minds.

In the old days in Vietnam, I believed that the Americans would achieve nothing until they committed soldiers who liked and respected the place and the people, rather than loathing and despising them. So it seems again in Iraq.

Now, they want to execute Saddam. My wife, whose liberal instincts are normally much more reliable than mine, is bemused by my scruples. She believes the case is unanswerable for the dictator`s cheap, permanent removal. But I cannot swallow either the principled or pragmatic arguments for yet another act of government-directed violence.

The allies rightly executed the leading Nazi and Japanese war criminals in 1945 and 1946. That was in another age, after the victors had fought the greatest war of national survival the world has seen. Bush`s intervention in Iraq, by contrast, represented a war of choice, with the limited purpose of changing the nation`s government.

If it is now to become US policy to execute former dictators who have committed terrible crimes against their own people, then many past and some current American clients will need to form an orderly queue to the gallows.

In reality, Bush`s eagerness to see Saddam swing reflects not an overarching objection to murderous dictators, but an ad hominem desire to complete the liberation of Iraq with a gesture that fits his own brutish view of the world. The least Blair can do, on Britain`s behalf, is to say that we can no more endorse the sponsorship of a hanging carried out by Iraqi stooges of the coalition, than fly out Geoff Hoon to do the job personally.

[e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Videos prove guards abused 9/11 prisoners
Cameras in a New York detention centre recorded officers slamming Arabs and Asians against walls

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday December 20, 2003
The Guardian

Videos recorded inside a New York jail show Arab and Asian detainees, who were picked up in a sweep of immigrants in the wake of the September 11 attacks, being slammed and bounced off the prison walls by guards, according to an official US government report.

After viewing more than 300 of the videos recorded by cameras placed around the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn, justice department investigators have published a long list of cases of physical and verbal abuse.

Across the country, more than 1,200 people, mostly Arabs and Asians, were detained on immigration violations after the 2001 explosions and held while they were investigated for possible links with terrorist groups. None was ever charged with terrorist-related crimes.

The tapes show detainees being escorted to and from their cells and assaulted in the corridors along the way.

"We observed officers escort detainees down a hall at a brisk pace and ram them into a wall without slowing down before impact," the report by the justice department`s office of the inspector-general said of two videotaped cases.

"In another incident, we saw staff members forcefully ram a second detainee into two walls while he was being escorted from the recreation deck to a segregation cell."

Still pictures from the videos, released with the report, show detainees being thrust against walls by guards.

The investigators reported that the detainees in each case appeared to have done nothing to warrant rough treatment; they had in fact been entirely compliant with their captors. The report found evidence on the tapes - discovered in a prison storeroom in August this year - to support detainees` allegations that they were routinely abused verbally.

The tapes also confirmed allegations that the guards twisted detainees` arms while they were cuffed behind their backs, and that they sometimes over-tightened leg and arm restraints and stepped on chains connected to shackles in a way that increased the pain inflicted by them.

The report found no evidence that detainees were "brutally beaten", but added: "We determined that the way these MDC officers handled some detainees was in many respects unprofessional, inappropriate and in violation of [bureau of prisons] policy."

The inspector-general said that the tapes disproved the "blanket denials of mistreatment" made by MDC officials in interviews with investigators.

"We found many officers lacked credibility and candour regarding their descriptions of what occurred in the MDC, which calls into question their categorical denials of any instances of abuse," the report found. It recommended that disciplinary measures should be taken against some of the guards involved.

Nancy Chang, a lawyer for the Centre for Constitutional Rights, a pressure group that is pursuing a lawsuit over the treatment of the detainees, welcomed the report: "These detainees were targeted based on their religion and ethnicity alone, and the emotionally charged atmosphere following the tragedy of September 11 cannot serve as an excuse for this brutality."

The justice department issued a statement saying that the "intense emotional atmosphere" following the terrorist attacks could not excuse the "abhorrent behaviour" of the guards.

The prisons` bureau made no comment.

The government`s response to September 11 is under particular scrutiny in the courts at present. The supreme court has agreed to hear arguments from British and other inmates in Guantanamo Bay that they are being illegally held and should have access to the US judicial system to make their case.

Their case received a boost on Thursday from a lower court, which ruled that the policy of holding foreign detainees in the prison camp in a US-run enclave on south-eastern Cuba without providing the rights and protections normally offered by American justice was unconstitutional and a violation of international law.

Ken Hurwitz, of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said the ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court would serve as a counter-balance to an earlier judgment in the government`s favour by a Washington-based court when the supreme court comes to weigh up the case in the spring.

· A US warship seized two tonnes of hashish from a small dhow in the northern Arabian Sea this week in what was believed to be an al-Qaida smuggling operation, the navy said yesterday.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

December 19, 2003

Shooting Samarra`s Schoolboys in the Back
Phantam Insurgents in Fantasyville
By ROBERT FISK

Schoolboy Issam Naim Hamid is the latest of America`s famous "insurgents". In Samarra--for which read Fantasyville--he was shot in the back as he tried to protect himself with his parents in his home in the Al-Jeheriya district of the ancient Abbasid city.

It was three in the morning, according to his mother, Manal, when soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division came to the house, firing bullets through the gate. One of the rounds pierced the door, punched through a window and entered Issam`s back, speeding on through an outer wall. His father was hit in the ankle and was taken to Tikrit hospital yesterday in serious condition. Issam cries in pain in the Samarra emergency hospital ward, a drip-tube sticking into his stomach through a wad of bloody bandages.

The Americans claimed to have killed 54 "insurgents" after a series of guerrilla ambushes in the city last month, and the only dead to be found in the mortuaries were nine civilians, including an Iranian pilgrim to the great golden-cupolaed Shia shrine that looms over Samarra. Four days ago, they boasted of a further 11 "insurgents", but the only dead man who could be found was a vegetable seller. At the Samarra hospital, doctors also have the names of a taxi driver called Amer Baghdadi, shot dead by the Americans on Wednesday night.

Then there is the case of 31-year-old farmer Maouloud Hussein who was trying to push his five young daughters and son into the back room of his two-room slum home a few hours earlier when yet another bullet came whizzing through the gate and the outer wall of the house, and smashed into Maouloud`s back. His son Mustafa, bleary-eyed with tears beside his father`s bed yesterday, and his daughters Bushra, Hoda, Issra and Hassa, were untouched. But the bullet tore into Maouloud`s body and exited through his chest. Doctors have just taken out his spleen.

His 41-year-old brother, Hamed winces as he sees Maouloud cringing in agony --the wounded man tries to wave a hand at me and lapses into unconsciousness--and says 23 bullets hit the house in their Al-Muthanna quarter of the city. Like Issam Hamid, he lay bleeding for several hours before help came. Manal, Issam`s mother, tells a terrible story. "The Americans had an Iraqi interpreter and he told us to stay in our home," she says. "But we had no telephone, we couldn`t call an ambulance and both my husband and son were bleeding. The interpreter for the Americans just told us we were not allowed to leave the house."

Hamed Hussein stands by his brother`s bed in a state of suppressed fury. "You said you would bring us freedom and democracy but what are we supposed to think?" he asks. "My neighbour, the Americans took him in front of his wife and two children and tied his hands behind his back and then, a few hours later, after all this humiliation, they came and said his wife should take all her most expensive things and they put explosives in their house and blew it up. He is a farmer. He is innocent. What have we done to deserve this?"

The city of Samarra is a centre of resistance to the American 4th Infantry Division. Yesterday, US forces deployed a company of soldiers and 20 Bradley tracked fighting vehicles throughout the city and admitted to me that they were blowing down the front doors of "suspected terrorists".

A Mississippi private said: "That`s us", when I asked who was blowing down doors. "And you know what?" he asked. "After we do that, they go to the American authorities and ask for compensation." Which is true.

Mohamed Saleh, for example, the 36-year-old owner of a mechanics shop, described how the Americans attached explosives to the iron gate of his home as his wife and four children hid in the back of the house after hearing shooting in the street. He had found the American wire that had connected the explosives to the detonator; behind his back was his new Mazda car, destroyed by the blast and bits of his metal gate. There are dozens of houses in the same street, all their gates blown to pieces, all their interior house doors bashed from their hinges with boot-marks on the paintwork.

"We wanted the Americans to help us," he said. "This was Saddam`s Sunni area but many of us disliked Saddam. But the Americans are doing this to humiliate us, to take their revenge on the attacks against them by the resistance."

Three times, I am taken into broken homes where young men tell me that they intend to join the mukawama--the resistance--after the humiliation and shame visited upon their homes. "We are a tribal people and I am from the al-Said family," one says to me. "I have a university degree and I am a peaceful man, so why are the Americans attacking my home and filling my wife and children with fear?"

The American military still talk about their battle against "terrorism" in Samarra, a story that might be more convincing if their troops were not accompanied in the city by hooded men in plain clothes carrying Kalashnikov rifles. The 4th Infantry Division claim these are members of the "Iraqi Civil Defence Corps"--who are now also appearing in hoods in the centre of Baghdad--but there is no way of knowing. The hooded gunmen who demanded my identity in front of American troops on the edge of Samarra yesterday were wearing jeans and sneakers and brown combat jackets and woollen balaclavas, and, several times, they shouted abuse at each other like children.

Thus has "liberation" and "democracy" arrived in Samarra. And the fantasy continues. Just a day earlier, the Americans announced that after an "investigation"--the oddest in recent history, one has to say--they had concluded that the truck bombing in Baghdad which killed 16 innocent civilians on Wednesday morning, was a "traffic accident".

They said a petrol tanker had exploded during a collision with a car, even though the lorry was pulling no tanker, even though the explosion blasted pieces of metal almost 600ft from the scene and that the American troops who first arrived there had discovered part of the detonating device: a grenade which they showed to me themselves.

So in the land of innocent "insurgents" and "traffic accidents", the war continues to be spun. Just don`t mention the hooded policemen.

Or schoolboy Issam Hamid.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch`s hot new book, The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

[Joerver]

Das ist die 10. Story von Fisk seit Anfang Dezember. Heute ist ein frischer Artikel im Independent erschienen, ich werde diesenm, sobald ich ihn habe, einstellen.(Der Independent hat ein Bezahlsystem)
Für alle, die sich die sich die Fisk Artikel im Gesamten(engl.)zulegen wollen:
http://www.robert-fisk.com/
Mit allen Links zu den Originalen und dann auch zu den freien Kopien, falls vorhanden.
Manchmal bieten Online Seiten Fisk Artikel mit leicht veränderten Anfang an, dann kann man über den o.a. Link die Artikel zuordnen.
Deutsche Übersetzungen sind für manche Artikel bei ZMag zu finden:
http://www.zmag.de/index.php


The capture of Saddam Hussein: it`s not hard for an Iraqi to become
schizophrenic... It`s a national disease

by Robert Fisk, The Independent
December 17th, 2003


AL-ADIL IS is as good a place as any in Baghdad to understand the meaning of occupation. And fear. And betrayal. It`s a leafy little road, middle-class in an Iraqi way, educated families living in villas shadowed by palm trees. But when I drove past, the 82nd Airborne were paying a social call with two M1A1 Abrams tanks and six Humvees and a company of soldiers and - here was the rub - a group of armed and hooded men.

I wandered up to them with my blue school satchel over my shoulder; the satchel has a cooling effect on gunmen and soldiers and the first masked man waved me forward with two fingers. Iraqi, I asked? And he nodded.

Just behind him, the Americans from Charlie Company were handing out leaflets. One bore a digitalised colour photograph of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels exploding in a blaze of golden fire. "$ 2,500 pounds 1,400 reward for information on those who attacked the hotels" was written at the top. The hotels were not blown to pieces last month, but a set of rockets was fired at them, badly wounding an American in the Palestine. On the back of the leaflet, there was a coloured photograph of a bearded man lying on the ground while a soldier tied his hands behind his back - not exactly the sort of image that is going to produce informers.

An Iraqi interpreter for the US forces, his bespectacled face cowled in an Arab kaffiyeh scarf, showed me a photocopy of a bearded man dancing at what must been a wedding, his hands held aloft, grinning at the camera. "We are looking for him," the interpreter said. Several middle-aged men looked at the picture and shrugged their shoulders. The American soldiers were weighed down with flak jackets and helmets and rifles and they were trying to be friendly. They had learnt some basic Arabic and were saying shukran - thank you - each time they finished speaking to the locals.

At the gateway of a single-storey villa I found a man in a long grey jallabia gown. "They are polite," he said. "They are looking for men who have attacked them. But they have also been asking about the sewage system here and asking if we have enough electricity. They have caused no problems."

At which point a group of young men joined us beneath the trees and the man in the gown transmogrified into someone else. "The Americans dragged a sick man from his home here and they threw him in a truck and one of the Americans put his foot on the man`s back - such humiliation - and then they drove him away. The Americans behave like barbarians."

I could see what was happening. My informant was being watched by the hooded gunmen who worked for the Americans, and also by men who--if they weren`t members of the resistance --were certainly sympathetic. I saw one of them tearing up an American leaflet. So the Iraqi now had two faces. He was friendly to the Americans and he hated them. He spoke of American politeness and American cruelty, all in the space of 30 seconds.

In Al Adil, it was not difficult for an Iraqi to adopt
schizophrenia. It`s a national disease.

There was an Airborne sergeant listening to all this,
uncomprehending but happy enough to talk to the Englishman with the school satchel. He couldn`t stop laughing when I asked if any of his men wrote war poetry. "I don`t think my Engineer boys are into that kind of thing," he said in disbelief. He was wrong - several of them did. But he wanted me to talk to his company commander whom I found in the next street, climbing out of a Humvee with a big American flag in the front window.

Captain Joseph Eskindo was a bright, articulate man - thank God America`s junior officers are more forthcoming than their generals--and he wanted to talk.

"We`ve had some attacks here on the Iraqi police," he said. "They are having a harder time than us. One was killed close to here and we want to find the people who did it." And the masked men, some of whom had dark blue helmets and jungle fatigues that looked like Bangladesh army uniforms, stood behind us. "They`re the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps, they`re locals and they don`t want to be recognised. We take them with us to areas they don`t live in but there`s always a chance someone will know them, which is why they hide their faces."

And all the while, leaflets were being handed to every householder in Al-Adil, one of which caught my eye. It showed photographs of a heavy machine-gun, a rocket-propelled grenade, an anti-tank rocket and a line of cowed Iraqi men standing in front of a wall with their hands tied behind their back, watched by an American soldier.

The "coalition authorities have announced a new policy", it stated in Arabic. Anyone found with one of these weapons "will be sentenced by the courts to between 15 years` and life imprisonment".

Who, I wondered, could have produced this threatening, humiliating leaflet? Who in US proconsul Paul Bremer`s palace had had the temerity to print out these thousands of disturbing pictures? What they represented - the one word that was not written in the text -was occupation.

They were also rubbish. No court is sentencing anyone to 15 years of prison, let alone life. And no such sentence would stand once a new Iraqi government takes over - if, indeed, it ever does.

I asked about the arrest of the sick man, and suddenly - this
happens a lot in Baghdad these days - a very plausible story
emerges. "He is a schizophrenic who has been attacking children," the captain said. "The neighbours complained to us because he`d just taken a little boy and thrown him on his head onto the road. We took the child to hospital and we have taken the man to a police station." So much for accusations of American "barbarism".

But not far away, I found a message spray-painted on a wall. Not by hand but with a stencil, in poor English perhaps, but there are dozens of identical messages stencilled onto the walls for Captain Eskindo and his men. "American soldiers," it says. "Run away to your home before you will be a body in black bag, then be dropped in a river or valley."

So I ask the young captain if he doesn`t ever wonder, knowing the daily death toll of American troops, if his turn might come. "I guess I don`t think about it much," he says, then thinks for a moment. "Yes, sure, I guess there are times when I leave my base in the morning and ask myself, Will it be my turn?`" Then suddenly, an old man approaches us in a blue gown, holding a stick. He tells the interpreter that there is a former leading Baathist who lives down the same road and who keeps two guards in his house.

"Ask him for the address and we`ll come back and check it out later," Captain Eskindo says. And I watch the old man shuffling away beneath the trees and realise that he has just performed one of the features of all occupations.

Indeed, he has just done what was expected of him under Saddam`s regime. He has just betrayed his neighbour.

[Joerver]

Hoffendlich ist das mittagessen nicht aus Plastik.

December 20, 2003
Spanish PM Aznar in Iraq, U.S. Troops Kill 3 Police
By REUTERS

Filed at 6:28 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Spain`s Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar surprised Spanish troops in Iraq with a visit Saturday as U.S. troops mistakenly killed three Iraqi policemen.

In his first trip to the region since the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Aznar flew to a Spanish base in Diwaniya, 110 miles south of Baghdad, from Madrid and via Kuwait.

Aznar was expected to lunch with troops before heading back to Spain later in the day, a move to boost morale over the Christmas season, a government official said.

Despite strong opposition to the U.S.-led war among the Spanish public, Spain currently has 1,300 soldiers in Iraq who are still reeling from a huge blow in November when Iraqis killed seven Spanish intelligence officers.

Aznar has been one the strongest supporters of President Bush`s campaign to oust former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, captured by U.S. forces a week ago.

Spanish forces form part of an international division under Polish command in Shi`ite Muslim areas of south-central Iraq.

In the wake of the killings, Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo reaffirmed Spain`s commitment to stay in Iraq until peace was restored to the country.

Bush has been pressing for other countries to dispatch troops to help stabilize postwar Iraq, where guerrillas have killed 200 U.S. soldiers since he declared major combat over on May 1.

NERVOUS SOLDIERS

Underscoring the nervousness of American soldiers, U.S troops opened fire on a police patrol south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk overnight, killing three policemen and wounding two, said police Lieutenant Salam Zanganeh at Kirkuk Hospital.

He told Reuters the troops apparently mistook the policemen for bandits in an area where antiquities smugglers are active.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military.

Such incidents have spread anti-American anger. Iraqis often complain that U.S. forces are too aggressive on patrols and searches and are quick to pull the trigger.

Suicide bombers have staged several attacks on Iraqi police to punish them for working with American soldiers, who hope to hand over security to the Iraqis. Some 116 Iraqi policemen and security forces have been killed since May 1.

Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator leading efforts to rebuild Iraq, said on Friday he escaped a guerrilla ambush earlier this month.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was visiting Iraq at the time to assess the guerrilla attacks that the Americans blame on Saddam loyalists and Iraqis say are carried out mostly by nationalists.

Saddam`s arrest, announced by Bremer to the world on Sunday, has failed to ease violence. Some fifty Iraqis, half of them policemen, and one U.S. soldier have been killed since.

Washington said troop strength in Iraq, now at about 120,000, would be increased for a while in coming months at the request of military commander John Abizaid.

U.S. calls for military help from other countries were boosted on Friday when Japan issued orders for air force members to prepare to leave for the Middle East for the start of a military deployment to support rebuilding Iraq.

Representatives of the Arab League are holding talks with senior officials from the Foreign Ministry and Iraq`s U.S.-backed Governing Council in a sign that tensions have eased since the Cairo-based organization said it would not recognize Iraq`s new government.



Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd

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December 18, 2003
Q&A: Interrogating Saddam Hussein

From the Council on Foreign Relations, December 18, 2003


Dr. Jerrold M. Post, who during a 21-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency provided assessments of foreign leaders for the White House, says the capture of Saddam Hussein can have important repercussions among the fallen dictator`s followers. Post says that the initial pictures of the "psychologically wounded Saddam" could "presage a real shift" among regime loyalists. He adds that the capture "doesn`t mean the casualties will stop or the insurgency will end, but it is really an important event."

Now a professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and international affairs at The George Washington University, Post was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on December 17, 2003.

You`ve been following Saddam Hussein`s life and career probably as closely as anyone outside Iraq. What was your impression of his capture?

I was quite struck by the man we saw emerging from that hole in the ground, and also rather surprised. He looked like nothing more than a scruffy street person. And he was a docile, obedient, meek individual as he complied with the doctor`s instruction to open his mouth to be examined, to have his hair searched for head lice. This was not the Saddam I was used to seeing. I think what we saw was a temporary breakdown of his characteristic psychological defenses. What emerged under this characteristically defiant, grandiose façade was a psychologically wounded Saddam.

But don`t you think that anyone who had been on the lam for so many months must have been worn out just from hiding?

Well, I`m sure that contributed. He had been [evading his pursuers] for eight months, and if the stories can be believed, he was moving every three to five hours among a network of these spider holes. This had to be a totally depleting experience. But I don`t think we should mistake the way we have seen him in the last few days for the way he will continue to be. I think this was a temporary breaking of his defenses. And we are already seeing the characteristic Saddam reasserting himself, being defiant, sarcastic, and so forth. I would certainly not be surprised during the upcoming trial or tribunal to see him follow the path of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia [on trial for war crimes in The Hague], and use the platform to appeal to his shrinking, but still present, radical Arab constituency to show himself as the man with the courage to defy the West and to try to delegitimize the platform of the trial and so forth.

If you were still advising the CIA, what kind of information would you try to get from him and what technique would you recommend?

At least one of the areas of extreme importance to us and to the British is the question of the weapons of mass destruction: the program, the weapons themselves, where are they, did he destroy them, did he ship them out, are they still concealed? On the subject of interrogation, a number of people have asked what would it take to "break him." In fact, attempting to "break him" is the wrong way to go. The more pressure that is put on this man, the more he tends to be defiant. I am basing my views on interrogation in part on my dealings with hardened terrorists, in a project I recently supervised where we interviewed 26 incarcerated Middle Eastern and Palestinian terrorists, from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Fatah.

Where was that, in Israel?

In Israeli and Palestinian Authority prisons. I trained the team of interviewers to play to the ego of the subjects. These are people--one of them was sentenced to 46 consecutive life terms, another to 26 consecutive life terms--who had to make sense out of their lives. Playing to their egos is very important. They are all very proud of what they have accomplished. And as a result of our playing to their egos, they shared a great deal of what led them into the group, what it was like in the group, how they planned together. Some very insightful information emerged from this, which surely would not have happened had we been "interrogating them." Now, having said that, I don`t know if that would work with Saddam. He is certainly very shrewd. But I think this approach has a much greater chance of success than attempting to play "hardball" with him.

What would you like to know about him that you haven`t found out from talking to others and from your readings?

I was asked by Dan Rather once: "Dr. Post, you`re a psychiatrist. What would you do if you had him on a couch in your office?" My response was, "I would run right out of the office." Seriously, I find him quite a fascinating individual and the things I would like to find out from him I am not sure he knows himself. But he might reveal them in an interview. I make that distinction. He is a really remarkably un-insightful person. He doesn`t inquire about himself at all, as best I can tell. So in terms of him saying what his motivation was for A,B,C, or D, we will undoubtedly hear the usual external justifications and rationalizations he provides. On the other hand, what were his ultimate dreams, ambitions--which I think I know and understand in a qualitative way--how he has handled the setbacks, how he has bounced back? The nature of the relationship with his subordinates from his point of view would, I think, be a very rich lode to mine.

In his own mind, does he think he still has a chance to survive?

It depends what "survives" means. This is a remarkably resilient person who has bounced back from reversals in the past, including being in prison. He has on a number of occasions temporarily taken a retreat only to come back stronger later. During this period of being on the run in recent months, as the insurgency was growing in strength and producing an increasing wave of discontent in the United States, there was probably a part of him that was taking great comfort in that. He probably continues to believe that the United States has a Vietnam complex, is casualty-averse, and the daily stream of American [casualties] would have led him perhaps to believe that we would prematurely withdraw, that there would be political protests around the Pentagon and White House, and he could take great credit for having the courage to defy and elude the mighty, only remaining superpower.

That he is caught now is profoundly important, particularly for the people under him. There really has been in Iraq a thralldom of terror in many ways. In 1991, after the [first Gulf War] ended, those who had earlier [expressed] their enthusiasm for the imminent overthrow of Saddam were ruthlessly hunted down. They and their families were jailed, tortured, and executed. This was very prominent in the minds of his followers, some of whom were undoubtedly ambivalent about him. In many ways, this was loyalty "at the barrel of a gun." The question of fully joining in the next phase in Iraq, of reconstruction, will only occur if they see that he was definitively killed or captured. Now, they have seen him captured. I think that can presage a real shift there. Having said that, it doesn`t mean the casualties will stop or the insurgency will end, but it is really an important event.

It wasn`t just seeing him killed or captured. They saw, temporarily at least, that broken man beneath that grandiose, threatening shell. I don`t think they can ever again see him as the powerful grand man without knowing there is that little weak man underneath. I think it is important. In fact, I`ve set in play the idea that in the architecture in which he has lived there is a metaphor for his psychology. He began life in a mud hut. He was driven to overcompensate for a very painful beginning in life and was impelled to seek dreams of glory, which he achieved in 1990 when he was finally recognized as a powerful world leader and a rescuer of Jerusalem for the Palestinians. This meant a great deal to him in fulfilling the prophesies of his uncle Khayrallah. Then not only did he descend to the mud hut again, but to a hole in the ground beneath the mud hut. In many ways that`s the architecture of his psychology, this empty vacuous destroyed self, underlying this grandiose, defiant, very powerful façade.

Explain the Jerusalem analogy and his uncle`s prophecy.

After [Iraq`s 1990] occupation of Kuwait, the Palestinians saw Saddam as their new hero. They were shouting for him from the rooftops in Gaza and in refugee camps in Jordan. It reawakened, or confirmed for him, the prophecies of his uncle that someday he would follow in the path of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylonia who conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., and Saladin, who regained Jerusalem in 1187 by defeating the Crusaders, and be a latter-day Gamal Abdel Nasser [the pan-Arabist who was Egypt`s president in 1956-70]. So finally his moment had come. In his eyes, he was a powerful radical pan-Arab nationalist leader in the mode of Nasser.

Why did he not cooperate more fully earlier this year when it was evident the United States was going to invade?

His historical legacy is that he was the man who had the courage to stand up to the mighty, the United States in particular. To have cooperated, revealed his mass weapons, and come clean would have given the lie to the entire meaning of his life. He could not do that, anymore than he would have committed suicide or gone into exile.



Copyright 2003 |

[Joerver]

December 20, 2003
How Army Sleuths Stalked the Adviser Who Led to Hussein
By ERIC SCHMITT

TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 19 — The most wanted man in Iraq last week — besides Saddam Hussein — was not on anyone`s Top 55 or even Top 200 fugitive list.

He was a balding, paunchy middle-aged veteran of Mr. Hussein`s once feared Special Security Organization, a notorious womanizer who was a member of one of the five close-knit families that supplied Mr. Hussein`s most trusted lieutenants.

But most important to American forces, he probably knew Mr. Hussein`s whereabouts at any given moment. And last Saturday night, after his capture in Baghdad and four hours of grueling interrogation, he led United States Special Operations Forces to Mr. Hussein`s hole-in-the-ground hideaway just south of here.

Army officers said today that they had known for months that the informant was an important player in Mr. Hussein`s Mafia-like organization. But it was only in the last several weeks that they came to realize just how crucial he really was to Mr. Hussein`s survival.

"He would be someone I`d call his right arm," said Maj. Stan Murphy, the intelligence officer for the Fourth Infantry Division`s First Brigade, which conducted the raid that captured Mr. Hussein. "In my mind, he was that important. He had real-time information."

Fourth Division commanders and intelligence officers refused to identify their star informant today, citing continuing operations. But interviews with several officers here over the past two days revealed new details about the informant and the detective work done by military intelligence analysts here to identify a complex web of relationships linked to Mr. Hussein.

"The tribal clans here are all based on interpersonal relationships, so what you have to do is build yourself a map of those relationships," said Lt. Col. Todd Megill, the chief intelligence officer for the Fourth Division.

The fruit of this analytical effort, first described Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, is a highly classified, color-coded chart that depicts Mr. Hussein`s family and organizational tree. Centered in the chart in a yellow circle like a bull`s-eye is Mr. Hussein. Links to other people radiate out, based on familial and functional ties. The names of those killed or captured are written in red.

The chart was started in late June with four names. Today, intelligence analysts are tracking more than 9,000 people, Major Murphy said. About 250 are important enough to earn a place on the chart`s wiring diagram that is so mind-numbingly intricate that officers here simply call it the "Mongo Link."

It is the product of a 16-member intelligence team managed by Major Murphy. Analysts working at computer terminals in 12-hour shifts, round-the-clock, seven days a week, update computer databases with the latest information from Iraqi informants, Army patrols, electronic intercepts and other sources.

Given these dynamics, Major Murphy said, the chart is "a living, breathing document" that every day brings into clearer focus the complex family, tribal and functional connections that Mr. Hussein used to stay in power, survive when ousted, and, apparently, help direct the insurgency while at large.

The chart tracks five major extended families whose roots run deep in towns and villages with names like Abu Ajeel, Al Alam, Al Auja and Ad Dwar in a 12-mile-long corridor near Tikrit along the Tigris River.

From all this information, Major Murphy and other officers said, they have pieced together what they believe is the structure that supported Mr. Hussein during his life on the run.

Surrounding Mr. Hussein were five key lieutenants, whom Major Murphy called Mr. Hussein`s "enablers." He would not identify them by name, but said they were all from the five families long closely associated with Mr. Hussein and had all served in senior positions in the security services, the military or government ministries.

Each of these five enablers had a specific job, Major Murphy said. One did logistics. One did planning. One did operations. One did financing. The fifth enabler was the informant, who acted as a kind of chief of staff. Only one of the men was on the original 200 most wanted list.

"They knew where he was and they were able to travel to him or meet him somewhere," Major Murphy said.

Each enabler issued orders to tiers of subordinates, who ultimately executed the instructions. There was, for instance, a cell that did nothing but arrange safe houses, food and transportation.

It was through this network that Mr. Hussein directed the insurgency, Major Murphy said, transmitting instructions through his lieutenants to cell leaders in cities like Samarra, Ramadi and Falluja.

"He would give very general guidance like, `Hey, I`d like to see more attacks,` " the major said. "His enablers would then go out to their various tiers below them — as many as four to nine levels — and give specific guidance, money and maybe weapons. Those tiers would go down their chain to the trigger-pullers."

What elevated the informant to such a lofty position is a bit unclear. He joined the Iraqi security apparatus as a young man, working his way up the rungs of power, perhaps inheriting a role from another trusted family elder. "He proved his worth in Saddam`s eyes, and had continued to earn that trust," Major Murphy said.

When the intelligence team began mapping out the diagram, the informant and three other men were charter members. Soldiers conducted raids on the informant`s farm twice in July, but he eluded capture and was still not put at the top of the pecking order. "I had him templated at a more local level, not at such a high level," Major Murphy said.

Throughout the summer and early fall, even as the hunt for Mr. Hussein seemed to hit a lull, the intelligence team continued to build its chart, sharpening its focus not only on the informant but on other leaders. By early October, two of the top enablers were seized and the information flow picked up. By early December, "the volume of information about him went through the roof," Major Murphy said.

The First Brigade intensified the hunt for the informant. Between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Dec. 3, soldiers conducted five raids in Tikrit in search of their man. "This individual was the target," said Col. James B. Hickey, the brigade`s commander.

The informant still evaded capture, but soldiers seized some of his aides responsible for financing rebel operations. The next night, this time in Samarra, about 25 miles to the south, the soldiers went hunting again. Again, they came up empty, but captured more lieutenants and $1.9 million in American currency.

On Dec. 7, in Baiji, north of Tikrit, soldiers missed the informant again. But on Dec. 12, American forces seized him in Baghdad as part of major roundup of insurgents. It took commanders in Baghdad several hours to realize whom they had nabbed, but the informant was quickly shipped to Tikrit for questioning on Saturday morning. By 8:30 p.m., Mr. Hussein was in custody.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Kurds in Tuz Khurmato, Iraq, celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein. The man in the photo being held up is Jalal Talabani, the representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan on the Iraqi Governing Council.

Einer der ersten Schritte zur Unabhängigkeit? Das gibt Probleme mit der Türkei.

December 20, 2003
IRAQ`S NORTH
2 Kurdish Parties Close to Forming Unity Government
By EDWARD WONG

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Dec. 19 — The two governing political parties in this country`s long-divided Kurdish region are close to establishing a unified government, senior Kurdish officials said here on Friday.

Once they have created a single government in the Kurdish areas of the north, the officials said, they will push for a federalist system in Iraq that will give them broad autonomy in their mountainous region. That vision conflicts with the division of powers being promoted by many Iraqi politicians, who want regional powers divided among smaller provinces throughout the country.

Kurdish leaders say they intend to form their unified government well before the Coalition Provisional Authority establishes an Iraqi transitional government at the end of June. That way, the leaders say, the Kurds will speak with one voice in trying to shape the format and the powers of the transitional government. Though the Kurds make up only a fifth of the population, they are now more organized than any other ethnic or religious group in the country, including the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population.

"It is important that we push for the reunification," said Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, based here in Sulaimaniya. "It will lay the foundation for federal democracy in Iraq. We have a very specific vision for Iraq, and if we put our own house in order, we can put forward our vision of Iraq."

No representatives of the Coalition Provisional Authority could be reached for comment on Friday.

The new government would unite the two parallel administrations of the Kurdish region for the first time since war broke out in 1994 between the two dominant political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Each controls half of northern Iraq.

The senior Kurdish officials interviewed here said the parties had identified leading candidates for the top positions in the new government. Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the K.D.P., will probably be named prime minister, said the officials, who were briefed on the talks. Kosrat Rasool, the former prime minister of the P.U.K., will probably become the head of parliament, they said.

There is a proposal to set up 10 ministries, they said, with 6 run by the K.D.P. and 4 by the P.U.K. That split follows the results of the parliamentary elections in May 1992, in which the K.D.P. won 51 percent of the general vote and the P.U.K. 49 percent. A Kurdish regional government was formed after those elections but fell apart after the two parties went to war in 1994.

Separately, the senior Kurdish officials said, Mr. Salih, the prime minister of the P.U.K., has a good chance of being appointed soon by Iraqi officials to be the country`s ambassador to the United Nations. If he assumes that role, it will give the Kurds a stronger voice in shaping the foreign policy of Iraq, since the country`s recently appointed foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, is also a Kurd.

Mr. Salih, who served as the P.U.K.`s representative in Washington, declined to confirm or deny that he was a leading candidate for the ambassadorship. "If this turned out to be true," he said, "it would be unrelated to the creation of the new Kurdish government. It is a decision by the Governing Council."

Massoud Barzani, the K.D.P.`s representative to the council and the uncle of Nechirvan Barzani, and Jalal Talabani, the P.U.K.`s representative on the council, met at the end of November to speed up talks. Since then, said Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the K.D.P., high-ranking party officials have met twice more.

Mr. Salih said the formation of the unified Kurdish government "will have to move at a much faster pace" than that at which American and Iraqi officials are creating the country`s transitional government.

"Like any other federal state, this will be an autonomous region," Mr. Salih said. Under the Kurdish vision, he said, the national Iraqi government would have control over national defense, monetary policy and foreign policy. The governments of the Kurdish regions and other areas would have control over all other matters, including economic policy.

The Kurds took over the region after 1991, when the the United States established a no-flight zone there to prevent Saddam Hussein`s military from attacking. They built up the region with money from fees levied on trucks smuggling oil, food and other goods across the Turkey-Iraq border during the era of United Nations sanctions. As a result, their territory is now the most modernized and democratic region of Iraq, and they want to keep it that way.

"We have demonstrated over the last 12 years that this works better than what any central government could do," Mr. Salih said. "Our new government will help to put Iraq`s house in order."

That government, he added, "will have to be a coalition government because of the realities of politics in this region."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

December 20, 2003
Lessons of Libya

Lessons of Libya

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi`s long, strange odyssey toward international respectability took a welcome twist yesterday, with back-to back announcements from Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and President Bush that Libya had agreed to give up all efforts to develop unconventional weapons and to permit international inspections.

Washington suspects that Libya has biological and chemical weapons programs and may have been aspiring to develop nuclear weapons. If Libya now follows through on its promise to dismantle its programs and permit full international inspections, the United States should be prepared to resume normal economic and political relations with Tripoli.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are entitled to claim a large share of the credit for Libya`s surprising announcement. To an extent that cannot be precisely measured, the fate of Saddam Hussein, who was ousted from power by the American military with British backing after endless prevaricating about Iraqi weapons programs, must have been an important consideration in Libya`s decision.

There were other factors as well. For much of the past decade, Colonel Qaddafi has been trying to shed the reputation for reckless international behavior that he spent the two previous decades earning. Libya seems to have gotten itself out of the business of directly sponsoring international terrorism. It has been especially active in making amends for its most notorious act of terrorism, the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

Mr. Blair has been an essential broker in that process, and Mr. Bush has played an important role as well.

Over the past five years, by turning over two suspects for trial, acknowledging its complicity in the Lockerbie bombing and paying compensation to victims` families, Libya finally managed to persuade the United Nations Security Council to lift the international sanctions that had shadowed its economy and its international reputation for more than a decade. Those sanctions were lifted in September. This page recommended lifting American sanctions as well, but President Bush left them in place pending further steps, most notably Libya`s decision to end its unconventional weapons programs. It is now clear that he was right to do so. The added American pressure worked just as intended.

In that sense, yesterday`s announcement also demonstrates the value of diplomacy and United Nations sanctions as a tool against weapons proliferation. Combatting current proliferation dangers in North Korea and Iran, and future threats elsewhere, will require a deft combination of approaches. Ideally, as in the case of Libya, solutions will be reached well short of war.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

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Members of Iraq`s new police force have not officially tallied the number of former Baath Party officials killed in Baghdad, the capital.
washingtonpost.com
Iraqis Exact Revenge on Baathists
Police Shrug Off Killings of 50 Hussein Loyalists by Unknown Gunmen

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD -- Basil Abbas Taee never saw the slip of paper entitled Final Warning.

The note, which his sons said was tossed over the gate of his house in southeast Baghdad, cautioned that he was being watched. "If you go out of your home or have connections with other Baathists, you and all your family will be killed as a lesson to all criminal Baathists," the message threatened. It was signed the Committee for Retribution.

Taee, 59, a former local official in Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party, had received an earlier written warning in September and menacing phone calls, his brothers recalled. But after two months of staying home, he began to brave the streets again. When his wife found the final warning note in late November, she hid it from him, afraid it would aggravate his ailing kidneys and high blood pressure.

Two weeks ago, as Taee sat alone in his small real estate office, a lone gunman shot him in the chest, according to his brothers, citing witness accounts. He died before reaching the hospital.

His death was one of the latest in a series of murders of former Baath Party officials in this city. Iraqi sources with contacts among former and current security officials estimate that about 50 senior figures in Hussein`s intelligence, military intelligence and internal security organizations have been gunned down in recent months. There has been an even larger toll among neighborhood party officials, such as Taee, who are blamed for having informed on the local community during Hussein`s rule, these sources said.

Neither the morgue nor officers in Iraq`s new police force -- who concede they have little interest in probing these deaths -- have tallied the figures. But the phenomenon is citywide, according to a survey of police stations, with numbers varying widely from one district to another.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday, officials said an angry crowd attacked and killed Ali Zalimi, a former Baath Party official. Zalimi was believed to have played a role in crushing the Shiite uprising in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War.

The massive settling of scores that some U.S. and Iraqi officials had predicted did not initially materialize after Hussein`s government fell in April. Sporadic killings occurred during the following months, notably in the southern city of Basra. But only in recent weeks did the tempo of attacks accelerate as Iraqis, frustrated with the slow progress of the court system and fearing that Baathists may be seeking to reorganize, have increasingly taken justice into their own hands, according to Iraqi security and political sources.

"We are an Eastern, tribal society with the principle of vengeance. Revenge will be exacted," said Maj. Abbas Abed Ali of the Baya police station in southwest Baghdad. He said at least six Baathists have been murdered in his district since late November.

In Sadr City, a sprawling, hardscrabble neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, police reported that the assassinations began about three weeks ago and now number at least one or two a day, perhaps more. They said some families do not disclose that the victims were Baathists.

"This is absolutely organized, but we don`t know precisely who`s behind it," said Capt. Awad Nima, who heads police administration in Sadr City. "These killings are a vendetta for the killings by the Baath Party. . . . Would you expect those people who lost their sons not to take any action?"

Nima said the assassinations have centered on Hussein followers implicated in violence, not all former party members. The murders seem meticulously planned, and the perpetrators leave behind no clues, he said. With few leads, detectives have made little progress in figuring out who is killing the Baathists, but Nima said this does not trouble him.

"There`s only a limited number of them. Once they`re all dead, this will have to end," he said.

Another of those killed was Ismail Hassan Saadi, 50, who ran the personnel and management department in one of Sadr City`s Baath offices. His sons described him as a devout Muslim, respected in the community for using his party position to intervene with the government on behalf of those who had been wrongly arrested or were wanted for deserting the army. Neighbors, however, said Saadi was deeply involved in repressing local Shiite groups and was known for coercing local men into joining the army.

One morning this month, Saadi left his home along a side street deep with standing water and headed on foot for a local office to see about a passport, according to an account by his grown sons, Ashraf and Zain Abidin.

Moments later, they heard a shot. They scrambled to their father, discovering him crumpled by the wall of a large warehouse, fatally wounded with a gunshot to the back. At the same time, they spotted a blue Opel with three men inside and no license plates racing from the scene.

"There are some who want to cleanse this area of ex-Baathists," said Ashraf, 26. The brothers softly recounted their father`s tale, seated cross-legged on the carpeted floor of their dimly lit home, their checkered headdresses pulled down over their ears in mourning.

"If we find out who did it, all of us, our family and our tribe, will take our revenge," Ashraf said.

They might not be alone. The traditional death notices of Baghdad society -- black banners inscribed with the names of the deceased and their relatives -- are proliferating along the walls of Sadr City.

Victims` families and some Iraqi security officials have alleged that Shiite political parties, relentlessly repressed by Hussein`s government, are behind the killing spree. They point in particular to the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which are both represented on the Iraqi Governing Council.

Senior officials from both groups denied any involvement. "It`s not our policy to take revenge and execute people," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi of the Supreme Council.

Many of those killed were former intelligence and internal security officials who had been assigned over their careers to countering the activities of Shiite political groups and their sponsors in neighboring Iran, according to sources close to current and former security officials.

One such victim was Maj. Gen. Khalaf Alousi, the former head of internal security for Baghdad.

"He spent his whole career dealing with the Dawa Party and other Islamic parties, so he amassed many enemies," said Capt. Ahmed Suleiman of the Yarmouk police district in central Baghdad, where Alousi was killed. "This guy was involved with the executions of members of other parties. Now the other parties are in power and there`s a settling of accounts."

Alousi, 50, was gunned down shortly before midday on Dec. 6 after he took his wife to visit a house he was having built in the Yarmouk neighborhood, according to his brother, Raid Alousi. When they entered the house, a stranger was waiting, and pulled out a gun. Alousi`s wife leapt between the attacker and her husband, but the gunmen reached above her and fired, Raid said. Another man appeared, shooting from behind. The two continued firing bullets into Alousi`s body even after he collapsed.

The killings of Baath security officials have revealed fissures in Iraqi society, not only between supporters and opponents of the Hussein government but also between some Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Most of the security chiefs were Sunnis like Hussein; the suspected killers are Shiites.

Sunnis increasingly view the bloodletting in sectarian terms. At the memorial reception for Alousi, dozens of mourners gathered in two facing rows of chairs arrayed under a tent. Young men moved among them with cups of sweet tea, trays of cigarettes and a bottle of rose water perfume. The guests whispered among themselves, sharing details of Alousi`s death, passing news about other murders and musing about revenge.

"For each one they kill," said a mourner, "we`ll kill four."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

Die Geschichte des alten Senators aus dem Süden (100jährig gestorben in diesem Jahr) und der jungen Schwarzen und der jetzt 78jährigen Tochter bleibt ein Thema in den USA.

washingtonpost.com
A Story Much Older Than Ol` Strom


By Colbert I. King

Saturday, December 20, 2003; Page A21


"Whenever the Constitution comes between me and the virtue of the white women of the South, I say to hell with the Constitution."

-- Coleman Livingston Blease,

governor of South Carolina, 1911-15; U.S. senator, 1925-31;

quoted in "Before the Mayflower," 1962.


Cole Blease was speaking out in defense of lynching, a brand of Southern "justice" well known to black men, particularly those accused of getting too familiar with white women. Convinced of the enduring lust of black men for white women, and fearful of what might happen if the two ever got together, voices such as Blease`s in the patriarchal white South rose to the defense of lynching as well as of laws barring interracial marriage and cohabitation.

Okay, none of that is new, though a few die-hards still won`t admit it.

What makes that sordid history ironic is the story of 22-year-old Strom Thurmond fathering the child of a 16-year-old black girl -- a household servant no less -- in 1925. Since I`ve already had my say about Thurmond, the teenager, Essie Butler (aka "Tunch") and their child, Essie Mae Washington ("No Party for Essie Mae," Dec. 21, 2002), there`s no need to plow over that old ground. There is, however, more to be said about that era of rank hypocrisy, the "race mixing" that Blease and Thurmond so vehemently and publicly fought, and the profound effect such sexual exploitation has had on African Americans.

As riveting as the Essie Mae Washington-Williams story may be to those hearing it for the first time, it is by no means unique. There are in America today thousands of stories just like hers.

As I write this column, I am looking at a black-and-white photograph of Essie Mae Washington taken at South Carolina State College, the historically black institution that she attended in the 1940s. Williams is surrounded by 25 of her Delta Sigma Theta sorority "sisters." Essie Mae is very light-skinned, reflecting her interracial heritage. She does not stand out. Eighteen other women in the picture have similarly light complexions. Some could pass for white. As with Essie Mae, the other fair-skinned Deltas could probably trace their lineage back to white men who denounced "miscegenation" by day while slipping up and down the back stairs by night. And don`t think for a second that this was a phenomenon limited to the parents and grandparents of South Carolina State co-eds.

We all know, or at least should know by now, about the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their white masters. There is also ample evidence of surreptitious interracial couplings having occurred well into the 20th century, the presence of Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws notwithstanding -- a fact extensively documented in Gunnar Myrdal`s "An American Dilemma." Two footnotes in particular stand out.

One noted that Prof. Kelly Miller, as far back as 1914, wrote in "Out of the House of Bondage" that the 1,500-member Howard University student body was "composed largely of the mixed element." A second footnote reported that in 1939, Howard professor E. Franklin Frazier analyzed the records of 311 individuals listed in "Who`s Who in Colored America: 1928-29," and found that 137 of their known grandparents were white. (That`s of those who admitted it.)

Most of those children were not products of interracial marriages. What`s more, most interracial childbirths resulted from unions between white men and black women, both in the North and the urban and rural South. And the sexual encounters often took place under conditions in which black women were performing tasks that put them in the personal service of white men.

But the legacy of the Thurmonds of America is more odious than the mere fact of having fathered but not publicly owned up to children they brought into this world. Those men left in their wake a cruel caste and color preference system that hangs like a funeral shroud over African Americans even to this day.

Myrdal documented it: The dark days of slavery, with its preference for fair-skinned house girls and yard hands; Reconstruction, when the better-educated and property-owning blacks of interracial heritage got a head start in just about every endeavor; the early 20th century, with black communities led by light-colored aristocracies.

The Thurmonds and their ilk, because of their valuation of skin color, encouraged a social stratification that extended greater advantages to folks with a heritage of lighter color. And it certainly didn`t help the black masses to know that some of their fairer-skinned brethren and sisters also regarded themselves as culturally and intellectually superior because of their hue.

Pity the light-skinned girl who took a dark-skinned fellow home from school to meet her parents.

Even the "race" movies of the 1930s and `40s, with black performers, bought into that color and caste system. As John Kisch and Edward Mapp noted in "A Separate Cinema" (The Noonday Press, 1992): "While lighter blacks continued to play the leads, darker performers were sometimes relegated to supporting roles as comic figures, not too different from those in Hollywood films."

What pathology! Straightened hair; bleached skin; shame over Negroid features. Screwed-up goals, too: Work hard, join the black middle class, marry up, get a fair-skinned woman if she and her family will have you. Segregated world? So what? In the black community, a light skin, in matters of work, play and social mobility, had advantages.

Much of that, thank goodness, is dying out. With Thurmond`s passing, the generations of African Americans who bought into the sick and evil system of color preferences are going with him.

Today, more and more men and women are coming together regardless of race or skin color to openly share in the gift of love, marriage and children. That is as it should be.

And ol` Cole Blease? Were it not for my upbringing, acculturation and desire to remain on God`s good side, I`d say, "To hell with him."

•

Remember my Nov. 22 column about Gregory Scarborough, the drug-addicted serial burglar who was caught, convicted and sentenced by D.C. Superior Court Judge Susan Winfield to 18 years in jail, only to have the sentence suspended and replaced with a 120-day drug treatment program? Last week, Scarborough tested positive for drugs he acquired while in jail and used while in his treatment program. Yesterday Judge Winfield imposed her original sentence of 18 years incarceration.

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© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Jede Zeitung in GB und USA hat einen Bericht auf der ersten oder 2.Seite. Interessant die Auslegung der Infatest Umfrage. Ich hab es gefettet. 41% stimmen augenblicklich für keine Partei. Deshalb sollte sich die CDU für eine Wahl auch nicht so sicher sein.


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-germ…
THE WORLD



German Welfare State Trimmed, Not Slashed
Lawmakers pare back the cuts proposed by Schroeder, approving a package of limited tax reductions and social and labor reforms.
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer

December 20, 2003

BERLIN — German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder`s proposals for tax cuts and long-contemplated welfare reforms — known as Agenda 2010 — were scaled back Friday by political parties unwilling to enact more sweeping legislation in an attempt to enliven Europe`s largest economy.

What Parliament approved the day before Christmas recess could be termed Agenda 2010 Lite. The $19 billion in income-tax cuts Schroeder proposed for 2004 were reduced to about $10 billion. Social and labor reforms, including peeling back worker-protection laws, were softened to avoid inciting Germans already anxious about their generous welfare state being meddled with.

The tax cuts and reform package, according to many economists and corporations, will not significantly improve an economy with a 10% unemployment rate and a government deficit of $54 billion. But they do represent more than a symbolic recognition by Schroeder`s Social Democrats and the opposition conservative Christian Democrats that ambitious reform is needed.

"Today cannot hide the fact that real reforms still lie ahead," said Angela Merkel, the Christian Democrats` leader. "Germany is in the hardest crisis since World War I … with national debts and unemployment at record heights. Germany is at a crossroads."

Said Schroeder: "The talk about the `German disease` is going to be over. The reform Agenda 2010 is a signal showing that Germany is moving ahead and taking up challenges."

Several of the laws Parliament passed Friday hinted at the government`s direction in restructuring a society that is extremely dependent on the state. Lawmakers voted to cut subsidies to commuters and homeowners to pay for the tax cut, for example. It also passed controversial bills to trim unemployment benefits and require welfare recipients to accept jobs offered by the government or face the prospect of losing their benefits.

"This is a good start," said Guido Westerwelle, leader of the Free Democrats, "but it`s not much more than that."

The chancellor has been touting his Agenda 2010 for months — even threatening to resign if the plan wasn`t passed by Christmas — as a bold vision to keep Germany economically competitive. His speeches have been rife with rhetorical flourish and calls for political courage.

But Friday`s parliamentary votes revealed the reality of Schroeder`s position: Leftists in his party bristle at welfare reform and the conservative opposition chides him for not going far enough.

The German public, which recent polls show is willing to accept welfare state reform if it means strengthening the economy, doesn`t know whom to trust. In a recent survey by Infratest Dimap, 41% of respondents were uncertain about which party to trust with "tackling the issues of the future." Thirty-eight percent favored the Christian Democrats; 15% picked Schroeder`s party.

"The majority of Germans want changes," said Karl-Rudolf Korte, a political scientist at the University of Duisburg-Essen. "After months of discussions, all the political parties have begun a competition of ideas and have delivered on many of these ideas. It won`t be enough for most of us, but it shows the right direction."

Parliament`s passage of the whittled-down agenda was the result of hours of meetings between the two main parties, ending at 3:30 a.m. Monday, when Schroeder and Merkel announced a compromise. Schroeder said at the time, "This result is not all we could have wished for, but it is really an absolutely respectable result."

The broadest disagreement was over the $19-billion income tax cut, proposed to stimulate an economy that has grown less than 1% this year. The Christian Democrats — forcing Schroeder to accept spreading the cut over two years — feared it would be financed through expanding the public debt. For the last two years, Germany has violated the European Union`s requirement of keeping budget deficits below 3% of gross domestic product.

The debate over Agenda 2010 even reached the Society for German Language. "Agenda 2010" ranked second on the society`s Phrase of the Year list. The winner was U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld`s term "the old Europe."

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?
By John W. Dean
http://www.findlaw.com/
12/20/03: ( FindLaw) --President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a joint resolution authorizing the use of U.S. military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake -- acts of war against another nation.

Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush`s White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away -- unless, perhaps, they start another war.

That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush`s warmaking.

Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson`s distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon`s false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.

Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.

President Bush`s statements on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn`t. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.

Bush`s statements, in chronological order, were:

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

United Nations address, September 12, 2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

Radio address, October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We`ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We`re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

"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."

Address to the nation, March 17, 2003

Should the president get the benefit of the doubt?
When these statements were made, Bush`s let-me-mince-no-words posture was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world, and many other Americans, doubted them.

As Bush`s veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was also being debated on campuses -- including those where I happened to be lecturing at the time.

On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should they believe the president of the United States? My answer was that they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the Bush White House, too.

First, I assured the students that these statements had all been carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the result of a process, not a moment`s though. White House speechwriters process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for his own review and possible revision.

Second, I explained that -- at least in every White House and administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -- statements with national security implications were the most carefully considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these statements, the president is speaking not only to the nation, but also to the world.

Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this case, far from backpedaling from the President`s more extreme claims, Bush`s press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9, 2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

In addition, others in the Bush administration were similarly quick to back the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam had WMDs -- and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are; they`re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."

Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these statements if he didn`t have damn solid intelligence to back him up. Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there was any doubt, I suggested, Bush`s political advisers would be telling him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say: "I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest," or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.

So what are we now to conclude if Bush`s statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?

After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given Bush`s statements, they should not have been very hard to find -- for they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production equipment also existed.

So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House`s unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?

There are two main possibilities. One, that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House`s national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the president has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.

A desperate search for WMDs has so far yielded little, if any, fruit
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein`s Iraq, the president had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.

Throughout Operation Freedom`s penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.

As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.

During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.

British and American press reaction to the missing WMDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.

New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history -- worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the search for WMDs in Iraq continues.

Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that WMDs would indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.

But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e`ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They`re simply not there."

Perhaps most troubling, the president has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?

The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President`s misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.

Investigating The Iraqi War intelligence reports
Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem. Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a new age of pre-emption —when it must strike first because it cannot afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological weapons—exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA can`t say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to maintain support at home and abroad?"

In an apparent attempt to bolster the President`s credibility, and his own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort about on par with O.J.`s looking for his wife`s killer. But there may be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone else to blame -- informants, surveillance technology, lower-level personnel, you name it -- they may not escape fault themselves.

Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence plans an investigation.

These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct -- and either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.

Sen. Bob Graham -- a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- told CNN`s Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they finds WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three other possible alternative scenarios:

One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of war against Iraq.

Sen. Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN "there`s been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."

Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times, he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush`s decisions. After reviewing it, Graham requested that the Bush administration declassify the information before the Senate voted on the administration`s resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.

But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet`s letter only addressed "findings that supported the administration`s position on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the information to support its conclusion.

Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the decision making process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly suggest manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently, Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."

Worse than Watergate? A potential huge scandal if WMDs are still missing
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.

This administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, which was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush`s doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.

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."

It`s important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.

Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case.

John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president of the United States.

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The Americans invaded Iraq in order to remain there

By Uri Avnery

19 December 2003

The spectacle was disgusting.

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it, and it displeaseth Him, and He turn away His wrath from him!" Thus commandeth the ancient Jewish moral code (Proverbs, 24, 16).

The writer of this warning knew, of course, that every person tends to gloat when his enemy falls. But he wanted to point out that this is an ugly human trait and one should try to overcome it.

And now a mighty world power has sunk to this level. It is repeatedly displaying the spectacle of American soldiers looking for lice in the hair of a miserable Saddam and poking about among his teeth.

If it is possible at all to evoke pity for a man like Saddam, who is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands, the Americans have achieved this. By showing him off as a drugged tramp, they created the opposite effect from what they wanted. The Vatican has called for mercy. The public humiliation of an Arab leader, whatever one may think about him, evokes the deepest feelings of insult and fury among tens of millions of Arabs. These feelings will strive to express themselves violently. This may cost blood, much blood.

(Not long ago, the United States cried to high heaven when the Iraqis showed off some American prisoners. But there are apparently no mirrors in Washington DC.)

The childish stories about the tremendous success of the American army and intelligence agencies are ridiculous. It is fairly certain that this was simply a case of a paid informer.

A trained eye could easily detect how the "spontaneous" outbursts of joy were staged: here a small group waving the flag of the Communist Party, there a few dozen people jumping like monkeys for the cameras - probably the same people who were jumping a year ago for the cameras of Saddam. Two Arab "journalists" producing a raucous show at the carefully staged press conference of the American general. When Winston Churchill won a terrible war, he did not behave like George W. Bush. No Winston he.

I have not written about Iraq in this column since the end of "major hostilities". I checked myself. I know that it is neither nice nor wise to say "I told you so". But it is very hard to write about Iraq without using these four words, since almost all the predictions of this column before and during the war are coming true, one after another. For example:

The Americans invaded Iraq in order to remain there
They did not invade because of "international terror". Nor because of "weapons of mass destruction". It`s the oil that drew them there.

The aim of the United States was not to topple Saddam and go home, but to create a permanent American military base in the Arab world, in a country that has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world and is also located within easy reach of the oil riches of Saudi Arabia and the Caspian Sea.

Now that is already quite clear. Saddam had no connections at all with Osama Bin-Laden. The "weapons of mass destruction" do not exist. The Americans have simply changed the reasons for the war after the event. ("First make war, than find a reason.") Now it is all about eliminating Saddam and bringing democracy to Iraq.

Good. But Saddam has been eliminated - and the Americans are not heading home. Elections could be held at once. But the Americans refuse. They want to keep their marionettes in place, so they can invite the Americans to stay forever. The American occupation will last a long, long time. It is not a means. It is the aim.

The toppling of Saddam will not be the end of the war. It will only be the beginning
This forecast is now being confirmed in the most extreme fashion. No people resigns itself to foreign occupation. Occupation breeds resistance.

At the time I recounted our [Israel`s] experience in southern Lebanon: the advancing Israelis were welcomed as liberators, because they drove the Palestinians out. A few months later they were being shot at from all sides, because they did not go home. After 18 years and a thousand soldiers killed, they escaped under the cover of darkness "with their tail between their legs".

The Americans cannot absorb this simple lesson. They do not look upon themselves as occupiers but as liberators who came to do good by the Iraqi people. They are convinced that the Iraqis are grateful and love them. They consoled themselves with a legend they invented: it is not Iraqi and Arab freedom fighters who are attacking the occupation army and its collaborators, but die-hard henchmen of the evil Saddam.

But now the evil Saddam has been caught, and it appears that he had no possibility at all of directing operations from his spider-hole. The capture of Saddam must mark the end of the legend about his die-hard followers.

Iraq finds itself now in a classic colonial situation: a foreign conqueror is robbing the natives of their natural resources. Resistance groups are staging violent attacks, with a large part of the population supporting them.

Two hundred years ago such groups defeated the mighty Napoleon in Spain. At that time, the term "guerrilla" (little war) was coined.

What will happen now? It`s all so predictable: reacting to the operations of the resistance, the occupation will become ever more brutal. That will increase the support of the population for the guerrillas, and so forth. The vicious circle so well known to Israelis. That`s how it happened in Lebanon. That`s how it is happening now in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The public humiliation of the defeated leader will only accelerate the process.

A vanquished Saddam will be more dangerous than a victorious Saddam
The question arises: what to do with the prisoner?

The Americans have already said what they intend to do: hand him over to their Iraqi servants, so that he can be tried and executed in Iraq.

That would be a first-class blunder.

Nobody will believe in the fairness of such a trial. There is no way it could be fair, because in a fair trial Saddam would use the public platform to make his own accusations and reach out to hundreds of millions of Arabs and other Muslims.

The best thing would have been to let him escape to the Fiji islands, there to live out his life quietly, like Idi Amin in Saudi Arabia. But George Bush needs the ongoing humiliation of Saddam for his re-election campaign.

The only reasonable way out now is to transfer Saddam to The Hague. In the eyes of the world, he is entitled to the same treatment as another political mass murderer, Slobodan Milosevic. If he is treated differently, every Muslim will rightly suspect that there is a double standard: one for a Christian European leader, one for a Muslim Arab one.

But Bush will not be satisfied until the body of Saddam is hanging in a public square in Baghdad - perhaps the same square where his statue stood before it was toppled in a carefully staged TV spectacle.

The talk about bringing democracy to Iraq is hypocritical nonsense
In order to safeguard their occupation, the Americans need a supportive local regime. To use a World War II term: they need Quislings.

When the British created the Iraqi state as their protectorate, they crowned Emir Faisal, a scion of the Hashemite family from Mecca. In order to keep Iraq as their own protectorate, the Americans must crown their own local agents.

If truly democratic elections were held, the American agents would be kicked out in no time - if they were not lynched first. That is self-evident. Therefore, there will be no really democratic elections.

Generally speaking, democracy cannot be "brought" anywhere. It cannot be implanted in a different society with a different culture, as if it were a tree. And, in any case, a tree needs fertile soil.

Western democracy has grown organically over the centuries, from the village community to the national parliament. To implant it by force in Iraqi society, which is based on the tribe and the extended family (khamulah) and on different concepts and traditions, is a hopeless pursuit.

What happened to Western democracy when it was implanted in Japan? The outer forms are in place, the reality is quite different. What is happening now to Western democracy in Russia? Ask any Russian, and he will burst out laughing.

Iraq will disintegrate
When we said it a year ago, it looked like wild speculation. Today it is a safe bet.

Only a brutal dictator like Saddam was able to hold the package together. Before the 1958 revolution, the British colonialists did it. In a democratic regime, there is no chance.

A simple fact: the Shi`as have a majority. They will rule. There is no chance at all that they would institute a benevolent regime, after their long oppression by the Sunnis. There is no chance that the Sunnis in central Iraq, who despise the Shi`as, would accept their supremacy. There is no chance that the Kurds in the north, who have always fought for their independence, would accept Arab rule - neither by Shi`s nor by fellow Sunnis. They hardly accept their fellow Kurds.

The Americans can prevent the disintegration of Iraq only by maintaining an occupation regime, open or disguised. They could also set up an artificial structure, a sham federation, in which Iraq would consist of three autonomous parts. But that would be sheer make-believe.

When Iraq will cease to exist for practical purposes, a new balance of power will come about. For centuries Iraq has served as the eastern wall of the Arab world, a barrier against Iran - which has never forgotten the days of Cyrus, when it was the regional power. The fall of this wall will change the geopolitical situation in the entire region, which includes Israel.

The implosion of Iraq will be the signal for general anarchy: the Arab world will be in turmoil, Islamic fundamentalism will threaten all Arab regimes, the border between Turkey and the Kurdish Iraqi state will heat up, between Israel and Iran a nuclear balance of terror may or may not hold, "international terror" will turn from legend to reality.

Since it is neither nice nor wise to say "I told you so," I will restrain myself.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist.

© Uri Avnery

[Joerver]

Es sieht i.A. gut aus für Bush, obwohl einige Werte nicht dem entsprechen, was man einer positiven Bewertung verbindet. Empfehle etwas genauer hinzuschauen.

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Survey Reports

After Hussein`s Capture…
Bush Rally, But No Fundamental Change in Concerns About Iraq

Released: December 18, 2003

Summary of Findings

The public holds more positive opinions of President Bush and the decision to go to war in Iraq in response to the capture of Saddam Hussein. Bush has made significant gains with the public, and more importantly with voters. In historical terms, the president`s job approval gain (from 50% in November to 57% currently) is on par with Ronald Reagan`s gain following the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, and the rally Bill Clinton experienced in the spring of 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing.

The rallies for Reagan and Clinton signaled sustained gains in popularity that led to their reelection victories. However, the larger rallies for other recent presidents in their first term ­ Jimmy Carter following the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and George H.W. Bush after the first Gulf War ­ dissipated and both failed to win reelection.

In that regard, overall public opinion about the president and the war itself has not been fundamentally recast by Hussein`s capture. Support for the war has risen modestly, but public concern over American casualties in Iraq has increased as well.

Half say the level of casualties is more than they expected, up from 42% in September. And while more Americans have a positive view of the situation in Iraq, just 28% think things there are going very well.

Two-thirds of Americans believe the United States made the right decision in going to war in Iraq, up from 60% in October. In addition, more now say the president has a clear plan to bring the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion, though the public is split on this issue (44% say he has a clear plan, 45% believe he does not).

The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Dec. 15-17 among 815 adults, suggests that the staying power of the Bush rally is strongly linked to U.S. fortunes in Iraq over the next year. As in the past, the public is divided about the president`s overall record: 39% think that in the long run Bush will be a successful president, while 20% think he will be unsuccessful and 38% say it is too early to tell. However, both groups agreed on the primacy of Iraq to judgments about Bush`s performance. In an open-ended format, fully 49% of those who believe Bush`s presidency will be successful cited the war in Iraq as his greatest accomplishment. Conversely, about as many of those who take a negative view of Bush`s presidency (48%) cite the war as his biggest failure.

Significantly, while more Americans back the decision to go to war, an increasing number also say it has helped in the broader struggle against terrorism. By more than two-to-one (59%-26%), people believe the war in Iraq has helped, not hurt, the war on terrorism. In September, there was a closer division of opinion on this issue (54% helped, 31% hurt). At the same time, however, the public continues to offer a mixed assessment of the how well the United States has taken Iraqi interests into account in rebuilding the country; 46% say it has, largely unchanged from three months ago (45%).

Clearly, the immediate political impact of Hussein`s capture has been positive for the president. Bush has gotten as big a boost in his reelection prospects than he has in his overall approval rating. Among registered voters, he now leads an unnamed Democrat by 49%-37%. Moreover, satisfaction with national conditions, which stood at 38% in October ­ the lowest mark in Bush`s presidency ­ also has risen, to 44%.

http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=771

[Joerver]

Eine herrliche englische Geistergeschichte. Der Wahrheitsgehalt entspricht einer Bildzeitungsgeschichte.

Closed-circuit cameras detect possible ghostly presence


LONDON (AP) - Are there ghostly goings-on at Henry VIII`s palace, or is that hazy image of a fellow in fancy robes just a bit of Christmas cheer?
Closed-circuit security cameras at Hampton Court Palace, the huge Tudor pile outside London, seem to have snagged an ethereal visitor. Could it be a ghost?

"We`re baffled too. It`s not a joke. We haven`t manufactured it," Vikki Wood, a Hampton Court spokeswoman said when asked if the photo the palace released was a Christmas hoax. "We genuinely don`t know who it is or what it is."

Wood said security guards had seen the figure in closed-circuit television footage after checking it to see who kept leaving open one of the palace`s fire doors.

In the still photograph, the figure of a man in a robe-like garment is shown stepping from the shadowy doorway, one arm reaching out for the door handle.

The area around the man is somewhat blurred, and his face appears unnaturally white compared with his outstretched hand.

"It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn`t look human," said James Faukes, one of the palace security guards.

"My first reaction was that someone was having a laugh, so I asked my colleagues to take a look. We spoke to our costumed guides, but they don`t own a costume like that worn by the figure. It is actually quite unnerving," Faukes said.

The palace, built in 1525 on the River Thames about 15 kilometres west of central London, is a popular tourist attraction and some of the guide staff wear costume of the Tudor period.

Wood said she was hoping people would come forward with similar stories and try to explain the figure.

The palace has been the scene of many dramatic royal events and already is supposed to have a few ghosts.

King Henry VIII`s third wife, Jane Seymour, died there giving birth to a son, and her ghost is said to walk through one of the cobbled courtyards carrying a candle.

Her son, Edward, had a nurse called Sibell Penn who was buried in the palace grounds in 1562. In 1829 her tomb was disturbed by building work, and around the same time an odd whirring noise began to be heard in the southwest wing of the palace. When workmen traced the strange sounds to a brick wall, they uncovered a small forgotten room containing an old spinning wheel, just like the one Penn used to use.

Henry`s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, condemned for adultery, was held at the palace under house arrest before her execution at the Tower of London. An 1897 book about the palace says she was reportedly seen, dressed in white and floating down one of the galleries uttering unearthly shrieks.

The palace was once a prison for King Charles, who later was beheaded, and then home to his nemesis Oliver Cromwell, who briefly ruled when Britain was for a short time a republic.


Hampton Court Palace, hrp.org.uk/webcode/hampton-home.asp


© The Canadian Press, 2003

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Es geht immer noch darum, ob sich Bush bei seinem Top Gun Stand Socken in die Hose gestopft hat.

The Codpiece Has Landed!
`Ask not what your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do for Halliburton!`
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



Washington (IWR News Satire) - President Bush confirmed today that he plans to send a special mission to the moon to exploit its natural resources, expand the search for Saddam Hussein`s missing Weapons of Mass Destruction, and to see if any of those missing factory jobs might be hiding there.
Here are the President`s remarks:

THE PRESIDENT: Karl tells me that 2004 is an election year. Boy does time fly when you are having so much fun!

It helps that I never read any of those lying newspapers!

[Mr. Bush puts his thumbs to his ears, wiggles fingers and makes a face at the audience.]

Anyway, Karl says that I need a new Kennedy style gimmick.

You know, like putting a man on moon or something like that.

Karl says we need to distract the American people from the side effects our `Texas Chainsaw Massacre` approach to things like Iraq and the economy.

You know that was me and my drinking buddies favorite movie too.

[The audience laughs nervously.]

Like I was saying, we need what Karl calls a smokescreen to help make people forget about all those things that are bumming folks out.

You know: unemployment, no real progress on the war on terrorism, outsourcing jobs overseas, those damn Osama tapes, the ballooning cost of healthcare and college intuitions, this dumb Iraq war, and a budget deficit as big as a zit on Godzilla`s ass.

Get the picture?

Therefore, I hereby challenge the American people to put a man on the moon again by 2010!

I mean, who knows what junk we might find up there. We might even find those missing WMD or them three million jobs that I lost!

And remember this:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for Halliburton!

Thank you.

END

[Joerver]

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040105&s=krugman


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Death of Horatio Alger
by PAUL KRUGMAN

[from the January 5, 2004 issue]

The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.

The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society.

And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of "class warfare."

Let`s talk first about the facts on income distribution. Thirty years ago we were a relatively middle-class nation. It had not always been thus: Gilded Age America was a highly unequal society, and it stayed that way through the 1920s. During the 1930s and `40s, however, America experienced what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have dubbed the Great Compression: a drastic narrowing of income gaps, probably as a result of New Deal policies. And the new economic order persisted for more than a generation: Strong unions; taxes on inherited wealth, corporate profits and high incomes; close public scrutiny of corporate management--all helped to keep income gaps relatively small. The economy was hardly egalitarian, but a generation ago the gross inequalities of the 1920s seemed very distant.

Now they`re back. According to estimates by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez--confirmed by data from the Congressional Budget Office--between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7 percent. Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent, the income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of the top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent. (Those numbers exclude capital gains, so they`re not an artifact of the stock-market bubble.) The distribution of income in the United States has gone right back to Gilded Age levels of inequality.

Never mind, say the apologists, who churn out papers with titles like that of a 2001 Heritage Foundation piece, "Income Mobility and the Fallacy of Class-Warfare Arguments." America, they say, isn`t a caste society--people with high incomes this year may have low incomes next year and vice versa, and the route to wealth is open to all. That`s where those commies at Business Week come in: As they point out (and as economists and sociologists have been pointing out for some time), America actually is more of a caste society than we like to think. And the caste lines have lately become a lot more rigid.

The myth of income mobility has always exceeded the reality: As a general rule, once they`ve reached their 30s, people don`t move up and down the income ladder very much. Conservatives often cite studies like a 1992 report by Glenn Hubbard, a Treasury official under the elder Bush who later became chief economic adviser to the younger Bush, that purport to show large numbers of Americans moving from low-wage to high-wage jobs during their working lives. But what these studies measure, as the economist Kevin Murphy put it, is mainly "the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early 30s." Serious studies that exclude this sort of pseudo-mobility show that inequality in average incomes over long periods isn`t much smaller than inequality in annual incomes.

It is true, however, that America was once a place of substantial intergenerational mobility: Sons often did much better than their fathers. A classic 1978 survey found that among adult men whose fathers were in the bottom 25 percent of the population as ranked by social and economic status, 23 percent had made it into the top 25 percent. In other words, during the first thirty years or so after World War II, the American dream of upward mobility was a real experience for many people.

Now for the shocker: The Business Week piece cites a new survey of today`s adult men, which finds that this number has dropped to only 10 percent. That is, over the past generation upward mobility has fallen drastically. Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers` and sons` incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you`re quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born.

Business Week attributes this to the "Wal-Martization" of the economy, the proliferation of dead-end, low-wage jobs and the disappearance of jobs that provide entry to the middle class. That`s surely part of the explanation. But public policy plays a role--and will, if present trends continue, play an even bigger role in the future.

Put it this way: Suppose that you actually liked a caste society, and you were seeking ways to use your control of the government to further entrench the advantages of the haves against the have-nots. What would you do?

One thing you would definitely do is get rid of the estate tax, so that large fortunes can be passed on to the next generation. More broadly, you would seek to reduce tax rates both on corporate profits and on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains, so that those with large accumulated or inherited wealth could more easily accumulate even more. You`d also try to create tax shelters mainly useful for the rich. And more broadly still, you`d try to reduce tax rates on people with high incomes, shifting the burden to the payroll tax and other revenue sources that bear most heavily on people with lower incomes.

Meanwhile, on the spending side, you`d cut back on healthcare for the poor, on the quality of public education and on state aid for higher education. This would make it more difficult for people with low incomes to climb out of their difficulties and acquire the education essential to upward mobility in the modern economy.

And just to close off as many routes to upward mobility as possible, you`d do everything possible to break the power of unions, and you`d privatize government functions so that well-paid civil servants could be replaced with poorly paid private employees.

It all sounds sort of familiar, doesn`t it?

Where is this taking us? Thomas Piketty, whose work with Saez has transformed our understanding of income distribution, warns that current policies will eventually create "a class of rentiers in the U.S., whereby a small group of wealthy but untalented children controls vast segments of the US economy and penniless, talented children simply can`t compete." If he`s right--and I fear that he is--we will end up suffering not only from injustice, but from a vast waste of human potential.

Goodbye, Horatio Alger. And goodbye, American Dream.

[Joerver]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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December 21, 2003
On the Web, an Amateur Audience Creates Anti-Bush Ads
By PHOEBE EATON

When the Web-based political group MoveOn.orghttp://www.moveon.org/ announced a contest in October for homemade commercials challenging the Bush administration (the winner to be shown on television during the week of the State of the Union address) grass-roots America proved a willing and eager advertising agency.

Thirty-second spots poured in by the hundreds in e-mail attachments to MoveOn.org, which has already shown that the Internet can be a battering ram for political activism by organizing protests against the invasion of Iraq. Last week, the group posted 1,017 of the amateur commercials on a Web site (www.bushin30seconds.org)http://www.bushin30seconds.org/, asking viewers to pick their favorites.

In the first hour of polling on Wednesday, more than 5,700 votes were logged. So many people visited the site that MoveOn, experiencing bandwidth problems, limited the curious to 20 ads a day.

Next month the top vote-getters will be shown to a panel of left-leaning celebrity judges including Moby, Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho and Gus Van Sant, with one or more winning entries to be broadcast as paid advertisements in Washington, D.C., in potential swing states or perhaps nationally.

What the cascade of entries demonstrates is that the home-movie revolution made possible by inexpensive digital camcorders and off-the-shelf software has elevated the United States from merely being a nation of wedding videographers.

Even so, the production values of many spots are a bit shaky, and the content often overheated. "Bush Cheney Auto World," a typical entry, from Tracy Spaight, a high-school history teacher in Houston, posits an oily salesman whose motto is: "Where we always say what you want to hear." But a number of the ads are unexpectedly professional-looking, at least on a par with the burnished style and hard-hitting messages of political ads made by Madison Avenue pros or K Street consultants in untucked shirttails.

The amateur ad makers of the left are charged up about the country`s dependence on fossil fuels, the plight of education and the $87.5 billion spending package for Iraq. They tabulate Mr. Bush`s perceived deceptions. He is "Bushoccio," an inflatable Hot Air President Doll whose box bears the product warning: "Not designed for poor people. Not actually elected."

Contributors to the contest include recent graduates of the Kennedy School of Government, a teacher from Detroit, stand-up comics, amateur impressionists, a D.J. and more than a few self-styled rappers.

Sets and props have a quaintly home-grown provenance. Pies and cakes are used to illustrate budget and tax cuts. A pot on the verge of boiling over is Iraq. Water gurgling down a drain is "American Credibility." A toilet flushes away "Our Children`s Future," played in another ad by a fragile U.S. Grade A egg.

Movies and TV shows are the ad makers` grist. "I`m concerned, George, I`m concerned about how you`ve dealt with the economy," drones a computer in a spot titled "2004: A Political Odyssey."

Christopher Fink, an independent filmmaker in California, used his ranch-style house in the San Fernando Valley as a set and recruited his sister as cinematographer after she made an accomplished video of his wife`s baby shower.

In the spot titled "If Parents Acted Like Bush," Mr. Fink plays the president as a cad who beds down with special interests. His car pulls away from the house in the morning, leaving his teenage daughter (Mr. Fink`s niece) to find her own way to school. He buys a motorcycle and tells the Terminator-face biker that his daughter will pay for it.

Then she walks in on him in his bedroom, snuggling with a blonde who isn`t her mother. "It`s O.K.," he cries, "she`s rich!"

And how much did the spot cost? "Including catering? That was most of the budget — the doughnuts," Mr. Fink said. "It couldn`t have cost me more than 50 bucks."

Donnie Deutsch, a prominent New York advertising executive who worked on the campaign of Bill Clinton in 1992, looked at a sample of the MoveOn ads last week and was impressed. "I thought some of it was very fresh and interesting — obviously amateurish in some of its creative license — but certainly very creative in its thinking," he said.

However, Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who worked on Arnold Schwarzenegger`s campaign for governor of California, was more dismissive. "I`d say a lot of this looks like MoveOn self-promotion," he said in a message sent, appropriately enough, by e-mail over his BlackBerry. "Having an insult-the-president home-movie contest is not smart politics."

Through its Voter Fund, which solicits donations online, in part from Web surfers who must register to view the anti-Bush ads, MoveOn aims to raise about $15 million for advertising in battleground states to unseat Mr. Bush, said Eli Pariser, who oversees the group`s fund-raising.

In addition to the amateur ads, MoveOn has a professional agency on retainer. But Mr. Pariser said he was so pleased with the ads that have rolled in that MoveOn may approach its 1.7 million members in this country and say, "Here are 10 great ads, and we want to run all of them."

It would not be the first time the group has proven the power of the Internet for political activism. Founded five years ago to oppose the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, MoveOn.org became a catalyst for demonstrations earlier this year, and subsequently raised more than $7 million from 133,000 donors to oppose Mr. Bush`s policies. Last month two billionaire philanthropists, George Soros and Peter B. Lewis, announced they would match contributions to the group up to $5 million between them.

The content of the MoveOn ads is circumscribed by the campaign finance reforms of the McCain-Feingold Law, upheld earlier this month by the Supreme Court. While prohibiting soft-money donations to political parties, the law allows donations to flow to independent groups like MoveOn as long they run only informational ads and do not specifically endorse a candidate.

Thus MoveOn`s call for submissions was careful to solicit ads that would help voters "understand the truth about George Bush." No ads supporting the president`s policies were sent in, contest organizers noted. They also disqualified about 100 submissions, including some for reasons of taste. A spot showing a frog dropped into boiling water, a metaphor for "how the administration is turning up the heat in this country," according to its director, was deemed unsuitable for television.

Still, plenty of the ads that made the cut exhibit the inflamed passions of street rallies. The scenarios are sometimes closer to angry guerrilla theater than witty "Saturday Night Live" spoofs. A man fills his gas tank, then shoots the cashier instead of paying. "If you wouldn`t tolerate this from a normal citizen," the screen reads, "why would you from your president?"

"Follow the Leader" compares Mr. Bush to a schoolyard bully who shoots a schoolmate in the back. "Connect the Dots" maintains that Mr. Bush "has established links to known terrorist organizations." Still another commercial claims he has "ties to the Bin Laden family."

Larry McCarthy, a Republican strategist who in 1988 helped produce a notorious television ad using a convicted murderer, Willie Horton, to suggest that the Democratic nominee, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, was soft on crime, has not seen the MoveOn ads, but he admired the idea.

"It`s certainly proof of the march of technology, letting everybody and anybody be an ad maker," he said.

"As a fund-raiser gimmick, I think it`s pretty good," he continued. "I wouldn`t be surprised if somebody on the Republican side decided that there`s just as much or more fodder on Howard Dean, so why don`t you let those little Republicans with camcorders have a go at it too?"



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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`Sick` Saddam drugged: visitor
By Peter Wilson in Baghdad
20Dec03

A STARTLING new photograph of a sick-looking Saddam Hussein suggests he is being drugged or given strong medication by his US captors.

The man who took the photo told The Weekend Australian last night Hussein appeared very sick when he was visited by Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi two days after being captured near Tikrit.
In the photo Hussein appears in much worse shape than when arrested, with pronounced bags under bloodshot eyes and a sticking plaster on the back of his right hand where he has reportedly been receiving intravenous injections.

Hussein`s daughter has claimed her father must be being drugged by his CIA interrogators for him to submit meekly to questioning.

The photo shows the former president, who once lived in a string of palaces, is now being kept in a converted bathroom lit by spotlights, with his bed right next to a toilet on a tiled shower recess.

Hussein`s location is a tightly guarded secret, but the only wall-hanging in the room was a US military map of Baghdad - suggesting he was being kept at a US base in the capital, probably at Baghdad airport.

The photo of a sick-looking and unkempt Hussein showed him being visited by Dr Chalabi, who fled Iraq in 1958 after Hussein ordered him killed, and is now the Pentagon`s favourite to become the next Iraqi president.

That photo and another in which he is talking to Dr Chalabi in an animated way, caused a stir in Baghdad when they were published on the front page of Al-Mutamar, the newspaper of Dr Chalabi`s Iraqi National Congress, which said the meeting took place on Monday.

Dr Chalabi has refused to discuss his meeting with Hussein or to release copies of the photo, leaving the world`s media to copy the image from his newspaper.

But the man who took the photograph said Hussein was being kept in a converted bathroom measuring 4m by 2 1/2m, with three fluorescent tubes and several spotlights glaring on the room`s dank tiles. The only people in the room were Hussein, Dr Chalabi, some US military guards, and the photographer, a senior executive on Dr Chalabi`s newspaper.

The photographer, who had stood just two metres from Hussein, said the former dictator was obviously sick, and pointed out his baggy eyes in the photo.

While Dr Chalabi sat on a chair in a raised part of the bathroom, Hussein sat on his bed in a converted shower space next to a toilet in the recessed tiled part of the room.

The room had no windows, and the only other furniture was a wash-basin and a hat rack.

After Hussein`s capture on Saturday in a hole on a farm outside a village near Tikrit, US officials released photos and video footage showing him with a long beard but generally looking healthy.

On Sunday, he was visited by Dr Chalabi and three other members of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who said Hussein appeared defiant and surly but did not describe him as being unwell.

If the photo was taken the following day, as the newspaper reported, then Hussein`s health appeared to have deteriorated.

During the visit by Dr Chalabi, Hussein was wearing a plastic jacket over a white traditional-style robe, even though Monday was a warm day in Baghdad.

This report appears on NEWS.com.au.

[Joerver]

Medical evacuations from Iraq near 11,000
By Mark Benjamin
United Press International
Published 12/19/2003 3:30 PM


WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The total number of wounded soldiers and medical evacuations from the war in Iraq is nearing 11,000, according to new Pentagon data provided in response to a request from United Press International.

The military has made 8,581 medical evacuations from Operation Iraqi Freedom for non-hostile causes in addition to the 2,273 wounded -- a total of 10,854, according to the new data. The Pentagon says that 457 troops have died.

The Pentagon`s casualty update for Operation Iraqi Freedom listed on its Web site, however, does not reflect thousands of the evacuations.

It is a toll the country has not seen since Vietnam, said Aseneth Blackwell, former national president of Gold Star Wives of America, Inc., a support group for people who lose a spouse from war.

"It is staggering," said Blackwell.

Blackwell, who lost her husband in 1969 in Vietnam, sometimes visits Walter Reed Army Medical Center where some Iraq veterans get medical care. "To see these guys walking around up there with an arm missing, a leg missing, that is when it hits you in the face," said Blackwell.

According to data released to UPI from the Army Medical Command, the military as of Nov. 30 made 8,581 medical evacuations for bone injuries, surgeries, brain problems, heart illness, mental problems and other non-hostile causes.

But the Pentagon`s casualty update as of Dec. 17 on its Web site reported only 364 soldiers as "non-hostile wounded" in addition to reporting that 457 troops have died and 2,273 soldiers have been wounded in action.

Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner said the Pentagon casualty update reports battle deaths and injuries. "What you are seeing on the (casualty update) are the types of injuries you would see in battle."

The Pentagon`s definition for casualty, released by Turner, is "any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured."

Turner did not return a phone call or e-mail asking for a clarification of the Pentagon`s casualty update.

A veterans` advocate said the Pentagon should report non-hostile incidents as casualties. "They are considered casualties," said Bill Smith, a spokesman at Veterans of Foreign Wars.

In response to a request from UPI about non-hostile incidents, the Army Medical Command this week released data that show 3,843 medical evacuations for "non-battle injuries" and 4,738 for "disease" between March 19 and Nov. 30. Examples of non-battle evacuations were for bone injuries and surgery, the Army said. Examples of disease evacuations include brain, heart, stomach, or mental problems. The evacuations include causes as diverse as dental problems and gynecological issues.

The data from the Army on medical evacuations for non-combat problems only includes evacuations to Army medical facilities and not facilities run by other services, according to Army Surgeon General spokeswoman Virginia Stephanakis. Stephanakis said she does not know how many troops were sent to other facilities, but said that number is small.

It also excludes an unknown number of troops treated in Iraq who did not require a medical evacuation, and soldiers whose illnesses do not show up until later, like post-traumatic stress disorder.

In an e-mail, Army Medical Command spokesman Jaime Cavazos said it was important to remember that evacuations were for "both serious and not-so-serious" problems, but provided no detail. He also said that one individual might represent multiple evacuations, if a soldier were evacuated "back and forth between Iraq and (medical facilities in) Germany several times," but provided no data. He did not return a call seeking further explanation.


Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International

[Joerver]

Gott muß wohl US-Amerikaner sein und Republikaner. Ich erwarte demnächst die Marienerscheinung in Texas!

Corruption claim governor says he was called by God
By David Rennie
(Filed: 19/12/2003)


The governor of the strait-laced New England state of Connecticut has rejected calls for his resignation over corruption allegations, saying he is in direct contact with God.

In a performance worthy of a fallen "televangelist" John Rowland, who has admitted accepting favours and gifts from powerful businessmen, defended his position by saying the Almighty had called to him "loud and clear" in his "adversity".

Mr Rowland, a Republican who faces a federal inquiry into the awarding of lucrative state contracts, spoke flanked by local soldiers recently returned from Iraq.

He hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein, conceding that the operation did not involve any troops from his state, but adding: "It could have been any one of our Connecticut servicemen or women."

He declared that such heroism "puts everything in perspective real quick".

At the same public appearance, before a sympathetic audience of businessmen and lobbyists, the governor`s wife delivered her own version of the poem The Night Before Christmas, in which she predicted that Father Christmas would deliver coal, rather than presents, to a local newspaper which unmasked her husband as lying about who paid for expensive repairs to their lakeside cottage.

In the poem, which drew gasps from the audience, Mrs Rowland compared staff at the Hartford Courant newspaper to "grinches who have stolen our tree". Her parody went on to describe a Christmas wish "for the man next to me: a new year that is peaceful and refreshingly free of rumours and hearsay that do nothing but smother the positive works we should do for each other".

Connecticut, a haughty sort of place, is not accustomed to finding itself in the same lists as Louisiana or New Jersey, where corruption is more or less taken for granted among state politicians. Mr Rowland, a three-term governor, has vowed to remain in office despite being caught lying this month when he insisted that he paid for work at his cottage, including the installation of a hot tub.

Several of his aides also face inquiries, including a deputy chief of staff who pleaded guilty to steering state contracts to firms in exchange for cash and gold, some of which he buried in his backyard.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading.

[Joerver]

Iraqi council mired in cronyism, indecision
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published December 20, 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the start, there were signs the Iraqi Governing Council would be somewhat less than a bold and decisive body.

For one thing, the 25 members couldn`t even agree on a president. So they adopted a rotating system that has produced five presidents in as many months.

"How can you accomplish anything with no continuity?" asks Juan R. Cole, a Mideast expert at the University of Michigan. "Whenever there`s a hard decision to be made, they can`t make it."

Cole reflects a widespread frustration with the council, appointed by Iraq`s American occupiers to serve as an interim government and start the country on the path to democracy after 35 years of Saddam Hussein`s tyrannical rule.

Since August, the council has chalked up a few accomplishments. It has appointed ministers of oil, health and other government agencies. It created a special tribunal that may try Hussein and other members of his regime for crimes against humanity. And in a rare show of spine, it even stood up to its U.S. creators by refusing to let troops from Turkey - a despised colonial occupier - join coalition forces in Iraq.

But the council has been dogged by allegations of nepotism, cronyism, self-dealing and outright corruption. The Pentagon is investigating alleged improprieties in the awarding of a coveted mobile phone license to a consortium linked to Ahmed Chalabi, the council`s best known and most controversial member. Questions have been raised about other contracts amid complaints that council members are more interested in promoting their own agendas than working for the good of the country.

"Here we have some people who see an opportunity to become rich overnight and they see it`s a free-for-all," said Sam Kubba, a Virginia architect who heads the American-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce and recently returned from Baghdad.

"It just takes one rotten apple to make the whole basket rot and the unfortunate thing is that the CPA has done nothing to quench it."

Even the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority has grown so disenchanted with the council that it will be replaced in May by a 250-member body that will write a constitution and prepare for popular elections in 2005.

Given the struggle the current council has in getting anything done, experts wonder how much can be expected from a group 10 times as large.

"It`s going to be very difficult," says Sharon Otterman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Council members - most of them former exiles who lived abroad during Hussein`s time - have lukewarm support at best among Iraq`s long-suffering people. One member was fatally shot in September, and others have narrowly escaped assassination.

Many Iraqis view the council as an American puppet: as evidence, they point to its ban of al-Arabiya, an Arab TV network the Americans accuse of fomenting violence. There also was an uproar when the new finance minister announced that all state industries except oil would be open to 100 percent foreign ownership. The council had to back down after Iraqi business people said the reforms amounted to a giveaway to American and other foreign companies.

But council members say they are doing their best.

"You have to remember we are 24 personalities," Muwafaq Raybiyi, a Shiite doctor, told reporters. "We have never worked together. There is no precedent for what we are doing."

Other members complain the CPA has demanded much while giving them limited authority.

"The problem is the CPA is a monster with many heads," Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a Shiite writer, told Knight-Ridder. "We talk to one head, it`s friendly; we talk to another, it`s reluctant. We are tackling a lot of problems and we are tackling them all at once."

Publicly at least, the Bush administration held out high hopes for the governing council when it was appointed in July. "This council will have real power and real responsibilities from the very start," said L. Paul Bremer, Iraq`s civil administrator.

Bremer chose a group that reflected - at least on paper - Iraq`s ethnic and religious diversity. Among the 22 men and 3 women were 13 Shiites, 5 Sunnis, 5 Kurds, a Turkmen and a Christian.

But many Iraqis and outsiders were stunned when Ahmed Chalabi was named to the council as a Shiite member. Founder of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, Chalabi once worked with the CIA in trying to overthrow Hussein`s regime. But he fell out of favor with both the agency and State Department because of concern he had hyped the threat of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction in an effort to get the United States to invade.

Chalabi, who has spent most of his life outside Iraq, also was convicted in absentia in Jordan on fraud charges stemming from a bank collapse.

"For the United States to go into Iraq and appoint a government and have a member of that government indicted in a neighboring country for embezzling $300-million is outrageous," said Michigan`s Cole. "That`s a major instance of corruption and what else could flow from that could be enormous."

Chalabi says he is innocent and that the Jordanian charges were politically motivated. But this fall he again became mired in controversy after the new communications minister awarded a license for mobile phone service in southern Iraq to a consortium that included the son of a close Chalabi associate.

Chalabi`s supporters say there was no impropriety.

Although there are 24 other council members, observers say the 59-year-old Chalabi, a debonair figure who has a doctorate from the University of Chicago, is the dominant player. Chalabi denies it, but it is widely assumed he wants to be Iraq`s first elected president.

But other council members are also jockeying for influence in a permanent government. The council increased the number of ministers to 25 so each member could appoint one; the resulting choices not only mirrored the makeup of the council itself but fueled allegations of nepotism and cronyism.

The new oil minister is the son of a Shiite council member; the new minister of foreign affairs is a former spokesperson for a Kurdish member. The appointments were not terribly surprising in an Arab country where loyality to tribe and family are important parts of the culture. But that`s exactly the problem, critics say.

"The argument that this is par for the course won`t cut it if the aim here is to get a new Middle East and democracy and all of these things," Cole said. "If all that happened is that the U.S. went in and took out one clique and put in another, I think serious questions would be raised by the American public."

Other than appointing ministers, the council`s most substantive action has been establishing a tribunal to try top officials of Hussein`s regime for genocide and war crimes. Announced just days before Hussein`s capture, the tribunal has been criticized for the secrecy in which it was created and because it could impose the death penalty.

But an American legal expert who helped write the tribunal statute says it is "a very credible document" that incorporates many features of international law.

"It is certainly a good start and I don`t think there`s anything wrong with the approach they`re taking," said Laurel Miller of the United States Institute of Peace, a non-partisan organization funded by Congress.

"It is essentially a national institution but they have written into it provisions for international support, advisers and observers and also the possibility that international judges would be appointed to sit with (Iraqi) judges."

But as with everything the U.S.-appointed council has done, the question remains of what will happen to the special tribunal after power is transferred to an elected Iraqi government. "What is the subsequent sovereign authority going to think of acts taken by its predecessor?" Miller said. "Who knows if it will have a negative attitude?"

The answer could come relatively soon. Last month, the council endorsed a plan to transfer sovereignty by June 30 to a "transitional assembly." That body will write a constitution that must address many difficult issues, including whether Iraq will have an Islamic or a secular government.

But between now and June there are numerous technical details to be worked out, including exactly how members of the transitional assembly will be chosen.

"I think the CPA will find a way to turn power over to some kind of local civilian authority by July - I think they`re very committed to that," Cole said. "But I personally don`t see how we get from here to there, given the governing council`s congenital inability to make a decision."

- Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at [e-mail]

Some leading members of the council
AHMED CHALABI, 59 - Chalabi, a wealthy Shiite banker with a doctorate from the University of Chicago, left Iraq in 1956 and has spent most of his life in Britain and America. Founder of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group, he helped the CIA try to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. After last spring`s invasion, he fell out of favor with many in Washington who said he exaggerated Hussein`s threat. Others distrust him because of a fraud conviction in Jordan stemming from a bank collapse. He has little support inside Iraq, but has been backed as a potential leader of the country by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

ABDEL-AZIZ AL-HAKIM, 53 - Hakim, who spent 23 years in exile, claims descent from the prophet Mohammed and is a leader of the Iranian-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Currently president of the Iraqi Governing Council, he demands that a transitional assembly to be formed by June be directly elected rather than selected by caucus. A rivalry may be developing between the popular Hakim and Chalabi, another Shiite whose recent trip to Tehran was seen as an effort to curry favor with the Iranian government. Chalabi negotiated an agreement - later approved by the governing council - to expel 3,800 members of the leading Iranian opposition group from Iraq and confiscate its assets and weapons.

MASSOUD BARZANI, 57 - A Sunni Kurd and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In 1983, three of his brothers disappeared in what Kurds call an Iraqi massacre of the Barzani clan when 8,000 people were rounded up by Hussein`s regime. This fall, Barzani threatened to quit the governing council if Turkey - which engaged in a 15-year-struggle with its own Kurdish population - was allowed to send troops into Iraq.

ADNAN PACHACHI, 80 - A Sunni, he was Iraq`s U.N. ambassador and foreign minister in the government deposed by Hussein`s Baath Party in 1968. Pachachi spent 32 years in exile in the United Arab Emirates, where he was an adviser to the government. He founded the Independent Democratic Movement as a platform for Iraqis who back a secular, democratic government. In his younger days, Pachachi was an Arab nationalist who said he was "unable to accept" Israel`s existence and called for Iraq and Syria to unite into "one great Arab state." As recently as April, Pachachi said he did not expect good relations between Israel and the new Iraq.
JALAL TALABANI, 70 - Sunni Kurd and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He and one-time rival Massoud Barzani led the Kurdish zone in northern Iraq that had near-autonomy from Hussein`s regime after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Last month, Talabani took his turn as president of the Iraqi Governing Council and urged the U.N. Security Council to endorse the U.S.-backed plan to transfer power to Iraq by June.

IYAD ALLAWI, 59 - A Shiite doctor and former Baath Party member, Allawi moved to London in the `70s and formed the Iraqi National Accord. His group failed in a 1996 CIA-backed coup, but it maintained contacts with dissident Iraqi officers and helped persuade many units not to resist the U.S.-led invasion in March. Allawi argues that a stable Iraq is possible only if most Iraqis believe they have a place in a new regime. The only people he would exclude are those who were directly involved in Hussein`s regime, he recently told Beirut`s Daily Star.

© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved

[Joerver]

Saturday, December 20, 2003
War News for December 20, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Iraqi police kill insurgents planting roadside bombs near Kirkuk.

Bring `em on: Assassination attempt against former Ba`athist reported in Najaf.

Bring `em on: Iraqi guard shot at UN office in Mosul.

Poles impose curfew in Karbala.

US troops mistakenly shoot three Iraqi police near Salman Pak.

IGC mired in corruption and cronyism. "`Here we have some people who see an opportunity to become rich overnight and they see it`s a free-for-all,` said Sam Kubba, a Virginia architect who heads the American-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce and recently returned from Baghdad. `It just takes one rotten apple to make the whole basket rot and the unfortunate thing is that the CPA has done nothing to quench it.`" Corruption and cronyism are the hallmarks of Lieutenant AWOL`s administration, too.

More on Iraqi reaction to CPA gasoline rationing.

Libya says it will abandon WMD programs and allow unconditional access for UN inspectors. Lieutenant AWOL claims success. But on October 1, 2002, Iraq allowed unconditional access for UN weapons inspectors, and Lieutenant AWOL called it failure.

Bremer "not targeted" in ambush, says CPA spokesman. Let`s see, so far we`ve had insurgents fire SAMS at military aircraft when Rummy visited, shoot Katyushas at Wolfie`s hotel, and mortar Jack Straw. If this is all random coincidence, the insurgency is much, much worse than the Bushies are admitting.

This is how conservatives support our troops.

Commentary

Opinion: Winning and losing. " Such is the bind that the Bush Administration has led us into in Iraq. Appalling, intolerable—in all senses, maddening—as the terrorist tactics of the Iraqi insurgents may be, their truck bombs, donkey-cart missile launchers, and sniper rifles are tactical political instruments that have steadily and systematically succeeded in isolating American forces in Iraq. They have effectively driven the United Nations, the international staff of the Red Cross, and other aid groups from the country, and—more disastrously—they have fostered a mutual sense of alienation between the American forces and the Iraqi people they are supposed to be liberating. Triumphalist pronouncements from Washington notwithstanding, our occupying forces are now clearly on the defensive. And the more aggressive their defense becomes, the more it serves the insurgents’ purposes. "

Casualty Reports

Local story: Indiana soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Montana soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Georgia soldier killed in Iraq.

Awards

Local story: Pennsylvania soldier decorated for valor.





# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:09 AM
Comments (3)

[Joerver]

In Search of Monsters to
Destroy: American Empire
in the New Millennium

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/03autumn/alsac…

JUAN A. ALSACE

© 2003 Juan A. Alsace


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Parameters, Autumn 2003, pp. 122-29.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!”
— Rudyard Kipling1


With the coldly calculated use of terror, the perpetrators of 11 September 2001 served abrupt notice of challenge to US global dominance. The seemingly easy path before Americans that had appeared to stretch out well into the 21st century—promising boundless economic growth, a worldwide embrace of US values, an absence of rivals—stood blocked by the rubble in New York and Washington. In tallying the costs buried within the debris of 9/11, Americans need to look beyond the lost lives and shattered dreams and recognize that defense of the empire they possess will not come cheaply. But first they must accept the fact of empire. Those who argue the United States has no empire to uphold whistle past the graveyard, ignoring the historically unparalleled confluence of political, economic, military, and information power that have come together in the American imperial construct. To a great extent, the United States holds sway over the world—or at least influence over much of it—an empire inviting admiration, envy, and, as with all empires before it, challenge.

John Quincy Adams warned in 1821 that Americans should resist the temptation of going abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.”2 But in September 2001, monsters literally came to the United States, threatening political instability, economic malaise, and chaos. Even with al Qaeda on the run and Baghdad now fallen, the world remains dangerous and unstable, with vital US interests challenged by committed actors and unrelenting forces. North Korea pursues its nuclear ambition; Israelis and Palestinians remain locked in a death embrace; Islamic fundamentalists scheme to force the world back to the seventh century; Colombia teeters at the edge of failure; and the whole of the African continent stares at virtual extinction occasioned by a plague of Biblical proportion. Only the United States has the capability to restore order, imposing its will when and where necessary. This imperial path holds danger and difficulty, but it is a choice the nation must embrace, even if reluctantly and at certain cost.

Taking up the Gauntlet

In September 2002, the Bush Administration released its carefully crafted National Security Strategy (NSS), affirmatively answering the question of whether the United States would meet the challenges posed by a disordered world, seemingly accepting the mantle and responsibility of empire. The Administration determined, not unreasonably, that the doctrines of containment and deterrence that had served the nation throughout the Cold War would not be effective in protecting Americans against asymmetric threats posed by irrational or ideologically motivated non-state actors or rogue states, foes who would be neither contained nor deterred.3 The new “Bush Doctrine” of preemption, as enunciated in the NSS, drew attention (and criticism) as proof that the United States would act unilaterally—indeed, with imperial “arrogance”—in defense of its interests.

If truth be told, preemption is not so radical a concept; at heart it is simply self-defense. Controversy lies, however, in the robust version of self-defense espoused in the NSS. Therein preemption has moved from the classic, internationally recognized “anticipatory self-defense” in the face of imminent danger to a flat assertion that the United States can even change regimes in order to obviate dangers not yet operational, as exemplified by the war against Iraq.4

But even “more ambitious than preemption is the sometimes overlooked assertion that the United States will remain powerful enough to keep potential adversaries from a military buildup that would surpass or equal the power of the United States.”5 Herein truly lies assertion of imperial prerogative: the United States will “have all the power and no one else shall have the capacity to provide a balance. . . . [It is a] declaration of absolute military supremacy throughout the globe.”6 Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, observes that this “predominance doctrine” reflects the American preference to go it alone, unconstrained by allies.7 Many in the world—the French come to mind—view the combination of preemption and predominance as insidious, an imperial overreach that goes beyond a war on terror to establish the United States not only as the world’s constable but as its final arbiter of state legitimacy.8
The National Security Strategy seeks to soften such opposition with repeated assertions that the United States acts only with the most benevolent of motives: to “create a balance of power that favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic freedom.”9 Such pieties are very likely neither convincing nor comforting to European or Chinese practitioners of realpolitik (nor to al Qaeda, for that matter), given the insistence in the NSS that the American vision of democratic governance and economic policy is the “single sustainable model for national success.”10 But they do serve to make empire palatable to a US populace that has “tended to reject the idea that our own high-minded republic might be imperial (much less imperialist) . . . [certain that Washington] did not seek to conquer territory nor, supposedly, to dominate other societies.”11

It may be true that American dominion lacks many of the indicia of classic empire—the United States does not, for example, forcibly extract resources from colonies, impose its political values and institutions by force, or direct the foreign policies of client states.12 While the operation in Iraq lends pause to the claim that the United States will not impose its values, as a general proposition America exercises its authority indirectly, preferring “seduction to coercion” (albeit perfectly prepared to use force as necessary), always with the goal of maintaining supremacy. As Andrew Bacevich notes, this preference “befits a nation founded on the conviction of its own uniqueness, [an] empire . . . like no other in history.”13 In sum, rigid academic classification should not deter “Americans [from] admitting the truth and facing up to their responsibilities as the undisputed masters of the world.”14

This American mastery comes in several forms. US economic might drives the world’s trade and markets and American political power can often shape the decisions of international bodies. In the 21st century, American “soft power” surely influences the course of human events, creating an enticing culture driven by US command of the information network. But that attractive velvet glove hides a mailed fist, the nexus of American power. The United States “has overwhelming superiority in military power, and uses that power to influence the internal behavior of other states, [acting as] an empire.”15 Televised images of American tanks rolling through the streets of Baghdad evinced the “centrality of military power to present-day American policy . . . to convey disap-
proval, change attitudes, and dictate behavior.”16 As one reviews current American military strategy and planning for the future, defense of empire, if not its expansion, seems a clear if unspoken objective.

A Ruling Capability

In the Cold War years, US military planning was “threat-based,” focused mainly on the specter of Soviet-bloc tanks racing through the Fulda Gap. With the collapse of the Soviet threat—and the subsequent seeming absence of any real threat at all—the military moved toward a “capabilities-based” posture, a shift in focus consistent with the 2002 National Security Strategy.17 A “threat-based” force was reactive and defensive in nature: the United States awaited the thrust. In contrast, a “capabilities-based” force carries with it an implication of offensive capability if not intent: the US focus is not on any particular threat as it prepares for any and all contingencies by adopting an aggressive, forward-leaning posture.

In Joint Vision 2020, the US military posits “Full Spectrum Dominance,” a doctrine that moves beyond fighting and winning conventional wars, past confronting weapons of mass destruction, to a particular attention to the “asymmetric threats—terrorists, criminals, religious crazies, two-bit strongmen with big ambitions, anarchy-minded hackers, and unscrupulous scientists peddling weapons secrets to make a buck.”18 This “capabilities-based” force provides policymakers with a suite of options to fight what Boot calls “the savage wars of peace . . . necessary to enlarge the ‘empire of liberty.’”19

The US ability to bend wills derives from several key elements, but perhaps the most important is the ubiquity of its presence worldwide, with “military bases, or base rights, in some 40 countries—giving it the same global muscle it would enjoy if it ruled those countries directly.”20 The US footprint is innocuous in most cases (often treaty rights without a physical presence, except as needed), allowing for a light touch that minimizes local resentments. Next, the United States projects power and imperial influence through its Special Forces and intelligence capabilities. Since 9/11, the United States has quietly dispersed such forces worldwide, moving “deeply into the governments, intelligence agencies, and security apparatus of many countries . . . [with] small numbers of US forces ‘advising’ (i.e., commanding) native forces, . . . in effect usurping sovereignty.”21

The use of proxies is a time-honored tradition of empire: Bacevich devotes an entire chapter of his book American Empire to comparing US proxies fighting, inter alia, in Afghanistan, to the British employing Gurkhas during the time of the Raj. When Australian Prime Minister John Howard asserted his own nation’s right to strike preemptively (following the 12 October 2002 terror attacks in Bali), his alarmed Asian neighbors accused him of playing America’s “deputy sheriff” in Southeast Asia.22

A rapid response capability, intelligence/information dominance, proxies, and air and naval power are all evolving components of American imperial power projection. That said, “lesson one in the Roman handbook for imperial
success would be a realization that it is not enough to have great military strength; the rest of the world must know that strength—and fear it.”23 The war on terror, as the Administration has oft-noted, is being fought in the shadows, as it should be. But the war against Iraq has been front-page news for nearly all of 2003, dominating the world’s consciousness, underscoring the reality of American suzerainty. The willingness on the part of the United States to use credible and massive force against Saddam Hussein, as The Washington Post speculated on 13 April 2003, did more than topple a dictator: it served notice in Pyongyang, Tehran, and Damascus that Washington will remove those who threaten US interests.24 That action is truly an exercise of imperial power, a “demonstration that the empire cannot be challenged with impunity.”25

Shocked and Awed . . . by the Check

The image of Saddam’s statue tumbling from its pedestal brings with it a visceral satisfaction; the American psyche, scarred by 9/11, anthrax attacks, color-coded security alerts, economic woes, and a general sense of unease, restored to a confident, imperial swagger. Watch out, world! But the victory comes at a cost, and the bill has yet to be paid. As Boot noted in October 2002:

[As] impressive as the American military dominance of the past decade has been, it was acquired, relatively speaking, on the cheap. America spends only about 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense, down from 4.4 percent as recently as 1993 . . . but [now] there aren’t enough troops to carry out all our commitments, and the equipment they use is aging fast. . . . [N]ext year’s [2003] defense budget increase won’t begin to cover this shortfall. . . . If America is serious about remaining the Big Enchilida, it will have to spend more on defense.”26

The expense of bases abroad, of massive deployments, of “full spectrum dominance,” is going to fall on the American taxpayer, with an economy still in the doldrums. In spending for imperial defense, the United States may shortchange domestic priorities for, as Michael Ignatieff observes, “What empires lavish abroad, they cannot spend on good republican government at home: on hospitals or roads or schools.”27 To the defense bill, add also the cost of homeland security and, of course, the as-yet-uncalculated costs of Iraqi reconstruction.

The Romans, Ottomans, and British resolved this issue easily and brutally, through the imposition of imperial levies. The US approach, bowing to both domestic and international sensibilities, is of necessity subtler, based on the principle of what Norwegian historian Geir Lundestad has characterized as “empire by invitation.”28 A good example is the arrangement that the United States has with Singapore, which agreed to pay for the construction of a naval facility that could accommodate American carriers. Singaporeans have now both an economic and security stake in the empire (not to mention plausible deniability, as they can claim that the facilities are open to any nation, even if the United States is the only likely occupant). While such direct subsidies are welcome, the costs of the imperial construct are in the last analysis defrayed on a grander scale, through globalization and a stable, open economic order that furthers, first and foremost, American prosperity. This is the aim US power ultimately means to impose and protect.

Non, Nyet, Nein

In addition to the economic accounting, there is also an intangible levy, best summed up by President Bush’s question in the aftermath of 9/11: “Why do they hate us so?” He answered the question in a typically American manner that underscores the sense of exceptionalism that informs US policy: “They hate our freedoms.” Perhaps. But a more honest answer might be that “they” hate US power and a system that “no matter how benevolent the intentions . . . will generate some violence . . . [by] those left outside the expanding walls [of empire].”29 More to the point, the weak have always envied the strong; it is a natural human reaction.

If foreign envy were the only concern of US policymakers, the wailings of the French, Russians, or Germans would be as ephemeral whispers lost in the rising American chorus. But these allied fulminations represent only the least threatening manifestation of challenge to the American empire. There are potential great-power rivals. China is most often cited as the likeliest candidate. Several respected US research institutions have concluded, however, that, “China [remains far] from the threshold of global military power . . . [and that] the formidable US lead over China in military technology may well expand in the 21st century.”30 Hobbled by a shrinking population and a bankrupt social infrastructure, Russia’s bleak demographics leave it weak into the foreseeable future. The European Union, wired into the information age and potentially militarily capable, could emerge as a peer competitor, assuming it achieves actual political integration. But EU nations share US democratic values and a commitment to open trade and market systems. They grumble at US dominance, but they are unlikely to truly undermine an order that has brought them prosperity as well.

The absence of great power rivals provides little comfort, however. In their place, “a viper’s nest of perils . . . that run the gamut from terror and international organized crime to rogue states and genocidal violence fueled by ethnic hatred” challenges the established order.31 Professor John Keegan recommends that, in response, “the great work of disarming tribes, sects, warlords, and criminals—a principal achievement of monarchs in the 17th century and empires in the 19th” be revived today.32 Combating forces that have typically nibbled at the edges of empire has heretofore “been trivialized as hovering somehow beneath the dignity of serious strategists and military planners.”33 The physical scars of 9/11—as well as its lingering economic aftershocks—make clear that the United States can no longer afford the luxury of that conceit.

Still and all, militarily engaging the Lilliputians might be the easiest element of a complex problem. Even in their most terrible forms, transnational terrorism, rogue states, and international crime are dwarfed by American power. The counterstrikes the United States can expect from al Qaeda, the narco-traffickers, and the disaffected will be as pinpricks in the flanks of empire. It is crucial that US responses, while firm, be measured against other interests. The danger ultimately lies not so much in what others do, but in what the United States does or does not.

Of this World and In It

Ironically, the United States, the nation of immigrants, “remains a profoundly provincial, monolingual nation . . . not [much] interested in the rest of the world and certainly [not knowing] much about it.”34 Yet, as Bacevich argues, “America’s purpose is the creation of an open and integrated international order based on the principles of democratic capitalism, with the United States as the ultimate guarantor of order and enforcer of norms.”35 Can the United States restore order and lead a world in which it has little interest and knowledge?

It is a critical question because the nature and ultimate success or failure of the American empire depends on its answer. If Americans become a truly insular people, suspicious of the world and of its motives, the nation is likely to head down unsavory paths, to an empire bereft of the values that give the United States a legitimate claim to leadership. In the end, in that event, it will become an empire that will have drifted from its bedrock moorings and it will fail. The better road would have Americans undertake their responsibility to genuinely engage the world they purport to lead, building relationships that will both facilitate the restoration of imperial order and soften the resentments that breed chaos. There is no guarantee that such an empire will succeed—history has no precedent—but in the effort Americans will have put behind them the rubble of 9/11, returning to the path upon which they were embarked, while remaining true to themselves.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Saddam faces months of interrogation before trial
The capture of the Iraqi leader was the result of painstaking intelligence - but it has not stopped guerrilla attacks. And now the US must break him down

Ed Vulliamy in Samarra, Paul Harris in New York, Jason Burke and David Rose in London
Sunday December 21, 2003
The Observer

The team had been working hard. In a secret base in the centre of Baghdad 16 computer and intelligence experts attached to a dedicated American military intelligence unit had been spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for six months building one of the most sophisticated computer models ever used in a manhunt. Their labour paid off. Amid 62,500 connections logged by the team, there was one of crucial importance. It led directly to Saddam.

The programme, known as `The Mongo Link`, charts the personal associations of nearly 9,000 people who are, or rather were, seen as crucial in the hunt for the ex-dictator. It was started with four names. Since then analysts, using data from Iraqi informants, military patrols, electronic intercepts and a range of other sources, turned the chart into a `living, breathing document` revealing, the complex family, tribal and state dynamics that allowed Saddam to stay in power, and then to survive after being ousted.

But late in November one man in particular began to catch the eye of the Americans: a balding, paunchy, middle-aged veteran of Saddam`s most secret personal guards. Early this month, raids in Tikrit, Saddam`s birthplace and a hotbed of resistance to the US-led occupation, failed to find him. A second set of operations in Samarra, 25 miles south, was fruitless too. On 12 December, the man was seized in Baghdad. Less than 36 hours later, Saddam had been located in a fetid underground chamber in a ramshackle farm.

This weekend, Saddam is in custody, almost certainly held in the cell prepared for him in the massively fortified US base at Baghdad Airport. The humiliating lack of resistance the `Lion of Babylon` showed to his captors and the ecstatic response of much of the Iraqi population provided a welcome boost for the increasingly troubled coalition in Iraq and its political masters.

Although initial interrogations produced little, documents found with Saddam have revealed the names of Iraqis who also passed on information to insurgent cells about US troop movements. The US military used them to put together details of up to 14 cells. They also showed Saddam had recently had direct contact with several key resistance suspects around Mosul. Three former Iraqi generals were soon arrested.

But the questions remain. Last week was one of the most violent since President Bush declared `mission accomplished` on 1 May. A series of suicide bomb attacks and drive-by shootings claimed at least 40 Iraqi lives in the four days after Saddam`s capture. Yesterday, three Iraqi policemen were killed by US soldiers in error and a former Baathist mayor was shot dead. The next US soldier to die will be the two hundredth since Bush`s declaration. Will Saddam be tried, and by whom and where? Will he face the death penalty? And, most pressing of all, will his capture weaken the growing resistance?

In Samarra, Al-Alawi, who runs a restaurant in the centre of town, said Saddam had let everyone down.

`Why could he not have killed himself, like Hitler, or died shooting, like his sons?` Al-Alawi told The Observer. `For all those years, we thought he was a bad man, but a real man. Now, he is not even that. Now, there are some people protesting that he is arrested, some people gleeful that he is arrested, and the killing is worse than ever.`

Samarra lies in the heart of the Sunni triangle, the area of land west and north-west of Baghdad where resistance is fiercest. Cities such as Samarra, along with Tikrit, Bayji, Falluja and Ramadi, have become battle zones where US soldiers have died and hundreds more have been wounded. The Sunni tribes who live in the region benefited most from Saddam`s reign. Now, stripped of the privileges and power that the Baathist regime brought them, they are fighting hard.

The reason, Al-Alawi said, was simple. `If there is one thing worse than Saddam, it is being invaded by the foreigners. Especially American foreigners.`

Columns of tanks now prowl the `liberated` city 24 hours a day, kicking up the dust, scattering children. Roads are randomly closed and rolls of barbed wire laid by the Fourth Infantry Division, the unit that captured Saddam. Local Iraqi police paramilitaries screen all cars, wearing balaclavas to hide their features. One local doctor, Aisar Al-Samarrai, complained that his clinic was regularly hit by gunfire.

According to Sheikh Adnan Thabit, who sits on the town`s religious council, `there is a now a full stand-off between the resistance and the Americans`.

Humvee-mounted patrols comb the sand-coloured residential areas street by street, house by house. Every dawn there are raids. Some 120 suspects were arrested last week. The resistance mounts daily attacks, gaining in sophistication. Once it was small-arms fire, now it is mines and bombs. Earlier this month a convoy delivering new `Saddam-free` currency to a bank was ambushed. The Americans claim they killed between 40 and 58 resistance fighters. Locals say the dead were mostly innocent civilians and some Iranian pilgrims.

Graffiti all over the city make the sentiments clear. `Spies: hide your faces now ... Tomorrow we will show who you are,` says one. Some slogans, `American soldiers: Our armed struggle continues without end endlessly` are in English. Another, similar, message scrawled across a school wall, was promptly demolished by a tank.

The resistance in Samarra is not hard to find. In a side street is `Hasni`, with regulation leather jacket and machine gun. He told The Observer why he had taken up arms. `This is not Tikrit. This is not a Baath Party city. We in Samarra are the oldest tribe of Iraq, and Saddam was afraid to come here. We are fighting a foreigner, not for Saddam, not for Islam, but for Samarra and Iraq.`

`Hasni` stressed it would be unfair to `criticise the Americans for everything they do`. `When they do good, we must say so. But they are making a big mistake to put back into power all the corrupt people and treat us as slaves and try to steal our economy. While they try this, we have lost our wealth and have many young men without work.`

Hasni`s comrade, Mahmoud, adds: `Each time they kill a civilian, they make a fighter in that person`s family. Day after day, they are creating more resistance.`

The Americans still know little about their enemy. There are former Baathists, Islamic militants, mercenary criminals and nationalists. `The Mongo Link` is a powerful weapon against individuals but has limited use against a fragmented and varied resistance. `We still only have a sketchy idea of who we are up against on the ground,` one US intelligence source said.

It is this intelligence deficit the Americans hope Saddam`s interrogation will fill. They have built up a huge `playbook` on Saddam. The playbook - the file of questions, timelines, psychological profiles and analysis that an interrogation team can use against a subject - is thick. It is not even being used yet. A team of experts from the CIA - which will head up Saddam`s interrogation - are still updating it.

So far the interrogation has been basic and the ex-dictator`s mood has been defiant, intelligence officials said. At first questioners wanted to know any details of planned attacks on US troops. Saddam said he knew nothing and was believed.

Now the interrogation has settled into the start of a process of detailed questioning that will probably take several months. So far, the tone has been set by Saddam`s first words when he emerged from his hiding hole and said: `I am Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, and I am willing to negotiate.`

`That was a fairly delusional statement and also fit in well with his huge ego,` said Mike Ritz, a former US military interrogator. `But it also showed he was willing to talk because you can`t negotiate without talking.`

Former members of the SAS told The Observer their training involved learning what knowledge to reveal when - rather than how to avoid revealing anything at all. `Everyone will break eventually,` one said. `It`s a case of doing as little damage as possible when you do.`

The priority for soldiers, the ex-SAS men said, was to avoid giving away information of current or imminent operations. `To be of tactical use, information has to be obtained within 24 or 48 hours. It looks like Saddam has held out long enough to avoid compromising people,` he said.

Leaked transcripts from the initial questioning of Saddam at a holding cell at Baghdad Airport show his defiance. When one official asked: `How are you?` Saddam replied: `I am sad because my people are in bondage.` Saddam has told his questioners he is still President and that he would win any election, and he has repeated his denials over weapons of mass destruction.

Jerrold Post, a former CIA psychologist who drew up the agency`s profile of Saddam, defined him as a `malignant narcissist`. `Underneath that defiant facade there is a really hollow inner man.`

American experts have tried several textbook tricks to try to break therough that facade. When they brought in four members of the Iraqi governing council to speak to Saddam, it was not only for identification purposes. Though he was rude and aggressive to the men, calling them `collaborators` and `rubbish`, the move also spelled out the new reversal of power to Saddam. The Americans have also been showing him videos of anti-Saddam celebrations, the digging up of mass graves and `torture movies` made by his secret police to be sent to the families of victims. Saddam has dismissed his victims as `criminals` and `thugs` who deserved what they got. He claims he was a `fair and just` ruler.

As the main interrogation gets under way and the playbook comes into use Saddam will face questions about aspects of his rule from torture to weapons of mass destruction. It is likely his questioners will employ teams of polygraphers, body language experts and voice specialists. Every session will be filmed so it can be studied again later. Although the CIA will lead the interrogation, members of the Pentagon-based unit the Defence Intelligence Agency and the FBI will also be involved.

A `good cop, bad cop` tactic will be used. Other possibili ties include trying to anger him by having a woman or a junior officer interrogate him. Or trying to flatter him by having a higher ranking officer talk to him.

Saddam`s cell is windowless and his interrogations are lengthy. Although no physical techniques, such as sleep deprivation, have been used on him, officials say he is probably disorientated. `He ends up being sleep-deprived anyway,` said one intelligence source.

Quite how much any disclosure by Saddam will help - at least in the short run - is unclear. So far, it appears he played little or no role in directing the attacks. He was instead a figurehead who received reports on some of the attacks as he moved from one hiding place to another.

One key factor in the interrogation is the fact that Saddam is likely to face trial within a year. The most likely option is a trial in Baghdad by the Iraqi war crimes tribunal established this month, most likely taking place next summer after a new transitional government comes into being. Judges and prosecutors would be Iraqis, possibly including exiles. They would almost certainly have the power to impose the death penalty, which President Bush would welcome. There is, however, room for compromise if human rights organisations can exert sufficient pressure. The key element will be to make the trial appear authentic in the eyes of Iraqis. No one expects a swift resolution of Iraq`s problems, or a sudden end to resentment of the occupiers.

`The Americans have these countries in the region like Kuwait which they control like a television remote. Switch on: speak. Switch off: shut up,` said Ali Al-Alawi in Samarra. `They think that now they have Saddam, Iraq will be subject to remote control. But they are wrong.`


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Sniper fire over captured headlines
Saddam`s discovery forced the papers out of their fox holes, writes Peter Preston

Peter Preston
Sunday December 21, 2003
The Observer

The joy was more heavily nuanced than unconfined. For the Daily Mail, speaking suddenly on behalf of millions of Iraqis, Saddam Hussein`s capture represented `a moment of joy`. Just so, echoed Robert Fisk in the Independent, this was `momentary joy, not jubilation`. By which they both meant that any professed happiness must swiftly pass, strained through gritted teeth.

Not everyone felt the same, of course. `We Got Him!`, proclaimed Rupert Murdoch`s New York Post after the `broken self` of the great dictator born in a mud hut `returned, not only to the mud hut, but the hole under the mud hut`.

Most American papers - perhaps inevitably - rejoiced, and carried on rejoicing. But on British newsstands the war was being fought all over again.

Welcome to what the Sun called `Satan`s grotto`. Bush and Blair stood vindicated, according to the Bun`s Richard Littlejohn: `A tyrant has been toppled, a country liberated. They were right. The anti-war brigade were wrong.` Janet Daley in the Telegraph, was `stunned with admiration at their mental agility`, opened sniper fire on `Guardian comment writers, BBC interviewers and Labour backbenchers` everywhere. The heavy mob were taking no prisoners. The heavy boots would keep on going in.

But it was, for once, fair enough to find such conflict rejoined; and Daley`s column (`How to deal with irritatingly good news`) did not, for once, seem so wide of the mark.

We life members of the thinking classes, chattering about the satanic grot of Fox News and Murdochiana, naturally acquit ourselves of bias from the start. We are the maligned truth-tellers, the traduced, the misrepresented. Yet, whoever we are, how do we read Fisk`s front page lead story on Mud Hut Monday? `"Ladies and gentleman - we got him,` crowed Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Iraq.`

Is `crow` in that context quite your chosen verb of neutral independence? Do we really - on day one - want to be informed that, according to `more and more Iraqis` confiding in Fisk, only fear of Saddam`s return has been preventing them joining the resistance to US occupation. `Now that fear has been taken away. So the nightmare is over - and the nightmare is about to begin. For both the Iraqis and for us.`

Fisk is a garlanded, dynamic, vivid reporter, one of the best in the world. Not always right, but always compulsive reading. But he was given a half-page column inside the same morning`s Indie to declare `the war is not about Saddam but foreign occupation`, and `the killings will go on`. Did we need all that as front page `news` as well?

Rival doubters were slower off the mark. Despite Daley, the Guardian played its lead story straight (no crowing, only `dramatic news`) and its leader writer spoke `of a more truly liberating, emancipating moment than the bloodily chaotic fall of Baghdad`.

The Mirror wasn`t far off the Sun as Piers Morgan congratulated Tony Blair on his `neat solution: hand Saddam over once Iraq has its own government and justice system and leave them to it`. Mirror guns fell briefly silent.

The other tack was almost instant forgetfulness. Monday had been the Mail`s moment of joy, `a good day for Iraq and the wider world`. But by Tuesday Paul Dacre`s leader writer was back on message, lamenting that `the tragedy is that the conflict is far from over`. Meanwhile, Monday`s 12 pages of `incisive reports and analysis` had been supplanted by a front page shouting: `£16,000 - that`s what the average asylum seeker`s family gets a year in hand-outs (and it`s all tax free!)`.

By Wednesday we were on to an even more memorably loathsome lead story: `Deja View`, an exclusive Mail revelation about TV serving up more repeats and old films than ever this Yule. And don`t mention the tragedy of Iraq again, right or wrong, till it`s over. Tidings of discomfort and minimal joy. General Dacre`s brigadiers are dreaming of a white-flag Christmas.

Compact views


There was, though, a second - totally non-ideological - twist to the seizing of Saddam. Here, for the first time since `quality compacts` began, was what the trade calls an `avalanche story`, a yarn so huge and multi-faceted that mountains of it roll from computer terminals and on to the page. How would the new tabloids, still hugging themselves over improved sales figures, cope?

Pretty well in technical terms. Alternative editions, great and small, went out with a swing. But, more than ever, you also saw that this `compact` revolution is still only half-baked. The broadsheet Guardian cleared a space bigger than any tabloid for a stark picture of `Saddam the prisoner`. A broadsheet Times did almost the same instinctive thing. But the tabloid Times just shrank everything, including the picture, and wound up looking restrained almost to the point of ennui.

The Independent, at least on that first, pulsating day, took its future in both hands. Its tabloid - front page largely white on black, Saddam`s beard thrown into stark relief - carried an authentic punch. The first 11 pages of news coverage, too, seemed to have been designed and orchestrated for themselves, not as some afterthought from the broadsheet. One morning soon, maybe, the whole Indie will be like this.

But not yet. By Tuesday - the day for touring that hole in the ground - both compacts had settled for neatness rather than impact and left it to their big brothers to do the newsstand business. Which is where particular British problems set in.

There aren`t any definitive figures, but around three out of every four national papers are bought, unordered, from newsagents each morning. Home deliveries, like circulations themselves, keep on shrivelling. If you`re an editor who wants to sell opportunistically in an increasingly promiscuous market, you have to do your selling up front, on the only page the passing punter sees.

Novelty helps, of course. The tabloid shape of the new Independent and Times have a novelty that also seems to fit long-term with the sardine facts of commuter life. But on avalanche days they can always be swept away. The red-top tabloids, running wild, can make them look tame: so can the Mail and Express, going for broke.

The real trouble, though, is that the quality broadsheets - including the ones in their family - can currently do it better as well. Not just on the outside, but on the inside, too, where a dozen or more text-packed, single-theme tabloid pages offer too little variation, just turning and turning.

The Europe of quality tabloids doesn`t have that difficulty. It mostly lacks a red-top press anyway. It has home delivery and upmarket readers to keep it suitably calm.

Neatness is a virtue. But what happens, say, in a year, when all our four quality broadsheets are solo tabloids and Osama bin Laden finally hops out of his hole in the ground? You have to look sober and stylish, because it`s expected. But you also have to get excited - and competitive.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Clare Short: A `war` fought on half-truths and deceptions
21 December 2003


Christmas could give us time to reflect on, and the New Year the opportunity to determine, how we might move forward in Iraq and the Middle East and correct the terrible mistakes of 2003.

Saddam Hussein has been found in a hole in the ground. And Colonel Gaddafi`s six-year journey to respectability has reached its culmination. This may have brought temporary comfort to George Bush and Tony Blair. But any pretence that this means that the tactics of their so-called "war on terror" are succeeding is sadly false. Obviously the news about Gaddafi is welcome, but it has been a long process, and suggestions that events in Libya are linked to the war in Iraq are unfounded. Gaddafi started six years ago by breaking off his contacts with the IRA. He then paid compensation for the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and moved on to make arrangements for the Lockerbie trial and the offer of compensation for the victims` families.

The co-ordination of the Blair-Bush press conferences on Friday night claiming a big success in the "war on terror" has a pathetic tone that reflects the Prime Minister`s desperation and the two men`s continuing belief that they can prosecute their "war" with half-truths and deceptions.

The state in which Saddam was found demonstrates very clearly that he was not organising the resistance. The challenge now is to bring him to trial for all the evil he has done. This should include the war on Iran, which would expose the support he received from the US and the UK as well as the monstrous cruelty inflicted on his people. Already, there is doubt that the trial will be properly handled. The Coalition Provisional Authority - which does not take big decisions without US guidance - has decided that the crimes of the Saddam years should be handled by an Iraqi court without international engagement. This is surely a mistake. Getting the trial right will be crucial for the future of Iraq. All the injustice must be exposed and the perpetrators held to account. In Bosnia and Rwanda, we have seen how important it is for people to see the evidence of former dictators being held accountable for their crimes. The best available model is surely that of Sierra Leone, which means a court established under UN authority, with international support but established within the country in which the atrocities were committed.

It is also unlikely that the capture of Saddam will end the resistance. Iraqis are a proud and nationalistic people. Those who worked for the UN Oil for Food Programme understood that. It is clear that the core of the resistance came from the Sunni heartlands, the group that did well under Saddam and from which much of the leadership of the army and security services was drawn. They are joined by a growing number of Iraqis who feel humiliated or are seeking revenge for the suffering of their families. On top of this, we now have foreign fighters. There was no link between Iraq and al-Qa`ida before the war. There is now - the suicide bombs are evidence of this. The Middle East is crowded with angry young people who believe the US has propped up dictatorships, misused the region`s oil and supported Israel in its constant breaches of international law, and therefore carries major responsibility for the oppression and suffering of the Palestinian people.

Most of these young people would not support the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden. But they may well be willing to link with the loose network that is al-Qa`ida to join in the resistance to American occupation.

The Shia people of Iraq, who suffered terribly under Saddam Hussein, have held back in joining the resistance. Their leadership is clear about how much they have to gain from democracy. But the question here is does the US (accompanied by the UK as the faithful poodle) really want democracy in Iraq? This would almost certainly mean an anti-American, anti-Israeli government with half the world`s oil reserves. The US wants an exit strategy, but it also wants a pro-American government in Iraq.

Both may not be possible. A sustainable exit strategy requires a US president who understands that he is unlikely to be able to exit from Iraq or reunite the world in opposition to al-Qa`ida without a settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. This could bring benefits to all because a just settlement of Israel/Palestine could lead to agreement that all WMD - including Israel`s considerable nuclear capacity - should be removed from the region. Such a settlement would provide a real opportunity for democracy and development to spread across the region.

The question is, how will we get to this beneficial solution? I am afraid that the consequences of the errors made by Blair in his handling of the Iraq crisis mean that, as long as he is there, we will have little influence and he will continue to be taken for granted by the US and written off by Europe. But the forces of history won`t be stopped, indeed, will probably grow. Thus Iraq is likely to continue to cost American lives and an even larger number of terrible injuries and mental breakdowns - the numbers of which are being kept very quiet. If the Shia join the resistance, the situation will become very much more difficult in the south, and for our own soldiers. And if all of this goes on, the costs will cause further resentment in the US; the $87bn (£54bn), which recently caused trouble with Congress, covered the costs of less than one year in Iraq. Equally, UK expenditure in Iraq, while our public finances are under pressure, could see our public and parliament begin to chafe at the growing costs to our own treasury.

The best scenario would be for Howard Dean to be elected president in 2004 with Wesley Clark as vice-president. The American people would have voted for the fastest possible exit from Iraq and a reversal of the tax cuts to fund a comprehensive health-care system. By then - if the resistance persists - the only way out will be to settle Palestine and to internationalise Iraq.

This means giving the UN the authority it should have been given at the end of the war. A special representative of the Secretary-General should be appointed to consult the Iraqis about the best possible way of selecting an interim government and a procedure to draw up a constitution and get to elections. US and UK troops would be withdrawn and international - probably blue-helmeted - troops deployed while urgent action is taken to help Iraq to build its own army and police force. The IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and UN system would then provide support to the interim Iraqi government in carrying forward economic and social reform. In these circumstances, Pakistan, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries would be likely to offer forces to help the Iraqis stabilise their country, and coalition forces could leave.

The less optimistic scenario for 2004 is that Bush is elected and Blair limps on. In this case, I fear the resistance will grow; al-Qa`ida will strengthen; bitterness and suffering will deepen and the multilateral system remainweak. But I cannot see how the present strategy can work, and therefore I hope and pray that either through the ballot box or an intelligent understanding of their self-interest, US policy will change and the world move forward in 2004.

Clare Short was International Development Secretary, 1997-2003. Alan Watkins is away
21 December 2003 11:08



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Friday, December 19th, 2003
Letters the Troops Have Sent Me... by Michael Moore


Dear Friends,

As we approach the holidays, I`ve been thinking a lot about our kids who are in the armed forces serving in Iraq. I`ve received hundreds of letters from our troops in Iraq -- and they are telling me something very different from what we are seeing on the evening news.

What they are saying to me, often eloquently and in heart-wrenching words, is that they were lied to -- and this war has nothing to do with the security of the United States of America.

I`ve written back and spoken on the phone to many of them and I`ve asked a few of them if it would be OK if I posted their letters on my website and they`ve said yes. They do so at great personal risk (as they may face disciplinary measures for exercising their right to free speech). I thank them for their bravery.

Lance Corporal George Batton of the United States Marine Corps, who returned from Iraq in September (after serving in MP company Alpha), writes the following:

“You`d be surprised at how many of the guys I talked to in my company and others believed that the president`s scare about Saddam`s WMD was a bunch of bullshit and that the real motivation for this war was only about money. There was also a lot of crap that many companies, not just marine companies, had to go through with not getting enough equipment to fulfill their missions when they crossed the border. It was a miracle that our company did what it did the two months it was staying in Iraq during the war…. We were promised to go home on June 8th, and found out that it was a lie and we got stuck doing missions for an extra three months. Even some of the most radical conservatives in our company including our company gunnery sergeant got a real bad taste in their mouth about the Marine corps, and maybe even president Bush.”

Here`s what Specialist Mike Prysner of the U.S. Army wrote to me:

“Dear Mike -- I’m writing this without knowing if it’ll ever get to you…I’m writing it from the trenches of a war (that’s still going on,) not knowing why I’m here or when I’m leaving. I’ve toppled statues and vandalized portraits, while wearing an American flag on my sleeve, and struggling to learn how to understand… I joined the army as soon as I was eligible – turned down a writing scholarship to a state university, eager to serve my country, ready to die for the ideals I fell in love with. Two years later I found myself moments away from a landing onto a pitch black airstrip, ready to charge into a country I didn`t believe I belonged in, with your words (from the Oscars) repeating in my head. My time in Iraq has always involved finding things to convince myself that I can be proud of my actions; that I was a part of something just. But no matter what pro-war argument I came up with, I pictured my smirking commander-in-chief, thinking he was fooling a nation…"

An Army private, still in Iraq and wishing to remain anonymous, writes:

“I would like to tell you how difficult it is to serve under a man who was never elected. Because he is the president and my boss, I have to be very careful as to who and what i say about him. This also concerns me a great deal... to limit the military`s voice is to limit exactly what America stands for... and the greater percentage of us feel completely underpowered. He continually sets my friends, my family, and several others in a kind of danger that frightens me beyond belief. I know several other soldiers who feel the same way and discuss the situation with me on a regular basis.”

Jerry Oliver of the U.S. Army, who has just returned from Baghdad, writes:

“I have just returned home from "Operation Iraqi Freedom". I spent 5 months in Baghdad, and a total of 3 years in the U.S. Army. I was recently discharged with Honorable valor and returned to the States only to be horrified by what I`ve seen my country turn into. I`m now 22 years old and have discovered America is such a complicated place to live, and moreover, Americans are almost oblivious to what`s been happening to their country. America has become "1984." Homeland security is teaching us to spy on one another and forcing us to become anti-social. Americans are willingly sacrificing our freedoms in the name of security, the same Freedoms I was willing to put my life on the line for. The constitution is in jeopardy. As Gen. Tommy Franks said, (broken down of course) One more terrorist attack and the constitution will hold no meaning.”

And a Specialist in the U.S. Army wrote to me this week about the capture of Saddam Hussein:

“Wow, 130,000 troops on the ground, nearly 500 deaths and over a billion dollars a day, but they caught a guy living in a hole. Am I supposed to be dazzled?”

There are lots more of these, straight from the soldiers who have been on the front lines and have seen first hand what this war is really about.

I have also heard from their friends and relatives, and from other veterans. A mother writing on behalf of her son (whose name we have withheld) wrote:

“My son said that this is the worst it`s been since the "end" of the war. He said the troops have been given new rules of engagement, and that they are to "take out" any persons who aggress on the Americans, even if it results in "collateral" damage. Unfortunately, he did have to kill someone in self defense and was told by his commanding officer ‘Good kill.’

"My son replied ‘You just don`t get it, do you?’

"Here we are...Vietnam all over again.”

From a 56 year old Navy veteran, relating a conversation he had with a young man who was leaving for Iraq the next morning:

“What disturbed me most was when I asked him what weapons he carried as a truck driver. He told me the new M-16, model blah blah blah, stuff never made sense to me even when I was in. I asked him what kind of side arm they gave him and his fellow drivers. He explained, "Sir, Reservists are not issued side arms or flack vests as there was not enough money to outfit all the Reservists, only Active Personnel". I was appalled to say the least.

"Bush is a jerk agreed, but I can`t believe he is this big an Asshole not providing protection and arms for our troops to fight HIS WAR!”

From a 40-year old veteran of the Marine Corps:

“Why is it that we are forever waving the flag of sovereignty, EXCEPT when it concerns our financial interests in other sovereign states? What gives us the right to tell anyone else how they should govern themselves, and live their lives? Why can`t we just lead the world by example? I mean no wonder the world hates us, who do they get to see? Young assholes in uniforms with guns, and rich, old, white tourists! Christ, could we put up a worse first impression?”

(To read more from my Iraq mailbag -- and to read these above letters in full -- go to my website: http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/dudewheresmycountry/…

Remember back in March, once the war had started, how risky it was to make any anti-war comments to people you knew at work or school or, um, at awards ceremonies? One thing was for sure -- if you said anything against the war, you had BETTER follow it up immediately with this line: "BUT I SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" Failing to do that meant that you were not only unpatriotic and un-American, your dissent meant that YOU were putting our kids in danger, that YOU might be the reason they lose their lives. Dissent was only marginally tolerated IF you pledged your "support" for our soldiers.

Of course, you needed to do no such thing. Why? Because people like you have ALWAYS supported "the troops." Who are these troops? They are our poor, our working class. Most of them enlisted because it was about the only place to get a job or receive the guarantee of a college education. You, my good friends, have ALWAYS, through your good works, your contributions, your activism, your votes, SUPPORTED these very kids who come from the other side of the tracks. You NEVER need to be defensive when it comes to your "support" for the "troops" -- you are the only ones who have ALWAYS been there for them.

It is Mr. Bush and his filthy rich cronies -- whose sons and daughters will NEVER see a day in a uniform -- they are the ones who do NOT support our troops. Our soldiers joined the military and, in doing so, offered to give THEIR LIVES for US if need be. What a tremendous gift that is -- to be willing to die so that you and I don`t have to! To be willing to shed their blood so that we may be free. To serve in our place, so that WE don`t have to serve. What a tremendous act of selflessness and generosity! Here they are, these 18, 19, and 20-year olds, most of whom have had to suffer under an unjust economic system that is set up NOT to benefit THEM -- these kids who have lived their first 18 years in the worst parts of town, going to the most miserable schools, living in danger and learning often to go without, watching their parents struggle to get by and then be humiliated by a system that is always looking to make life harder for them by cutting their benefits, their education, their libraries, their fire and police, their future.

And then, after this miserable treatment, these young men and women, instead of coming after US to demand a more just society, they go and join the army to DEFEND us and our way of life! It boggles the mind, doesn`t it? They not only deserve our thanks, they deserve a big piece of the pie that we dine on, those of us who never have to worry about taking a bullet while we fret over which Palm Pilot to buy the nephew for Christmas.

In fact, all that these kids in the army ask for in return from us is our promise that we never send them into harm`s way unless it is for the DEFENSE of our nation, to protect us from being killed by "the enemy."

And that promise, my friends, has been broken. It has been broken in the worst way imaginable. We have sent them into war NOT to defend us, not to protect us, not to spare the slaughter of innocents or allies. We have sent them to war so Bush and Company can control the second largest supply of oil in the world. We have sent them into war so that the Vice President`s company can bilk the government for billions of dollars. We have sent them into war based on a lie of weapons of mass destruction and the lie that Saddam helped plan 9-11 with Osama bin Laden.

By doing all of this, Mr. Bush has proven that it is HE who does not support our troops. It is HE who has put their lives in danger, and it is HE who is responsible for the nearly 500 American kids who have now died for NO honest, decent reason whatsoever.

The letters I`ve received from the friends and relatives of our kids over there make it clear that they are sick of this war and they are scared to death that they may never see their loved ones again. It breaks my heart to read these letters. I wish there was something I could do. I wish there was something we all could do.

Maybe there is. As Christmas approaches (and Hanukkah begins tonight), I would like to suggest a few things each of us could do to make the holidays a bit brighter -- if not safer -- for our troops and their families back home.

1. Many families of soldiers are hurting financially, especially those families of reservists and National Guard who are gone from the full-time jobs ("just one weekend a month and we`ll pay for your college education!"). You can help them by contacting the Armed Forces Emergency Relief Funds at http://www.afrtrust.org/ (ignore the rah-rah military stuff and remember that this is money that will help out these families who are living in near-poverty). Each branch has their own relief fund, and the money goes to help the soldiers and families with paying for food and rent, medical and dental expenses, personal needs when pay is delayed, and funeral expenses. You can find more ways to support the troops, from buying groceries for their families to donating your airline miles so they can get home for a visit, by going here.

2. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our bombs and indiscriminate shooting. We must help protect them and their survivors. You can do so by supporting the Quakers` drive to provide infant care kits to Iraqi hospitals—find out more here: http://www.afsc.org/iraq/relief/default.shtm. You can also help the people of Iraq by supporting the Iraqi Red Crescent Society—here’s how to contact them: http://www.ifrc.org/address/iq.asp, or you can make an online donation through the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies by going here: http://www.ifrc.org/HELPNOW/donate/donate_iraq.asp.

3. With 130,000 American men and women currently in Iraq, every community in this country has either sent someone to fight in this war or is home to family members of someone fighting in this war. Organize care packages through your local community groups, activist groups, and churches and send them to these young men and women. The military no longer accepts packages addressed to “Any Soldier,” so you’ll have to get their names first. Figure out who you can help from your area, and send them books, CDs, games, footballs, gloves, blankets—anything that may make their extended (and extended and extended…) stay in Iraq a little brighter and more comfortable. You can also sponsor care packages to American troops through the USO: http://www.usocares.org/.

4. Want to send a soldier a free book or movie? I’ll start by making mine available for free to any soldier serving in Iraq. Just send me their name and address in Iraq (or, if they have already left Iraq, where they are now) and the first thousand emails I get at [e-mail] will receive a free copy of "Dude..." or a free “Bowling…” DVD.

5. Finally, we all have to redouble our efforts to end this war and bring the troops home. That`s the best gift we could give them -- get them out of harm`s way ASAP and insist that the U.S. go back to the UN and have them take over the rebuilding of Iraq (with the US and Britain funding it, because, well, we have to pay for our mess). Get involved with your local peace group—you can find one near where you live by visiting United for Peace, at: http://www.unitedforpeace.org and the Vietnam Veterans Against War: http://www.vvaw.org/contact/. A large demonstration is being planned for March 20, check here for more details: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2136. To get a “Bring Them Home Now” bumper sticker or a poster for your yard, go here: http://bringthemhomenow.org/yellowribbon_graphics/index.html… Also, back only anti-war candidates for Congress and President (Kucinich, Dean, Clark, Sharpton).

I know it feels hopeless. That`s how they want us to feel. Don`t give up. We owe it to these kids, the troops WE SUPPORT, to get them the hell outta there and back home so they can help organize the drive to remove the war profiteers from office next November.

To all who serve in our armed forces, to their parents and spouses and loved ones, we offer to you the regrets of millions and the promise that we will right this wrong and do whatever we can to thank you for offering to risk your lives for us. That your life was put at risk for Bush`s greed is a disgrace and a travesty, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime.

Please be safe, come home soon, and know that our thoughts and prayers are with you during this season when many of us celebrate the birth of the prince of "peace."

Yours,

Michael Moore
[e-mail]
www.michaelmoore.com

[Joerver]

Bush`s second coup aids election race
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
21 December 2003


The announcement by Libya has given President Bush his second coup in a week and delivered a resounding blow against Howard Dean, the man most likely to be his challenger in next year`s presidential race.

When Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole near Tikrit last weekend, Mr Dean pointed out that his capture had done nothing to make America safer - an analysis shared by many observers. Just six days later, however, the White House has been able to respond with what was presented as the scalp of a second dictator, purportedly brought into line by the Bush doctrine.

This time Mr Dean will find it much more difficult to counter. No matter that Libya`s announcement was fuelled largely by simple economics, in the American heartlands where next year`s presidential election will be fought, Tripoli`s decision will be spun as another capitulation by a dangerous "madman" to the "tough" stance of Mr Bush and his ally Tony Blair, whose threats are backed up, of course, by their own vast arsenals of conventional and non-conventional weapons. It has also conveniently distracted attention from the failure to find any WMD in Iraq.

In reality, Libya has been making extensive efforts in recent years to return to the international fold and reopen the lucrative trade it once enjoyed with the West. Libya has the world`s seventh largest oil reserves and Western oil companies have been lobbying Washington to lift the sanctions that were imposed in 1986 in response to Libyan terror attacks. Last year, the head of Libya`s National Oil Corporation held meetings with representatives from Conoco, Marathon, Amerada Hess and Occidental to discuss deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"What forced Gaddafi to act was a combination of things," Ray Takeyh, a Libya expert at the National Defence University, said. "UN sanctions after Lockerbie, international isolation after the Soviet Union`s collapse, and internal problems that led to domestic unrest by Islamists and forces within the military."

UN sanctions were formally lifted in September after Tripoli accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $10m (£5.6m) in instalments to the relatives of each of the 270 victims. Under the deal Libya paid an initial $4m but said the remaining $6m would only be paid once America lifted its own, separate sanctions and removed Tripoli from the State Department lists of countries that support terrorism.

None the less, Mr Bush may find it difficult in an election year to normalise relations with a leader who Ronald Reagan said should be "a pariah in the world community". Susan Cohen, whose only child, Theodora, was among the Lockerbie victims, signalled the views of many when she said: "I am in a state of sickened shock. This was strictly a political, commercial decision. I`m not a fool. I know it`s oil and money interests."
21 December 2003 11:27



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

A boy and his father at the edge of Ad Dwar, near the compound where Saddam Hussein was captured. The compound can be seen over the man`s right shoulder.

December 21, 2003
As a Fugitive, Hussein Stayed Close to Home
By JOHN F. BURNS
and ERIC SCHMITT

AD DWAR, Iraq, Dec. 18 — Before his capture in a coffinlike bunker outside this desolate Tigris River town, Saddam Hussein spent months moving furtively among 20 or 30 nondescript safe houses in the Sunni Muslim heartland, where a tightknit network of family and clan sheltered him and brought him news from across American-dominated Iraq, American military officials say.

In turn, he used a word-of-mouth system of couriers to carry his instructions back to a cluster of Baathist cells that helped him guide the anticoalition insurgency, according to American officers who led the painstaking intelligence effort that culminated in the raid that captured Mr. Hussein.

To avoid detection, the 66-year-old Mr. Hussein traveled on foot, by small boat along the Tigris River, and along back roads in an ever-changing mix of cars, taxis and pickup trucks, often at night, rarely with more than two or three loyal followers to avoid notice.

Accustomed to mosaic-domed palaces, he let his hair and beard grow, survived on chocolate bars, honey and canned fruit, and shed the uniforms and Italian-tailored suits he favored in Baghdad for traditional Iraqi dress, a dishdasha robe and a checkered headdress.

In an ironic twist, he came back, in the end, to a place he wove into his political legend: the site on the Tigris where, in October 1959, as a 22-year-old fleeing Baghdad and his part in the failed assassination of the Iraqi military ruler, Abdul Karim Kassem, he claimed to have swum the river to escape pursuing troops. The farmhouse where he was seized last Saturday lies a few hundred yards from the riverbank where he came each year to mark the anniversary with a choreographed swim.

Before two of Mr. Hussein`s sons, Uday and Qusay, merciless enforcers of his terror in the years of power, were killed by American forces in a shootout in the northern city of Mosul on July 22, American intelligence officers say, they almost certainly met their father periodically at the safe houses, plotting stratagems before separating to avoid standing out. Their deaths further isolated Mr. Hussein from the top officials of his government, many of whom were being hunted down from an American most wanted list of 55 men, some of them offering tantalizing clues as to where Mr. Hussein might be tracked down.

Lt. Col. Todd Megill, intelligence officer for the Fourth Infantry Division at Tikrit, which carried out the raid that seized Mr. Hussein outside the nearby town of Ad Dwar on Dec. 13, said meetings among the three would have been an operational necessity, as well as a family comfort. "They probably met on a regular basis just because they were the only other people they could talk to," he said. Mosul, where Uday and Qusay were killed, is 150 miles north of Tikrit.

Much of Mr. Hussein`s life as a fugitive remains a mystery. But before his capture and since, American intelligence officers and commanders in Iraq have worked to piece together a sketch of his life eluding American troops. They have based their conclusions on interviews with relatives, interrogations of captured Baath Party officials and other Hussein loyalists, satellite telephone intercepts, seized documents, a knowledge of Mr. Hussein`s past habits and some assumptions by military officials about what it must have taken to avoid the manhunt.

The officers said they believed that Mr. Hussein fled north within days of the fall of Baghdad, the cocksure defiance of his last days in power shattered by the speed of the American takeover and of his government`s implosion. A tyrant who built a totalitarian state on a web of betrayals, he broke one last vow, to stand and fight beside his followers, made as he stood atop a battered Volkswagen Passat outside the Abu Hanifa mosque, one of the Sunni Muslims` most sacred shrines in Iraq, on April 9, the day of the city`s fall. As he spoke, in the district of Adhamiya, the closest American tanks were less than a mile away.

Until the raid that captured him, Mr. Hussein`s desperate forays about Baghdad in the days just before and after the city fell were the last public sightings of him. Putting together accounts by one of Mr. Hussein`s bodyguards and other witness accounts, American intelligence documents paint a picture of the dictator, with his son Qusay, careering about the city in an armored Mercedes, then jumping into a Nissan sedan, trying frantically to stop Iraqi soldiers from joining the mass defections that began as American tanks headed for the city center.

After appearing at the Adhamiya mosque, Mr. Hussein and Qusay ran into heavy American gunfire as they tried to cross the Tigris back to the district of Khadamiya, where gangs of Saddam Fedayeen, a private militia controlled by his son Uday, were patrolling the streets. Turning back, the Husseins went to Adhamiya, which was raided that night by American forces, the first of many failed attempts to nab Mr. Hussein in the months that followed.

A Sheltering Network

Not long after, Mr. Hussein and his two sons disappeared, heading north out of Baghdad to their tribal homeland.

In Salahuddin Province, a sprawling region of more than three million people that includes Mr. Hussein`s hometown, Tikrit, he went into hiding. There, he fell in among family and tribal members who associated with him before his rise to power and profited handsomely after it.

Mostly people of village origin, picked from a web of five key tribal families with close blood links to Mr. Hussein, those men were far from the Western-educated rocket scientists and nuclear physicists whom Mr. Hussein had used in his ambitions to make Iraq the Arab superpower.

But their value lay in their village contacts, their intimate knowledge of the area around Tikrit and their cunning in outwitting an enemy with spy satellites that can intercept telephone conversations, imaging technology that can detect men moving at night and computer databases that listed identities, biographies and habits of thousands of Mr. Hussein`s followers. "These are people who held senior positions in the security services, the Special Republican Guard, the Special Security Organization and the military," Colonel Megill said of the men who supported Mr. Hussein during his fugitive months. "These are guys who have been with him for years, who have done his dirty deeds and who are just as dirty as he is."

The crucial man for Mr. Hussein was a 300-pound, middle-aged veteran of the Special Security Organization, one of the most feared organizations in Mr. Hussein`s terror apparatus. It was this man`s capture in Baghdad, a week ago on Friday night, that provided the breakthrough that trapped Mr. Hussein. He was caught after a dozen failed raids by American troops in Tikrit, Samarra and Baiji, Sunni Muslim towns in the Upper Tigris River Valley.

The American command has not publicly identified the informant, citing the risk to continuing military operations. But Maj. Stan Murphy, intelligence officer for the Fourth Infantry Division`s First Brigade, the unit responsible for the night raid that brought in Mr. Hussein, described him as one of five top lieutenants trusted with essential tasks for Mr. Hussein. The captured informant acted as a chief of staff and appears to have been one of the only followers who knew of Mr. Hussein`s whereabouts at any one time.

As for Mr. Hussein, the American officers said that while he reverted to "a fugitive`s life," something he knew well from his experience as he fled Iraq to sanctuary in Egypt in 1959, his moves on the run were mostly improvised, not part of a master plan. "I think he had a plan and actualized it, but I also think it was very haphazard," Colonel Megill said.

American investigators are examining Mr. Hussein`s movements and contacts during the eight months of the manhunt, hoping to learn much that will help them unwind the insurgency that has taken the lives of more than 200 American soldiers since President Bush declared an end of major combat operations on May 1.

For the Americans, probing Mr. Hussein`s movements and contacts during the eight months of the manhunt is crucial. The Americans say they need to know the extent to which the ambushes, roadside explosions and suicide bombings have been aimed at Mr. Hussein`s restoration, and how closely the former dictator was directing the attacks. Part of the answer, the American officers said, lies in the documents seized along with Mr. Hussein, which have, they said, provided evidence that he had at least a guiding and inspiring role, if not an operational one, in directing the attacks.

Colonel Megill says he is convinced that Mr. Hussein`s role was crucial. "I don`t think he goes out there and plans operations," the colonel said. "I think he gives more general guidance to his subordinates like `Focus on this or focus on that. In this area, recruit. In that area, make trouble.` " Major Murphy, the First Brigade officer, said much the same. "He would give very general guidance like, `Hey, I`d like to see more attacks,` " he said.

Mr. Hussein, described by American officers as nervous and cooperative at the time of his capture, is said to have reverted in detention to truculence and mockery of his interrogators, denying any wrongdoing, and defending pogroms during an uprising in 1991 in which tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims were shot and dumped in mass graves.

Still, the documents have provided a breakthrough in the American understanding of the cell structure underpinning the insurgency, one American official said. The leaders of three cells identified in the documents have already been detained, that official said, and four others identified in the papers and a man believed to have acted as a courier were being tracked down.

The guerrilla leaders` capture, the official said, has led to the names of many others believed to be fighting against the Americans. Those men, too, are now on an American wanted list of more than 9,000 people. One guerrilla leader was found this week preparing passports for himself and his family, suggesting that he was about to flee Iraq, the Americans said.

A Basic Distrust

If blood ties were basic to Mr. Hussein`s survival, so too was his distrust of all those around him, born in his youthful days as a conspirator. That distrust led him, American officers said, to organize his life on the run around a web of underground cells, none aware of the others, using a model he studied in books about the Bolshevik underground in Russia and the man he took as his model, Stalin.

Written communications by Mr. Hussein were rare, as were telephone calls. American intelligence somehow penetrated Mr. Hussein`s inner entourage before the war, finding one of his security aides who used a Thuraya satellite telephone, of the kind that American commanders favored. According to accounts circulating in Baghdad, Mr. Hussein personally executed the security man after the second of two pinpoint bombing strikes that nearly killed him, on March 20 and April 7, and after that the use of satellite telephones by his entourage virtually stopped. That, too, prompted a reversion to village habits.

"Traditional Arab society operates by word of mouth," Colonel Megill said.

In the end, the American officers said, a group of 20 to 25 people made up Mr. Hussein`s innermost circle. They represented the brutish tribal bands that were the bedrock of his security in Baghdad, men with secure positions on his extended family tree: money men doling out some of the millions of dollars Mr. Hussein carried with him from looted banks and secret palace vaults when he fled Baghdad, logistics men who plotted his movements and prepared the way and a retinue of cooks, drivers and bodyguards.

All shared a bond of blood and trust, dating from Mr. Hussein`s rise to power four decades ago, the American officers said. An assassin once himself, the former dictator understood how to construct the inner rings of his security from people of village origins, tied tightly to him, aware of the torture-chamber fate that awaited those inclined to betray him, and with few ambitions but to retain the dictator`s favor and their privileged lives.

Mr. Hussein tried to keep his hideaways and movements secret by giving lavish cash gifts to those who harbored him, often after only a knock on the door in the middle of the night and a plea to help an anonymous family member in need. Most of the safe houses appear to have been owned by men favored by Mr. Hussein with gifts of land and jobs, often bestowed years before.

To bind those people and distract them from the lure of the $25 million reward posted by the American military command, Mr. Hussein carried large amounts of cash. He was caught with $750,000 in American $100 bills that the United States authorities are now tracing, but American officers believe that his options were narrowing as his cash drained away, along with his access to whatever foreign bank accounts that escaped being frozen, and other assets like jewelry from the extravagant collection of his first wife, Sajida, the mother of Uday and Qusay.

"You can show up unaccounted for and they`ll offer you hospitality, but you`ve got to pay for it," said Colonel Megill. "Family ties get very, very thin after a while if they`re not rewarded."

In a kind of Iraqi underground railroad, Mr. Hussein was passed from one lieutenant to another, from one safe house to the next, always one step ahead of the Americans. There were close calls. Before the mission on Saturday, the First Brigade believed it had hard enough information on Mr. Hussein`s location 11 times in the past several months to conduct a raid. Until last Saturday, each attempt fell short, by only eight hours in one case. "My guess would be he had probably 20 to 30 of these around the country as he moved around," Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the Fourth Division commander, said of Mr. Hussein`s hide-outs. "I believe he moved every three to four hours on short notice." Major Murphy, the First Brigade`s intelligence officer, agreed that the fallen dictator had moved often but said that he appeared to have remained as long as a week in any one place if it seemed safe.

If so, it would follow a pattern familiar to American intelligence from the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and the 21-day war that overthrew Mr. Hussein this spring, of the Iraqi strongman rarely sleeping in the same place two nights running, abandoning his motorcades and elaborate multilayered rings of security for clattering taxis and a solitary guard or two with pistols in their waistbands, and employing a team of doubles.

The safe houses were a mix: modest homes in middle-class suburban neighborhoods, or mundane outbuildings on sprawling properties owned by his henchmen, or disheveled rural farmhouses like the one where he was finally caught in Ad Dwar. Some had false walls built into them. Others had cramped underground chambers camouflaged at ground level. All were in areas where Mr. Hussein was surrounded by Sunni Muslims loath to betray him, as the latest in the long line of Sunni minority leaders of Iraq.

The Final Hide-Out

It was one such man, Qais Namaq, a former guard at one of Mr. Hussein`s palaces in Baghdad, who with two younger brothers took Mr. Hussein in at a farmhouse beside the river at Ad Dwar. They were arrested during the raid. A sister of Mr. Namaq told reporters at another family home in Ad Dwar this week that it was the three brothers who dug the hole and poured the concrete for the cramped, dank underground bunker in the farmhouse courtyard where Mr. Hussein was found.

The trail to Mr. Namaq`s farmhouse opened up in June, when the First Brigade made a perceptional breakthrough, said Col. James B. Hickey, the armored cavalry officer from Chicago who led the raid. Army intelligence realized that the key to Mr. Hussein`s security — and, ultimately, to his whereabouts — lay in the five tribal families that had provided his bodyguards, said Colonel Hickey, 43.

At its headquarters, the infantry division put up a color-coded chart showing Mr. Hussein in the center, in a yellow bull`s-eye, with family and tribal links radiating outward and the names of those killed or captured in red. Along with Mr. Hussein, the key man on the chart is the "man with the 42-inch waistband," as Colonel Hickey described him, Mr. Hussein`s effective chief of staff. It was his capture in Baghdad a week ago on Friday that led the Americans to Mr. Hussein.

American officers said they had mounted sweeps of Ad Dwar dozens of times, but one crucial clue eluded them: the link between the town and Mr. Hussein`s swim in 1959. So crucial was this to the townsmen that they had a nickname for the farming area just northwest of the town, Al Aboor, meaning crossing in Arabic. Whenever Mr. Hussein came for the annual commemoration, he handed out plots of land and jobs, cementing the loyalties that kept him in power. In 1991, one of the men who got a job in Baghdad, as a palace guard, was Mr. Namaq, the man whose farmhouse provided Mr. Hussein with his last redoubt.

Now, the question that presses on the angry men of Tikrit and Ad Dwar is why their fallen idol failed to fight it out with his captors, leaving a pistol and a Kalashnikov rifle lying on the bunker floor as he emerged, hands raised, into the night.

"It was a mistake to hide in such a disgusting place, a dishonor for Saddam but also for Iraq," said Hatim Jassem, 35, a theology professor. "People saw him on television and said: `This is pathetic. He has disappointed us. He has let Iraq down.` "



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Shiites gathered last week in central Baghdad to express happiness about Saddam Hussein`s capture. About 200 people waved flags, chanted and held portraits of clerics and a drawing of the captured Mr. Hussein.
December 21, 2003
Iraqi Shiites Enter New Era of Inclusion, Not Exclusion
By SUSAN SACHS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 20 — In an otherwise grim and uncertain time, the banners hanging in Shiite Muslim neighborhoods this week struck a joyous note: "Congratulations to the families of the martyrs on the capture of Saddam Hussein!"

The reviled Mr. Hussein, accused by Shiites of killing their most eminent clerics and persecuting their sect for more than 30 years, was in American custody, his decrepit underground hiding place given away by one of his own Sunni Muslim clansmen.

But there were ample reasons for celebration even before his capture.

Iraq`s Shiites, long the underclass in a nation where they are the majority, stand on the verge of their first real chance at political power in Iraq.

After the Shiites were sidelined for centuries by successive Sunni and foreign rulers, their political and religious leaders have become the dominant players in the American-led process of shaping a new, more representative government for Iraq.

"Our tragedy will not occur again," vowed Muhammad Hussein al-Hakim, a spokesman for his father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Said al-Hakim, one of the four most senior Shiite clerics in Iraq. "There is no turning back the tide."

His confidence in that future was only buoyed, he said, after seeing the bedraggled Mr. Hussein in American hands.

"We saw him in his true character — as a humiliated, cowering man who could no longer hide behind his big words," Mr. Hakim said.

The former Iraqi leader must be put on public trial, he added. But the clerical establishment, he said, would counsel Shiites to be patient, to make sure everyone in the world with a claim against Mr. Hussein had a chance to present their case.

"The Shia are patient people, so they will be patient," Mr. Hakim said. "It doesn`t matter when it happens because he`s in custody now."

The country`s Shiite leaders have taken pains to avoid openly antagonizing the American occupiers, the Sunnis or the Iraqi Kurds. The Shiites have said they do not seek a theocratic form of government like that in neighboring Iran, with its own large Shiite population. They have said they do not seek to oppress other groups.

But the Shiite leadership has also made it clear that its modesty should not be mistaken for meekness. The Shiites are believed to make up as much as 70 percent of Iraq`s population of 25 million, and Mr. Hakim, whose family has produced a long line of senior clerics, said they would not accept less than the presidency of a sovereign Iraq.

"We don`t want a dictatorship of the majority to dominate," said Mr. Hakim. "But we do want to preserve the rights of the majority, which is the Shia, and the simplest right is to have the head of state come from the majority. Isn`t that correct?"

Iraqis are not expected to choose a head of state before next June, after a new provisional legislative assembly is chosen and it votes on a provisional government. National elections might not be held for years, under a plan approved by the American-led occupation authority.

But most Shiite religious leaders are thinking ahead.

Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, another prominent cleric from the holy city of Najaf, is one of a small but vocal group of Shiite scholars who have started publicly advocating a political role for the clergy. He suggested that the network of Shiite religious schools and teachers based in Najaf — grouped together under the name Hawza — might sponsor a new political party to take part in Iraqi elections.

"We are calling for clerics to participate directly in politics, and for the Hawza to support politics and be part of a multiparty system," Ayatollah Yacoubi said. "After all, the Hawza is a guiding force."

Shiite religious leaders, without even leaving their homes in Najaf, have already emerged as a pivotal factor in the deliberations at the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad.

The word of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential of the Iraqi Shiite clerics, ultimately forced both the council and the Bush administration to change course on Iraqi sovereignty last month.

The United States had pushed for Iraq to adopt a constitution and then hold national elections before it would be granted self-rule. But Ayatollah Sistani, in a religious edict, decreed that the drafters of a new Iraqi constitution had to be elected. The only way to satisfy his ruling, it was decided, was to postpone writing a constitution until after sovereignty was attained.

The United States has promised Iraq sovereignty by July 1. But the ayatollah is still pulling strings on the political process, as Iraqi political leaders and American officials try to come up with a plan for choosing a provisional legislature that would get his blessing.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a member of the Governing Council, said he regularly gave Ayatollah Sistani the minutes of every week`s council meetings and any draft resolutions it discussed.

"He goes through the documents carefully," Mr. Rubaie said. "This is one of the major ways to keep him informed about the Governing Council but also to guarantee his continuing support of the council."

As they have built up their influence, Iraqi Shiites have also suffered losses.

Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, an influential political and religious figure who founded the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was killed in a bomb blast in Najaf in August along with at least 95 other people. Just this week, on Wednesday, another member of the same group and a distant relative was killed in Baghdad.

But there have also been triumphs.

At noon prayers on Friday, for example, Shiite clerics delighted worshipers by recounting the respectful reception given this week to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the brother and successor of the slain Ayatollah Hakim, by the king of Spain, the president of France and the prime minister of Britain.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

December 21, 2003
Iraq Pipelines and Storage Tanks Set on Fire
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:07 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents attacked pipelines and an oil storage depot in three parts of Iraq, setting fires that blazed for hours and lost millions of gallons of oil, officials and media reported Sunday, as the country faced a critical fuel shortage.

Rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades hit storage tanks in southern Baghdad on Saturday, creating fires that burned about 2.6 million gallons of gasoline, said Issam Jihad, a spokesman for the Oil Ministry.

Also Saturday, a pipeline exploded in the al-Mashahda area 15 miles north of Baghdad, in what Jihad called ``an act of sabotage.``

``The explosion led to the destruction of (part of) the pipeline and to the leakage of vast quantities of oil products,`` Jihad said.

He said he had no immediate information about another reported attack on oil pipelines in northern Iraq.

Al-Jazeera television reported Sunday that large fires were burning following attacks Saturday on four pipelines in the area between Tikrit and Beji. But an AP stringer reported seeing four fires blazing from pipelines further north, between Beji and Mosul, about 250 miles north of Baghdad.

Al-Jazeera quoted officials as saying those fires were caused by saboteurs.

The Oil Ministry introduced rationing on Thursday to overcome shortages that have created mile-long lines of cars at gas stations and waits up to 12 hours. At the same time the U.S. military began to crack down on black marketeers who sell gas for as much as $1.85 a gallon. The official price equates to 5 U.S. cents a gallon.

Multiple causes have created the shortages, including sabotage and difficulties restoring crude oil supplies from war-damaged and antiquated refineries. In addition an estimated 250,000 newly imported cars, most secondhand, that have entered the country since Saddam Hussein was ousted.

Iraq has the world`s second-largest oil reserves, second only to neighboring Saudi Arabia.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

[Joerver]

December 21, 2003
Easing Iraq`s Debt Burdens

ames Baker III is quickly showing how old-fashioned diplomacy can advance Washington`s policy objectives. In his first trip as President Bush`s Iraqi debt negotiator, Mr. Baker met with five European leaders and emerged with declarations endorsing a substantial write-off of the $40 billion in old loans and accrued interest that Baghdad owes major developed countries. The five countries Mr. Baker visited, together with the United States, account for roughly $25 billion of those obligations. That`s only a start — Iraq`s overall debt amounts to $120 billion — but it`s an important one.

Mr. Baker`s itinerary included France, Germany and Russia, the most prominent European critics of the American-led invasion of Iraq, as well as Britain and Italy. His successful meetings in Paris and Berlin led to the most unified declaration on Iraq since last winter`s damaging split in the Security Council. The Moscow session was less rewarding, with President Vladimir Putin linking support for debt relief to compensation for Russian companies that had contracts with Saddam Hussein.

The leaders of France and Germany were already looking for politically feasible ways to work with Washington on Iraq. Mr. Baker also benefited from the good reputation he enjoys in both countries, dating back to his role as secretary of state in the first Bush administration, when deft and sensitive American diplomacy helped manage the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union. That record stands in painful contrast to the current administration`s gratuitous alienation of much of Europe, most recently through a Pentagon memo excluding France, Germany, Russia and other opponents of the war from Iraqi reconstruction contracts financed by American tax dollars. Releasing that memo on the eve of Mr. Baker`s European trip was inept. Fortunately, it did not prevent French and German cooperation on debt relief for Iraq.

Debt forgiveness is a drastic step that should be undertaken only in rare cases, lest it dry up future international credit. Iraq is not the only country with more debts than it can pay, nor is it the only one left holding the i.o.u.`s of a toppled dictator. The closest parallel is Nigeria, which is also struggling to build democracy and should eventually be given debt relief. Right now, however, the most compelling and important candidate is Iraq.

Despite Mr. Baker`s successes, the countries involved have agreed so far only on the principle of debt reduction, with details still to be worked out on how much to forgive and when. Those decisions should be made quickly and generously, so debt relief can take effect as soon as Iraq regains its sovereignty next summer. Baghdad`s numerous other creditors should also grant substantial relief.

Most government lending to Iraq took place before Saddam Hussein`s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The largest loans came from wealthy Persian Gulf countries helping to finance Iraq`s war with Iran in the 1980`s. These countries have not yet offered any debt relief. Billions more are owed to commercial banks and corporate creditors, which are likely to take part in a separate renegotiation. On top of the roughly $120 billion on its overdue loans, Iraq faces probably another $100 billion in reparations payments for the Kuwait invasion once all pending claims are adjudicated.

Combined, that amounts to more than eight times Iraq`s gross domestic product of $26 billion a year, obviously an unsustainable burden. While everyone knows that these obligations will never be paid in full, until they are formally written down they will cast a huge shadow over Iraq`s ability to attract foreign aid and private investment. If billions of dollars have to be paid out each year for debt service and reparations, punitive taxes will have to be levied on businesses and the government will have little left for needed social services. Lifting a substantial part of this burden would let Baghdad spend more of its future oil income on domestic needs, reducing the aid needed from American taxpayers and improving Iraq`s chances of becoming a self-sustaining democracy.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 21, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Where Birds Don`t Fly
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

ISTANBUL

If we ever run out of room to store our gold in Fort Knox, I know just the place to put it: the new U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. It looks just like Fort Knox — without the charm.

The U.S. Consulate used to be in the heart of the city, where it was easy for Turks to pop in for a visa or to use the library. For security reasons, though, it was recently moved 45 minutes away to the outskirts of Istanbul, on a bluff overlooking the Bosporus — surrounded by a tall wall. The new consulate looks like a maximum-security prison. All that`s missing is a moat with alligators and a sign that says: "Attention! You are now approaching a U.S. Consulate. Any sudden movement and you will be shot. All visitors welcome."

But here`s the stone cold truth: A lot of U.S. diplomats are probably alive today because they moved into this fortress. One of the captured terrorists involved in the Nov. 20 attack on the British Consulate in Istanbul — which was just a short walk from the old U.S. Consulate — reportedly told Turkish police that his group was interested in blowing up the new U.S. Consulate, but when they cased the place they found it was so secure "they don`t let birds fly" there.

This is where we`ve come to after two decades of anti-U.S. terrorism and 9/11: The cops are now in charge — not the diplomats. As one U.S. diplomat in Europe put it to me, "The upside is that we are more secure, the downside is you lose the human contact and it makes it way harder to have interactions with people who are not part of the elite. It makes my job less fun. [Some days] you might as well be in Cleveland, looking at the world through a bulletproof plate glass window."

Some of our embassies have such a Crusader castle look, they`re actually becoming tourist sites. Fuat Ozbekli, a Turkish industrialist, told me: "I was just on a tour to Amman and we stopped our tourist van in front of the U.S. Embassy there. We asked the guide why they need all these tanks around it, and the guy told us that within this American Embassy they have everything they need so they can survive without going outside . . . I felt really sorry for the Americans there."

It`s not just the brick walls that our embassies are now putting up that are increasing American isolation. Beginning next year, in order to get a visa to the U.S., you will have to come to the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate and be fingerprinted first. Some European diplomats have already started warning their American counterparts not to expect them in the U.S. anytime soon — if they have to submit to fingerprinting.

U.S. diplomats understand the security reasons for this. But, they note, it is really awkward to call up a Turkish writer or a Chinese dissident, extend an invitation to come to America on a State Department exchange program, and then say: "But first you have to come into the embassy and get fingerprinted."

Give us your tired, your poor and your properly fingerprinted.

Serhat Guvenc, a lecturer at Bilgi University in Istanbul, was actually flying to the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, and was diverted to Canada. He`s been avoiding the U.S. since because of all the already intrusive visa requirements. "All the new measures the U.S. introduced intimidated me," he said. "In Turkey, unless you are a criminal or a potential criminal, you would never be asked to leave your fingerprints. It is kind of humiliating. It`s uncomfortable."

A Turkish columnist friend, Cengiz Candar, told me: "I was traveling to Iraq recently and my very old mother was very, very worried. I told her, `Don`t worry, Momma, I`ve been there before. It is very safe, as long as you know what to do.` She said to me, `Stay away from the Americans.` "

Is that what mothers will tell their kids from now on? I don`t know. Many people would still line up for America if we charged $1,000 per visa and demanded their dental X-rays. But others, especially young Europeans, are thinking twice because they don`t want the hassle. Better to go to France or Germany. Add to this the shrinking capacity of U.S. diplomats to reach out and, in 20 more years, we could wake up and find that we`ve gone from America the accessible to America the isolated. The only Americans foreigners will meet will be those wearing U.S. Army uniforms and body armor.

We need to figure out a better system. Because where birds don`t fly, ideas don`t fly, friendships don`t fly and mutual understanding never takes off.


Maureen Dowd is on vacation.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 21, 2003
FRANK RICH
Napster Runs for President in `04

Even after Saddam Hussein was captured last weekend, all that some people could talk about was Howard Dean. Neither John Kerry nor Joe Lieberman could resist punctuating their cheers for an American victory with sour sideswipes at the front-runner they still cannot fathom (or catch up to). Pundits had a nearly unanimous take on the capture`s political fallout: Dr. Dean, the one-issue candidate tethered to Iraq, was toast — or, as The Washington Post`s Tom Shales memorably put it, "left looking like a monkey whose organ grinder had run away."

I am not a partisan of Dr. Dean or any other Democratic candidate. I don`t know what will happen on Election Day 2004. But I do know this: the rise of Howard Dean is not your typical political Cinderella story. The constant comparisons made between him and George McGovern and Barry Goldwater — each of whom rode a wave of anger within his party to his doomed nomination — are facile. Yes, Dr. Dean`s followers are angry about his signature issue, the war. Dr. Dean is marginalized in other ways as well: a heretofore obscure governor from a tiny state best known for its left-wing ice cream and gay civil unions, a flip-flopper on some pivotal issues and something of a hothead. This litany of flaws has been repeated at every juncture of the campaign this far, just as it is now. And yet the guy keeps coming back, surprising those in Washington and his own party who misunderstand the phenomenon and dismiss him.

The elusive piece of this phenomenon is cultural: the Internet. Rather than compare Dr. Dean to McGovern or Goldwater, it may make more sense to recall Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. It was not until F.D.R.`s fireside chats on radio in 1933 that a medium in mass use for years became a political force. J.F.K. did the same for television, not only by vanquishing the camera-challenged Richard Nixon during the 1960 debates but by replacing the Eisenhower White House`s prerecorded TV news conferences (which could be cleaned up with editing) with live broadcasts. Until Kennedy proved otherwise, most of Washington`s wise men thought, as The New York Times columnist James Reston wrote in 1961, that a spontaneous televised press conference was "the goofiest idea since the Hula Hoop."

Such has been much of the reaction to the Dean campaign`s breakthrough use of its chosen medium. In Washington, the Internet is still seen mainly as a high-velocity disseminator of gossip (Drudge) and rabidly partisan sharpshooting by self-publishing excoriators of the left and right. When used by campaigns, the Internet becomes a synonym for "the young," "geeks," "small contributors" and "upper middle class," as if it were an eccentric electronic cousin to direct-mail fund-raising run by the acne-prone members of a suburban high school`s computer club. In other words, the political establishment has been blindsided by the Internet`s growing sophistication as a political tool — and therefore blindsided by the Dean campaign — much as the music industry establishment was by file sharing and the major movie studios were by "The Blair Witch Project," the amateurish under-$100,000 movie that turned viral marketing on the Web into a financial mother lode.

The condescending reaction to the Dean insurgency by television`s political correspondents can be reminiscent of that hilarious party scene in the movie "Singin` in the Rain," where Hollywood`s silent-era elite greets the advent of talkies with dismissive bafflement. "The Internet has yet to mature as a political tool," intoned Carl Cameron of Fox News last summer as he reported that the runner-up group to Dean supporters on the meetup.com site was witches. "If you want to be a Deaniac," ABC News`s Claire Shipman said this fall, "you`ve got to know the lingo," as she dutifully gave her viewers an uninformed definition of "blogging."

In Washington, the only place in America where HBO`s now-canceled "K Street" aroused histrionic debate, TV remains all. No one knew what to make of the mixed message sent by Dr. Dean`s performance on "Meet the Press" in June: though the candidate flunked a pop quiz about American troop strength (just as George W. Bush flunked a pop quiz about world leaders in 1999), his Internet site broke its previous Sunday record for contributions by a factor of more than 10. More recently, the dean of capital journalists, David Broder, dyspeptically wrote that "Dean failed to dominate any of the Democratic candidate debates." True, but those few Americans who watched the debates didn`t exactly rush to the candidate who did effortlessly dominate most of them, Al Sharpton. (Mr. Sharpton`s reward for his performance wasn`t poll numbers or contributions but, appropriately enough, a gig as a guest host on "Saturday Night Live.")

"People don`t realize what`s happened since 2000," said Joe Trippi, the Dean campaign manager, when I spoke to him shortly after Al Gore, the Democrats` would-be technopresident, impulsively crowned Dr. Dean as his heir. "Since 2000, many more millions have bought a book at Amazon and held an auction on e-Bay. John McCain`s Internet campaign was amazing three years ago but looks primitive now." The Dean campaign, Mr. Trippi explained, is "not just people e-mailing each other and chatting in chat rooms." His campaign has those and more — all served by countless sites, many of them awash in multi-media, that link the personal (photos included) to the political as tightly as they link to each other.

They are efficient: type in a ZIP code and you meet Dean-inclined neighbors. Search tools instantly locate postings on subjects both practical (a book to give as a present to a Dean supporter?) and ideological. The official bloggers update the news and spin it as obsessively as independent bloggers do. To while away an afternoon, go to the left-hand column of the official blogforamerica.com page and tour the unofficial sites. On one of three Mormon-centric pages, you can find the answer to the question "Can Mormons be Democrats?" (Yes, they can, and yes, they can vote for Howard Dean.) At www.projectdeanlight.com, volunteers compete at their own expense to outdo each other with slick Dean commercials.

But the big Dean innovation is to empower passionate supporters to leave their computer screens entirely to hunt down unwired supporters as well and to gather together in real time at face-to-face meetings they organize on their own with no help from (or cost to) the campaign hierarchy. Meetup.com, the for-profit Web site that the Dean campaign contracted to facilitate these meetings, didn`t even exist until last year. (It is not to be confused with the symbiotic but more conventional liberal advocacy and fund-raising site,

MoveOn.org.) Its success is part of the same cultural wave as last summer`s "flash mob" craze (crowds using the Internet to converge at the same public place at the same time as a prank) and, more substantially, the spike in real rather than virtual social networks, for dating and otherwise, through sites like match.com and friendster.com. From Mr. Trippi`s perspective, "The Internet puts back into the campaign what TV took out — people."

To say that the competing campaigns don`t get it is an understatement. A tough new anti-Dean attack ad has been put up on the campaign`s own site, where it`s a magnet for hundreds of thousands of dollars in new contributions. The twice-divorced Dennis Kucinich`s most effective use of the Web thus far has been to have a public date with the winner of a "Who Wants to Be a First Lady?" Internet contest. Though others have caught up with meetup.com, only the Wesley Clark campaign is racing to mirror Dr. Dean`s in most particulars. The other Democratic Web sites are very 2000, despite all their blogs and other gizmos.

"The term blog is now so ubiquitous everyone has to use it," says the author Steven Johnson, whose prescient 2001 book "Emergence" is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this culture. On some candidates` sites, he observes, "there is no difference between a blog and a chronological list of press releases." And the presence of a poll on a site hardly constitutes interactivity. The underlying principles of the Dean Internet campaign "are the opposite of a poll," Mr. Johnson says. Much as thousands of connected techies perfected the Linux operating system`s code through open collaboration, so Dean online followers collaborate on organizing and perfecting the campaign, their ideas trickling up from the bottom rather than being superimposed from national headquarters. (Or at least their campaign ideas trickle up; policy is still concentrated at the top.) It`s almost as if Dr. Dean is "a system running for president," in Mr. Johnson`s view, as opposed to a person.

In that sense, the candidate is a perfect fit for his chosen medium. Though his campaign`s Internet dependence was initially dictated by necessity when he had little organization and no money, it still serves his no-frills personality even when he`s the fund-raising champ. Dr. Dean runs the least personal of campaigns; his wife avoids the stump. That`s a strategy befitting an online, not an on-TV, personality. Dr. Dean`s irascible polemical tone is made for the Web, too. Jonah Peretti, a new media specialist at Eyebeam, an arts organization in New York, observes that boldness is to the Internet what F.D.R.`s voice was to radio and J.F.K.`s image to television: "A moderate message is not the kind of thing that friends want to e-mail to each other and say, `You gotta take a look at this!` "

Unlike Al Gore, Dr. Dean doesn`t aspire to be hip about computers. "The Internet is a tool, not a campaign platform," he has rightly said, and he needn`t be a techie any more than pilot his own campaign plane. But if no tool, however powerful, can make anyone president in itself, it can smash opponents hard when it draws a ton of cash. Money talks to the old media and buys its advertising. Dr. Dean`s message has already upstaged the official Democratic party and its presumed rulers, the Clintons. Thanks to the Supreme Court`s upholding of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, he also holds a strategic advantage over the Democratic National Committee in fund-raising, at least for now.

Should Dr. Dean actually end up running against President Bush next year, an utterly asymmetrical battle will be joined. The Bush-Cheney machine is a centralized hierarchy reflecting its pre-digital C.E.O. ethos (and the political training of Karl Rove); it is accustomed to broadcasting to voters from on high rather than drawing most of its grass-roots power from what bubbles up from insurgents below.

For all sorts of real-world reasons, stretching from Baghdad to Wall Street, Mr. Bush could squish Dr. Dean like a bug next November. But just as anything can happen in politics, anything can happen on the Internet. The music industry thought tough talk, hard-knuckle litigation and lobbying Congress could stop the forces unleashed by Shawn Fanning, the teenager behind Napster. Today the record business is in meltdown, and more Americans use file-sharing software than voted for Mr. Bush in the last presidential election. The luckiest thing that could happen to the Dean campaign is that its opponents remain oblivious to recent digital history and keep focusing on analog analogies to McGovern and Goldwater instead.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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New Strategy Calls for Wooing Some in Taliban
U.S. Forces in Afghanistan To Vary Tactics by Region

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page A24


KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. military officials, after two years of narrowly focusing on anti-terrorist combat operations, say they are shifting to a broader strategy that includes trying to woo noncriminal members of the Islamic Taliban movement back into mainstream society and establishing long-term civilian assistance programs in conflict zones.

At the same time, the U.S. military does not appear to be having serious second thoughts about combat tactics after two controversial incidents this month in which a total of 15 children were inadvertently killed during U.S. air assaults on two villages in Paktia and Ghazni provinces.

Lt. Gen. David Barno, the new senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, said in a wide-ranging interview last week that U.S. military officials saw three distinct adversaries in different parts of the country, each requiring a different approach.

In southern provinces bordering Pakistan, such as Khost and Paktika, where Arab Islamic extremists and al Qaeda fighters have repeatedly attacked U.S. bases, Barno said U.S. combat troops would continue to aggressively track down, capture and kill as many as they could.

In northern border provinces such as Kunar and Nuristan, which armed followers of fugitive Afghan militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have used as a base for urban sabotage and links with other Islamic groups, Barno said U.S.-led combat sweeps would also continue in an effort to isolate and destroy these forces.

But in southeastern provinces such as Ghazni, Zabol and Kandahar, where revived Taliban forces have staged numerous attacks against civilians while also trying to win political influence, Barno said U.S. officials were shifting to an "integrated" approach that woos back former Islamic fighters into civilian life.

"Those who are criminals must be held accountable, but for the rank and file, the noncriminals, there will be opportunities for reconciliation and reintegration," Barno said. His remarks suggested that U.S. officials now agree with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the revived Taliban movement needs to be courted politically.

In numerous speeches and interviews, Karzai has made a distinction between what he describes as good and bad members of the Taliban. He said recently that as few as 150 Taliban officials might be guilty of terrorism and abuse and that the rest needed to be brought back into civilian life, as is the case with thousands of other former Afghan militia forces, who previously fought the Taliban but are being formally disarmed and offered job training.

Until recently, U.S. military officials, headquartered at Bagram air base north of Kabul since the defeat of Taliban rule in late 2001, routinely mentioned Taliban and al Qaeda forces together, and always described the principal mission of some 11,000 U.S. forces stationed here as killing and capturing as many of both enemy groups as possible.

But Afghan and U.N. officials have conducted intensive consultations over the past two months, coinciding with Barno`s arrival and with the shift of the U.S. military command from Bagram to Kabul, the Afghan capital. U.S. military officials said they had concluded that while al Qaeda forces represent a die-hard, armed threat, the Taliban revival was more complex and rooted in Afghan society, and thus required a more comprehensive solution.

There have been unconfirmed reports that U.S. military or civilian officials were meeting privately with some commanders of both the Taliban and Hekmatyar`s forces. A senior former Taliban official, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, was recently released from U.S. custody and has been rumored to be acting as a mediator between Afghan and Taliban officials.

"Our move of the senior headquarters to Kabul, instead of a semi-isolated area, recognizes the change of an era in Afghanistan," Barno said. From being "absolutely focused" on combat, he said, U.S. military policy will now stress integrating a variety of efforts to stabilize and secure the country. "Our role will be to help set conditions for successful elections next summer," he said.

Afghanistan is moving gradually toward a democratic political system under U.S. auspices, with a national constitutional assembly being held here this month and presidential elections scheduled for June. Parliamentary elections would be held later.

Asked about the deaths of the 15 Afghan children in two U.S. military raids in early December, and the potential adverse effect of such mistakes on civilian attitudes toward the U.S. military role, Barno said officials would continue to "refine" their efforts to pinpoint targets and minimize civilian casualties, but would not become so cautious as to run the "risk of paralysis."

"The system is imperfect, and we learn from each incident," he said, adding that U.S. military forces here might need to adjust the current balance of human vs. technical intelligence gathering. But if civilians are "co-located" with terrorists or weapons caches, that is a "callous decision by the enemy" rather than a flaw in American planning, Barno said.

International human rights groups have been highly critical of the two attacks. The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said the U.S. military should "increase precautions and explain intelligence failures" as a result. It said a "pattern of mistakes" had led to "too many civilian deaths and no clear changes" in U.S. military operations planning.

In the new U.S. military effort to win Afghan hearts and minds, a key component is to be the rapid expansion of regional military aid centers known as "provincial reconstruction teams" -- some American, some staffed by other NATO members -- into the heartland of the Taliban revival.

Four such centers are already in operation, and eight more are expected to open by spring, including four in the troubled southeast. Last week, a new center opened in Kandahar, a major southeastern city that was once the Taliban religious headquarters. Barno said U.S. military teams there would work with Afghan and U.N. officials, hoping to create a role model for other provinces.

"It`s a pretty big change," he said. "We will be out in patrols on the roads, we will be training 20,000 new Afghan police. We want to use the military to enable an integrated effort. . . . We will be planting the U.S. flag and telling the Taliban we are here to stay."

Like the idea of "reintegrating" some Taliban members into mainstream Afghan society, the U.S. decision to expand the military aid teams coincides with long-standing proposals from the Karzai government on the need to greatly improve government services and visibility in areas where the Taliban are active.

In recent interviews, both the interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, and the governor of Kandahar, Yusuf Pashtoon, said such efforts were urgently needed but that the Karzai government had few resources to bring them about.



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Fairness for Detainees




Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page B06


THE MILITARY has held Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, for 18 months without charge, without access to a lawyer and without any ability to address the allegations against him. It has also refused to create an open and fair process for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Instead, it has asked for limitless deference from the courts: It`s none of any judge`s business what the military does at Guantanamo, the administration has maintained, nor should judges look behind the government`s allegations that an American citizen like Mr. Padilla is an enemy combatant who can be detained indefinitely. No surprise, then, that federal courts of appeals are beginning to lose patience. On Thursday, two such courts pushed back hard: The 9th Circuit in California declared that it had jurisdiction over lawsuits by Guantanamo detainees, and the 2nd Circuit in New York declared that President Bush cannot detain Mr. Padilla as an enemy fighter.

Both courts are correct that the current situation is untenable. Unfortunately, both also overreached in their understandable desire to rein in the executive branch. The administration`s failure to create a meaningful and open process for detainees at Guantanamo is lamentable. It has skirted international law, violated norms of fairness and compromised U.S. standing to comment on human rights in other nations. That doesn`t mean, however, that U.S. courts have authority over foreigners held outside the United States, as the 9th Circuit decision suggests. In any event, the Supreme Court is already hearing the exact question the court decided, so the 9th Circuit decision has little practical import.

The Padilla decision, by contrast, matters enormously. Again, the court was right to be offended by the current state of affairs, but the 2-to-1 majority in this case also went too far. Civil libertarians were quick to cheer the ruling. But their victory could well prove Pyrrhic.

The government believes Mr. Padilla was plotting a "dirty bomb" attack on behalf of al Qaeda when he was arrested by civilian authorities in Chicago last year. Before his case could wend its way through the courts in the normal fashion, Mr. Bush designated him an "enemy combatant" and he was whisked to a military brig. A trial court judge rightly ruled that this was unacceptable -- that any American citizen must be given a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations against him before being consigned to indefinite detention. The 2nd Circuit would have struck a blow for civil liberties by affirming this judgment, which the government hotheadedly appealed.

Instead, however, it went further. The court denied that Mr. Padilla, by virtue of being arrested domestically outside of a zone of combat, can be held by the military at all. Federal law, the two-judge majority argued, prohibits the detention of Americans without an act of Congress, and the congressional authorization to use force against the perpetrators of Sept. 11 did not specifically permit domestic detentions.

The argument is a big stretch. As Judge Richard C. Wesley pointed out in dissent, the authorization allows President Bush "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, and persons he determines" were responsible for the attacks "to prevent any future acts of international terrorism" against this country. It`s hard to see how this would not cover a person the government believed to be planning an attack on al Qaeda`s behalf. The laws of war and American constitutional law alike recognize that part of fighting wars is catching and holding the other side`s fighters.

The majority is right to be concerned about this, given that the war being fought is of indefinite duration and against a shadowy, non-state enemy. The correct response, though, is not to effectively deny that the war is taking place or that U.S. enemies may seek again to strike on U.S. soil. Instead, the president`s power to detain must be constrained in reasonable ways, by the courts and by Congress. The court should have, as Judge Wesley pointed out, addressed "the real weakness of the government`s appeal," i.e., the military`s contention "that Mr. Padilla can be held incommunicado for 18 months with no serious opportunity to put the government to its proof."

Congress should no longer sit on the sidelines as the administration and courts debate these issues. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has introduced a thoughtful bill that would authorize the detention of enemy combatants -- and guarantee them fair process, counsel and judicial review. Giving his bill a hearing and a serious discussion would be a good place to start.



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The Bridge To Iran


By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page B07


A black hole in the U.S. commitment to transform the greater Middle East hovers over Iran. An attentive newspaper reader can describe the goals that President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, have in mind with respect to Iraq, Palestine and the Arab political order. On Iran, the jury of two is still out.

That is not a bad place for them to be. Iran`s volatile internal politics -- and the strategic changes created by U.S. troops camping on Iran`s borders and new international pressure on Tehran to give up its nuclear weapons program -- make planning ahead and staying flexible prudent.

There is no doubt about Bush`s assessment of the nature of the ayatollahs` regime. His "axis of evil" designation in January 2002 made that clear. But he has noticeably failed to take up the suggestions of some U.S. hawks that the ayatollahs are about to fall and need only a little push, or that Iran should automatically be "next" on a preemption list.

Bush went out of his way in his last news conference to endorse the recent diplomatic initiative by France, Germany and Britain that led to Iranian agreement to accept more intrusive inspections and to halt reprocessing of fissionable material usable for bombs. That diplomatic high road is not the path a president looking for a chance to bash the ayatollahs militarily would take.

As it has with North Korea, the administration has "multilateralized" the drive to contain Iran`s nuclear ambitions. And behind the scenes, the United States has exerted heavy pressure on Pakistan to halt its clandestine nuclear cooperation with Iran and, with less success, tried to halt Russia`s scheduled nuclear fuel shipments to Iran.

There is a refreshing lack of certainty at senior levels of this often-absolutist administration about Iran. Rice is said to have recently scrawled a plaintive query on a memo to an associate asking why American policymakers have had such a consistent record of guessing wrong on Iran.

Good question. Iran has been in constant ferment for a half-century. Movement toward a more open or secular society is constantly checked by the ayatollahs, only to resume again. One of the world`s most ancient nations is infuriatingly postmodern and enigmatic in its politics.

But now that Rice is spearheading the president`s most ambitious foreign policy initiative -- the political transformation of the greater Middle East and, indirectly, the Muslim world -- Iran cannot for long be left as a blank to be filled in later. Events, especially in Iraq, are dragging the Persians and the Americans toward either new accommodation or bitter and dangerous conflict.

Geography and religion give Iran inordinate interest in and influence over Iraq, which Tehran has chosen to exercise quietly and slowly since the coalition invasion. Bush`s earlier threatening words toward Iran and his bold action in Iraq have shaped a new strategic landscape that the ayatollahs also approach warily.

Instead of urging their co-religionists in Iraq`s Shiite majority to oppose the occupation and support the insurgency, the Iranians have kept a low profile. "They are building up their presence and their influence in low-key ways. They play for the future. They want us to fail in Iraq. But they want us to fail slowly," says one senior U.S. official.

Iraq`s appointed leaders have been careful to keep Iran informed and indirectly engaged in the nascent political process that is underway in their occupied country. Their actions suggest that a liberated and stable Iraq could serve as a bridge between Washington and Tehran.

Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, recently visited Tehran and had a widely publicized meeting with President Mohammad Khatami. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is a frequent visitor to Iran. The current president of Iraq`s Governing Council, Abdul Aziz Hakim, is a Shiite cleric who is close to the senior hard-liners in the Iranian regime.

So it did not go unnoticed in Washington last week when Hakim and Talabani went to Paris and were effusively welcomed by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. Iran is the only available counterweight in the greater Middle East if France and Russia decide to challenge the now-dominant American position in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Iran could be a bridge of a different kind for them if the current Bush effort to mend fences in Paris and Moscow falls short.

American success -- or American failure -- in Iraq leads inevitably to a greatly changed U.S. relationship with Iran. It is time to be asking, as Condi Rice is, how Washington can get it right this time.


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Out of the Mainstream? Hardly


By Howard Dean

Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page B07


The Post`s Dec. 18 editorial discussing my recent foreign policy speech ["Beyond the Mainstream"] badly misrepresents both my position and the central argument in the coming election on how best to strengthen America`s security.

To start: The Post repeatedly misstates my views. For example, I support missile defense efforts that make us more secure; I oppose deployment of any system not yet proven to work. I favor active talks with North Korea, backed by the threat of force, rather than a stubborn refusal to engage that has allowed the situation to become more dangerous by the day. And the role I support for the National Guard is hardly "radical"; it was endorsed by the bipartisan Hart-Rudman commission and in fact is enshrined in our Constitution (Section 8, Clause 15).

More important, The Post`s editorial comes close to equating the Bush administration`s foreign policy -- including its signature doctrine of "preemptive war" -- with the American foreign policy mainstream. In fact, the Bush agenda represents a radical departure from decades of bipartisan consensus on the appropriate use of U.S. power and our leadership in the world community.

From its derisive treatment of allies to its rejection of important global agreements, this administration has favored a go-it-alone approach and a determination to use force as its weapon of first resort. Its approach has alienated friends and bolstered foes. Its agenda isolates the United States, placing responsibility for all the world`s problems in our hands, and runs counter to America`s traditions as a republic.

By contrast, my national security policy reflects the best of our mainstream tradition. I believe the United States must exercise leadership by working with allies and partners to advance common interests, rather than advancing our power unilaterally.

My program is clear. First, we must strengthen our military and intelligence, ensure that our troops have the best training and equipment and keep our promises about pay and benefits.

Second, we must rebuild our alliances, badly damaged by the current administration. Every president since World War II, until now, has worked effectively with our allies and partners, because each believed this was the best way to safeguard security. Established alliances, which train and plan together over decades, are better at waging combat and building peace than makeshift coalitions of the willing.

Third, we must make our top priorities defeating the terrorists who have attacked America and preventing the most deadly weapons of all -- nuclear, chemical and biological -- from falling into their hands. We must bolster these priorities with improved Special Forces, better intelligence coordination and dramatically enhanced homeland security.

We need a global alliance to defeat terrorism that will draw on the strengths of allies and partners to destroy terrorist networks. And I will build, with our allies, a $60 billion global fund to combat weapons of mass destruction.

Fourth, advancing American interests requires greater engagement with developing nations on investment, trade, aid and public health.

This is a national security policy that honors the best of America`s traditions. It is a clear contrast to a policy centered on the misguided doctrine of unilateral preemption.

The reasons I opposed the war in Iraq are clear. In the fall of 2002, Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent threat to America. The administration had not (and still has not) presented clear evidence that Hussein was on the verge of attacking his neighbors or threatening the United States or the Middle East with weapons of mass destruction or supporting al Qaeda. The administration`s failures to mobilize allies and plan effectively for the war`s aftermath suggested difficulties ahead.

It is just as important that this president failed to level with the American people about the costs or potential consequences or about the nature of the threat. Our democratic tradition, our mainstream values, demand that government be open and honest with its governed. The consequences of the war are becoming clear, even beyond the loss of life, even beyond the $150 billion price tag -- so far. Our resources -- military, intelligence, diplomatic -- are strained. Our alliances are frayed. Around the world, too many are now under the false impression that the American people are bent on global domination and war against Islam.

A critical presidential campaign is now underway. Americans face a choice between two very different views of our role in the world. My agenda returns security policy to its fundamental course: protecting Americans and advancing our values and interests -- democracy, freedom, opportunity and peace -- through effective partnerships and global leadership, as well as military strength.

The current administration strays wildly from this course and from the time-honored manner of pursuing it. In the end, I believe it will be clear who is in the mainstream and who is swimming against the tide of history.

The writer, a former governor of Vermont, seeks the Democratic nomination for president.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
The Poverty Quagmire


By Timothy M. Smeeding

Sunday, December 21, 2003; Page B07


"We have in 1964 a unique opportunity and obligation -- to prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our purpose and our competence."

-- President Lyndon B. Johnson

in his 1964 State of the Union Address

As the 40th anniversary of the War on Poverty approaches, Johnson`s words are a cutting reminder of a war that we have not won. Indeed, it is a war we have not even fought. Still, it has its casualties: They are the children and grandchildren of the same people LBJ spoke of 40 years ago.

According to data in the Luxembourg Income Study, child poverty is significantly higher in the United States than in wealthy European nations and in Canada and Australia. In 1997 -- in the midst of a robust economy -- one in five American children lived in poverty. This is about double the rate in other wealthy industrialized nations, such as France, Germany and the Nordic countries.

We in America have high child poverty rates because we choose to, not because we cannot do anything about it. Other nations make different choices and get different results. For example, Tony Blair lifted Britain`s spending on poor families with children by 0.9 percent of GDP. The result? Britain`s high child poverty rate is ebbing as ours continues to climb. The United States could commit half the effort of Tony Blair`s government and see a seismic shift in the well-being of millions of children.

The truth is that America tolerates -- even accepts -- persistent child poverty. Our education system reflects it, as do our tax policy, child care policy and child support policy.

We say that we will leave no child behind, but in fact we continue to drag millions of children behind each year. And the reality is that they may never catch up and become fully participating members of society. Poor children in France, Germany and the Nordic countries are six times more likely to escape poverty than their American counterparts.

Fully one-third of children of single mothers in the United States today are not just poor but extremely poor. As the study data indicate, low-income single mothers in the United States work more hours than do single mothers in any other wealthy nation, yet have higher poverty rates.

Decades of economic growth have not lifted the worst-off Americans to a higher standard of living. Ten percent of America`s children are so impoverished that their normal health and growth are seriously at risk.

Every policy decision has its consequences. We spend billions caring for our elderly through successful and cherished federal programs. We spend money here and shed blood abroad to fight against terrorism. These are difficult and complex decisions, but policymakers do find the will to make them. That has not been the case when it comes to child poverty. Efforts that simply attempt to change the behavior of people living in poverty, and put the blame entirely on them, will fail. Working hard is simply not enough. The government needs to support people, not merely threaten them. Or else, 40 years from now, a future government will be threatening their children.

Preventing future generations of children from growing up poor, undereducated and malnourished has been perpetually on America`s "to do" list. Nearly seventy years ago we made a commitment to deal with old-age poverty, and we have been fairly successful in doing so. Nothing on that scale is being seriously considered in Washington to deal with our children.

Johnson`s 1964 State of the Union address sounds ominous now: "If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels . . . then history will rightfully judge us harshly. But if we succeed, if we can achieve these goals by forging in this country a greater sense of union, then, and only then, can we take full satisfaction in the State of the Union."

President Bush cannot truthfully declare the state of the Union strong in the face of the harsh facts of life for America`s poor children. In this holiday season he should truly dedicate America to fighting the War on Poverty that was proclaimed nearly 40 Christmases ago but never fought. There are millions of ground troops in our schools, on our streets, in our places of worship and in our government to support such an effort, if policymakers would stop dragging their heels and dragging our children behind them.

Timothy M. Smeeding is co-author, with Lee Rainwater, of "Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America`s Children in Comparative Perspective," published by the Russell Sage Foundation. He is also director of the Luxembourg Income Study, a project that assembles income data from a number of countries.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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"That Little Ol` Band From Texas," ZZ TOP, performed
at President George W. Bush`s inaugural celebration.
"Best Little Ball In D.C."
Thursday, January 18th, 2001 at the

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A San Francisco fire engine`s ladder extends to the roof at a PG&E substation at Eighth and Mission that may have been the cause of the blackout in San Francisco on Saturday. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush

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MEDIA OBSESSION
Enough With the Dental Exam
From Saddam`s mouth to your eye, endlessly
Jaime O`Neill
Sunday, December 21, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/21/INGUN3QJHP1.DTL


Thanks to CNN, I now know the inside of Saddam Hussein`s mouth better than I know my own. This was not knowledge I was particularly keen on having. In fact, I`m rather reluctant to spend much time surveying the interior of my own facial cavities, and if I`d known that my news purveyors felt it important that I become intimately familiar with the inside of Saddam`s pie hole, I might have tried to absent myself from proximity to a television set for a few dozen months.

That was not to be my fate, however; I had the misfortune of being shut in with a cold last Sunday when the news broke that Saddam had been captured. As usually happens on such news days, the media was caught with a very big story, a very few pictures and very little information.

In fact, just about all they had were those few pictures, and the headline that Saddam had been caught. A five-second story, if told once. But that would not suffice, so what they tend to do on days like these is simply repeat what little they know. Key word: repeat. Mercilessly, incessantly, numbingly. Rather like Chinese water torture. For all intents and purposes, all other human activity on the planet ceases. If you should die on such a day, you will slip beneath the waves as though you were never born, even if you were once famous. Nothing else is important enough to displace the pictures of Saddam`s uvula. Nothing. Robertson, Zahn, Cooper, and Blitzer -- all those news heads working in relays, nattering on in voice-overs while we watch the same few pictures swimming before our eyes again and again.

There was, arguably, more justification for the Saddam image saturation than there had been for the soaking we got a few weeks ago when Michael Jackson went to Santa Barbara and then back to Las Vegas. If I see that mug shot the Santa Barbara cops took of Michael one more time, I fear the image will burn itself on my retina and I will stumble through my remaining years only seeing alternating images of Michael Jackson`s "Joker" face and the inside of Saddam Hussein`s mouth.

In our heads, we all carry a film library of images the media decrees we must see no fewer than a thousand times. O.J.`s Bronco chase, the Rodney King beating, JonBenet Ramsey in her little costume and her adult makeup, Scott Peterson talking on his cell phone, Michael Jackson dangling his baby from that balcony.

I have begun to think that there is a required course taken by people who go into broadcast journalism. In it they learn to align stories with a requisite number of repeated viewings. It seems programmatic, and not necessarily related to the importance of the story. If the pictures are dramatic enough, or if they feature a big enough celebrity, we must see them no fewer than 10,000 times. Weaker pictures, lesser stories equal fewer repetitions.

At mid-morning Sunday, I began to count the times I had seen Saddam`s mouth being probed. I have no idea how many times I had already seen the image before I started counting, but once I began, I quickly got to 323 sightings, and then I quit.

Sooner or later, we will all have seen those pictures the minimal number of 10,000 repetitions required of a story like this one. We all are going to be living inside Saddam`s mouth for years to come, I`m afraid, and if that doesn`t make him a reprehensible figure, I don`t know if anything will.

Let`s just be grateful the media didn`t have pictures of Saddam`s examination by an Army proctologist. War is surely hell, but there is a limit to what the American people can be asked to bear.

Jaime O`Neill teaches at Butte College near Oroville.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

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Saddam verdict expected to take five years
By Colin Freeman and Philip Sherwell in Baghdad
(Filed: 21/12/2003)


Iraqi officials and judges involved in setting up Baghdad`s new war crimes court have revealed that Saddam Hussein`s trial will not be finished for five years, despite the clamour for speedy justice since his arrest last week.

The desire among many ordinary Iraqis for their former dictator to be tried rapidly must be sacrificed to the need for a full and open hearing that satisfies international legal standards, officials say.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the member of Iraq`s new governing council who is responsible for setting up the war crimes tribunal, said: "Five years is the best estimate of how long it may take, from where we are now to actually reaching a verdict.

"It will obviously cause impatience among the Iraqi people, but I don`t think that there is anything that can be done about that."

Iraqi judges, who are drafting new laws of genocide and war crimes to be incorporated into the country`s legal system, say that the volume and complexity of the cases against Saddam mean that it will take at least a year to formulate charges.

Little preparatory work has been done because Saddam was not expected to be taken alive. Further delays will be caused by the fact that Iraq`s legal system, badly undermined under his regime, is new to the intricacies of war crimes law.

"Even if we stick to just a few main charges, it is still a lot to cope with," said one senior judge. "Kurds, Shias and other communities who suffered under Saddam want to have their cases aired properly in court. Many people will want to give evidence."

Matters may be further delayed by international debate over whether Saddam should be tried in Iraq at all. Human rights groups believe that he should be handed over to an international criminal court, similar to the one in The Hague, while America and Britain are content for all culpable ex-regime leaders to be tried by Iraqis themselves.

On Friday, John Negroponte, America`s ambassador to the United Nations, insisted that no decision had yet been made. But after giving their blessing to Iraq`s war crimes court two weeks ago, the coalition`s leading partners would find it hard to make an exception for Saddam.

Charges against the former leader are expected to be restricted to a handful of key events in Iraq`s recent, bloody history - including atrocities ordered during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the gassing and persecution of Kurds, the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the brutal suppression of the Shia and Kurdish rebellions in 1991.

A five-year wait for a verdict would put Saddam`s trial on a par with that of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader on trial at The Hague, whose hearing began in February 2002, and has no immediate end in sight.

The coalition, however, hopes that the process can be speeded up. "Five years would be abnormally long," said one senior legal official. "We hope to get the trial under way by the end of next year, but it is impossible to say how long it will be before he finally leaves the dock."

Saddam is expected to use the platform of a public trial to mount a strident political defence of his regime, and to remind an international audience that he once had allies in Western Europe, America and the old Soviet Union, particularly during Iraq`s war with the Islamic regime of Iran.

With his penchant for rambling rhetoric, his self-obsessed view of history and his determination to be remembered as a great Arab leader, the chance to justify himself to the world and embarrass former allies in the process would be too good to miss, say friends and foes alike.

Badir Arief Izzat, a leading Baghdad lawyer who already represents several other former Ba`athist leaders and has volunteered to work on Saddam`s case pro bono, said: "This tribunal will embarrass Bush the father and that will be bad for Bush the son. Saddam will talk and the whole world will be able to listen."

Jacques Verges, the veteran French lawyer whose previous clients include the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, and who, the Telegraph revealed last week, is representing Tariq Aziz, Saddam`s former trusted aide, has also offered his services to the former dictator`s family.

He hinted yesterday that Saddam`s defence would highlight the international support he received while, for example, gassing Kurds at Halabja.

During a visit to Amman to meet Mr Aziz`s relations, he said "all Western heads of state" from that era should also go on trial if Saddam ended up in the dock.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12…

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Constant Conflict
RALPH PETERS
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/97summer/peter…
From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14.

Go to Summer issue Table of Contents.

Go to Cumulative Article Index.

We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the "clash of civilizations" is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before. The future is bright--and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy--that deft liberal form of imperialism--and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.

In the past, information empowerment was largely a matter of insider and outsider, as elementary as the division of society into the literate and illiterate. While superior information--often embodied in military technology--killed throughout history, its effects tended to be politically decisive but not personally intrusive (once the raping and pillaging were done). Technology was more apt to batter down the city gates than to change the nature of the city. The rise of the modern West broke the pattern. Whether speaking of the dispossessions and dislocations caused in Europe through the introduction of machine-driven production or elsewhere by the great age of European imperialism, an explosion of disorienting information intruded ever further into Braudel`s "structures of everyday life." Historically, ignorance was bliss. Today, ignorance is no longer possible, only error.

The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.

Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community). The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. Information, from the internet to rock videos, will not be contained, and fundamentalism cannot control its children. Our victims volunteer.

These noncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam or the rejectionist segment of our own population, are enraged. Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional, and the successful move on without them. The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering.

It is a truism that throughout much of the 20th century the income gap between top and bottom narrowed, whether we speak of individuals, countries, or in some cases continents. Further, individuals or countries could "make it" on sheer muscle power and the will to apply it. You could work harder than your neighbor and win in the marketplace. There was a rough justice in it, and it offered near-ecumenical hope. That model is dead. Today, there is a growing excess of muscle power in an age of labor-saving machines and methods. In our own country, we have seen blue-collar unions move from center stage to near-irrelevance. The trend will not reverse. At the same time, expectations have increased dramatically. There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them (in the breech, they often have not), only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules overnight. The American who graduated from high school in the 1960s expected a good job that would allow his family security and reasonably increasing prosperity. For many such Americans, the world has collapsed, even as the media tease them with images of an ever-richer, brighter, fun world from which they are excluded. These discarded citizens sense that their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged. Some seek the solace of explicit religion. Most remain law-abiding, hard-working citizens. Some do not.

The foreign twin is the Islamic, or sub-Saharan African, or Mexican university graduate who faces a teetering government, joblessness, exclusion from the profits of the corruption distorting his society, marriage in poverty or the impossibility of marriage, and a deluge of information telling him (exaggeratedly and dishonestly) how well the West lives. In this age of television-series franchising, videos, and satellite dishes, this young, embittered male gets his skewed view of us from reruns of Dynasty and Dallas, or from satellite links beaming down Baywatch, sources we dismiss too quickly as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration as factors influencing world affairs. But their effect is destructive beyond the power of words to describe. Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America`s irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.

Most citizens of the globe are not economists; they perceive wealth as inelastic, its possession a zero-sum game. If decadent America (as seen on the screen) is so fabulously rich, it can only be because America has looted one`s own impoverished group or country or region. Adding to the cognitive dissonance, the discarded foreigner cannot square the perceived moral corruption of America, a travesty of all he has been told to value, with America`s enduring punitive power. How could a nation whose women are "all harlots" stage Desert Storm? It is an offense to God, and there must be a demonic answer, a substance of conspiracies and oppression in which his own secular, disappointing elite is complicit. This discarded foreigner`s desire may be to attack the "Great Satan America," but America is far away (for now), so he acts violently in his own neighborhood. He will accept no personal guilt for his failure, nor can he bear the possibility that his culture "doesn`t work." The blame lies ever elsewhere. The cult of victimization is becoming a universal phenomenon, and it is a source of dynamic hatreds.

It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry "American culture," with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites--figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians--human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people`s culture. It stresses comfort and convenience--ease--and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx`s dream, and his nightmare.

Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can`t wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather "Baywatch." America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no "peer competitor" in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted--men and women everywhere--clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.

American culture is criticized for its impermanence, its "disposable" products. But therein lies its strength. All previous cultures sought ideal achievement which, once reached, might endure in static perfection. American culture is not about the end, but the means, the dynamic process that creates, destroys, and creates anew. If our works are transient, then so are life`s greatest gifts--passion, beauty, the quality of light on a winter afternoon, even life itself. American culture is alive.

This vividness, this vitality, is reflected in our military; we do not expect to achieve ultimate solutions, only constant improvement. All previous cultures, general and military, have sought to achieve an ideal form of life and then fix it in cement. Americans, in and out of uniform, have always embraced change (though many individuals have not, and their conservatism has acted as a healthy brake on our national excesses). American culture is the culture of the unafraid.

Ours is also the first culture that aims to include rather than exclude. The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand. The action films of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris rely on visual narratives that do not require dialog for a basic understanding. They deal at the level of universal myth, of pre-text, celebrating the most fundamental impulses (although we have yet to produce a film as violent and cruel as the Iliad). They feature a hero, a villain, a woman to be defended or won--and violence and sex. Complain until doomsday; it sells. The enduring popularity abroad of the shopworn Rambo series tells us far more about humanity than does a library full of scholarly analysis.

When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win.

As more and more human beings are overwhelmed by information, or dispossessed by the effects of information-based technologies, there will be more violence. Information victims will often see no other resort. As work becomes more cerebral, those who fail to find a place will respond by rejecting reason. We will see countries and continents divide between rich and poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic trends. Developing countries will not be able to depend on physical production industries, because there will always be another country willing to work cheaper. The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence, but transnational criminality, civil strife, secessions, border conflicts, and conventional wars will continue to plague the world, albeit with the "lesser" conflicts statistically dominant. In defense of its interests, its citizens, its allies, or its clients, the United States will be required to intervene in some of these contests. We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it.

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

We are building an information-based military to do that killing. There will still be plenty of muscle power required, but much of our military art will consist in knowing more about the enemy than he knows about himself, manipulating data for effectiveness and efficiency, and denying similar advantages to our opponents. This will involve a good bit of technology, but the relevant systems will not be the budget vampires, such as manned bombers and attack submarines, that we continue to buy through inertia, emotional attachment, and the lobbying power of the defense industry. Our most important technologies will be those that support soldiers and Marines on the ground, that facilitate command decisions, and that enable us to kill accurately and survive amid clutter (such as multidimensional urban battlefields). The only imaginable use for most of our submarine fleet will be to strip out the weapons, dock them tight, and turn the boats into low-income housing. There will be no justification for billion-dollar bombers at all.

For a generation, and probably much longer, we will face no military peer competitor. Our enemies will challenge us by other means. The violent actors we encounter often will be small, hostile parties possessed of unexpected, incisive capabilities or simply of a stunning will to violence (or both). Renegade elites, not foreign fleets, should worry us. The urbanization of the global landscape is a greater threat to our operations than any extant or foreseeable military system. We will not deal with wars of Realpolitik, but with conflicts spawned of collective emotions, sub-state interests, and systemic collapse. Hatred, jealousy, and greed--emotions rather than strategy--will set the terms of the struggles.

We will survive and win any conflict short of a cataclysmic use of weapons of mass destruction. But the constant conflicts in which we selectively intervene will be as miserable as any other form of warfare for the soldiers and Marines engaged. The bayonet will still be relevant; however, informational superiority incisively employed should both sharpen that bayonet and permit us to defeat some--but never all--of our enemies outside of bayonet range. Our informational advantage over every other country and culture will be so enormous that our greatest battlefield challenge will be harnessing its power. Our potential national weakness will be the failure to maintain the moral and raw physical strength to thrust that bayonet into an enemy`s heart.

Pilots and skippers, as well as defense executives, demand threat models that portray country X or Y as overtaking the military capability of the United States in 10 to 20 years. Forget it. Our military power is culturally based. They cannot rival us without becoming us. Wise competitors will not even attempt to defeat us on our terms; rather, they will seek to shift the playing field away from military confrontations or turn to terrorism and nontraditional forms of assault on our national integrity. Only the foolish will fight fair.

The threat models stitched together from dead parts to convince Congress that the Russians are only taking a deep breath or that the Chinese are only a few miles off the coast of California uniformly assume that while foreign powers make all the right decisions, analyze every trend correctly, and continue to achieve higher and higher economic growth rates, the United States will take a nap. On the contrary. Beyond the Beltway, the United States is wide awake and leading a second "industrial" revolution that will make the original industrial revolution that climaxed the great age of imperialism look like a rehearsal by amateurs. Only the United States has the synthetic ability, the supportive laws, and the cultural agility to remain at the cutting edge of wealth creation.

Not long ago, the Russians were going to overtake us. Then it was oil-wealthy Arabs, then the Japanese. One prize-winning economist even calculated that fuddy-duddy Europe would dominate the next century (a sure prescription for boredom, were it true). Now the Chinese are our nemesis. No doubt our industrial-strength Cassandras will soon find a reason to fear the Galapagos. In the meantime, the average American can look forward to a longer life-span, a secure retirement, and free membership in the most triumphant culture in history. For the majority of our citizens, our vulgar, near-chaotic, marvelous culture is the greatest engine of positive change in history.

Freedom works.

In the military sphere, it will be impossible to rival or even approach the capabilities of our information-based force because it is so profoundly an outgrowth of our culture. Our information-based Army will employ many marvelous tools, but the core of the force will still be the soldier, not the machine, and our soldiers will have skills other cultures will be unable to replicate. Intelligence analysts, fleeing human complexity, like to project enemy capabilities based upon the systems a potential opponent might acquire. But buying or building stuff is not enough. It didn`t work for Saddam Hussein, and it won`t work for Beijing.

The complex human-machine interface developing in the US military will be impossible to duplicate abroad because no other state will be able to come from behind to equal the informational dexterity of our officers and soldiers. For all the complaints--in many respects justified--about our public school systems, the holistic and synergistic nature of education in our society and culture is imparting to tomorrow`s soldiers and Marines a second-nature grasp of technology and the ability to sort and assimilate vast amounts of competitive data that no other population will achieve. The informational dexterity of our average middle-class kid is terrifying to anyone born before 1970. Our computer kids function at a level foreign elites barely manage, and this has as much to do with television commercials, CD-ROMs, and grotesque video games as it does with the classroom. We are outgrowing our 19th-century model education system as surely as we have outgrown the manned bomber. In the meantime, our children are undergoing a process of Darwinian selection in coping with the information deluge that is drowning many of their parents. These kids are going to make mean techno-warriors. We just have to make sure they can do push-ups, too.

There is a useful German expression, "Die Lage war immer so ernst," that translates very freely as "The sky has always been falling." Despite our relish of fears and complaints, we live in the most powerful, robust culture on earth. Its discontinuities and contradictions are often its strengths. We are incapable of five-year plans, and it is a saving grace. Our fluidity, in consumption, technology, and on the battlefield, is a strength our nearest competitors cannot approach. We move very fast. At our military best, we become Nathan Bedford Forrest riding a microchip. But when we insist on buying into extended procurement contracts for unaffordable, neo-traditional weapon systems, we squander our brilliant flexibility. Today, we are locking-in already obsolescent defense purchases that will not begin to rise to the human capabilities of tomorrow`s service members. In 2015 and beyond, we will be receiving systems into our inventory that will be no more relevant than Sherman tanks and prop-driven bombers would be today. We are not providing for tomorrow`s military, we are paralyzing it. We will have the most humanly agile force on earth, and we are doing our best to shut it inside a technological straight-jacket.

There is no "big threat" out there. There`s none on the horizon, either. Instead of preparing for the Battle of Midway, we need to focus on the constant conflicts of richly varying description that will challenge us--and kill us--at home and abroad. There are plenty of threats, but the beloved dinosaurs are dead.

We will outcreate, outproduce and, when need be, outfight the rest of the world. We can out-think them, too. But our military must not embark upon the 21st century clinging to 20th-century models. Our national appetite for information and our sophistication in handling it will enable us to outlast and outperform all hierarchical cultures, information-controlling societies, and rejectionist states. The skills necessary to this newest information age can be acquired only beginning in childhood and in complete immersion. Societies that fear or otherwise cannot manage the free flow of information simply will not be competitive. They might master the technological wherewithal to watch the videos, but we will be writing the scripts, producing them, and collecting the royalties. Our creativity is devastating. If we insist on a "proven" approach to military affairs, we will be throwing away our greatest national advantage.

We need to make sure our information-based military is based on the right information.

Facing this environment of constant conflict amid information proliferation, the military response has been to coin a new catchphrase--information warfare--and then duck. Although there has been plenty of chatter about information warfare, most of it has been as helpful and incisive as a discussion of sex among junior high school boys; everybody wants to pose, but nobody has a clue. We have hemorrhaged defense dollars to contractors perfectly willing to tell us what we already knew. Studies study other studies. For now, we have decided that information warfare is a matter of technology, which is akin to believing that your stereo system is more important to music than the musicians.

Fear not. We are already masters of information warfare, and we shall get around to defining it eventually. Let the scholars fuss. When it comes to our technology (and all technology is military technology) the Russians can`t produce it, the Arabs can`t afford it, and no one can steal it fast enough to make a difference. Our great bogeyman, China, is achieving remarkable growth rates because the Chinese belatedly entered the industrial revolution with a billion-plus population. Without a culture-shattering reappreciation of the role of free information in a society, China will peak well below our level of achievement.

Yes, foreign cultures are reasserting their threatened identities--usually with marginal, if any, success--and yes, they are attempting to escape our influence. But American culture is infectious, a plague of pleasure, and you don`t have to die of it to be hindered or crippled in your integrity or competitiveness. The very struggle of other cultures to resist American cultural intrusion fatefully diverts their energies from the pursuit of the future. We should not fear the advent of fundamentalist or rejectionist regimes. They are simply guaranteeing their peoples` failure, while further increasing our relative strength.

It remains difficult, of course, for military leaders to conceive of warfare, informational or otherwise, in such broad terms. But Hollywood is "preparing the battlefield," and burgers precede bullets. The flag follows trade. Despite our declaration of defeat in the face of battlefield victory in Mogadishu, the image of US power and the US military around the world is not only a deterrent, but a psychological warfare tool that is constantly at work in the minds of real or potential opponents. Saddam swaggered, but the image of the US military crippled the Iraqi army in the field, doing more to soften them up for our ground assault than did tossing bombs into the sand. Everybody is afraid of us. They really believe we can do all the stuff in the movies. If the Trojans "saw" Athena guiding the Greeks in battle, then the Iraqis saw Luke Skywalker precede McCaffrey`s tanks. Our unconscious alliance of culture with killing power is a combat multiplier no government, including our own, could design or afford. We are magic. And we`re going to keep it that way.

Within our formal military, we have been moving into information warfare for decades. Our attitude toward data acquisition and, especially, data dissemination within the force has broken with global military tradition, in which empowering information was reserved for the upper echelons. While our military is vertically responsible, as it must be, it is informationally democratic. Our ability to decentralize information and appropriate decisionmaking authority is a revolutionary breakthrough (the over-praised pre-1945 Germans decentralized some tactical decisionmaking, but only within carefully regulated guidelines--and they could not enable the process with sufficient information dissemination).

No military establishment has ever placed such trust in lieutenants, sergeants, and privates, nor are our touted future competitors likely to do so. In fact, there has been an even greater diffusion of power within our military (in the Army and Marines) than most of us realize. Pragmatic behavior daily subverts antiquated structures, such as divisions and traditional staffs. We keep the old names, but the behaviors are changing. What, other than its flag, does the division of 1997 have in common with the division of World War II? Even as traditionalists resist the reformation of the force, the "anarchy" of lieutenants is shaping the Army of tomorrow. Battalion commanders do not understand what their lieutenants are up to, and generals would not be able to sleep at night if they knew what the battalion commanders know. While we argue about change, the Army is changing itself. The Marines are doing a brilliant job of reinventing themselves while retaining their essence, and their achievement should be a welcome challenge to the Army. The Air Force and Navy remain rigidly hierarchical.

Culture is fate. Countries, clans, military services, and individual soldiers are products of their respective cultures, and they are either empowered or imprisoned. The majority of the world`s inhabitants are prisoners of their cultures, and they will rage against inadequacies they cannot admit, cannot bear, and cannot escape. The current chest-thumping of some Asian leaders about the degeneracy, weakness, and vulnerability of American culture is reminiscent of nothing so much as of the ranting of Japanese militarists on the eve of the Pacific War. I do not suggest that any of those Asian leaders intend to attack us, only that they are wrong. Liberty always looks like weakness to those who fear it.

In the wake of the Soviet collapse, some commentators declared that freedom had won and history was at an end. But freedom will always find enemies. The problem with freedom is that it`s just too damned free for tyrants, whether they be dictators, racial or religious supremacists, or abusive husbands. Freedom challenges existing orders, exposes bigotry, opens opportunity, and demands personal responsibility. What could be more threatening to traditional cultures? The advent of this new information age has opened a fresh chapter in the human struggle for, and with, freedom. It will be a bloody chapter, with plenty of computer-smashing and head-bashing. The number one priority of non-Western governments in the coming decades will be to find acceptable terms for the flow of information within their societies. They will uniformly err on the side of conservatism--informational corruption--and will cripple their competitiveness in doing so. Their failure is programmed.

The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline.


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Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master`s degree in international relations. Over the past several years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books. This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.


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Go to Summer issue Table of Contents.

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Reviewed 8 May 1997. Please send comments or corrections to [e-mail]

[Joerver]

Ich stelle diesen Artikel ein, weil der Sunday Herald in den letzten Monaten einige Berichte gebracht hat, die anfänglich sehr unglaubwürdig waren, sich aber später als wahr erwiesen.

Sunday Herald - 21 December 2003
Revealed: who really found Saddam?
Saddam’s capture was the best present George Bush could have hoped for, and then Gaddafi handed a propaganda gift to Blair. But nothing’s ever that simple
By Foreign Editor David Pratt

http://www.sundayherald.com/38816
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It was exactly one week ago at 3.15pm Baghdad time, when a beaming Paul Bremer made that now-famous announce ment: “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!”
Saddam Hussein: High Value Target Number One. The Glorious Leader. The Lion of Babylon had been snared. Iraq’s most wanted – the ace of spades – had become little more than an ace in the hole.

In Baghdad’s streets, Kalashnikov bullets rained down in celebration. In the billets of US soldiers, there were high fives, toasts and cigars. In the Jordanian capital Amman, an elderly woman overcome by grief broke down in tears and died. Inside a snow-blanketed White House, George W Bush prepared to address the nation.

“There’s an end to everything,” said a sombre Safa Saber al-Douri, a former Iraqi air force pilot, now a grocer in al-Dwar, the town where only hours earlier one of the greatest manhunts in history had ended under a polystyrene hatch in a six foot deep “spider hole.”

But just how did that endgame come about? Indeed, who exactly were the key players in what until then had been a frustrating and sometimes embarrassing hunt for a former dictator with a $25 million (£14m) bounty on his head?

For 249 days there was no shortage of US expertise devoted to the hunt. But the Pentagon has always remained tight-lipped about those individuals and groups involved, such as Task Force 20, said to be America’s most elite covert unit, or another super-secret team known as Greyfox, which specialises in radio and telephone surveillance.

Saddam, of course, was never likely to use the phone, and the best chance of locating him would always be as a result of informers or home-grown Iraqi intelligence. On this and their collaboration with anti-Saddam groups the Americans have also remained reticent.

Enter one Qusrat Rasul Ali, otherwise known as the lion of Kurdistan. A leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Rasul Ali was once tortured by Saddam’s henchmen, but today is chief of a special forces unit dedicated to hunting down former Ba’athist regime leaders.

Rasul Ali’s unit had an impressive track record. It was they who last August, working alone, arrested Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan in Mosul, northern Iraq. Barely a month earlier in the al-Falah district of the same town, the PUK is believed to have played a crucial role in the pinpointing and storming of a villa that culminated in the deaths of Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay.

In that mixed district of Mosul where Arabs, Kurds and Turkemen live side by side, PUK informers went running to their leader Jalal Talabani’s nearest military headquarters to bring him news on the exact location of the villa where both Uday and Qusay had taken shelter.

Armed with the information, Talabani made a beeline for US administration offices in Baghdad, where deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz was based for a week’s stay in Iraq at the time.

The Kurdish leader and US military chiefs conferred and decided that PUK intelligence would go ahead and secretly surround the Zeidan villa and install sensors and eavesdropping devices. The Kurdish agents were instructed to prepare the site for the US special forces operation to storm the building on July 22.

American officials later said they expected that the $30m bounty promised by their government for the capture or death of the Hussein sons would be paid. Given their direct involvement in providing the exact location and intelligence necessary, no doubt Talabani’s PUK operatives could lay claim to the sum, but no confirmation of any delivery or receipt of the cash has ever been made.

The PUK and Rasul Ali’s special “Ba’athist hunters” have, it seems, been doing what the Americans have consistently failed to do. In an interview with the PUK’s al-Hurriyah radio station last Wednesday, Adil Murad, a member of the PUK’s political bureau, confirmed that the Kurdish unit had been pursuing fugitive Ba’athists for the past months in Mosul, Samarra, Tikrit and areas to the south including al-Dwar where Saddam was eventually cornered. Murad even says that the day before Saddam’s capture he was tipped off by PUK General Thamir al-Sultan, that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours.

Clearly the Kurdish net was closing on Saddam, and PUK head Jalal Talabani and Rasul Ali were once again in the running for US bounty – should any be going.

It was at about 10.50am Baghdad time on last Saturday when US intel ligence says it got the tip it was looking for. But it was not until 8pm, with the launch of Operation Red Dawn, that they finally began to close in on the prize.

The US media reported that the tip-off came from an Iraqi man who was arrested during a raid in Tikrit, and even speculated that he could get part of the bounty. “It was intelligence, actionable intelligence,” claimed Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq. “It was great analytical work.”

But the widely held view that Kurdish intelligence was the key to the operation was supported in a statement released last Sunday by the Iraqi Governing Council. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said that Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit had provided vital information and more.




Last Saturday, as the US operation picked up speed, the Fourth Infantry Division moved into the area surrounding two farms codenamed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2 near al-Dwar, the heart of the Saddam heartland – a military town where practically every man is a military officer past or present. It is said to have a special place in Saddam’s sentiments because it was from here that he swam across the Tigris River when he was a dissident fleeing arrest in the 1960s.

Every year on August 28, the town marks Saddam’s escape with a swimming contest . In 1992, Saddam himself attended the race. It was won by a man called Qais al-Nameq. It was al-Nameq’s farmhouse – Wolverine 2 – that about 600 troops, including engineers, artillery and special forces, surrounded, cutting off all roads for about four or five miles around.

Next to a sheep pen was a ramshackle orange and white taxi, which US officials say was probably used to ferry Saddam around while he was on the run, sometimes moving every three or four hours.

Inside the premises was a walled compound with a mud hut and small lean-to. There US soldiers found the camouflaged hole in which Saddam was hiding.

It was 3.15pm Washington time when Donald Rumsfeld called George W Bush at Camp David. “Mr President, first reports are not always accurate,” he began. “But we think we may have him.”

First reports – indeed the very first report of Saddam’s capture – were also coming out elsewhere. Jalal Talabani chose to leak the news and details of Rasul Ali’s role in the deployment to the Iranian media and to be interviewed by them.

By early Sunday – way before Saddam’s capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press – the Kurdish media ran the following news wire:

“Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat’s team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!”

By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been “captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters.”

Rasul Ali himself, meanwhile, had already been on air at the Iranian satellite station al-Alam insisting that his “PUK fighters sealed the area off before the arrival of the US forces”.

By late Sunday as the story went global, the Kurdish role was reduced to a supportive one in what was described by the Pentagon and US military officials as a “joint operation”. The Americans now somewhat reluctantly were admitting that PUK fighters were on the ground alongside them , while PUK sources were making more considered statements and playing down their precise role.

So just who did get to Saddam first, the Kurds or the Americans? And if indeed it was a joint operation would it have been possible at all without the intelligence and on-the-ground participation of Rasul Ali and his special forces?

If the PUK themselves pulled off Saddam’s capture, there would be much to gain from taking the $25m bounty and any political guarantees the Americans might reward them with to keep schtum. What’s more, Jalal Talabani’s links to Tehran have always worried Washington, and having his party grab the grand prize from beneath their noses would be awkward to say the least.

“It’s mutually worth it to us and the Americans. We need assurances for the future and they need the kudos of getting Saddam,” admitted a Kurdish source on condition of anonymity. It would be all to easy to dismiss the questions surrounding the PUK role as conspiracy theory. After all, almost every major event that affects the Arab world prompts tales that are quickly woven into intricate shapes and patterns, to demonstrate innocence, seek credit or apportion blame. Saddam’s capture is no exception.

Of the numerous and more exotic theories surrounding events leading to Saddam’s arrest, one originates on a website many believe edited by former Israeli intelligence agents, but which often turns up inside information about the Middle East that proves to be accurate.

According to Debka.com, there is a possibility that Saddam was held for up to three weeks in al-Dwar by a Kurdish splinter group while they negotiated a handover to the Americans in return for the $25m reward. This, the writers say would explain his dishevelled and disorientated appearance.

But perhaps the mother of all conspiracy theories, is the one about the pictures distributed by the Americans showing the hideout with a palm tree behind the soldier who uncov ered the hole where Saddam was hiding. The palm carried a cluster of pre-ripened yellow dates, which might suggest that Saddam was arrested at least three months earlier, because dates ripen in the summer when they turn into their black or brown colour.

Those who buy into such an explanation conclude that Saddam’s capture was stage-managed and his place of arrest probably elsewhere. All fanciful stuff. But as is so often the case, the real chain of events is likely to be far more mundane.

In the end serious questions remain about the Kurdish role and whether at last Sunday’s Baghdad press conference, Paul Bremer was telling the whole truth . Or is it a case of “ladies and gentlemen we got him,” – with a little more help from our Kurdish friends than might be politically expedient to admit?



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Copyright © 2003 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088
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[Joerver]

Not neo-con, just plain greed
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/…
The U.S. campaign to have Iraq`s debts forgiven shows how the Bush administration backs any market distortion that enriches its friends


By NAOMI KLEIN

UPDATED AT 8:54 AM EST Saturday, Dec. 20, 2003


Contrary to all predictions, the heavy doors of Old Europe weren`t slammed in James Baker`s face as he asked forgiveness for Iraq`s foreign debt. France and Germany appear to have signed on, and Russia is softening its line.

Just last week, there was virtual consensus that Mr. Baker`s Drop the Debt Tour had been maliciously sabotaged by deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, whose move to shut out non-coalition partners from $18.6-billion (U.S.) in Iraq reconstruction contracts seemed designed to make Mr. Baker look like a hypocrite.

Only now it turns out that Mr. Wolfowitz may not have been undermining Mr. Baker at all, but rather acting as his enforcer. He showed up with a big stick -- the threat of economic exclusion from Iraq`s potential $500-billion reconstruction -- just when Mr. Baker was about to speak softly.

Mr. Baker hardly needed Mr. Wolfowitz to make his mission look hypocritical; one can scarcely imagine an act more rife with historical ironies than James Baker impersonating Bono on Iraq`s debt. The Iraqi people "should not be saddled with the debt of a brutal regime that was more interested in using funds to build palaces and build torture chambers and brutalize the Iraqi people," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

No argument here. But when I heard about Mr. Baker`s "noble mission," as George W. Bush described it, I couldn`t help thinking about an underreported story from earlier this month. On Dec. 4, The Miami Herald published excerpts from a declassified State Department document. It is the transcript of a meeting held on Oct. 7, 1976, between Henry Kissinger, then-secretary of state under president Gerald Ford, and Argentina`s foreign minister under the military dictatorship, navy admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti.

It was the height of Argentina`s dirty war, a campaign to destroy the so-called Marxist threat in Argentina by systematically torturing and killing not only armed guerrillas, but also union organizers, student activists and their families and sympathizers. By the end of the dictatorship, about 30,000 people had been "disappeared."

At the time of the Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, much of Argentina`s left had been erased, and news of bodies washing up on the banks of the Rio de la Plata was drawing urgent calls for economic sanctions against the junta. The Kissinger-Guzzetti transcript reveals that Washington not only knew about the disappearances, it approved of them.

Mr. Guzzetti reports to Mr. Kissinger on "the very good results in the last four months. The terrorist organizations have been dismantled." After discussing the international outcry, Mr. Kissinger states, "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human-rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better."

Here is where Mr. Baker`s present-day mission becomes relevant.

Mr. Kissinger quickly moves on to the topic of loans, encouraging Mr. Guzzetti to apply for as much foreign assistance as possible -- and fast, before Argentina`s "human-rights problem" ties the hands of the U.S. administration. Mr. Kissinger instructs the minister, "Proceed with your Export-Import Bank requests. We would like your economic program to succeed and will do our best to help you."

The World Bank estimates that roughly $10-billion of the money borrowed by the generals went to military purchases, used to build the prison camps from which thousands never re-emerged, and to buy hardware for the Falklands War. It also went into numbered Swiss bank accounts, a sum impossible to track because the generals destroyed all records relating to the loans on their way out the door.

We do know this: Under the dictatorship, Argentina`s external debt ballooned from $7.7-billion in 1975 to $46-billion in 1982. Ever since, the country has been caught in an escalating crisis, borrowing billions to pay interest on that original, illegitimate debt, which today is only slightly higher than that held by Iraq`s foreign creditors: $141-billion.

The Kissinger transcript proves that the U.S. knowingly gave both money and high-level political encouragement to the generals` murderous campaign. Yet despite its irrefutable complicity in Argentina`s tragedy, the United States has consistently opposed all attempts to cancel the country`s debt.

Argentina`s case is not exceptional. For decades, the U.S. government has used its power in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to block campaigns to cancel debts accumulated under apartheid in South Africa, the Ferdinand Marcos kleptocracy in the Philippines, the brutally corrupt Duvalier regime in Haiti, the long military dictatorship that sent Brazil`s debt spiralling from $5.7-billion in 1964 to $104-billion in 1985. The list goes on.

The U.S. position has been that wiping out the debts would lead to dangerous precedents (and, of course, would rob Washington of the leverage it needs to push for investor-friendly economic reforms). So why now is Mr. Bush so concerned that "The future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt?" Because it is taking money away from "reconstruction," money that could be going to Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon and Boeing.

It has become popular to claim that the White House has been hijacked by neo-conservatives, men so in love with free-market dogma that they cannot see reason or pragmatism. I`m not convinced. If there`s one thing last week`s diplomatic dustups make clear, it`s that the underlying ideology of the Bush White House isn`t neo-conservatism, it`s old-fashioned greed.

While neo-cons worship abstract free-market rules, there is really only one rule that appears to matter to the Bush clan: If it helps our friends get even richer, do it.

Seen through this lens, the seemingly erratic behaviour coming out of Washington makes a lot more sense. Sure, Mr. Wolfowitz`s contract-hogging openly flouts the free-market principles of competition and government non-intervention. But like Mr. Baker`s jubilee, it does have a direct benefit for the firms closest to the Bush administration. Not only are they buying a debt-free Iraq, but they won`t have to compete for the deals with European corporate rivals.

The entire reconstruction project defies neo-con tenets. It has sent this year`s U.S. deficit to a cartoonish $500-billion, much of it handed out in no-bid contracts, creating the kind of monopoly in which Halliburton may have been able to overcharge an estimated $61-million for imported gasoline in Iraq.

Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: For the men who rule our world, rules are for other people. The truly powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on the most rarified delicacy of all: impunity.

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.

[nichtdie]

Lieber Joschka Fischer ...

Der niederländische Schriftsteller Leon de Winter findet den Außenminister inkonsequent

Leon De Winter - DIE WELT
Aus dem Niederländischen von Hanni Ehlers 18. Dezember 2003

Lieber Joschka Fischer, bevor ich meinem Ärger über Sie Luft mache, muss ich bekennen, dass Sie mir der liebste deutsche Politiker sind. Ein Gefühl, das ich wohl mit vielen Deutschen teile. Dass Sie auf die Öffentlichkeit so sympathisch wirken, hat natürlich sehr viel mit Ihrem Auftreten zu tun, mit Ihrer Art zu reden, ja sogar mit Ihrer Art, sich zu bewegen. Sie sind kein aalglatter Politiker, sondern ein netter, leicht widerborstiger Typ, der Gefühle zeigt (was emanzipiert und einnehmend ist) und offen zuzugeben wagt, wenn er im Zweifel ist (der Anti-Macho).
Vor kurzem haben wir uns ein paar Minuten unterhalten, und bei der Gelegenheit haben Sie meine Erwartungen nicht enttäuscht: Sie sind ein emotionaler und leidenschaftlicher Mensch, Sie sind engagiert und integer. Ich würde gerne mal einen Abend mit Ihnen zusammensitzen, um über das Leben, die Liebe und den Tod zu plauschen.

Wenn ich also gleich auf Sie einhacke, tue ich das nicht, weil Sie mir zuwider sind, sondern im Gegenteil, weil ich das Gefühl habe, mit Ihnen befreundet zu sein.

Und nun möchte ich gerne die Pressemitteilung zitieren, die Ihre Botschaften in der Welt verbreitet haben: "Die Bundesregierung begrüßt die heutige Festnahme Saddam Husseins und beglückwünscht die Koalition zu diesem sehr wichtigen Erfolg. Dies ist eine sehr gute Nachricht für das irakische Volk und die gesamte Region. Saddam Hussein war ein grausamer und brutaler Diktator, unter dem sein eigenes Volk am meisten gelitten hat. Er muss nun seiner gerechten Strafe zugeführt werden. ... Zugleich bietet dieser wichtige Erfolg die große Chance, schneller mit der Übertragung der Souveränität auf eine irakische Übergangsregierung voranzukommen und damit auch einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Stabilisierung des Irak zu leisten."

Ich nehme an, dass dieser Text von Ihren Beamten aufgesetzt wurde, aber ohne Ihre Billigung dürfte die Mitteilung nicht verbreitet worden sein. Sie haben sich den Text angesehen, vielleicht hier und da ein Wort verändert, aber offenbar nicht erkannt, dass Sie sich damit total lächerlich machen.

Denn es kann doch nicht sein, dass Sie, ein entschiedener Gegner des militärischen Eingreifens im Irak, die Koalition aufrichtig beglückwünschen. Sie haben doch alles darangesetzt, die Bush-Rumsfeld-Doktrin vom "regime change" zu verwerfen und als mit der internationalen Rechtsordnung unvereinbar zu erklären. Sie wollten den bisherigen Weg weiterverfolgen, obwohl er der eisernen Herrschaft Saddams auch nach einem Dutzend Jahren nicht die kleinste Schramme hatte zufügen können. Sie wollten weiterhin politischen Druck mit wirtschaftlichen Sanktionen verknüpfen, obwohl klar war, dass sich Saddam mit umfangreichem Schmuggel die Mittel für die Erhaltung seiner Macht beschaffen konnte und einziges Opfer der Sanktionen das irakische Volk war. Sie waren bereit, das Risiko in Kauf zu nehmen, dass sich Saddam mit dem islamistischen Terrorismus verbünden würde, Hauptsache, die Spielregeln der internationalen Rechtsordnung würden eingehalten.

Das Problem mit der internationalen Rechtsordnung ist, dass sich zwar westliche demokratische Gesellschaften von deren Regeln leiten lassen, Tyrannen aber dummerweise nicht; im Gegenteil, unter dem Schutz ebendieser internationalen Rechtsordnung, in der die nationale Souveränität das heiligste Gut ist, dürfen Tyrannen ihr eigenes Volk und ihren eigenen Staat besetzen, misshandeln und ausbeuten, solange sie die Souveränität anderer Staaten nicht verletzen. Das bestehende System der internationalen Rechtsordnung ist überholt, da ja der Kern der heutigen Rechtskultur nicht die nationale Souveränität mit dem Kollektiv als vorherrschendem Begriff zu sein hat, sondern die Integrität individueller Menschenrechte. Trotzdem haben Sie als Europäer mit Leib und Seele und somit als Befürworter des Verschwimmens nationaler Souveränitäten im Falle des Irak an der alten Idee festgehalten und waren bereit, die irakische Familiendynastie von Massenmördern noch viele Jahre lang zu erdulden.

Die Pressemitteilung Ihrer Botschaften ist scheinheilig. Wenn Sie hingegen ehrlich gewesen wären, hätte diese Pressemitteilung lauten müssen:

»Die Bundesregierung lehnt die Verhaftung Saddam Husseins ab und wirft der Koalition vor, dass Sie ein den Normen der internationalen Rechtsordnung nach rechtmäßiges Staatsoberhaupt gestürzt hat. Das ist Besorgnis erregend für das irakische Volk, die gesamte Region und den Rest der Welt. Die Koalition kann nicht über Saddam richten (lassen), dazu hat sie kein Recht. Die Bundesregierung geht davon aus, dass als Reaktion auf das unrechtmäßige Vorgehen der Koalition Terror und Gewalt im Irak zunehmen werden. Die Verhaftung Saddams verhindert, dass sich die Lage im Irak wieder stabilisiert. Der wichtige Grundsatz der irakischen Souveränität verlangt, dass Saddam Hussein sofort freigelassen wird.«

Wenn Sie A sagen, werter Herr Fischer, müssen Sie auch B sagen. Obwohl Sie im Grunde Ihres Herzens Letzteres meinen, haben Sie jene Pressemitteilung verbreiten lassen. Damit enttäuschen Sie mich. Von einem Freund erwartete ich klare Worte.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Leon de Winter


De Winter - er gefällt mir immer mehr - ein sehr kluger und aufmerksamer Mann

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Das Zuspruch wird schon geringer gegenüber den Umfragen von Anfang der Woche, aber meist liegt der Anstieg inerhalb der Fehlerquote. Ob durch die Ergreifung Saddams ein Trentwende zu Gunsten Bush`s erfolgt ist, wird die erste schlechte Nachricht zeigen.

Newsweek Poll: The Bush Bounce
Saddam Hussein’s arrest made Americans more optimistic about Iraq and gave the president a boost too

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jennifer Barrett
Newsweek
Updated: 2:56 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2003Dec. 20 - A new NEWSWEEK poll finds that last week’s capture of Saddam Hussein increased public confidence about U.S. efforts in Iraq. The arrest of the Iraqi dictator also boosted President George W. Bush’s approval rating and widened the gap between Bush and his Democratic rivals for the White House, the poll found.

Bush’s approval rating now stands at 54 percent, its highest level since July and an increase of three percentage points from last week’s poll. Saddam’s arrest also gave Bush an eight-point boost in his handling of the situation in Iraq: 53 percent of Americans now approve, while 39 percent do not.

Fifty-two percent of registered voters say Saddam’s seizure makes them more likely to reelect the president (33 percent say the capture won’t have any effect on their vote while just 12 percent say it will make them less likely to vote for Bush). Forty-one percent of voters say they are more likely to vote for Bush based on his handling of the situation in Iraq-up sharply from 34 percent last week. More than half of respondents (51 percent) approve of Bush’s handling of foreign policy in general, the highest number since July. (Thirty-nine percent disapprove.) And 58 percent of Americans say that U.S. efforts to establish security and rebuild Iraq have gone very (12 percent) or somewhat well (46 percent) since major combat ended on May 1-the highest number since the war ended.

Bush’s advantage over Howard Dean and other major Democratic presidential candidates in trial heats has now expanded to the double digits, the widest margin in three months. Dean remains in the lead among Democrats, with 26 percent of registered Democrats and self-defined “Democratic leaners” picking the former Vermont governor for the nomination. Fifteen percent would choose retired Gen. Wesley Clark. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and the Rev. Al Sharpton each pick up seven percent of the vote (a five-point drop for Lieberman in a week), while Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry gets six percent, and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards each get five percent). But if the election were held today, Dean would trail Bush by a 13-point margin (53 to 40 percent) vs. 7 points a week ago.
Bush enjoys his strongest support among voters between the ages of 30 and 49, with 53 percent indicating they’d like to see him remain in office (41 percent would not). Bush also draws more male than female voters. Among men, Bush enjoys a nine percent margin of support for his re-election (52 to 43 percent). Meanwhile, nearly half of female voters (49 percent) do not want Bush to have a second term, while 41 percent do. Not surprisingly, the vast majority (93 percent) of Republicans polled support Bush’s run for re-election-but 13 percent of registered Democrats and 39 percent of Independents do too.

While Bush enjoys a two-thirds approval rating for his policies to prevent and minimize terrorism at home (just 24 percent do not approve), the president continues to lose ground on some domestic issues. Nearly half of those polled (49 percent) now say they disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, an increase from 46 percent last week. Forty-seven percent disapprove of his tax polices, vs. 45 percent a week ago. And 56 percent are unhappy with the president’s handling of the deficit, vs. 55 percent a week ago.

Despite the continued attacks on U.S. soldiers in the past week, more Americans believe the capture of Saddam is likely to reduce the number of attacks on U.S. military personnel by Baathist loyalists over the long term than did five months ago. Forty-one percent say the capture is likely to reduce attacks on Americans, up from 33 percent who felt that way in July. Fifty-two percent of those polled say the arrest probably won’t have much effect, seven percent less than in July. But 51 percent of Americans say they don’t feel much safer or more secure now that Saddam is in custody (41 percent do).

Half of those polled think Saddam’s capture will allow the United States to turn over authority to a new Iraqi government earlier than planned. But 69 percent of Americans are still very (34 percent) or somewhat concerned (35 percent) that the United States will nonetheless be bogged down in Iraq for many years without making much progress in achieving its goals there.
The NEWSWEEK poll is conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, which interviewed by telephone 1,010 adults, aged 18 and older on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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Libya spies` secret deal to reveal terrorists
· Gadaffi joined war on terror to lift crippling sanctions
· Expelled envoy led talks on banned arms programmes

Peter Beaumont, Martin Bright and Kamal Ahmed
Sunday December 21, 2003
The Observer

Libya provided detailed intelligence on hundreds of al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists as part of a deal to end its isolation as a pariah nation, The Observer can reveal.

The disclosure came as Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush yesterday celebrated a diplomatic triumph following Friday night`s dramatic announcement that Libya had renounced its weapons of mass destruction programme.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw praised the Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gadaffi for his `huge statesmanship` in striking the deal over WMD.

But the real prize for London and Washington for two years of intense negotiation was access to material from one of the world`s most formidable and feared intelligence organisations, The Observer can reveal.

Libya has a sophisticated network of intelligence missions throughout Africa and the Middle East, many of them a legacy of the nationalist struggles of the post-colonial period and Cold War.

In a series of extraordinary meetings, orchestrated by MI6 and involving the CIA and Libyan intelligence, which were held in Britain over the past two years, Libya agreed to hand over intelligence as well as pledging to abandon its WMD programme in return for the lifting of crippling US sanctions.

In a further twist, it has emerged that the key Libyan negotiator was once an avowed enemy of Britain, accused of exporting international terror and masterminding Libya`s support for the IRA.

Musa Kousa, the head of Libya`s external security organisation, was an enemy of Britain and America until the events of 11 September 2001 made Libya a useful ally in the war on terror.

The one-time Libyan envoy to London, he was expelled from Britain in 1980 for publicly threatening to murder dissidents. He was also named by the French as a suspect in the bombing of a civilian airliner over Niger in 1989 with the loss of 170 lives.

In 1995, a secret MI5 assessment accused Kousa of running agents in the UK and of presiding over an organisation `responsible for supporting terrorist organisations and for perpetrating state sponsored acts of terrorism`.

Last Tuesday, however, Kousa was negotiating the final details of the plan to bring Libya in from the cold in the Travellers` Club in Pall Mall with senior figures from the Foreign Office and MI6.

It is a remarkable turnaround for a man who was declared persona non grata in 1980 by then Deputy Foreign Secretary Ian Gilmour amid cheers in the Commons.

Kousa was Libya`s de facto ambassador to Britain in June 1980 when he told the Times: `The revolutionary committees have decided last night to kill two more people in the United Kingdom. I approve of this.` He went on to profess admiration for the IRA and threatened to throw Libya`s support behind the terrorist organisation if Britain refused to hand over Gadaffi opponents. This threat was later followed through with material support to the IRA.

The deal announced on Friday follows two years of intense negotiations centred on London in the immediate aftermath of al-Qaeda`s devastating attack on the World Trade Centre. The first part of the negotiation secured compensation for the Lockerbie bombing.

London-based dissidents last night feared for their future and expressed their horror that Musa Kousa was allowed to enter the country.

Ashur Shamis, founder of the opposition National Front for the Liberation of Libya, said: `It is an absolutely appalling state of affairs. The British and Americans were prepared to go to war to dismantle a regime like Saddam`s. But they are quite happy to accommodate Gadaffi, who is no less tyrannical and repressive.`

Shamis, who has a $1m bounty on his head from Libya, said Kousa had organised the systematic persecution of Libyan dissidents in Europe for two decades.

Huda Abuzeid, whose dissident father was murdered by Libyan assassins in west London, said: `I am astonished that they have done this deal before dealing with the unsolved murders of my father and PC Yvonne Fletcher [shot and killed outside the Libyan People`s Bureau in 1984]. This is deeply depressing.`

Families of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing also reacted with dismay. Susan Cohen of New Jersey, whose daughter was killed on the flight, described the move as a `total betrayal`.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Sunday, December 21, 2003
War News for December 21, 2003

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: "A number" of US soldiers wounded in Baghdad demonstrations.

Bring `em on: RPG attacks on pipeline and oil storage facility in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Four oil pipelines ablaze between Tikrit and Mosul.

Bring `em on: CENTCOM reports US troops from 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne attacked by small arms and RPG fire.

Bring `em on: US convoy attacked with RPG fire in Mosul.

Capture of Saddam Hussein has left Arab world divided and dangerous. "The fact that the first attack against the American forces in the Gulf after the capture of Saddam took place in Kuwait, not Iraq, is seen by Arab analysts as an indication of the deep resentment against American policy in the area. Contrary to Tony Blair’s statement said last Sunday, the capture of Saddam Hussein is unlikely to be the beginning of the end in Iraq."

Internal conflicts increasing since capture of Saddam Hussein.

Kurds say they captured Saddam.

More on Bechtel and Iraqi schools. "Under the contract from the US Agency for International Development, Bechtel renovated 1,239 schools for a total of about $48 million, about $38,000 per school. Thor Christiansen, who oversaw school reconstruction for Bechtel, did not give an exact breakdown on how the money was spent on each school. But he said materials and salaries for 10 expatriates who oversaw the work of the Iraqi subcontractors accounted for the bulk."

- snip -

"Two months after the work was finished, students were getting locked into classrooms when new door handles broke. Toilets were overflowing because sewer systems weren`t cleaned properly. Children couldn`t wash their hands, because handles on new water taps had snapped off. Desks and chalkboards, already in short supply, were in the trash heap after painters had used them as makeshift stepladders. Laborers had carted off working ceiling fans and sturdy doors, and installed cheap replacements, teachers and principals said."

Army reinstates combat zone bonus to improve retention. "Army officials believe those fence-sitters are the reason the Army is about 12 percent behind on its first-quarter 2004 re-enlistment target, or about 2,000 fewer soldiers than the Army hoped to re-up between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31."

More sounding off about Operation Jive Turkey: " What caught my attention was that our two top medical military leaders were unable to visit base hospitals in Iraq because President Bush’s Thanksgiving visit `made it difficult to get clearance.`… At some point in his presidency, Bush must forgo his manic desire to grandstand with soldiers for his own self-aggrandizement." (Third letter. Fifth letter is a bonus - the end of a whining lieutenant`s brilliant career.)

Commentary

Opinion: Saddam`s capture won`t help US win Arab hearts and minds. "If President Bush were serious about ending anti-U.S. terrorism, he would seek to counteract that resentment. He would ask his Defense Policy Board how to improve the perception of the United States in the Middle East. Changes in U.S. policy in the region would be required."

Casualty Reports

Local story: Arkansas soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Alabama soldier wounded in Iraq.





# posted by yankeedoodle : 2:29 AM

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Iraqi feuds heightened after capture of Hussein
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, 12/21/2003

BAGHDAD -- Instead of prompting a hoped-for national conversation about reconciliation and justice, the capture of Saddam Hussein has sparked a new round of internecine violence, laced with suspicion, conspiracy theories, and entrenched hatreds and loyalties.

It is too soon to measure the ultimate impact of the former dictator`s arrest, but in the first week Iraqis responded with anger and violence, ranging from political assassinations to schoolyard fisticuffs between children of Ba`athists and children of those who were tortured under the rule of Hussein`s Ba`ath Party.

On Friday, a Baghdad office of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shi`ite political party, was bombed before dawn. The blast caved in the entire cement building, killing a woman and injuring several squatters inside.

Basil al-Azzawi, a retired Iraqi air force general, said a string of assassinations of Shi`ite clerics, pro-Hussein protests, and bombings seemed intended to provoke civil war between Shi`ites, who bore the brunt of Ba`athist oppression, and Sunnis nostalgic for the old regime. "Whether civil war breaks out depends on how well the Sunnis and Shi`ites can tolerate each other under difficult circumstances," Azzawi said.

Also Friday, in the holy Shi`ite city of Najaf, an angry crowd attacked and killed Ali al-Zalimi, a former official of Hussein`s Ba`ath Party. Zalimi was thought to have played a role in crushing a 1991 Shi`ite uprising. Revenge attacks in Najaf continued yesterday, when gunmen fired on a former Ba`athist provincial official, wounding her and killing her 5 year-old-son.

Since Monday, Shi`ite and Sunni Muslims battled across a Baghdad river separating two traditional strongholds of each sect, Adhamiyah and Khadamiyah.

High school students broke into fistfights over Hussein`s capture. At one school, a vociferous pro-Hussein rally prompted US soldiers to enter classrooms and arrest more than a dozen teenagers brandishing textbook photographs of the deposed dictator.

Hussein loyalists also were suspected of assassinating Muhannad al-Hakim, a member of the leading Shi`ite political clan in Iraq, on Wednesday. He was a cousin of Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council, who holds the rotating presidency of the Iraqi Governing Council.

Amriya High School, spruced up in fresh pink and white paint and new rosebushes, is part of the coalition`s showcase school reconstruction project, designed to win popular support for the occupation authority.

But last week, the school played host to one of the more bizarre juxtapositions of the old and new Iraq.

Located in the heart of a middle-class neighborhood called Hay Mukhabarat, for the former members of the Ba`athist intelligence force who live there, the school was recently spray-painted by students, who scrawled on the facade "God Bless Saddam," "Saddam High School," and "Down With USA."

About 150 students chanted "Long live Saddam" in front of the school Tuesday. Neighbors showed photographs of the demonstration to coalition forces, who returned the next day to arrest students responsible for the protest.

"They`re just kids," said Talal abu Saleh al-Dulaimi, an engineer from Ramadi repairing the school`s electric system who expressed "deep sadness" over Hussein`s capture. "The American reaction was completely out of proportion."

Abu Ahmed al-Taie, a Shi`ite security guard at the school, waited until he was out of Dulaimi`s earshot to say that the students who protested were mostly children of former Ba`athist hard-liners.

"Those who benefited from Saddam are defending him now. They are desperate," Taie said. "Saddam`s arrest is just the trigger."

Iraqis like Taie echoed official pronouncements from the US-led coalition, which said that in the short run, the humiliating images of Hussein during his arrest might embolden insurgents. Attacks against Iraqi civilians have increased to nearly three per day. Coalition officials attribute the violence to "bitter-enders," stalwart supporters of Hussein`s regime.

"They`re trying to convince the people of Iraq that they can`t trust the coalition," a military spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said. "They are intentionally trying to create terror in the minds of the Iraqi civilians so that they have a better chance of attracting them to their cause, whatever that may be."

It is not only anticoalition guerrillas who have raised tensions in the capital. Suspicion between Sunnis and Shi`ites was felt across Baghdad last week, as heavily armed men guarded Friday prayers and gruffly turned away strangers.

At the Sunni mosque across from Amriya High School, an angry imam spat invective against American troops. "They are taking our property. They are killing us," he said. "What kind of freedom is that?"

Abdullah abu Jihad, a beekeeper who volunteers as a mosque guard, swung his machine gun sharply when he spoke of the school principal. Abu Jihad is convinced he cooperated with the US soldiers who arrested the pro-Hussein students.

"I wish someone would kill him," abu Jihad said. "He submitted the sons of Iraq to the occupiers."

Since Hussein`s arrest, his supporters, and even many who loathe or fear him, have bandied about conspiracy theories surrounding his capture.

One holds that it was not Hussein, but rather a double who was caught. Another supposes that the ousted leader was drugged by soldiers, explaining why he did not put up a fight.

The most intricate theory holds that US forces caught Hussein a month ago but announced the capture only last weekend. This is clear, proponents of this popular notion said, because televised images of the raid showed a date palm with yellow fruit, which were in season a month ago.

"I can`t quite figure out why the Americans would do this, but I`m sure they did," said an unemployed salesman named Mohammed al-Azzawi.

As Iraqis grapple with the significance of the most symbolic indication yet that more than three decades of Ba`athist rule have ended, they must also deal with the specter of communal conflict.

Iraqis say a truck bomb apparently headed for a police station killed at least 11 people early last week, and several more bombing attempts were thwarted. Iraqis and coalition officials expect a major attack soon as an answer to Hussein`s arrest.

"Saddam`s capture provoked all this. He was our leader," said Dulaimi, predicting a new bout of violence and revenge killings to come.

But Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, said Hussein`s arrest heralded a new era of reconciliation. "These criminals will receive their proper punishment, so we can start healing our wounds," Qanbar said. "We have to start a reconciliation process."

In the poor Shi`ite neighborhood of Hay Huria, in Baghdad, that process may already have begun.

Ali Hussein, seated before a fruit stall with six companions, gleefully contemplated the prospect of Saddam Hussein`s execution. "There should be a fair trial first," Hussein said. "Then he should be slowly cut to pieces in Tahrir Square," in central Baghdad, "so everyone could see it."

As Ali Hussein fantasized about publicly torturing the deposed dictator and recounted the recent string of attacks against Shi`ites, a Sunni neighbor and known Hussein supporter cut in: "You would be so lucky for Saddam to return to power. Only he could bring order."

Without missing a beat, Ali Hussein laughed and expressed the sort of tolerance that Iraq`s provisional leaders hope will carry the day. "I don`t mind him. He`s our neighbor. He`s lived here for years," Hussein said. "We would never hurt him."

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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US rebuilding leaves detritus
By Jill Carroll, Globe Correspondent, 12/21/2003

BAGHDAD -- A primary-school principal, Fawzyia al Ali, was thrilled when workers appeared this fall with orders to fix up the school. But a month and $38,000 from the US government later, she was left with bitter disappointment and a pool of raw sewage on the playground.

"When they came, they promised me a lot and had an agreement with a big company for construction," Ali said recently while standing by the sewage, which welled up after workers dug in the wrong place to find a septic tank. "I had a lot of hope. They promised a lot, and the result was the opposite."

Ali`s Al Julan school, in the Kadasiyah neighborhood of southwest Baghdad, is among several schools in the capital with a list of complaints about renovations this fall supervised by Bechtel International Systems Inc.

The problems, which also include leaky roofs and new water pumps that don`t work, highlight the hurdles that American companies and Iraqis face as they work together to rebuild an infrastructure left decrepit by 20 years of war and 12 years of international sanctions.

The complaints about Bechtel also arose as another giant contractor, Halliburton, was accused of overcharging for gasoline delivered in Iraq.

Prevented from working in Iraq since sanctions began, American firms have no background in local market prices, materials, or the labor force and little knowledge about several thousand Iraqi companies that come to them seeking subcontracts.

Bechtel won the government`s largest Iraq reconstruction contract, worth about $1 billion, to repair everything from hospitals to the southern port in Umm Qasr. Under the contract from the US Agency for International Development, Bechtel renovated 1,239 schools for a total of about $48 million, about $38,000 per school.

Thor Christiansen, who oversaw school reconstruction for Bechtel, did not give an exact breakdown on how the money was spent on each school. But he said materials and salaries for 10 expatriates who oversaw the work of the Iraqi subcontractors accounted for the bulk.

He said he did not know the salaries of those workers, because it is "hard to differentiate the building sector" costs from other sectors Bechtel is working in, such as helping to improve water and electricity supplies.

But Iraqi school officials say American taxpayers didn`t get much bang for their buck.

"For that much money, we can build a new school," said Isra Mohammed, one of four regional planning directors in Baghdad. On her desk sat a stack of complaints about the reconstruction work from schools in the area she oversees.

Two months after the work was finished, students were getting locked into classrooms when new door handles broke. Toilets were overflowing because sewer systems weren`t cleaned properly. Children couldn`t wash their hands, because handles on new water taps had snapped off. Desks and chalkboards, already in short supply, were in the trash heap after painters had used them as makeshift stepladders. Laborers had carted off working ceiling fans and sturdy doors, and installed cheap replacements, teachers and principals said.

Bechtel, which is based in San Francisco, says that many of the problems arise from poor maintenance.

"These are things that could not have been discovered before the schools were in use," Christiansen said."We got 1 million children back to newly refurbished schools. The fact that some people come back and talk about water taps and this and that, they don`t have the big picture."

But Iraqi school officials say they saw the problems coming, and they lodged complaints with Bechtel in weekly meetings during the reconstruction, which ran from July until school began in October.

Najdat Zaki Abdul-Aziz, chief engineer and director general of education planning at the Ministry of Education, said their warnings weren`t heeded. He said Iraqi school officials were sidelined and told that those holding the purse strings would make the decisions.

Abdul-Aziz also said Bechtel had not properly checked subcontractors. "Most of them are not contractors. We even heard one is a butcher. He got 15 schools," Abdul-Aziz said.

Christiansen said, however, that only 27 cases had been found in which Bechtel`s work was faulty, and he insisted that the company had carefully chosen the 69 Iraqi subcontracters.

"We reviewed their qualifications, which of course were difficult to verify; nevertheless we developed a list of 15-20 companies that competed" for each subcontract, Christiansen said. He also pledged that Bechtel would return to repair problems for up to one year if the company believes it is at fault.

No one had yet caught the poor job done in cleaning the sewage system at Umm Amara primary school, in the Shula neighborhood, another area of Baghdad. Waste poured from the floor-level toilets and pooled in the outdoor bathroom`s entryway.

Just outside the bathroom, the handles were all broken on new water faucets, in a long trough used for washing.

Despite such problems, the school`s principal, Souad Ibrahim Abed, expressed thanks for any improvement after three decades of neglect under Saddam Hussein`s regime.

"We thank Bechtel. They paid a lot of money," Abed said. But "if they had listened to us we would have succeeded much better."

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Dec. 21, 2003. 01:00 AM

Selective memory and a dishonest doctrine
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thes…

NOAM CHOMSKY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

All people who have any concern for human rights, justice and integrity should be overjoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein, and should be awaiting a fair trial for him by an international tribunal.

An indictment of Saddam`s atrocities would include not only his slaughter and gassing of Kurds in 1988 but also, rather crucially, his massacre of the Shiite rebels who might have overthrown him in 1991.

At the time, Washington and its allies held the "strikingly unanimous view (that) whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country`s stability than did those who have suffered his repression," reported Alan Cowell in the New York Times.

Last December, Jack Straw, Britain`s foreign secretary, released a dossier of Saddam`s crimes drawn almost entirely from the period of firm U.S.-British support of Saddam.

With the usual display of moral integrity, Straw`s report and Washington`s reaction overlooked that support.

Such practices reflect a trap deeply rooted in the intellectual culture generally — a trap sometimes called the doctrine of change of course, invoked in the United States every two or three years. The content of the doctrine is: "Yes, in the past we did some wrong things because of innocence or inadvertence. But now that`s all over, so let`s not waste any more time on this boring, stale stuff."

The doctrine is dishonest and cowardly, but it does have advantages: It protects us from the danger of understanding what is happening before our eyes.

For example, the Bush administration`s original reason for going to war in Iraq was to save the world from a tyrant developing weapons of mass destruction and cultivating links to terror. Nobody believes that now, not even Bush`s speechwriters.

The new reason is that we invaded Iraq to establish a democracy there and, in fact, to democratize the whole Middle East.

Sometimes, the repetition of this democracy-building posture reaches the level of rapturous acclaim.

Last month, for example, David Ignatius, the Washington Post commentator, described the invasion of Iraq as "the most idealistic war in modern times" — fought solely to bring democracy to Iraq and the region.

Ignatius was particularly impressed with Paul Wolfowitz, "the Bush administration`s idealist in chief," whom he described as a genuine intellectual who "bleeds for (the Arab world`s) oppression and dreams of liberating it."

Maybe that helps explain Wolfowitz`s career — like his strong support for Suharto in Indonesia, one of the last century`s worst mass murderers and aggressors, when Wolfowitz was ambassador to that country under Ronald Reagan.

As the State Department official responsible for Asian affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz oversaw support for the murderous dictators Chun of South Korea and Marcos of the Philippines.

All this is irrelevant because of the convenient doctrine of change of course.

So, yes, Wolfowitz`s heart bleeds for the victims of oppression — and if the record shows the opposite, it`s just that boring old stuff that we want to forget about.

One might recall another recent illustration of Wolfowitz`s love of democracy. The Turkish parliament, heeding its population`s near-unanimous opposition to war in Iraq, refused to let U.S. forces deploy fully from Turkey. This caused absolute fury in Washington.

Wolfowitz denounced the Turkish military for failing to intervene to overturn the decision. Turkey was listening to its people, not taking orders from Crawford, Texas, or Washington, D.C.

The most recent chapter is Wolfowitz`s "Determination and Findings" on bidding for lavish reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Excluded are countries where the government dared to take the same position as the vast majority of the population.

Wolfowitz`s alleged grounds are "security interests," which are non-existent, though the visceral hatred of democracy is hard to miss — along with the fact that Halliburton and Bechtel corporations will be free to "compete" with the vibrant democracy of Uzbekistan and the Solomon Islands, but not with leading industrial societies.

What`s revealing and important to the future is that Washington`s display of contempt for democracy went side by side with a chorus of adulation about its yearning for democracy.

To be able to carry that off is an impressive achievement, hard to mimic even in a totalitarian state.

Iraqis have some insight into this process of conquerors and conquered.

The British created Iraq for their own interests. When they ran that part of the world, they discussed how to set up what they called Arab facades — weak, pliable governments, parliamentary if possible, so long as the British effectively ruled.

Who would expect that the United States would ever permit an independent Iraqi government to exist? Especially now that Washington has reserved the right to set up permanent military bases there, in the heart of the world`s greatest oil-producing region, and has imposed an economic regime that no sovereign country would accept, putting the country`s fate in the hands of Western corporations.

Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent — and rhetoric about bestowing freedom and independence.

An honest look would only generalize Thomas Jefferson`s observation on the world situation of his day: "We believe no more in Bonaparte`s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain`s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations."


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Political activist and author Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Saddam nach Den Haag!
von Uri Avnery
uri avnery.de / ZNet Deutschland 18.12.2003

Das Spektakel war ekelhaft.
„Freue dich nicht über den Fall deines Feindes, und dein Herz sei nicht froh über sein Unglück. Der Herr könnte es sehen und Missfallen daran haben und seinen Zorn von ihm wenden.“ So gebietet ein alter jüdischer Moralkodex (Sprüche 24,16) Der Schreiber dieser Warnung wusste natürlich, dass sich jeder hämisch darüber freut, wenn sein Feind fällt. Aber er wollte darauf hinweisen, dass dies ein hässlicher menschlicher Zug sei und man versuchen solle, ihn zu überwinden.

Und nun ist eine mächtige Weltmacht auf dieses niedrige Niveau gefallen. Wiederholt wurde dieses Spektakel der amerikanischen Soldaten zur Schau gestellt, wie sie in den Haaren des erbärmlichen Saddam nach Läusen suchten und zwischen seinen Zähnen herumstocherten.

Falls es überhaupt möglich ist, mit einem Mann wie Saddam, der für den Tod von Hunderttausenden verantwortlich ist, Mitleid zu wecken, dann haben die Amerikaner dies erreicht. Indem sie ihn wie einen drogenbetäubten Landstreicher zeigten, haben sie genau das Gegenteil von dem zustande gebracht, was sie wollten. Der Vatikan hat um Gnade für ihn ersucht. Die öffentliche Demütigung eines arabischen Führers – egal, wie man über ihn denkt – weckt die tiefsten Gefühle der Beleidigung und des Zornes unter Zehn Millionen Arabern. Diese Gefühle werden eines Tages ihren Ausdruck in Gewalt finden. Sie werden viel, viel Blut kosten.

( Vor noch nicht langer Zeit schrieen die Amerikaner zum Gotterbarmen, als die Iraker einige amerikanische Gefangene zeigten. Aber es scheint in Washington DC keine Spiegel zu geben.)
Die kindische Story über den riesigen Erfolg der amerikanischen Armee und der Geheimdienste ist nur lächerlich. Es ist ziemlich sicher, dass es nur die Angelegenheit eines gut bezahlten Informanten war.

Ein geübtes Auge konnte leicht erkennen, wie die „spontanen“ Freudenausbrüche gestellt waren. Hier eine kleine Gruppe, die kommunistische Fahnen schwenkte, dort ein paar Dutzend Leute, die wie Affen vor den Kameras herumsprangen – wahrscheinlich dieselben Leute, die ein Jahr zuvor vor Saddams Kameras tanzten. Zwei arabische „Journalisten“ produzierten bei der sorgfältig inszenierten Pressekonferenz des amerikanischen Generals eine lärmende Show. Nachdem Winston Churchill einen schrecklichen Krieg gewonnen hatte, benahm er sich nicht wie George W. Bush. Nein, er ist kein Winston.

Ich habe in dieser Kolumne seit dem Ende der „Hauptfeindseligkeiten“ nicht über den Irak geschrieben. Ich habe mich beherrscht. Ich weiß, dass es weder nett noch weise ist, zu sagen: „Habe ich es euch nicht gesagt?“ Aber es ist sehr schwer, über den Irak zu schreiben, ohne diese sechs Wörter zu benützen, da fast alle Voraussagen in dieser Kolumne vor und während des Krieges sich erfüllt haben, eine nach der anderen. Zum Beispiel:

(Eins) Die Amerikaner überfielen den Irak, um dort zu bleiben

Sie überfielen ihn nicht wegen des „internationalen Terrors“. Auch nicht wegen der „Massenvernichtungswaffen“ - es ist das Öl, das sie dorthin zieht. Das Ziel der Vereinigten Staaten war nicht, Saddam zu stürzen und nach Hause zu gehen, sondern eine dauernde amerikanische Militärbasis in der arabischen Welt zu schaffen, in einem Land, das die zweitgrößten ausgewiesenen Ölreserven der Welt hat und das innerhalb der Reichweite der Ölreichtümer von Saudi Arabien und des Kaspischen Meeres liegt. Inzwischen ist auch ganz klar: Saddam hatte keinerlei Verbindungen zu Osama Bin-Laden. Die „Massenvernichtungswaffen“ existieren nicht. Die Amerikaner haben die Kriegsgründe nach dem Geschehen verändert. („Führe zuerst einen Krieg – danach finde einen Grund!“) Nun soll es darum gehen, Saddam zu eliminieren und Demokratie in den Irak zu bringen, Gut. Saddam ist nun zur Strecke gebracht worden – und die Amerikaner denken gar nicht daran, sich nach Hause zu bewegen. Die Wahlen könnten sofort stattfinden. Aber die Amerikaner verweigern dies. Sie wollen ihre Marionetten an Ort und Stelle halten, damit sie die Amerikaner auffordern können, für immer zu bleiben. Die amerikanische Besatzung wird lange, lange dauern. Sie ist nicht Mittel zum Zweck. Sie ist der Zweck.

(Zwei) Saddams Sturz wird nicht das Ende des Krieges sein. Es wird der Anfang sein

Die Voraussage hat sich nun in extremster Weise erfüllt. Kein Volk findet sich mit ausländischer Besatzung ab. Besatzung erzeugt Widerstand. Damals erinnerte ich an unsere Erfahrungen im Süd-Libanon. Die vordringenden Israelis wurden als Befreier willkommen geheißen; denn sie trieben die Palästinenser weg. Ein paar Monate später wurden sie von allen Seiten beschossen; denn sie gingen nicht nach Hause. Nach 18 Jahren und Tausend getöteten Soldaten, setzten sie sich – „mit eingezogenem Schwanz“ im Dunkel der Nacht ab. Die Amerikaner wollen diese einfache Lektion nicht lernen. Sie sehen sich nicht als Besatzer sondern als Befreier, die dem irakischen Volk Gutes tun wollen. Sie sind davon überzeugt, dass die Irakis ihnen gegenüber dankbar sind und sie lieben. Sie trösten sich mit einer von ihnen erfundenen Legende: es sind nicht irakische und arabische Freiheitskämpfer, die die Besatzungsarmee und ihre Kollaborateure angreifen, sondern die hartnäckigen Gefolgsleute des bösen Saddam. Aber nun ist der böse Saddam gefangen worden, und es scheint, dass er überhaupt keine Möglichkeit hatte, Operationen von seinem Rattenloch aus zu dirigieren. Saddams Gefangennahme müsste das Ende der Legende der hartnäckigen Loyalisten bringen. Der Irak befindet sich nun in einer klassischen Kolonialsituation. Ein ausländischer Eroberer beraubt die einheimische Bevölkerung ihrer natürlichen Ressourcen. Widerstandsgruppen, von einem großen Teil der Bevölkerung unterstützt, inszenieren gewalttätige Angriffe. Vor zweihundert Jahren haben solche Gruppen den mächtigen Napoleon in Spanien besiegt. Zu jener Zeit wurde der Ausdruck „Guerilla“ ( kleiner Krieg) geprägt. Was wird nun geschehen? Es ist leicht voraussagbar: während man auf Operationen des Widerstandes reagiert, wird die Besatzung immer brutaler. Das heißt auch, dass die Unterstützung durch die Bevölkerung für die Guerillas wachsen wird – und so weiter. Eine Gewaltspirale, die den Israelis nur allzu bekannt ist. So geschah es im Libanon. So geschieht es nun in den besetzten palästinensischen Gebieten. Die öffentliche Demütigung des besiegten Führers wird den Prozess nur beschleunigen.

(Drei) Ein besiegter Saddam wird viel gefährlicher sein als ein siegreicher.

Nun erhebt sich die Frage: was soll man mit dem Gefangenen tun? Die Amerikaner sagten schon, was sie mit ihm tun wollen: ihren irakischen Marionetten aushändigen. So kann er im Irak verurteilt und hingerichtet werden. Das wäre ein Fehler erster Klasse. Keiner würde an die Fairness einer solchen Gerichtsverhandlung glauben. Sie kann ja gar nicht fair sein , weil Saddam in einem fairen Prozess die öffentliche Plattform benützen würde, um seine eigenen Anklagen vorzubringen, und so würde er Hundert Millionen Araber und andere Muslime erreichen. Das beste wäre, man ließe ihn auf die Fidschi-Inseln entfliehen, wo er sein Leben ruhig zu Ende leben könnte wie Idi Amin in Saudi Arabien. Aber George W. Bush benötigt die weitergehende Demütigung Saddams für seine Wahlkampagne. Der einzig vernünftige Weg wäre jetzt, Saddam nach Den Haag zu bringen. In den Augen der Welt hat er Anspruch auf dieselbe Behandlung wie ein anderer politischer Massenmörder, Slobodan Milosevic. Wenn er anders behandelt wird, würde jeder Muslim zu recht den Verdacht schöpfen, dass es eine Doppelmoral gebe, eine für einen christlichen Europäer und eine für einen muslimischen Araber. Aber Bush wird so lange nicht zufrieden sein, bis die Leiche Saddams auf einem öffentlichen Platz Bagdads hängen wird – vielleicht auf demselben Platz, auf dem vorher die Statue stand, die dann bei einem sorgfältig arrangierten TV-Spektakel gestürzt wurde.

(vier) Die Rede darüber, die Demokratie zu bringen, ist heuchlerischer Unsinn

Um ihre Besatzung aufrecht zu erhalten, brauchen die Amerikaner ein unterstützendes lokales Regime. Um einen Terminus aus der Zeit des 2. Weltkrieges zu benützen: sie brauchen Quislinge. Als die Briten den Irak zu ihrem Protektorat machten, krönten sie Emir Faisal, einen Nachfahren der hashemitischen Familie aus Mekka. Um den Irak als ihr eigenes Protektorat halten zu können, müssen die Amerikaner ihre eigenen lokalen Agenten krönen. Wenn wirklich demokratische Wahlen abgehalten werden sollten, würden die amerikanischen Agenten im Nu hinausfliegen, falls sie nicht schon vorher gelyncht worden sind. Das ist selbstverständlich. Deshalb wird es keine demokratischen Wahlen geben. Allgemein gesagt: Demokratie kann nicht einfach irgendwohin „gebracht“ werden. Sie kann nicht in eine völlig andere Gesellschaft mit einer völlig anderen Kultur verpflanzt werden, als ob sie ein Baum wäre. Und ein Baum braucht fruchtbaren Boden. Die westliche Demokratie ist im Laufe von Jahrhunderten organisch gewachsen – aus der Dorfgemeinschaft zum nationalen Parlament. Sie unter Zwang in die irakische Gesellschaft einzupflanzen, die sich auf Stämme und Großfamilien ( Hamulah) und auf verschiedene Vorstellungen und Traditionen gründet, ist ein hoffnungsloses Unterfangen.

Was geschah der westlichen Demokratie, als sie in Japan implantiert wurde? Die äußeren Formen blieben intakt, die Wirklichkeit sieht ganz anders aus. Was geschieht mit der westlichen Demokratie in Russland? Frag einen Russen – und er wird in schallendes Gelächter ausbrechen.

(Fünf) Der Irak wird sich in seine Bestandteile auflösen

Als wir das vor einem Jahr sagten, sah es wie wilde Spekulation aus. Heute ist es eine sichere Wette. Nur ein brutaler Diktator wie Saddam war in der Lage, das Paket zusammenzuhalten. Vor der 1958er-Revolution taten dies die britischen Kolonialherren. In einer Demokratie hat dies keine Chance. Eine einfache Tatsache: Die Schiiten sind die Mehrheit. Sie werden regieren. Da gibt es gar keine Chance dafür, dass sie ein liberales Regime errichten werden, nachdem sie so lange von den Sunniten unterdrückt wurden. Es ist unmöglich, dass die Sunniten im Zentral-Irak, die die Schiiten verachten, ihre Übermacht akzeptieren. Es ist unmöglich, dass die Kurden im Norden, die immer für ihre Unabhängigkeit gekämpft haben, eine arabische Regierung akzeptieren – weder von den Schiiten noch von ihren Glaubensbrüdern, den Sunniten. Sie akzeptieren mit Mühe ihre kurdischen Brüder. Die Amerikaner können das Auseinanderfallen des Irak nur durch die Aufrechterhaltung eines offenen oder eines versteckten Besatzungsregimes verhindern. Sie könnten auch eine künstliche Struktur, eine Scheinföderation errichten, in der der Irak aus drei autonomen Teilen bestehen würde. Aber das würde reine Spiegelfechterei sein. Wenn der Irak aus praktischen Gründen zu existieren aufhören wird, wird es in der Region ein neues Gleichgewicht der Mächte geben. Jahrhundertelang hat der Irak als östlicher Schutzwall der arabischen Welt gedient, ein Bollwerk gegen den Iran – der niemals die Tage des Kyros (König von Persien, 539 v.Chr.) vergessen hat, als es (Persien) Regionalmacht war. Der Fall dieses Bollwerkes würde die geopolitische Situation der ganzen Region, auch Israels, ändern. Die Implosion des Irak würde ein Signal für allgemeine Anarchie sein: die arabische Welt würde in Aufruhr geraten, die islamischen Fundamentalisten würden die arabischen Regime bedrohen, die Grenze zwischen der Türkei und dem kurdisch-irakischen Staat würde sich aufheizen, zwischen Israel und Iran würde sich vielleicht eine nukleare Balance des Terrors halten, die Legende des „internationalen Terrors“ würde zur Realität werden.

Da es weder nett noch weise ist, zu sagen: „Das habe ich euch vorausgesagt“, sage ich es nicht.





[ Übersetzt von: Ellen Rohlfs | Orginalartikel: The Americans invaded Iraq in order to remain there. #10674

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December 20 / 21, 2003

Lessons from the Israeli School
How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Islamic World
By GREG WEIHER

OK, now it`s official. The United States is taking lessons from Israel on appropriate ways to deal with the Arab and Islamic world.

This is clear in Seymour Hersh`s story on Israeli-trained American death squads in the latest New Yorker, and Chalmers Johnson`s December 3 article on the same subject on the Common Dreams website.

Of course, if you`ve been paying attention, the U.S.-Israel connection comes as no surprise. The U.S. occupying force in Iraq has been adopting tactics, one after the other, that mirror those used by the Israelis against the Palestinians. "No," you think to yourself. "Even Bush and the prevari-cons can`t be that stupid. Even in all their arrogance they can`t overlook the implications that such a parallel will have for U.S.-Arab relations." Well, unfortunately, it turns out they are, and they can.

For example, the Independent of London reported on October 12 that U.S. troops had destroyed groves of date palms, lemon trees, and orange trees in central Iraq. Their owners` offense? They were being punished for not fingering the insurgents supposedly in their midst. Collective responsibility of this sort is outside the traditions of American political thought and jurisprudence, but Israel applies it frequently to the Palestinians.

In a similar vein, the United States has killed fifteen children in separate bombing raids on Afghani villages. The raids were to "take out" Taliban operatives. The problem is that in both cases, the Taliban operatives were reportedly nowhere near their villages at the time. Very similar tactics are now used in Iraq ­ dropping 500 pound bombs in Fallujah and Tikrit ­ under Operation Iron Hammer. The Israelis, of course, frequently fire rockets into Palestinian neighborhoods, accepting the inevitable civilian casualties as the price of (maybe) killing Palestinian militants.

The latest bogeyman identified by the pentagon media machine is General Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. This is the evildoer, we are told, who is coordinating the attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. This bogeyman has yet to be caught, but in the interim, U.S. forces have arrested his wife and daughter, and have destroyed the family home. This has been a staple of Israeli campaigns against the Palestinians ­ taking action against families and destroying homes when perpetrators are not available. As might be expected, they are much better at it than we. In our first clumsy attempts we have used expensive ordinance. The Israelis have the Caterpillar factory build them gigantic tractors to knock down houses ­ much more cost effective.

Americans have taken to cordoning off particularly troublesome villages behind razor wire, limiting access to certain hours during the day, and allowing no one to pass who does not have the appropriate identification card. The Israelis pioneered this technique.

The latest parallel, of course, is the American adoption of assassination squads of the same kind that the Israelis use. Indeed, the Israelis are training our death squads at Fort Bragg. The dangers of this strategy are palpable. As Seymour Hersh notes, with such an operation, everything depends upon quality intelligence. In the Phoenix Program, American death squads were directed to candidates for assassination by the Vietnamese army and village chiefs. One problem of the program was that the targets were as likely to be personal rivals of the snitch as they were to be Viet Cong. Another problem was that the death squads got out of control, killing on whim. The South Vietnamese government claimed that 40,000 were killed by Phoenix (the American government admits to 20,000), and many victims, perhaps the majority, had no relationship with the communists.

There is no reason to believe that our intelligence in Iraq is any better. In fact, there is every reason to believe that it is terrible. This is confirmed by U.S. Army reports, and by journalists on the ground. The death squads are likely to duplicate the kind of flailing around that Operation Iron Hammer brings to our television screens ­ green, night-vision videos of American troops kicking down doors, screaming "Get your fucking ass down" to uncomprehending families, and trucking off grab-bags of Iraqis into the night.

This kind of blunderbuss, street-level diplomacy wins us no friends. When countries that are founded on the primordial principles of land and blood use these tactics, we are not surprised. Everything can be justified in defense of the clan. Being associated with such tactics does more injury to the image of the United States, however. The "First New Nation`s" identity does not derive from a tribalistic commitment to a "homeland," but from the democratic idea, that individual human rights and responsibilities reside in morally autonomous citizens. More than any other country, when we resort to collective punishment, we lose all moral authority in the eyes of the world.

And speaking of the rest of the world, the worst consequence of sidling up to the Israelis is not often mentioned. What is at stake is not building democracy in Iraq, liberating the Iraqis from the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein, or saving American face. What is really hanging in the balance is the War of Civilizations. Already, large majorities in Islamic nations say that they dislike the United States. Whatever the prevari-cons might argue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like a raw wound in the consciousness of the Islamic world. Can you imagine what Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya will do with the news that American death squads are being trained by Israeli commandos for operations in Iraq? Can you imagine how it will play in the Arab street when Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya report that, like Israel, the liberators of Iraq have taken to erecting security fences, destroying the homes and arresting the families of suspected insurgents, and razing the olive groves of bystanders who do not turn in their neighbors?

The worst of many dire consequences of learning at the Israeli school of Arab liberation is that it moves us one step closer to the civilizations war. That is one step closer to enmity with 1.2 billion of the planet`s occupants. If you think that the $147 billion that Congress has appropriated for the Iraq war is a lot, and that our 400 plus dead and 10,000 casualties have been a substantial loss, think again. If the civilizations war comes along, you ain`t seen nothin` yet.

Greg Weiher is a political scientist and free-lance writer living in Houston, Texas. His previous commentaries on the Iraq war have been published in the Houston Chronicle, on the OpEdNews Website, in The American Muslim, and in CounterPunch. He can be reached at [e-mail].

http://www.counterpunch.org/weiher12202003.html

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American foreign policy: rats, rants and tyrants
By Terry Lane
December 21, 2003

Well, whacko! They have caught Saddam. What a relief. Now the Iraqi people can live in peace, prosperity and perpetual happiness. Except the several thousand collaterally damaged ones, but you can`t make omelettes without cracking Arabs.

One happy chappie writes to me: "And was (sic) a sorry day it is for weak, sniviling (sic) and gutless people like you. Terry- you are a sad and pathetic excuse for a man. You are a disgrace to all Australians. You should go and burry (sic) yourself in a rat hole along with Saddam. You should also appologise (sic) to all the Iraqi people for your shameful articles. It is spineless whimps (sic) like you who kept Sadam (sic) in power and caused extended suffering for the Iraqi people."

I know that it is rude to mock the illiteracy of the people you disagree with, but it is hard to resist.

The war-lovers hold the anti-war dissenters responsible for decades of Saddam tyranny. But how is this so? We are not the ones who armed Saddam to kill Iranians - that was the American government. It was not us who made Saddam a present of golden spurs - that was the grateful Donald Rumsfeld. It was Rumsfeld, as an emissary from Ronald Reagan, who went to Baghdad in 1983, knowing that Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians, and said nothing.

But let`s concede that the US and its lickspittle allies are not bad people, merely slow learners. After all, Saddam had systematically exterminated communists in Iraq and you can see how this would confuse the Americans. Even if they suspected Saddam was a crook he was their sort of crook. But eventually the penny dropped and they figured out that Saddam Hussein was a bad man.

Which is the nub of the problem. It is all very well to cheer the downfall of a tyrant, but since when do Americans have an aversion to tyrants? Most of their best friends are tyrants.

Let`s see if I`ve got this right. Saddam Hussein was a bad man and it was worth killing thousands of Iraqis, destroying the country`s infrastructure and wasting billions of dollars to catch him down a hole.

But the white supremacist tyranny that brought murder and misery to South Africa for generations was, according to American governments, best dealt with by patience. Did you notice that it was left to the South Africans themselves to sort things out?

What about Pol Pot? The most infamous mass murderer since Hitler was recognised as the legitimate ruler of Cambodia by the US because it was better than conceding that the wily Vietnamese had stepped in just in time to save the last innocent Cambodian from being killed. Best not mention Vietnam.

What about Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the military junta that terrorised Argentina? And the colonels who ruled Greece with an iron fist, to American applause? Or the thugs of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras where dictators are welcome if they protect the investments of American fruit companies? What shall we say about Saudi Arabia?

It is true that if I had my way Saddam Hussein would still be dictator. But that is not the whole story. The US usually deals with tyrants by supporting them or leaving it to their own people to bring them down. What was different about Saddam? Oil? War is neither the only nor the best way to topple tyrants. Every nation in the world, except for four, saw it that way. I`m happy to stand with the 97 per cent majority opinion.



This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/20/1071868694541.h…

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Across US, jobless losing benefits
Proposals that would extend aid spark debate
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 12/21/2003

WASHINGTON -- More than 90,000 people who have been out of work for months will lose their federal benefits today, when a program to aid the long-term unemployed expires.

During the first six months of next year, more than 2 million unemployed people across the country will be cut off from the extra assistance, unless Congress acts. In Massachusetts, 2,500 workers a week will lose their benefits, according to government statistics studied by a congressional committee and several economic analysis groups.

"It`s a really diverse group of people who are running out of benefits -- higher-income, dot-commers, lower-wage workers, and manufacturing employees. It`s people from every industry, from all states," said Maurice Emsellem, public policy director for the National Employment Law Project. "Whatever`s going on with the economy, it`s not translating into significant job growth."

In January, nearly 400,000 workers, including 12,201 in Massachusetts, are expected to exhaust their state benefits, according to Labor Department data analyzed by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. More than 2.1 million people nationwide -- including 61,751 in the Bay State -- will see their state unemployment benefits end in the first six months of next year.

States typically offer a maximum of 26 weeks` worth of unemploment benefits. Massachusetts offers 30 weeks, though Governor Mitt Romney has proposed reducing the benefits to 26 weeks and restricting the pool of applicants by requiring that they work 20 weeks, instead of the current 15-week minimum, before they are eligible for benefits.

In normal economic times, an unemployed person would receive nothing after exhausting state benefits. In a recession, the federal government has released money from a special account to extend assistance to out-of-work people. The money, including the funds for state unemployment benefits, comes from a payroll tax levied on employers. The federal fund contains about $20 billion.

To address the most recent economic downturn, Congress approved extended unemployment benefits in March 2002 and again last January.

But Congress did not extend the program again before it recessed for the year, meaning that no additional unemployed workers will be eligible for the extended federal aid after tomorrow. Out-of-work people receiving benefits from the federal program will be able to finish the full 13-week extension, but will not be eligible for further benefits.

Some lawmakers believe an extension is unnecessary, because unemployment rates have dropped recently and other economic indicators point to a recovery. Other officials worry that extending benefits might discourage some unemployed workers from taking a job, particularly if the opening is less desirable than a past job.

"If the unemployment rate goes down, I`m not sure we should" extend benefits for those out of work, said Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut. "There is a disincentive to look, a little bit."

The question presented the Republican-led Congress with the politically awkward choice of appearing miserly by denying benefits right before Christmas or extending the aid and undercutting its own contention that the economy is on the upswing. In the end, neither chamber brought up the issue for a vote.

"It`s frustrating. I`m not looking for a handout . . . but it`s tough, economically," said Ronald Ouellet, 42, who was laid off from his job working for the city of New Bedford in March. "What frightens me also is that it`s an election year, and therefore extending benefits would make it look like the economy wasn`t doing as well as they`d like people to believe it is."

Congress allowed the program to lapse last December as well, but quickly extended it when lawmakers returned in early January, leaving few people with an interruption in benefits. But this year, Congress is not scheduled to return until Jan. 20, and people fighting for the extension fear that lawmakers will not act unless President Bush prods them.

The White House has not taken a position on a possible extension. "We`ll continue to work with Congress on that issue. But I would point out the economy is strengthening, it continues to grow, and we`ll continue to work with Congress to act to create an even more robust environment for job creation," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

The unemployment rate dropped from the year`s high of 6.4 percent in June to 5.9 percent in October. Other economic indicators, such as the growth in productivity, offer encouraging signs that the foundering economy is surging ahead.

But critics, including the Democratic presidential candidates, have argued that the recent uptick in the economy has not produced enough jobs, particularly higher-paying jobs. A study by the Economic Policy Institute this week found that more than 1.6 million jobs have been lost in the past two years in manufacturing, information services, and professional and technical services, job sectors that pay above-average wages.

Jobs have been added in administrative services and accommodations and food services, the study said, but these jobs tend to pay less than the average wage. Jobs in those industries pay an average of $14.65 per hour, while jobs in the shrinking sectors pay an average of $16.92, the study said.

Further, while the unemployment rate is dropping, the proportion of long-term unemployed has grown, according to the National Employment Law Project and other economic analysis groups.

In March 2002, the first time during the current downturn that Congress agreed to extend unemployment benefits, 16.1 percent of unemployed workers had had that status for 26 weeks or more. That jumped to 23.7 percent last month, indicating that a bigger share of the unemployed were exhausting their state benefits.

Legislation was drafted in both houses of Congress to extend the federal benefits program by six months and to allow individual unemployed people to get an extra 26 weeks of benefits, instead of the usual 13 additional weeks. Supporters hope to win approval for the bill when Congress returns.

Not only would the money help the unemployed pay bills, but "it`s a way of getting money into the economy," said Representative John Tierney, Democrat of Salem. Tierney said studies show that every dollar distributed in extended unemployment benefits gives the economy a boost of $1.73.

But some economists question whether extending unemployment benefits is the right thing to do when jobs are beginning to return. "It`s a tricky matter. Are we in an unusually high unemployment period? Yes, compared to what we hope what we will return to, but no, compared to the last 30 years," said Robert I. Lerman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

Lerman has been considering a proposal to create individual unemployment accounts, under which workers would contribute to their own rainy-day funds. The out-of-work could draw on the cash or borrow against future contributions to the fund when needed, he said, and money left over at the end of the worker`s career could be used for retirement.

Lerman said the plan would discourage the unemployed from turning down less-than-ideal jobs to rely on the cushion of state and federal unemployment benefits.

"On the one hand, it provides the kind of assistance you want in terms of returning to work, because you`re using up your own money. If you really feel that you should wait until something better comes along, you have something to draw on," he said.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Elite Israeli commandos refuse to serve in Palestinian territories

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BUSH AND BLAIR: THE BIG FALL-OUT
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/news/content_objectid=137…


Dec 21 2003




By Chris Mclaughlin, Political Editor


TONY Blair and George Bush`s love-in has collapsed over the rebuilding of Iraq.

The two leaders have fallen out over plans for the reconstruction of the country and the heavy-handed action of American troops against the civilian population.

And the rift has been deepened by a Washington ban on a proposed morale-boosting visit by the PM to British troops in Iraq during the Christmas holiday.

According to diplomats, relations between the allies have gone into "deep freeze" since the capture of Saddam Hussein last weekend.

President Bush was incensed that Mr Blair stole Washington`s thunder by being the first Western leader to confirm that the former dictator had been arrested by US troops.

Downing Street rushed out Mr Blair`s announcement before he had spoken to the American leader early last Sunday, when Mr Bush - six hours behind London - was still in bed.

Whitehall insiders confirmed that Mr Blair`s decision was partly out of anger over a US veto on his proposed visit to British troops in Iraq during the Christmas holiday.

Presidential advisers in Washington wanted Mr Bush to be the sole leader to make a Christmas visit to troops in Baghdad and urged Downing Street to postpone any visit.

The US refused to co-operate on security arrangements for a Christmas visit by Mr Blair, who is going to spend the festive season with his family in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.

Mr Blair and Mr Bush have had at least three phone conversations during the past seven days which Whitehall officials described as "increasingly terse".

A Downing Street insider said: "Relations between the two are at the lowest ebb since they first met.

"The PM is not happy at having to deal with Britain`s European partners who have been left out of the rebuilding contracts. Of course they are still talking - but the diplomatic temperature is in the deep freeze."

Mr Blair has expressed his concern over Mr Bush`s decision to rule Germany, France and other European countries out of the running for lucrative contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq.

The American President declared that countries which didn`t support the war will not be awarded any of the rebuilding contracts. Mr Blair has complained that the move severely weakened Britain`s strength in the European Union and contributed to the failure of last week`s crucial EU summit.

In recent phone conversations with Mr Bush, Mr Blair has also expressed worries about heavy-handed US tactics against Iraqi civilians.

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Pro-wars weave a web of deceit around Saddam`s spider hole

December 22, 2003

Why do so many people who supported the invasion of Iraq use the capture of Saddam Hussein as a stick with which to beat those who opposed it? Can anyone who thinks hard and seriously believe that his capture makes any difference to the most important of the arguments for or against the war? Stupid things were said by those who opposed and by those who supported the war, but no one who cares about what our participation in the war means for our national life will focus on them.

Last week Gerard Henderson wrote: "If those who opposed the `coalition of the willing` (the US, Britain, Australia and Poland) had won the political debate, Saddam would have triumphed. He would now be presiding over a regime that murders its own people, threatens its neighbours and had prevailed over the US and Britain." That is almost certainly false. We now have good reason to believe that Saddam sought to negotiate with the Americans as early as last December, offering to allow US troops into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction and also to negotiate about the political future of his regime. Had the US responded positively, it is probable that a deal would have been struck that would have left Saddam no more dangerous than many dictators against whom no one would dream of waging war for the sake of their oppressed subjects.

Who are "those who opposed the `coalition of the willing"`? Most of them, I suspect, would have acknowledged that war might become necessary if all other options had been exhausted. But no one can seriously say that at the time when we attacked Iraq war was a last resort. The UN`s chief weapons inspector at the time, Hans Blix, had pleaded for another six months. He had good reason to do so and the UN had good reason to support him. Had his plea been granted, his report might have convinced many opponents of the invasion that war was unavoidable, if only to defend the authority of the UN. Perhaps not. No one knows.

Suppose, though, that it is true that Saddam would still be in power if the opponents of the war had succeed in convincing their governments. What kind of person thinks you can achieve much by pointing it out? The kind, I think, who believes that the good achieved by the overthrow of Saddam so obviously justifies the means that they are justified in showing their contempt for those who won`t acknowledge it.

Henderson quotes Robert Manne`s admission that "if our opposition had been successful, the disgusting regime of Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq". Manne`s essay appears in a book I edited (Why the War Was Wrong) in which discussion of the "humanitarian argument" in support of the invasion is as subtle and as serious as any I have read. Clearly Henderson was not impressed. What does he say in response to Manne`s frank acknowledgement of the power of one horn of a dilemma. "Quite so." That`s all.

Though I opposed the war, I hope that Saddam will now reveal that he had weapons of mass destruction. The mendacity of the Howard, Blair and Bush governments is so deep that one cannot rationally hope that they told us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction because it was true. But even if he had them, which almost no one who opposed the war doubted, confirmation is unlikely to diminish the power of the reasons that made them oppose the war.

I hope that those who opposed the war are not persuaded by those such as Henderson into thinking that their opposition deprives them of the right to rejoice in Saddam`s defeat and capture. I hope that they are not bullied into believing that moral and intellectual consistency requires them secretly to hope that America will fail to help the Iraqis build democratic institutions and that the country will again become a nightmare for its people.

But only someone who believes that the end justifies the means will think the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam`s murderous dictatorship, the creation of a democratic state in Iraq, or even the flowering of democracy in the entire Middle East, will justify the killing of tens of thousand of Iraqis.

Raimond Gaita is Professor of Moral Philosophy at King`s College, University of London, and Professor of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University.



This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941607324.html

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Everyday tales of Saddam`s cruelty
They were jailed, beaten, tortured or vilified for daring to express views that offended the president. Now eight Iraqis, from poets to political activists, tell Luke Harding what should happen to their tormentor

Luke Harding
Monday December 22, 2003
The Guardian

Dr Hashim Hassan
Writer, 48

My problems began back in 1993. Saddam`s half-brother, Watban, decided to have me kidnapped. I was sitting in my favourite cafe when his men came in and dragged me away. They blindfolded me and drove me across Baghdad. They then locked me up in a dog kennel. I still have no idea where I was. Watban`s men doused me in water and told me I was going to be executed. They also kicked me repeatedly. At the time, I worked for a newspaper owned by Uday Hussein [Saddam`s son]. I managed to get a driver to take a note to him and he got me released.

I was regularly in trouble because of the dozens of essays I wrote criticising the regime, many of which complained about the human rights situation inside Iraq. Not surprisingly, the authorities came for me many times. From 1999 I spent three years in prison, including one year in Saddam`s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. I couldn`t believe the people who worked there. They were supposed to be intelligence officers; in reality they were extremely stupid. Eventually they let me out. I then fled to northern Iraq, and from there to Syria and Jordan, where I wrote a book about Uday. My family stayed behind in Baghdad. We lost our house. My family lived in terror every day.

What should happen to Saddam? He should be put on trial in a public court. The Iraqi people should have the opportunity to pass judgment on him. But before he is executed, Saddam should be forced to write his memoirs. People need to know why he did what he did. Perhaps after reading his autobiography they won`t be deceived by him, or others like him, in the future .


Ahmed Abdul Kahar
Artist, 35

In 1998 I was walking down the road in central Baghdad when I saw a UN weapons inspector. I said "Salamalikum" to him, hello. Iraqi intelligence officers then dragged me off and started interrogating me. I spent 22 days in prison. They kept me in a cell that measured two-and-a half metres by three metres. I found this extremely difficult. I was a free bird and now I found myself in jail. Why did I say hello? If you are an Iraqi, it is in your nature to be friendly. I was summoned to the security HQ on two other occasions. Several other artists I knew were active politically against the regime, and I must have come under suspicion. The first time I spent a week in jail. After I got out I tried to keep as low a profile as possible. I avoided all my old friends.

I think Saddam should be brought before an international tribunal. Everybody who was affected by him should have an opportunity to participate in his trial. The trial has to be public. Everybody should be able to see.

Brigadier Sabah Swadan
Former Iraqi air force pilot, 54

I joined the Iraqi air force as a pilot in 1969. I was posted to Tikrit and trained in France before returning to Iraq in 1981 because of the Iran-Iraq war. I flew sorties against Iran and was sent to the Soviet Union for training, before joining the general staff. In 1989 I was told to investigate the helicopter crash in which Adnan Khairallah [Iraq`s popular defence minister and Saddam`s brother-in-law] mysteriously died.

I concluded it was pilot error. The pilot had failed to pass his exams, but was promoted because he was distantly related to Saddam. Saddam, apparently, wanted the crash explained by bad weather. I also refused a request to teach Saddam`s 14-year-old stepson, Yassir, to fly. He was too small. At the same time, Saddam`s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, [Chemical Ali] demanded that I give him 100 acres of my land. One day I got home from work, turned on the news, and discovered that I had been sacked. They took away my car. I spent the next six months in a military prison. The only reason I wasn`t executed is that I come from an influential Sunni family. My mother met Saddam and I was released. In February 2002 Iraqi intelligence officers turned up at my office. They arrested me again. They blindfolded me and tied my hands. Then they beat me up. By this stage I was a businessman. This time it wasn`t about politics, but money. They had no questions to ask: they simply came to my house and forced my family to hand over $28,000. When Saddam announced a general amnesty [in October 2002] I got out too. What should happen now? I hope Saddam isn`t executed. He should stay alive so he can see that Iraq is better off without him.

Salman Dawood Mohammed
Poet, 46

In 1997 I wrote a poem which the regime didn`t like. I didn`t criticise the regime directly - I used metaphors of course - but the poem was nonetheless rebellious in content. It was about regimes, systems and the way the Iraqi people were being governed. After it was published in the Al-Jumhuriya newspaper, three security men turned up at my door. They wanted to talk to me about my work, and the poem. Like all of the Iraqi media, the newspaper was government-controlled and I found myself being investigated by people from the newspaper itself. After several weeks, they concluded that I had not deliberately set out to criticise Saddam. The culture editor who had published my poem, however, Sami al-Zubaidi, lost his job and was forced to flee from Iraq. During this entire period I felt absolutely terrified. I was very afraid. Afterwards, I was forbidden from publishing my work. Other friends of mine, such as the novelist Hamid al-Mukhtar, were tortured by the regime. What should happen to Saddam? He should be ignored and forgotten. That would be the utmost punishment for him.


Mohammed Sadun
Communist activist, writer, 54

I was first arrested in 1974. After that they arrested me numerous times. They wanted to make me a Ba`athist. I was a member of the Iraqi Communist party and wrote articles for the communist newspaper. I frequently criticised the government, describing it as a "gang", and pointed out that it had not managed to achieve anything good for the Iraqi people. Every time I wrote something they would come and arrest me. They usually took me to the security headquarters in Basra. They would then keep me prisoner for seven to 10 days. Later they shifted me to Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. I am a chemist by training and they forced me to work in the prison pharmacy. This carried on for eight years. Finally I retired. I carried on writing of course and won a prize for one of my short stories.

What should be done with Saddam? The Shia parties want him executed. My feeling is that there should be both international and Arab participation at his trial. A lot of very embarrassing things could emerge about Saddam`s links with the outside world.

Dr Mohammed Ahmed Salih
Physics lecturer, Baghdad University

There isn`t much of an interface between physics and politics, and so I was obviously better off than many of my colleagues at Baghdad University during the long Saddam years. Nevertheless, many of the people I knew were arrested. Others fled to Libya, or to Jordan and to Europe. And of course the Saddam regime also interfered with our syllabus. A university is a place where people should be free to develop ideas of their own and develop a philosophy of life. Saddam took away the possibility of proper thought and replaced it with his Ba`athist ideology. I feel very strongly that an Iraqi court should try Saddam, and not an international one. He wasn`t just a man: Saddam was a philosophy, a system; he was virtually a religion. We should try him. Saddam destroyed our lives and not the lives of people sitting comfortably in England. What he means to us Iraqis is completely different from what he means to you. You can`t begin to understand. I was eight years old when Saddam came to power, and now I am 43. I feel that my life has been stolen from me.

Mohammed Darwish Ali
Journalist and editor, 43

Under Saddam the situation was very bad. His security forces and government simply controlled us the whole time. Like under any dictatorship, criticism was almost impossible. Instead, we had to resort to mythology and symbols to express our ideas. I was the editor of my newspaper`s cultural section. Many of my colleagues were tortured and arrested. One of my close friends was arrested 10 days before the fall of Baghdad, after a friend of his came to see him from abroad. The Iraqi Mukhabarat suspected the friend of working for the opposition. Many other people were arrested too. Under Saddam, there was no real journalism in Iraq; it was simply ideological journalism controlled by the government. This was a dismal state of affairs. What should happen to Saddam? Well, obviously there should be some kind of public tribunal. But a tribunal is unlikely to satisfy the Iraqi people, given the huge crimes that Saddam committed. In my view, nobody has yet invented a sufficient punishment that could be applied to Saddam.

Amer Abed
Poet, 42

We poets in Iraq were a neglected bunch. We were not paid salaries by the poets` associations and societies and most of my work was published outside Iraq. One of my books of poetry appeared during Saddam`s reign, but the most important poem in it was censored. I wasn`t tortured myself, but I know plenty of people who were. When they found Saddam in his hole I was delighted. I saw the news on TV and danced round my living room. My mother came in and asked me what the fuss was about. I told her that Saddam had been captured. I felt so happy. I was listening to Kuwait Radio and immediately turned on the BBC.

There is only one possibility now for Saddam: he has to be hanged. He has committed too many murders of Iraqi people, of Iranians and of Kuwaitis for there to be any other way. He has used biological weapons against the Kurds. And don`t forget that back in 1979 he killed most of his friends. We need some form of justice.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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December 22, 2003
Inquiry Suggests Pakistanis Sold Nuclear Secrets
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

This article is by William J. Broad, David Rohde and David E. Sanger.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 — A lengthy investigation of the father of Pakistan`s atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, by American and European intelligence agencies and international nuclear inspectors has forced Pakistani officials to question his aides and openly confront evidence that the country was the source of crucial technology to enrich uranium for Iran, North Korea and possibly other nations.

Until the past few weeks, Pakistani officials had denied evidence that the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, named for the man considered a national hero, had ever been a source of weapons technology to countries aspiring to acquire fissile material. Now they are backing away from those denials, while insisting that there has been no transfer of nuclear technology since President Pervez Musharraf took power four years ago.

Dr. Khan, a metallurgist who was charged with stealing European designs for enriching uranium a quarter century ago, has not yet been questioned. American and European officials say he is the centerpiece of their investigation, but that General Musharraf`s government has been reluctant to take him on because of his status and deep ties to the country`s military and intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official said in an interview that "any individual who is found associated with anything suspicious would be under investigation," and promised a sweeping inquiry.

Pakistan`s role in providing centrifuge designs to Iran, and the possible involvement of Dr. Khan in such a transfer, was reported Sunday by The Washington Post. Other suspected nuclear links between Pakistan and Iran have been reported in previous weeks by other news organizations.

An investigation conducted by The New York Times during the past two months, in Washington, Europe and Pakistan, showed that American and European investigators are interested in what they describe as Iran`s purchase of nuclear centrifuge designs from Pakistan 16 years ago, largely to force the Pakistani government to face up to a pattern of clandestine sales by its nuclear engineers and to investigate much more recent transfers.

Those include shipments in the late 1990`s to facilities in North Korea that American intelligence agencies are still trying to locate, in hopes of gaining access to them.

New questions about Pakistan`s role have also been raised by Libya`s decision on Friday to reveal and dismantle its unconventional weapons, including centrifuges and thousands of centrifuge parts. A senior American official said this weekend that Libya had shown visiting American and British intelligence officials "a relatively sophisticated model of centrifuge," which can be used to enrich uranium for bomb fuel.

A senior European diplomat with access to detailed intelligence said Sunday that the Libyan program had "certain common elements" with the Iranian program and with the pattern of technology leakage from Pakistan to Iran. The C.I.A. declined to say over the weekend what country appeared to be Libya`s primary source. "It looks like an indirect transfer," said one official. "It will take a while to trace it back."

There are also investigations under way to determine if Pakistani technology has spread elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia, but so far the evidence involves largely the exchange of scientists with countries including Myanmar. There have been no confirmed reports of additional technology transfers, intelligence officials say.

The Pakistani action to question Dr. Khan`s associates was prompted by information Iran turned over two months ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency, under pressure to reveal the details of a long-hidden nuclear program. But even before Iran listed its suppliers to the I.A.E.A. — five individuals and a number of companies from around the world — a British expert who accompanied agency inspectors into Iran earlier this year identified Iranian centrifuges as being identical to the early models that the Khan laboratories had modified from European designs. "They were Pak-1`s," said one senior official who later joined the investigation, saying that they were transferred to Iran in 1987.

Pakistani officials said the sales to Iran might have occurred in the 1980`s during the rule of the last American-backed military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. They acknowledge questioning three scientists: Mohammed Farooq, Yasin Chohan and a man believed to be named Sayeed Ahmad, all close aides to Dr. Khan.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official said Mr. Farooq was in charge of dealing with foreign suppliers at the Khan laboratory, run by Dr. Khan until he was forced into retirement — partly at American insistence — in the spring of 2001. At the laboratory, where much of the work was done that led to Pakistan`s successful nuclear tests in 1998 and its deployment of dozens of nuclear weapons, Mr. Chohan was in charge of metallurgical research, according to senior Pakistani officials.

Contacted by telephone last week, relatives of Mr. Farooq said he was still being questioned. Mr. Chohan`s family said Sunday that Mr. Chohan had been released and was at home.

Pakistani officials have insisted in that if their scientists and engineers had done anything wrong, it was without government approval. They said their bank accounts and real estate holdings were also being investigated. A senior Bush administration official, while declining to comment on what was learned when Pakistani officials questioned the men, said that all three had been "well known to our intelligence folks." Another official said the United States had steered Pakistani officials to the three, in hopes it would further pressure Dr. Khan.

Dr. Khan declined several requests in November for an interview, routed through his secretary and his official biographer, Zahid Malik. However, Mr. Malik relayed a statement from Dr. Khan that he had never traveled to Iran. "He said, `I have never been there in my life.` " A European confidante of Dr. Khan`s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani scientist put the blame for transfers on a Middle Eastern businessman who he said was supplying Pakistan with centrifuge parts and, on his own, double-ordered the same components to sell to Iran. "There is evidence he is innocent," the confidante said of Dr. Khan in an interview. "I don`t think he is lying, but not perhaps telling the whole truth."

Iran has insisted that all of its centrifuges were built purely for peaceful purposes, and last week it signed an agreement to allow deeper inspections.

But for 18 years Iran hid the centrifuge operations from the agency`s inspectors.

In Pakistan, the disclosure of the investigation is already complicating the political position of General Musharraf, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a week ago. An alliance of hard-line Islamic political parties has already assailed him for questioning the scientists, saying the inquiry shows he is a puppet of the United States.

Any attack on Dr. Khan, hailed as the creator of the first "Islamic bomb," is likely to be seized by the Islamist parties as a major political issue. Many Pakistanis opposed the American-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as what is seen as the United States` one-sided support of Israel. Many also perceive the United States as trying to dominate the Muslim world — and through pressure on the nuclear scientists, to contain its power.

While General Musharraf was responsible for sidelining Dr. Khan nearly three years ago, he has also praised him. When the nuclear and military establishments of Pakistan gathered for a formal dinner early in 2001 to honor Dr. Khan`s retirement, General Musharraf described him this way, according to a transcript of his speech in a Pakistani archive: "Dr. Khan and his team toiled and sweated, day and night, against all odds and obstacles, against international sanctions and sting operations, to create, literally out of nothing, with their bare hands, the pride of Pakistan`s nuclear capability."

European and American officials have a different view of Dr. Khan, from his work from 1972 to 1975 in the Netherlands at a centrifuge plant, Urenco.

At the plant, Dr. Khan gained access to centrifuge designs that were extremely sensitive, records from a later investigation show. Suddenly, around 1976, Dr. Khan quit and returned to Pakistan. Not long after, Western investigators say, Pakistan started an atom bomb program that eventually began to enrich uranium with centrifuges based on a stolen Dutch design.

Investigators in the Netherlands found a letter he wrote in the summer of 1976, after having returned to Pakistan, to Frits Veerman, a technician friend at the plant. "I ask you in great confidence to help us," Dr. Khan wrote, according to an article by David Albright, a nuclear expert, in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "This is absolutely urgent."

Dr. Khan asked for help on how to etch special grooves on a Dutch centrifuge`s bottom bearing, a critical part. The grooves were to aid the flow of lubricants. He also asked if Mr. Veerman might like to vacation in Pakistan "and earn some money at the same time?"

Suspicious, Mr. Veerman gave the letter to officials at Urenco. It was eventually used against Dr. Khan when he was put on trial in absentia in the Netherlands. In 1983, he was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing nuclear secrets. The conviction was later overturned, however, on a legal technicality.

By 1986, American intelligence had concluded that Pakistan was making weapons-grade uranium. And Dr. Khan was making no secret of his expertise: he published two articles that advertised his knowledge. He did so, he wrote, "because most of the work is shrouded in the clouds of the so-called secrecy" controlled by Western nuclear powers.

At around the same time, Iran made its secret deal and obtained basic centrifuge designs, the ones that now bear Pakistan`s technological signature.

But it was in the mid- to late 1990`s, as American sanctions tightened, that Pakistan made its biggest deal — with North Korea, American intelligence officials have said. Though Pakistan continues to deny any role, the laboratories are believed to have been the centerpiece of a barter arrangement of nuclear technology for missiles. South Korean intelligence agents discovered the transactions in 2002 and passed the information to the C.I.A. In the summer of that year, American spy satellites recorded a Pakistani C-130 loading North Korean missile parts in North Korea.

Earlier this year the State Department barred American transactions with the Khan laboratory because of the missile deal.

Pakistani officials say that since Dr. Khan`s retirement, he has no longer been officially affiliated with the laboratory that bears his name. Still, one former Pakistani military official described him as a proud nationalist who saw himself as a Robin Hood-like character outwitting rich nations and aiding poor ones. Dr. Khan, he said, "was not that sort that would think it was a bad thing" to share nuclear weapons technology. "In fact, he would think it was a good thing."


David Rohde reported from Pakistan and Boston. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger reported from Vienna, New York and Washington.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
In New Iraq, Sunnis Fear a Grim Future
Once Dominant, Minority Feels Besieged

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 22, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, Dec. 21 -- The Bridge of the Imams draws together two Baghdads and divides two Iraqs.

Arching over the Tigris River, the overpass ends in Kadhimiya, a Shiite Muslim neighborhood built around the gold-domed shrine of a descendant of the prophet Muhammad. On Friday, the neighborhood pulses with promise. Pilgrims crowd its intersections, sidewalks overflow with money-changers, jewelers and kiosks brimming with hummus, cardamom and olives. Slogans written on the walls declare deposed president Saddam Hussein an infidel, and newspapers celebrate the capture of the man they call the tyrant.

At the other end of the bridge is Adhamiya, a grim Sunni Muslim neighborhood where the venerated Abu Hanifa Mosque is shielded behind eight steel barricades. Its twin minarets, clock tower and brick walls bear the scars of war. The slogans along the neighborhood`s streets, where many of the shops are shuttered, convey nostalgia and anger. "Long live Saddam," reads one, scrawled in black. "Jihad is our way," declares another. A dozen or so men carrying AK-47 rifles sit atop the mosque`s roof and patrol the street below, casting wary glances toward the bridge and the celebrations beyond.

"The future? What`s the future?" asked one of the guards, Ammar Abu Nour Quds. "We don`t have any future."

Of the emotions unleashed by Hussein`s arrest, the darkest were those that gripped the country`s Sunni minority, of which Hussein was a member. As a new Iraq unfolds, with Hussein`s arrest the latest milestone, they are on the inside looking out -- a community besieged, leaderless and relentless in its refusal to accept the eight-month U.S. occupation. The Sunnis` reversal of fortune marks a spectacular shift for a group that for most of the country`s modern history, and for centuries before that, guided Iraq through colonialism and coups, dictatorship and war.

In interviews across the Sunni Triangle, which gave Hussein much of his support and suffered the most with his fall, many insist they are no longer fighting for the privilege they enjoyed in previous decades, but rather for their community`s survival in a country with a Shiite Muslim majority. Once divided and discredited clergy have stepped forward to try to end a crisis of identity, bringing a message of political Islam to a community that once embraced secular Arab nationalism and tribal traditions.

No longer kingmakers, the community`s leaders vow that they still hold the key to stability. But casting a shadow over conversations with men such as Quds is a sense of dispossession, of a minority searching for a voice in the contest to create a new state.

"The people are waiting for something, to hear something, to see something," said Khaled Ahmed, a 23-year-old Sunni whose photo store is across the street from the Abu Hanifa Mosque. He listened for a moment to the sermon, a homily urging restraint and unity that was broadcast from loudspeakers. "They`re waiting for some kind of hope," he said.

`A People Without`


Col. Abdullah Jassem and his brother, Gen. Abed Jassem -- two retired military officers from the northern town of Thuluya -- still espouse hope for what they admit is unlikely, that Hussein was somehow not captured.

It is the talk that swirls through towns in the Sunni Triangle and neighborhoods of Baghdad. In Tikrit, near Hussein`s ancestral home town, young men insisted, without a hint of doubt, that the former Iraqi president visited Wednesday and doled out "10 papers" -- Iraqi slang for $1,000 -- to the sheik of the Bayt Habous mosque. His message: distribute it to the poor. They recounted another story, spread at a wedding last week, that Hussein was seen in the streets of Tikrit on the day of his capture, Dec. 13, greeting the people.

"I have some suspicions," Abdullah Jassem said while sitting in his home with a riverfront view of the meandering Tigris.

For the Jassem brothers, men of rural origins who rose to influence and prestige under the 35-year rule of Hussein`s Baath Party, the suspicions derive as much from their fear of the future as from their loyalty to the past.

The Sunni Triangle stretches from the Iranian border in the east to Syria in the west, an arid region of central Iraq made livable by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But until Hussein took power, it was the Sunni elite in the capital -- not their poor, rural cousins -- who controlled the country. Blessed with wealth, education and the favor of overlords, they were the administrators and officers under the Ottoman Empire, then in large part through inertia, the favorites of the British who arrived after World War I.

To build the Baath Party, Hussein broke their hold on the country. Ever suspicious, he relied on the ranks of his fellow disenfranchised Sunnis, the neglected from cities such as Tikrit, Samarra and Thuluya. At first, he recruited from tribes, imbued with the fierce, often unforgiving traditions of the countryside. While, in time, he narrowed the ranks of his faithful to his family, men such as the Jassems profited, and today, the ranks of Thuluya`s newly unemployed are filled with former military officers, intelligence agents and bureaucrats.

Hussein guaranteed their interests and provided their patronage. In a region given to prejudices against Shiites, he ensured that power would remain out of Shiite hands. Until Hussein`s capture last week, when he crawled out of a dirt hole without resistance, the Jassems thought they shared with Hussein the ideals of dignity, pride and honor. After his arrest, they felt only shame, another reflection of their growing humiliation.

In Thuluya and elsewhere, the word that punctuated their conversations was ihana, insult.

"He`s supposed to fight with honor, he`s supposed to defend his honor," Abed lamented. His brother shook his head in dismay. He stretched out a leg crippled by shrapnel during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. "We believed in him, that he would always resist," he said. "We can`t believe that he would be reduced to his level, as a coward."

"Believe me, the day of his capture was the same as the collapse of Baghdad, maybe worse," Abdullah added.

Qahtan Jabbouri, a friend sharing small cups of bitter coffee, interrupted. "We are now a shaab biduun," he said. "A people without."

Feeling Disenfranchised


For generations, sect and ethnicity have cast a long shadow over Iraq, and under Hussein`s clan-based rule, Shiites and Kurds were the most frequent victims of his government`s brutal repression. But now, in the freewheeling, postwar era, sect and ethnicity have come to define politics almost exclusively, with explicit quotas determining the allotment of power and patronage under the U.S.-led occupation. In that contest, the Kurds are represented by the community`s two traditional parties. The Shiites, comprising perhaps 60 percent of the population, have a voice through formerly exiled groups or clergy, both radical and mainstream, who emerged forcefully in the wake of Hussein`s fall.

The Sunnis, about one-fifth of Iraq`s people, find themselves largely disenfranchised, posing a formidable challenge to the U.S.-led administration that is trying to craft an inclusive political process to transfer power by June.

The Baath Party, its leadership traditionally dominated by Sunnis, was outlawed in May. The Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party, whose leader serves in the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, struggles for support among a constituency that, in overwhelming numbers, refuses to accept the status quo. In the words of one leading Sunni cleric, Abdel-Salaam Kubeisi, the party does little more than "market the occupation." The sheiks of Sunni Arab tribes, aggressively courted by the U.S. administration, are seen by many Sunnis as compromised.

"In the past they took money from Saddam," Jabbouri said. "Now they`re taking money from the Americans."

The sense of disenfranchisement is powerfully felt among Sunnis. Even today, many are reluctant to identity themselves by sect. They insist they are Muslims and that sectarian differences are only a ploy to divide Iraqis. Others say they are Arabs, even as the Arab nationalism that gave them voice has receded. Often, they identify themselves in opposition -- against the occupation or, more commonly, as a besieged community, facing an escalating campaign of shadowy killings of Baathists and Sunni clergy.

"We were the heads of the Arabs, and the people were happy," said Mohammed Abed, 24, owner of a CD store in Tikrit, recalling an Arab proverb. "But by God, time has turned its face on us, and we`ve now been placed at the mercy of the villains."

The play list at Abed`s store is a window on such sentiments. It points to a society that he and others believe is growing more radical and ceding ground to once-divided clergy that can claim independence and moral stature.

From a room decorated with posters of Arab and international pop stars -- Kadhim Saher, Assala and Britney Spears -- he points to the video that he has trouble keeping on the shelf. It is by Sabah Abu Hashim Jannabi, an Iraqi singer from the northern city of Mosul. It is titled "Wrath," and at about 50 cents a piece, he said he sells 40 or so a week -- by far his best seller.

The video is a wild mishmash of images -- scenes from "The Lion of the Desert," a movie starring Anthony Quinn as the famed Libyan guerrilla leader Omar Mukhtar, promotional video from U.S. armed forces and relentlessly violent footage taken from Arab satellite networks and Fox News of U.S. attacks and raids in Iraq.

To a heavy drumbeat, Jannabi sings: "America is losing in the thousands. Our paths are paved with bullets."

The Clergy`s Role


Sheik Nadhim Khalil represents a new generation of leader. He has achieved influence by religious appeals and anti-occupation rhetoric. Only 25, he has led the Caliphs Mosque, Thuluya`s oldest and most prominent, for seven years. Since the government`s fall, he said, worshipers have tripled in number. Plans are underway, he said, to build a new floor to house them.

His followers, many of them young, point to his credentials. The Americans raided his house last month, they said -- a sure sign of his independence. Under Hussein, they recalled, he was questioned often for his sometimes explicit criticism of the government -- that it should build schools rather than palaces, that its administration lacked the justice of Islam`s forebears.

"Now there`s space. Now there`s an opening," said Khalil, sitting atop red Persian carpets and leaning on pillows stacked against the wall, which was adorned with framed verses of the Koran. "Only the mosques represent the Sunnis."

While fearing their influence, many Sunnis express envy at the authority commanded by the most senior Shiite clergy. To religious Shiites, the pronouncements of the grand ayatollahs carry the force of law, and the clerics` ascent through a rigid hierarchy of scholarship is measured by their prestige among their followers. In times of change, the institution provides a voice of the community.

Through history, the Sunni clergy have lacked that status, tainted by what many view as subservience to the state and bereft of stature in a sect that, at its most orthodox, sees no intermediary between man and God.

Now, the Sunni clergy are trying to raise their standing. Just days after the government`s collapse, several clerics established the Commission of the Muslim Clergy. Today, it claims 3,000 members, with offices in most provinces. Its advisory council of 41 scholars and clerics and secretariat of 11 meet weekly, and its statements speak explicitly on behalf of the sect. The most recent warned of consequences of more killings of Baathists and clergy.

"We have moral authority with the majority of the Sunni people," said the group`s spokesman, Abdel-Salaam Kubeisi. "But there is no doubt now that things are boiling. The question is how long we can control the feelings of the people."

In his own way, Khalil has repeated the commission`s experiment. Inside Thuluya, perched on a bend in the Tigris, he has convened weekly gatherings of the town`s 17 clerics, the setting for the two-hour meeting rotating among the mosques. They have dealt with U.S. raids in Thuluya, sectarian strife in nearby Balad, with its mixed Shiite-Sunni population, and efforts to refurbish the mosques.

His message is harsh -- opposing the American occupation, defending Sunnis against Shiites.

Some worshipers recall a sermon Khalil delivered last month in which he spoke of three men competing to be the most vile. The first saw a woman carrying wood atop her head. He beat her. The second tore off her clothes and raped her. The third stood back. When the other two asked what he would do to prove his wickedness, he laughed. That was my mother, he said.

As the mosque fell silent, Khalil said the mother represented Iraq, and the men were those who betrayed the country.

"The occupation is like a cancer, and it has to be removed," he said. The clerics, he said, "are fighting with our tongues."

On this day, Khalil expounded on the need to form a Sunni militia to offset the armed presence of Shiites and Kurds. He said former military officers had started recruiting in Thuluya -- in his view, a welcome development.

"If you lose and cannot get a place in the government, you have something to fight with," said Nadhim, wearing a white skullcap. . "It`s something to create a balance of power."

The future, he predicted, was grim. He saw no end to the occupation. He saw sectarian strife only mounting.

"The seeds for civil war have been planted," he said, his tone matter of fact. "I really think so."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Trust in Voting Machines




Monday, December 22, 2003; Page A24


EVEN THOUGH experts continue to raise questions about the vulnerability of touch-screen voting systems to fraud and computer glitches, Maryland election officials seem determined to press a flawed plan to adopt them. The state is buying into a system that has come under increasing scrutiny since July, when researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University cited numerous vulnerabilities in touch-screen technology. They determined that, among other shortcomings, the computer code in the voting machines made by Diebold Elections Systems was anything but hacker-proof; that an outsider could tamper with the program, and the tampering would be difficult to detect.

That was the first red flag, enough to prompt Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to order a review by Science Applications International Corp., which also concluded that the system was "at high risk of compromise." Then, last month, computer scientist Aviel D. Rubin of the Johns Hopkins team reiterated his criticism, telling the state House Ways and Means Committee that a computer programmer could switch 10 percent of the votes from one candidate to another and leave no traces.

As if this weren`t enough to generate uneasiness, Diebold`s chief executive, an active Republican fundraiser, has been quoted as saying he is committed to "helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to President Bush next year. Then there`s the report of an e-mail found in files apparently stolen from the firm that recommended charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state were to ask that machines be equipped to produce paper printouts that can be verified by the voters.

Maryland ought to be able to negotiate a fair price for the cost of adding printers, and paper records ought to be a requirement, regardless of which company does the job. In California, the secretary of state has announced that all electronic voting machines must include paper printouts by 2006. Maryland Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Montgomery) has drafted legislation that would require voter-verified paper records. Voters would be allowed to correct errors they find on the printouts of their votes. The bill also would require random checks of the paper records in 2 percent of election precincts against the computer records, to search for possible tampering.

Before committing itself to a suspect system, Maryland at the least should insist on the kinds of protection sought by Ms. Montgomery. Mr. Ehrlich should join in putting these safeguards on the books and in conducting a further review of the arrangement with Diebold.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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So langsam kommen die besinnlichen Weihnachtsgeschichten!

Health deteriorates in the two-class society

Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate
Monday, December 22, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/12/22/hsorensen.DTL


Shortly after Lyndon Johnson became president in 1963, he declared a "war on poverty."

In the wealthiest nation on Earth, Johnson argued, there was no reason anyone should be poor.

Nor was there any reason some Americans should be second-class citizens, he maintained, and with that in mind he hammered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through a reluctant Congress.

And, for a while, it looked like poverty might be overcome. Federal money was put into the hands of poor people, who used it to become self-sufficient. It was an exciting time. An entire underclass of American citizens suddenly had a voice in our society and the opportunity to make good.

Many did make good. A good share of the emerging black middle class in America can be credited to programs started by Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat from Texas.

Unfortunately, the new influence of black people was considered a threat by many in the white majority, so it was an easy task for Richard Nixon to capitalize on that fear and be elected president in 1968. Nixon ran on a "law and order" theme, which was code for "put the blacks and hippies back in their place."

So the war on poverty ended.

If there was any doubt that rich conservative America wants its boot on the neck of poor people, Ronald Reagan, a Republican from California, put that to rest when he became president. Reagan`s policies extolled the rich and helped make them richer. He blamed the poor for being poor, and he helped them stay that way.

One remarkable result of this class warfare against the poor is that Americans, rich and poor, have poorer health and die sooner. That`s the argument of a physician in the state of Washington, who was brought to my attention by my good e-mail buddy, Phil Dunn, of that state.

The doctor`s name is Stephen Bezruchka. He`s a career emergency-room doctor, one of a very rare breed. Few doctors can tolerate the strain of ER work for long; they soon go on to less stressful and more financially rewarding jobs.

In an e-mail Friday, Bezruchka described himself as "an ER doc who teaches in the University of Washington`s public-health school`s international-health program. I also work in Nepal with Nepali doctors trying to improve surgical services in remote district hospitals."

In addition, he`s written on such topics as how to prevent and treat altitude sickness, and trekking in Nepal. His best-known book, perhaps, is "The Pocket Doctor," which The Vancouver Columbian called "the ultimate preventative approach to health care for travelers." He has produced tapes in Nepali. He definitely qualifies as a Renaissance man.

In a lecture in Seattle on Dec. 6, Bezruchka pointed out that "studies overwhelmingly show that for every health condition, for every disease, for every cause of death, those who have lower incomes have it much worse than those who have fatter paychecks."

Then he went on to show how, in comparison with other countries, health in the United States has deteriorated over the years. Using life expectancy as a measure, Bezruchka said, "55 years ago, we were one of the healthiest countries in the world .... Today, there are some 25 countries that are healthier than we are."

"Think of it," he added. "All the other rich countries are healthier than we are, and a number of poor ones as well."

Health barometers other than life expectancy show the same results, Bezruchka said.

"For example [among developed nations], we have the highest infant-mortality rate, the highest child-poverty rate, the highest teen-pregnancy rate, the highest child-abuse death rate and so on. There are no indicators in which we excel, except in spending money on health care, for we spend half of the world`s health-care bill."

This wasn`t always so. What has caused the change? "Fifty years ago," Bezruchka said, "it was the poorest families that saw the biggest gains in income. Now, as you all know, it is only the rich and super rich that are seeing gains in income."

Bezruchka`s studies show that residents of nations with a strong middle class and small income disparities, such as Sweden or Japan, have the best overall health. Countries like Nigeria and the United States, with huge gaps in income, have the worst.

"An African-American male in Harlem lives less long than a man in Bangladesh, one of the world`s poorest countries," he said. "A black man in Washington, D.C., lives less long than a man in Ghana."

In reconstructing Japan after World War II, U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur changed the rules. He redistributed the wealth and the land in a way to make everyone more nearly equal (or at least less unequal).

He installed what was known as a 3D program (demilitarization, democratization and decentralization). As we all know, it worked marvelously. And it brought Japan to the world`s No. 1 spot in health. The Japanese now live longer than anyone.

While Japan was improving, we in the United States were going the other way. We`ve become tremendously militaristic, our democracy is waning and our institutions are becoming more and more centralized. (Think Wal-Mart.)

So, what`s the solution to our national health problems? Bezruchka suggests that the poor learn to flex their political muscle. Only when the politicians start serving the masses, rather than their rich contributors, will things change.

"If the poor organized, if the working class got together, it would be a piece of cake to change things," he said. "After all, the poor and the working class are the majority in this country."

I certainly agree with Bezruchka on this, except for one problem: the Republicans have convinced the working class to vote against their own best interests.

Candidates can hold 99 positions that benefit working-class people, but if they hint that they might favor some sort of gun control, like keeping assault weapons out of the hands of gangsters, many of the working class will vote against them.

Or, if those same candidates say they favor a woman`s right to choose, many, many working-class people will vote against them on that one issue alone.

So the rich keep spewing out the poisonous lies that the liberals will take all our guns away -- they won`t, they can`t: the Constitution forbids it -- and that abortion is liberal-sponsored murder. Those two issues keep the working class in line, and, in the process, jeopardize the health of us all.

Bezruchka`s Dec. 6 lecture prints out to 11 single-spaced pages. I just scraped the surface of it here and didn`t begin to do it justice.

If you can spare the time, if you`re really interested in learning how to help your country, I recommend you read it.

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at [e-mail].

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-dist…
THE WORLD



For Baghdad`s Sunnis, Hostility Toward Occupation Is Growing
Residents of areas with ties to former dictator are frustrated at the lack of municipal services.
By Chris Kraul
Times Staff Writer

December 22, 2003

BAGHDAD — It began as a pro-Saddam Hussein march in the capital`s Adhamiya district and turned into a raging gun battle with U.S. armored units surrounding a dozen fighters. When the smoke cleared, seven Iraqis lay dead.

A week after the bloody exchange, the bitterness left behind in this northwest Baghdad neighborhood with strong ties to Hussein and his Sunni sect illustrates the challenges facing the U.S.-led coalition, even with the former dictator behind bars.

In Sunni enclaves like Adhamiya, there is increasing hostility toward occupation forces. The ill feelings derive not only from die-hard loyalty to Hussein but also from mounting frustration over the breakdown of municipal services and security, and Sunnis` sense of exclusion from Iraq`s reconstruction. Many residents here are former Baath Party members or bureaucrats who were purged from the government and haven`t received a paycheck in months.

"The Americans are creating enemies for themselves who will help the terrorists," said Amar Hashimi, a respected former Iraqi army general and member of the Adhamiya neighborhood council.

"Before, a minority was against the Americans," added Sheik Sabbah Naja Adhamiy, another council member. "Now it`s the majority."

On Sunday, the shootout was the focus of the weekly neighborhood council meeting, and U.S. army officers attended to discuss the incident. But reconciliation proved elusive: Hashimi and 11 other members of the 25-person council walked out after the Americans refused to apologize. Many council members — including President Luqman Jassim and Hashimi — said they might resign.

The gun battle in Adhamiya was one of many clashes that erupted following the Dec. 13 capture of Hussein. The clash occurred as U.S. troops tried to disperse a pro-Hussein march down the main street of the district.

Some marchers wore ski masks and carried firearms as they demonstrated in the shadow of the 800-year-old Abu Hanifa shrine, a destination for thousands of Sunni pilgrims. The square in front of the shrine was the last place Hussein was seen in public, on April 9, before going into hiding.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has decreed all such marches illegal. Army Col. Pete Mansoor, commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and Lt. Col. Bill Rabena, both of whom attended Sunday`s council meeting, initially sent a small Iraqi police force backed by a score of U.S. troops, including military police, to disperse the crowd.

But when one of the American MPs was fired upon, and four U.S. troops were wounded by a grenade, the commanders sent in reinforcements. Soon, about 300 U.S. troops backed by 10 Abrams tanks and four Bradley fighting vehicles were converging on the square. Before long, U.S. troops were taking fire from gunmen using AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, and the firefight was on.

When the shooting stopped, seven Iraqis lay dead, including two bystanders, Hashimi said.

Mansoor told the council the use of force was justified after his troops were fired on with AK-47 rounds and RPGs. He told the council to send a message to the "armed thugs that if they want to turn Adhamiya into a battle zone, bring it on."

But Hashimi and other residents say the incident could have been avoided had the marchers been left alone.

"Let the people shout for one or two hours, they get tired and they go home, and the business is completed," Hashimi said. "Saddam was president for 35 years. Do they think they can erase him in one minute or one night by calling the police? What happened to your Statue of Liberty? Change the name."

Imam Moayed Adami, the religious leader of the Abu Hanifa shrine, said in an interview Saturday that the coalition`s ban on pro-Hussein marches is "against the principles of freedom."

But after 12 of the council members walked out of Sunday`s meeting, member Ghazi Alboudi stood up and said that allowing pro-Hussein marches would be an insult to the ex-dictator`s thousands of victims and their families.

"My mother and I were arrested and imprisoned together," Alboudi said. "I will never forget having to listen to her being tortured and humiliated in the adjoining cell. To allow these demonstrations would not be civilized."

Mansoor told the council that doing nothing in the face of an illegal march that included members of the Saddam Fedayeen militia and possibly foreign fighters would have resulted in bigger demonstrations.

After the gun battle, 23 people were detained, including three Egyptians and several other people with known links to the Saddam Fedayeen. Two had bullet wounds less than 24 hours old that may have come from previous encounters with U.S. troops, Mansoor said.

But one victim was a neighborhood character, Shamil Nafi, a 44-year-old father of four who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was an ex-policeman who, like many Sunnis, had been purged from the nation`s security forces. Hashimi said the neighborhood council was paying him $3 a day to do odd jobs.

On Wednesday, at the Hall of Condolences a block off the main square, a banner proclaimed Nafi a "martyr," stating that he died fighting "American occupation."

Despite last week`s violence, Rabena said, his forces are slowly subduing the resistance and the number of bomb attacks against U.S. forces is declining.

"The former regime elements here are on their last legs," said Rabena, whose troops occupy a bombed-out Adhamiya palace once inhabited by Hussein`s son Uday.

But in interviews, local residents voiced support for the anti-American fighters and Hussein, even though many said they had no special loyalty to the dictator when he held power.

"He was an Arab, he stood up to the Americans, and the country functioned better under him than under the occupation," said Mohammed Ali Eden, 49, an unemployed father of eight who used to work in Hussein`s protocol department. Now, his family is scraping by on his wife`s $50 monthly salary from a local factory.

Pointing to a mile-long line of cars snaking toward a downtown gas station, Khalid Mossem, a former army soldier, asked: "This is democracy?"

Jassim, the neighborhood council president, said he was leaning toward returning to Yemen, where he spent 12 years in exile before returning to his homeland in April after the fall of Hussein.

"I have never seen such a situation. No water, no telephones, no gasoline, no municipal services," he said. "We are living in panic and poverty."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153303_firstperson22.h…

This Republican has some doubts
Monday, December 22, 2003

By DANIEL LEE
GUEST COLUMNIST

It was the morning after the birthday party for my 5-year-old twins and their first full day to play with the toys they had not had time to take out of the packages.

I pulled off the plastic of the Sunday morning paper and there before me was the headline no veteran wants to see: "The U.S. Suffers Its Bloodiest Day."

My children`s excitement kept me from reading the story through but the headline stuck with me throughout the morning. A slow rise of anger and frustration about how my long-held beliefs were not being honored by the people elected to honor them started bubbling to the surface.

I have been a Republican my whole life and beliefs of liberty, small government, reverence for the Constitution and a fiscal discipline are typical among people who think like I do. But the politicians who said they believed in these concepts are nowhere to be seen. Above all, President Bush, who ran on the platform of "Not Believing in Nation Building," is currently building two, and no Republican seems to care.

We are in the midst of a media blitz that will last until the next election, and this Republican has some questions he would like answered.


I`ve been a Republican my whole life but when you pass a so-called Patriot Act that authorizes the government to hold American citizens suspected of terrorist acts in confinement, indefinitely, without legal representation ... how is this patriotic ... how does it ensure freedom and liberty ... how does this display reverence for the Constitution?


I`ve been a Republican my whole life but when the only thing you change about our airport security screeners is who pays their salary, how does this make us safer and how does this relate to our belief in smaller government?


I`ve been a Republican my whole life and I have heard radio commentators talk about how "those who are willing to trade liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security." Well, if this is so true when speaking of gun control, how is it so untrue when pushing our need for the Patriot Act and racial profiling?

I am an American, a veteran, the son of an immigrant and a former small business owner turned schoolteacher. Most recently, I think of myself as a father, and fatherhood has changed a few things about my thinking -- and not all of the changes make me proud.

I initially supported the war in Iraq, but now I must admit that if it were my son killed in that helicopter crash, patriotism is not the only feeling that I would be experiencing. The wars we have fought lately have not instilled in me a belief that these people are dying for their country as much as for their president`s agenda -- and I wonder why I am so willing to support a war that is justifiable enough to risk the lives of other people`s children, but nowhere near justifiable enough to risk the lives of my own.

You see, in addition to the 5-year-old twins, I have a 16-year-old stepson still asleep in his room. Would his death in a war like this leave me feeling patriotic or just angry? Call me unpatriotic, un-Republican or even un-American, but I can`t find many things about this war that would validate in me the loss of my child.

I remember the Kosovo war and the frustration Republicans felt when we exposed thousands of soldiers to danger with no exit strategy. Though I don`t think it would be smart to leave Iraq before we are finished, I would like to know if someone I voted for has any idea when we will be finished.

I`ve been a Republican my whole life. When it comes to the issues, Democrats still don`t represent my beliefs, for the most part. I am used to that, but I`m not used to the Republicans also failing to represent my beliefs.

What do you do, when faced with a ballot, and nobody on it represents you? Still, we wonder why 50 percent of us never vote.

I`ve been a Republican my whole life ...



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Lee is a middle-school teacher and driving instructor for the Monroe School District. He also served in the Washington Army National Guard. Submissions for First Person, of up to 600 words, can be e-mailed to [e-mail]; faxed to 206-448-8184 or mailed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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President Bush has given up his habitual jogging because of a months-old injury to his right knee, and doctors plan to take MRI scans today to try to determine what is wrong, White House officials said yesterday.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A04

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washingtonpost.com
Two U.S. Soldiers Killed in Roadside Bombing
American Forces Arrest Former Iraqi General


Compiled From Wire Reports
Monday, December 22, 2003; 8:20 AM


BAGHDAD, Dec 22 - Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed and two other American soldiers wounded on Monday when a roadside bomb hit a military convoy in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

The deaths from the attack that took place around 11:45 a.m. brought to 202 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since the United States declared major combar over in Iraq on May 1.

Also in Baghdad, U.S. troops arrested a former Iraqi intelligence officer suspected of directing anti-American attacks and raided a Baghdad mosque overnight in a separate operation. U.S. soldiers also warned Monday that they`ll jail black marketers of gasoline, some of whom are suspected of financing attacks.

On Sunday night, troops detained ex-army Gen. Mumtaz al-Taji at a house in Baqouba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad.

"Tonight we were on a mission to capture a former Iraqi intelligence service general who we believe is recruiting former military members of the Iraqi army to conduct attacks against U.S. forces," Maj. Paul Owen of the 588th Engineer Battalion told Associated Press Television News.

"He runs a very active cell in our sector and hopefully what we have done tonight is to stall some of his efforts," Owen said.

More than 30 soldiers took part in the raid, in which a rifle, pistol and ammunition were seized.

Al-Taji is not on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. Thirteen fugitives from that list remain at large.

He is among hundreds of people detained in raids since Saddam Hussein was captured Dec. 13. Some raids have been based on intelligence gleaned from the arrest of the former dictator.

In other towns, troops in tanks, Humvees and Bradley armored vehicles imposed curfews and roadblocks and went house to house, smashing through doors in the search for guerrillas and weapons.

Among targeted towns are Fallujah, a center of resistance west of Baghdad; Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad; Jalulah, northwest of the capital; and Rawah near the western border with Syria, where troops dubbed the raids "Operation Santa Claws."

In Samarra, a 70-year-old man died when U.S. troops put a bag over his head and prepared to detain him Sunday night, Iraqis said. Neighbors said Mehdi al-Jamal died of a heart attack.

One person was killed during an airborne raid Sunday in Jalulah, on the house of a sheik suspected of directing local resistance, said spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division.

A 60-year-old woman was killed Sunday when soldiers blasted open the reinforced steel door of her home, said Lt. Col. Henry Kievenaar, who was directing the Army`s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in raids in Rawah.

Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff tied some of the recent detentions to Saddam`s capture.

"Some of the information we gleaned when we picked up Saddam Hussein led to a better understanding of the structure of the resistance," he told the Fox News TV program on Sunday.

Saddam was arrested near his hometown of Tikrit, and the U.S. military has said soldiers also seized a briefcase containing documents that shed light on the anti-U.S. insurgency. The CIA is interrogating him in Iraq; Iraqi officials say the former dictator is in the Baghdad area.

"The only word I have is that he`s not being cooperative," Myers said.

One American soldier has been killed in combat in the past week, raising the toll to 315 soldiers killed in combat since military operations began in March.

In Baghdad, the military put out flyers threatening to jail people who sell gasoline on the black market. The flyers cited new laws providing for confiscation of the goods, fines of double the value of the goods and jail sentences of three to 10 years.

Iraq is suffering severe fuel shortages caused by distribution problems, dilapidated equipment and sabotage by insurgents targeting the oil infrastructure in an apparent attempt to undermine the U.S.-led occupation.

In northeast Iraq on Monday, thousands of Kurds rallied in Kirkuk to demand that the oil-rich city be made part of an autonomous territory for Kurds, a Sunni Muslim minority who comprise 20 percent of Iraq`s population of 25 million.

Kurds in Halabja, on the eastern border with Iran, held a similar rally and demanded that Saddam be sentenced to death for his crimes against them. In 1988, Iraqi armed forces attacked the town with lethal gas, killing thousands of civilians.


© 2003 The Associated Press

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Saddam to portray America as accomplice

By CRAIG NELSON
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer



It is a smart bet that Saddam Hussein will be convicted and executed when a special Iraqi court tries him next year on charges that are expected to include murder and crimes against humanity.
But while the longtime dictator is in captivity, he may not be subdued for long. In ensuring that an Iraqi court gives Saddam a fair and open trial, the Bush administration is likely to hand the former Iraqi leader an opportunity to put America and its allies on trial for their knowledge of his tyranny, if not their complicity.

In short, get ready for the Mother of All Legal Battles.

"The trial will be the trial of the age. We will uncover a lot of secrets concerning heads of states, prime ministers and parliamentarians, intellectuals and others both from Arab states, regional states and Western countries," Muwaffaq al-Rubaiye, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said last week.

As that trial unfolds, U.S. officials may wish the 66-year-old Saddam had decided to go down fighting, as his two sons did five months ago.

Saddam is likely to use the occasion to try to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his compatriots and other Arabs before he is ushered from his cell to face a firing squad.

"Saddam is a very practical man. He is a very hopeful man," said Amatzia Baram, a leading Saddam watcher. "He`ll try to play to the gallery."

To be sure, many people already doubt that Saddam has any chance at all of receiving a fair trial. The skepticism was fueled by worldwide distribution of the now iconic pictures of the bedraggled ex-president being examined by a doctor after his capture, despite the Geneva Conventions` insistence that "prisoners must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence and intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

Suspicions in the Arab world and elsewhere were reinforced by President Bush, who said last week that the former Iraqi leader "deserves justice, the ultimate justice." White House officials confirmed that Bush was referring to capital punishment.

"Justice must be done and be seen to be done," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.

But giving Saddam some semblance of his day in court risks embarrassing the United States.

"The tyrant is a prisoner," the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, declared last weekend after Saddam was captured. But history suggests he is not a penitent.

Saddam has hinted at his future defense strategy against specific charges, telling Adnan Pachachi, one of the four senior Iraqi political figures who visited him shortly after his capture, that he had acted only out of interests of state. The political opponents who were killed under his regime were guilty of treason, Saddam said.

Like other dictators in the dock before him, Saddam is likely to argue that he had no prior knowledge or responsibility for acts committed by his subordinates and that there is no evidence directly linking him to atrocities.

But with little hope of total exoneration, Saddam -- again, like other deposed dictators before him -- also likely will focus on the treachery of his captors, analysts say.

Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega used his 1992 trial on drug trafficking and racketeering charges to detail his longtime relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia, has used his trial in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide as a political forum and a chance to indict NATO`s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. His success has made a mockery of his prosecutors, critics of the U.N. tribunal have said.

The trial of the "Butcher of Baghdad" could prove equally embarrassing for an administration in the middle of a re-election campaign.

Weapons of mass destruction and human rights? Past U.S. governments embraced Saddam for oil and for their own strategic purposes even as his armies were using chemical weapons against Iranians and his own people.

According to declassified U.S. documents, Donald Rumsfeld, a special envoy under President Ronald Reagan, visited Saddam in Baghdad in 1983 but made no mention of chemical weapons, despite his insistence to the contrary last year in a CNN interview.

In 1990, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) told Saddam that he sympathized with his complaints that the Western media were exaggerating his mass murders.

Threatening his neighbors? Days before Iraq`s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. ambassador, April Glaspie, met with Saddam as he was massing forces along the Kuwaiti border. She told him James Baker, secretary of state in the first Bush administration, wanted to make it clear that the United States took no position on Arab-Arab disputes such as his border dispute with Kuwait.

Tacit U.S. consent for the invasion? Saddam apparently thought so.

Saddam`s trial also could produce embarrassing information about America`s new Iraqi allies, for one of Saddam`s most sinister gifts was his ability to make nearly every Iraqi complicit in his own oppression.

An estimated 1 million Iraqis were tied in with Saddam`s regime or party, and few of the country`s 26 million people were able to survive without cooperating with his regime in some form or another.

To his Iraqi and American accusers alike -- as well as all the major Western countries that did business with him -- he will pose one question, according to Baram, a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel.

"He will say, `You supported me when you knew what I was doing. Why are you putting me on trial now?` "

Throughout his autocratic rule, Saddam saw himself as immortal -- one who, however rejected and mocked, would rise again and triumph. If U.S. officials are to avoid being subjected to a catalog of their dalliances with a dictator, they must hope that imprisonment will vanquish his messianic streak once and for all.

Saddam may view his trial as a final chance to assure his place among the pantheon of great Arab leaders. Speaking with reporters before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March, former CIA Director James Woolsey said that even in defeat, Saddam would "definitely try to wreak maximum destruction."

If that is the case now, Saddam`s walk to the firing squad and martyrdom may be a Pyrrhic final victory.

Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1203/21irtrial.html

[Joerver]

Manuel Valenzuela: `The enemy within: The NeoCon hijacking of America`
Date: Monday, December 22 @ 10:07:19 EST
Topic: Conservatives And The Right


By Manuel Valenzuela

Deep in the halls of Washington a putrid wind of sweeping ideology festers, swirling like a hurricane from the Atlantic seaboard, becoming a tornado in the frozen tundras of the Midwest, an impenetrable and monstrous fire wall consuming vast tracts of open expanse in the West and a sweltering drought drying up the nationís future. This phenomenon has engendered itself onto an American landscape that remains oblivious as to its dark and ominous designs for the country and the world.

The neo-conservative movement it is called, an ideology fostered by a cabal of powerful and influential members of the establishment that today sit at or near the top of the White House, Pentagon, National Security Agency and State Department. Like a virus that was given new life, the once dormant group, for years denied the claws of power, suddenly awoke and spread through all levels of the US government with the appointment of George W. Bush in 2000. This cabal of Machiavelli and autocratic-style believers of power is now deeply entrenched in the highest positions of our government, determining policy and the direction our government -- and by consequence our nation -- is headed in.



The names might sound familiar. Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, James Woolsley, Lewis Libby, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Frank Gafney, William Kristol, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kagan and many, many others. Think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) spew their ideology.

Media such as Fox News and periodicals such as the Weekly Standard rant their propaganda. Like vultures waiting to feed off a dead carcass they surround the president, hissing commands and suggestions as to how the country will be run. This government behind the government is responsible for our quagmire in Iraq; it is responsible for our unilateralist foreign policy and our unyielding support for Ariel Sharon and the Israeli right-wing Likud Party. The neocons are responsible for alienating the world against us. Their agenda has usurped the interests and the goals of the people, the expertise and suggestions of Pentagon generals and analysts, the policy making ability of lifetime State Department brokers, CIA, NSA, DIA and other intelligence agenciesí findings and conclusions and the overall will of the world community. The cabal has since 2000 taken all the steps necessary to indoctrinate us to a new world order in their quest to impose a global ideology that is forever altering the future course of world events.

September 11, 2001 will be the date history will remember in infamy as the day the worldís landscape changed. It was the day the salivating neocons had been waiting for, gleefully licking their chops at the coming feast they knew awaited. 9/11 was the Pearl Harbor they needed in order to impose their twisted ideology of empire building through perpetual pre-emptive warfare onto the world. They now had a vulnerable and mourning population to begin molding. An American public that feared like never before was all too easy to manipulate. Seen on live TV by almost every American, from a plethora of camera angles, from beginning to end, 9-11 became the call to arms, the trumpet mobilizing both fear and patriotism onto a deeply affected populace. The corporate media shoved the horrors of that day down our throats for months on end through a constant bombardment of psychologically sensitive images and messages that ingrained in our minds the need to seek revenge through warfare. We had been attacked, and we now had to blindly follow the policy makers down the ever-widening road to Pax Americana.

An enemy was designated and the bombing of mud-brick-shacks and stone-carrying-camels began. Ceaseless government and corporate media propaganda made sure we believed the enemy was dying in large numbers, that the Taliban and al Qaida were suffering and that we were winning the "war on terror." In fact, only ordinary Afghanis were suffering at the hands of the military industrial complex. Leveling to the ground a country that was already living in the Stone Age did not satisfy BushCo., however, and the neocon favorite bad guy and one time ally, Saddam Hussein, was put in the crosshairs of the war party machine.

Hussein and Iraq had been on the scope of the neocon tentacles since the end of Gulf War I. They had unsuccessfully lobbied the Clinton Administration for a direct invasion of the beleaguered nation and with Bush they finally had a loyal puppet. With dilapidated, rusting and obsolete Soviet weaponry along with years of UN weapons inspections, combined with a decade of economic genocide that was UN sanctions, Saddam posed no substantial military threat in the region, much less to the US. Iraq was therefore an easy target of opportunity from which to launch the neocon vision of imperial supremacy.

Seen as the easiest of wars to win, Iraq was conquered in short order, thereby assuring the US of a central strategic base of operations from which to control the Middle East and Central Asia. Government-insider neocons assured that government policymakers consented to the invasion both through pressure on intelligence analysts to synthesize only that intelligence seen as beneficial to the neocon strategy and through stovepiping intelligence directly to the top, thereby bypassing stricter channels of scrutiny. In the Pentagon, Douglas Feithís Office of Special Plans was put in charge of cherry-picking and cooking questionable intelligence, later sexing it up for the case against Iraq.

Distortions, manipulation and propaganda was used in concert with the corporate media to inculcate into the American conscious the lies given as pretexts to invade Iraq. WMDís, freedom, imminent threat, nuclear capabilities, spawning democracy; all were excuses justifying the war, all were lies. But a drone-like citizenry absorbed it all and remained inert automatons of ignorance while the neocon onslaught was unleashed. An unjust war based on fear commenced. Fear was and still is the neoconís greatest weapon, and its use continues to assure allegiance from the masses that, even to their great detriment, remain willing supporters of the neoconartist policies.

With the notion of empire comes the idea of resource control as a way to maintain US hegemony, and in Iraq the neocons, the military industrial complex and the American oil/energy cartel, all being heavily infiltrated inside the Bush Administration and throughout the corridors of government, saw the second largest oil reserves in the world. Control of these vital fields of black gold also meant control of world petroleum supplies, itself a form of economic control over the markets of the world. One needs look no further than Saudi Arabia and OPEC to see the power oil yields on the world stage. The US now has the ability to feed itself all the oil it wants and the ability to affect oil prices and output through its direct manipulation and control of any Iraqi puppet government. Iraqi oil can now feed the neocon/corporate oligarch war machine and subsidize its quest for empire.

In the case of Afghanistan, Bushís oil friends and the US government have for years dreamed of a pipeline that will run from the vast new oil fields in the Caspian Sea region through Afghanistan and into US-friendly Pakistan. Under almost-exclusive American control, these pipelines will yield substantial amounts of oil and gas. This geostrategic venture is designed to circumvent pipelines being built that traverse from Caspian Sea nations into Russia, China and non-ally Iran. These pipelines, if allowed to function out of the Central Asian oil fields, would become rivals to the US planned oil/gas extraction pipes running through Afghanistan. Without an American pipeline running through the backward nation, the US would be forced to pay higher prices for oil or gas from these rival or non-friendly nations and would also have no control over distribution supplies. It was imperative that a US pipeline be built.

For US continued economic dominance, therefore, it was essential to create a US-friendly Afghanistan that would allow for the flow of oil and gas to run through its territory. In the year leading up to 9/11, both the Administration and oil industry had been in negotiations with the Taliban for such an investment. As such, the US appointed puppet, Hamid Karzai, was once a top advisor for Unocal, helping arrange an accord with the Taliban for building an American oil consortium pipeline (CentGas) through Afghanistan. When the Taliban balked at the negotiating table they were threatened with an already planned invasion of the country. Luckily for BushCo, 9/11 emerged, making it the perfect launching pad from which to initiate the neocon and oilgarchyís desired assaults on nations whose oil and strategic placements were needed for the their master plan of world domination. Today, an oil/gas pipeline is quickly being built in Afghanistan by an American oil consortium.

A central tenet of the neocon dream of a Pax Americana was control of centrally-located Iraq where the US would eventually construct three to four permanent military bases, a process that is becoming a reality today. These bases will enable US hegemony throughout the region, including control of the now US-friendly Central Asian nations eager for American energy conglomerate investment. With Iraqís oil reserves safely in American hands, US military strength can now, like a hawk overlooking its territory, keep an ever-watchful eye on the Eurasian regions of most interest to the neocon agenda.

The idea of a democratized Middle East, an important though illusory doctrine of the neocon ideology, was to begin with Iraq, which would act as a catalyst to the eventual domino effect expected throughout the region. That the idea of democracy in Iraq and the Arab world is but a hollow fallacy is of little importance to the neocon goals. Real democracy will never be allowed to prosper by Bush due to the threat of theological or fundamentalist elected mandates picked by the majority of the people. With the exponentially growing levels of anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli feelings running uncontrolled throughout the Muslim world, democracy will at the most mean the installation of cronies and puppets friendly to both the US and Israel under the guise of democracy. This plan assures American and Israeli control of the Middle East, forcing Arab nations to accept Israelís hegemony over the region. In reality, the mirage of democracy in the Middle East is but a propaganda tool being used to manipulate the population in the US into remaining passive believers of an otherwise surreptitious assault on world sovereignty.

A central objective of the neocon agenda is increasing the power of Israel. Indeed, many of the so-called neocons have deep-seated connections, interests and relationships with the right-wing Likud party and with other Israeli fringe groups. Many are die-hard Zionists, true believers in Israeli hegemony over the Middle East, if not the world. From their government offices they direct US foreign policy in favor and in direction of Israel, supporting the Sharon government and assuring that US and Israeli interests are placed above that of the rest of the world. The attack on Iraq was in no small measure a war to defend Israelís interests, thereby helping it increase its power over the Middle East. A large part of the neocon vision for the Middle East is for the benefit of the Jewish state, to assure for its survival and expansion, if not territorially, then economically. This fact must not be forgotten: the neocons oftentimes place the interests of Israel and Likud ahead of those of the US. The rogue government is in many ways making us subservient to Israelís Likud party run by Ariel Sharon.

Though not publicly discussed, the neocon/Likud vision for Israel may potentially include the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians into Syria or Jordan, thereby assuring Zionists of an Arab free Israel with sovereignty over the lands of "Judea and Samaria" that many Jews believe have been biblically promised them. With this diaspora of peoples might come a geopolitical shifting of borders and the creation of new nation states that would be less powerful and easier to control. Iraq, for example, might one day be split into three separate nations; one for Kurds, one for Shiía and one for the Sunni. Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria might also be reshuffled to suit American and Israeli interests.

The next targets for the neocons, now being slowly inculcated into our consciousness, are Syria and Iran. These two nations would most likely be invaded in Bushís second term, thus increasing US and Israeli dominance over the Middle East. Under the guise of "fighting terrorism" in the continued "war on terror," both nations would be targeted and attacked after a massive propaganda campaign designed to incriminate both governments in the eyes of the masses. Once invaded, they will be installed with puppet regimes or monarchs friendly to both the US and Israel. The next stage in the imperial plan would thus be complete.

Empire building, neocon style, entails the art of subverting all threats, perceived and real, present and future, that might rise to challenge US dominance. Among the future threats the neocon Machiavellis foresee in their magical fortune-telling crystal ball are those presented by China, Russia and the European Union. Inherent in the neocon daydream is the desire to undermine Eurasian economic development that combines the three powerful political entities mentioned above. The danger and very real worry concerning the cabal of crazies is that under their control no nation will be allowed to compete militarily, politically or economically with the United States. It means pre-emptive action against challenges and threats to US hegemony through military might and economic warfare. Even the sacred zenith that is space has been designated a new frontier for warfare. In the neocon world, only one power will be allowed to stand among the fraternity of nations, and that is the US. There can be no rivals, no close second. If a nation challenges, it will be dealt with.

What we are witnessing is the creation by a group of autocrats an oligarchs of an unstable world order where the US will in essence have control of those nations and regions rich in natural resources that will be desperately needed for the continued growth of the economic engine and the corporate Leviathan that runs this country. With world resources such as oil and water being depleted more every year through our insatiable demand, the modernizing of China, India, Indonesia and Latin America and the continued increase in the worldís population, dominant countries such as China and regions such as the European Union will increasingly compete with us for a share or indeed the entire pie of the unsustainable quantity of resources. To the neocons, this must not be allowed to come to fruition.

The nation-state, with its invisible borders and self-serving interests, will force upon us a most ominous future. Given the destructive power of todayís weapons, the technology at a countryís disposal and the widening perversion and corruption of a nationís leaders through the demons inherent in capitalism, we find ourselves immersed in one of the most dangerous times in world history. We have entered a new mutated form of Cold war: the Greed War. The neocon unilateralist approach is widening our differences with the world, provoking an escalating arms race and a sprint to establish strategic base locations, a military presence and puppet regimes in those areas of the world that are increasingly seen as vital for the continued growth and prosperity of a country.

Such is the case today with the Central Asian nations enveloping or near the Caspian Sea region. If not yet familiar with this region, you should. It is the next Middle East, but more volatile due to both the proximity and economic viability of Russia and China bordering it on the periphery. Its estimated oil reserves are right behind those of the Persian Gulf states and thus of extreme vital importance to todayís dominant players. Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia are all becoming part of the grand game of geopolitical chess being played out by the US, Russia, China and to a lesser extent the European Union. To the victor go the spoils, and with oil becoming a dwindling yet indispensable commodity, the tug of war between powers will only intensify.

Today, the US already has strategic bases in several Central Asian countries. Leaders, including the ruthless Uzbekistan dictator, are being supported by the Bush Administration. Russia refuses to relinquish its old relationships with the former Soviet states, and has itself established a military presence in the area. With Chinaís rapid economic growth and development and with an immense population that will demand more and more oil the further it modernizes, it is a safe bet that its interests are well represented in the region as well. European energy conglomerates are also deeply entrenched in the area. All of which leads to the conclusion that one day soon there will be a major conflagration between nations turned rivals. This, folks, is the future the neocons want to impose on us all.

The example of Central Asia is but the most widely recognized but by no means the only one. Wars for unsustainable resources and for economic, monetary and military supremacy will be fought by our sons and daughters, thanks to our chickenhawk leaders who sit idly and apathetically as the future of those whose caste has forced upon them the destiny of fighting for the interests of the elite is forever vanquished. In wars to come, our zeal to kill will torch us all. Weapons evolve rapidly, becoming more sophisticated and lethal in quick spurts of time as technology advances. Unfortunately, humans do not. Our animal passions remain, taking tens of thousands of years to evolve, and while historyís previous wars produced deaths mostly among those actively engaged in battle thanks to the primitiveness of our weaponry, that is no longer the case. Fiery storms of untamed energy can now obliterate the world many times over. The neocon future makes us all dead men walking.

The new Rome, the new Caesars, the new legions and Praetorian guard, Americaís future under the neocons will resemble a fascist state run by a corporate oligarch that subverts democracy in favor of military control over our nation. Their actions abroad will give rise to more attacks at home, which will give them the excuse and reason to instill martial law, erasing both the Constitution and our freedoms while imposing terror and destruction onto the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be diverted away from education, healthcare and other important social services towards the military industrial complex and the perpetual war for empire. Our sons and daughters will be conscripted through the re-introduction of the draft to defend corporate Americaís vital interests throughout the world. Dangerously spreading ourselves like a gluttonous army of locusts gorging on all that is blooming, oppressing and exploiting both people and land, karmic hatred will one day return. Proctors will assure allegiance, armies will police the world. The neofascist dream will make easily expendable ants of us all.

The hijacking of America that began in November 2000 and continued on 9/11 has brought to the forefront of our government a cabal of miscreants, greedmongers, charlatans and fascists that is leading us down into the abominable vortex of self-destruction. We are ignorantly keeping in power an enemy lying in our wake that is commandeering US policy and leading us towards global war and revamped feudalism. Their ideologies are delusional in their grandeur and out of touch with a reality that escapes their arrogant and oligarchical minds. They are zealots, ideologues who see the world through distorted, clouded eyes, without sympathy or understanding for their fellow man, living a frivolous fantasy of deranged self-importance. Years of detachment have made them ignorant to the plight and reality of billions. The danger inherent in the close-knit rogue network is apparent in its actions and policies. Its sinister schemes that we are acquiescing to due to our indifference will come back to haunt us. The terror we help release on the world will boomerang back to our shores. Through our passivity our fate is being sealed. Our cherished freedoms and liberties are slowly evaporating into a mist of nothingness. The blueprint for the end to the American way of life is slowly and meticulously being executed by the enemy within. Therefore, at home is where the war on terror must begin.





This article comes from The Smirking Chimp
http://www.SmirkingChimp.com

The URL for this story is:
http://www.SmirkingChimp.com/article.php?sid=14256

[Joerver]

Monday, December 22, 2003
War News for December 22, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link!
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Two US soldiers killed, two wounded in Baghdad ambush.

Bring ‘em on: Oil facilities in Kirkuk mortared.

Bring ‘em on: US convoy attacked with RPG fire in Mosul. (Last paragraph.)

Bring ‘em on: US troops ambushed by roadside bomb near Samarra.

Bring ‘em on: Plot to blow up five-million liter fuel reservoir in Kirkuk discovered.

Tensions between Sunni and Shi’ite communities increasing.

Iraqi Kurds demonstrate in Kirkuk for autonomous Kurdish region.

US troops accidentally kill Iraqi woman during raid.

Who the hell is in charge around here? “But the contract proposals, which were to be released for bids Dec. 3, are being held up by an apparent turf battle between the U.S. departments of Defense and State.”

Sabotage exacerbates fuel shortage. Just last week the CPA was cheerfully telling reporters that the fuel shortage was caused by all the new cars being imported and sold in a country with a shattered economy, no domestic banking system and one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Worse, the American media patriotically reported that absurd story as fact.

More insurgent attacks expected during holidays.

Wounded Marines recover at Camp Pendleton clinic.

Commentary

Editorial: Weapons of mass destruction are still important.

Idiot Watch

Cheney raises campaign cash for Nethercutt.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Western Pennsylvania newspaper remembers local KIAs.

Local story: Wisconsin MP company awarded 20 Purple Heart medals.




# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:20 AM

[Joerver]

Sun 21 Dec 2003 show images

Iraqi dialogue descends to murder

Philip Smucker


SINCE the arrest of Saddam Hussein, pro-Saddam Sunni mobs and celebrating Shia crowds have clashed repeatedly in this city of several hundred thousand, divided almost evenly between the world’s two largest Islamic groupings.

In the ensuing violence played out before dumbfounded American soldiers, mostly hunkered down in bunker complexes, celebrants and Saddam vigilantes have attacked one another with pistols, knives and Molotov cocktails.

Several men, one woman and a child have died in Baquba, with dozens of deaths reported nationwide since US forces nabbed Saddam Hussein last weekend.

"The problem with security across this city is that the US can only control one demonstration at a time." says Professor Zaid Al-Saadi, who was inside the headquarters of the Badr Brigade, a Shia militant organisation, when it was attacked by a Sunni mob last week.

American commanders admit that their peacekeeping in the violent Sunni Triangle is daunting. They need to fight and weed out insurgents and foreign terrorists, many of them Sunni Muslims. But since the capture of Saddam Hussein, they also have a new task: they must try to keep the Shia and Sunni militants in line while encouraging some kind of alternative leadership in the Sunni communities.

"We were surprised with the pro-Saddam rallies that followed the celebrations," said US Major Jeff Buczak, whose fighters run their "hearts and minds" campaign mostly from within a bunker complex in the centre of Baquba. "We chose not to respond. I told those who complained about our inaction that we won’t interfere as long as the protests are peaceful."

Shia residents disagree with that assessment, pointing out that marchers on both sides were armed with swords, grenades and machine guns.

"The Saddam lovers marched to our front door and tried to force their way in," said Al-Saadi. "When we did not open the door they unleashed a hail of Molotov Cocktails and burnt half our headquarters to the ground."

Iraq’s Sunni community has reacted with disbelief and fresh vows to continue their insurgency, which still relies heavily on Saddam Hussein’s personal militia leaders.



‘We don’t want the Americans interfering... They are non-believers’


In a small village on the Tigris River, an hour’s drive north of Baghdad, one fighter who regularly mounts attacks on US forces admits to being devastated by the capture of Saddam Hussein, adding that on the day he heard about his arrest he contemplated suicide.

But while he sees the capture of Saddam as a blow to the resistance, the fighter, Abu Jabbar, tall with pock-marked cheeks, believes that the insurgency can and will continue. "This doesn’t mean that the resistance will stop," he said, eating his lunch after fresh attacks on a nearby US base. "There are another, maybe five, Islamic parties fighting in this jihad."

Jabbar’s ageing mother, Um Hossam, warns that she does not trust the new Shia and Sunni leaders, whom she calls "George Bush’s puppets". "I don’t think that anyone will come along just like Saddam," says Um Hossam, serving up a large plate of fried chicken. "All the new leaders are coming from Iran. They are Shias and they are shaky, shaky people."

Sunni Arabs in Iraq fear the loss of their own authority in a new Iraq in which most of the oil wealth lies in the Kurdish north and the Shia south.

In large ethnically-mixed Iraqi cities, tensions between Sunnis and Shias are on the rise.

City morgue officials in Baghdad say that this city of just under five million still averages an astounding 300 murders a month, of which about 10% are "hit-man" style assassinations - often with political motives.

Officials say that, on the one hand, the Baath party is using its old tool of assassination to pressure Sunnis to uphold their loyalty to the old regime, while Shia extremists, some returning exiles from Iran, are pressing their new political clout with independent militias that are targeting suspect Baathists and Sunni intellectuals.

Dr Abdul Wahab Salman Khadair, a respected dermatologist in Baghdad’s Shaab neighbourhood, was just one of dozens of fresh assassination victims.

He retired from the Iraqi military in 1991. Assassins targeted him outside of his home during an electrical black-out. "One man popped out of a black Mercedes - not far from our home - and shot our father four times with a high-calibre pistol rigged with a silencer," said his son, Omar Abdul-Wahab, 30.

Local police say they have no idea who killed the doctor, but neighbours say that the doctor may have become a target in the eyes of his assassins after US forces briefly arrested and interrogated him last month.

A leading Sunni Sheikh, whose neighbourhood was the target of US raids last week, admits that Shia and Sunni religious leaders rarely spoke frankly during the rule of Saddam Hussein. "Now that we have started a dialogue it is turning to quarrels - and even murder," he says.

"There may be some tensions, even revenge, but whatever the case, we don’t want the Americans interfering in our affairs. They are not welcome here and their interference will only make things worse since they are non-believers and can’t comprehend our culture."

Back in Baquba, Major Buzcak says that stepping back from the fray is fine by him.

"We need to empower the Iraqis to run their own city," he says. "In two months, since October, we’ve seen a drastic change and we have become more of a consultant than an authority. We are not necessarily backing away, this is more of an empowerment issue."


This article:

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1397292003

[Joerver]

SCHWARZENEGGER’S EMERGENCY POWERS INCLUDE SUPER-STRENGTH, HEAT-VISION

Burns Hole in Bustamante

The emergency powers that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger invoked last week to deal with the state’s fiscal crisis include super-strength and heat-vision, Mr. Schwarzenegger revealed on Friday.

“I vow to use these mighty, mighty powers for good and not for evil,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a televised address before flying away for the weekend to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic Circle.

Mr. Schwarzenegger’s aides said the Governor had scheduled a weekend meeting with members of the Justice League of America, including Aquaman and the Green Lantern, both of whom have pledged to use their powers to help stem California’s river of red ink.

Critics of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s decision to invoke super-strength and heat-vision said that those powers should be reserved for true emergencies, such as an asteroid plummeting towards California.

But the Governor did little to dampen the controversy on Friday, when he reportedly burned a hole in Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante during a tension-filled stare-down in the Governor’s office.

“Mr. Schwarzenegger has become a Bizarro Governor,” Mr. Bustamante said from his hospital bed hours later. “The time may have come to recall him or, at the very least, expose him to green kryptonite.”

Mr. Schwarzenegger caused more outrage when he bent a steel girder with his bare hands to block the entrance to the Capitol building and prevent Democrats from going inside.

Arianna Huffington, Mr. Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial rival in the fall election, blasted the Governor’s latest proposal to add x-ray vision and invisibility to his ever-expanding portfolio of emergency powers.

“As a woman, I shudder to think what Arnold Schwarzenegger might do with x-ray vision and invisibility,” she said.

**** MORE ON GOVERNOR ARNOLD ****

Andy Borowitz’s soon-to-be-released book, “Governor Arnold: A Photodiary of His First 100 Days in Office” is now on sale for $9.95 at Amazon.com. Pre-order your copy today!

[Joerver]

The United States` Global Military Crusade (1945-2003)
by Eric Waddell

www.globalresearch.ca 16 December 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/WAD312A.html

The following text was published in Global Outlook, Issue 6, Winter 2004 . For details click icon below




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The United States has attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries throughout the world since August 1945, a number of them many times. The avowed objective of these military interventions has been to effect "regime change". The cloaks of "human rights" and of "democracy" were invariably evoked to justify what were unilateral and illegal acts.

The aim of the United States is to protect and reinforce national interests rather than to create a better world for all humankind. It is an "imperial grand strategy" of global dimensions designed to ensure unlimited and uninhibited access, notably to strategic resources, notably energy, and to markets. Rather than to establish a direct colonial presence, the preferred strategy is to create satellite states, and this requires constant, and often repeated, military interventions in countries around the world, irrespective of their political regime.

Democratically elected governments are as much at risk as dictatorships. In recent years, the tendency has been for such direct interference to increase since less of these countries are prepared to act as willing allies. Indeed, events of 2003 would suggest that the number of unconditional and powerful U.S. allies is now reduced to three: Great Britain, Australia and Israel. The US strategy is characterised, wherever possible, by invasion and the setting up of friendly (puppet) governments. Attention is focussed, by preference, on relatively small and weak countries, the aim being to achieve rapid victory.

The map (on p. 28-29 [Global Outlook, Issue 6 ]) reveals that exclusive domination of the world involves, variably,

(i) direct military intervention with nuclear or conventional bombs and missiles,

(ii) direct military intervention with naval or ground forces,

(iii) indirect military intervention through command operations and (iv) the threat of recourse to nuclear weapons.

Broadly speaking, three historical phases can be identified:

- 1945-49: The U.S.-Soviet struggle for European domination, terminating with the stabilisation of the frontier between the two blocs and the creation of NATO;

- 1950-89: The Cold War proper and, in the context of it, the emergence of the non-aligned group of nations; - 1990 on: The post-Cold War War

The first period was characterised by a significant degree of US military intervention in Europe, the second by a concern to confine the Communist bloc within its frontiers and to prevent the emergence of pro-communist regimes elsewhere in the world, and the third, focussed on gaining control over the former Soviet republics and in the oil-rich Middle East. The Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean/Central America reveal themselves to be Regional Theatres of concern throughout the post-2nd World War period.

The non-negotiable defence and promotion of "the American way of life" through global military interventions took form in the closing months of the 2nd World War and it came at great cost to much of the rest of the World`s population. Although Germany capitulated in May 1945 and the United Nations was created in the following month, the U.S. nevertheless chose to use nuclear weapons to bring Japan to its feet. The dropping of two atomic bombs, respectively on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year resulted in some 150,000 immediate deaths and tens of thousands of wounded. (See p. xx) Such nuclear terrorism was quickly denounced by the international scientific community and no other nation has resorted to the use of such weapons of mass destruction. However the U.S.A. regularly brandishes the threat of recourse to them, while under Bush they have been reinstated as an integral part of national discourse. But the the story does not end with nuclear weapons, for the U.S.A. has also, over the past half century, used chemical and biological weapons in its quest for global domination with, for example, recourse to Agent Orange in Viet Nam and blue mold, cane smut, African swine fever, etc. in Cuba. All such weapons of mass destruction are an integral part of the country`s arsenal.

In this context, the map of U.S. Military Interventions since 1945 ( p. 28-29 ) only tells a part of the story. While the country`s global reach is apparent, the scale of military violence is not fully revealed. Up to 1,000,000 people were killed in the CIA command operation in Indonesia in1967, in what was, according to the New York Times, "one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political history". Another 100,000 were killed in Guatemala, in the CIA-organised coup. And the map makes no mention of military interventions where the U.S. played a support (e.g. Rwanda and the Congo in the 1990s) as distinct from a lead role, or where U.S. arms were used by national military forces, as in East Timor where, in the hands of the Indonesian military, they were responsible for the death of some 200,000 people from 1967 on.

Interestingly, with regards to the international arms trade, it was President Reagan who announced, in 1981, that "The U.S. views the transfer of conventional weapons... as an essential element of its global defence posture and an indispensable component of its foreign policy."

The U.S. Empire knows no limits. Its aim is political and military domination of the world. Under the US system of global capitalism, the demand for energy and other vital resources is unlimited.

America`s "road map to Empire" was not formulated by the Bush administration as some critics are suggesting. In fact, there is little that is "new" about the "Project for a New American Century". It is just that the post-war rhetoric of human rights and social and economic development has diminished, to be replaced by the primary concern with global supremacy through military force. The imperial project was outlined in the immediate wake of the 2nd World War. It was part of the "Truman Doctrine" formulated in 1948 by George Kennan, Director of Policy and Planning at the U.S. State Department:

"We have 50 percent of the world`s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population.... In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of living standards, human rights and democratization. The days is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." (See http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CRG312A.html )


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The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original CRG articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text and title of the article are not modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca . The active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article and the author`s copyright note must be clearly displayed. (For articles from other news sources, check with the original copyright holder, where applicable.) For publication of CRG articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [e-mail] .

Eric Waddell is Professor of Geography at Laval University. Copyright belongs to the author. All rights reserved.

© Copyright E. Waddell 2003 For fair use only/ pour usage équitable seulement.


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Iraq

Libya`s Weapons of Mass Destruction
Reinventing Gaddafi

by Robert Fisk; UK Independent; December 22, 2003

The problem I have with the whole Gaddafi saga is that the Libya I know can scarcely repair a drain or install a working lavatory in a hotel.

Yet this same Libya, after years of sanctions, was apparently making a nuclear bomb. Libyan nuclear scientists. Say those three words over and over again. Really? And what was that odd word in the Downing Street announcement? "Programmes`? Wasn`t that exactly what Mr Blair accused Iraq of developing after the weapons of mass destruction he had told us all about turned out to be non-existent? According to the usual anonymous "US officials` who daily grace the front pages of American newspapers, Libya had not actually acquired a nuclear bomb but was "close to developing one`. But what does that mean? How close is close? A year? Ten years? Some time?

Of course, Gaddafi used to be fascinated by weapons. Like the dictator in Auden`s wonderful poem, "The poetry he invented was easy to understand... he was greatly interested in armies and fleets".

I remember the crazed, sticky evenings in Tripoli when the wretched man would celebrate his own revolution with a seven-hour military parade, tank after tank, missile after missile, not one of which was ever used. There was even a 300-strong squad of black-suited frogmen who would march panting past us in the stifling midnight heat in snorkels, their giant flippers sticking to the hot Tarmac.

And I can believe that among the vast, useless armada of clapped-out Soviet-era tanks and sand-dusted Sukhois and MiG-23s that litter Libya`s vast and largely unmaintained military bases, there are some old chemical shells.

Rabta has been the centre of a thousand stories based on "intelligence sources" - close relatives of "US officials "- who have credited the factory there as a producer of biological agents, chemicals, centrifuges and other nasties. But who exactly were all these weapons - or programmes - designed to erase from the face of the Earth? Egypt? Sicily? Algeria? And if they were to be sold to "terrorists", which ones did Gaddafi have in mind? Were they going to be sold off to the IRA when the best Gaddafi could do for the latter was a boatload of old guns that got followed by the Royal Navy? Or to the Islamic extremists whom Gaddafi had been executing with Saddam-like brutality in his own country - but for whom of course there will be no opening of mass graves. That he supplied details of Al-Qa`ida operatives to us wouldn`t be surprising. They are as much a danger to Gaddafi as they were to Saddam; only that`s not quite the story that being written for us.

No indeed. Far from being another despotic little killer, Colonel Gaddafi is now, according to Jack Straw, "statesmanlike and courageous`. And as long as Mr Blair complains that the whole miserable circus in Iraq persuaded Gaddafi to disarm - even though the Libyans totally deny this - then all the lies told to us by the Prime Minister about Saddam`s 45-minute threat can be forgotten. Or so he must hope.

Gaddafi the statesman. The Arabs themselves will ponder this new Strawism with awe. Even President Mubarak of Egypt - a patient man if ever there was one - could voice his irritation with the tiresome Libyan whose vanguard of militia cuties were freighted around the world to guard their seedy boss.

He once turned up in Belgrade with a white charger upon which he planned to ride in triumph through the Serbian capital to the non-aligned conference. Yugoslav officials vetoed the horse but allowed him to pitch a tent in front of one of Belgrade`s biggest hotels in which he would drink fresh milk from three massive dromedaries specially flown into the city. And this is our new "statesman".

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Published on Monday, December 22, 2003 by Knight-Ridder
Civilian Violence in Iraq Up Sharply Since Hussein`s Capture
by Tom Lasseter

BAGHDAD - Violence against Iraqi civilians worsened in the week following former dictator Saddam Hussein`s capture, and many Iraqis and American occupiers are worried about where it`s headed.

Although many of those attacked were political and religious leaders or former leaders, it`s also unclear who`s pulling the triggers or why.

"It is like a civil war between these factions," said Hassan al Ani, a political scientist at Baghdad University. "Iraq now is a case study in transition; to what, we don`t know. Maybe to democracy, maybe to chaos."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for U.S.-led coalition troops, acknowledged that attacks against civilians are up sharply. In recent months, he said, there`d been an attack or two on civilians every other day. Now, he said, there are two or three daily, with 21 in the past week alone.

He said that U.S. intelligence so far has not determined a cause.

"We don`t have either anecdotal or factual information suggesting that the former regime elements and terrorists are targeting any specific group," he said. "We think what is going on, more than anything else, is this is an opportunity for former regime elements to send a clear message to the people of Iraq: that we have the capability to reach out and touch you, the old terrorist adage of kill one, terrorize 1,000."

Iraqi police Lt. Hussein Abed Ali, a career officer whose sector of southern Baghdad has been the site of several recent assassinations, said it`s simpler than that. He believes a faction or factions of Shiite Muslims, who were oppressed under Saddam Hussein`s regime, are killing former members of Saddam`s Baath Party, most of whom, like the deposed dictator, are Sunni Muslim.

At the same time, Abed Ali said, "the Baathists are afraid of being killed by the Shiites, so what they`re doing now is `shoot and kill` before they are killed."

Because most of the Baathists being killed are Sunni Muslim, the conflict looks to be religious: Sunni vs. Shiite. But the dynamic is also political, pitting embattled Baathists accustomed to suppressing Shiites against Shiites who aim to dominate their country`s future.

The killings, according to Abed Ali, are well planned and seem to include a very specific knowledge of the targets` homes and usual driving routes. They are fast, efficient and bloody.

In his neighborhood, al Baya, he said, assassins killed four or five Baathists in the past 10 days alone.

He said the targets are picked from widely disseminated lists of former ranking bureaucrats of Saddam`s party. And he`s not particularly worried about the deaths. The lists, and many of the murders, he said, are the work of the Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who fought Saddam for years and were brutally suppressed by him.

"I think they have the right to do it, because the Baathists used to hurt a lot of people," he said. "You know the nature of Arab people and revenge."

Iraqi Police Col. Bassam Abdul Aziz who oversees another south Baghdad neighborhood, Yarmuk, just north of al Baya, said he`s seen lists of assassination targets with 100 to 150 names on them. The Badr Brigade, Abdul Aziz said, is working down its fourth list.

In one recent night shift, he said, three known Baathists were gunned down.

Earlier this month, Gen. Khalaf Alousi, former head of internal security for the city of Baghdad, was shot to death in Abdul Aziz`s patrol zone.

Alousi was on the way to check on a house he was building when a car with three men pulled up, Abdul Aziz said. One stepped out and shot Alousi three times, once in the head and twice in the chest.

"It`s the political parties against each other and the Baathists," Abdul Aziz said. "I have 30 years of experience of police work in Baghdad - I know what I`m seeing."

A spokesman for SCIRI – the Iran-backed revolutionary group – in Baghdad, Adil Mahdi, said the Badr Brigade is not responsible for the deaths. Instead, he said, the violence is mainly work of Saddam loyalists, mixed with some foreign fighters, who are trying to inflame Sunnis against Shiites in hopes of sparking widespread revolt.

"They`re trying to influence us psychologically, to make us feel as if we`re encircled," he said.

Less than two weeks after Alousi`s death, a member of SCIRI, Muhammad al Hakim, was driving to work near Yarmuk when gunmen in a non-descript white car, with no plates, ambushed him.

He was shot once in the head and twice in the neck.

The next day, a building used by SCIRI`s Badr Brigade in nearby al Jihad blew up at 5 a.m., killing a homeless woman and injuring two of her relatives.

Survivors said the Badr Brigade had recently arrived in the neighborhood, an enclave of Sunni in the predominantly Shiite area, and announced that they were starting religion classes.

At about the same time, a local Shiite sheikh, Wassam al Wadi, was driving home from morning prayer in Gazalia, a sector of southern Baghdad. A light brown car without plates raced up alongside his Volkswagen. Gunmen opened fire, spraying bullets into al Wadi for half a block until his car slammed into a brick wall.

"I don`t think the Sunni did it," said Hatam Abu Omar, a grocer who watched as the sheik`s funeral procession went down the street. "But during the funeral, some people came and yelled that the Sunni did it."

Copyright © 2003 Knight-Ridder

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It`s greed, not ideology, that rules the White House
Why the US wants Iraq`s debts cancelled - and Argentina`s paid in full

Naomi Klein
Tuesday December 23, 2003
The Guardian

Contrary to predictions, the doors of Old Europe weren`t slammed in James Baker`s face as he asked forgiveness for Iraq`s foreign debt last week. Germany and France appear to have signed on, and Russia is softening.

In the days leading up to Baker`s drop-the-debt tour, there was virtual consensus that the former US secretary of state had been sabotaged by deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, whose move to shut out "non-coalition" partners from reconstruction contracts in Iraq of $18.6bn seemed designed to make Baker look a hypocrite.

Only now it turns out that Wolfowitz may not have been undermining Baker, but rather acting as his enforcer. He showed up with a big stick to point out "the threat of economic exclusion from Iraq`s potential $500bn reconstruction" just as Baker was about to speak softly.

The Iraqi people "should not be saddled with the debt of a brutal regime", said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. No argument here. But when I heard about Baker`s "noble mission", as George Bush described it, I couldn`t help thinking about an under-reported story earlier this month. On December 4, the Miami Herald published excerpts from a state department transcript of a meeting on October 7 1976 between Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state under Gerald Ford, and Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti, Argentina`s then foreign minister under the military dictatorship.

It was the height of Argentina`s dirty war to destroy the "Marxist threat" by systematically torturing and killing not only armed guerrillas, but also peaceful union organisers, student activists and their friends, families and sympathisers. By the end of the dictatorship, approximately 30,000 people had been "disappeared".

At the time of the meeting, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, much of Argentina`s left had already been erased, and news of bodies washing up on the banks of the Rio de la Plata was drawing increasingly urgent calls for sanctions. Yet the transcript of the meeting reveals that the US government not only knew about the disappearances, it openly approved of them.

Guzzetti reports to Kissinger on "good results in the last four months. The terrorist organisations have been dismantled". Kissinger states: "Our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed... What is not understood in the US is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better."

And here is where Mr Baker`s present-day mission becomes relevant. Kissinger moves on to the topic of loans, encouraging Guzzetti to apply for as much foreign assistance as possible before Argentina`s "human rights problem" ties US hands. "There are two loans in the bank," Kissinger says, referring to the Inter-American Development Bank. "We have no intention of voting against them ... We would like your economic programme to succeed and will do our best to help you."

The World Bank estimates that roughly $10bn of the money borrowed by the generals went on military purchases, including the concentration camps from which thousands never emerged, and hardware for the Falklands war. It also went into numbered Swiss accounts, a sum impossible to track because the generals destroyed all records.

We do know this: under the dictatorship, Argentina`s external debt ballooned from $7.7bn in 1975 to $46bn in 1982. Ever since, the country has been caught in an escalating crisis, borrowing billions to pay interest on that original, illegitimate debt, which today, at $141bn, is only slightly higher than that held by Iraq`s creditors.

The Kissinger transcript proves that the US gave money and political encouragement to the generals` murderous campaign. And yet, despite its now irrefutable complicity in Argentina`s tragedy, the US has opposed all attempts to cancel the country`s debt. And Argentina is hardly exceptional. The US has used its power in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to block campaigns to cancel debts accumulated by apartheid South Africa, Marcos in the Philippines, Duvalier`s brutal regime in Haiti and the dictatorship that sent Brazil`s debt spiralling from $5.7bn in 1964 to $104bn in 1985.

The US position has been that wiping out debts would be a dangerous precedent (and rob Washington of the leverage it needs to push for investor-friendly economic reforms). So why is Bush so concerned that "the future of the Iraqi people should not be mortgaged to the enormous burden of debt"? Because it is taking money from "reconstruction", which could go to Halliburton, Bechtel, Exxon and Boeing.

It has become popular to claim that the White House has been hijacked by neo-conservative ideologues in love with free-market dogma. I`m not convinced. If there`s one thing the Wolfowitz/Baker dust-ups make clear, it`s that the ideology of the Bush White House isn`t neo-conservatism, it`s old-fashioned greed. There is only one rule that appears to matter: if it helps our friends get even richer, do it.

Seen through this lens, the seemingly erratic behaviour coming out of Washington starts to make a lot more sense. Sure, Wolfowitz`s contract-hogging openly flouts free-market principles of competition. But it does have a direct benefit for the firms closest to the administration. Not only are they buying a debt-free Iraq, but they won`t have to compete with their corporate rivals in France and Germany.

The entire reconstruction project defies more neo-con tenets, sending this year`s US deficit to a cartoonish $500bn, with plenty handed out in no-bid contracts, creating the kind of monopoly that allowed Halliburton to overcharge by an estimated $61m for importing gasoline into Iraq.

Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: for the men who rule our world, rules are for other people. The powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food while they dine on that most rarefied delicacy: impunity.

www.nologo.org


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush has thrown open Pandora`s box in a paradise for international terrorists
2003 has been a crucial year for the Middle East, with war in Iraq and the continuing intifada in Israel. The Guardian`s acclaimed commentator on the region assesses what happened, what it means, and where it might lead next year

David Hirst
Tuesday December 23, 2003
The Guardian

This was the year the Middle East became the undisputed, tumultuous centre of global politics. When, at dawn on March 20 the US and its British ally went to war against Saddam Hussein`s Iraq, they were intervening in the region on such a scale that Arabs everywhere compared the invasion, in its potential geopolitical significance, to that seminal upheaval of the last century: the collapse of the Ottoman empire. That led to the arbitrary carve-up of its former Arab provinces by the European colonial powers and, in 1948, to the loss of one of them, Palestine, to the Israeli settler-state.

In Arab eyes, it was a final mortal blow to the so-called "Arab system" through which the component parts of the greater Arab "nation" collectively strove to protect the territorial integrity and basic security of the whole. To the disgust and shame of the Arab peoples, it was not merely incapable of preventing the conquest and occupation of what, properly governed, would have been one of the most powerful and prosperous Arab lands, it was largely complicit in it.

It simply stood and watched as the world`s only superpower embarked on its hugely ambitious, neo-colonial enterprise: to make Iraq the fulcrum for reshaping the entire region and, with regime change and "democratisation", cure it of those sicknesses - political and social oppression, religious extremism, corruption, tribalism and economic stagnation - that had turned it into the main threat to the existing world order. It did not formally envisage a full-scale redrawing of state frontiers, but it looked as though by an inexorable momentum that might come to pass.

It was seen as a second Palestine, not so much because it was a foreign conquest of another Arab country, but because, via the Bush administration`s neo-conservative hawks, it was at least as much Israeli in inspiration and purpose as it was American. The mighty blow struck in Baghdad would so weaken other Arab regimes that the Palestinians, more than ever bereft of Arab support, would submit to that full-scale Israeli subjugation and dispossession of all but a last pitiful fragment of their original homeland.

This grandiose enterprise began well enough. The rottenest regime of a rotten Arab order collapsed swiftly as expected. Within three weeks the Americans were in Baghdad and an American tank teamed up with a jubilant crowd in the symbolic act of toppling Saddam`s statue in Firdaous Square. On May 1 a triumphant, flight-suited George Bush strutted aboard an aircraft carrier to declare major combat operations at an end.

Fateful


But America was to find no weapons of mass destruction, demolishing the prime official war aim. More seriously, the goodwill it had earned from most Iraqis for overthrowing the despot soon began to dissipate amid the evidence of just how ill-equipped the US was for the "nation-building" that was to follow. There developed a competition, fateful for the success or failure of the whole enterprise, between a majority of Iraqis, who for all their growing exasperation with the occupation wanted it to remain until a healthy, independent Iraqi order could take its place, and a minority who wanted to end it by any means.

By June the first American soldiers began to die. The resistance begun by Saddam loyalists widened to other groups, overwhelmingly Sunni, until by October the CIA concluded that 50,000 people were active in it. The US military responded with drastic methods - collective punishments, massive firepower, demolitions and razings - that could not but incite a greater militancy.

In the wider Arab world, a virulent anti-Americanism was not offset, as it was for the Iraqis, by a hatred of Saddam and the fear of his possible return. So it warmed to the Iraqi resistance more than most Iraqis did - and spawned militants of its own who were drawn to this new arena from which to conduct their jihad against the enemy of Islam and Arabism.

As they struck at almost any target, Iraqi, American or foreign, military, civilian or philanthropic, the itinerant suicide bombers also exploded another pretext for the war: that Saddam had been a partner with Osama bin Laden, and that overthrowing him would deal a critical blow to international terror.

"By pretending that Iraq was crawling with al-Qaida," the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, "Bush officials created an Iraq crawling with al-Qaida." And not just Iraq: since the invasion the terrorists have struck in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Turkey, mostly at the expense of other Muslims.

Nor was there any sign of the beneficent effect which such radical intervention in one great zone of Middle East crisis was supposed to have on the other one. The long-established linkage between Iraq and Palestine reasserted itself but with the new occupation interacting with the old one in ways that further complicated the whole neo-imperial grand design.

Ariel Sharon staged Israel`s first air raid on Syria in 30 years. Ostensibly it was retaliation for a particularly atrocious Palestinian bombing, but it was also a blatant bid to cast Israel as an operational ally of the US in the "reshaping" of the region and the punishing of that other Ba`athist dictatorship which, in the neo-conservative scheme of things, was next in line for the Saddam treatment.

Then it was revealed that in Iraq US forces were adopting counter-insurgency techniques the Israelis had taught them. This could only deepen the Arab and Muslim conviction that what the American soldiers were now doing to Iraqis was what the Israelis had been doing to Palestinians for the past 50 years. Resistance in one place could only inspire and reinforce it in the other.

Fiasco


In this unfavourable climate Mr Bush sought to launch the long-stalled "road map" for peace, but only at the price of casting the noblest of his official war aims - "democracy for Arabia" - in a very curious Israeli-tinted light. To try to supplant Yasser Arafat with the Palestinians` new prime minister, the hapless Abu Mazen, was actually to subvert democracy in one of the few Arab societies whose leader was, more or less, its authentic electorally proven choice. This short-lived fiasco foundered on Mr Arafat`s obduracy, Mr Sharon`s intransigence, renewed suicide bombings by Hamas and the partisanship of the most pro-Israeli US president ever, who was not going to risk the wrath of his Jewish and rightwing Christian constituencies in the run-up to next year`s presidential election.

Likewise, on the Iraqi front, becoming as it was the greatest potential threat to Mr Bush`s prospects of a second term, exalted foreign purpose fell suddenly and flagrantly prey to the expediencies of domestic politics. The capture of Saddam was indeed a timely public relations triumph. But it seemed as likely to broaden the anti-American insurgency as to diminish it, and thereby amplify the growing murmur that here was a new Vietnam in the making.

In the closing weeks of 2003 Mr Bush and his lieutenants kept swearing that America would stay the course "till the job is done", even as they began casting about for plausible exit strategy. With the dexterity that has marked the whole ideologically driven Iraqi enterprise from the outset, they suddenly decided they would end the occupation and transfer authority to an Iraqi government by next summer, reversing the order of events they had formerly envisaged - giving real power to the Iraqis only when they were truly ready for it.

This new Iraqi order would be sovereign and democratic, but the first thing it would do would be to ask American troops to stay on to preserve that sovereignty and democracy.

With this subterfuge, Mr Bush might just, as he apparently plans, manage to declare "mission accomplished" on the eve of the presidential election. But it would be remarkable if such an essentially US-installed government, presiding over a hastily reconstructed army and police, was able for long to master the maelstrom of colliding passions and political interests which the removal of the tyranny has unleashed.

An Iraq at loggerheads with itself, and a paradise for international terrorists, would spare none of the principal actors in this geopolitical drama. Not the US, confronted as it then would be with the classical colonial dilemma of whether to pull back or plunge yet further in. Not the Arab world, whose regimes in their people`s eyes only differ from Saddam`s in the degree of their degeneracy, nor Israel.

The danger is what Arab commentators habitually call "Lebanonisation" - first of Iraq and then, by an inevitable contagion, the rest of the eastern Arab world. Hizbullah, that most successful of anti-Israeli insurgencies, grew out of a single failed and fratricidal state. What might an entire failed region throw up?


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Drivers queue for hours for ration of their country`s greatest resource
Shortage of fuel blamed on saboteurs

Luke Harding in Baghdad
Tuesday December 23, 2003
The Guardian

By 12.30pm, the queue stretches over the Tigris river. It loops past one of Uday Hussein`s palaces, and on to the gates of Baghdad`s main oil refinery. At the front of the queue to Freedom Square petrol station, guards armed with guns and clubs try to keep order.

"I`m fed up," Saad Abdul Aziz says as he inches his car into the forecourt. "I`ve been waiting since 6am. All I want to do is visit my relatives in Mosul."

Eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and America`s occupation, Iraq is in the grip of an unlikely crisis. There is not enough petrol - in a country with the world`s second largest oil reserves.

Last Friday, Iraq`s US-appointed governing council introduced rationing, restricting drivers to 30 litres - about half a tank. Under the new system, drivers with odd-number licence plates can get petrol on a Friday; even-number cars have to wait until Saturday.

It was Saddam Hussein who last used the alternate system back in 1981, during the dark days of the Iran-Iraq war. "This is madness," Hassan Yusef, a taxi driver, said yesterday as he joined the kilometre-long queue in the Daura suburb of Baghdad. "There is enough oil here for every Iraqi to have his own tap."

How long would he have to wait? "About seven hours," he said. "At first we were angry. Now we`ve got used to it. I now spend one day working, followed by one day sitting in the queue. If you need to go to the loo, you have to get another driver to move your car, otherwise you lose your place."

The US-led coalition provisional authority (CPA) - immune from the petrol crisis in its vast HQ in one of Saddam`s riverside palaces - has given different explanations for the situation. Dave Senor, the spokesman for Paul Bremer, the US`s proconsul in Iraq, recently blamed the problem on "seasonal hoarding". Others point out that some Iraqis queue for petrol sold at the official price of about 3p a gallon, and resell it on the black market for more than £1 a gallon. There are more cars: 250,000 new vehicles have flooded Iraq since US administrators abolished tariff restrictions.

At Baghdad`s oil ministry, officials say the shortage is due to sabotage. Since the end of the Saddam era, there have been at least 85 attacks on pipelines. A spokesman, Asim Jehad, said that the new rationing system was temporary but would continue until security improved - in other words, for some time.

Iraq is importing petrol from Syria, Iran and Jordan, and has concluded agreements with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. But this solution brings its own difficulties: Turkish truck drivers delivering to Iraq have been on strike for three weeks, because they are worried that Saddam loyalists might kill or kidnap them.

· A bomb was found and defused in the home of the Iraqi Shi`ite leader and governing council head, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Two American soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed when a bomb exploded near a US convoy in Baghdad.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Soldiers patrol city streets as Americans are warned of imminent terrorist threat
By David Usborne in New York
23 December 2003


The red and white of Father Christmas mingled with the black steel of semi-automatic gun barrels on Fifth Avenue yesterday as New York deployed heavily armed police officers at strategic locations in the face of a newly heightened threat of terror attacks.

Officials across the United States responded to the decision on Sunday from the Department of Homeland Security to elevate the national terror alert level to orange, the second highest level. It was an indication of serious concern in the intelligence community that al-Qa`ida was preparing to strike again.

Police and National Guard soldiers were patrolling airports, railway stations, bridges and other busy landmarks in most large American cities. It is the fifth time that America has been put on orange alert since the colour-coded system was introduced after the 11 September attacks in 2001.

Tom Ridge, the director of Homeland Security, repeated his message of Sunday that the country should be especially vigilant. He said the warning was based on information which indicated that attacks might be imminent. He did not specify the sources of the information or where the attacks could occur. Officials said that there was particular concern that terrorists might use aircraft again.

Mr Ridge said: "The volume is up. The quality of the reporting is up. The credibility is there." He said the assaults could be more devastating than those of 11 September. Referring to the intelligence, he said: "We`ve never quite seen it at this level before."

Mr Ridge called on Americans to be extra vigilant but added: "If you`ve got holiday plans, go. I think it`s very important to send a message to the terrorists of goodwill and resolve."

Worries about a terrorist attack have been mounting for some time. Last week, federal officials warned New York and other large cities about the increased risks of attacks during the holiday season. The decision to raise the alert level to orange for the first time since May might in part have been prompted by the broadcast by the Arabic television network al-Jazeera on Friday of a new tape recording allegedly made by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden`s deputy. The voice on the tape said al-Qa`ida was "still chasing Americans and their allies everywhere, even in their homeland".

The State Department also issued an alert on Sunday, warning Americans abroad to increase their vigilance, especially in public places such as restaurants, hotels and places of worship.

The suggestion of attacks on domestic soil causes most nervousness - "I`m from Maine," said Daniel Bennett who was visiting New York, "and this makes me glad of it". But with airports and stations packed with holiday travellers, there was no sign of Americans making major concessions to the warning. "They`re like earthquakes. You learn to deal with it," said Jeff Shaw, of Reno, Nevada, at the San Francisco Shopping Mall. "If it`s going to happen, it`s going to happen."
23 December 2003 12:27



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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Group in charge of Iraq blamed for woes
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 22, 2003

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The Coalition Provisional Authority in charge of Iraq has failed to institute a smoothly run bureaucracy, resulting in cash shortages and delays in starting reconstruction programs, Pentagon officials say in interviews.
The Baghdad-based authority`s lack of cohesion has prompted some soldiers in Iraq to joke that its acronym, CPA, stands for "Can`t Produce Anything."
Officials say part of the problem is that the 8-month-old CPA, under control of former ambassador L. Paul Bremer, is both a civilian and military institution. With different cultures, the two professional groups have different ways of operating. Thus, the staff of about 1,000 has yet to gel, said the officials, who asked not to be identified.
One particularly critical assessment is contained in a confidential report now circulating in the Pentagon. It was prepared by an official who recently traveled to Baghdad.
The official`s written briefing says in part: "There is no mechanism for top-level decisions to be translated to ... action. Thus, there is a gap between strategy intent and tactical execution. There`s no one checking anyone`s work. There is no mechanism to ensure top-level decisions are followed through by staff echelons. Thus, there is a lack of internal unity of action. Resources, particularly personnel, are unavailable or poorly matched to needs."
A Pentagon official confirmed this excerpt, but declined to say which defense agency received the report.
"My own view is there are a lot of good people doing the best they can, but acting independently," this source said.
Officials say an example of the CPA`s lack of cohesion occurred in recent weeks.
One critical program to winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is the Army`s ability to hand out cash. The money goes to rebuild or fix up schools, hospitals, water supplies and other important civil works projects. Last month, most commanders ran out of money. The CPA was using dollars seized from Saddam Hussein`s regime and its loyalists, but the fund dried up.
Finally, Mr. Bremer and senior Pentagon officials intervened. Money was found in an Iraqi oil-for-food account and in U.S.-budgeted taxpayer funds.
"I`m really convinced it`s been fixed," said one Pentagon source. "But it took an awful lot of intervention."
A Pentagon spokesman, who asked not to be named, said Mr. Bremer is focusing on how to enable Iraqis to govern themselves in time for the planned turnover of power to interim rulers June 30. What he still lacks, the spokesman said, are skilled contractors willing to go out into the dangerous countryside to perform infrastructure-improvement projects. For now, the military is doing most of them.
"The CPA overall is doing a terrific job," the spokesman said. "You`ve got people out there from all walks of life who are paying salaries, repairing schools, delivering food and opening hospitals."
The Pentagon and State Department are now examining just how the CPA will relinquish its powers. Pentagon sources say Mr. Bremer may choose to leave his post once the transition is completed.
A Pentagon source said military-civilian friction began early inside the CPA. In one instance, civilians wanted more U.S. troops dedicated to fixing and protecting power plants and transmission lines. These targets are under constant surveillance and attack by Saddam Hussein loyalists.
But commanders argued they needed every available serviceman in the 130,000-member force to fight insurgents. This problem was eventually alleviated by training more Iraqi security personnel and putting them out into the field.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has repeatedly said his commanders tell him they have sufficient troops in Iraq for rebuilding and for counterinsurgency.
Officials refused to blame Mr. Bremer, the man who announced the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam with the historic words,"We got him."
Mr. Rumsfeld rushed Mr. Bremer to Baghdad in May once it became clear that post-Saddam Iraq would not be as welcoming as some administration officials predicted.
"Bremer himself is a man of tremendous good will, but he can`t do it all by himself," said a Pentagon official.
To help Mr. Bremer get his vision carried out down the chain of command, the Pentagon earlier this month coaxed retired Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Kellogg out of the private sector and sent him to Baghdad. Gen. Kellogg, who remains a civilian, has the title of Mr. Bremer`s deputy for security and energy reconstruction.
In practice, he is now the CPA`s No. 2 man, a chief of staff who will try to make the CPA more cohesive.
Gen. Kellogg, an Airborne soldier, impressed Mr. Rumsfeld when the general directed the unit of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon that deals with command and communications issues.
Said the Pentagon spokesman, "[Gen. Kellogg] will add a lot of management expertise to the situation."




Copyright © 2003 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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excerpts from the book
Blowback
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
by Chalmers Johnson
Henry Holt, 2000
Viel zu lesen:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blowback_CJohnson/Blowback…


Blowback
Stealth Imperialism
South Korea: Legacy of the Cold War &
North Korea: Endgame of the Cold War
China: State of the Revolution
Japan and the Economics of the American Empire
Meltdown
The Consequences of Empire
Quotations

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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

http://www.gopsheeple.com/

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Posted on Mon, Dec. 22, 2003



ANALYSIS: Saddam may put U.S. on trial, too

BY CRAIG NELSON
Cox News Service

It is a smart bet that Saddam Hussein will be convicted and executed when a special Iraqi court tries him next year on charges that are expected to include murder and crimes against humanity.

But while the longtime dictator is in captivity, he may not be subdued for long. In ensuring that an Iraqi court gives Saddam a fair and open trial, the Bush administration is likely to hand the former Iraqi leader an opportunity to put the United States and its allies on trial for their knowledge of his tyranny, if not their complicity.

In short, get ready for the Mother of All Legal Battles.

"The trial will be the trial of the age. We will uncover a lot of secrets concerning heads of states, prime ministers and parliamentarians, intellectuals and others both from Arab states, regional states and Western countries," Muwaffaq al-Rubaiye, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said last week.

At the same time, Saddam is likely to try to use the trial to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his compatriots and other Arabs before he is ushered from his cell to face a firing squad.

"Saddam is a very practical man, he is a very hopeful man," said Amatzia Baram, a leading Saddam watcher. "He`ll try to play to the gallery."

If the trial unfolds that way, U.S. officials may wish that the 66-year-old Saddam had decided to go down fighting, like his two sons did five months ago.

To be sure, there are already doubts that Saddam can receive a fair trial at all.

The skepticism was fueled by worldwide distribution of the now-iconic pictures of the bedraggled ex-president being examined by a doctor following his capture, despite the Geneva Conventions` insistence that "prisoners must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence and intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

Suspicions were further reinforced by President Bush, who said in an interview with ABC News last week that the former Iraqi leader "deserves justice, the ultimate justice." White House officials later confirmed that Bush was referring to capital punishment.

Human rights groups and some Arab commentators warned that America and its Iraqi allies could ill afford accusations of victor`s justice or conducting a kangaroo court, especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds where America is already viewed with deepening contempt by many for applying a democratic double standard abroad.

Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said a trial, no matter how scrupulously conducted, could not be perceived to be motivated by revenge.

"Justice must be done and be seen to be done," said Dicker, director of the group`s international justice program.

But fairness and giving Saddam some semblance of his day in court risks embarrassment for the United States.

"The tyrant is a prisoner," the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, declared after Saddam was captured. But history suggests he is not a penitent.

Saddam has hinted at his future defense on specific charges, telling Adnan Pachachi, one of the four senior Iraqi political figures who visited him shortly after his capture, that he had acted only out of interests of state. The political opponents who were killed under his regime were guilty of treason, he said.

As other dictators have in the dock before him, Saddam is likely to argue that he had no prior knowledge or responsibility for acts committed by his subordinates, and that there is no evidence directly linking him to atrocities.

But with little hope of total exoneration, Saddam — again, like other former dictators before him — is likely to focus on the treachery of his captors, analysts say.

Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega used his 1992 trial on drug-trafficking and racketeering charges to detail his longtime relationship with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Slobodan Milosevic, the ex-president of Yugoslavia, has used his trial in the Hague on charges of genocide as a political forum and opportunity to make his own indictment of NATO`s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. His success has made a mockery of his prosecutors, critics of the U.N. tribunal have said.

The trial of the "Butcher of Baghdad" could prove equally embarrassing for an administration in the midst of a re-election campaign.

Weapons of mass destruction and human rights? Past American governments embraced Saddam for oil and for their own strategic purposes, even as his armies were using chemical weapons against Iranians and his own people.

According to declassified U.S. government documents, for example, Donald Rumsfeld, a special envoy under President Ronald Reagan, visited with Saddam in Baghdad in 1983 but made no mention of chemical weapons, despite his insistence to the contrary last year in an interview with CNN.

Then there was former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., who told Saddam in 1990 that he sympathized with his complaints that the Western press was exaggerating his mass murders.

Threatening his neighbors? Days before Iraq`s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. ambassador, April Glaspie, met with Saddam as he was massing forces along the Kuwaiti border. She told him James Baker, the secretary of state in the first Bush administration, wanted to make it clear that the United States took no position on Arab-Arab disputes, such as his border dispute with Kuwait. Tacit U.S. consent for the invasion? Saddam apparently thought so.

Saddam`s trial also could produce embarrassing information about America`s new Iraqi allies, for one of Saddam`s most sinister gifts was his ability to make nearly every Iraqi complicit in their own oppression.

An estimated 1 million Iraqis were tied in with Saddam`s regime or party, but few of the country`s 26 million people were able to survive without cooperating with his regime in some form or another.

To his Iraqi and American accusers alike — as well as all the major Western countries that did business with him — he will have one question, according to Baram, a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel.

"He will say, `You supported me when you knew what I was doing. Why are you putting me on trial now?` "

Throughout his autocratic rule, Saddam saw himself as immortal — one who, however rejected and mocked, would rise again and triumph. If U.S. officials are to avoid being subjected to a catalog of their past dalliances with a dictator, they must hope that imprisonment will vanquish his messianic streak once and for all.

On the other hand, he may view his trial as a final chance to ensure his place among the pantheon of the great Arab leaders. Speaking with reporters before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March, former CIA director James Woolsey said that even in defeat, Saddam would "definitely try to wreak maximum destruction."

If that is the case now, Saddam`s walk to the firing squad and martyrdom may be his final, pyrrhic victory.






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© 2003 Pioneer Press and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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December 23, 2003
Talk of Tikrit`s Favorite Diner: Hatred of Hussein, Fury at U.S.
By JOHN F. BURNS

TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 18 — If there is a favorite meeting place here in Saddam Hussein`s hometown, it is a tightly packed, crockery-clattering, $1-a-plate restaurant called Al Mudhaif — Arabic for a place of hospitality, or inn — on the town`s scrappy main street.

Anybody wanting to know Tikrit can stop by and listen to the talk as waiters shuttle by with plates of flat-baked bread and spit-roasted chicken. All types gather here, including, one recent day, a posse of heavyset men with traditional Arab tribal dishdasha robes and checkered kaffiyeh headdresses. With jutting beards, old combat jackets and narrowing eyes, they were identified by other diners as members of the "resistance," still working, other diners said, for the restoration of their fallen idol, Mr. Hussein.

The restaurant lies around the corner from one of Mr. Hussein`s pillared palaces, now the headquarters of the town`s new rulers, the Fourth Infantry Division of the United States Army, whose tanks and armored vehicles ceaselessly thunder by. From the restaurant, it seemed a pageant of Iraq`s wider drama, with the grim-faced resistance men looking out at the Americans driving by with flags fluttering from radio antennas, helmeted soldiers with wraparound goggles at their turrets, machine-gunners swiveling, watching for trouble.

But not all is quite as it seems in Tikrit, or at least quite as imagined by many Westerners here.

Tikrit, the legend goes, is the Dodge City of Iraq, a place of such fervor for Mr. Hussein that there can be no accommodation with the American vision for the country, no tolerance for democracy or a civil society that would strip power from the Sunni Muslim minority cliques that have dominated since the nation`s founding in 1921; above all, no acceptance that Mr. Hussein, the town`s great patron, might face trial for mass murder.

A hint that this image of Tikrit was incomplete came when the Americans took reporters out to Ad Dwar, the site of Mr. Hussein`s capture on Dec. 13, aboard low-flying Black Hawk helicopters that curved across the Tigris and out over the silted wheat fields and citrus orchards by the river. The pilots flew in fear of rocket-propelled grenades, which have brought down American helicopters elsewhere, but days after the arrest of Mr. Hussein, villagers were running from their homes to wave as the Americans flew by.

When a reporter and a photographer for The New York Times walked into The Inn, apprehensively, it was a relief to be invited to sit down. A man at a table near the entrance identified himself as Hatim Jassem, a 35-year-old theology professor, Muslim by creed, recently returned to his home village of Al Alam near Tikrit from teaching at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, having judged the capital too lawless under American rule to remain.

His home village has been identified by American military intelligence as a bastion for Mr. Hussein, where many families are linked to the former dictator by extended family ties. Mr. Jassem, speaking loud enough to be overheard tables a distance away, addressed the matter forthwith.

"Look, it`s not as if I love Saddam," he said. "I don`t. They arrested me in August 1998, after I`d warned one of my younger brothers he was getting too close to Saddam`s men and that they would hurt him and the family if he carried on. Somebody overheard me and told one of Saddam`s bodyguards. Then they came and put me in prison for six weeks. They tortured me — I still have the scars on my back — but it could have been worse."

Among the complexities of post-Hussein Iraq is that many who speak in support of the toppled dictator, or oppose the Americans, are victims of his terror, either personally or through the brutalities inflicted on relatives and friends. By any reckoning of the number he killed — Iraqi human rights groups` estimates begin at 300,000 — a large proportion of this nation of 25 million were directly affected, and many more admit that they carry the trauma`s scars.

Mr. Jassem is among the many with conflicted views. Having begun by condemning Mr. Hussein, he switched to castigating American troops for the "humiliation" they visited on him at his arrest. Next, unprompted, he was back to saying Iraqis had been unable for years to rid themselves of the tyrant. "We thought it was a good thing, that the Americans invaded and threw him out, because we Iraqis couldn`t do it ourselves," he said. "Only American troops could do that."

"Even the psychological atmosphere is improving, after the overthrow of Saddam," Mr. Jassem said. "Wherever you were under the regime, you always felt people were watching you, you always felt people were listening. Now, it`s better — you can criticize and complain. When I go to a restaurant now, I don`t look about and wonder if the secret police are watching."

But for the rest of the 90-minute conversation, the professor spoke bitterly of the Americans. At those moments, with the rush of passion for the overthrow of Mr. Hussein, against the troops that did it, Westerners in Iraq sometimes feel tempted to reach for reflections on Arab culture in books like "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," written in the 1920`s by T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia.

Some Arabs consider the book chauvinistic, but the sense of Arab tribal culture conveyed by Mr. Lawrence, an Englishman who lived among Bedouin warriors and helped lead them during the Arab rebellion against Turkish rule during World War I, may yet have relevance to Americans trying to make sense of the crosscurrents in Iraq.

"They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns," he wrote. "They did not understand our metaphysical difficulties, our introspective questionings. They knew only truth and untruth, belief and unbelief, without our hesitating retinue of finer shades."

He added: "Sometimes inconsistents seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity."

Mr. Jassem`s words, at times, seemed unconsciously to echo Lawrence`s sense of tribal psychology, one contested among Arabs ever since. The issue in Al Alam, Mr. Jassem said, is not the overthrow of Mr. Hussein, but the offenses against Arab dignity that the Americans were committing with their raids.

"Why are the Americans being attacked?" he said. "Not because all Iraqis are pro-Saddam, no. If Saddam had come out of his palaces and into the streets of Tikrit without guards, somebody would have killed him for sure.

"Iraqis are attacking the Americans now because they have humiliated us. We feel if somebody trespasses in your home, breaks the door and beats the head of the household and cuffs his hands in front of his family, it is the greatest humiliation. It happened to Saddam. If it happened to me, I wouldn`t hesitate to go and buy a Kalashnikov and look for an American to kill."

But was it not Mr. Hussein who brought humiliation on himself, a visitor asked, by hiding underground and emerging from his bunker, hands up, looking like a vagrant? Mr. Jassem agreed, but switched to a homily.

From his studies of Christianity, he said, he knew of a truth that Americans should observe in seeking a way home from Iraq. "There is a very famous saying of Jesus Christ," he said. "`Glory to God, and peace on earth. Let the Americans bring peace on earth."

Lunchtime was coming to an end, and other Tikritis stopped by to offer a welcome to the visitors. Many offered extravagant invitations to their homes. The men of the resistance remained stone-faced, but as they left, pistols in their waistbands, they pulled Mr. Jassem aside and whispered that he might want to bring his new friends to Al Alam.

"They would like a conversation," he said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 23, 2003
DOCUMENTS
Rumsfeld Made Iraq Overture in `84 Despite Chemical Raids
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.

Mr. Rumsfeld, who ran a pharmaceutical company at the time, was tapped by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to reinforce a message that a recent move to condemn Iraq`s use of chemical weapons was strictly in principle and that America`s priority was to prevent an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq war and to improve bilateral ties.

During that war, the United States secretly provided Iraq with combat planning assistance, even after Mr. Hussein`s use of chemical weapons was widely known. The highly classified program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who shared intelligence on Iranian deployments, bomb-damage assessments and other crucial information with Iraq.

The disclosures round out a picture of American outreach to the Iraqi government, even as the United States professed to be neutral in the eight-year war, and suggests a private nonchalance toward Mr. Hussein`s use of chemicals in warfare. Mr. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have cited Iraq`s use of poisonous gas as a main reason for ousting Mr. Hussein.

The documents, which were released as part of a declassification project by the National Security Archive, and are available on the Web at www.nsarchive.org, provide details of the instructions given to Mr. Rumsfeld on his second trip to Iraq in four months. The notes of Mr. Rumsfeld`s encounter with Tariq Aziz, the foreign minister, remain classified, but officials acknowledged that it would be unusual if Mr. Rumsfeld did not carry out the instructions.

Since the release of the documents, he has told members of his inner circle at the Pentagon that he does not recall whether he had read, or even had received, the State Department memo, Defense Department officials said.

One official noted that the documents reflected the State Department`s thinking on Iraq, but did not indicate Mr. Rumsfeld`s planning for his meeting with Mr. Hussein nor his comments on the meeting after its conclusion.

Mr. Rumsfeld`s trip was his second visit to Iraq. On his first visit, in late December 1983, he had a cordial meeting with Mr. Hussein, and photographs and a report of that encounter have been widely published.

In a follow-up memo, the chief of the American interests section reported that Mr. Aziz had conveyed Mr. Hussein`s satisfaction with the meeting. "The Iraqi leadership was extremely pleased with Amb. Rumsfeld`s visit," the memo said. "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person."

When news emerged last year of the December trip, Mr. Rumsfeld told CNN that he had "cautioned" Mr. Hussein to forgo chemical weapons. But when presented with declassified notes of their meeting that made no mention of that, a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue in a meeting with Mr. Aziz.

Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday that there was no inconsistency between Mr. Rumsfeld`s previous comments on his missions to Iraq and the State Department documents.

By early 1984, events threatened to upset the American-Iraqi relationship. After pleading for a year for international action against the chemical warfare, Iran had finally persuaded the United Nations to criticize the use of chemical weapons, albeit in vague terms.

Pressure mounted on the Reagan administration, which had already verified Iraq`s "almost daily" use of the weapons against Iran and against Kurdish rebels, documents show. In February, Iraq warned Iranian "invaders" that "for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it." Within weeks, the American authorities intercepted precursor chemicals that were bound for Iraq. Finally, on March 5, the United States issued a public condemnation of Iraq.

But days later, Mr. Shultz and his deputy met with an Iraqi diplomat, Ismet Kittani, to soften the blow. The American relationship with Iraq was too important — involving business interests, Middle East diplomacy and a shared determination to thwart Iran — to sacrifice. Mr. Kittani left the meeting "unpersuaded," documents show.

Mr. Shultz then turned to Mr. Rumsfeld. In a March 24 briefing document, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked to present America`s bottom line. At first, the memo recapitulated Mr. Shultz`s message to Mr. Kittani, saying it "clarified that our CW [chemical weapons] condemnation was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs." The American officials had "emphasized that our interests in 1) preventing an Iranian victory and 2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of Iraq`s choosing, remain undiminished," it said.

Then came the instructions for Mr. Rumsfeld: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

The American relationship with Iraq during its crippling war with Iran was rife with such ambiguities. Though the United States was outwardly neutral, it tilted toward Iraq and even monitored talks toward the sale of military equipment by private American contractors.

Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980`s, and it didn`t make any difference to U.S. policy."

Mr. Blanton suggested that the United States was now paying the price for earlier indulgence. "The embrace of Saddam in the 1980`s and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances," he said. "Shaking hands with dictators today can turn them into Saddams tomorrow."


Thom Shanker contributed reporting for this article.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 22, 2003
Q&A: Lisa Anderson on Libya

From the Council on Foreign Relations, December 17, 2003


Lisa Anderson, a leading specialist on Libya, says that the surprise announcement on December 19 that Libya would renounce its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program was "a deliberate gift," to President Bush. "The quid pro quo is that the United States lift [economic] sanctions [on Libya]. That`s what they really want."

Anderson, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, says the gesture is consistent with recent behavior by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Libya`s leader, she says, seems desperate to have the country rejoin the family of "civilized nations."

Anderson was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on December 22, 2003.

President Bush announced December 19 that Qaddafi would end efforts to build unconventional weapons and dismantle his country`s WMD program. Is this a major development?

Yes. It`s consistent with a whole set of things the Libyans have been doing for the last couple of years, all of them intended to bring Libya back into the family of what we call "civilized nations." It`s another significant step along that road.

At one time of course, Libya was a leading renegade state, and after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, it was more or less isolated. What`s caused this recent change?

One of the things you have to realize is that starting in the mid-1980s, Qaddafi began to face some significant organized opposition at home. And what nobody was paying any attention to, except Qaddafi himself, was the fact that this organized opposition was what we would later come to call an early "Qaeda-type network." In other words, he began to face opposition from people who were motivated by the international Islamist sentiment, who felt he was too eccentric, too un-Islamic—and if you know anything about his domestic policies, he is certainly eccentric and un-Islamic in that regard. And therefore, he was regarded by the al-Qaeda types as no better than the Saudi government, no better than any of these other governments that they hate. He found himself, ironically, on the same side as all of these governments that he had excoriated for a decade at least.

Over the course of the succeeding 10 to 15 years, he seemed to everyone else in the world to be leading a rogue state, on the wrong side of everything, but he himself was finding that his purposes were increasingly served by aligning with the establishment, with the status-quo regimes, and with his former enemies. All of that crystallized on the morrow of the September 11 attack. He had already begun to try and get himself back in the good graces of everyone by turning over Lockerbie suspects and living with the verdict.

So this was not an overnight conversion. But September 11 really represented the moment where he saw an opportunity, because he heard loud and clear President Bush saying, "If you`re not with us, you`re with the terrorists." He said to himself, "This is my chance to say, `I`m with you.`" So, literally on the 12th of September, the head of Libyan intelligence, Musa Kusa, who has also been involved in negotiating on the WMD issues, was meeting in Europe with people from the CIA, saying, "This is our list of suspects. These are the terrorists that we know that are connected to al Qaeda, who are operating out of Europe," and so forth and so on.

Was this actually on September 12?

Well, maybe it was the 13th. But literally within a couple of days of the September 11 attacks. At that time, the Americans did not realize how serious the Libyans were about getting back in. So the Libyans provided their lists and started cooperating in very serious ways. The irony, of course, was that the Bush administration was publicly castigating various countries, but it was getting some of its best intelligence from one of them. There was a very odd kind of tension in trying to figure out what to do about Libya and how serious to take [its overtures.] Was this intelligence really as good as it seemed to be? Was this an indication of a serious change of heart by the Libyans or was it one more eccentric thing that Qaddafi might back out of?

Very few people knew about this?

Yes. Only a very few people knew about it. But interestingly, if you go back to the fall of 2001, there were reports emanating from the Libyan side, because they wanted everyone to know that they were cooperating and were "good guys." They wanted to stay off what became the "axis of evil" list and they succeeded in that. It was a subtle thing. The Libyans leaked to the press that they were cooperating, which is pretty funny when you think about it. The Americans were less happy to announce that because Libya was still a regime they felt they could not trust, for various reasons. But there was a continuing conversation. The Libyans agreed to the compensation for the Lockerbie families, which led to the lifting of United Nations sanctions, with the Libyans saying, "Okay, we`ll pay whatever it takes to get the Lockerbie families off the American political agenda." They`ve been doing almost anything that anyone has asked them to do to get back into this new division of the world between "the good guys" and "the bad guys." They are now absolutely core, as far as their own interests are concerned, on the "good guys" side.

Did most people know that the Libyans were dabbling in chemical, biological, and nuclear arms programs?

Pretty much everyone knew it. What nobody could tell, and which is not clear even now, was how far along they had gotten, how good they were, and whether any of this stuff was real. A lot of the WMD activity, as far as I could tell, was amateurish. But, in a sense, it does not matter. Even if they never got to a point at which they were producing very much [unconventional weaponry] or could deliver it anywhere, you would still want them to stop. I think it is also true that they never got very sophisticated at it, in part because if you look at the economy of a place like Libya, there is not much sophistication in it.

When the United States bombed Libya in 1986, didn`t the United States also bomb a chemical factory?

Actually, at that time we did not. But we did subsequently bomb what we believed was a chemical weapons facility.

I`ve always associated Qaddafi with pan-Arabism.

There are different layers of "pan-ism" in that neck of the woods. Qaddafi came to power as a pan-Arabist on the model of Egypt`s Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was his hero. He thought that the solution to all the problems in the region was to have one single Arab country and he was willing, as long as Nasser was alive, to say that Nasser could be the head of that country. Once Nasser died in 1970 and Qaddafi started to realize that many of the other regimes were much more ordinary, run-of-the-mill regimes, and not revolutionary, he was very much alienated from Arab nationalism.

So it has been a long time since anyone accorded him much credibility as an Arab nationalist. But he was also the leader of the first Islamist regime, and this is why he has gotten into so much trouble in terms of the shifting sands of the region. He came to power in 1969, 10 years before the Iranian revolution, and in those 10 years he was the first to talk about Islam in power. When the Iranian revolution occurred, he was outflanked quite dramatically in terms of Islamic power. Partly as the result of that, Qaddafi`s pronouncements on Islam became so eccentric as to become heretical. [In response] an Islamist opposition arose in Libya that was quite orthodox. By the mid-1980s, Qaddafi was facing a very significant Islamist opposition but, again, most people did not notice that because they thought of him still as either so eccentric as to have no perspective or as still in a desperate and serious competition with the Saudis for influence in the Muslim world. Through much of the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the Saudis and the Libyans were in this almost laughable competition building mosques all over Africa to export their own versions of Islam. But the Libyans ducked out of that competition. They had abandoned both pan-Arabism and their pan-Islamist position. Qaddafi for the last decade at least, has thought of himself more as an African leader than an Arab or Islamist leader. That`s partly a reflection of his disenchantment with Arab nationalism and pan-Islamist politics.

Al Qaeda is no friend of Libya, obviously.

Certainly. They think Qaddafi is as much of a problem as the Algerian regime, or the Saudi regime, or any of these other regimes. As much as these regimes hate each other now, and there has been little love lost among the Algerians and Libyans and Saudis in the last 25 years, all know they face a common enemy, al Qaeda. They all want to be on the same side.

I`m still trying to understand why Libya was so radical in the 1980s. It bombed a discotheque in Berlin, killing two U.S. soldiers. That precipitated the bombing of Libya ordered by President Reagan in 1986. That, it seems, led to retaliation in the form of the Lockerbie disaster.

I think, as with Lockerbie, when our grandchildren write the history of this period, it will not be clear that it is going to be best explained in terms of state politics. We have no better way of saying who was responsible for Lockerbie than to trace it back to some state. In this case, Libya. But in fact, there was probably a much more amorphous set of actors in all this who were trying to see if they could lift a corner on the dominance of the West and needle everybody. We see it as Libyan, but I think there was a piece of Syria involved in that. There were others involved also. In any event, partly because of the way we look at the world, partly because of Qaddafi`s willingness to be out front, we saw him as the leader of all [the anti-Western movement].

Will Libyan-U.S. relations be normalized?

That`s certainly what the Libyans want. The real question is how comfortable the Bush administration is going to be in saying that it believes the Libyans have turned over a new leaf and that somebody who had been excoriated for decades could turn out to be somebody we can deal with on a normal basis. It`s worth keeping in mind—and this is one of the little known facts that explains a fair amount—that the prime minister of Libya right now, Shukri Ghanem, is a graduate of an American professional school, 25 years ago, and spent most of the intervening period as Libya`s representative to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and living in Europe. He and I went to school together at the Fletcher School at Tufts [University]. Qaddafi is appointing the people who are going to be the most plausible, most sophisticated kinds of people to renew this relationship. He`s giving this everything he has.

Is he trying to leave a legacy?

I think he is trying to avoid leaving a legacy of complete chaos. At this point, if he were overthrown, Libya would be in just awful shape. And if he were overthrown, the only plausible organizer of a successor regime would be probably a very underground and disorganized Islamist opposition. A peaceful transition, á la Syria or something like that, is not in the cards, unless Qaddafi opens up the country and gets more help from Europeans and even the United States in getting that economy, if not necessarily going, at least righted. And the Libyans know they have given President Bush a gift, a deliberate gift [by abandoning WMD]. The quid pro quo is that the United States lift sanctions. That`s what they really want.

What`s holding up the lifting of sanctions? What does the United States want to see happen?

There were a number of things that had to happen. One was that the Lockerbie families had to be satisfied. They had been one of the most vocal and active lobbying groups against any kind of normalization. Now, that appears to be removed as an obstacle. There may be two or three families not satisfied, but basically the families have agreed that they will accept compensation, some $10 million a family. The only other big thing was the WMD. And that`s coming off the table. The administration wants to "wait and see," but basically all the obstacles have now been removed by the Libyan regime. Something has to happen as a face-saving gesture so that even though we have been saying for the past 25 years that we will never have good relations with this country so long as this person is in power, we are now willing to change our minds. That`s hard. That`s a PR problem. The United States might well decide to deal more directly with the technocrats like Shukri Ghanem, and say, "We are really dealing with the prime minister, that Qaddafi is the titular head of state, but there is a regular government, and that`s whom we are dealing with."



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December 23, 2003
Pakistan`s Nuclear Commerce

he United States has again been given good reason to wonder whether Pakistan is the trustworthy ally it claims to be. Fresh evidence indicates that it has sold nuclear-weapons secrets to Iran, North Korea and perhaps other countries over the years. Pakistan`s military ruler, , insists that he stopped such sales after seizing power four years ago. Yet just last year, American spy satellites detected a Pakistani plane picking up North Korean missile parts thought to be part of a swap for Pakistani nuclear technology. The Bush administration must demand stronger controls over Pakistan`s nuclear labs, which seem to have been central to the transfers.

General Musharraf, who narrowly escaped assassination last week, is a key to American policy in south-central Asia. The general supported America`s war in Afghanistan and has helped arrest Al Qaeda fugitives in Pakistan. Yet it is not clear how fully he shares American objectives on fighting nuclear proliferation and international terrorism.

During the 1980`s and 90`s, Pakistan, although closely allied with Washington, was virtually a rogue state. It shared nuclear bomb technology with Iran and North Korea, sponsored terrorism in Indian-ruled Kashmir and backed the Taliban government that sheltered Osama bin Laden. General Musharraf has changed some of these policies. But Washington must pressure him to do more.

The latest evidence on nuclear exports came to light when Iran recently shared with international regulators information about its nuclear suppliers. Earlier this year, international inspectors found uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran that were identical to early Pakistani designs. The technology trail points to Pakistan`s A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, and several of its leading scientists have now been questioned. Three years ago, at Washington`s urging, General Musharraf removed Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan`s own nuclear weapons program, as the laboratories` director. It is possible that nuclear technology exports continued, as the intercepted North Korean missile shipment suggests. The laboratories have allies in Pakistan`s army and its powerful military intelligence agency. To ensure that nuclear exports are truly halted, General Musharraf must tighten government control over the laboratories.

Washington should demand changes in other policies as well. General Musharraf`s undermining of mainstream opposition parties has helped strengthen the Islamic parties that now rule areas along the Afghan border where Taliban recruiters openly operate. Containing Islamic extremism in Pakistan requires allowing mainstream opposition parties to function freely.

General Musharraf is again pledging to stop terrorists crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir. Such vows are easily made in December, when infiltration routes are blocked with snow. An effective crackdown requires reining in army leaders who use the Kashmir issue to win higher military budgets than Pakistan can afford and local commanders who wink at border-crossing militants.

The Bush administration, which sees General Musharraf as a valuable ally against terrorism, has not pressured him to restore democracy. Betting American security on one man in a troubled country of 150 million is risky. A wiser course would be to hold General Musharraf to all of his promises, on nuclear exports, terrorist infiltration and restoring democracy.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 23, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Citizen Conrad`s Friends
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Yesterday`s eye-opening New York Times story about the inner circle of Conrad Black, the troubled chairman of Hollinger International, described him as a "throwback press baron." Indeed, his style recalls that of William Randolph Hearst. But it`s a mistake to think of Lord Black, whatever his personal fate, as a throwback to a bygone era. He probably represents the wave of the future.

These days, everything old is new again. Income is once again concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and money rules politics to an extent not seen since the Gilded Age. The Iraq war bears an eerie resemblance to the Spanish-American war. (There was never any evidence linking Spain to the Maine`s demise.) And Citizen Kane is back, in the form of an incestuous media-political complex.

Conrad Black`s empire includes The Daily Telegraph in London, The Jerusalem Post and The Chicago Sun-Times. He switched from Canadian to British citizenship — an action that forced him to give up control of Canada`s National Post — when the Canadian government prevented him from becoming a member of the House of Lords.

Now he`s a lord in trouble. Hollinger, it turns out, has paid hundreds of millions in fees to companies controlled by Lord Black and to individual executives. Some of these payments were secret and were unauthorized by the board. Even if viewed purely as a corporate scandal, this is pretty major stuff.

But the Black affair isn`t just about bad corporate governance. It goes without saying that Lord Black, like Rupert Murdoch, has used his media empire to promote a conservative political agenda. The Telegraph, in particular, has a habit of "finding" documents of unproven authenticity that just happen to support neoconservative rationales for war. We`re now learning that Lord Black also used his control of Hollinger to reward friends, including journalists, who share his political views.

Inevitably the list includes both Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle, whom I hereby propose (stealing an idea from Slate`s Tim Noah) as the subject of a parlor game about cronyism, along the lines of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." The former Pentagon official, who has close ties to Donald Rumsfeld, has enthusiastically embraced the advantages of being both a businessman and a policy insider. His prestigious if part-time official position on the Defense Policy Board provides him with credibility, and at least the suggestion of both inside information and policy influence. This has led to lucrative consulting deals, and has attracted investments in his venture capital fund, Trireme Partners.

Last August, in a moment of supreme synergy, Mr. Perle, wearing his defense-insider hat, co-wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed praising the Pentagon`s controversial Boeing tanker deal. He didn`t disclose Boeing`s $2.5 million investment in Trireme.

Sure enough, Hollinger also invested $2.5 million in Trireme, which is advised by Lord Black. In addition, Mr. Perle was paid more than $300,000 a year and received $2 million in bonuses as head of a Hollinger subsidiary. It`s good to have friends.

The real surprise, though, is that two prominent journalists, William Buckley and George Will, were also regular paid advisors to Hollinger. Now, I thought there were rules here. First, if you`re a full-time journalist, you shouldn`t be in that kind of relationship. Second, whoever you are, if you write a favorable article about someone with whom you have a personal or financial connection — like Mr. Perle`s piece on the tanker deal or Mr. Will`s March column praising Lord Black`s wisdom — you disclose that connection. But I guess the old rules no longer apply.

That, surely, is the moral of this story. Lord Black may have destroyed himself by being a bit too brazen. But his more powerful rival Rupert Murdoch just goes from strength to strength, even though top positions in his media empire have a tendency to go to his sons, and the News Corporation has done far more than Hollinger to blur the line between news and propaganda. And the empire keeps growing: last week the Federal Communications Commission approved Mr. Murdoch`s acquisition of a controlling interest in DirecTV, whose satellite television serves 11 million U.S. homes.

In other words, Lord Black may be about to fall, but the nexus among news coverage, political influence and personal gain seems likely to grow even stronger.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
Bush Gets Year-End Boost in Approval
Poll Shows Dean Surging Among Democratic Rivals

By Dan Balz and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page A01

Die Zahlen sind bei diesem Poll immer vergleichsweise hoch für Bush:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/st…

Die Fragen und die Antworten:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac3/ContentServer?pagename=pol…

Growing optimism about the economy and a spike in support for going to war in Iraq have given President Bush a sharp year-end boost in his approval ratings, suggesting that the president is in a strong position politically as he looks toward his reelection campaign next year.

The boost for Bush comes after the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and a succession of brighter economic indicators that helped to reverse a decline in his ratings that began in the early fall. His overall approval rating stands at 59 percent in the poll, the highest since August, when increased U.S. casualties and terrorist attacks in Iraq led the public to question his policies.

The poll also shows former Vermont governor Howard Dean surging ahead of his rivals in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, cementing his status as the party`s front-runner a month before the first major contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire. But when matched against the president, Dean fares badly, both in a hypothetical trial heat and on who is trusted to handle both national security and domestic issues. Even many Democrats said they still know little about Dean or his views.

The poll findings show why many Democrats are nervous about Dean as a potential candidate against Bush. They also underscore the concern within the party that, because of the heavily front-loaded primary and caucus calendar, a Democratic nominee may effectively be picked before party activists outside a few early states have had a chance to evaluate the candidates and participate in the decision.

The poll also shows greater confidence in Bush`s handling of both Iraq and the economy. On Iraq, three in five (60 percent) said they approve of how he is dealing with events there, compared with 48 percent in mid-November, and 59 percent said the war was worth fighting, up six points in a week.

Americans were evenly divided over whether Bush has a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq (48 percent to 47 percent), but that marks an improvement for Bush after four months of net negative assessments on that question. Nearly seven in 10 want the president to give the United Nations and other countries a larger role in the reconstruction effort in Iraq.

On the economy, a bare majority (51 percent) approve of Bush`s performance, the first time he has been above 50 percent since late April. The new poll found that 42 percent of Americans rate the economy as "good" or "excellent," up from 33 percent in late October. The percentage who rate the economy as "not so good" or "poor" (57 percent) is the lowest since just before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

By almost 4 to 1, more Americans said they expect their family financial situation to improve over the next year than said it would deteriorate.

The public has a more negative view of Bush`s handling of key domestic issues. Despite the passage of legislation that adds a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, just 36 percent approve of how he has dealt with that issue. His rating on education (47 percent) is the lowest of his presidency and the first time he has dipped below majority support. Bush`s ratings on the federal deficit and the cost and availability of health insurance improved somewhat but remain negative overall.

Nor does Bush rate highly on one of his central campaign promises from 2000: bringing needed change to Washington. The Post-ABC poll shows a country sharply divided on that issue, and more so than it was at this time last year. Despite that assessment, a solid majority (58 percent) said Bush has been more of a uniter than a divider at home, but on his impact on the country`s image abroad, almost three in five say things have deteriorated during his presidency.

Bush and many of his key policies continue to divide Americans deeply along party lines. Nine in 10 Republicans approve of the job Bush is doing as president -- a view shared by one out of three Democrats. Six in 10 political independents believe Bush is doing a good job, a significant improvement since mid-October, when fewer than half of those swing voters had a favorable view of the president`s performance.

Similarly, nearly nine in 10 Republicans say Bush is doing a good job managing the economy and handling the situation in Iraq, while lopsided majorities of Democrats disagree.

The higher approval ratings on Iraq and the economy help to make Bush a stronger candidate for reelection. Asked whether they would vote for Bush or an unnamed Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, 50 percent of those surveyed said Bush while 41 percent said the Democrat. Throughout the fall, the public was either evenly divided on that question or tilted narrowly toward the Democrat.

In the Democratic race, the poll shows dramatic gains for Dean in a month that included his receiving the endorsement of former vice president Al Gore and a growing list of Democratic elected officials and the continuation of his aggressive grass-roots campaign operation.

Asked to choose among the nine candidates for the Democratic nomination, 31 percent of registered Democrats said they favored Dean, up from 20 percent a week ago and 15 percent in October. No other Democrat reached double digits.

Although he is known as the candidate of the antiwar Democrats, Dean draws roughly equal support from Democrats who believe that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost and from those who believe it was, another sign of his broadening support. A solid majority (60 percent) of Democrats continue to say they believe the United States should not have gone to war.

But Dean`s strength against his rivals masks how little Democratic voters know about him. More than half of Democrats surveyed said they know "hardly anything" or "nothing" about Dean`s experience, leadership capabilities or positions on the issues.

The Post-ABC poll suggests that Dean`s recent surge has come disproportionately from Democrats who do not closely identify with their party. In mid-October, Dean claimed the support of one in six Democratic-leaning independents and an equal proportion of party rank and file. Today, he gets significantly more support from independent Democrats (35 percent) than he does from party faithful (26 percent).

As a candidate in the general election, Dean starts well behind Bush in the public`s estimation. In an early test of strength, 55 percent of those surveyed said that if the election were held today, they would vote to reelect the president, and 37 percent said they would favor Dean. No other Democrat was tested against Bush in the Post-ABC poll.

Dean`s Democratic rivals have warned that the former governor`s lack of foreign policy experience would hurt him in a general election against Bush, and when asked in the poll whether they trusted the president or Dean more to handle national security and the war on terrorism, 67 percent said Bush and 21 percent Dean. Even on the kind of domestic issues that normally favor Democrats, such as Social Security, health care and education, Bush bests Dean by 50 percent to 39 percent.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
In a Hostile Land, Trying Whatever Works
U.S. Officials in Iraq Learn to Adapt to Local Rules

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page A01


RAMADI, Iraq -- When American diplomat Keith Mines wanted the bombed-out Baath Party headquarters here torn down, he began with contracting rules issued by the U.S. occupation authority. He posted an official notice soliciting bids. A week later, he accepted several sealed proposals, planning to choose the lowest bid.

Then Hamid Rashid Mahenna, an influential tribal sheik, heard about the contract. Mahenna wears suede jackets and a red-and-white headscarf, smokes Dunhill cigarettes, and owns a construction company. His tribesmen had been helping U.S. forces in Ramadi -- and he figured it was payback time. After the deadline, he drove up in his white Mercedes and handed Mines four sealed envelopes. Inside, Mines said, were bids far higher than those from other Iraqi contractors.

Mines, a 6-foot-5 Colorado native who is responsible for administering western Iraq, faced a choice. He could follow the rules and lose an ally, or make an exception to make a friend in one of Iraq`s most hostile Sunni Muslim neighborhoods.

The recent capture of ousted president Saddam Hussein has intensified debate in Baghdad and Washington about how to reach out to Iraq`s Sunnis, a minority that dominated Hussein`s Baath Party. The answer might be found here. Mines is an example of how U.S. officials in the field, often working in dangerous conditions and isolated provinces, are embracing unorthodox, creative and daring approaches to build alliances with local power brokers.

After receiving Mahenna`s bids, Mines said he met with the sheik and began bargaining. Mahenna eventually got a contract worth $35,000 -- about $15,000 more than what the lowest bidder offered.

"He`s been very helpful to us. He`s a force for stability in this area," said Mines, a State Department political officer with gray-streaked hair whose prior assignments in Afghanistan, Somalia and Haiti have left him with a sense of steadiness in the midst of postwar chaos.

Mines is taking unusual, even desperate gambles to win over the Sunnis in this town, and it is not yet clear whether they will pay off. Attacks on U.S. forces persist in Ramadi and the surrounding province of Anbar. Anger at the occupation also has not abated. But Mines insisted that courting sheiks such as Mahenna remains his best -- and perhaps only -- option.

"The war is going to be won or lost here," Mines said as gunfire of undetermined origin echoed across the city. "The Sunnis are the spoilers. If they`re not satisfied with how things go in the next six months, they`ll take the whole project down."

Communication Barriers


Mines, 46, who wears wire-rimmed glasses and has a talkative manner, was working at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest when he answered a call this summer for diplomats to work for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA. Arriving in Iraq in August, he assumed he would be pulling a six-month stint as a policy planner in the marble-walled, heavily fortified Baghdad palace that serves as the authority`s headquarters.

After a few days, the assignment changed. "They said, `We need you to go to Ramadi,` " he recalled. "It wasn`t what I was expecting."

Ramadi`s residents are almost all Sunnis -- a once privileged but now resentful constituency whose acquiescence has become a top goal for U.S. strategists trying to construct a viable provisional government. Motivated by lingering loyalty to Hussein and angry over their loss of influence, Sunnis have been responsible for the vast majority of attacks on U.S. forces that have destabilized the occupation.

Built along the Euphrates River about 60 miles west of Baghdad, Ramadi is a city of boxy concrete buildings surrounded by date groves, farmland and barren desert. Home to scores of Baathists, it is rated by the U.S. military as one of the most dangerous places for Americans in Iraq. U.S. troops in the city are regularly the target of roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

In other places where he was posted, Mines said his best diplomatic work occurred outside his office. But in Ramadi, getting out has been difficult, if not impossible.

Security rules require him to live on a large U.S. military base and to drive with an Army escort. A head taller than most Iraqis and unmistakably Caucasian, he avoids walking around the city. On the rare occasions when he wants to travel without soldiers in tow, he tucks himself into the back of a taxi with tinted windows driven by an Iraqi man he trusts.

"I miss not being able to talk to people in the market," he said. "I want to ask them, `What do you think of us?` You can`t go bopping around. It`s very limiting."

In an attempt to draw Iraqis to him, one of his first decisions upon arriving in Ramadi was to renovate a two-room suite in the governor`s office that he shares with a team of Army civil affairs specialists. The office, located a few miles from the base, had been trashed by looters. He turned it into a welcoming salon.

The second-floor suite now has a brown sofa, plastic lawn furniture and more visitors than it can accommodate, from angry former soldiers seeking compensation from the U.S. military to sheiks inquiring whether they have won contracts. Mines, who eschews traditional American reconstruction garb -- the khaki vest and combat boots -- for a suit and tie, spends more time listening to grievances than barking orders. On a recent morning, he sat on the sofa and met with a man who launched into a lengthy story about how his son was detained by U.S. soldiers after mistakenly colliding with a military truck. His hands clasped and his gaze intense, Mines heard the man out and then promised to look into the matter.

But as he reclined on the sofa after the meeting and observed other interactions in the room, with Iraqis showing deference to uniformed soldiers, Mines acknowledged that he was dealing with a selective group. The young men in the nearby market who praise the insurgents were not there. Nor were religious leaders who view the occupation as illegitimate.

"I know I`m only getting a narrow slice," he said. "There`s a lot we miss. There`s no question."

Security restrictions also have kept American contractors from working in Anbar Province. Bechtel Corp. is not rebuilding schools here as it is elsewhere. The Research Triangle Institute is not leading democracy-building workshops here.

The lack of reconstruction activities has hindered American efforts to reach out to Sunnis, Mines said. "We keep telling them we`re here to help," he said, "but it`s tough when they don`t see the same work going on here that`s happening elsewhere in Iraq."

Mines tackles his job with a degree of candor and creativity unusual within the politicized bureaucracy of the CPA. He said U.S. forces lacked "ground truth" on the dynamics of the resistance. More insurgent activity is driven by simple anger at the occupation -- instead of Baathist loyalty -- "than we`d like to admit," he added.

At a recent meeting between CPA staffers and Iraqi political leader Ahmed Chalabi, who favors taking a hard line against former Baathists working in the government, Mines was the only person in the room to suggest more emphasis needed to be placed on reconciliation, according to people who attended the session.

Mines said he believed that finding a way to allow some former Baathists to return to work was a key component of promoting stability in Anbar, where thousands of people belonged to the party.

"We need to get the Sunnis involved," he said. "If not, we`ll never end the violence."

Bridge to the Community


Mines recently decided the first step toward building more support for Anbar`s government would be to form a new provincial council. He concluded that the current 51-member council, established by the military in July, had too many members from Ramadi and not enough from the rest of Anbar, a province the size of Wyoming that stretches from Baghdad`s western fringe to Iraq`s border with Syria and Jordan.

His initial hope, he recalled, was that political parties, trade unions and civic organizations would take an active role in governance, as they have in Baghdad and parts of southern Iraq where rival Shiite Muslims are in the majority. But his hope was unfulfilled. In the south, parties blossomed from underground Shiite movements that opposed the Sunni-dominated Baath Party. But in Anbar, most parties are recent creations, started either by exiles or by aspiring local politicians. Few Sunnis have rushed to join.

"People have a very bad feeling about parties after the Baath Party," said Abdul Karim Burgis, Anbar`s governor.

Faced with no other option, Mines said he had been forced to turn to the same coterie of elderly men upon which Hussein -- and Iraqi leaders before him -- relied: tribal sheiks.

Of the 40 seats on the new provincial council, Mines said he intended to reserve 10 for tribal leaders; the other 30 would be chosen through town meetings across Anbar. In another move to win over the sheiks, he also plans to form a separate tribal council that will advise the provincial council and the governor.

Iraq`s tribal chieftains are defined by opportunism as much as tradition. Many of Anbar`s leading sheiks accepted cars, money and other favors from Hussein in return for their loyalty. Many of them have chosen to support the Americans now, Mines said, simply because they want American reconstruction contracts.

"I don`t have a lot of other options," Mines said. "The sheiks are a valuable bridge into the community."

A key uncertainty in the gamble Mines has taken is whether or not the sheiks will deliver. Thus far, the sheiks have not lessened the resistance, prompting questions about whether tribal leaders are doing enough to bring their followers in line. But sheiks in Ramadi insist their power only goes so far. "We try, but we cannot control every one of our members," said Bazia Gaoud, the stout leader of the Bunimir tribe.

Mines regards the sheiks as helpful interlocutors but not all-powerful American agents. "It`s the traditional Bedouin democracy," he said. "They`re actively dealing with us on behalf of their constituents."

Being `Iraqicized`


"A sheik has no power without contracts," Mahenna said as he puffed on a cigarette. "If I do not provide for my people, they will not cooperate with me."

When Mahenna, who leads the Bu-Alwan tribe, heard that Mines was looking for a contractor to tear down the Baath Party headquarters and build a park dedicated to peace, the sheik swung into action. He had his construction company -- one of several businesses he owns -- draw up four sealed bids for Mines, ranging from $75,000 to $120,000.

As he handed over envelopes, Mines recalled him saying, "I hope you`ll be fair to me."

When Mines opened the bids, he was floored. Other contractors in Ramadi had offered to do the job for around $20,000, he said.

"It was just way out of the ballpark," he said.

But Mines was reluctant to spurn Mahenna, a suave man with a physics degree and extensive political connections in Anbar. So Mines, who has the authority to issue contracts up to $100,000 without higher approval, made an exception. Instead of choosing the lowest bidder, he called in Mahenna and began to negotiate. He finally bargained him down to $35,000.

"When we have a tribal issue at stake, we do a controlled bidding process to make sure the contract goes to the right person," he said.

His decision pleased the American military commander in charge of patrolling Ramadi. "Keith has had a real eye-opener," said Lt. Col. Hector Mirabile of the 1st Battalion of the Florida National Guard`s 124th Infantry Regiment. "He came in with this American methodology of awarding contracts with a fair and impartial process. But when you have sheiks running the show, everyone wants their money."

Mirabile, a major in the Miami police force, said Mines had "become the consummate politician" since arriving in Ramadi. "He`s been Iraqicized."

`Big Contracts Are Coming`


Mines formally awarded the contract to Mahenna on Thursday at a small ceremony in the reception room Mines built. Twenty-two other contracts also were handed out -- totaling nearly $1 million.

After the event was over, Mahenna sulked. "This is not enough money for me," he said. "I was good to the coalition forces, but they didn`t treat me in a special way. Keith must do more to reward the people who are helping him."

A few minutes later, as Mines walked downstairs, Mahenna followed, his red-and-white headdress flapping.

"Thirty-five thousand is nothing," Mahenna told Mines, in an openly complaining tone. "What am I going to tell my people?"

"You`re going to tell them we have a park," Mines responded.

"It`s not enough," Mahenna protested.

"The big contracts are coming," Mines said. "We`re just getting started."

With that, Mahenna pulled out three envelopes from his leather folder. Inside were bids for other contracts. "These I want for me," he said, thrusting the envelopes at Mines.

Then Mahenna got in his Mercedes and drove away.

"Dealing with the sheiks isn`t easy," Mines said as he watched the car pull out of the parking lot. "But we don`t have another choice."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mininuke…


Observers Fault U.S. for Pursuing Mini-Nukes
Critics say American `double standard` will undermine efforts to curb nuclear arms.
By Douglas Frantz
Times Staff Writer

December 23, 2003

VIENNA — Research on a new generation of precision atomic weapons by the Bush administration threatens to undermine international efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms and to tarnish recent successes, according to diplomats and nonproliferation experts.

The criticism focuses on the administration`s decision to lay the groundwork for developing low-yield weapons — known as mini-nukes — while pursuing President Bush`s doctrine of preemptive strikes against rogue states.

The diplomats and independent experts said Washington`s strategy weakens support for more stringent controls at a time when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty faces serious challenges from North Korea and Iran and amid widespread fears of terrorists acquiring atomic weapons. The U.S. strategy, critics say, may cause other countries to pursue nuclear arms.

"The U.S. follows a double standard that allows it to develop and threaten to use nuclear weapons while denying them to smaller countries," said Hussein Haniff, Malaysia`s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. "We do not know whether the nuclear nonproliferation treaty can survive with these U.S. policies."

Haniff heads a group of 13 countries that constitute a nonaligned bloc on the IAEA`s 35-nation Board of Governors. The bloc is often at odds with the United States and last month opposed U.S. efforts to declare Iran in violation of the nonproliferation treaty.

The Bush administration argues that mini-nukes would provide flexibility to respond to changing threats and small-scale conflicts that do not require full-size nuclear armaments.

Nonetheless, some U.S. allies are alarmed. A senior Western diplomat called the prospect of mini-nukes "politically stupid" and said it would complicate U.S. security by weakening support for tougher nuclear controls.

Anger over the U.S. policy has risen steadily since the spring when the administration requested funding for research on mini-nukes, in effect seeking a reversal of a 1993 ban on research and development of low-yield atomic weapons. After much wrangling, Congress approved the bill last month, granting $7.5 million, half of what the administration had sought.

The weapons would be designed to penetrate underground bunkers presumed to conceal weapons of mass destruction or command centers. Pentagon planners say the low yield would limit nuclear fallout, a claim some scientists dispute.

Administration officials have said the research into mini-nukes was insignificant compared with its larger arms control effort, which would cut the U.S. nuclear stockpile by two-thirds by 2012.

"If you look at reality, and not just a sound bite, we are not ramping up our nuclear arsenal, we are ramping down," a senior administration official in Washington said.

Officials said the administration`s multi-pronged strategy helped persuade Libya to give up its nuclear, chemical and biological programs.

"The administration`s tough stance on Iraq, its national security strategy and President Bush`s firm speeches against terror all got Tripoli`s attention," a U.S. official said Monday.

Libya`s surprise decision, which followed months of talks with the U.S. and Britain, may have been motivated by outside factors, and did not necessarily reflect a bow to American threats, foreign officials said.

"It`s hard to tell what the reasons were just yet, but the Libyans told me that the programs had become too expensive and that world conditions had changed," said a Western diplomat in Vienna.

The Libyan decision did not put to rest questions about the U.S. strategy. Some experts said the research on mini-nukes violated U.S. legal obligations to disarm and blurred the line between conventional warfare and nuclear conflict.

"Preemptive strikes linked to the development of new nuclear weapons sends a threatening message to nonnuclear states," said Jean du Preez, a former South African diplomat who is an analyst at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. "Even some nuclear states, including India and Pakistan, may decide, well, why not do the same."

The debate over the U.S. posture comes as anxiety over the spread of atomic weapons is rising after the nuclear standoff with North Korea and the disclosure of Iran`s uranium-enrichment program and Libya`s progress.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program exists solely to generate electricity.

"I would not be surprised if we see more countries acquire nuclear weapons," Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of theIAEA, said recently at the agency`s headquarters in Vienna.

ElBaradei did not suggest which countries might try to do so, but diplomats said Algeria, Sudan and Syria were on the list and the number would grow sharply if North Korea or Iran obtained weapons.

Technology that was once the preserve of the five original nuclear weapons states — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — is now available worldwide. Export controls have eroded and technical barriers have fallen.

At the same time, detecting the early phases of a weapons program remains virtually impossible. U.S. officials who visited Libyan nuclear facilities after Tripoli`s decision said the weapons work was far more advanced than they had suspected.

ElBaradei said on Monday that Libya had tried to use centrifuges to enrich uranium for over a decade, but that it had not produced weapons-grade material.

The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, was developed in 1968 and went into force in 1970. It was drafted to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and bind the five existing nuclear powers to reducing their arsenals to zero.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, set up under United Nations auspices in 1957 to promote peaceful nuclear energy, was given responsibility for monitoring compliance. So far, 183 countries have accepted the treaty.

Most nonproliferation experts applaud the treaty. President Kennedy`s famous 1963 prediction that between 15 to 20 countries would be armed with nuclear weapons in a decade did not come true; only eight countries are known to have atomic arsenals. South Africa willingly gave up its weapons and other countries abandoned weapons programs or surrendered inherited weapons.

On the negative side, three nations with nuclear weapons — India, Israel and Pakistan — refuse to sign the nonproliferation treaty. Pakistan is suspected of supporting weapons programs in Iran and North Korea. Intelligence experts are divided on whether North Korea yet has atomic bombs.

Developments in Iran and North Korea in the last year highlighted other major treaty shortcomings.

The biggest flaw is that the treaty grants countries the "inalienable right" to acquire the technology to develop nuclear fuel. The provision was essential to convince countries without nuclear arms to forgo any aspirations in return for access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The problem is that fuel, whether enriched uranium or plutonium, is the most critical ingredient in nuclear weapons and the hardest to obtain. But the same technologies used to manufacture fuel for reactors can, with minor changes, be used for weapons. So countries with fuel cycles can move to within a short step of weapons while appearing to comply with the treaty.

This is precisely what the U.S. has accused Iran of doing. Washington said Tehran used the cover of a civilian program to develop the ability to enrich uranium for weapons, an accusation that Iran denies.

Responding to international pressure, Iran disclosed details of its nuclear program and opened its doors to tougher inspections last month. On Thursday, it signed an agreement to permit more intrusive inspections by the IAEA.

The nuclear nonproliferation treaty allows inspectors to visit declared nuclear sites. But an additional protocol permits them to examine other suspicious locations after telling the country which installations they want to inspect.

Diplomats said the protocol is an important step forward, but it is not a panacea and acceptance has been slow. Iran was the 79th country to sign the pact, but only 38 have ratified it. The U.S. signed it but has not ratified it.

"The treaty and the protocol only buy time," said a diplomat in Vienna. "They don`t stop anyone determined to build a nuclear bomb."

To close the gap, ElBaradei recently proposed controls to restrict access to the nuclear fuel cycle. The approach envisions multinational control over the sensitive aspects of fuel development, coupled with guarantees to countries that they could buy fuel for civilian uses.

The Bush administration has acknowledged the problem ElBaradei`s proposal aims to address.

"We must seriously limit enrichment and reprocessing capabilities while allowing access to appropriate reactor fuels," Mitchell B. Reiss, director of policy planning at the State Department, said in a speech this month.

But other countries, including Iran, expressed strong reservations about giving up the right to indigenous fuel sources and diplomats said it was unlikely to happen without a major diplomatic fight.

Another treaty shortcoming often pointed out is the absence of set penalties for violating or withdrawing from the agreement while under suspicion of developing a weapons program.

The agency`s Board of Governors can refer violators to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, but both bodies are political arenas where compromise often trumps punishment. The U.S. is angry that the IAEA failed last month to refer Iran`s concealment of nuclear activities to the council.

North Korea is considered a more pressing nuclear threat — and a more glaring example of the treaty`s lack of teeth.

Early this year, North Korea became the first nation to withdraw from the treaty, a step that followed years of it being declared in noncompliance. Still, the U.N. has not punished North Korea.

"It`s always a case-by-case basis and the Security Council is helpless to act," said a European diplomat who advocated that the U.N. adopt a set of escalating sanctions for violators.

The debate over strengthening the nonproliferation regime will heat up in preparation for a treaty review in the spring of 2005. The Bush administration`s push for new controls, however, may be stymied by the anger generated by its policies.

While the administration takes credit for pressuring Libya to relinquish its weapons programs, Tripoli`s voluntary action probably will present an obstacle in U.S. efforts in the coming months to persuade other countries to support tighter nuclear controls.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said over the weekend that Israel should now give up its nuclear arsenal. On Monday, the IAEA`s ElBaradei praised Libya`s decision and repeated his call for eliminating nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

Washington has long refused to pressure Israel over its ample nuclear stockpile, a position many countries regard as a double standard when it comes to who can possess nuclear weapons — the same concerns diplomats said have been reinforced by the mini-nukes prospect.

"Bush`s posture makes the job of selling nonproliferation more difficult," said a senior Western diplomat in Vienna. "If nuclear weapons are necessary for the sole surviving superpower, what hope does Iran or any number of other countries have without them?"


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153581_libya23.html

Libya a diplomacy achievement
Tuesday, December 23, 2003

THE INDEPENDENT
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY

The sudden decision by Col. Moammar Gadhafi to come clean about Libya`s weapons ambitions and submit his country`s nuclear and chemical facilities to international inspection is thoroughly welcome. Assuming that he fulfills the promises made in the formal statement issued in Libya`s name at the weekend, we can look forward to a time when there is one less threat in this volatile part of the world and one more law-abiding member of the international community.

That Britain can claim a major part in the negotiations that brought about this reassuring turn of events is a bonus. The killing of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher in 1984, Britain`s assistance to President Reagan`s punitive raid on Libya in 1986 and the Lockerbie bombing 15 years ago have made for fraught bilateral relations over two decades. It is to be hoped that the thaw, and Britain`s role as mediator, continue.

While a prodigal`s return should always be an occasion for rejoicing, however, we should not allow the din of transatlantic exultation to drown out some valid questions about this unexpected U.S.-British-Libyan rapprochement. We should be especially wary of false parallels and comparisons with Iraq.

The timing of the announcements from London, Tripoli and Washington -- late in the evening on the Friday before Christmas -- and the sense of high drama that was generated, with details instantly available about Libya`s hitherto undisclosed weapons capability, raises suspicions that Libya`s conversion to weapons transparency may not have been the only item on the agenda of the British and U.S. governments. Perhaps it was just coincidence that Washington had effectively abandoned the hunt for Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) less than 24 hours before, when the head of the inspection team said he was resigning. It was nonetheless highly convenient that WMD should pop up neatly on cue somewhere else. The particular threat from Iraq might be over or might never have existed, but -- we were encouraged to believe -- the general threat remains as deadly as ever.

If the manner and timing of the announcements was suspect, the rush by British officials to claim that Libya`s conversion was a beneficial product of the war in Iraq looks plain scurrilous. Libya broached the possibility of negotiations with the United States and Britain before the war in Iraq. If the comparison between Iraq and Libya proves anything, it is that discreet and patient talks yield positive results, whereas megaphone diplomacy followed by military action brings only death and destruction. If the treatment of either country is to be a model for future action, it should be the secret talks with Libya, not the war in Iraq.

There are lessons from Iraq that we can usefully apply to Libya, but they relate more to the definition and detection of WMD than to the war. If Libya was indeed as close to acquiring a nuclear and chemical weapons capability as officials and some experts now maintain, then we should ask why this was kept so quiet, when Iraq`s so far unproven capability was trumpeted as such a threat. If the extent of Libya`s capability was not known, then we need to ask, yet again, about the effectiveness of Western intelligence.

Most of all, however, we need an authoritative, expert assessment of what Libya really has, shorn of emotive jargon and deceptive inexactitude. Prime Minister Tony Blair`s statement on Friday exhibited a worrying return to the scaremongering language of WMD that misled Parliament and the country so fatefully before the war with Iraq. As then, his statement was tempered with words such as "capabilities" and "programs," just to be on the safe side.

From now on, Libya`s return to international respectability needs to be guided and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Authority and the United Nations. It should not depend on the countries that invaded Iraq and are still looking to justify what they did.



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The Independent is published in Great Britain.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153589_thomas23.html

Cheney should check his own `facts`
Tuesday, December 23, 2003

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Look who`s talking. Vice President Dick Cheney is accusing the press of "cheap-shot journalism" in covering the Bush administration, claiming "people don`t check the facts."

Cheney is miffed over a raft of stories about his ties to Halliburton Co., a Houston-based energy conglomerate, which is a major recipient of U.S. contracts to rebuild Iraqi.

While he`s lecturing about accuracy, Cheney should do some fact-checking of his own statements about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction. The vice president`s pre-war chant about such weapons helped lead the nation into war.

Now, despite an intense hunt for that arsenal since the U.S. military took over Iraq last spring, the vice president is having difficulty accepting the reality that those weapons were a fantasy of the administration`s pro-war hawks.

It appears that even David Kay, who heads the U.S. weapons hunters scouring Iraq, is about to throw in the towel.

Cheney gave his press critique in an interview with conservative commentator Armstrong Williams.

The vice president conceded that a free press is "a vital part of society" but he added: "On occasion, it drives me nuts." What drives him nuts, he continued, is "when I see stories that are fundamentally inaccurate."

"It`s the hypocrisy that sometimes arises when some in the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective," he said.

"Not everybody is guilty," he said, "but it happens."

Let`s see what the vice president is upset about. Well, for one thing, the news media keep pointing out that Cheney had served for five years as CEO of Halliburton, which has received $5 billion in government contracts -- many of the no-bid variety -- for Iraqi reconstruction.

Cheney still has financial ties to Halliburton, despite his denials. He continues to receive deferred compensation from the company, including payments of about $150,000 in 2001 and $160,000 in 2002. Additional payments are forthcoming.

In addition, the vice president has some 433,000 shares of unexercised Halliburton stock options, due to expire between 2007 and late 2009. Cheney has said he will donate the options to charities. But the options will have value only if Halliburton`s stock price improves.

This is the same Halliburton that has been accused by a Pentagon audit of overbilling the U.S. military by $61 million for gasoline.

"There are a lot of people in the press who don`t understand the business community," Cheney said.

He scoffed that only the administration`s political opponents have accused Halliburton of "favoritism" in getting those contracts.

"There is no evidence to support anything like that," Cheney said, "but if you repeat it often enough, it becomes a sort of article of faith." Cheney could have been explaining his repetitious line to the American public about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction. If you repeat it enough, it becomes accepted truth.

In August 2002, Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction, no doubt that he is massing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

In the same speech, he warned that Saddam, "armed with an arsenal of weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 percent of the world`s oil reserves ... could subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

Last March 16, the vice president said on NBC-TV`s "Meet the Press" that "we believe (Saddam) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Cheney later tried to slide off that statement. He did "misspeak," he said, and that what he really meant to say was that Iraq had "weapons capability," rather than actual weapons.

The vice president`s salute to a free press is undercut by his intensive campaign to keep secret the names of those he consulted with when he was designing the administration`s energy policy. This information should be in the public domain.

Conservation groups have complained that their views on energy were largely ignored.

Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have sued for access to that information. A federal court ruled in favor of discovery and the court of appeals agreed. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal.

Maybe Cheney has forgotten that he no longer works for a private corporation and that, instead, he is a public servant, doing the public`s business that should be conducted in the daylight.

Since he took office as vice president, Cheney has operated in the shadows, being very careful not to leave fingerprints.

He has little accountability and zero credibility when it comes to Iraq. He limits his public speeches to conservative groups and Republican fund raisers. When the administration is pushing its war theme, he is farmed out to the televised Sunday talk shows to repeat his now discredited arguments for war.

And so we catch occasional glimpses of the person many people believe is the real power in the White House.

But when it comes to Cheney`s advice to the media, the vice president would be well advised to follow his own recommendations.

We check our facts, Mr. Vice President. You should, too.



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Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Tuesday, December 23, 2003
War News for December 23, 2003

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi judge assassinated in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: US soldier killed by roadside bomb ambush near Balad.

Bring ‘em on: Explosions reported in central Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Four US soldiers wounded in ambush near Ramadi.

Bring `em on: US soldier wounded in drive-by shooting in Mosul.

Bring `em on: US troops under mortar fire near Samarra.

Bring `em on: US patrol ambushed near Samarra. (Last paragraph.)

Bring `em on: Thai soldier wounded by land mine near Karbala.

Iraqi students riot over presence of US troops in Diyalah.

Tale of Saddam’s capture more fiction than fact. "`Time` also quotes a U.S. intelligence official as saying some officials suspect the `President Bush sends his regards` incident is `apocryphal,` or fictitious." Is there anything the Bushies won`t lie about?

Halliburton claims political pressure forced them to gouge the US Army. Doesn’t the Bush family have extensive oil investments in Kuwait?

Polish soldier killed by accidental weapons discharge near Karbala.

Dangers for Iraqi police.

More “Support the Troops” hypocrisy from Rummy. “The Pentagon is considering closing some or all of the more than 50 schools it operates on military bases in the United States — a move that could mean major changes at Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, which have military high schools.” Hey, we all gotta pay for Lieutenant AWOL’s tax cuts!

Bush’s Confederacy of Cons. “Most analysts have identified three main components to the coalition behind President George W Bush`s aggressive foreign policy: right-wing militarists, of whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is the exemplar; neo-conservatives, led by former Defense Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard Perle, whose world view is similar to that of Israel`s Likud Party; and Christian Right forces whose leaders are influential with Bush`s political guru, Karl Rove.”

Wounded soldiers at Walter Reed.

Insurgency report. “In the heart of the ‘Sunni Triangle’, Saddam`s capture last week by the Americans has done little to dampen the will to fight among fellow Sunni Muslims, angered by foreign occupation and at losing their once dominant minority position in society.”

General Zinni tears a piece off Lieutenant AWOL and the Chickenhawk Commandos. "The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn`t understand. `The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn`t understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground.`" Read the comments of this Marine officer and former CENTCOM commander, and you`ll realize how much trouble these conservative fools have caused for America.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Montana soldiers wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Massachusetts soldier dies in Iraq.

Local story: New York soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Minnesota soldier wounded in Iraq.

Off Topic

Merry Christmas, Lard-Ass.








# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:02 AM

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
For Vietnam Vet Anthony Zinni, Another War on Shaky Territory


By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page C01


Anthony C. Zinni`s opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq began on the monsoon-ridden afternoon of Nov. 3, 1970. He was lying on a Vietnamese mountainside west of Da Nang, three rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle in his side and back. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the ground as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

He had plenty of time to think in the following months while recuperating in a military hospital in Hawaii. Among other things, he promised himself that, "If I`m ever in a position to say what I think is right, I will. . . . I don`t care what happens to my career."

That time has arrived.

Over the past year, the retired Marine Corps general has become one of the most prominent opponents of Bush administration policy on Iraq, which he now fears is drifting toward disaster.

It is one of the more unusual political journeys to come out of the American experience with Iraq. Zinni still talks like an old-school Marine -- a big-shouldered, weight-lifting, working-class Philadelphian whose father emigrated from Italy`s Abruzzi region, and who is fond of quoting the wisdom of his fictitious "Uncle Guido, the plumber." Yet he finds himself in the unaccustomed role of rallying the antiwar camp, attacking the policies of the president and commander in chief whom he had endorsed in the 2000 election.

"Iraq is in serious danger of coming apart because of lack of planning, underestimating the task and buying into a flawed strategy," he says. "The longer we stubbornly resist admitting the mistakes and not altering our approach, the harder it will be to pull this chestnut out of the fire."

Three years ago, Zinni completed a tour as chief of the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East, during which he oversaw enforcement of the two "no-fly" zones in Iraq and also conducted four days of punishing airstrikes against that country in 1998. He even served briefly as a special envoy to the Middle East, mainly as a favor to his old friend and comrade Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Zinni long has worried that there are worse outcomes possible in Iraq than having Saddam Hussein in power -- such as eliminating him in such a way that Iraq will become a new haven for terrorism in the Middle East.

"I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn`t done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now," he told reporters in 1998. "I don`t think these questions have been thought through or answered." It was a warning for which Iraq hawks such as Paul D. Wolfowitz, then an academic and now the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, attacked him in print at the time.

Now, five years later, Zinni fears it is an outcome toward which U.S.-occupied Iraq may be drifting. Nor does he think the capture of Hussein is likely to make much difference, beyond boosting U.S. troop morale and providing closure for his victims. "Since we`ve failed thus far to capitalize" on opportunities in Iraq, he says, "I don`t have confidence we will do it now. I believe the only way it will work now is for the Iraqis themselves to somehow take charge and turn things around. Our policy, strategy, tactics, et cetera, are still screwed up."

`Where`s the Threat?`


Anthony Zinni`s passage from obedient general to outspoken opponent began in earnest in the unlikeliest of locations, the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was there in Nashville in August 2002 to receive the group`s Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award, recognition for his 35 years in the Marine Corps.

Vice President Cheney was also there, delivering a speech on foreign policy. Sitting on the stage behind the vice president, Zinni grew increasingly puzzled. He had endorsed Bush and Cheney two years earlier, just after he retired from his last military post, as chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq.

"I think he ran on a moderate ticket, and that`s my leaning -- I`m kind of a Lugar-Hagel-Powell guy," he says, listing three Republicans associated with centrist foreign policy positions.

He was alarmed that day to hear Cheney make the argument for attacking Iraq on grounds that Zinni found questionable at best:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Cheney`s certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S. intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts` doubts about Iraq`s programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never -- not once -- did it say, `He has WMD.` "

Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I`d say to analysts, `Where`s the threat?` " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."

Zinni`s concern deepened as Cheney pressed on that day at the Opryland Hotel. "Time is not on our side," the vice president said. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action."

Zinni`s conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don`t understand what they are getting into."

Unheeded Advice


This retired Marine commander is hardly a late-life convert to pacifism. "I`m not saying there aren`t parts of the world that don`t need their ass kicked," he says, sitting in a hotel lobby in Pentagon City, wearing an open-necked blue shirt. Even at the age of 60, he remains an avid weight-lifter and is still a solid, square-faced slab of a man. "Afghanistan was the right thing to do," he adds, referring to the U.S. invasion there in 2001 to oust the Taliban regime and its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist organization.

But he didn`t see any need to invade Iraq. He didn`t think Hussein was much of a worry anymore. "He was contained," he says. "It was a pain in the ass, but he was contained. He had a deteriorated military. He wasn`t a threat to the region."

But didn`t his old friend Colin Powell also describe Hussein as a threat? Zinni dismisses that. "He`s trying to be the good soldier, and I respect him for that." Zinni no longer does any work for the State Department.

Zinni`s concern deepened at a Senate hearing in February, just six weeks before the war began. As he awaited his turn to testify, he listened to Pentagon and State Department officials talk vaguely about the "uncertainties" of a postwar Iraq. He began to think they were doing the wrong thing the wrong way. "I was listening to the panel, and I realized, `These guys don`t have a clue.` "

That wasn`t a casual judgment. Zinni had started thinking about how the United States might handle Iraq if Hussein`s government collapsed after Operation Desert Fox, the four days of airstrikes that he oversaw in December 1998, in which he targeted presidential palaces, Baath Party headquarters, intelligence facilities, military command posts and barracks, and factories that might build missiles that could deliver weapons of mass destruction.

In the wake of those attacks on about 100 major targets, intelligence reports came in that Hussein`s government had been shaken by the short campaign. "After the strike, we heard from countries with diplomatic missions in there [Baghdad] that the regime was paralyzed, and that there was a kind of defiance in the streets," he recalls.

So early in 1999 he ordered that plans be devised for the possibility of the U.S. military having to occupy Iraq. Under the code name "Desert Crossing," the resulting document called for a nationwide civilian occupation authority, with offices in each of Iraq`s 18 provinces. That plan contrasts sharply, he notes, with the reality of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation power, which for months this year had almost no presence outside Baghdad -- an absence that some Army generals say has increased their burden in Iraq.

Listening to the administration officials testify that day, Zinni began to suspect that his careful plans had been disregarded. Concerned, he later called a general at Central Command`s headquarters in Tampa and asked, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The answer, he recalls, was, "What`s that?"

The more he listened to Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist "neoconservative" ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn`t understand. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn`t understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."

And the more he dwelled on this, the more he began to believe that U.S. soldiers would wind up paying for the mistakes of Washington policymakers. And that took him back to that bloody day in the sodden Que Son mountains in Vietnam.

A Familiar Chill


Even now, decades later, Vietnam remains a painful subject for him. "I only went to the Wall once, and it was very difficult," he says, talking about his sole visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall. "I was walking down past the names of my men," he recalls. "My buddies, my troops -- just walking down that Wall was hard, and I couldn`t go back."

Now he feels his nation -- and a new generation of his soldiers -- have been led down a similar path.

"Obviously there are differences" between Vietnam and Iraq, he says. "Every situation is unique." But in his bones, he feels the same chill. "It feels the same. I hear the same things -- about [administration charges about] not telling the good news, about cooking up a rationale for getting into the war." He sees both conflicts as beginning with deception by the U.S. government, drawing a parallel between how the Johnson administration handled the beginning of the Vietnam War and how the Bush administration touted the threat presented by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. Referring to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the Johnson administration claimed that U.S. Navy ships had been subjected to an unprovoked attack by North Vietnam, he says, "The Gulf of Tonkin and the case for WMD and terrorism is synonymous in my mind."

Likewise, he says, the goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the "domino theory" in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands.

And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. "I don`t know where the neocons came from -- that wasn`t the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president."

He is especially irked that, as he sees it, no senior officials have taken responsibility for their incorrect assessment of the threat posed by Iraq. "What I don`t understand is that the bill of goods the neocons sold him has been proven false, yet heads haven`t rolled," he says. "Where is the accountability? I think some fairly senior people at the Pentagon ought to go." Who? "That`s up to the president."

Zinni has picked his shots carefully -- a speech here, a "Nightline" segment or interview there. "My contemporaries, our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice," he said at a talk to hundreds of Marine and Navy officers and others at a Crystal City hotel ballroom in September. "I ask you, is it happening again?" The speech, part of a forum sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association, received prolonged applause, with many officers standing.

Zinni says that he hasn`t received a single negative response from military people about the stance he has taken. "I was surprised by the number of uniformed guys, all ranks, who said, `You`re speaking for us. Keep on keeping on.` "

Even home in Williamsburg, he has been surprised at the reaction. "I mean, I live in a very conservative Republican community, and people were saying, `You`re right.` "

But Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I`m not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time."

Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this article.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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`Old Europe` -- Phrase of the Year
Mon December 22, 2003 10:07 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - "Old Europe" -- a term Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used to disparage Germany and France for resisting war in Iraq -- was named phrase of the year in Germany by a panel of language experts.
The Wiesbaden-based Society for the German Language made "das alte Europe" its choice in the annual poll for the expression of the year after Rumsfeld`s phrase became a popular rallying cry used proudly by opponents of the war.

"The term `old Europe` was originally used as a provocation, but its meaning underwent a transformation and now stands for a new-found symbol for positive self-confidence among Europeans," Rudolf Hoberg, chairman of the language society, said Friday.

"It`s an extremely interesting term because it took on new meanings across borders," he added.

Last year the society picked "teuro" as its word of the year -- a combination of the German word for "expensive" and "euro." And the word of the year in 2001 was "Der 11. September" -- the German version of 9/11.

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Wer richtigen US-Kitsch liebt, hier ist ein herrliches Beispiel. Viel Vergnügen!


http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=0279309843


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Published on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 by MediaChannel.org
Revealed -- Saddam`s Network or a PSYOPS Campaign?
by Sam Gardiner

We are seeing an orchestrated media campaign by the administration and a psychological operation aimed at the insurgents in Iraq. The success of this campaign can be measured by recent articles in The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor.

Looking at the nearly 100 other press reports in the five days since Saddam`s capture, one theme is clear: Saddam Hussein was captured, and the United States is on the verge of breaking the Iraqi insurgency.

But is it really?

As a former instructor at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College, I am familiar with the pattern of using the press to conduct psychological operations against internal audiences in Iraq. The technique is straightforward: plant stories or persuade media outlets to slant the news in a way that debilitates your enemy. And so far, media reports on the intelligence significance of Saddam`s capture have followed that pattern to the letter.

President Bush`s interview with ABC News on December 16 heralded the debut of the military`s post-capture media strategy. In it, Bush stated that he believed that the arrest of Saddam Hussein "will encourage more Iraqis to step up." The capture was styled as a major event, a turning point.

The groundwork for this media and psychological operations had already been laid that day when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US military commander in Iraq, gave a press conference:

Question: General, how involved was Saddam Hussein in the insurgency? What have you been able to find out over the past 48 hours?

General Myers: I think there will be some intelligence that we get from the capture of Saddam Hussein. That will be analyzed and worked over time. And I think right now it`s inappropriate to speculate on what we might find in terms of his involvement. But, of course, there will be intelligence value to the fact that he is now in coalition hands.

Question: General, is he --

General Myers: Let me -- just a minute. Let me -- let me --

Question: -- is he inside the country at the moment? Can you tell us where Saddam is?

General Sanchez: Let me add my part to your question. As I`ve always stated, repeatedly, our expectation was that Saddam was probably involved in intent and in financing. And so far, that is still my belief. And more to follow from the interrogations. At this point, we have nothing further.

What we see here is General Myers giving the answer probably closer to the truth. He thinks there will be some intelligence that the US will get from the capture of Saddam Hussein. General Sanchez, however, interrupted his superior before General Myers could complete his answer.

Sanchez says the media and psyops theme: Saddam Hussein has been involved in the insurgency. Sanchez is very careful not to lie. He said "expectation" and "probably." He protects himself, but gets out the message.

Subsequent interviews with key players in the Saddam capture followed the same strategy: give the impression that there was some important intelligence, but without stating concretely that there was.

General Abizaid, the Commander of Central Command told media: "I don`t want to characterize it as a great intelligence windfall . . . But it`s clear that we have gained a greater understanding of how things work as a result of capturing him . . ."

Asked by reporters if US intelligence had found links between Saddam and the resistance, Colonel James Hickey, the brigade commander of the unit that found Saddam Hussein said: "There are links. There are so many links I don`t have time to go into them. My estimate is he was, but I don`t know for sure."

These remarks are a long way from stories published in The Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor on Dec. 17 and 18. Both stories reveal the windfall of a successful psychological operations thrust.

The December 17 Washington Post story was headlined "Hussein Document Exposes Network." The article described how a document found during the raid has enabled U.S. military authorities to assemble detailed knowledge of a key network behind as many as 14 insurgent cells.

On December 18, The Christian Science Monitor carried the finds to another level. Their article described how documents (now plural) revealed key details about guerrilla cells and appears to have allowed the U.S. to make quick progress rolling up "parts of the insurgency as a whole."

We`ve come full circle back to the president`s message.

Adding to the themes, unnamed officials are also giving interviews to the press. One such official told the AP "that the guerrillas displayed no signs of a strict command-and-control hierarchy in the conventional military sense, but said dozens of independent cells have received some guidance from above."

Is this the truth? For all the public statements hinting that such reports are fact, items found at Saddam`s hideout strongly suggest otherwise.

Saddam`s temporary shelter was a mess. The soldiers found dirty laundry, bare shelves, leftover rice in a pot, one can of 7-UP, two Mars candy bars, and stale bread. The place was littered with garbage. The toilet was a trench outside the hut. There are no reports of files, no reports of trunks with documents, and no pictures of documents. Importantly, no communication devices were found.

This was not a command center. It is hard to believe that it was anything more than what it appeared. It was one of the hiding places of an individual desperately on the run. This was not the center of an insurgency network. It is very hard to see how any guidance came from that hole.

The Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor have done a terrible job reporting this story. Why are so few real questions raised by reporters when they are confronted with the military`s media and psychological operations campaign? Why aren`t they helping us get to truth?

The author is a retired Air Force Colonel and has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College. He was recently a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defence College. During the Gulf War II, he was a regular guest on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, BBC radio and television and National Public Radio.

© MediaChannel.org, 2003. All rights reserved.

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Wolfie was wildly off the mark
by Ahmed Amr
(Tuesday 23 December 2003)
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/3250/
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"Given all these errors and their very suspect motives, why are Wolfowitz and his pals still on Uncle Sam’s payroll? Where did an Assistant Secretary of Defense get the resources to buy such huge quantities of Teflon from Rupert Murdoch and CNN? Did the neo-cons on the mass media side of the wafer thin political divide provide fellow travelers like Wolfie with free Teflon on demand?"


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Isn’t government work wonderful? No matter how badly you perform; your paycheck from Uncle Sam never gets lost in the mail. Just a brief review of the prophecies of the neo-con priesthood reveals a record that would send any private sector employee to the front of the unemployment line.

As Paul Wolfowitz would put it, the neo-con ‘experts’ are always wildly off the mark. If ever there was a Keystone Cops imitation act, this is it.

1. In the aftermath of 9/11, Wolfowitz, Perle and company dismissed the opportunity to build a universal international pro-American alliance against terrorism in favor of a unilateral ‘with us or against us’ policy. They also discounted the spontaneous and genuine sympathy that the whole world lavished on America and Americans. Yes, Virginia. There was a time when Le Monde ran headlines declaring that “We are all Americans”. One short year later, we were being urged to snack on ‘freedom fries’ and pour precious Bordeaux wine down the drain.

2. Wolfie’s gang insisted that our NATO allies would blindly accept the Bush administration’s decision to launch a preemptive war of choice and meekly sign up for a ‘coalition of the willing’. Instead, we ended up with France and Germany on the enemies list. Our neo-con lords responded to European resistance by urging us to pour more Champagne down the drain and feed French cheese to the geese.

3. Even if NATO didn’t join the actual invasion of Iraq, they predicted that our reluctant allies would make up for their ‘mistake’ by sending peace keeping troops after the war. Wrong again. So we were implored to smash more wine bottles against the wall.

4. The neo-con priesthood decided that France, Germany and Belgium could easily be relocated to a new continent called ‘Old Europe’ and replaced by Rumania and Bulgaria as stalwart allies. This snub threatened America’s longest standing most durable strategic alliance. Now, with a partial return of sanity, we are all ‘Old Europeans’.

5. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Wolfowitz actively agitated for an immediate invasion of Iraq, not Afghanistan. Because, in his estimate, Iraq was ‘doable’. So far, the casualties in Iraq are ten times the casualties in Afghanistan. And the Iraqi venture is ten times more expensive. Besides, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan can be considered finished business. This was no ordinary ‘error in judgement’. It clearly revealed his hidden agenda to do Israel’s bidding. Instead of going after Al-Qaida training bases and the Taliban, Wolfowitz wanted to do his Likudnik chores for Sharon. Why wasn’t he fired on the spot for this bizarre display of dual allegiance at a time when America was shaken to the core by the assault on the WTC and the Pentagon?

6. The neo-con wizards debunked the four star generals who knew that the occupation would require more troops. As a result, General Shinseki was retired and Richard Perle was promoted to senior troop deployment specialist at the Pentagon. Over night, Perle was elevated from chicken hawk to Field Marshal. Ain’t it grand to have friends in high places?

7. The neo-con cabal predicted that a ‘Shock and Awe campaign’ would decapitate the Iraqi leadership and lead to an instant disintegration of the Iraqi Army. Innocent Iraqi collateral damage would be minimal, as would American casualties. We still don’t have a clue about the Pentagon’s initial estimates of coalition casualties and they refuse to count dead Iraqis, civilians or military. It is fair to assume from the Balkan experience that they estimated American casualties to be in the single digits or slightly more. They certainly didn’t project hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded. In fact, they didn’t have the imagination to consider the ‘remote possibilty’ of a post-invasion insurgency. And they still don’t have the time to honor the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice or visit the wounded at Walter Reed. It seems that their schedule are just too busy to take the ‘Dover Test’. The fact that photo journalists are prohibited from attending the military ceremonies for the fallen is a clear indication that their estimates of losses were wildly off the mark.

8. Wolfowitz prematurely declared that Turkey, with proper financial incentives, would join the fray and open a northern front. Another bad Wolfie call.

9. When that didn’t work, the neo-cons were certain that Turkey would at least allow American troops to open a northern front from Turkish soil. After all, what are allies for? Some day we would return the favor by allowing the Turks to invade Vancouver by landing troops in Seattle. Quite a bit of political capital was expended on this effort. Massive economic incentives were dangled before the Turks. Wolfie was so certain that Ankra would give the nod, that he dispatched the troops and their gear off the coast of Turkey and waited for a definite ‘yes’. When Ankra refused his bribes, no one bothered to hold him accountable for this mission critical error in judgement. Battle plans had to be redrawn and troops had to be hastily deployed to Kuwait, all at great risk and expense.

10. When Wolfowitz didn’t get his way, he warned the Turks that they were making a big mistake. After the war, he went back to politely ask Ankara to send 10,000 troops as peacekeepers. Even the quisling Iraqi Governing Council opposed that notion. Just the same, Turkey was given billions of dollars in aid and loan guarantees for merely considering the idea. Apparently, the word had not yet reached Wolfowitz about the tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the Turkish army. The most recent Turkish scorched earth campaign cost some thirty thousand Kurdish lives. Next time Wolfie decides to play general, he should first consider purchasing some Cliff Notes on the history of the Turkish/Kurdish conflict.

11. Wolfie’s cabal also counted on at least a few Arab countries sending. Even Kuwait declined the invitation.

12. After the war, they approached a number of Arab and Islamic nations to send peacekeepers, as some did in Afghanistan. Again, no takers.

13. According to the neo-con oracles, international terrorism would decline. Back in the real world, devastating assaults were launched against Bali, Istanbul, Tunisia and Iraq. Nothing compared to the scale of the 9/11 terror attack. But still very destabilizing to the fragile political systems and marginal economies of these countries. To add further insult and injury to their economic woes, Washington and London responded by issuing travel alerts advising tourists and business travelers to avoid these destinations.

14. The war party set up a special intelligence operation, the Office of Special Plans, inside the Pentagon to ‘prove’ Iraqi links to Al Qaeda. They insisted that such links existed and cooked up suspect ‘intelligence’ about an alleged Prague meeting between Iraqi agents and Mohammed Atta. It was a flimsy lead that turned out to be a dud. But the OSP was then transformed into a rogue operation to cherry pick raw unfiltered intelligence finely tailored to fit the war party’s Likudnik agenda.

15. The war party assured us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ready to deliver to Bin Laden. Nine months later, the coalition is about to abandon the search for the non-existent WMDs and not a shred of evidence has emerged linking Iraq to Al Qaida.

16. Rumsfeld asserted that he ‘knew’ where the Chemical weapons where located. He knew no such thing. In Rummy’s idiom, he doesn’t remember that he didn’t know something that could not be knowable because WMDs were not available to be located even by those in the know.

17. Tony Blair said that the Iraqi army had already deployed non-existent chemical weapons ready to fire on 45 minutes notice. That’s why they call him ‘Tony Be a Liar’. Even if he really believed that Iraq had WMDs, he knew for certain that Saddam did not have the technology to use them as tactical battlefield weapons.

18. The war party predicted that Iraq was going to be a cakewalk followed by a parade of rice and roses. The liberation of Baghdad would be as sweet as the liberation of Paris. No vision. No concept of reality. Warped perception of time and place.

19. The Bush administration now admits that disbanding the Iraqi army was a mistake. Just another ‘policy’ error.

20. The neo-con cabal was certain that the United Nations would approve a resolution to make their preemptive war legal. When they didn’t get it, they regrouped and insisted that a resolution wasn’t necessary and that the United Nations was irrelevant. Richard Perle recently admitted that the war was illegal but that international legitimacy didn’t matter. If it didn’t matter, why did they bother?

21. While still working on the UN track, Wolfie’s minions insisted that the war was not about ‘regime change’. Now that ‘regime change’ has become the battle cry, onward to Burma.

22. Americans were assured that Iraqi oil would defray the cost of the occupation. Wrong by about $150 billion dollars.

23. Wolfie made us believe that one of the benefits of the war would be a decrease in oil prices. They are now at record highs.

24. The neo-con pundits mocked the UN as an irrelevant debating society. Not nice. Now they are debating the kind of incentives they need to get the UN back into Iraq. The Red Cross and other international aid agencies have also packed their bags and left the country.

25. Insurgents? What insurgents? Rumsfeld and Wolfie, suffering from a bad case of cognitive dissidence, insisted for months that the Iraqi resistance was made up of a finite number of dead enders and Saddam loyalists. Now, we have daily lethal evidence of their bad judgement.

26. They were also wildly of the mark when they estimated that the international peace movement would be small and marginal. The peace movement didn’t manage to stop the war, but they might still have enough strength to bring down Tony Blair. President Bush’s recent reception in London demonstrated how much prestige America lost by pursuing a ‘preemptive’ unilateral path to war. In a blatant assault on the democratic process, a handful of war party pundits and neo-con media monopolies were able to shout down millions of peace activists around the globe. A demoralized peace movement has taken notice of this failure to fight the media powers that be. Next time, the mass protests will be held directly in front of CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Shut down Wolf Blitz’s War Room.

27. The war party mocked and defamed Hans Blix and now he is returning the favor. They suspended his search for WMDs because he wasn’t able to find the phantom weapons ‘fast enough’. They refused pleas for patience. Eight months into the coalition’s WMD fishing expedition, they implore the American public for more patience. One man who seems to have lost patience is David Kay, who currently leads the very expensive Iraq Survey Group charged by Bush to locate Saddam’s non-existent WMDs. He is about to resign and go fishing; this time for trout.

28. In Wolfie’s warped vision of a perfect Likudnik world, Iraqis would rally around Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted bank embezzler who was hand picked by Richard Perle and company to play the role of ‘Saddam Lite’. Chalabi is still promising a rally at the El Rashid hotel sometime in the distant future. Family and friends are urged to attend.

29. When the Chalabi option disintegrated on contact with reality, the neo-con cabal came up with the Iraqi Governing Council. Only a small minority of Iraqis accept the IGC as legitimate. Most of the IGC ministers now require 24-hour protection in American garrisons. The IGC is now a government in hiding. There is an empty hole somewhere in Tikrit where they might find save haven, now that Saddam has no use for it.

30. The prediction was that most of the troops would be home by Christmas. Not going to happen. At least not this Christmas.

31. According the neo-con wizards, the war would demonstrate the ability of the United States to achieve quick decisive victories on multiple fronts without breaking a sweat. American Air power would rule the skies of the world. But the Iraqi debacle reinforces older military doctrines about the long hard slog of taking and keeping ground.

32. No WMD’s. No problem. Just bait and switch to the ‘regime change’ label. These days, the Bush administration is marketing a new and improved political smoke screen. We are now expected to believe that Sharon worshiping vicious anti-Arab bigots like Wolfowitz are suddenly interested in the political freedom of the natives of the Middle East. In any case, Americans were not supposed to notice the change in plans and few have bothered to raise a fuss about this bait and switch. On this score, give partial credit to the neo-cons for leveraging the Murdoch Factor.

33. While promoting ‘democracy’ in Iraq, they gave Sharon more rope to hang the Palestinians. This time, it was the Arabs who were not supposed to notice this blatant hypocrisy of Wolfie’s freedom loving ‘liberation’ goon squads. Again, one must give the neo-cons partial credit on this score. The Arab regimes will dance to almost any tune played by the Great White Father. But their subjects have taken note that the Bush administration is against elections in Iraq and indifferent to the Palestinian struggle for liberty. The novelty of democracy without elections even has Arabs gasping for air.

34. In another forecast, they figured that Iran and Syria would quiver and be rolled over with a few spare divisions after Iraq was quickly pacified. No spare divisions are currently available for this item on the neo-con wish list. So Rumsfeld is proposing a larger army to make their wish come true.

35. The prediction was that North Korea would get the message that we mean business and promptly move to shed its nuclear weapons. Kim, who actually admits to possessing nuclear weapons, says the message was lost in the mail.

36. They sold the canard that Sharon and Israel would feel ‘more secure’ after Saddam was removed and be more willing to make compromises. Sharon also didn’t get his mail and continues his search for a military solution to ‘pacify’ the Palestinians. Hardly a day goes by when Sharon doesn’t indulge his appetite for snuffing a few Palestinians in Gaza or Nablus. He doesn’t do house demolitions anymore. He tears down Palestinian homes by the block. Sharon has also accelerated the construction of the Apartheid wall to fence in those Palestinians lucky enough to survive his reign of terror. The neo-cons, Likudnik fanatics to the last man, are not entirely unhappy that they were wrong on this count.

37. After Saddam’s sons were killed, Wolfowitz and gang predicted that the insurgency would fizzle. Instead, it intensified. Not for the love of Qusay or Uday, but because the Iraqi resistance took heart that they were safely out of the way.

38. The neo-con pundits were certain that Saddam was leading the resistance. In fact, Saddam was actively engaged in a bold attempt to get command and control of a shaving kit.

39. We were assured that the mission was accomplished when Bush made his dramatic landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. In fairness, the neo-cons might have been referring to the mission of the camera crew who had just completed filming a segment for the Bush re-election campaign.

40. The war would assure Bush another four years in the White House. Wrong again, as evidenced by his shrinking polls.

41. The Wolfie post-war forecast was for a grateful world to rally around Bush and show him deference as a political giant; the very reincarnation of Roosevelt, Churchill and De Gaulle wrapped up as the colossus of the beltway. Now, the man from Crawford can’t visit London without the company of a military escort large enough to launch another D-Day landing on the shores of Normandy. The Queen was not amused when Bush insisted on remodeling Buckingham palace to assure his security against hordes of peace loving Englishmen. A fuss over the color of the curtains derailed the Bush remodel.

42. The war on Iraq would teach the ‘Arab Street’ a lesson about their designated servile role in the American Empire and how to properly bow before the great white father in Washington. Any random walk through the Arab Casaba reveals a decidedly different drift in public opinion. But who dares to predict which way the wind is blowing in this winter of their discontent.

43. The search is still on for the illusive command and control center of the Iraqi resistance. Good luck. They will probably find it next door to the WMD depot located in Atlantis. This insurgency is spontaneous, chaotic, opportunistic, unorganized, with multiple independent cells that have different motives. It might go dormant for a few days and then re-emerge with different tactics in unexpected locations. It is well armed, without a need to depend on new supplies from outside sources. The most troubling thing about it is that it might yet be reinforced with a large pool of Shiite foot soldiers. Now that Saddam is in the bag, Iraq’s Shiites will have a different ax to grind. They led the resistance against the British in 1922. The fact that the insurgents have already launched so many suicide missions trumps the notion that the insurgency is dependent on paid operatives.

44. The latest advice from the neo-con wizards is to depend on Israeli style tactics. Now, this is just plain stupid. Israel’s methods have been tried in Lebanon and the occupied territories. They failed both times. With a standing Army of 400,000 and soldiers who get to sleep at home after doing their nasty daily duties in Gaza, Sharon has spent three years in an unsuccessful attempt to quash three million unarmed untrained Palestinians. When first elected, he promised the Israelis that he could make the Palestinians ‘quiet’ in a hundred days. So far, he is wildly off the mark by 900 days and 800 Israeli casualties. Not to mention, 2500 Palestinian dead, many of them children. There is nothing to suggest that another 900 days of the same tactics would do anything but increase the anger and rage among the Palestinian natives. Adopting Israeli tactics will only anger more Iraqis and foment a more lethal insurgency. Not that it matters to the Likudnik neo-con death squads, but many of Sharon’s tactics are also gross violations of the Geneva Convention.

45. Wolfowitz couldn’t make up his mind about the oil thing. Neither could Thomas Friedman. First, it was not about the oil. But later, they decided that it most certainly was about the oil. Chalk it up to wild collective neo-con mood swings. Besides, you can never lose by calling both sides of the coin.

46. They concocted the yellow cake uranium scam. When Ambassador Wilson decided to challenge them, they blew the cover of his CIA wife. Big mistake. Now that the CIA wants to get even with them, they are well advised to sleep with the lights on.

47. As their errors compounded, Wolfie’s boys continued recruiting extreme right wing Likudniks into the State Department and Pentagon. The most recent hires were Elliot Abrams of Iran/Contra fame as Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs; Daniel Pipes, an anti-Arab polemicist, for the US institute of Peace; Daniel Wurmser, a fanatic even by neo-con standards, as Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Wurmser’s duties include training Cheney to speak out of the other side of his mouth.

48. The neo-con cabal ignored a detailed study by the State Department’s Tom Warrick. He had assembled a 200-man team for a year long $5 million dollar research project that accurately predicted the post war chaos in Iraq. When General Garner requested that Mr. Warrick be appointed to the postwar operations and reconstruction, Wolfie’s team derailed the appointment because Warrick did not pass the ‘neo-con’ acid test.

49. The concentration of so many Likudniks in sensitive positions at the Pentagon and State department did not go unnoticed in the Middle East. Their unabashed flaunting of their close ties to Ariel Sharon effectively sabotaged the declared American policy of winning hearts and minds.

50. Do we really need another reason to dispatch the neo-cons to a mental health asylum in Tel Aviv? Aren’t 49 reasons enough? Besides, when have they ever been right? Their ‘achievements’ make for a very short list.

Wolfowitz and his neo-con cabal are the folks that the father of our country warned us about. When George Washington, in his farewell address to the nation, cautioned against Americans who had passionate attachment to foreign states, he was talking about the Israeli Lobby.

Given all these errors and their very suspect motives, why are Wolfowitz and his pals still on Uncle Sam’s payroll? Where did an Assistant Secretary of Defense get the resources to buy such huge quantities of Teflon from Rupert Murdoch and CNN? Did the neo-cons on the mass media side of the wafer thin political divide provide fellow travelers like Wolfie with free Teflon on demand? How exactly did Wolfie’s ‘49 to zilch’ track record go unnoticed by all the ‘experts’ at The New York Times and The Washington Post?

More to the point. Do you want a job like Wolfie’s? Do you have the talents to be so wildly off the mark? Would you be willing to settle for half his pay to produce half his mistakes? Have you got proper good conduct references from Ariel Sharon? Are you now or have you ever belonged to the war party? Have you ever avoided service in the Armed Forces of the United States? Are you an aspiring graduate of the American Enterprise Institute? Is your sister living in Tel Aviv? Are you disappointed that Israel is too ‘soft’ on the Palestinians? Are you willing to demonstrate your dual loyalty when confronted by those with suspect allegiance to the America First agenda? Do you have the chutzpah to insult a four star general on the floor of the US senate in front of national TV? Can you follow up your performance with a successful campaign to convince Rumsfeld to dispatch said General to early retirement? Are you willing to actively work on OSP projects to engineer deliberate ‘intelligence failures’ to market your Likudnik agenda?

If you answered ‘yes’ to all the above, you’re hired. And this being government work, nothing short of shooting your co-workers at the post office can possibly get you fired.


Source:



by courtesy & © 2003 Ahmed Amr

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Man with a mission
By Heidi Kingstone
Published: December 19 2003 15:58 | Last Updated: December 19 2003 15:58

It is past midnight in Baghdad. The streets in the residential neighbourhood are eerily empty. There is the occasional sound of gunfire. Earlier, the house of Iraq`s most famous returned exile, Ahmad Chalabi, shook with the force of a bomb exploding nearby.



The helicopters that followed swooped low in search of the perpetrators, churning up the dust, their rotor noise throbbing through the houses. Now it is quiet again. The night air is cool with winter approaching, balmy, unlike the desperate heat of summer that makes Baghdad unbearable. In the newly refurbished mansion, there is much activity in spite of the hour.



"We want to help President Bush! We`re doing better because of him! He did a great thing for us. I want to turn public opinion around in the US," Chalabi is saying. He pads about the large living room in the once swanky al-Mansour district in Baghdad, speaking loudly into an American-issue mobile phone, pacing back and forth. His accented but perfect English is witness to decades of exile - in Lebanon, Jordan, England and the US.



In Washington, it is four in the afternoon and the man who is talking to Ahmad Chalabi is Richard Perle - sometimes called, by his many enemies at home and abroad, "the Prince of Darkness" - an epithet he acquired because of his hardline stance on national security issues while he was a Pentagon adviser during the Reagan years.



Earlier this year Perle quit his chairmanship of the Pentagon Defense Policy Board over allegations, since dismissed by a Pentagon inquiry, of a conflict of interest with a private company on whose board he serves. But he is still influential. He and Chalabi have known each other for years. Chalabi is Perle`s man, and vice versa. Their partnership helped to shape America`s war in Iraq, and it still has the potential to shape the peace.



Perle is a leading policy spokesman for America`s "neo-conservatives" who are credited with putting so much moral pressure on the administration that it undertook the invasion of Iraq. Chalabi has been the neo-Cons` prime exhibit: he is back in the Iraq he left as a child refugee because he, more than any other single figure, made the case for Iraqi "regime change" to the neo-Cons across many barren and frustrating years. Chalabi is here because he was a very large influence in bringing round the world`s greatest power to share his dream of ridding Iraq, and the world, of Saddam Hussein.



He was one of the first Iraqis to see the former dictator in person after his capture last week. "I pulled up a chair about 2ft from Saddam. He was sitting on the side of the bed and had just woken up. I just looked at him. Saddam was unrepentant - he has learned nothing, shows no remorse, and didn`t deny his crimes. He is a man who has lost his honour."



When I ask Chalabi if this 30-minute meeting, face-to-face with a man whose rule he had spent decades trying to destroy, was a defining moment, he replies: "I don`t gloat." But his voice is tinged with disgust for the brutal dictator.



Chalabi`s role in Saddam`s downfall is a tremendous personal triumph, but he now lives with the consequences. One of these is that he is seen as America`s stooge. He needs the Americans to stay and to prevail against both the domestic remnants of the Saddam regime and the foreign jihadis, or he is likely to find his throat cut. But he also needs them to go, for it has become clear in the months since he has been back that among even those Iraqis who like their country without Saddam, there are many who would like it more without the Americans.



Thus, when Chalabi writes or speaks in public - which he does infrequently - he calls for the Americans to be more active, even ruthless, in cracking down on the enemy within, but also to restore Iraqi sovereignty by developing the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, on which he sits, as a transitional government which - as he wrote in the Washington Post in August - should "share the burden of security with the coalition while directing the transition to democracy".



He survives in the tension between these two imperatives, amid the bombs and bullets, because he is tightly and constantly protected against the eventuality that one of these has his name on it. As such, Chalabi poses in the sharpest terms the dilemma of the American superpower. In giving a people freedom from tyranny, can it give them the order in which that freedom can be enjoyed? In the years before he returned, Chalabi had told anyone who would listen that it could. Now he has to justify his optimism.



AC, as his inner circle refers to him, has been up since the early morning, working straight through the day, despite the usual restrictions of Ramadan. He always seems to be on the move - meeting ministers or officials, discussing procedures for appointing judges, meeting with other Iraqi leaders about the constitution, trying to work out business deals. In the evenings men file into his office to talk, something Iraqis love.



Chalabi has made a home in a house that had belonged to one of his close relatives. Saddam`s Mukhabarat, the secret police, took it over when the family went into exile. The secret policemen used its large rooms to keep meticulous files. They also stored stockpiles of machine-guns here, and built a sand-map of the neighbourhood on one of the floors. Now the place is filled with leather sofas, silver ornaments and beautiful cream tusks. An inlaid elephant from India, which stands guard at the entrance, used to be in Chalabi`s house in Jordan.



On this night, Chalabi had broken the Ramadan fast at 5pm with Jalal Talabani, chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council, the unelected interim authority made up of 25 Iraqis, and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two organisations representing the Kurdish minority.



Now, after his phone conversation with Perle, Chalabi is eating again, with a small group including his long-standing associate, Nabeel Musawi, who lives across the road. Musawi is another returned exile who acts as Chalabi`s political adviser and deputy on the governing council. Food is laid out on large white oval platters across the table, far too much to eat, which is typical in the Middle East, where hospitality is second nature.



Despite the rather grand surroundings, there is nothing formal about dinner: everyone reaches over everyone else to gather up the marinated lamb, kebabs, rice and bread. Musawi and Chalabi seem as relaxed as diners anywhere, yet attempts have been made to kill them both, and their houses are surrounded by armed guards and concrete barriers to block suicide bombers.



The mood is upbeat. We dine as Paul Bremer, America`s pro-consul in Iraq, is on his way to Washington, where he has been summoned for urgent talks. This does not displease my host. Something is in the air, which seems to be to his liking.



There`s not much love lost between the two men. L. Paul Bremer III was appointed presidential envoy in May and, as such, is the senior coalition official in Iraq. Bremer, a former diplomat and leading expert on crisis management, reports to secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld.



Bremer has made decisions that Chalabi didn`t like, such as slowing down the transfer of political power, and he did so without consulting Chalabi and others on the council. Chalabi thinks the coalition troops need to be pulled out from the cities in order to remove "this business of occupation".



There is a lot of talk at the dinner table about the Americans being able to deal with the terrorists in the "shit hole that has become famous" - Fallujah, where pockets of resistance against the Americans seem to be located, in what has become known as the "Sunni triangle".



A few days later, Bremer returns from Washington with an utterly new American plan for Iraq. Out goes the original, slow and methodical programme - the drafting of a constitution, the holding of a referendum, elections, and finally the handover of power to an Iraqi government. Now, with losses mounting and an American presidential election on the way, Washington is in a hurry.



So in comes plan B. No need for direct elections: America will transfer power to an unelected, interim Iraqi government next June. It will take charge of writing a constitution. And there will be no proper national election until 2005. This is a complete reversal. For Chalabi, it is a tremendous encouragement, as Plan B is really his Plan A, the one he wanted in the first place.



Chalabi has been in exile for 45 of his 59 years. Having become the best-known face of the main Iraqi opposition, the umbrella group known as the Iraqi National Congress (INC), he returned to Baghdad after Saddam`s regime fell in mid-April for the first time since he was 14. The Americans had flown him to Nasiriyah in the south from where he drove across the desert up to Baghdad in the week after the Americans took control of the capital. But he makes it clear that he arrived in Iraq under his own steam, having spent the months before the war first in Tehran and then in the autonomous (Kurdish) region of northern Iraq. "General [Tommy] Franks [the US commander] was dead set against us and they did their damnedest to makes us fail," he says.



Chalabi`s American backing, however ambivalent it sometimes appears, does him scant good in Iraq: he had little following on the ground when in exile, and fear that the Americans will leave and that the vacuum will be filled with a new set of tyrants keeps him from acquiring one now. He was not seen as a liberator: instead, once back home, he became just one of many politicians jostling for influence. His enemies depicted him as a puppet of the Pentagon with no popular credibility, whose relevance would vanish once Iraqis were able to express their preferences at the ballot box. Now, with plan B, Chalabi is back in business.



Chalabi and Bremer meet twice a week. Their relationship is cordial rather than warm. And both have the same end-game: peace and keeping the bad guys out. He tells me that Bremer arrived in Baghdad suffering from "the sin of pride". He behaved, he says, as the representative of the most powerful nation on earth, and saw the former exiled Iraqis as "just a bunch of failed nincompoops who either do our bidding or we will replace you with other nincompoops who will". The new plan means the Americans have been constrained to admit that they need the help of the nincompoops.



We have driven to Jalal Talabani`s palatial spread on the banks of the muddy Tigris. The place is so large and garish it seems more like an official building than a residence, typical of the old regime. Bremer has returned and Chalabi is talking about the switch in strategy. "Yes, of course this is a vindication," he says. "We had an impasse and several things had to be done to resolve this. First, Iraqis wanted sovereignty. Second, a constitution had to be drafted by a properly elected body such as a constituent assembly. Third was that the US, due to various political timetables, had to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis to end the occupation. The block was that some in the US only wanted to hand over to an elected government. The only way to resolve this impasse was to decouple these three things. When this was put to President Bush he saw it and cut the knot. This was the position we were advocating before the war. It is an important development because we can take away this creeping venom from the relationship between Iraq and the US and lay the ground for a good strategic alliance."



Theories abound of what went wrong in post-conflict planning. The basic dichotomy, Chalabi believes, was that a struggle took place between the CIA, the state department and the defence department. The latter felt that Iraq could transfer to an electoral democracy easily, while the former two felt that the chances for any such thing were bleak.



Chalabi says the advantage of the new plan is that it will give Iraqis control of their own affairs much earlier, ending the perception that they are still under American occupation. What he doesn`t say is that postponing the election, and relying more on the established groups that came to the fore in exile, gives an advantage to people like him. How popular he is ceases to matter. His skills - those of a coalition-builder who manoeuvres shrewdly behind the scenes - are now the ones needed. He is perfectly placed in the new dispensation. He is a member of the Shia majority; but he is a secular one, with the ear of Washington. Bremer has brought back a dizzying prospect for this man. He has the opportunity to emerge as the country`s pre-eminent politician.



But will he be able to seize the opportunity? He can be stiff and evasive when he is not being charming and erudite. He likes to control his environment: and to control himself (he is a non-drinker). He forces people about him to extremes - of devotion, or loathing. But after three careers - as a scholar, a banker and now a politician - he is nobody`s nincompoop. Above all, he has furthered his last career, that of politician, by getting to know which buttons to press in George W. Bush`s Washington. His allies and supporters do not end at Perle: they include a still more powerful figure, the deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz. The screen-saver on his office computer is a picture of himself standing, in Baghdad, alongside Wolfowitz`s boss, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.



Chalabi`s office is in another former Mukhabarat building, this one known locally as the Chinese House. It is surrounded by graceful palms, but its architecture is typically vulgar. To reach his office you walk past a large fountain with circular hoops and red and green lights that shine in the dark. In the office itself the gold curtains are always drawn for security. Outside, in the compound, old Iraqi dinars with Saddam`s picture on them are being incinerated. Sometimes, when the wind blows towards the office, you catch the pungent smell. However unpleasant, it is a sweet reminder to Chalabi of the destruction, hundreds of thousands of times a day, of the face of his enemy.



A typical day starts at 9am and ends well after midnight. In the evening he holds court. When I go to see him, he is breaking his fast with Kamel al-Gailani, the minister of finance, and several Americans from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), including George Wolfe, director of economic development, sent by the US Treasury Department to help rebuild Iraq`s financial sector.



Chalabi is at ease with these Americans. He is a good raconteur and relishes being the centre of attention. At the time, Saddam is still at large and it is hard to get away from talking about him. Now Chalabi is telling the story of his own blind brother (there were nine children) who was a famous international law and constitution professor who had Saddam as a student and gave him a 3 per cent average. Chalabi`s father had advised against it: even then Saddam was marked out as a future man of power and, as we subsequently learned, going against his authority could cost you dearly. Someone quips: "If George Bush lived here during the Saddam years he, too, would have become a Baathi." Wolfe takes Chalabi aside for a private talk. Later, he and Wolfe and the governor of the central bank sit together like schoolboys on a gilt sofa as he displays pictures of his family from the old days in Baghdad. One of the photographs shows his forebears at a food-laden table in their 27-acre garden in 1946. The Chalabi family`s guest back then was Sir Edward Spears, the British general who administered much of the Middle East after the second world war. Chalabi calls the general the Bremer of Lebanon and Syria. "So we`ve all seen this before," he says, laughing.



Chalabi is talkative and relaxed in this sort of company because he is at least their intellectual equal, and had the kind of elite schooling that most Americans don`t. He was educated by Jesuits from Georgetown, Washington DC, at the famous Baghdad College and, after a spell at Seaford College, a private Church of England school in Sussex, he went on to read mathematics at MIT at the age of 16. He received a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1969. "It`s easy to be an American," he says. "It`s a welcoming place and people are generally straightforward and open. I saw the good sides of being free, and I saw the idiotic sides. You can make stupid decisions but it`s all part of the game and it`s better than anything else. There are compromises to be made. There are winners and losers. But the losers don`t get killed and the winners don`t own everything."



By around 7pm the meeting room is filling up. Large and ornate upholstered chairs form a U-shape, and there are small plastic white tables with non-alcoholic drinks on them. Conversation rings to the sound of spoons clanking against the little glasses full of strong tea, stirring the obligatory, heavy sugar. Late arrivals include the deputy mayor of Baghdad, Hadi Faisal Saleh al-Salmany, and a tribal sheikh from Nasiriyah whose name I don`t catch. The sheikh complains that the governing council is ignoring his people. Though he tells Chalabi he appreciates the Americans for getting rid of Saddam, he says he will oppose them if they do things wrong. The deputy mayor wants to talk about the electricity situation. "Our work must continue 24 hours a day but the security situation is so bad that we can just work in the daylight hours."



Why do Baghdadis take their troubles to Chalabi? (The wife of Saddam`s half-brother, Watban, turned up one evening to ask about getting one of her houses back.) Part of it is the famous name. The Chalabis are an Iraqi dynasty, similar to the Kennedys in America. But much has to do with Chalabi`s personal reputation as an effective operator. "Articulate, forceful, good at attaining his objectives," one high-ranking American official tells me. But his very ability to make a good case is now part of the indictment against him, from the many Americans who think the war against Saddam was a mistake. They believe he and the INC exaggerated the threat of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction and fed bad intelligence to the CIA. He is also often blamed for giving his Washington friends too rosy a view of the welcome US "liberators" would receive from ordinary Iraqis once the war was over.



When I put these accusations to him, Chalabi dismisses them all. The INC did press for the removal of Saddam, but he says it did so entirely openly. "We definitely made a case about Saddam and his crimes and the dangers he wrought on the Iraqi people and we kept doing it publicly and openly. The INC agenda was to remove Saddam Hussein from office." But he says the INC never made any independent claims on WMD. Its only intelligence contribution consisted of helping three defectors who claimed to have expert knowledge to make contact with the Americans.



"The idea that I would sell to Wolfowitz and Perle things like that in the face of a multi-billion-dollar intelligence operation run by the US is something ridiculous. It does not stand the test of logic or fact. Look at this: I went and sold this to Wolfowitz who sold it to Rumsfeld who sold it to Cheney who sold it to Bush and Bush got the approval of Congress, and then Colin Powell, on my say-so, someone with a known agenda and so many enemies, spoke to the UN, and I brought the US army to Iraq. It`s a great thing. I`m getting maximum recognition, held up in the west as the man responsible for getting troops into Iraq."



But both Chalabi, and his opponents, fail to address a more subtle issue. Chalabi`s contribution to the war was not primarily the intelligence he provided, nor contact with the defectors whom he knew, nor detailed knowledge of Iraqi society. What he gave was a moral imperative, with which Wolfowitz and others already agreed: that is, that Saddam was an evil who had to be removed for a raft of reasons - strategic, political and moral. He had that moral force because his enmity towards the Iraqi dictatorship has consumed almost all of his own lifetime. The Iraqi political analyst Siyamend Othman, whom I talked with in the eerily vacant Palestine Hotel a few days before it was bombed last month, believes that "more than any other Iraqi, he has contributed to the removal of Saddam Hussein, albeit by proxy. Forty or 50 years from now that is how history will judge him."



His personal story tells you why. In 1958, the day after General Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam`s predecessor, seized power by slaughtering the Iraqi royal family and many of its ministers and officials, the new regime came looking for Ahmad`s father, Abdul Hadi Chalabi. He was president of the Iraqi senate under the constitutional monarchy of the Hashemites, who still rule Jordan today. The family had always been wealthy and powerful. Ahmad`s uncle, Mohamed Ali, started the Rafidain Bank in the 1950s. British prime minister Harold Macmillan was a guest at their home in Baghdad. When the plotters arrived Ahmad`s father was, luckily, abroad, as was his brother, Rushdie, a minister in the deposed government. (His parents died in exile years later.)



Tamara Daghistani, a close friend, tells the story that when the soldiers arrived at their home, Ahmad volunteered to be taken hostage as they held a pistol to his mother`s head. Daghistani calls Chalabi "EO", which stands for "eternal optimist". They were born two years apart on the same street.



Her brother Timoor is the Jordanian ambassador to London and was married to King Hussein`s sister, Princess Basmah. All are friends of Jordan`s Prince Hassan. Ask her what she thinks has kept Chalabi committed to Iraq for all those years of exile and she says her generation yearns to recapture a golden age for Iraq in the more liberal and tolerant 1940s and 1950s. She remembers childhoods where families would go down by the river, dressed in their best outfits, full of colour, and the Tigris would be alight with candles; fishermen would return to its banks with a lantern shining at the bottom of their boat. "We lived Iraq, this was our daily fare. All my friends think I`m mad. They`re leaving Baghdad, but I have this wonderful feeling of being home, and I`ll be damned if I`ll be kicked out again. This is where my memories are."



Chalabi says it never occurred to him to settle permanently in exile. "I like being here. It`s my country and my people. It was my mission to return and it became clear when I left that there was no question in my mind that I belonged in Iraq, nowhere else. Even though I have lived in Lebanon, Jordan, England and the States and I had a good career, I never felt I was at home... Immediately I returned to Baghdad I felt an empathy with everyone and everything around me. The fact I was not in Iraq was something I missed very much and wanted to be part of."



Chalabi`s forte is his cultivation of people. He began to do so at university and he has not stopped. He worked particularly closely with those who were committed anti-Baathists, including General (Mustafa) Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. "Not for one day did I ever stop. Within two days of getting my PhD I flew from America to Tehran to meet them."



When he moved to Beirut to take up his post in mathematics, he met Leila, the mother of his four children, who lives in London in a big, rambling flat that overlooks green gardens and is full of art and artefacts - more lived in than his Baghdad home. Her father, Adel Osseiran, was president of Lebanon`s National Assembly, and a leader in their war of independence.



One way Chalabi kept the flame alive was, in 1992, to establish the INC, the umbrella opposition organisation that led the struggle against Saddam. In the wake of the 1991 Gulf war, Chalabi rounded up disparate factions - Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, Turkomans, Christians, ex-communists - to fight Saddam in exile, and the INC was its driving force over the next decade, bringing it both infamy and a high profile. Washington channelled funds to the INC, covertly, via the CIA. But the group acquired many inside-the-beltway enemies. It never really cohered: within it, differing interests and parties pushed their own agenda. The state department thought Chalabi ineffectual, pointing out that he failed to establish order on the INC`s varying factions. On top of that there was an allegation of "accounting irregularities" made by the state department, which tied up promised funds and was later dismissed.



One thing above all others has dogged his steps, and given those who oppose him grounds for saying that he is not a man to be trusted. In 1978 in Jordan, Chalabi created Petra Bank, which grew rapidly and was the first to introduce credit cards and ATMs. But when it submitted its annual financial statement to the Central Bank of Jordan in 1989, the central bank maintained that millions had been transferred to other parts of the family business in Switzerland, Lebanon and London. The bank was closed and the central bank said the nation had to spend many millions to prevent a wider financial crisis. In 1992 Chalabi was charged with 31 counts of embezzlement, theft, and currency speculation and was convicted in a Jordanian military court for fraud and embezzlement. He was sentenced to 22 years` hard labour. Luckily, like his father when the Iraqi soldiers came to seek him almost 30 years before, when they came for him Chalabi was not there. He is said to have escaped in an official Syrian car, which ferried him over the border with his close friend Tamara Daghistani at the wheel. Neither will comment.



Chalabi says he was framed by the governments of Iraq and Jordan, but Abdul Ghafar Freihat, the judge appointed as head of the committee for evaluation of the bank`s assets, insisted then and insists now that the direct legal evidence against him is clear and properly documented. The collapse did not, as it happens, ruin the Chalabi family, which has retained other successful businesses and has a worth estimated at the end of last year of some £150m.



It is de rigueur to hate Chalabi in Jordan. At an elegant dinner party of wealthy, well-connected and sophisticated Jordanians in Amman, men and women who travel regularly to London and wear the most expensive clothes, I was surprised to hear him universally described as corrupt, a thief who almost brought Jordan down, a man who should never have power in Iraq.



Dr Mohammad Said Nabulsi, the governor of the Central Bank of Jordan in 1989 who had to pick up the pieces when Petra Bank fell apart, is more vehement. "He`s definitely evil... He fled within 48 hours. Is this what innocent people do? This was before investigations. He hadn`t even been accused of anything. We just took him out as chairman." Nabulsi says Chalabi is a fraud, and his network of influential friends and allies has been formed, at least in part, by direct bribery or indirectly by extending bank facilities to people who cannot repay. "He was very clever in cementing relationships with very important people in Jordan. I discovered problems so big they needed quick action."



His defenders say that Chalabi was simply ahead of his time, and that he was guilty of mismanagement, not embezzlement. "On the one side you had, in Jordan, the old traditional banks," says Osama Halabeh, a Jordanian businessman who joined Petra Bank in 1983. "Then here comes this young banker who started doing things the modern way. A number of factors destroyed Petra Bank. In banking, rumours can be very disruptive. In Arabic we have a saying, `capital is a coward`. No one was willing to risk money. He saw business opportunities, he wanted the bank to grow fast and make money and he wanted to make an empire quickly. One month before this happened the bank had foreign exchange problems and the Jordanian dinar was devaluing every day."



The Petra scandal has had the effect of making Chalabi all the more committed to winning in Iraq and bringing out what he sees as the truth. Documents have surfaced, he claims, which show "egregious interference, from the prime minister to the governor of the central bank". He says the case makes no difference to him now that he is in Baghdad. Not everyone agrees: Dr Mahmoud Othman, an independent on the governing council who thinks that Chalabi is highly capable, says Petra Bank is his weak link. "That`s his main problem, and it has affected him very much. If somebody is responsible for public office they need credibility."



While Chalabi may now have the best chance he is likely to get of becoming the country`s first post-Saddam leader, to do so he will have to overcome the handicaps of his long exile, the stain, justified or not, of the Petra Bank matter, and his unshakeable self-belief, often interpreted as a haughty, impatient demeanour. Iraq is not a democracy, but it shows some features of becoming one. Popularity and credibility matter. Chalabi`s fluency with the neo-Cons doesn`t carry with the neo-Iraqis. He might be Shia, but his secular traditions could count against him if indeed the clerics take control of the Shia discourse. If many Iraqis fear the emergence of an Islamic republic, dominated as Iran is by the clerics, they are not numerous or vocal enough to demand an irreligious leader like Chalabi, whose achievements have been built on lobbying behind the scenes in foreign countries. On the other hand, he could provide the bridge. The analyst Siyamend Othman believes Chalabi will always be influential but will never be No. 1. "He is a power broker, good at backroom deals, not a leader," something he has always maintained, perhaps disingenuously, that he doesn`t want to be anyway.



If, in all of this, Chalabi is a prophet with at least some honour in his native land, he is one without any possibility of personal safety. When he returns home from one of his endless office evenings, a convoy of eight four-wheel-drives with darkened windows bucks and weaves at high speed through the night in which danger can be imagined around every corner, behind every window, on every rooftop. Just before the approach to his home the horns start blasting as the convoy zigzags past the roadblocks, alerting the guards to remove the sabre-tooth-like barrier that juts menacingly from the road.



As he steps out of the car, four bodyguards wrap around him like clingfilm. They walk in unison to his door and then release him into its spacious, gracious confines. After one such ride, I ask him if anything would make him give up and get back to some kind of normal life. "One way to stop is to get killed," he says. "Everyone dies." But if he stays alive it is hard to imagine an Iraq in which Ahmad Chalabi does not play a central role. He has won his dream, and is now honour-bound to live in it.



Heidi Kingstone is a freelance writer



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New theory for Iraq`s missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them
Richard Norton-Taylor and Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday December 24, 2003
The Guardian

British officials are circulating a story that Saddam Hussein may have been hoodwinked into believing that Iraq really did possess weapons of mass destruction.

The theory, which is doing the rounds in the upper reaches of Whitehall, is the result of an attempt to find what one official source called a "logical reason" why no chemical and biological weapons had been found in Iraq.

According to the theory, Saddam and his senior advisers and commanders were told by lower-ranking Iraqi officers that his forces were equipped with usable chemical and biological weapons.

The officers did not want to tell their superiors that the weapons were either destroyed or no longer usable.

The trouble for Britain was, the theory goes, that MI6`s informants were the senior officials close to Saddam with the result that British intelligence was also hoodwinked.

The hypothesis, which is being spread privately by offi cials, is open to the interpretation that the government is searching for an excuse, however implausible, for failure to discover any WMD in Iraq.

"A delicious irony if true" is how it was described yesterday by Gary Samore of the International Institue for Strategic Studies.

He said he was familiar with the hypothesis being put about by British officials "trying to figure out why Saddam behaved in such an irrational fashion".

He said it was possible that Britain or the US had captured documents written by Iraqi officers, and sent to Saddam, making exaggerated claims about Iraq`s WMD programme.

Dr Samore also said US and British intelligence had picked up "chatter" during the war interpreted as Iraqi forces preparing to use chemical weapons. That, he said, could be explained by Iraqis "playing games" - pretending the weapons existed to frighten the enemy knowing they would be overheard. Alternatively, it could indicate Saddam really did order the weapons to be used, said Dr Samore.

US officials reacted sceptically to the suggestion that Saddam was fooled by his own scientists.

"That sort of thing is verifiable after all. Saddam`s people could have gone to check if they had the tube of anthrax or whatever weapon they claimed to have," said one intelligence source in Washington.

But David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector in regular contact with Iraqi scientists, said the system in which those scientists worked was guaranteed to produce misleading information.

"Scientists would hoodwink their own bosses with all sorts of exaggerations of their achievements," said Mr Albright, who heads the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

Hans Blix, the former US weapons inspector in Iraq, said yesterday that most experts on Iraq now believed Saddam almost certainly destroyed his weapons of mass destruction after the first Gulf War in 1991.

"I think the vast majority of people are feeling there is very little likelihood that they [the Iraqis] had anything, and the biggest chance is that they destroyed them in 1991," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Dr Blix has always argued that weapons may be unaccounted for, but that did not mean they existed.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bushes send greetings to a select 1.5m
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday December 24, 2003
The Guardian

Whatever you might make of the Bush administration, receiving a Christmas card from the president and Laura Bush themselves, postmarked Crawford, Texas, is a bit of a thrill - until, that is, you discover there are a million and a half others on the White House list.

The presidential greetings card industry has come a long way in the 50 years since Dwight Eisenhower sent out 1,100 small copies of his own portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

This year Mr Bush, never a leader to do things by halves, sent out a record 1.5m cards to his closest friends, supporters, foreign dignitaries and assorted hacks and hangers on.

The Bushes have opted not to emulate Tony and Cherie Blair, who sent out pictures of themselves - with their children for members of the inner circle; without for the rest. In Washington, that would undoubtedly have been seized on as evidence of a calculated personality cult.

The Bush card instead follows recent presidential tradition in portraying a White House scene cleansed of any human presence that might trigger scrutiny for hidden meanings. Last year`s picture of a presidential piano was criticised as being cold and unseasonal.

This year`s card features altogether warmer colours, showing a fireplace flanked by two buttery yellow armchairs in the White House diplomatic reception room.

The message is similarly uncontroversial, a quote from Job: "You have granted me life and loving kindness; and your care has preserved my spirit."

But Vice-President Dick Cheney has been less careful and embellished his greetings with the brazen use of a taboo word. His card quotes one of the nation`s founders, Benjamin Franklin, declaring: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"

What empire might that be, the critics would like to know. Meanwhile, America`s wildlife protectors have focused on the mention of a falling sparrow. They point to Mr Cheney`s taste for downing birds in huge numbers, by shooting them in circumstances when it is hard to miss.

On a November bird-hunting trip to the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Pennsylvania, 500 pheasants were released directly in front of the vice-president and his 10-strong party. Only 100 of the birds survived the experience.

Mr Cheney, who was under close secret service protection during the hunt, killed 70.

America`s Humane Society complained that the odds had been so heavily stacked against the pheasants that the event was more of a "mass killing" than a hunt.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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America deploys missiles around airports
Officials fear al-Qaida may hijack planes again to target US interests

Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday December 24, 2003
The Guardian

The US has deployed anti-aircraft missiles around Washington and other possible terrorist targets in fear of another attack using a commercial plane, but there is disagreement among intelligence officials about how direct the threat is to America.

Tom Ridge, the head of US homeland security, put the country on high alert on Sunday, warning of a possible attack over the holiday season on a par with the September 11 attacks, or even more devastating.

He said there was reason to believe that al-Qaida would try to repeat the tactics it used against New York and Washington two years ago, using hijacked aeroplanes as missiles.

US officials have insisted that there is unanimity within the administration over the credibility of its intelligence on this occasion, but one intelli gence source in Washington said that some CIA officials believed that Mr Ridge had exaggerated the threat to the US.

"There has been a lot of dissent about this," said the source, who has close contact with CIA officials. "There isn`t any substantiated information about an attack on the United States itself. Everything seems to point towards an attack on Saudi Arabia or the Arabianpeninsula."

Yesterday, the US embassy in Bahrain announced it had intelligence of a possible attack on the Gulf state "between now and January 2 2004".

It appears the decision to raise the national alert level arose partly because of tip-offs from British, Turkish and Yemeni intelligence.

Some of the intelligence suggested that al-Qaida recruits may have been trained, licensed and hired as pilots by an unsuspecting foreign airline. This would raise the nightmare scenario of a sched uled flight turning into a suicide mission at the last minute, with no time to intercept it.

Another possible threat being urgently studied is the use of trained pilots to hijack a commercial plane flying into the US from a country with less stringent security. Washington has been in urgent contact with Canada and Mexico in an attempt to ensure that the security precautions taken in airports in its neighbouring countries were stepped up in light of the perceived threat.

In addition to discreetly deploying anti-aircraft missiles around Washington and other potential targets, possibly including nuclear power stations, the US air force has stepped up air patrols by fighter jets particularly over the eastern coast.

Amid the flurry of intelligence "chatter" US officials say they are hearing in communications between suspected terrorists, there are also suggestions that al-Qaida is contemplating an attack with a weapon of mass destruction. NBC news yesterday quoted US officials as saying there were "indications that al-Qaida may already possess a radiological weapon, or so-called dirty bomb". But the officials did not elaborate. Since the September 11 attacks, there have been repeated but unsubstantiated reports that Osama bin Laden`s organisation has acquired or sought to acquire a "dirty bomb". This may consist of radioactive material clustered around a conventional explosive.

The Bahrain warning has heightened fears of an attack in the Middle East against western targets or Arab states seen by al-Qaida as western clients. The possible means of attack range from the use of hijacked airliners and small planes to the firing of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles at commercial planes.

Turkish intelligence has been feeding information to the US from interrogations of those arrested for suspected involvement in the bomb attacks against the British consulate, HSBC Bank and synagogues in Istanbul last month, in which 61 people died.

Some of the intelligence behind the high alert also came from Yemen, where authorities have been interrogating a senior al-Qaida leader, Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, arrested there last month.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
24 December 2003


Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld`s personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America`s support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.

The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America`s condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.

The criticism in no way changed Washington`s wish to support Iraq in its war against Iran and "to improve bi-lateral relations ... at a pace of Iraq`s choosing".

Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam`s willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.

Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds - particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 - as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.

But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America`s position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam`s "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels.

In March 1984, under international pressure, America condemned Iraq`s use of such chemical weapons. But realising that Baghdad had been upset, Secretary of State George Schultz asked Mr Rumsfeld to travel to Iraq as a special envoy to meet Saddam`s Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, and smooth matters over.

In a briefing memo to Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Shultz wrote that he had met Iraqi officials in Washington to stress that America`s interests remained "in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq".

The memo adds: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

Exactly what Mr Rumsfeld, who at the time did not hold government office, told Mr Aziz on 26 March 1984, remains unclear and minutes from the meeting remain classified. No one from Mr Rumsfeld`s office was available to comment yesterday.

It was not Mr Rumsfeld`s first visit to Iraq. Four months earlier, in December 1983, he had visited Saddam and was photographed shaking hands with the dictator. When news of this visit was revealed last year, Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had "cautioned" Saddam to stop using chemical weapons.

When documents about the meeting disclosed he had said no such thing, a spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue with Mr Aziz.

America`s relationship with Iraq at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons is well-documented but rarely reported.

During the war with Iran, America provided combat assistance to Iraq that included intelligence on Iranian deployments and bomb-damage assessments. In 1987-88 American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and broke the blockade of Iraqi shipping lanes.

Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group that obtained the documents, told The New York Times: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and it didn`t make any difference to US policy. The embrace of Saddam and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances."

Last night, Danny Muller, a spokesman for the anti-war group Voices in the Wilderness, said the documents revealed America`s "blatant hypocrisy". He added: "This is not an isolated event. Continuing administrations have said `we will do business`. I am surprised that Donald Rumsfeld does not resign right now."
24 December 2003 10:26


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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December 24, 2003
Once Skeptical, Briton Sees Iraqi Success
By JOHN F. BURNS

AGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 23 — When Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, a 50-year-old Briton, arrived in June to lead the mainly European force controlling southeastern Iraq, he was skeptical, he said. He felt that "this is going to be a lot more difficult than we realized."

But as General Lamb prepared to hand his command to another British general, he said at a news conference here on Tuesday that Saddam Hussein`s capture and other changes, including progress in restoring oil installations, power stations and running water, as well as the Iraqis` fast-rising prosperity, had fostered a new confidence that the American-led occupation force can eventually hand a politically stable Iraq back to its people.

"Is this do-able?" he said. "You`d better believe it."

The British officer described himself as neither optimist nor pessimist but "a hard-boiled realist," then offered an upbeat assessment that matched that of American generals: "I think we`re in great shape."

He took a jab at the press. Western reporters, he implied, had come to an early conclusion that the allied undertaking in Iraq would not succeed, and had failed to adjust. He compared this with criticism that greeted allied forces in the first stages of the spring invasion, when resistance stalled the drive to Baghdad.

The plan provided for 125 days to take Baghdad, and it was accomplished in 23 days, he noted. But, he told reporters, "you had us dead and buried in seven days."

The general is finishing his six-month command of an 11-nation contingent of 13,000 troops, based in Basra, that controls an area covering about a quarter of Iraq, home to five million people. He has served in front-line units in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf war, the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands, and was with British headquarters staff during the invasion of Iraq in March.

The general said Mr. Hussein`s capture on Dec. 13 in an underground bunker near Tikrit had lifted the shadow that his months as a fugitive left on Iraqis.

"We`ve just buried that nail in the coffin," General Lamb said. "He`s not coming back."

For the insurgents, this removed a figurehead, if not a cause; for other Iraqis, particularly Shiites, the country`s largest single group, it lifted a widespread fear of Mr. Hussein`s restoration that had acted as a drag on the allied forces` prospects. "These are difficult waters that those who are against us swim in," the general said.

At times he tempered his enthusiasm. "I sense that we`re well in the corner," he said. "We haven`t turned the corner — this is a huge undertaking — but we are moving forward."

The general said he spoke principally from his experience in the south, where the population is 85 percent Shiite. But he based his conclusions, too, he said, on first-hand knowledge of conditions faced by fellow allied commanders: the American generals who command 120,000 American troops in military districts that account for 20 million other Iraqis, including Baghdad and the restive Sunni Muslim regions north and west of the capital.

It is in these regions that more than 90 percent of the attacks on allied forces have occurred. The south has been far quieter, though General Lamb said 20 British troops had died since he took command.

Progress, he said, has been rapid in meeting grievances in the south. He gave a chronicle of more than 1,000 repair and rebuilding projects involving oil installations, water-pumping stations and pipes, power stations and cement plants, as well as schools, hospitals, clinics and cultural institutions. With funds from the United States, Britain and others, he said, spending could soon rise to $250 million on infrastructure that had deteriorated disastrously under Mr. Hussein.

Part of the frustrations expressed by Iraqis over the occupation, he suggested, arose because some had exaggerated expectations.

He said civic leaders had approached him claiming that "before the war, everybody in Basra had running water," and that many had lost it as a result of allied bombing. But he said he had produced Water Department charts showing that a third of the city never had pipes to carry water in the first place, typical in areas not favored by Mr. Hussein. Pipes were being installed, he said.

For the most part, he offered a view similar to that of American commanders, who have repeatedly said allied forces would prevail, laying the grounds for the democracy that President Bush says is his goal in Iraq.

But General Lamb also struck notes of gentle admonishment. At one point he said that drawing from his experience in conflicts elsewhere, it was "slightly simplistic" to use the declining number of daily attacks by insurgents as a measure of progress, because it measured only a part of the challenge facing the occupation forces.

American commanders often use the attacks as a kind of barometer. In November there were an average of 40 a day across Iraq, and as many as 55, with more than 80 American soldiers killed, half of them when their helicopters were downed.

That prompted American forces to shift briefly to an all-out offensive that employed aerial bombing for the first time since the invasion. After the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ended a month ago, the attacks fell to an average that American commanders have put at slightly fewer than 20 a day.

One American officer at General Lamb`s news conference said the attacks had declined still further since the arrest of Mr. Hussein, with only six reported on Monday, which the officer described as "the lowest level since May."

On Tuesday night, another shift in American tactics seemed to be taking place with the eruption of what sounded like heavy artillery and cannon fire in a wide area of southern and southwestern Baghdad. The fire continued far into the night, loud enough that it echoed deeply against the walls of the Palestine Hotel in the city center, at least 10 miles away.

The United States command had said earlier that it was cancelling arrangements for reporters to watch an offensive by the First Armored Division using 105-millimeter artillery guns, among the heaviest battlefield weapons in the Army`s inventory.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 23, 2003
The Law of War in the War on Terror
By KENNETH ROTH

From the January/February 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs.

Kenneth Roth is Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.

What are the boundaries of the Bush administration`s "war on terrorism?" The recent battles fought against the Afghan and Iraqi governments were classic wars between organized military forces. But President George W. Bush has suggested that his campaign against terrorism goes beyond such conflicts; he said on September 29, 2001, "Our war on terror will be much broader than the battlefields and beachheads of the past. The war will be fought wherever terrorists hide, or run, or plan."

This language stretches the meaning of the word "war." If Washington means "war" metaphorically, as when it speaks about a "war" on drugs, the rhetoric would be uncontroversial, a mere hortatory device intended to rally support for an important cause. Bush, however, seems to think of the war on terrorism quite literally -- as a real war -- and this concept has worrisome implications. The rules that bind governments are much looser during wartime than in times of peace. The Bush administration has used war rhetoric precisely to give itself the extraordinary powers enjoyed by a wartime government to detain or even kill suspects without trial. In the process, the administration may have made it easier for itself to detain or eliminate suspects. But it has also threatened the most basic due process rights.

LAW AT PEACE, LAW AT WAR

By literalizing its "war" on terror, the Bush administration has broken down the distinction between what is permissible in times of peace and what can be condoned during a war. In peacetime, governments are bound by strict rules of law enforcement. Police can use lethal force only if necessary to meet an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. Once a suspect is detained, he or she must be charged and tried. These requirements -- what one can call "law-enforcement rules" -- are codified in international human rights law.

In times of war, law-enforcement rules are supplemented by a more permissive set of rules: namely, international humanitarian law, which governs conduct during armed conflict. Under such "war rules," unlike during peacetime, an enemy combatant can be shot without warning (unless he or she is incapacitated, in custody, or trying to surrender), regardless of any imminent threat. If a combatant is captured, he or she can be held in custody until the end of the conflict, without any trial.

These two sets of rules have been well developed over the years, both by tradition and by detailed international conventions. There is little law, however, to explain exactly when one set of rules should apply instead of the other. For example, the Geneva Conventions -- the principal codification of war rules -- apply to "armed conflict," but the treaties do not define the term. Fortunately, in its commentary on them, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the conventions` official custodian, has provided some guidance. One test that the ICRC suggests can help determine whether wartime or peacetime rules apply is to examine the intensity of hostilities in a given situation. The Bush administration, for example, has claimed that al Qaeda is at "war" with the United States because of the magnitude of its attacks on September 11, 2001, its bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, its attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, and the bombing of residential compounds in Saudi Arabia. Each of these attacks was certainly a serious crime warranting prosecution. But technically speaking, was the administration right to claim that they add up to a war? The ICRC`s commentary does not provide a clear answer.

In addition to the intensity of hostilities, the ICRC suggests considering factors such as the regularity of armed clashes and the degree to which opposing forces are organized. Whether a conflict is politically motivated also seems to play an unacknowledged role in deciding whether it is a "war" or not. Thus organized crime or drug trafficking, although methodical and bloody, are generally understood to fall under law-enforcement rules, whereas armed rebellions, once sufficiently organized and violent, are usually seen as "wars." The problem with these guidelines, however, is that they were written to address political conflicts rather than global terrorism. Thus they do not make it clear whether al Qaeda should be considered an organized criminal operation (which would not trigger the application of war rules) or a rebellion (which would).

Even in the case of war, another factor in deciding whether law-enforcement or war rules should be applied is the nature of a given suspect`s involvement. Such an approach can be useful because war rules treat as combatants only those who are taking an active part in hostilities. Typically, this category includes members of a military who have not laid down their arms as well as others who are fighting or approaching a battle, directing an attack, or defending a position. Under this rule, even civilians who pick up arms and start fighting can be considered combatants and treated accordingly. But this definition is difficult to apply to terrorism, where roles and activities are clandestine and a person`s relationship to specific violent acts is often unclear.

HARD CASES

Given that so much confusion exists about whether to apply wartime or law-enforcement rules to a given situation, a better approach would be to make the decision based on its public policy implications. Unfortunately, the Bush administration seems to have ignored such concerns. Consider, for example, the cases of Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. Federal officials arrested Padilla, a U.S. citizen, in May 2002 when he arrived from Pakistan at Chicago`s O`Hare Airport, allegedly to scout out targets for a radiological ("dirty") bomb. As for al-Marri, a student from Qatar, he was arrested in December 2001 at his home in Peoria, Illinois, for allegedly being a "sleeper" agent: an inactive terrorist who, once activated, would help others launch attacks. President Bush, invoking war rules, has declared both men to be "enemy combatants," allowing the U.S. government to hold them without charge or trial until the end of the war against terrorism -- whenever that is.

But should Padilla and al-Marri, even if they have actually done what the government claims, really be considered warriors? Aren`t they more like ordinary criminals? A simple thought experiment shows how dangerous are the implications of treating them as combatants. The Bush administration has asserted that the two men planned to wage war against the United States and therefore can be considered de facto soldiers. But if that is the case, then under war rules, the two men could have been shot on sight, regardless of whether they posed any immediate danger to the United States (although they might have been spared under what is known as the doctrine of "military necessity," which holds that lethal force should not be used if an enemy combatant can be neutralized through lesser means). Under the administration`s logic, then, Padilla could have been gunned down as he stepped off his plane at O`Hare, and al-Marri as he left his home in Peoria. That, after all, is what it means to be a combatant in time of war.

But the Bush administration has not claimed that either suspect was anywhere near to carrying out his alleged terrorist plan. Neither man, therefore, posed the kind of imminent threat that would justify the use of lethal force under law-enforcement rules. Given this fact, it would have been deeply disturbing if they were shot as enemy soldiers. Of course, the White House has not proposed killing them; instead, it plans to detain the two men indefinitely. But if Padilla and al-Marri should not be considered enemy combatants for the purpose of killing them, they should not be considered enemy combatants for the purpose of detaining them, either.

A similar classification problem, although with a possibly different result, arose in the case of Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi. Al-Harethi, who Washington alleges was a senior al Qaeda official, was killed by a drone-fired missile in November 2002 while driving in a remote tribal area of Yemen. Five of his companions, including a U.S. citizen, also died in the attack, which was carried out by the CIA. The Bush administration apparently considered al-Harethi to be an enemy combatant for his alleged involvement in the October 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing. In this instance, the case for applying war rules was stronger than with Padilla or al-Marri (although the Bush administration never bothered to spell it out). Al-Harethi`s mere participation in the 2000 attack on the Cole would not have made him a combatant in 2002, since he could have subsequently withdrawn from al Qaeda; war rules permit attacking only current combatants, not past ones. And if al-Harethi were a civilian, he could not have legally been attacked unless he was actively engaged in hostilities at the time. But the administration alleged that al-Harethi was a "top bin Laden operative in Yemen," implying that he was in the process of preparing future attacks. If true, this would have made the use of war rules against him more appropriate. And unlike in the cases of Padilla and al-Marri, arresting al-Harethi may not have been an option. The Yemeni government has little control over the tribal area where he was killed; indeed, 18 Yemeni soldiers had reportedly died in an earlier attempt to arrest him.

Although there may have been a reasonable case for applying war rules to al-Harethi, the Bush administration has applied these rules with far less justification in other episodes outside the United States. For example, in October 2001, Washington sought the surrender of six Algerian men in Bosnia. At first, the U.S. government followed law-enforcement rules and secured the men`s arrest. But then, after a three-month investigation, Bosnia`s Supreme Court ordered the suspects released for lack of evidence. Instead of providing additional evidence, however, Washington simply switched to war rules. It pressured the Bosnian government to hand the men over anyway and whisked them out of the country -- not to trial, but to indefinite detention at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

The administration followed a similar pattern in June 2003, when five al Qaeda suspects were detained in Malawi. Malawi`s high court ordered local authorities to follow the law and either charge or release the five men, all of whom were foreigners. Ignoring local law, the Bush administration then insisted that the men be handed over to U.S. security forces instead. The five were spirited out of the country to an undisclosed location -- not for trial, but for interrogation. The move sparked riots in Malawi. The men were released a month later in Sudan, after questioning by Americans failed to turn up any incriminating evidence.

A BAD EXAMPLE

These cases are not anomalies. In the last two and a half years, the U.S. government has taken custody of a series of al Qaeda suspects in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, and Thailand. In many of these cases, the suspects were not captured on a traditional battlefield. Yet instead of allowing the men to be charged with a crime under local law-enforcement rules, Washington had them treated as combatants and delivered to a U.S. detention facility.

There is something troubling about such a policy. Put simply, using war rules when law-enforcement rules could reasonably be followed is dangerous. Errors, common enough in ordinary criminal investigations, are all the more likely when a government relies on the kind of murky intelligence that drives many terrorist investigations. If law-enforcement rules are used, a mistaken arrest can be rectified at trial. But if war rules apply, the government is never obliged to prove a suspect`s guilt. Instead, a supposed terrorist can be held for however long it takes to win the "war" against terrorism. And the consequences of error are even graver if the supposed combatant is killed, as was al-Harethi. Such mistakes are an inevitable hazard of the battlefield, where quick life-and-death decisions must be made. But when there is no such urgency, prudence and humanity dictate applying law-enforcement standards.

Washington must also remember that its conduct sets an example for governments around the world. After all, many other states would be all too eager to find an excuse to eliminate their enemies through war rules. Israel, to name one, has used this rationale to justify its assassination of terrorist suspects in Gaza and the West Bank. It is not hard to imagine Russia doing the same to Chechen leaders in Europe, Turkey using a similar pretext against Kurds in Iraq, China against Uighurs in Central Asia, or Egypt against Islamists at home.

Moreover, the Bush administration should recognize that international human rights law is not indifferent to the needs of a government facing a security crisis. Criminal trials risk disclosure of sensitive information, as the administration has discovered in prosecuting Zacarias Moussaoui. But under a concept known as "derogation," governments are permitted to suspend certain rights temporarily when they can show that it is necessary to meet a "public emergency threatening the life of the nation." The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has ratified, requires governments seeking derogation to file a declaration justifying the move with the un secretary-general. Among the many governments to have done so are Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. Yet the United States, determined to avoid the formal scrutiny involved, has not bothered.

The Justice Department has defended the administration`s use of war rules by citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision from World War II, Ex Parte Quirin. In that case, the Court ruled that German army saboteurs who landed in the United States could be tried as enemy combatants before military commissions. The Court distinguished its ruling from an earlier Civil War-era case, Ex Parte Milligan, which held that a civilian resident of Indiana could not be tried in military court because local civil courts remained open and operational. Noting that the German saboteurs had entered the United States wearing at least parts of their uniforms, the Court in Quirin held that the Milligan protections applied only to people who are not members of an enemy`s armed forces.

There are several reasons, however, why Quirin does not justify the Bush administration`s broad use of war rules. First, the saboteurs in Quirin were agents of a government -- Germany`s -- with which the United States was obviously at war. Whether the United States is actually at "war" with al Qaeda, however, remains uncertain under the law. Second, although the Court in Quirin defined a combatant as anyone operating with hostile intent behind military lines, the case has arguably been superseded by the 1949 Geneva Conventions (ratified by the United States), which, as noted above, rule that people are combatants only if they either are members of an enemy`s armed force or are taking active part in hostilities. Quirin thus does not help determine whether, under current law, people such as Padilla and al-Marri should be considered civilians (who, under Milligan, must be brought before civil courts) or combatants (who can face military treatment). Moreover, Quirin only establishes who can be tried before a military tribunal. The Bush administration, however, has asserted that it has the right to hold Padilla, al-Marri, and other detained "combatants" without a trial of any kind -- in effect, precluding serious independent assessment of the grounds for potentially lifelong detention. Finally, whereas the government in Quirin was operating under a specific grant of authority from Congress, the Bush administration has acted on its own in taking the difficult decision to treat Padilla and al-Marri as combatants, without allowing the popular input that a legislative debate would provide.

STAY SAFE

The United States should not lightly suspend due process rights, as the Bush administration has done with its "enemy combatants" -- particularly when a mistake could result in death or lengthy detention without charge or trial. Law-enforcement rules should presumptively apply to all suspects in the "war" on terror, and the burden should fall on those who want to invoke war rules to demonstrate that they are necessary and appropriate.

The best way to determine if war rules should apply would be through a three-part test. To invoke war rules, Washington should have to prove, first, that an organized group is directing repeated acts of violence against the United States, its citizens, or its interests with sufficient intensity that it can be fairly recognized as an armed conflict; second, that the suspect is an active member of an opposing armed force or is an active participant in the violence; and, third, that law enforcement means are unavailable.

Within the United States, the third requirement would be nearly impossible to satisfy -- as it should be. Given the ambiguities of terrorism, we should be guided more by Milligan`s affirmation of the rule of law than by Quirin`s exception to it. Outside the United States, Washington should never resort to war rules away from a traditional battlefield if local authorities can and are willing to arrest and deliver a suspect to an independent tribunal -- regardless of how the tribunal then rules. War rules should be used in such cases only when no law-enforcement system exists (and the other conditions of war are present), not when the rule of law happens to produce inconvenient results. Even if military forces are used to make an arrest in such cases, law-enforcement rules can still apply; only when attempting an arrest is too dangerous should war rules be countenanced.

This approach would recognize that war rules have their place -- but that, given the way they inherently compromise fundamental rights, they should be used sparingly. Away from a traditional battlefield, they should be used, even against a warlike enemy, as a tool of last resort -- when there is no reasonable alternative, not when a functioning criminal justice system is available. Until there are better guidelines on when to apply war and law-enforcement rules, this three-part test, drawn from the policy consequences of the decision, offers the best way to balance security and civil rights. In the meantime, the Bush administration should abandon its excessive use of war rules. In attempting to make Americans safer, it has made all Americans, and everyone else, less free.



Copyright 2003

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December 24, 2003
Inventing a New Iraq

Early in the new year, Iraqi leaders are supposed to agree on an interim constitution, the first benchmark in the Bush administration`s plan for transferring power to a transitional Iraqi government by summer. But, as America`s administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer III, reported to President Bush on Monday, Iraqis have still not reached an agreement on how that transitional government will be chosen or how power will be shared among the country`s mutually suspicious religious and ethnic communities. These issues must be thrashed out in the coming weeks. Unless formulas can be found that satisfy Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, Washington will not leave behind a stable, democratic Iraq.

For most of its modern existence, Iraq has been a forced amalgam of three different peoples, ruled by a privileged Sunni Arab minority and held together by force. The failure to arrange a fair balance of power among Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and non-Arab Kurds helped doom Iraq to dictatorship. Saddam Hussein pushed the formula of Sunni dictatorship to the ultimate extreme, terrorizing the Shiite majority and unleashing wholesale murder against the minority Kurds. The best hope for Iraq`s future lies in a democratic federal structure that keeps any of these groups from subjugating the others.

Creating a democratic Iraq will require shifting power toward the Shiite majority. When Britain created modern Iraq after World War I, it fused together three disparate provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire under a Sunni Arab monarchy. But more than 60 percent of Iraqis are Shiites, living mainly in the south and east. Arab neighbors, and later the United States, came to fear that power for the Shiite majority would invite meddling by Shiite Iran and stir up restive Shiite minorities elsewhere in the Arab world. Washington is finally coming to realize that Iraq`s Shiites have their own proud traditions and little love for Iran`s corrupt and unpopular ayatollahs.

Yet no constitutional arrangement will be stable if Sunni Arabs or Kurds feel shut out. Sunnis make up roughly 20 percent of Iraq`s population. Most live in the triangle stretching northwest from Baghdad, the center of Iraqi resistance to the American occupation. Mr. Hussein promoted a warped Iraqi nationalism based on Sunni dominance and privilege. Yet even for Sunnis, his rule meant repression, war and deprivation. His meek surrender to American troops last week dispelled much of his remaining prestige. Bringing the Sunnis around to accepting greatly reduced power is one of the central challenges of the rebuilding effort. Still, there is reason to believe that Sunni Arabs can become supporters of a democratic, federal Iraq. The Sunni triangle is landlocked and lacks large oil deposits. It cannot stand alone in the world and needs a healthy relationship with the rest of Iraq.

The Kurds have been America`s main ally, and their political ambitions also pose a delicate problem. They make up about 15 to 20 percent of the population and live mainly in the northeast. They have long resisted Arab rule and dreamed of joining with the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Syria to create an independent Kurdistan. Many still dream of Kurdistan. But Washington has made clear that it will not support such a secession, and Kurdish leaders say they are willing to accept a future inside an Iraq that respects their rights. A crucial challenge will be holding them to their word.

Current plans call for building new political institutions based on Iraq`s 18 provinces. Workable institutions for power-sharing and federalism need to be created nearly from scratch. Decentralizing authority on a territorial basis makes more sense than using religious or ethnic categories. Secular Shiites in a middle-class area of Baghdad may have more in common with their Sunni neighbors than with devout village-dwelling Shiites further south.

At this stage only one thing is clear. If Iraq is to build a democracy capable of inspiring emulation by its neighbors, it must begin by fostering a healthier, more democratic relationship among its three main groups.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 24, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Don`t Stop Dean
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON

I am beginning to worry that Howard Dean may not get the Democratic nomination. Follow the convoluted reasoning:

There are now three de facto political parties in the U.S. In order of present strength, these are:

(1) The Republican Party, in control of all three branches of government and most of the statehouses, fat and sassy because the economy is rising and the war is being won.

(2) The Dean-Internet Party, its Bush-despising base so energized as to be frenetic, its leader happy to be the apostle of anger, its bandwidth bandwagon gaining momentum with each pulse of its cursing cursor.

(3) The Old Democratic Party, its base off base, its leadership fractured, its third-way ideology — vainly espoused by the Clintonian Democratic Leadership Council — a lost cause without a rebel voice.

Can it be that the opposition to the reigning Republicans is deeply cleft in twain, as mouth-fillingly described above? What evidence is there that the present noisy jousting is not just the usual primary-season scuffling?

Consider the "you`re a liar" clash between the Old Democrat poll front-runner, Wesley Clark, and the emerging Dean party`s hero.

Clark claims that Dean offered him the vice presidential nomination: "It was dangled out there . . . offered as much as it could have been." Dean denies it flatly: "I did not and have not offered anyone the vice presidency." Clark, egged on by his Clinton handlers, imputes a dishonorable motive to Dean: "Why is he squirming? Because maybe he`s done the same for a lot of other people."

One of these men is not telling the truth. Most voters would say that one of these boldfaced names is a baldfaced liar, though charitable souls would call it a misunderstanding. ("I can`t make a `formal` offer at this stage, Wes, but if I could, wouldja?") Despite Dean`s "dangle," Clark cast his lot with the Old Dems.

Following this week`s he-said-he-said, the unforgiving Dean slammed Clark`s Clintonites and their ideological home, the Democratic Leadership Council. Updating his early declaration, Dean called for unity by deriding the D.L.C. as "sort of the Republican part of the Democratic Party — the Republican wing of the Democratic Party."

Stung, the D.L.C., now headed by Senator Evan Bayh and the Bill Clinton guru Al From, complained online about Dean`s "insulting charge of crypto-Republicanism" and disapproved of "the brain-dead tactic" and "incoherent rage" of his followers.

This gets down to the Rockefeller-Goldwater level of eye-gouging that is not forgotten at the national convention. What if Dean, as the pollwagon now suggests, trounces the Clinton Establishment — Clark, Lieberman, Kerry, even Edwards and Sharpton — in the primaries? Will they loyally kiss the ring of the winner?

Of course they will. They`ll rally round to hold the Democratic Party together even as it is taken over by the Dean-Internet set. They`ll pay lip service and lose respectably, eyeing a comeback and takeover in `08.

But what if Dean loses momentum in Iowa, does "less than expected" in New Hampshire, gets clobbered in Carolina or blows his cool at media tormentors once too often? What if the Old Democrat center, revivified as a stop-Dean movement and helped by the pendulum press, actually stops Dean? Could happen. Then what?

He is not the sort who gives up easily. Nor is he likely to ask Clark or whomever in a smoke-free room for the No. 2 slot. Dean has grass-roots troops, a unique fund-raising organization, the name recognition and the fire-in-the-belly, messianic urge to go all the way on his own ticket.

Politronic chatter picked up by pundits monitoring lefty blogsites and al-Gora intercepts flashes the warning: If stopped, Dean may well bolt.

That split of opposition would be a bonanza for Bush. In a two-man race, the odds are that he would beat Dean comfortably, but in a three-party race, Bush would surely waltz in with the greatest of ease.

Here`s my problem: Such a lopsided, hubris-inducing result would be bad for Bush, bad for the G.O.P., bad for the country. Landslides lead to tyrannous majorities and big trouble.

Which is why I worry about Dean not getting the Democratic nomination.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Bomb Blast
Wed December 24, 2003 08:41 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb ripped through a U.S. military convoy north of Baghdad Wednesday, killing three soldiers, the U.S. military said.
A military vehicle was destroyed in the blast that occurred at about 9 a.m. near the town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, a military statement said.

The deaths brought to 205 the number of U.S. soldiers killed since Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1.

U.S. forces arrested scores of suspected guerrillas last week in raids on Samarra, a town in mainly Sunni Muslim central Iraq, which is a hotbed for anti-American insurgents.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a similar attack in Baghdad Tuesday.

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Die USA haben seit Jahren Tiermehl verfüttert. Kritiker sagen, dass nun das gleiche auf den US-Verbraucher zukommt, wie es auch in Europa passiert ist.
Man hat in den USA keine Möglichkeit zu testen, die Probe aus Washington(State) mußte nach England zur Untersuchung geflogen werden.
Ag Secretary Predicts Mad Cow Case `Isolated`
Wed December 24, 2003 08:23 AM ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said on Wednesday she believed the mad cow case found in Washington state will be restricted to a single or small number of cows but that the government has recalled meat from plants that could have processed the animal.
A single case of the animal brain-wasting disease was discovered this month in a dairy cow near Mabton, Washington, the first case ever detected in the United States. Several key importers halted shipments of U.S. beef.

Veneman, appearing on several U.S. television morning news programs, acknowledged it was possible that other cases will be detected but said the United States has taken safety measures since 1990 to minimize the risk.

"We believe it will be either an isolated case or a small number of cases," she said on ABC`s "Good Morning America.

She noted that an earlier case found in Canada was restricted to a single animal.

Veneman said the brain and spinal cord of the Washington dairy cow had been removed and that mad cow disease is not known to be transmitted from the muscle cuts of meat.

Some 137 humans are known to have died from a variant of the disease that is transmitted by consuming meat from an animal with mad cow.

On Tuesday, the Agriculture Department said it would likely announce a meat recall as early as Wednesday as a precaution.

"We have put out a recall notice for the lots that were processed at this plant that day and we`re tracing it forward to determine where it is and recalling that particular beef from that plant," Veneman told the CBS "Early Show."

"We are in an abundance of caution, beginning as of last night a recall of that product, tracing forward to see where that product went," she said on NBC`s "Today."

She said it was too early to predict the economic impact.
Washington Firm Recalls Beef on Mad Cow Concerns
Wed December 24, 2003 08:46 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Verns Moses Lake Meats has voluntarily recalled 10,410 pounds of raw beef because of concerns the products may contain meat tainted with mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday.
The USDA on Tuesday announced the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was found in a dairy cow in Washington state.

The raw beef products from the Moses Lake, Washington-based company "may have been exposed to tissues containing the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy," the USDA said.

The USDA considers the recalled beef, which was produced on Dec. 9 and shipped to several processing plants, a low health risk.

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washingtonpost.com
An Afghan Constitution




Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A14


DESPITE CONTINUING violence from a regrouped Taliban, there has been a stream of modest good news from Afghanistan this month. A major reconstruction project, the 300-mile highway from Kabul to Kandahar, was completed as U.S. aid officials prepared to pour an additional $2 billion into development projects next year. The first steps were taken to disarm the private armies of warlords who rule over large parts of the countryside, and U.S. and NATO commanders announced plans to establish small military posts, or "provincial reconstruction teams," in a dozen places. The International Monetary Fund reported that the Afghan economy grew by 30 percent in 2002-03 and is likely to expand by another 20 percent next year.

Most strikingly, some 500 delegates to an Afghan political convention, or loya jirga, including more than 100 women, have spent the past 10 days peacefully debating the draft of a new constitution that would make Afghanistan an electoral democracy for the first time in its history. Thanks to some behind-the-scenes brokering, it now seems probable that the assembly will approve, largely unchanged, a draft that will create a strong presidential system of government -- one seemingly designed to perpetuate the influence of the moderate interim president, Hamid Karzai. So far, the objections of dissenters have been overruled: not just women seeking greater recognition of their rights, but ethnic and regional warlords who want a more decentralized system, and Islamic fundamentalists who want to mandate rule by religious law. The end result will almost certainly be unsatisfactory to advocates of liberal democracy and human rights. But it could give Afghans a chance to hold a legitimate democratic election for president sometime next year -- an extraordinary advance for a country that little more than two years ago was subject to the Taliban`s primitive despotism.

Liberal objections to the constitutional draft begin with its concentration of power in the hands of the president, who will be able to legislate by decree and probably will appoint provincial governors. There will be a two-chamber assembly, with designated places for women, but no prime minister who might emerge as an alternative source of authority. One concern is that this system could give excessive power to one ethnic group, such as Mr. Karzai`s Pashtun. But most Afghans seem more worried about the opposing risk that decentralization could revive the factionalism and, eventually, civil war that destroyed the country in the early 1990s.

The draft constitution commits Afghanistan to abide by the U.N. Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But women at the conference object to its omission of specific language granting women and men equal rights. Other experts point out that while the constitution`s references to Islam are relatively mild -- sharia, or Islamic law, is not mentioned -- clauses prohibiting laws or political parties opposed to Islam could be used by conservative judges to limit democracy or squelch religious reform movements.

These are serious issues. That the Bush administration appears not to be greatly troubled by them reflects the fact that its political strategy for Afghanistan is centered not on a document but a man. The reasoning is that as long as the moderate and pro-Western Mr. Karzai controls the central government, and warlords and the Taliban roam the countryside, a powerful executive is in the interest of the United States. It`s certainly risky to bet so heavily on one leader: Mr. Karzai must be counted on not only to survive but to use his power in ways that unite rather than split the country. In the longer term Afghanistan will need a political system more responsive to its ethnic diversity and more protective of civil and religious rights. But the country has already been through nine constitutions. If the 10th leads to the legitimate democratic election of a president whose authority is recognized throughout the country, Afghanistan will have taken a historic step forward.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Un-American Recovery


By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A15


Why is the Bush recovery different from all other recoveries? A slump is a slump is a slump, but it`s during recoveries that the distinctive features of a changing economy become apparent. And our current recovery differs so radically from every other bounce-back since World War II that you have to wonder whether we`re really talking about the same country.

After inching along imperceptibly for quarter after quarter, the economy is, by some measures, roaring back. The annual growth rate last quarter topped 8 percent, while productivity increased by more than 9 percent. To be sure, employment is still down by 2.4 million jobs since Bush took office, but it`s finally begun to rise a bit.

And there are some indices that make even the productivity increases pale by comparison. Corporations have been having a bang-up recovery all along, it turns out; they are about to experience their seventh straight quarter of profit growth. The operating earnings of the 500 companies on the Standard and Poor`s index, researchers at Thomas First Call in Boston estimate, will rise by 21.9 percent over last year. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, the American people, for one. Since July the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002 -- the slowest wage growth we`ve experienced in 40 years. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute have been comparing recoveries of late, looking into the growth in corporate-sector income in each of the nine recoveries the United States has gone through since the end of World War II. In the preceding eight, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations` additional income.

Conversely, labor compensation averaged 61 percent of the total income growth in the preceding recoveries, and was never lower than 55 percent. In the Bush recovery, it`s just 29 percent of the new income coming in to the corporations.

Someone with an antiquarian vocabulary might rightly note that this is a recovery for capital, not labor; indeed, that it`s a recovery for capital at the expense of labor. But we are none of us antiquarians, so let`s just proceed.

There are only a couple of ways to explain how the capacity of U.S. workers to claim their accustomed share of the nation`s income has so stunningly collapsed. Outsourcing is certainly a big part of the picture. As Stephen S. Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has noted, private-sector hiring in the current recovery is roughly 7 million jobs shy of what would have been the norm in previous recoveries, and U.S. corporations, high-tech as well as low-tech, are busily hiring employees from lower-wage nations instead of from our own.

The jobless rate among U.S. software engineers, for instance, has doubled over the past three years. In Bangalore, India, where American companies are on a huge hiring spree for the kind of talent they used to scoop up in Silicon Valley, the starting annual salary for top electrical engineering graduates, says Business Week, is $10,000 -- compared with $80,000 here in the States. Tell that to a software writer in Palo Alto and she`s not likely to hit up her boss for a raise.

That software writer certainly doesn`t belong to a union, either.

Indeed, the current recovery is not only the first to take place in an economy in which global wage rates are a factor, but the first since before the New Deal to take place in an economy in which the rate of private-sector unionization is in single digits -- just 8.5 percent of the workforce.

In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush. The great balancing act of the New Deal -- the fostering of vibrant unions, the legislation of minimum wages and such, in a conscious effort to spread prosperity and boost consumption -- has come undone. (The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997.) And the problem with pre-new deal recoveries is that they never created lasting prosperity.

The current administration is not responsible for the broad contours of this miserably misshapen recovery, but its every action merely increases the imbalance of power between America`s employers and employees. But the Democrats` prescriptions for more broadly shared prosperity need some tweaking, too. With the globalization of high-end professions, no Democrat can assert quite so confidently the line that Bill Clinton used so often: What you earn is a result of what you learn. This year`s crop of presidential candidates is taking more seriously the importance of labor standards in trade accords, and the right of workers to organize. But they`ve got a way to go to make the issue of stagnating incomes into the kind of battle cry it should be in the campaign against Bush. If they`re not up to it, I say we outsource `em all and bring in some pols from Bangalore.


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A Glut of Greenbacks


By Robert J. Samuelson

Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A15


The Saddam Hussein rally was a bust. If you expected the tyrant`s capture to boost stocks or the dollar, you were disappointed -- and therein lies a story. A great drama is now unfolding in the world`s money markets. In 2003 the United States` current account deficit (a broad measure of trade) will total about $550 billion, a modern record. Because Americans pay for imports with dollars, this means that every day, foreigners must decide whether to keep about $1.5 billion in dollars. If they sell dollars for euros, yen or other currencies, the dollar`s exchange rate will drop -- with huge and possibly disruptive consequences for all trading nations and global stock markets.

After Hussein`s capture, U.S. stocks actually declined slightly, as did the dollar. The euro -- which was worth only 86 cents in early 2002 -- inched up to what was then a record $1.23. The actual changes didn`t matter much, but they reflected a simple reality: Finding Hussein, though critical for Iraq, barely altered the powerful money flows now moving global stock, bond and currency markets.

What`s occurring is a turnaround from the patterns of the late 1990s, when foreign money poured into the United States, chasing the Internet dream and rising stocks. From 1998 to 2000, foreigners invested $2 trillion in U.S. securities (stocks, bonds) and companies, reports the Federal Reserve. The flood of money pushed up the dollar`s exchange rate, as other currencies were sold for dollars. Now the cycle is reversing.

Although global investors aren`t withdrawing funds from the United States, they`re wary of new commitments. "What is striking is how unwilling foreigners are to add to their exposure of U.S. [stocks]," reports Merrill Lynch. It surveyed about 300 global investment managers for pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies and hedge funds. A surprising 58 percent thought U.S. stocks were already "overvalued." Only 12 percent preferred U.S. investments to those in Europe, Japan and elsewhere; 56 percent thought the dollar would depreciate over the next year.

What this means is that the rest of the world is receiving, through U.S. current account deficits, more dollars than it wants. So, the dollar has already been slipping on foreign-exchange markets. Since early 2002 it`s fallen about 30 percent against the euro, 19 percent against the yen and 23 percent against a basket of 26 currencies. This matters -- and not just for Americans. The United States remains the world`s largest trading nation; in 2002, U.S. exports and imports totaled almost $2.4 trillion. A high dollar makes U.S. exports more expensive and imports cheaper; a low dollar does the opposite. The dollar`s exchange rate affects the competitiveness of U.S. industries and also of European, Asian and Latin American industries.

It`s a big deal that could get bigger. Fred Bergsten of the Institute for International Economics thinks the U.S. current account deficit needs to drop by half. It`s now 5 percent of gross domestic product. Getting to 2.5 percent of GDP will require, Bergsten says, another 15 percent to 20 percent decline in the dollar. What does a sliding dollar mean for the world economy? Here are three possibilities:

First, the United States wins and no one else loses. A falling dollar spurs the U.S. economy by increasing exports and restraining imports. Surplus industrial capacity keeps inflation low. But Europe and Japan don`t suffer much, because the ongoing global economic recovery gathers strength and cushions export losses. Indeed, the pressure on their exports -- from shifting exchange rates -- prompts policy changes to raise domestic growth. Europe cuts interest rates; both liberalize markets.

Second, the United States and China win -- and Europe and Japan lose. Because China keeps its currency, the renminbi, fixed to the dollar, it also gains competitive advantage when the dollar drops. (China stabilizes the renminbi by investing surplus dollars in U.S. Treasury securities rather than selling them for local currency.) Meanwhile, a sharp rise of the euro to, say, $1.40 depresses Europe`s exports and destroys its economic recovery. Protectionism rises. Japan suffers a similar fate.

Third, the dollar "crashes" -- and everyone loses. Foreign investors sell U.S. stocks and bonds, whose values are weakening in terms of their currencies. (In mid-2003, they owned about 10 percent of U.S. stocks and 17 percent of U.S. corporate bonds.) This triggers massive selling. Stocks and bond prices drop sharply, as does the dollar. Americans and foreigners suffer huge losses. Confidence crumbles; the global economy slumps. "There are two risks [of a rising dollar]: one is that it creates a European slowdown; the second is that it upsets financial markets," says economist Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute.

Little wonder that Hussein`s capture was an economic blip. Whatever effects it had on confidence are swamped by the uncertainties of the dollar. No one knows what will happen. Indeed, it`s possible that a reviving American economy could bolster the dollar by rekindling foreign interest in U.S. securities. How this drama turns out will be a big story of 2004. The best ending would be so boring that no one notices.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Selektives Erinnerungsvermögen und falsche Doktrinen
von Noam Chomsky
ZNet 21.12.2003

All jenen, welchen Menschenrechte, Gerechtigkeit und Aufrichtigkeit etwas bedeuten, sollten sich über die Festnahme Saddam Husseins sehr freuen, und sollten eine faire Verhandlung vor einem internationalen Tribunal erwarten.

Eine Anklage von Saddams Gräueltaten würde nicht nur seine Abschlachtung und Vergasung von KurdInnen im Jahr 1988 betreffen, sondern auch, was ziemlich entscheidend ist, sein Massaker an den schiitischen Rebellen, welche ihn 1991 umstürzen hätten können.

Zu diesem Zeitpunkt waren Washington und dessen Verbündete der„bemerkenswert einstimmigen Auffassung, [dass], was auch immer die Sünden des irakischen Führers gewesen sein mögen, er dem Westen und der Region eine bessere Hoffnung für die Stabilität seines Landes bietet als jene, welche unter seiner Unterdrückung leiden“, berichtete Alan Cowell in der New York Times.

Letzten Dezember veröffentlichte Jack Straw, der Außenminister Großbritanniens, ein Dossier über Saddams Verbrechen, welches sich fast ausschließlich auf die Periode mit starker Unterstützung Saddams durch die USA und Großbritannien beschränkte.

Mit der üblichen Zurschaustellung von moralischer Aufrichtigkeit sahen Straws Bericht und Washingtons Antwort über diese Unterstützung hinweg.

Solche Praktiken spiegeln eine Falle wider, die allgemein in der intellektuellen Kultur tief verwurzelt ist – eine Falle, welche häufig die Doktrin der Kursänderung genannt wird, und in den Vereinigten Staaten alle zwei oder drei Jahre umgesetzt wird. Der Inhalt der Doktrin ist: „Ja, in der Vergangenheit haben wir aus Unschuld oder Ungeschicklichkeit einige falsche Sachen gemacht. Aber jetzt ist das alles vorbei, also verschwenden wir keine Zeit mehr mit diesen überholten, ermüdenden Sachen“.

Die Doktrin ist unehrlich und feig, aber sie hat Vorteile: Sie schützt uns vor der Gefahr zu verstehen, was vor unseren Augen passiert.

Zum Beispiel war die ursprüngliche Rechtfertigung der Bush Verwaltung für einen Krieg im Irak, die Welt vor einem Tyrannen zu retten, der Massenvernichtungswaffen entwickelt und Verbindungen mit dem Terrorismus pflegt. Niemand glaubt das heute, nicht einmal die Autoren von Bushs Reden.

Die neue Begründung ist, dass wir die Invasion des Iraks durchgeführt haben, um dort eine Demokratie zu errichten und, tatsächlich, um den ganzen Nahen Osten zu demokratisieren.

Manchmal wird der wiederholte Auftritt in dieser Pose als Demokratie-Errichter zu einem begeisterten Jubelruf.

Letzten Monat beschrieb, zum Beispiel, David Ignatius, der Kommentator der Washington Post, die Invasion des Iraks als „den idealistischsten Krieg der Neuzeit“ – der nur geführt wird um die Demokratie in den Irak und die Region zu bringen.

Ignatius war besonders angetan von Paul Wolfowitz, „dem führenden Idealisten der Bush Administration“, den er als ehrlichen intellektuellen beschrieb, der „an der Unterdrückung [in der arabischen Welt] leidet und davon träumt sie zu befreien“.

Vielleicht ist es hilfreich Wolfowitzs Karriere zu erklären – wie seine starke Unterstützung von Indonesiens Suharto, einem der schlimmsten Massenmörder und Aggressoren des letzten Jahrhunderts, als Wolfowitz unter Ronald Reagan in diesem Land Botschafter war.

Als für Asien verantwortlicher State Department Beamter unter Reagan, leitete Wolfowitz die Unterstützung für die mörderischen Diktatoren Chun von Südkorea und Marcos von den Philippinen.

All dies ist wegen der bequemen Doktrin des Kurswechsels irrelevant.

Also ja, Wolfowitzs Herz blutet wenn er an die Opfer der Unterdrückung denkt – und wenn die Aufzeichnungen das Gegenteil zeigen sind sie nur langweiliges altes Zeug, das wir vergessen wollen.

Man könnte sich auch an eine andere kürzliche Illustration von Wolfowitzs Liebe für die Demokratie erinnern. Die Türkei hörte auf ihre Bevölkerung und befolgte nicht die Anordnungen von Crawford, Texas oder Washington D.C.

Das neueste Kapitel ist Wolfowitzs „Entschlossenheit und Urteil“ was die Vergabe von großzügigen Wiederaufbauverträgen für den Irak angeht. Ausgeschlossen werden Länder wo die Regierung es wagte die gleiche Position wie die überragende Mehrheit ihrer Bevölkerung anzunehmen.

Wolfowitzs angebliche Gründe sind „Sicherheitsinteressen“, die es nicht gibt, aber der tiefe Hass auf die Demokratie ist schwer zu übersehen – wie auch die Tatsache, dass die Konzerne Halliburton und Bechtel mit der blühenden Demokratie Usbekistan und den Solomon Inseln „konkurrieren“ dürfen, aber nicht mit den führenden Industriegesellschaften.

Was enthüllend und wichtig für die Zukunft ist, ist dass die von Washingtons gezeigte Verachtung für die Demokratie von einer im Chor gesungenen Verehrung für ihre Sehnsucht nach Demokratie begleitet worden ist.

Fähig zu sein dies durchzuziehen ist eine beeindruckende Leistung, die sogar in einem totalitären Staat schwer nachzumachen ist.

Die IrakerInnen haben mit diesem Prozess der Eroberer und der Eroberten einige Erfahrung.

Die Briten erschufen den Irak für ihre eigenen Interessen. Als sie diesen Teil der Welt betrieben diskutierten sie, wie man das erschafft, was sie arabische Fassaden nannten – schwache, nachgiebige Regierungen, wenn möglich parlamentarisch, und das so lange, wie die Briten effektiv herrschten.

Wer würde erwarten, dass die Vereinigten Staaten es jemals einer unabhängigen irakischen Regierung gestatten würden zu existieren? Besonders jetzt, wo Washington sich das Recht genommen hat dort permanente Militärbasen zu errichten, im Herz der größten Öl produzierenden Region der Welt, und wo es wirtschaftliche Regelungen aufgezwungen hat, die kein souveränes Land akzeptieren würde, und so das Schicksal des Landes in die Hände von westlichen Korporationen gelegt hat.

Seit jeher sind in der Geschichte die brutalsten und beschämendsten Handlungen mit Regelmäßigkeit von Bekundungen nobler Absichten begleitet worden – und von Rhetorik darüber Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit zu bringen.

Eine aufrichtige Betrachtung würde Thomas Jeffersons Einschätzung des Zustandes der Welt zu seiner Zeit verallgemeinern: „Wir glauben genauso wenig daran, dass Bonaparte lediglich für die Freiheit der Meere kämpft, wie daran, dass Großbritannien für die Freiheit der Menschheit kämpft. Das Ziel ist dasselbe, [nämlich] die Macht, den Reichtum und die Ressourcen anderer Länder an sich zu reißen.“





[ Übersetzt von: Matthias | Orginalartikel: "Selective Memory and False Doctrine

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weintra…
COMMENTARY



Amid Mud and Blood, Christmas Won Out
In a world split along lines of nation and culture, the brief truce of 1914 sounds almost impossible
By Stanley Weintraub
Stanley Weintraub is author of "Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce" (Plume/Penguin, 2002).

December 24, 2003

Christmas has always been hard on soldiers who are far away from home. But only once did they actually lay down their arms and stop a war for it.

That was Christmas Eve 1914.

It was the first months of World War I. The British and German troops facing each other in muddy Flanders were as close to home geographically as wartime enemies on someone else`s territory ever get. London was 60 miles away across the English Channel. The German border abutted on Belgium, which the Kaiser`s army had invaded. Yet the muck, and the crisscrossing waterlogged trenches and the barbed-wire entanglements separating the two armies, as well as the constant firing by machine guns and artillery, made the distance seem far, far greater.

A Royal Engineer, Andrew Todd, wrote to the Edinburgh Scotsman newspaper that soldiers were "only 60 yard apart" at some places on the front lines. To make it feel more like Christmas, governments on both sides had prepared small Christmas gift boxes for each soldier, with snacks and tobacco. The German troops, accessible from home by land, also received small Christmas trees with candles attached.

The law of unanticipated consequences went to work. On Christmas Eve, the Germans set trees on trench parapets and lit the candles. Then, they began singing carols, and though their language was unfamiliar to their enemies, the tunes were not. After a few trees were shot at, the British became more curious than belligerent and crawled forward to watch and listen. And after a while, they began to sing.

By Christmas morning, the "no man`s land" between the trenches was filled with fraternizing soldiers, sharing rations and gifts, singing and (more solemnly) burying the dead between the lines. Soon they were even playing soccer, mostly with improvised balls.

According to the official war diary of the 133rd Saxon Regiment, "Tommy and Fritz" kicked about a real football supplied by a Scot. "This developed into a regulation football match with caps casually laid out as goals. The frozen ground was no great matter…. Das Spiel endete 3:2 fur Fritz" ("The game ended 3-2 for Fritz").

But the high commands on both sides felt they could not let this continue. In the national interest, the war had to go on. War is easier to make than peace. Under threat of court martial, troops on both sides were to ordered to separate and to restart hostilities. Reluctantly, they drifted apart.

As Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien ordered the British 2nd Corps from his cushy rear-area headquarters: "On no account is intercourse to be allowed between opposing troops. To finish this war quickly, we must keep up the fighting spirit."

In most sectors, prearranged signals ordered men back or confirmed the close of the truce.

"We parted," Pvt. Percy Jones of the Westminster Brigade wrote in his diary, "with much hand-shaking and mutual goodwill."

Rifleman George Eade of the 3rd London Rifles reported a German soldier saying to him, "Today we have peace. Tomorrow you fight for your country; I fight for mine. Good luck."

By New Year`s Day the shooting had restarted. Attempts at other Christmas truces failed. Millions more would die before the final armistice in November 1918.

Today, governments continue their efforts to make Christmas for troops away from home as palatable as possible. The food is briefly festive, and efforts are made to put a bit of holiday spirit in the atmosphere.

But truces no longer seem likely. An English friend who was an army officer in Italy in 1943 recalled the Germans ringing bells on Christmas Eve from a church high up on a hill nearby.

"Can we stop shooting?" he asked a higher-up. "Not on your life!" he was told. Peace and goodwill are difficult to generate toward the other side when one is educated, pragmatically, to hate his enemy.

It becomes even more difficult when the cultural divide is vast. There could have been no shared Christmases with the Japanese in the Pacific war between 1941 and 1945.

Nor can it be easy now to share values, or festivities, with zealous Islamic combatants at Christmas in Iraq or Afghanistan.

A Christmas truce seems an impossible dream, almost a myth, from a more simple, vanished world. Peace is harder to make than war.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Pipeline politics

Wednesday, December 24, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/24/EDGQV3KP611.DTL


SINCE THE FALL of Saddam Hussein`s government in April, there have been 86 attacks on Iraq`s oil infrastructure. Last weekend, two pipelines exploded near Baghdad and Kirkuk and Iraqi police thwarted a terrorist plan to bomb a major oil reservoir.

As a result of these attacks, Iraq suffers from a scarcity of fuel and its people spend hours in long lines to get limited rations of gasoline for their vehicles.

It is now clear that oil will not pay for the reconstruction of Iraq in the foreseeable future. It is also clear that some quarters of the Iraqi populace will fight to keep the United States from reconstructing the country`s oil extraction and refining operations.

According to the Middle East Economic Survey, moreover, the techniques used to attack the oil infrastructure in Iraq -- rocket attacks, explosive devices set off near pipelines, car bombings, attacks on a police station -- mirror the methods employed by FARC, the guerrilla group that repeatedly blows up U.S. and British oil pipelines in Colombia, which American troops try, but fail, to protect.

Meanwhile, the world`s industrial nations are eager to get in on rights to explore and develop Iraqi oil fields. Last week, France and Germany agreed to forgive an undisclosed amount of Iraq`s $125 billion in debt. No big surprise; no point in demanding money that won`t be forthcoming. Instead, they -- and Russia, as well -- will seek to gain favorable treatment in negotiating oil contracts with the American-backed Iraqi Governing Council.

To historians, the struggle among western nations to divide up Iraq`s oil bears an eerie resemblance to the aftermath of World War I, when Britain and other Western nations divided up the oil of the former Ottoman Empire, out of which Iraq was carved.

To the Iraqi people, who also remember that era, the American invasion has never been about weapons of mass destruction or the noble effort to spread democracy. It has been about what lies beneath their land.

Americans, for our part, don`t seem to realize the real costs of our fuel. What we fail to factor in are the billions of dollars spent on our military to gain access to oil fields and then guard oil pipelines.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

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[Joerver]

Randolph T. Holhut: `What we need to be fighting for in 2004`
Posted on Wednesday, December 24 @ 09:49:36 EST
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By Randolph T. Holhut

DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It`s not an exaggeration to say that it is imperative that George W. Bush is evicted from the White House in 2004.

But how are we going to do it?

Only if there are more of us than there are of them.

By more of us, I mean people who believe in the traditional American values of freedom and justice; people who believe that a functioning democracy demands that citizens ask questions of their leaders and that they receive truthful answers in reply; people who aren`t discouraged when those in power ridicule our ideas; people who have proudly upheld the simple notion that the highest form of patriotism is to speak out when your country is doing something wrong.



The things we have seen in the last three years of the Bush administration have been horrifying. But are there more people who are horrified by Bush and willing to do something about it than there are people who like things just as they are?

That, my friends, is the big question that faces us in the coming months.

As we learned from the 2000 presidential election, we are a nation divided. Politically, we are a nation where the old are pitted against the young, the rich against the poor, the city dwellers against the suburbanites, Christians against secular society, liberals against conservatives, workers and consumers against corporations, Northerners and Southerners, gays against straights, whites against blacks and men against women.

And let`s not forget the most important division - voters and non-voters. Barely 51 percent of those eligible to vote in the U.S. chose to do so in the 2000 presidential election, one of the worst showings of any of the world`s major democracies.

Faced with these divisions, how do you motivate people to take action against arguably the worst president this nation has ever seen?

The case against George W. Bush is easy to make, but it`s even more important to make a case for a positive vision.

When people wrinkle their noses in the disgust when you say the word "liberal," all it takes to change that reaction is a reminder of the who was responsible for the hard won gains of the 20th century - child labor laws, the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage, Social Security and Medicare, the G.I. Bill and the Civil Rights Act, broader access to higher education and cleaner air and water.

These are the cornerstones of liberalism and they are all things that are firmly supported by a majority of Americans. They are also all under siege by the reactionaries who have made no secret of their desire to turn back the clock to 1900 and wipe away the social and economic progress of the last 100 years.

The recent crusade by conservatives to replace Franklin D. Roosevelt`s face on the dime with Ronald Reagan`s is instructive. Conservatives have hated Roosevelt for decades. It`s easy to see why.

"There are two ways of viewing the government`s duty in matters affecting economic and social life," Roosevelt said in 1932 upon accepting his party`s nomination for president. "The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.

"But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party," he said. "Ours must be a Party of Liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens."

Conservatives and their centrist enablers in the Democratic Party like to portray government as the enemy of the American people. Anyone who still believes that using government to work for positive social change is a good and honorable thing is dismissed as a starry-eyed idealist.

But Roosevelt`s New Deal proved that government can make a difference in people`s lives. It reduced poverty through programs such as Social Security and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It created public works programs that not only provided jobs for the unemployed but built bridges, roads, dams and other public facilities that are still in use today. It created the eight-hour work day, the 40-hour work week and the minimum wage. It gave labor unions the right to organize. It helped stabilize farm prices and reclaim farm land ravaged by erosion and overuse.

"Under the New Deal the noble term `commonwealth` was given a more realistic mean than ever before in our history," the historian Henry Steele Commager wrote after Roosevelt`s death in 1945.

But conservatives did not believe then and do not believe now in the principle of the responsibility of the state to provide for the welfare and security of its people.

If you`re not poor and hungry, if you`re not old and sick, if you have plenty of money to sustain you and plenty of friends to help you, it`s easy to believe that philosophy. The 1 percent of America that controls more than 40 percent of this nation`s wealth would be more than happy to get government out of the social welfare business.

To conservatives, the free market is always right and always acts in the best interests of all, as opposed to governments, which are always wrong and never act in the best interests of all. The hegemony of the market cannot be questioned and cannot be stopped. As former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher so famously taught: "There is no alternative."

We`re supposed to accept a world where corporations and capital have no loyalty to any entity but its shareholders; where jobs hopscotch the globe in search of places where the wages are lowest and health, safety and environmental safeguards are non-existent; where, as Benjamin Barber puts it in his book "Jihad vs. McWorld," we see "the privatization of all things public and the commercialization of all things private."

We are in the midst of a global crisis where decades of social progress are being swept away. It doesn`t have to be like this, and contrary to Lady Thatcher`s grand pronouncement, there must be an alternative to a rapacious free market that puts profits ahead of human needs.

Here in our nation, it means an electoral system that`s not controlled by corporate dollars. It means a press that lives up to its responsibility to challenge the status quo. It means a government that exists to promote the general welfare, and not merely help the rich grow richer. It means developing a sustainable economy that doesn`t plunder the earth. It means investing in public infrastructure, health and safety to create more jobs, affordable housing, better schools. It means a health care system that all Americans can have access to.

It also means that our government might try being a little more humble and a little more cooperative with the rest of the world.

Americans must recognize this simple fact - if our leaders decide they will not stop waging war until there are no more threats against America, there will continue to be threats against America because of the permanent war being waged against those our leaders believe are our enemies. We are struck in a seemingly unbreakable cycle of endless warmaking that creates new threats that requires still more warmaking.

Clearly, our nation`s - indeed, the world`s security - will ultimately depend upon a true commitment to peace and social justice all over our planet.

In a time when it seems as if all the worst instincts of humanity are triumphant, hope is a radical ideal. We have to believe that our nation and the world can become a better place. We have no choice but to embrace the hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

This is what we need to be fighting for in 2004.

Randolph T. Holhut was a journalist in New England for more than 20 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at [e-mail].

[Joerver]

Ochenski: Code Orange Christmas
by George Ochenski

http://www.everyweek.com/News/News.asp?no=3757
Following a path well traveled

The snow fell softly as the skis swished silently through the deep green pines while the low winter sun suffused the slopes below in a golden glow. Deep and restful peace lay upon the land and I, like so many other Montanans, drank my fill of the rich and quiet beauty in which we are so lucky to live. Peace—such a simple word to say, and such a noble goal for society. Yet at this time when peace, tolerance, and generosity should be abundant, we are a society torn and fearful, and wondering when, if, and what kind of peace we will ever experience again.

Last week’s big news, of course, was the capture of Saddam Hussein. “We got him,” shouted the headlines, as intentionally humiliating pictures of Iraq’s bedraggled former leader were broadcast around the globe.

This week’s big news is raising the terror threat level from Code Yellow to Code Orange. In case you haven’t gotten the color codes by which we are expected to live our lives down pat yet, in plain old English that means we went from “elevated” threat levels to “high.”

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge says Americans should “go about our business.” But meanwhile, he is also telling us that the threats to our nation from terrorist attacks are higher than at any time since 9/11. The “intelligence chatter,” according to our shadowy analysts, also suggests we may be subjected to “non-conventional” attacks involving chemical or biological agents. Oh, and by the way, Happy Holidays.

Time magazine, getting in the holiday spirit, slaps three soldiers, in full camo and armed to the teeth, on its cover, proclaiming them Time’s “person of the year.” The incongruity between the Season of Peace and those who carry out the grim business of war is not lost in translation.

So here we are, having outlasted and bankrupted the former “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union, standing alone as the world’s sole remaining superpower. Yet we are spending more on so-called “defense” than any nation on earth…by exponential magnitudes. Our aircraft carriers roam the high seas, our satellites spy from the heavens, and our submarines lurk silent and undetectable off the shores of friends and foes alike. We still have thousands of nuclear warheads ready to unleash hellfire and total destruction at a moment’s notice. And our soldiers are scattered across the globe on every continent, in or around every country, securing, if not the peace, then at least their place on the cover of Time magazine.

Which brings us, of course, to the core question here: What kind of world and what kind of “peace” are we creating? As in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” we are at the juncture where “two roads diverge in a yellow wood.” We, like Frost, are confronted with the choice of paths, knowing we “could not travel both and be one traveler.”

Our current path is well traveled. Like so many nations and empires before us, we are searching for peace and security through the colonial approach of force of arms. Using all the might at our disposal—and indeed, our weapons have the combined might to destroy the globe—we seek the way of the sword, intimidating those who would challenge us with utter and total destruction.

Twice in rapid succession, President Bush has thrown our country into unprecedented pre-emptive wars on other nations, while threatening many more. Bush’s so-called “war on terrorism” is global in nature we are told, wildly expensive as we’re finding out, and, if you believe those who crafted and launched it, potentially endless. We are also told that such efforts are absolutely necessary to “secure the peace.”

The evidence, however, does not seem to support the theory. The Code Orange warnings reflect an increased, not decreased, level of threat. Even as our carols laud “Peace on Earth, good will toward men,” we are a fearful, vengeful nation, bristling with guns pointed outward at “the enemy,” whomsoever it may be.

There is, of course, another way. Just as in Frost’s poem, there is indeed a path “less traveled” that might deliver us to a future of real peace—not the peace enforced by threat of arms, conquest, and control, but the peace born of respect and admiration, tolerance and humility, understanding and empathy for all our fellow travelers on the globe as we whirl through time and space.

Many will dismiss such thoughts as the outmoded thinking of sentimentalists longing for a simpler world. “Times have changed,” they will say, positing that if we don’t “get the terrorists where they live,” they will soon be coming to get us where we live. But that is far from new thinking; it is the primitive logic of the very old, very worn path that leads us where? Well, so far it is leading us to a loss of our basic freedoms, to being spied on by our own government, to massive deficits loaded on future generations, to an unconscionable loss of life, to the horrific maiming of thousands more, and to a Code Orange Christmas.

We’ve heard it all before: pound your “swords into plowshares,” “love thy enemy,” “thou shalt not kill,” and “the meek shall inherit the earth.” Indeed, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, a man who expounded all those sentimentalist theories and who wound up nailed to a cross for his efforts. Yet, 2000 years later, he is still called the Prince of Peace.

We are lucky here in Montana. On any given day, most of us can walk to a quiet pine forest, stand on a windblown mountaintop, or lose ourselves in a vast prairie stretching from horizon to horizon. And we can find, for a moment at least, the deep and total peace of a nature that has no clue what Code Orange means.

Peace is still possible. But to get there, we have to take the path less traveled.

When not lobbying the Montana Legislature, George Ochenski is rattling the cage of the political establishment as a political analyst for the Missoula Independent.

[Joerver]

A deficit of fiscal smarts
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/21/INGH63P9601.DTL


We live in a topsy-turvy world, in which conservatives preach the virtues of budget deficits, and the Democrats, once castigated for their lack of fiscal responsibility, now preach deficit reduction.

For those in the Clinton administration who worked so hard to reduce the huge deficits of the Ronald Reagan-George Bush I years from a 5 percent deficit in 1992 to a 2 percent surplus in 2000, the turnaround, in a few short years, to deficits once again of 5 percent comes as a bitter pill. Our hard work did little except provide room for a tax cut for America`s wealthy, who already did so well in the last quarter-century, and especially so in the Roaring Nineties.

Ordinary citizens may rightly be confused both by the changed positions and the competing arguments. Even a weak memory can recall the conservative arguments for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in 1997.

The Clinton administration barely beat back this initiative, arguing that in times of recession, it may be necessary to run budget deficits. At the same time, Clintonites claim that deficit reduction was the basis of the recovery from the 1990-91 recession. Bush claimed that his tax cuts, which increased the deficit, were the basis of the recovery from the 2001 recession.

There are two points that cause confusion. The first is that deficits may be beneficial in the short run, when the economy is in a recession and resources are underemployed, but may be harmful in the long run. If a tax cut or an expenditure cut stimulates the economy, then the benefit of the resulting increase in income may far outweigh the costs of the resulting deficit.

In the long run, however, money the government borrows to finance the deficit may squeeze out private investment, by leading to higher interest rates; or it may (as is the case today in the United States) force the country to borrow more abroad. As the country has to pay more and more to foreign creditors, the income of those in the country falls, lowering standards of living from what they would be otherwise.

The second point of confusion is that the consequences of a deficit, either in the short run or the long, depend on how it arises. If the deficit comes about as a result of expenditures on high-return public investments, such as in science or technology, airports or roads, then the benefits may again vastly exceed the costs by spurring growth.

The Clinton administration`s almost single-minded focus on deficit reduction was, in this sense, misplaced. Valuable investments were sacrificed on the altar of deficit reduction, giving in to the myopia of financial markets` seeming excessive concerns. If the deficit arises as a result of tax cuts for the wealthy, it may provide little stimulus to the economy: Even after the huge tax cuts in May 2001, the economy continued to underperform.

Tax cuts to lower- and middle-income Americans, on the other hand, do stimulate the economy, as the more recent tax cuts showed -- but so too would improved unemployment benefits or aid to states and localities that otherwise would have been forced to cut their expenditures or increase taxes.

What, then, are we to make of the claim of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and others that deficit reduction was responsible for the economic recovery a decade ago?

The notion flies in the face of what has been taught in virtually every economics course in the world for the past 70 years. Conservatives have long sought to discredit Keynesian economics -- the notion that government could improve the market, helping the economy maintain full employment. Have the Democrats succeeded in slaying Keynes, succeeding where the conservatives had failed?

The Clintonites claimed that lowering deficits would lead to lower interest rates, which would stimulate the economy. But there is nothing in economic theory or experience that says that the Fed can only lower interest rates when the deficit is low. If lowering interest rates was what did the trick, then Greenspan could have lowered interest rates far more than he did - - as he has shown in the current recession -- with or without deficit reduction.

Around the world, the almost universal experience has been that deficit reduction in the midst of a downturn makes matters worse, turning slowdowns into recessions, recessions into depressions. Most recently, we have seen this in East Asia and Latin America, as Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina were cajoled or forced into cutting expenditures. The results were a vindication for standard economic theory, a vindication that came at a high price for the affected countries.

Why then did the U.S. deficit reduction in 1993 not have the disastrous effects it has had elsewhere?

Partly it was because of the careful way that it was designed, with the expenditure cuts "back-loaded," that is, most of them would not occur until well after the economy recovered; and with the tax increase aimed at the very well-off, the richest 2 percent. Similarly, the Bush tax cuts for these individuals did not stimulate the economy much in 2001, but tax increases for this group did not do the opposite in 1993.

The United States may also have been protected from a disastrous deficit because there was already some momentum under way for recovery: Every downturn eventually comes to an end, and the administration may have claimed, or been given, more credit than it deserved. But it was also partly due to the special circumstances of America`s banking system at the time.

The Fed had been responsible for misguided capital adequacy regulations, which treated long-term government bonds as if they were safe; while there was little risk of a default, the value of these bonds is highly variable, evidenced by the much higher return (compared to Treasury bills) that they earn. These regulations had, in effect, encouraged banks to buy these bonds, rather than lending to firms or households -- part of the cause of the 1990- 91 recession. But with large holdings of these bonds, a reduction in the long- term interest rate -- one of the benefits of deficit reduction -- led to a large increase in the value of long-term bonds, effectively recapitalizing the banking system, enhancing their ability and willingness to lend. This was instrumental in the economic recovery.

But today, regulators do not make the mistake of the past, treating long- term bonds as if they are safe, and it is far more likely here, or elsewhere, that deficit reduction will have negative rather than positive effects in the midst of a downturn.

What are the lessons of the Roaring Nineties for our current fiscal position? In the Clinton years, we talked about maximizing the bang for the buck, getting the most stimuli per dollar of deficit. Bush has almost reversed this, seemingly minimizing the stimulus per dollar of deficit created. The deficits will likely dominate policy discourse for a decade or more. Needed investments in the public sector, in education, technology and science, in infrastructure, will be compromised.

America`s economic strengths are enormous. The boom of the `90s was based on investments in science in technologies and education in earlier decades. We have lived off the past, but are failing to provide adequately for the future. It may be years before the folly of the Bush economic policies are fully realized.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, was Chairman of President Clinton`s Council of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 1997. He is the author of the recently published book, "The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World`s Most Prosperous Decade." He is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle |

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The Shimps wünschen ein Frohes Weihnachtsfest

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Mad Cowboy Case Discovered In Washington

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WASHINGTON (IWR News Parody) - Scott McClellan announced today that President Bush has been diagnosed with Mad Cowboy Disease. The President will be quarantined, until further notice, at a psychiatric ward in Walter Reed Medical Center. Mr. McClellan said epidemiologists have traced this case to Jenna Welch`s special holiday Texas Head Cheese Bean Dip.

[Joerver]

Wednesday, December 24, 2003
War News for December 24, 2003 draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/
Bring `em on: CENTCOM reports three US soldiers killed by roadside bomb near Samarra.

Bring ‘em on: Suicide bomb kills four in Arbil.

Bring ‘em on: US convoy attacked with small arms fire in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi CDC member killed in action in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Attempted assassination of aid to Iraqi minister in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi security guard wounded in Mosul during ambush of US military convoy.

Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi killed, two wounded by landmine in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting reported in Baghdad.
Der südlichen Teil von Baghdad wurde von US-Militär mit Bomben und Hubschraubern angegriffen.

Bring `em on: Baghdad Sheraton mortared, firefight ensues.

Ethnic fighting between Arab and Kurdish Iraqis reported in Kirkuk.
Interessanter Artikel über Kämpfe zwischen Araber und Kurden in Kirkud

Bottom line on Iraqi reconstruction. “With most of Iraq suffering from power interruptions lasting an average of 16 hours daily, it`s a little hard to party in the dark. How many US soldiers does it take to change a light bulb? About 130,000 so far, but don`t hold your breath.” Hey, don`t blame the troops for this fiasco - Bremer`s CPA and the Bush administration are the people who are screwing the pooch on Iraq reconstruction policy. The troops are just trying to hold its head.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Montana soldier killed in Iraq.




# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:52 AM
Comment (0)

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Nach einigen Tagen relativer Ruhe, jedenfalls mit wenigen US-Soldaten als Opfer, hat es gestern und heute wieder mehrere GI`s als Opfer gegeben(5 gemeldete Tote).
Auch im zivilen Bereich hat es besonders heute viele Opfer gegeben. Es ist unten noch nicht alles aufgeführt.
Bloody Christmas!

Military Fatalities:

*US**UK**Other**Total

468**53****33****554

The Wounded:

Hostile**Non Hostile**Total

**2310******369*******2679

Latest Military Fatality Date: 12/24/2003

12/24/03 ABC: Body of Drowned US Soldier Recovered
The body of a soldier who drowned trying to save one of his comrades was recovered nearly two weeks after his death on the Tigris River, the US military said in a statement.
12/24/03 ABC:Iraqi security force member killed
A member of the Iraqi security forces has been killed in action in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday local time, a US military spokesman said.
12/24/03 Reuters: Suicide Car Bomb Kills Four
A suicide car bomb exploded outside a government building in the Kurdish city of Arbil in northern Iraq, on Wednesday, killing at least four people and wounding 20, Iraqi officials said
12/24/03 Centcom: 3 Soldiers killed in IED Attack
Three Task Force Ironhorse soldiers were killed when the vehicle they were in was struck by an improvised explosive device (roadside bomb) on Highway One near Samarra at approximately 9:00 a.m. on Dec. 24.
12/23/03 ABC: First Thai soldier injured
A Thai soldier was injured when he stepped on a landmine in Iraq, but the incident will not sway the kingdom`s determination to continue humanitarian efforts there, Premier Thaksin Shinawatra said on Tuesday
12/22/03 DOD: Fatality Identified
Pfc. Charles E. Bush Jr., 43, of Buffalo, N.Y., was killed on Dec. 19 in Balad, Iraq. Bush was in a convoy when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.
12/22/03 DoD: Soldier dies during physical training
Sgt. Glenn R. Allison, 24, of Pittsfield, Mass., died on Dec. 18 in Baghdad, Iraq. Allison died during physical training. Allison was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, N.Y.
12/22/03 onet:Polish Soldier Dies-NonHostile Wound
Pole has been shot from contingent in (to) during cleaning weapon deadly Karbali.
12/22/03 Centcom: 2 Soldiers, 1 Translator Killed
Two 1st Armored Division soldiers were killed when the convoy in which they were riding struck a roadside bomb, at approximately 11:45 a.m. this morning in Baghdad.

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Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

U.S. oil companies longing to return to Libya
Simon Romero NYT
Wednesday, December 24, 2003



HOUSTON European oil companies, including Total of France, ENI of Italy and OMV of Austria, have accounted for most of the international oil exploration ventures in Libya in recent years. But Libya`s pledge to give up its weapons of mass destruction may be a boon for American oil companies that once had extensive operations there.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil; Amerada Hess of New York; and Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, had operated in Libya for years before America imposed sanctions on the country in 1986. All have contemplated a return to Libya for some time.

"Listening to the news in the last few days was a mind-blowing experience," said Lawrence Meriage, a spokesman for Occidental.

Libya played a major role in Occidental`s history, forming its largest operation in the late 1960`s and early 1970`s after the company`s founder, Armand Hammer, reached an accommodation with Libya`s leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, allowing Occidental to expand its base there. Hammer died in 1990.

The possibility that the United States could lift its sanctions was raised after President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said on Friday that Qaddafi had admitted that his country tried to develop nuclear and other unconventional weapons, and he promised to dismantle them and submit to international inspections.

Libya`s foreign minister, Mohammed Abdelrahman Shalqam, stoked oil companies` hopes of a return to Libya when he told reporters in Algiers on Monday that Libya sought to lure American companies to invest in its abundant oil fields.

Libya`s oil production peaked about 30 years ago, at more than 3 million barrels a day, when investments by Occidental helped invigorate the nation`s energy infrastructure and lift its importance within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Since then, however, friction between Qaddafi and the United States has limited the growth of its oil industry and role of American oil companies in Libya.

Companies from Europe have counted for most of the international exploration ventures in Libya. Earlier this month, the National Oil Company of Libya reached a $100 million agreement with a group formed by Woodside Petroleum of Australia, Repsol of Spain and Hellenic Petroleum of Greece to develop several oil fields. The deal was Libya`s first since United Nations sanctions were lifted in September. Brazil`s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, said this month that it was in negotiations with Libya for an exploration venture. It is too early to say whether American companies might return to their prominent role in Libya`s oil industry. The assets held by the Oasis Group, formed by ConocoPhillips, Amerada Hess and Marathon, have remained frozen since 1986, though Libya`s national oil company has continued to operate in the concession area they had worked.

Representatives of the three companies have been given permission by the U.S. government in recent months to negotiate with Libyan authorities and try to renew their oil leases, which are set to expire in 2005.

Libya remains alluring to U.S. oil companies. It has proven oil reserves of about 29.75 billion barrels and its location in North Africa makes its transportation expenses to Europe relatively less costly than other places.

And while Libya is not expected to rapidly increase its oil production soon, it might eventually become one of a number of countries, including Iraq and Russia, that could help reduce the dependence of the United States and Europe on oil from the world`s largest producer, Saudi Arabia.

Some authorities on Libya`s energy industry cautioned against becoming too optimistic about prospects in the country, which remains a socialist-driven economy and member of OPEC.

"The idea that American technology and capital are indispensable is the height of hubris," said G.Henry Schuler, a former American diplomat and oil company executive in Libya, who also pointed out that new or renewed deals will have to be reached with a government that is still controlled by Qaddafi.

"I guarantee you, Qaddafi will be chortling about the way all of this turns out," Schuler said.

The New York Times

Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune

[Joerver]

Troubling Report from the Pentagon
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=16…
December 23, 2003

In mid-November, the Bush Administration announced plans to turn over power to Iraqi authorities on July 1, 2004. On that date, the Coalition Provisional Authority will dissolve and a Transitional Assembly is supposed to assume full sovereign powers for governing the country. With only six months to go, the CPA is hustling to meet the deadline.

Monday morning on NBC`s Today Show, CPA Administrator Paul Bremer said he wasn`t worried about meeting the ambitious six-month deadline. But the Center for American Progress has received an unclassified Defense Department report entitled, "Draft Working Papers: Iraq Status" and dated December 15, 2003, that might cause Bremer and his colleagues in the Bush Administration to reconsider and start worrying.

Consider these facts from the report:

Security Forces: The document reports that the CPA is fully 50 percent short of its current goal of training and staffing the critical Iraqi Border Police Service. Some 12,600 – out of a goal of 27,500 – trained officers are on line, with only 100 in training. This fact, taken together with reports of defections from the first trained units of the new Iraqi army and difficulties in recruiting soldiers, reinforces the view of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, who has said that July 1 is too optimistic a date for Iraqis to "be able to provide for the external and internal security of the country." General Ricardo Sanchez has similarly remarked that American forces will be in Iraq for "a couple more years."

Running Low on Fuel: The DoD "Iraq Status" report reveals that the CPA is failing to meet its own production goals on diesel fuel (54% of target goal), liquefied petroleum gas (45% of target goal); kerosene (45% of target goal), and gasoline/benzene (64% of target goal). The Pentagon, meanwhile, is forced to rely on fuel shipments from contractors like Haliburton, which is under investigation by DoD auditors for overcharging taxpayers by nearly $100 million.

Energy Crisis: National electricity production stands at less than 3500 megawatts, far short of the CPA goal of 5,000 megawatts, according to the DoD status report. As the Boston Globe reported last week, the energy crisis is "disrupting the lives not only of the poor but of the middle class, and raising anti-American rage among the people hitherto most inclined to support the US military`s seizure of Iraq." According to the article, the CPA has been unable to fully explain the shortfall and continues to cite an array of problems ranging from "seasonal adjustments" to "black market manipulations."

Phone Connections: The DoD document reports that "Iraqi Telephone and Posts Company telephone cable splicing efforts [are] falling behind schedule; [and] may delay connecting subscribers several months." As reported in the LA Times last week, "Nearly nine months after much of Iraq`s infrastructure and industry was wrecked during the U.S.-led invasion and the rioting that ensued, there is still no way to make a simple telephone call… The lack of service is slowing the recovery of every public and private enterprise and further alienating Iraqis, who are already skeptical of Washington`s vision for democracy in their nation." The Pentagon`s decision to investigate the awarding of licenses to those with close ties to Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi has also prolonged the delays.

Education: DoD reports that "1,812 schools out of 11,939 schools damaged in some way" have been rehabilitated. The document omits references to news reports about "slipshod and wasteful" work on schools by the Bechtel Corporation which holds a USAID contract to rehabilitate more than 1,200 schools. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "One frustrated American, Maj. Linda Scharf, a civil affairs officer, ordered a survey of 20 Bechtel-repaired schools in her area. She found dangerous debris left in playgrounds, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets. ‘The work was horrible,` she said."

Donor Assistance: A DoD graph indicates that less than $1 billion out of a total $15 billion pledged by international donors has actually been committed. After the October donors` conference, the Administration touted "billions of dollars" pledged to aid the reconstruction of Iraq. However, the New York Times recently reported, "Six weeks after organizers of an international donors conference in Madrid said that more than $3 billion in grants had been pledged to help Iraq with immediate needs, a new World Bank tally verifies grants of only $685 million for 2004."

Ambassador Bremer`s upbeat remarks are particularly curious in light of a Philadelphia Inquirer report that he has told the Administration he may need as many as 1,000 additional CPA personnel in order to meet the July 1 deadline. The article says that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is "resisting Bremer`s request, arguing that the provisional authority should be slimming down, not beefing up, in anticipation of the sovereignty handover." However, at the same time, the Washington Times cites an internal Pentagon report on the CPA as saying, "Resources, particularly personnel, are unavailable or poorly matched to needs."

The DoD status report once again demonstrates the stark contrast between the Administration`s rosy public statements and the realities on the ground in Iraq. The Pentagon – and its Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith – had access to the extensive analysis done by experts at the State Department. Yet they ignored its recommendations and warnings, failed to plan and built up unrealistic expectations. This has already cost American taxpayers $87 billion and is likely to cost billions more over the next five years – none of which has yet been requested from the U.S. Congress. Being open about the difficulties in Iraq would be a strong first step to regaining the full trust of the Iraqi people, the men and women of our military, and American taxpayers.

[Joerver]

Court Suspends Bush Pollution Rules
Wed December 24, 2003 05:31 PM ET

By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court on Wednesday halted a Bush administration plan to allow power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to make upgrades to aging plants without installing costly new air pollution control equipment.

A coalition of environmental groups and states sued to stop the new rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the policy changes violated the federal Clean Air Act and would result in more emissions being spewed into the air.

Emissions from coal-fired power plants and refineries can aggravate asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.

The U.S. appeals court in Washington, agreed to temporarily set aside the changes to the EPA`s "new source review" rules and said they could not take effect until the lawsuit challenging their legality was finished.

EPA officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the ruling.

The Bush administration has been criticized by Democrats and green groups for relaxing several environmental protection rules at the behest of energy companies. The industry contends the changes simply reflect the administration`s analysis of scientific evidence and costs.

Under the EPA`s planned rules, a facility, such as a power plant, could have replaced equipment without installing pollution controls as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of the plant.

When Congress wrote the new source review provision of the Clean Air Act in 1977, it assumed most of the aging coal-fired plants would be gradually replaced with new ones. Congress exempted plants operating at the time from stricter pollution controls, unless they launched a major renovation or expansion.

Green groups welcomed the court`s ruling.

Ann Weeks, an attorney with the Clean Air Task Force, said the ruling means "no harm can be done until the court has decided whether the rule (change) is legal, which we strongly believe it is not."

If the EPA had adopted its policy change and the court later ruled against the agency, Weeks said the damage would have already been done to the environment.

"The (polluting) emissions are already in the air," she said.

Weeks said companies could have been hurt financially as well, if the court had ruled against the EPA after the policy change took effect, and firms would then have to pay for unexpected pollution controls or remove the newly installed equipment.

© Reuters 2003. All Rights Reserved.

[Joerver]

December 25, 2003
Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Ever since he identified the bizarre brain-destroying proteins that cause mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.

He spoke over the years of the need to increase testing and safety measures. Then in May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush.

So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman`s office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."

The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said. The only reason mad cow disease had not been found here, he said, is that the department`s animal inspection agency was testing too few animals. Once more cows are tested, he added, "we`ll be able to understand the magnitude of our problem."

This nation should immediately start testing every cow that shows signs of illness and eventually every single cow upon slaughter, he said he told Ms. Veneman. Japan has such a program and is finding the disease in young asymptomatic animals.

Fast, accurate and inexpensive tests are available, Dr. Prusiner said, including one that he has patented through his university.

Ms. Veneman`s response (he said she did not share his sense of urgency) left him frustrated. That frustration soared this week after a cow in Washington State was tentatively found to have the disease. If the nation had increased testing and inspections, meat from that cow might never have entered the food chain, he said.

Ms. Veneman was not available for interviews yesterday, and the White House referred all questions to the department. A spokeswoman for Ms. Veneman, Julie Quick, said: "We have met with many experts in this area, including Dr. Prusiner. We welcome as much scientific input and insight as we can get on this very important issue. We want to make sure that our actions are based on the best available science."

In Dr. Prusiner`s view, Ms. Veneman is getting poor scientific advice. "U.S.D.A. scientists and veterinarians, who grew up learning about viruses, have difficulty comprehending the novel concepts of prion biology," he said. "They treat the disease as if it were an infection that you can contain by quarantining animals on farms. It`s as though my work of the last 20 years did not exist."

Scientists have long been fascinated by a group of diseases, called spongiform encephalopathies, that eat away at the brain, causing madness and death. The leading theory was that they were caused by a slow-acting virus. But in 1988, Dr. Prusiner proposed a theory that seemed heretical at the time: the infectious agent was simply a type of protein, which he called prions.

Prions (pronounced PREE-ons), he and others went on to establish, are proteins that as a matter of course can misfold — that is, fold themselves into alternative shapes that have lethal properties — and cause a runaway reaction in nervous tissue. As more misfolded proteins accumulate, they kill nerve cells.

Animals that eat infected tissues can contract the disease, setting off an epidemic as animals eat each other via rendered meats. But misfolded proteins can also arise spontaneously in cattle and other animals, Dr. Prusiner said. It is not known whether meat from animals with that form of the disease could pass the disease to humans, he said, but it is a risk that greatly worries him.

Cattle with sporadic disease are probably entering the food chain in the United States in small numbers, Dr. Prusiner and other experts say.

Brain tissue from the newly discovered dairy cow in Washington is now being tested in Britain to see if it matches prion strains that caused the mad cow epidemic there, or if it is a homegrown American sporadic strain, Dr. Prusiner said.

"The problem is we just don`t know the size of the problem," he said. "We don`t know the prevalence or incidence of the disease."

The Japanese experience is instructive, Dr. Prusiner said. Three and a half years ago, that country identified its first case of mad cow disease. The government then said it would begin testing all cows older than 30 months, as they do in Europe. Older animals presumably have a greater chance of showing the disease, Dr. Prusiner said.

Japanese consumer groups protested and the government then said it would test every cow upon slaughter, Dr. Prusiner said. The Japanese have 4 million cattle and slaughter 1.2 million of them each year. The United States has 100 million cattle and kills 35 million a year.

Early this fall, Japanese surveillance found two new cases of the disease in young animals, aged 21 and 23 months. "Under no testing regime except Japan would these cases ever be found," he said.

The 23-month-old cow tested borderline positive using two traditional tests. But the surveillance team then looked in a different part of the brain using an advanced research technique and found a huge signal for infectious material, Dr. Prusiner said. It was a different strain of the disease, possibly a sporadic case.

The only way to learn what the United States is facing is to test every animal, Dr. Prusiner said. Existing methods, used widely in Europe and Japan, grind up brain stem tissue and use an enzyme to measure amounts of infectious prions. Animals must have lots of bad prions to get a clear diagnosis.

Newer tests, by a variety of companies, are more sensitive, cheaper and faster. Dr. Prusiner said that his test could even detect extremely small amounts of infectious prion in very young animals with no symptoms. Sold by InPro Biotechnology in South San Francisco, a single testing operation could process 8,000 samples in 24 hours, he said.

British health officials will start using the test in February, Dr. Prusiner said. If adopted in this country, it would raise the price of a pound of meat by two to three cents, he said.

"We want to keep prions out of the mouths of humans," Dr. Prusiner said. "We don`t know what they might be doing to us."

His laboratory is working on promising treatments for the human form of mad cow disease but preventing its spread is just as important, he said. "Science is capable of finding out how serious the problem is," he said, "but only government can mandate the solutions."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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[Joerver]

Weihnachten in Baghdad!

December 25, 2003
Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier and Rockets Hit Baghdad Hotels
By REUTERS

Filed at 3:15 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - About a dozen rockets and mortar rounds slammed into central Baghdad on Thursday in fresh guerrilla attacks, as the U.S. military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

Two hotels used by Westerners and an apartment block were struck, as well as the area where the headquarters of the U.S.-led administration is situated. A residential building next to the German embassy was also hit.

A rocket missed the Interior Ministry and landed in a nearby street, witnesses said.

The U.S. military said on Thursday the American soldier was killed in Baghdad on Wednesday, bringing to 206 the number of U.S. military deaths from hostile fire since Washington announced the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1.

Washington blames attacks on Saddam Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic militants. Officials had warned insurgents would launch spectacular attacks during the Christmas holiday season.

The lift area between the eighth and ninth floors of the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel was struck. Debris and shattered glass littered the hotel`s lobby.

A manager at the hotel said there were no casualties.

The hotel, where U.S. contractors and Western journalists stay, was hit in another attack late on Wednesday, but once again there were no casualties.

``REGULAR DAY``

``This is a regular day for us,`` said U.S. First Lieutenant Kurt Muniz, as he led several soldiers on a foot patrol in the area.

He said the attackers left behind leaflets urging staff at the Ishtar Sheraton to stop working at the hotel.

Another rocket hit the Bourj al-Hayat Hotel, also used by Americans. The hotel was used by U.N. weapons inspectors before the war. No one was hurt.

At the apartment block, Samar Zeid, 20, said: ``We were sleeping when we heard a large explosion. My mother was taken to hospital.`` The attack damaged his parents` bedroom.

A neighbor said he saw a car speeding away from a nearby street immediately after the attack.

A U.S. military spokesman said three or four rockets struck in the vicinity of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority complex in the center of Baghdad on the western bank of the Tigris River.

Warning sirens sounded several times at the complex, which was once one of Saddam`s palaces.

The all-clear was sounded some two hours after the attacks, which a military spokesman said were under investigation.

Three U.S. soldiers died in a bomb blast north of Baghdad on Wednesday and a suicide car bomber killed himself and four other people in northern Iraq.

U.S. aircraft and artillery pounded suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Baghdad for a second night.

Blasts and heavy machinegun fire echoed across the city as the U.S. military`s Operation Iron Grip went on into early Thursday to flush out suspected guerrillas.

U.S. soldiers have arrested hundreds of suspected guerrillas and their backers in raids across the Sunni Muslim heartland west and north of Baghdad since Saddam was captured on December 13 in his home town of Tikrit.

Troops detained 26 more suspected insurgents on Wednesday in a Sunni town west of Baghdad.

The Sunni minority dominated Iraq under Saddam`s rule. He repressed the majority Shi`ite Muslims during his three decades in power.



Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd.

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Soldiers from the Fourth Infantry Division sang carols during a Christmas Eve service and supper in their barracks in Tikrit. Guerrillas mounted a string of bomb attacks across Iraq yesterday, killing at least four American soldiers and six Iraqi civilians.

**************************************
An American soldier prayed at a Mass on Christmas Eve at a Roman Catholic Church in Baghdad. The traditional midnight Mass was celebrated earlier because of security concerns.
Iraqis looked at a vehicle destroyed by a roadside bomb Wednesday in Baghdad.

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December 23, 2003
A Strategy of Partnerships
By COLIN L. POWELL

From the January/February 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs.

Colin L. Powell is the U.S. Secretary of State.

BROAD AND DEEP

When most people think about U.S. foreign policy these days, they think first and sometimes only about aspects of the war on terrorism: the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, the troubles of the Middle East, and the terror cells lurking in Southeast Asia, Europe, and even the United States. This preoccupation is natural. International terrorism literally hit home on September 11, 2001, and, for understandable reasons, an outraged American public wants those responsible brought to justice. The American people also want to understand why the attacks happened -- and demand a foreign policy that makes sure such events will never happen again.

It is also natural that the war on terrorism has become the United States` number one foreign policy priority. It will remain so for as long as necessary, because terrorism -- potentially linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- now represents the greatest threat to American lives. Defeating terrorism is a priority that drives not only military action to subdue individual terrorists and deter their state supporters but also multilateral cooperation in law enforcement and intelligence sharing. It encompasses efforts both to stigmatize terrorism as a political instrument and to reduce the underlying sources of terrorist motivation and recruitment.

But the breadth of U.S. strategy transcends the war on terrorism. Indeed, a strategy limited to dealing with immediate threats would in the end fail to defeat them -- just as bailing water out of a boat would not fix a leak. The sharp focus on the front lines of the war against terrorism, however, has made it harder than usual for people to grasp what American strategy is really all about. We all know the old aphorism that you can lead a horse to water but you can`t make it drink. These days, it seems that an administration can develop a sound foreign policy strategy, but it can`t get people to acknowledge or understand it.

PRESIDENT BUSH`S VISION

It is an unfailingly effective applause line for critics of any U.S. administration to charge that the president has no vision for the world, that he has no strategy. Every trouble is attributed to this failing, as though the world would otherwise be perfectly accommodating to U.S. purposes. Unfortunately, this criticism has come close to being true in some administrations. But it is not true in the present one. President George W. Bush does have a vision of a better world. And he also has a strategy for translating that vision into reality. I know -- I was present at its creation.

The president`s strategy was first laid out publicly in September 2002, in the National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS). A succinct document of fewer than 40 pages, the NSS defines U.S. policy priorities in eight substantive sections. Together, these parts add up to an integrated strategy that is broad and deep, far ranging and forward looking, attuned as much to opportunities for the United States as to the dangers it faces.

Of course, a public strategy document cannot be entirely frank about all the choices that U.S. leaders make; we do ourselves and our allies no favors by telling our adversaries everything that we think and plan. Nonetheless, this administration`s public pronouncements have been remarkably candid. They reflect the personality of the president himself, a man who, with great consistency, says what he means and means what he says.

It is somewhat odd, therefore, to discover that our foreign policy strategy is so often misunderstood by both domestic and foreign observers. U.S. strategy is widely accused of being unilateralist by design. It isn`t. It is often accused of being imbalanced in favor of military methods. It isn`t. It is frequently described as being obsessed with terrorism and hence biased toward preemptive war on a global scale. It most certainly is not.

These distortions are partly explained by context. The NSS made the concept of preemption explicit in the heady aftermath of September 11, and it did so for obvious reasons. One reason was to reassure the American people that the government possessed common sense. As President Bush has said -- and as any sensible person understands -- if you recognize a clear and present threat that is undeterrable by the means you have at hand, then you must deal with it. You do not wait for it to strike; you do not allow future attacks to happen before you take action.

A second reason for including the notion of preemption in the NSS was to convey to our adversaries that they were in big trouble. Instilling a certain amount of anxiety in terrorist groups increases the likelihood they will cease activity or make mistakes and be caught. Moreover, some states have been complicit in terrorism not for ideological reasons but for opportunistic ones. It was worth putting the leaders of such countries on notice that the potential costs of their opportunism had just gone way up.

Sensible as these reasons are, some observers have exaggerated both the scope of preemption in foreign policy and the centrality of preemption in U.S. strategy as a whole. As to preemption`s scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from nonstate actors such as terrorist groups. It was never meant to displace deterrence, only to supplement it. As to its being central, it isn`t. The discussion of preemption in the NSS takes up just two sentences in one of the document`s eight sections.

Some at home have distorted the NSS for partisan reasons, attempting to make the Bush administration look bad by turning fear of preemption into an early twenty-first-century equivalent of the Cold War era`s "rocket rattle." Some abroad, meanwhile, have distorted U.S. intentions through an apparent exercise in mirror imaging. Using their own mottled political histories as a reference point, they have asked what they would do with the power that the United States possesses and have mistakenly projected their own Hobbesian intentions onto our rather more Lockean sensibilities.

But however it has happened, the distortion of U.S. foreign policy strategy requires repair. This distortion does a disservice to honest observers trying to understand U.S. policy, and it contributes to irrational partisanship.

THE PRIMACY OF PARTNERSHIPS

The United States` National Security Strategy does commit us to preemption under certain limited circumstances. We stand by that judgment, the novelty of which lies less in its substance than in its explicitness. But our strategy is not defined by preemption. Above all, the president`s strategy is one of partnerships that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other U.S. alliances -- including the UN.

Don`t believe it? Perhaps this is because the commentariat widely claimed that the president`s recent decision to seek a new UN Security Council resolution on the postwar reconstruction of Iraq was a sharp break with policy. To think this, one would have to ignore the fact that President Bush went before the UN on September 12, 2002, to make his case for the UN`s enforcing its own resolutions (16 of them in total); that Security Council Resolution 1441 -- which warned the Iraqi regime to comply with its own obligations under previous UN resolutions -- passed unanimously in November 2002; that we tried for a further resolution to unite the international community in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began; that we went to the UN in May 2003 after Operation Iraqi Freedom to secure Resolution 1483, lifting sanctions against Iraq that had become obsolete; and that we sought and secured Resolution 1500 in August, recognizing the Iraqi Governing Council.

Had we not done all of these things, month after month, the president`s decision to go to the UN Security Council in September 2003 -- and to persevere in his efforts until Resolution 1511 was approved by a 15-0 vote on October 16 -- would have been a significant departure from policy. But the administration did do all of these things. Indeed, it would have been a departure from policy not to go to the UN when, in our judgment, the next phase of Iraqi reconstruction was at hand. If there has been any departure here, it is the commentariat`s departure from the basic rules of logic.

Partnership is the watchword of U.S. strategy in this administration. Partnership is not about deferring to others; it is about working with them. Beyond upholding the partnerships we have inherited, the president seeks new ones to deal with new challenges. Some are global in scope, such as the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS. Others are regional, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, which provides assistance for educational, economic, and political reform throughout the Arab world.

Beyond partnership comes principle. The president`s strategy is rooted, above all, in the promotion of freedom and dignity worldwide. "America must stand firmly," the president wrote, "for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property." We stand by these values now and always. They are the values served by the partnerships that we build and nurture.

Free trade and new American initiatives for economic development also figure prominently in the president`s strategy. The Free Trade Area of the Americas, the expanded Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, and especially the Millennium Challenge Account are our policy vanguards in this area. Our efforts to control the proliferation of WMD also form part of the president`s strategy. These efforts led to the Proliferation Security Initiative in May 2003, an 11-nation effort to seize materials related to WMD in transit to countries of concern. In September 2003, signatories were able to agree on basic implementation guidelines, and in the president`s address to the UN General Assembly on September 24, he called other nations to join. I hope they will heed his invitation.

President Bush`s strategy also demands that we play a role in helping to solve regional conflicts. Not only do such conflicts cause much suffering, but they can also spread to envelop societies now at peace and can stoke the fires of terrorism. Nowhere is the U.S. role in helping to resolve regional conflicts more important than in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a stable peace settlement. We are obviously not there yet, but this administration`s policies have brought peace closer.

The Bush administration was widely criticized during its first two years in office for not being more active in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. To many, "more active" meant spending presidential and secretarial capital on state visits and photo opportunities, as if nearly a decade of such activity had not already been tried without managing to resolve the conflict. But diplomacy can take other, more appropriate forms. In reality, we have worked hard on advancing peace, if often quietly, making the proper analysis of the situation and determining our tactics accordingly.

As a result, we created the Quartet -- another partnership -- made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the UN. We developed the "road map" out of this partnership, and the president went to Aqaba, Jordan, in June 2003 to commit the parties to it.

Most important, we recognized that there needed to be fundamental reform inside the Palestinian Authority if the forces for peace among Palestinians were to prevail. After it became clear that the United States would not obstruct Israel`s efforts to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, pressures for genuine reform grew within the Palestinian community. This convergence produced the hopeful premiership of Mahmoud Abbas.

Unfortunately, Abbas` efforts were aborted by Chairman Yasir Arafat, and Abbas` successor, Ahmed Qurei, has been obstructed as well. Chairman Arafat has not been a genuine interlocutor for peace, but he has been an obstacle to it. Although our hopes for progress have been temporarily disappointed, it is now clear to all where the real problem lies. One way or another, we are bound eventually to get past this problem. Moreover, there is now a solid and growing constituency in Israel that supports prominent Palestinian leaders who genuinely seek an honorable and stable peace. Bleak as things often seem in this conflict, this does represent progress.

Conflicts in other regions have also demanded our attention -- and our compassion. The United States has not turned away from the suffering of the Liberian people, and we have been actively trying to end strife in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nor have we forgotten the need for continued progress in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, and in East Timor. We are making progress in most if not all of these areas, and we are often doing so by supporting other governments that are taking the lead. In other words, we are working as a partner.

AN AGE OF COOPERATION

Not least among the policy priorities laid out in the NSS is our determination to develop cooperative relations among the world`s major powers. It is here, above all, that the key to a successful conclusion to the war against terrorism lies.

To say that the world has changed is a truism: the world, after all, is always changing. It is not so trivial, however, to specify just how it has changed. As I see it, the critical tipping point of recent years was the evening of November 9, 1989. That date is when the Berlin Wall was first breached, never to be repaired, marking the end of the Cold War and, before long, of the Soviet Union itself. These events, in turn, ended the epoch of intense struggle between liberty and totalitarianism that had shaped most of the twentieth century.

The president grasps the importance of these momentous events. As he wrote in the NSS, "today, the international community has the best chance since the rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century to build a world where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war. Today, the world`s great powers find ourselves on the same side."

This development is not just good news; it is revolutionary news. For too many years -- too many centuries -- the imperial habits of great powers squandered untold resources and talent by jousting for land, glory, and gold. The futility of such habits has become evident in the twenty-first century. The possession of vast territory, raw physical resources, and brute power guarantees neither prosperity nor peace. Investment in human capital, social trust, trade, and cooperation within and among nations does.

The sources of national strength and security for one nation thus need no longer threaten the security of others. An insight of the Enlightenment and a deep belief of the American founders -- that politics need not always be a zero-sum competition -- has at last been adopted by enough people worldwide to promise a qualitative difference in the character of international relations. If, instead of wasting lives and treasure by opposing each other as in the past, today`s powers can pull in the same direction to solve problems common to all, we will begin to redeem history from much human folly.

One of these common problems is, of course, terrorism, and American strategy endeavors to solve it by integrating it into the management of our key international relationships. We do not see the war against terrorism and the nurturing of constructive relationships among the major powers as mutually exclusive tasks. We conduct the war on terrorism with an eye toward great-power cooperation, and we seek enhanced great-power cooperation with an eye toward success in the war on terrorism.

The logic of this dual approach rests on the fact that terrorism threatens the world order itself -- and thus creates a common interest among all powers that value peace, prosperity, and the rule of law. The civilized world has spent more than a thousand years trying to limit the destructiveness of war. Drawing a distinction between civilians and combatants has been an essential part of this process. But terrorism aims to erase that distinction. We cannot allow this to happen, not because we want to "make the world safe" again for major conventional war, but because we must reassure people everywhere that the world has not just traded one kind of danger for another with the end of the Cold War. The victory of freedom will turn hollow if new fears replace old ones.

The common interest of all major powers in defeating terrorism is one source of a rare and remarkable opportunity: the United States` chance to enjoy excellent relations with all the world`s major powers simultaneously. Of course, we have a head start in this, because we are blessed with many enduring friendships. None is more important than those enshrined in NATO.

Some observers predicted that NATO would wither away after the Cold War, others that the United States and the European Union would even end up on a collision course. Neither prediction has, or will, come true. Not only has NATO survived, but both its membership and its mission have expanded. As for our relations with the EU, never has our common agenda been so large and mutually significant -- from advancing free trade to joint efforts in counterproliferation.

It is true that we have had differences with some of our oldest and most valued NATO allies. But these are differences among friends. The transatlantic partnership is based so firmly on common interests and values that neither feuding personalities nor occasional divergent perceptions can derail it. We have new friends and old friends alike in Europe. They are all, in the end, best friends, which is why the president continues to talk about partnerships, not polarities, when he speaks about Europe. Some authorities say that we must move to a multipolar world. We do not agree -- not because we do not value competition and diversity, but because there need be no poles among a family of nations that shares basic values. We believe that it is wiser to work at overcoming differences than to polarize them further.

EMBRACING MAJOR POWERS

We work hard to have the best relations we can with nations large and small, old and new. But for practical purposes we concentrate on relations with major powers, especially those with whom we have had difficult relationships in the past, notably Russia, India, and China.

Our relationship with Russia has been dramatically transformed since that November evening in 1989. Americans and Russians no longer point growing arsenals of missiles at each other. Thanks to the leadership of President Bush and President Vladimir Putin, we are now radically reducing our strategic weapons arsenals. Moscow is also a committed partner in fighting terrorism and in combating the global spread of WMD.

U.S.-Russia commercial relations have also expanded and will expand further to mutual benefit -- not least, we trust, in the energy sector. The new relationship that is developing between Russia and NATO has real substance as well. From sharing intelligence on terrorism to working together to deal with humanitarian crises and peacekeeping, the NATO-Russia Council is operational. That relationship can expand as far as our creativity and mutual effort will let it. We are closer than ever to a Europe whole, free, and at peace. Such a Europe definitely includes Russia, as well as the other new and reborn republics that emerged from the Soviet Union.

Perhaps most important, U.S. and Russian political and economic philosophies are converging. Today, Russia is more democratic than not. It is also more of a market economy than not. We should be patient as Russia develops its democratic institutions and as the remnants of Soviet-era corruption is rooted out and the rule of law firmly established.

We do not agree on everything, of course. We had hoped for more Russian support for our Iraq policy, and we still hope Russia will change its attitude toward the Iranian nuclear program. We also differ over aspects of Russian policy in Chechnya. But the relationship as a whole is no longer locked in knee-jerk antagonism. We now have the necessary level of trust to resolve even the most difficult issues between us.

Whereas Russia is still developing its democracy, India`s democracy dates from its independence in 1947. With recent economic reforms setting institutional roots, India is developing into a mature market economy. As Indians themselves are the first to admit, however, their country still faces many challenges. Illiteracy, poverty, environmental degradation, and inadequate infrastructure all hamper progress. We want to help India overcome these challenges, and we want to help ourselves through a closer association with one of the world`s venerable cultures. We have therefore worked to deepen our relationship with India. The two largest democracies on earth are no longer estranged. At the same time, we have also been able to advance our relations with Pakistan -- a country with domestic challenges of its own.

India and Pakistan still dispute who should control Kashmir. During 2002, a major war between them -- perhaps involving nuclear weapons -- seemed distinctly possible. So, working with partners in Europe and Asia, we mobilized to help end the crisis. We have since been trying to turn our parallel improvement of relations with India and Pakistan into a triangle of conflict resolution. We do not impose ourselves as a mediator. But we do try to use the trust we have established with both sides to urge them toward conciliation by peaceful means.

What the United States has done in South Asia is an example of "turning adversity into opportunity," to quote President Bush. In a different way, we have done the same with China.

Sino-American relations got off to a bad start in this administration when a certain American airplane made an unscheduled visit to Hainan Island in April 2001. Today, however, U.S. relations with China are the best they have been since President Richard Nixon first visited Beijing more than 30 years ago. This is not just because the September 11 attacks led us to shuffle priorities, nor only because we championed Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization; nor is it the result of the accession of a new generation of Chinese leaders. It is certainly not because we have ignored Chinese human rights abuses, China`s still unacceptable weapons proliferation activities, or the reluctance of China`s leadership to match political to economic reform. We have never downplayed these difficulties.

The Sino-American relationship has nonetheless improved for a reason that transcends all these particulars: neither we nor the Chinese believe that there is anything inevitable about our relationship any longer -- either inevitably bad or inevitably good. Instead, we now believe that it is up to us, together, to take responsibility for our common future. The NSS put it directly: "We welcome the emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous China." We also seek a constructive relationship. Indeed, we welcome a global role for China, so long as China assumes responsibilities commensurate with that role. China`s leaders know all this. Neither false fear about the future nor the overhang of Cold War enmity prevents us from cooperating where our interests coincide.

A case in point is North Korea. American and Chinese interests on the Korean Peninsula may not overlap completely, but they do so considerably. Neither side wishes to see nuclear weapons developed and deployed there. Neither side enjoys the spectacle of the dilapidated North Korean economy. Neither side wants the refugee crisis on China`s border to worsen nor relishes a North Korean regime that smuggles drugs and weapons, counterfeits currencies, and engages in the periodic extortion of its neighbors through brinkmanship. And neither side, to be sure, has any interest in another Korean war.

Thus we have worked to transform our common interests with China into solid and productive cooperation over the challenges posed by Pyongyang. We are also cooperating with Japan, Russia, and South Korea on the issue. Our agenda is ambitious, but it is succeeding, as attested to by the six-party framework for talks over North Korea`s nuclear program. We employed this framework in September 2003, and we will do so again soon. Beijing, as well as Washington, deserves credit for this achievement.

We still have a long way to go in dealing with North Korea`s dangerous nuclear weapons program. As we have told the North Koreans, we have no intention of invading or attacking North Korea. During his trip to Asia in October 2003, President Bush suggested that he was even open to putting this intention in writing. We have stated our policy openly and honestly: we want peace, not war, and we want security, not fear, to envelop the Korean Peninsula and its neighbors. But we will not yield to threats and blackmail; if we did, we would only guarantee more threats and more attempts at blackmail. Nor will we take any options off the table.

It is now well past time for North Korea to alter its behavior, cease its threats, and end its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner. That is what all of North Korea`s neighbors desire, which is why, in the end, a diplomatic solution to the problem can be achieved. When this happens, we will have demonstrated that American diplomacy is designed to satisfy not only our own national interests, but also those of international security as a whole. We will show that the equities of other powers can be best advanced along with American ones, not in opposition to them.

INTERESTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

We must not take the present peace among the world`s nations for granted. Today`s peace will not just take care of itself. We have to work at it with patience, mindful that major war has broken out in the past despite a widespread conviction that it simply could not happen again.

Of course, we want to promote human dignity and democracy in the world, to help people raise themselves from poverty, and to transform the inadequate system of global public health. We are pursuing these goals right now. But only if the deep peace of our era can be "preserved, defended, and expanded" -- to use the president`s words -- can we pursue these goals for as long as it will take to achieve them.

And make no mistake, these are the central goals of American policy in the twenty-first century. We fight terrorism because we must, but we seek a better world because we can -- because it is our desire, and our destiny, to do so. This is why we commit ourselves to democracy, development, global public health, and human rights, as well as to the prerequisite of a solid structure for global peace. These are not high-sounding decorations for our interests. They are our interests, the purposes our power serves.

Because this is so, the United States` reputation for honesty and compassion will endure. Today, U.S. motives are impugned in some lands. But as we preserve, defend, and expand the peace that free peoples won in the twentieth century, we will see the United States vindicated in the eyes of the world in the twenty-first.

It would be churlish to claim that the Bush administration`s foreign policy has been error-free from the start. We are human beings; we all make mistakes. But we have always pursued the enlightened self-interest of the American people, and in our purposes and our principles there are no mistakes.

Our enlightened self-interest puts us at odds with terrorists, tyrants, and others who wish us ill. From them we seek no advice or comity, and to them we will give no quarter. But our enlightened self-interest makes us partners with all those who cherish freedom, human dignity, and peace. We know the side on which the human spirit truly abides, and we take encouragement from this as our strategy unfolds. In the end, it is the only encouragement we really need.



Copyright 2003

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WEASELS OF CRASS DECEPTION

All Talk No Pay Makes George a Dull Boy
NEW YORK--Somebody at Homeland Security must have slipped the manuscript of my next book to Karl Rove. Among other things, my upcoming political manifesto posits that the Republicans won`t be able to surf the 9/11-generated shock-and-awe wave forever. It`s still the economy, stupid; it always will be. All the foreign policy successes in the world--catching Saddam, terrorizing Libya into unilateral disarmament, dragging Osama`s bloated carcass down K Street--won`t make 3 million people forget that they`ve lost their jobs or that Bush, whose estimated net worth runs between $9,634,088 and $26,593,000, refused to extend their unemployment checks.

Unless there`s another dramatic attack in `04, domestic issues will determine what happens in November.

Word has it that Bush will kick off his "re"election campaign with a package of domestic economic proposals to be announced during next month`s State of the Union address. What the GOP calls "The Ownership Society," writes conservative New York Times pundit David Brooks, will "embrace the more productive and fluid economy, but make sure government aggressively moves to give workers the tools they need to cope."

"The Ownership Society," which acknowledges that most people change employers and careers throughout their working lives, shows that conservatives have been doing some creative thinking about their domestic agenda. Among the highlights:

Portable Health Insurance: Tax credits would subsidize medical premiums, the number of people who qualify for existing government programs like Medicare would be expanded, and small businesses would be allowed to form pools so their employees would qualify for group plans.

Reemployment Accounts: Unemployment stipends would be replaced by lump-sum personal "accounts" that layoff victims could spend, says Brooks, "on training, child care, a car, a move to a place with more jobs, or whatever else they think would benefit them."

Privatizing Social Security: This idea has been around for years. You would decide where to invest the money in your Social Security "account," like employees do now with their 401(k)s. As with a 401(k), you would reap big rewards during stock market booms but risk getting wiped out in a crash.

Except for Social Security privatization, which would excessively endanger retirement funds to line the pockets of politically-connected Wall Street brokerage houses, these are interesting ideas--in theory. If you take a closer look, however, reality asks a lot of tough questions.

Bush says he wants Americans to adopt a "responsibility culture." But his Ownership Society concept requires more responsibility than most folks should be asked to bear. The health insurance tax credit, for example, would come in the form of a big refund check after taxpayers file their 1040s. Many workers, hit hard by stagnating wages and unexpected expenses, will spend the government windfall on other bills. The same thing goes for reemployment accounts. If a guy blows his lump-sum unemployment payment on a casino riverboat or Internet gaming-site bender, he and his family could end up out on the street. You and me, we might spend the money on computer classes. But for too many people, it`s too big a temptation.

Worse still, the GOP`s track record suggests that Bush`s Ownership Society would merely replace the antiquated liberal safety net--which assumes that a person works for the same employer his or her entire life--with a privatized system that`s so poorly underfinanced as to be worthless. The much-ballyhooed No Child Left Behind Act has been, well, left behind--it hasn`t received a penny. Bush welched on his promise to spend $15 billion on African AIDS prevention. The average dollar value of the school vouchers issued by Cleveland, whose program Republicans say should be copied nationally, is so low that parents can`t afford to move their kids to private schools. And the average taxpayer will receive just $800 from Bush`s tax cuts--enough to bankrupt the treasury but not to stimulate the economy.

"Congress and the administration are looking at proposals that cost $50 billion to $80 billion over 10 years," The Times says. But that`s chump change next to the size of the problems they claim to address. $8 billion per year would provide healthcare to just three percent of America`s 44 million uninsured. And it wouldn`t leave anything for reemployment accounts.

The only way to fund this election-year vote grab would be to cancel the $1.8 trillion tax cuts and the $100 billion-per-year occupation of Iraq--but Republicans aren`t that serious.

"The public is not expecting perfection, but is looking for progress," says GOP pollster David Winston. Perhaps he`s right--maybe the American people will view three percent as "progress." But where I come from, three percent ain`t even a tip.

(Ted Rall is the editor of the new anthology of alternative cartoons "Attitude 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists," containing interviews with and cartoons by 21 of America`s best cartoonists. Ordering information is available at amazon.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2003 TED RALL

RALL 12/23/03

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washingtonpost.com
Truck Bomb Kills at Least 7 in Pakistan
Reports Suggest Failed Attempt to Assassinate Musharraf

Paul Haven
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 25, 2003; 5:04 AM


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A huge bomb hidden in a pickup truck exploded just after a motorcade carrying Pakistan`s president passed Thursday, killing at least seven people and shattering nearby buildings, witnesses and the Interior Ministry said.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was unhurt, said Abdur Rauf Chaudry, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. He would not say where the president was at the time of the bombing, but several witnesses said they saw the president`s motorcade pass by seconds before the blast.

"The president`s motorcade had just passed and about half a minute later the explosion went off," one eyewitness, Nasir Sadiqi, told Pakistan`s Geo television.

That raised the possibility that it was the second assassination attempt against Musharraf in less than two weeks. The blast occurred not far from the spot where would-be assassins detonated a huge bomb on Dec. 14 in a failed attempt to assassinate Musharraf. High-tech jamming devices in the president`s motorcade apparently delayed that detonation long enough for him to pass by safely.

The attack occurred at about 1:45 p.m. in Rawalpindi, a bustling city just outside the capital, Islamabad.

The Interior Ministry said seven people were killed. Witnesses said they saw body parts and some reported hearing two separate explosions.

The attack came a day after Musharraf agreed to step down as army chief by the end of 2004, ending a political stalemate that had paralyzed parliament and stalled this nation`s return to democracy.

Under the agreement reached with a coalition of hardline Islamic parties, Musharraf would remain as president but give up the army post. Musharraf also agreed to scale back several extraordinary powers he had decreed himself after taking power in a 1999 coup.


© 2003 The Associated Press

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"ownership society." ein Begriff an den wir uns gewöhnen werden müssen, wird wohl im nächsten Jahr bei der Wahl des Unworts des Jahres mitmachen. (Ich AG?)

ROBERT KUTTNER
Bush`s `ownership` scam
By Robert Kuttner, 12/24/2003

IN PRESIDENT Bush`s upcoming State of the Union address, we will hear a lot about something called an "ownership society." The idea is that American workers aspire to be owners -- of stock for their retirement, homes, businesses, good health insurance, and skills they need to navigate multiple changes of jobs and careers. It sounds just great.

Take a closer look, however, and you will recognize the trademarked Bush combination of inspiring themes coupled with an absence of useful tools. In other words, bait and switch.

Recent examples include No Child Left Behind (millions were); the Medicare drug bill (covers less than half the costs and mainly subsidizes drug companies), and, of course, three tax breaks that went mostly to the wealthy. But I digress.

How does Bush propose to create this "ownership society?" Mainly through more tax credits. If people lack reliable health care, there are tax-favored savings accounts to buy health insurance. If corporations are abandoning good pensions, there are new tax incentives to set aside retirement savings. If jobs are precarious, there are tax credits to purchase retraining when your job moves to China.

What`s wrong with the entire approach? For starters, the very people who lack the decent health insurance, the money for retraining, and the secure nest eggs are short of adequate earnings from which to take out savings. So most of the tax breaks, like the rest of the Bush tax program, will go to people who don`t really need them, while those who rely on genuine help will come up short.

The hallmark of the Bush era has been rising incomes at the top and stagnant wages for the rest. The increased national income in the current economic recovery has gone mostly to corporate profits with a record low proportion to wages. If we want an ownership society based heavily on increased individual savings, we need to start with decent incomes so ordinary people can afford to save.

But individual savings alone aren`t enough. Look at how America actually became a society of broad middle-class ownership in the years after World War II. Wages went up (thanks in part to unions), so it became possible for working people to imagine buying cars, homes, and the other material trappings of the good life.

Corporations started paying decent pensions and health insurance benefits. Radical conservatives think that government help undermines individual initiative. But government programs like the GI Bill, FHA loans, Pell grants, community colleges, and federal aid to public schools allowed a lot of individual hard work to pay off. Social Security institutionalized the custom of retirement, which stimulated supplemental retirement plans. Guess who opposes all this?

Decent wages and benefits and real government help are what Bush`s ownership society leaves out. To Bush, ownership means that the lone individual is made the sole owner of the problem. Lost your job? Better get yourself some new skills. Corporation cancelled your pension? Better sock away more savings. Company health insurance plan raising premiums and copays? Congratulations! You`re an owner! This ownership society walks away from the social investments of the past six decades that actually made the United States a society in which most people could reasonably aspire to be owners. It leaves people on their own with a fistful of tax credits that most people can`t afford to use.

Interestingly, there is a very different version of an ownership society that actually works. It is called asset development. Tony Blair in Britain has already made a start on this approach, by giving every child a subsidized savings account at birth that grows and compounds and can be used in adulthood to subsidize everything from education to first-time homeownership and ultimately to supplement retirement.

In the United States, Al Gore proposed a variant of this. I`ve been working with Larry Brown, one of the pioneers of this approach at the Asset Development Institute at Brandeis University, on an even bolder version.

The difference is that genuine asset development gives people genuine opportunities using real public outlays, the way the GI Bill did. Bush`s approach relies mainly on the funny money of tax credits, which are often useless to the very people who need them most.

An ownership society is a wonderful idea. Liberals have been expanding it ever since the New Deal. When you hear about Bush`s ownership society, read the fine print and keep your hand on your wallet.

Robert Kuttner`s is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cole25d…
COMMENTARY



Courts Put a Dent in Bush`s `Say-So` Detentions
When it comes to post-9/11 jailing without charges, the president is not a king.
by David Cole
David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, is author of "Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism" (New Press, 2003).

December 25, 2003

For two years, the Bush administration has been making the remarkable argument that the president has the right to label any human being anywhere in the world — U.S. citizen or not — an "enemy combatant" (or as Bush himself put it, a "bad guy") and then lock him up indefinitely, incommunicado, without charges, without trial or access to courts or lawyers.

But last week, two U.S. courts of appeal reminded us of one simple fact: It`s President Bush, not King George. The president is not above the law, both courts concluded, and in a constitutional democracy the power to imprison cannot be legally unfettered.

The two decisions raise fundamental questions about one of the administration`s central tactics in the war on terrorism — preventive detention. That`s the theory under which about 700 foreign nationals have been held without charges as enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since January 2002 — not because they`re being punished for wrongdoing but to prevent them from going back and fighting against us.

That is also the theory under which the administration has detained more than 5,000 foreign nationals within the United States since 9/11, using immigration law and other pretexts. These men have been held in prisons around the country — in some instances for a few days, in others for many months — based on vague suspicions, often predicated on little more than ethnicity, that they might be involved in terrorism.

Yet not one of them has actually been charged with being a member of Al Qaeda or with being involved in the attacks of 9/11. Virtually all have ultimately been cleared by the FBI of any connection to terrorism. Only one has been convicted of any crime related to terrorism, and even that conviction has recently been put in doubt by evidence that the prosecution failed to disclose evidence that its principal witness lied on the stand.

Preventive detention has an ignoble past in the United States. In World War I, we made it a crime to speak out against the draft, ostensibly to prevent interference with the war, and more than 1,000 people went to jail. In the Palmer Raids of 1919-20, the government used immigration law to round up thousands of left-wing foreign nationals deemed "suspicious" after a series of bombings — but not one was charged with the bombings. In World War II we relied on race to intern 110,000 people of Japanese descent, even though there was no evidence that any of them actually planned to engage in espionage or sabotage. And in the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI maintained lists of up to 25,000 "subversives" to be detained in the event of a national emergency.

Citing these abuses, Congress in 1971 prohibited such detentions, providing that "no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an act of Congress." The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals relied on that statute last week in ruling that Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested at Chicago`s O`Hare Airport, could not be detained on nothing more than the president`s say-so.

Few of the detainees, either in the U.S. or at Guantanamo, have been American citizens. But as illustrated by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals` simultaneous decision extending judicial review to foreign nationals at Guantanamo, skepticism about unilateral executive detention ought not to be limited to U.S. citizens.

Foreign nationals, no less than U.S. citizens, have a right not to be locked up arbitrarily, based in the Constitution`s guarantee that "no person shall be deprived of liberty … without due process." And indefinite incommunicado incarceration without charges, trial or hearing is the definition of arbitrary detention.

Detaining the enemy on the battlefield has of course always been — and remains — a legitimate tool of war. Neither the 2nd nor the 9th Circuit ruled to the contrary. But they both insisted that preventive detention under U.S. jurisdiction must be subject to the rule of law. And the rule of law, like liberty itself, is not a right reserved for U.S. citizens.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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"President Bush announced today — if we capture 17 more guys in holes in Iraq, we can open a golf course." —Jay Leno

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Mortars Hit U.S.-Led Admin HQ in Baghdad
Thu December 25, 2003 03:29 PM ET





BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least three mortar bombs hit the vicinity of the U.S.-led administration headquarters in central Baghdad shortly before midnight on Thursday, witnesses said.
There was no immediate word on casualties or damage in the Coalition Provisional Authority complex. Warning sirens sounded in the huge facility shortly after the attack.

The night attack came 17 hours after guerrillas fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs in central Baghdad, hitting the vicinity of the CPA, two hotels occupied by Westerners, two embassies and an apartment bloc.

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$$$$$$$$$$$$

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December 25, 2003
Iraq Rebels Launch Rocket, Mortar Strikes
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:13 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Rebels unleashed a string of grenade, rocket and mortar attacks in Baghdad before dawn on Christmas Day, hitting a hotel housing foreigners for the second time in as many days and targeting two banks, several embassies and a U.S. Army base.

Thursday night, several explosions were heard in central Baghdad, and sirens sounded in the Green Zone, a barricaded area that houses the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition governing Iraq. A U.S. military spokeswoman said there were ``two to three impacts in the vicinity of the Green Zone,`` but no casualties were reported.

The morning`s strikes on prominent targets had more symbolic than military impact; two civilians -- a woman and her daughter sleeping in an apartment -- were injured, and damage was limited.

U.S. forces had increased security in the capital following threats of attacks over Christmas, but the strikes showed how easily small bands of rebels operate under cover of night in the city center, and then slip away. They were a blow to American efforts to restore a sense of normalcy in a city where few people venture out after dark, for fear of violence.

At the same time, the furtive, hit-and-run operations revealed the inability of rebels to confront the superior firepower of U.S. soldiers. They also inflicted far less damage than attacks by suicide bombers in recent months that killed dozens of people at embassies, police stations and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

Such targets are now more heavily defended and harder to hit. There are also fewer ``soft`` targets, with the United Nations pulling out foreign staffers and many foreign aid workers also departing because of security concerns.

The Christmas violence came after assailants conducted the deadliest attacks since the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein, triggering a series of explosions Wednesday that killed four U.S. soldiers, six civilians and a suicide bomber. The suicide attack was in Irbil, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq.

Also Thursday, distant explosions were heard before dawn and after dusk in Baghdad as the U.S. military bombarded suspected rebel positions.

The 19-story Ishtar Sheraton Hotel was hit on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, the first time by a mortar shell that exploded harmlessly against a wall on an upper floor, and then by a rocket-propelled grenade that crashed through the atrium.

There were no injuries, but the attacks on the high-profile target on the east bank of the Tigris River ensured intense coverage by foreign journalists jolted from their desks and beds in the Sheraton and the neighboring Palestine Hotel by the blasts.

One grenade, apparently intended for the Sheraton, crashed through a bedroom wall in an apartment building across the street, detonating and inflicting shrapnel wounds on a woman and her 20-year-old daughter. ``It`s a miracle,`` Zaid al-Khalil, the woman`s husband, said of their survival.

After that attack, U.S. soldiers investigating the area found leaflets warning Iraqis to stay home, said Army Lt. Kurt Muniz of New York City. The leaflets warned U.S. forces to leave the country and Iraqi police to stop working with foreign occupiers.

A U.S. military spokeswoman said the attacks included ``three or four impacts`` inside the Green Zone, a barricaded area containing the Republican Palace and other buildings occupied by the U.S.-led administration. Just outside the zone, rockets and grenades hit the Iranian and Turkish embassies, but did not penetrate the buildings.

Another projectile hit an office building behind the German Embassy, blasting an empty second-floor suite. A mortar shell struck a police station in southern Baghdad, but caused no injuries, the military said.

Attackers also blew holes in Baghdad`s Rasheed and Rafidain banks, police said. No money was stolen. One rocket hit the Baghdad City Council building, shattering windows.

In other early morning attacks, rebels fired five grenades apparently intended for the Baghdad Hotel near the Sheraton, but all exploded harmlessly, Muniz said. They also fired a pair of grenades at the gate of a 1st Armored Division base in east Baghdad.

Accustomed to violence, many residents of Baghdad ignored the blasts and went about their daily chores after sunrise. The city`s small Christian community went to church. Ten minutes of gunfire disturbed the afternoon calm in the city center.

Also during the day, two roadside bombs exploded on Palestine Street, a thoroughfare full of shops selling wedding gowns and photograph studios that is often used by U.S. military convoys. Two Iraqi police officers were injured, and wares were damaged.

``Only innocent people get hurt and lose their money,`` complained Hassan Thadet al-Tikriti, a shopkeeper from Tikrit, a center of anti-American resentment and Saddam`s former power base. ``Does that scare the Americans? No. It only harms us.``

------

AP reporter Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

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Das einzige was heute wieder
direkt ins Auge fällt, sind die Opfermeldungen uas dem Irak.

Iraqi Mortar Attack Kills 2 U.S. Troops

Friday December 26, 2003 10:31 AM


By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi insurgents shelled a base northeast of Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers on a day of grenade, rocket and mortar attacks on the capital, the military said Friday.

Four other soldiers were wounded when mortars hit the base in Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the 4th Infantry Division said Friday.

The Christmas Day rocket and mortar attacks on the capital hit a hotel housing foreigners and targeted two banks, several embassies and a U.S. Army base.

But the strikes had more symbolic than military impact; two civilians - a woman and her daughter sleeping in an apartment - were hurt, and damage was limited.

Late Thursday, several more explosions were heard in central Baghdad, and sirens sounded in the Green Zone, a barricaded area that houses the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition governing Iraq. A U.S. military spokesman said two rockets his a car park near the headquarters, but there were no casualties.

Troops in an aircraft located the launch point and soldiers on the ground captured five men suspected of firing those rockets, Capt. Jason Beck said Friday.

U.S. forces had increased security in the capital following threats of attacks over Christmas, but the strikes showed how easily small bands of rebels operate under cover of night in the city center, and then slip away.

At the same time, the furtive, hit-and-run operations revealed the inability of rebels to confront the superior firepower of U.S. soldiers. They also inflicted far less damage than attacks by suicide bombers in recent months that killed dozens of people at embassies, police stations and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.

Such targets are now more heavily defended and harder to hit. There are also fewer ``soft`` targets, with the United Nations pulling out foreign staffers and many foreign aid workers also departing because of security concerns.

The Christmas violence came after assailants conducted the deadliest attacks since the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein, triggering a series of explosions Wednesday that killed four U.S. soldiers, six civilians and a suicide bomber. The suicide attack was in Irbil, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq.

Also Thursday, distant explosions were heard before dawn and after dusk in Baghdad as the U.S. military bombarded suspected rebel positions.

The 19-story Ishtar Sheraton Hotel was hit on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, the first time by a mortar shell that exploded harmlessly against a wall on an upper floor, and then by a rocket-propelled grenade that crashed through the atrium.

There were no injuries, but the attacks on the high-profile target on the east bank of the Tigris River ensured intense coverage by foreign journalists jolted from their desks and beds in the Sheraton and the neighboring Palestine Hotel by the blasts.

One grenade, apparently intended for the Sheraton, crashed through a bedroom wall in an apartment building across the street, detonating and inflicting shrapnel wounds on a woman and her 20-year-old daughter. ``It`s a miracle,`` Zaid al-Khalil, the woman`s husband, said of their survival.

After that attack, U.S. soldiers investigating the area found leaflets warning Iraqis to stay home, said Lt. Kurt Muniz of the U.S. Army. The leaflets warned U.S. forces to leave the country and Iraqi police to stop working with foreign occupiers.

A U.S. military spokeswoman said earlier attacks included ``three or four impacts`` inside the Green Zone, which contains the Republican Palace and other buildings occupied by the U.S.-led administration. Just outside the zone, rockets and grenades hit the Iranian and Turkish embassies, but did not penetrate the buildings.

Another projectile hit an office building behind the German Embassy, blasting an empty second-floor suite. A mortar shell struck a police station in southern Baghdad, but caused no injuries, the military said.

Attackers also blew holes in Baghdad`s Rasheed and Rafidain banks, police said. No money was stolen. One rocket hit the Baghdad City Council building, shattering windows.

The latest military deaths bring the toll to 320 U.S. troops killed in hostile action since the invasion in March.

---

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

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Es ist kein schönes Weihnachten, wenn man so in die Welt schaut, Erdbeben im Iran, Tote im Irak, in Palästina und Israel, dann die USA spielt verrückt wegen BSE.

December 26, 2003
Sunnis in Iraq Form Own Political Council
By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 25 — Leaders of Sunni Muslim groups across the country agreed on Thursday to form a council to speak with a unified political voice during the transition of Iraq from American rule to Iraqi governance.

The demands of the group, called the State Council for the Sunnis, could greatly complicate the transfer of power for the Americans and for other Iraqi religious and ethnic groups, especially the Shiite Muslims and the Kurds.

Sunni Arabs, who have held power in the country since the 1920`s, when British colonizers favored them as proxy administrators, have felt increasingly disenfranchised under the current occupation.

The bitterness arose when American forces ousted Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, and has increased as Iraq`s American administrators have focused on forging close political ties with the Shiites and the Kurds. The Kurds were oppressed under Mr. Hussein, though they are mostly Sunnis.

The capture of Mr. Hussein nearly two weeks ago has left many Sunni Arabs, a minority in this country, wondering whether any leaders will emerge to defend their rights in the new power structure.

It is not yet apparent what demands the new council will make of the Coalition Provisional Authority or the Iraqi Governing Council as the June 30 deadline for a transfer of power approaches.

So far, Shiite and Kurdish groups have asked for political rights that are incompatible with the plans laid out by other Iraqi politicians and the American occupiers. The Sunni council could do the same, though a spokesman said the group would try to work with all parties in Iraq.

"The Iraqi case is complicated," the spokesman, Muhammad Ahmed al-Rashid, told Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite news channel. "It was complicated during the oppressive former regime, and now it`s become more complicated because of the occupation. So we`re forming this shuria to gather all the voices and to be one voice."

A shuria is a state council, and it is clear that the new group intends to wield considerable influence in the formation of a government.

Seventy people attended the inaugural meeting on Thursday morning at the Umm al Qura Mosque, built in western Baghdad under Mr. Hussein`s rule and originally called the Mother of All Battles Mosque.

Mr. Hussein commissioned the mosque as a model for a much more grandiose project, the Mother of All Mosques, that would have been five times its size. Some people say the architects of Umm al Qura designed its minarets to resemble the barrels of AK-47 rifles. The mosque was turned over to Sunni clerics after the fall of Baghdad.

The people gathered at the meeting mostly represented the three major Sunni groups in Iraq: the Sufis, the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Salafis adhere to a strict interpretation and practice of the Koran`s teachings. The Sufis, many of whom live in the north, follow a more mystical interpretation of Islam.

"We`re looking for a future," Mr. Rashid said. "We`re looking to have our rights, for all Iraqis to have rights, but especially the Sunni. We are open to negotiation with the occupation forces and with others to ensure that all Iraqis get their rights."

Many Sunnis have said they do not have a strong enough voice on the American-picked Governing Council. That group has 25 members, five of whom are Sunni Arabs.

Of the five, only a couple have any real influence over a large swath of ordinary Sunnis, and that influence pales in comparison with the sway held over ordinary Shiites by some of the Shiite representatives on the Governing Council.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, for example, wields tremendous influence over his followers.

American occupiers have identified him, and in particular a close associate of his, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as Shiite leaders they must work with to have a smooth transition of power. Ayatollah Sistani has already forced the Americans to compromise on their plans for the transfer of power by issuing an edict saying that drafters of a new Iraqi constitution must be elected.

Meanwhile, the two governing Kurdish political parties in the north have said they intend to form a united government soon and demand that the entire Kurdish area be granted regional autonomy.

Though Sunni Arabs have not been able to make the kind of political power plays initiated by the Shiites and the Kurds, that could change with the formation of the new council.

As the political situation was developing, military officials were bracing for a series of attacks over the Christmas week. Late Thursday night, sirens began wailing in Baghdad after several mortar shells exploded inside the American compound on the west bank of the Tigris. Several explosions and gunfire were heard in parts of southern Baghdad in the early evening as American soldiers continued to try to rout guerrillas.

The afternoon had been relatively quiet; in the morning, insurgents fired off a barrage of rockets at dawn against the American headquarters and hotels popular with Western contractors and journalists.

Three of the more than half-dozen rockets seemed to be aimed at the German, Turkish and Iranian Embassies, though none caused much damage.

The one fired at the German Embassy flew over the two-story beige building`s garage and hit an empty house next door, said Rafae Abdul al-Janabi, an embassy guard. He pointed to dozens of bullet casings on the ground and said American soldiers guarding the embassy had futilely fired off M-16 rifles into the empty streets right after the attack.

The German Embassy sits on a corner of busy Outer Karada Street and has the German and European Union flags prominently displayed on poles next to an outer wall.

The rocket that was apparently aimed at the Iranian Embassy slammed into a small concrete barrier outside the sprawling compound and dented the outer wall. It also shattered the windows of a guard post at the entrance. The Iranian Embassy is several blocks away from the American compound, so there is a chance that insurgents intended for the rocket to hit that instead.

The police sealed off the Turkish Embassy to defuse a possible bomb dropped off at 6 a.m., The Associated Press reported, quoting witnesses and police officials. An official in Ankara, the Turkish capital, also said a rocket had hit the embassy.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 26, 2003
Bracing for the Blow
By BOB HERBERT

I.B.M. has sent a holiday chill through its American employees with its plans to ship thousands of high-paying white-collar jobs overseas to lower-paid foreign workers.

"People are upset and angry," said Arnie Marchetti, a 37-year-old computer technician at I.B.M.`s Southbury, Conn., office whose wife gave birth to their first child in August.

The company has not made any announcements, and the employees do not know who will be affected, or when. The uncertainty about whose jobs may be sent to India or China, the two main countries in the current plans, has raised workers` anxiety in some cases to an excruciating level.

"I understand that this is a lightning rod issue in the industry," an I.B.M. spokesman told me this week. "It`s a lightning rod issue to people in our company, I suppose. But I don`t think anybody expects us to issue blanket statements to the work force about projections."

Referring to employees who may be affected by the plans, he said, "We deal with them as they need to know."

"Offshoring" and "outsourcing" are two of the favored euphemisms for shipping work overseas. I.B.M. prefers the term "global sourcing." Whatever you call it, the expansion of this practice from manufacturing to the higher-paying technical and white-collar levels is the latest big threat to employment in the U.S.

Years ago, when concern was being expressed about the shipment of factory jobs to places with slave wages, hideous working conditions and even prison labor, proponents said there was nothing to worry about. Exporting labor-intensive jobs would make U.S. companies more competitive, leading to increased growth and employment, and higher living standards. They advised U.S. workers to adjust, to become better educated and skillful enough to thrive in a new world of employment, where technology and the ability to process information were crucial components.

Well, the workers whose jobs are now threatened at I.B.M. and similar companies across the U.S. are well educated and absolute whizzes at processing information. But they are nevertheless in danger of following the well-trodden path of their factory brethren to lower-wage work, or the unemployment line.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that I.B.M. had told its managers to plan on moving as many as 4,730 jobs from the U.S. The I.B.M. spokesman told me he was sure that figure was too high, but added that no one had complained to The Journal about the number. He said he didn`t know how many American jobs would be lost.

I.B.M. officials are skittish to the point of paranoia on this matter, which has powerful social and political implications. Pulling the plug on factory workers is one thing. A frontal assault on the livelihood of solidly middle-class Americans — some of whom may be required to train the foreign workers who will replace them — is something else.

James Sciales was the first of the company spokesmen to respond to my inquiries this week. He was reluctant to even tell me his name and nervously refused to answer any questions. Another spokesman was willing to talk but asked that I not refer to him by name.

In a recorded conference call reported by The Times last summer, a pair of I.B.M. officials told colleagues around the world that the company needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar jobs overseas. They acknowledged the danger of a political backlash, but said it was essential to step up the practice.

"Our competitors are doing it and we have to do it," said Tom Lynch, I.B.M.`s director for global employee relations.

The outsourcing of good jobs has been under way for years, and there is no dispute that the practice is speeding up. "Anything that is not nailed to the floor is being considered for outsourcing," said Thea Lee, the chief international economist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Most of the millions of white-collar workers who could be affected by this phenomenon over the next several years are clueless as to what they can do about it. They do not have organized representation in the workplace. And government policies overwhelmingly favor the corporations. Like the employees at I.B.M. whose holiday cheer has been dampened by uncertainty, these hard-working men and women and their families have little protection against the powerful forces of the global economy.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

December 26, 2003
New Year`s Resolutions
By PAUL KRUGMAN

During the 2000 election, many journalists deluded themselves and their audience into believing that there weren`t many policy differences between the major candidates, and focused on personalities (or, rather, perceptions of personalities) instead. This time there can be no illusions: President Bush has turned this country sharply to the right, and this election will determine whether the right`s takeover is complete.

But will the coverage of the election reflect its seriousness? Toward that end, I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.

• Don`t talk about clothes. Al Gore`s endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event: the man who won the popular vote in 2000 threw his support to a candidate who accuses the president of wrongfully taking the nation to war. So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits.

This was not, alas, unusual. I don`t know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians` clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals. But unless you`re a fashion reporter, obsessing about clothes is an insult to your readers` intelligence.

• Actually look at the candidates` policy proposals. One key proposal in the State of the Union address will, we hear, be the creation of new types of tax-exempt savings accounts. The proposal will come wrapped in fine phrases about an "ownership society." But serious journalists should tell us how the plan would work, who would benefit and who would lose.

An early version of the plan was floated almost a year ago, and carefully analyzed in the journal Tax Notes. So there`s no excuse for failing to report that the plan would probably reduce, not increase, national savings; that it would have large long-run budget costs; and that its benefits would go mainly to the wealthiest few percent of the population.

• Beware of personal anecdotes. Anecdotes that supposedly reveal a candidate`s character are a staple of political reporting, but they should carry warning labels.

For one thing, there are lots of anecdotes, and it`s much too easy to report only those that reinforce the reporter`s prejudices. The approved story line about Mr. Bush is that he`s a bluff, honest, plain-spoken guy, and anecdotes that fit that story get reported. But if the conventional wisdom were instead that he`s a phony, a silver-spoon baby who pretends to be a cowboy, journalists would have plenty of material to work with.

If a reporter must use anecdotes, they`d better be true. After the Dean endorsement, innumerable reporters cracked jokes about Al Gore`s inventing the Internet. Guys, he never said that: it`s a malicious distortion of a true statement, and no self-respecting journalist would repeat it.

• Look at the candidates` records. A close look at Mr. Bush`s record as governor would have revealed that, the approved story line notwithstanding, he was no moderate. A close look at Mr. Dean`s record in Vermont reveals that, the emerging story line notwithstanding, he is no radical: he was a fiscally conservative leader whose biggest policy achievement — nearly universal health insurance for children — was the result of incremental steps.

• Don`t fall for political histrionics. I couldn`t believe how much ink was spilled after the Gore-Dean event over Joe Lieberman`s hurt feelings. Folks, we`re talking about war, peace and the future of U.S. democracy — not about who takes whom to the prom.

Political operatives have become experts at manufacturing the appearance of outrage. In the last few weeks the usual suspects have been trying to paint Howard Dean`s obviously heartfelt comments about his brother`s death in Laos as some sort of insult to the military. We owe it to our readers not to fall for these tricks.

• It`s not about you. We learn from The Washington Post that reporters covering Mr. Dean are surprised — and, it`s implied, miffed — that "he never asks a single question about them." The mind reels.

I don`t really expect my journalistic colleagues to follow these rules. No doubt I myself, in moments of weakness, will break one or more of them. But history will not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape this crucial election.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Ist Hysterie ansteckend?

washingtonpost.com
Suspicious Passengers Questioned In France
13 Were to Fly to L.A., Have Been Released

By John Mintz and John Burgess
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 26, 2003; Page A01


U.S. government officials said yesterday they believe some of the passengers boarding one of the three Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles that were canceled this week because of security concerns might have intended to hijack it and crash-land in Las Vegas or another city along its flight path.

Police in Paris questioned 13 people who had checked in for two Air France flights that were canceled Christmas Eve because of a terrorism warning from U.S. authorities, but no evidence of wrongdoing was found, the French Interior Ministry said. All 13 were released.

But U.S. officials said they are suspicious about some of the passengers who did not show up at the airport to claim their seats on the ultimately aborted Flight 68 from Paris to Los Angeles. One of those who did not appear for the Christmas Eve flight apparently is a trained pilot, one U.S. official said.

"We still have an interest in talking to those people who didn`t show up," said one U.S. official knowledgeable about the investigation. "There might be more to come on this."

Despite French statements suggesting some of the American fears about the Air France flights were unfounded, U.S. government officials said they believe they might have averted a terrorist attack by arranging for the flights` cancellation. Officials said they feared that al Qaeda operatives planned to hijack one of the flights and use the plane as a missile to attack a site on or near its route.

Moreover, U.S. officials said intelligence indicators suggest that al Qaeda might have set other terrorist operations in motion that do not involve aviation and are not centered in California. As on other occasions when terrorist fears are heightened, U.S. officials said their main concern is that al Qaeda might use a chemical or biological weapon, or a radiological "dirty" bomb.

"Our fear is that other things are going on" that have nothing to do with jetliner flights in or out of U.S. airports, said one U.S. official briefed on high-level intelligence. "The concern is that there still could be a lot of activity that was underway."

Another government official with access to the classified reports said U.S. security officials "are really concerned something major will happen" despite the cancellation of the three incoming and three outgoing Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and yesterday. One scenario embraced by a number of U.S. security officials is that al Qaeda operatives were in the final stages of planning an attack in this country, and were awaiting final direction from al Qaeda superiors to proceed.

"Government people hope that by deploying, they`ll shut down whatever might have been in motion," the official said.

In Paris, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced last night that Air France would operate its normal schedule today. . "The grounded flights can be resumed," he said in a statement.

U.S. officials have said they passed on to the French government names of travelers they suspected might try to commandeer the planes on the Paris-Los Angeles route in a terrorist attack.

Seven of the questioned people had checked in at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for Air France Flight 68 on Christmas Eve, according to a French official. He identified them as four Americans, one German, one French and one Belgian.

The people were taken aside and questioned extensively by police, the official said. Their baggage was searched. But no sign of terrorist connections was found, he said, and all had been released by 7 a.m. Paris time yesterday. Six other passengers who showed up for Flight 70 to Los Angeles were also questioned and released.

The French official played down the Air France cancellations, calling them a "nonevent." He added, "There is no danger. . . . And if there was any, specific measures would be taken."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. civilian and military air traffic controllers on the ground scrutinize the routes flown by commercial and other aircraft to ensure they do not diverge from their flight plans. Under protocols that are strictly enforced, pilots who depart from their assigned routes are contacted by radio, and if their explanations engender suspicions, military combat aircraft could be launched to intercept them.

For this reason, U.S. officials believe it is unlikely -- though not inconceivable -- that terrorists would try to divert an Air France Paris-to-Los Angeles flight to a city far from its flight path, such as New York. The Air France flights in question cross the Hudson Bay and eastern Canada before dipping down to airspace over Minnesota, and then taking a sharp southwestern swing toward Southern California.

"The only big city near this route is Las Vegas, which they would consider a nice, attractive target," one informed government official said. But officials said Los Angeles could have been the target, too.

The al Qaeda network has long considered Las Vegas to be one of its top targets for a strike because it sees the city as a citadel of Western licentiousness, U.S. officials said. Government officials said they have known for some time that al Qaeda is interested in striking at Las Vegas.

In response to these fears, Las Vegas was one of the cities where the Department of Homeland Security in recent days installed a number of outdoor air-handling sensors designed to detect biological pathogens that might be released by terrorists. The other cities where new Biowatch sensors were installed are in California, officials said.

Before this week 31 cities across the nation, including several in California, have had several hundreds of the sensors in place since March, when the U.S. invasion of Iraq prompted an orange alert.

Government officials said they also partly based their decision to raise the alert status earlier this week on the statements of an individual knowledgeable about al Qaeda operations who apparently is offering fresh information that is deemed credible.

The cooperation -- and possible chafing -- between France and the United States in the investigation is notable because France led the European opposition to the war in Iraq, and relations with the United States remain strained. But both governments have highlighted continuing cooperation against terrorism.

The Interior Ministry official said the cancellations were good publicity for that relationship. Spokesmen for both governments said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell thanked French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin for France`s help in responding to the U.S. warnings.

Both governments have worried that terrorists would try to mount a high-profile attack to disrupt the holiday season.

France is also wary of a repeat of a security slip that in December 2001 allowed Richard Reid, a British citizen, to board a Miami-bound American Airlines flight in Paris with explosives concealed in his shoes. Reid was overpowered by passengers and crew members as he attempted to light fuses of the bombs and is now serving a life sentence in the United States.

In the past two days, about 700 passengers were stranded by the flight cancellations, according to Veronique Brachet, a spokeswoman for Air France.

At Los Angeles International Airport, where security is as tight as it has ever been since the Sept. 11 attacks, some of the incoming flights of Air Tahiti Nui and Aeromexico were being given special attention, aviation sources said. Upon landing, the jets were ordered to taxi to a remote gate, where passengers were questioned and their belongings searched before they were bused to an immigration terminal.

Staff writer Sara Kehaulani Goo and special correspondent Caroline Jolivet contributed to this report. Mintz reported from Washington and Burgess from Paris.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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The dollar has fallen about a third against the euro in the past three years -- 15 percent this year alone. In the past 23 months, it has slid 11 percent against all the world`s currencies, according to Morgan Stanley.
washingtonpost.com

Wieviel wird der Dollar noch fallen. Eine Behauptung im Text, die Korrektur müßte 500 Mia$ an Wert vernichten. 10 Mia$ wäre 1% Wechselkursberichtigung.
Dann würden die Zinsen in den USA steigen, dann.....

Concerns Rising With Dollar`s Continued Fall
Analysts Fear Rates Will Climb, Recovery Will Stall

By Jonathan Weisman and John M. Berry
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 26, 2003; Page D08


With the economy expanding smartly, interest rates low and inflation in check, President Bush is sailing into the presidential election year with perhaps only a single dark economic cloud on the horizon: the shrinking U.S. dollar.

Whether that cloud produces a nourishing rain shower -- in the form of swelling U.S. exports and a recovery of manufacturing jobs -- or a deluge of rising interest rates and soaring budget deficits is the subject of increasingly heated economic debate.

Recent news of rapid third-quarter economic growth, rising consumer spending and climbing personal incomes did little to budge the dollar from its record lows against the 12-nation euro. The dollar has fallen about one-third against the unified European currency over the past three years -- 15 percent this year alone. In the past 23 months, the dollar has slid 11 percent against all the world`s currencies, according to Stephen S. Roach, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley & Co.

Currency analysts expect the trend to continue well into next year, if not beyond.

For now, economists say, the decline has on balance been a boon to the U.S. economy, pushing the price of American-made goods and services lower on the international market, stimulating exports while trimming imports. Indeed, the economic forecasting firm Global Insight Inc. has calculated that the dollar`s decline has saved as many as 700,000 manufacturing jobs since the slide began in earnest two years ago. And as long as inflation stays low, there will be little pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise short-term rates from their historic lows.

But concerns are growing, especially on Wall Street, that the dollar`s slide will inevitably drive up long-term interest rates, and some analysts think the decline could even force the Fed to raise the rates it targets. That could slow the nascent economic recovery, swell the already-record federal budget deficit and possibly resurrect an economic problem unseen for nearly 20 years: inflation.

In that scenario, foreign investors abruptly stop buying the ever-weakening dollar, interest rates soar to lure them back, and the budget deficit explodes as the government struggles to pay the interest on the $4 trillion debt held by the public.

"To this point, the [currency] adjustment has been about as smooth as one could expect under the current circumstances," said Daniel K. Tarullo, a Georgetown University law professor and former international economic adviser in the Clinton White House. "But is there a residual risk? Yeah, there`s a residual risk."

Charles L. Minter, a mutual fund manager at Comstock Partners Inc. in Yardley, Pa., was more emphatic about a looming surge of interest rates: "If people don`t want to own the dollar, they will have to be paid more to own the dollar. We`re very concerned."

The nation`s twin deficits -- a trade gap approaching $500 billion for 2003 and a federal budget shortfall nearing the same mark for the current fiscal year -- will inevitably bring pain, in the form of rising interest rates and slowing increases in the standard of living, they say.

"A lasting recovery cannot be built on a foundation of ever-falling saving rates, ever-widening current-account and trade deficits, and ever-rising debt burdens," Roach wrote in his year-end economic analysis.

But for now, foreigners -- especially governments in Asia -- continue to buy U.S. stocks, bonds and dollars, financing the two deficits and keeping the U.S. government afloat. Foreign governments and investors now own $2.5 trillion more in U.S. assets than Americans own of foreign assets, Warren E. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in a recent analysis in Fortune magazine.

Foreigners bought $27.6 billion more U.S. stocks, bonds and other assets than they sold to Americans in October, a 560 percent leap from the $4.2 billion the month before, according to the Treasury Department. And that surge came just as dollar fears were coming into focus.

As long as foreigners keep buying, the day of reckoning will be postponed, probably until later this decade, and certainly well after the 2004 presidential election, many international economists say.

"Everyone agrees these deficits are unsustainable; at some point, something has to give," said Nouriel Rubini, an international economist at New York University`s Stern School of Business. "I`m not sure if it`s in two years or three years, but it will be in the medium term, not around the corner."

In truth, the big question about the U.S. dollar is not necessarily why it has fallen to a record low against the euro, but why it remained so strong for so long while the United States was racking up a widening trade deficit.

Typically, one way to reduce a current account deficit is to have a recession in which consumption and investment fall, and so fewer goods and services are imported. Another is to have the value of a country`s currency decline, so that its exports become cheaper on world markets, its imports become more expensive and gradually the trade deficit shrinks.

Economist Edwin M. "Ted" Truman of the Institute for International Economics, a former senior official at both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury, said it is impossible to predict with any precision what will happen to the dollar.

"The question is, how much of a correction do you need to have?" Truman said. "If the adjustment is $500 billion, and it all comes through the exchange rate, then there is a long way to go. Take the standard rule of thumb, a 1 percent decline [in the value of the dollar] gets you about $10 billion. If we have done 10 percent, then there`s another 40 percent to go.

"That doesn`t have to be a problem, either for the United States or the rest of the world," Truman continued. "We went through this before, in the late 1980s. . . . But it`s not a free lunch. With a $500 billion adjustment, that would be $1,750 per capita we have to give up in consumption. [But] some will come in the form of reduced . . . capital investment, and that reduces economic growth."

For politicians entering an election year, the question is when. There are pessimists who believe the fallout has already begun. Super-investors Buffett and George Soros have already begun snapping up foreign currencies in anticipation of a continuing dollar slide, something Buffett said he has not done before in his 72 years of life.

Jes Black, a currency strategist at MG Financial Group, a currency trading firm in New York, said copper and gold are trading at eight-year highs, and the precious metal palladium is at a 23-year high. That is evidence, he said, that foreigners may be selling dollar-denominated assets such as stocks and bonds and buying more durable commodities. Earlier this month, the Saudi Arabian oil minister suggested that OPEC raise the price of dollar-denominated oil because the international price of oil has been hammered by the weak dollar.

"Why do people want to keep buying the dollar?" Black asked. "It`s been living off the vapors of its past credibility. This is mass psychology, and once everyone agrees there`s a problem, there`s a problem."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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A U.S. soldier watches Iraqi workers lay concertina wire near Auja, Saddam Hussein`s birthplace and a village said to be the intelligence hub of the Iraqi insurgency
Will man die Widerstandsnester nun mit Stacheldraht eingrenzen?


washingtonpost.com
Hunt for Hussein Led U.S. to Insurgent Hub
Five Families Believed to Direct Attacks

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 26, 2003; Page A01


TIKRIT, Iraq -- As U.S. forces tracked Saddam Hussein to his subterranean hiding place, they unearthed a trove of intelligence about five families running the Iraqi insurgency, according to U.S. military commanders, who said the information is being used to uproot remaining resistance forces.

Senior U.S. officers said they were surprised to discover -- clue by clue over six months -- that the upper and middle ranks of the resistance were filled by members of five extended families from a few villages within a 12-mile radius of the volatile city of Tikrit along the Tigris River. Top operatives drawn from these families organized the resistance network, dispatching information to individual cells and supervising financial channels, the officers said. They also protected Hussein and passed information to and from the former president while he was on the run.

At the heart of this tightly woven network is Auja, Hussein`s birthplace, which U.S. commanders say is the intelligence and communications hub of the insurgency. The village is where many of the former president`s key confidants have their most lavish homes and their favorite wives.

When U.S. forces sealed off Auja in late October, they separated the leaders of the insurgency from their guerrilla forces, dealing the anti-occupation campaign a major blow, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the Army`s 4th Infantry Division, which is responsible for the Tikrit area.

"It`s amazing that all roads lead to this region," Russell said. "It`s amazing who lives in that town. It`s a who`s who of families and a who`s who of Saddam`s former staff."

The campaign of violence directed against U.S. forces and against Iraqis who cooperate with them has raged since shortly after Hussein was toppled in April. The bulk of the attacks have taken place north and west of Baghdad, in the so-called Sunni Triangle that encompasses Tikrit and other pockets of continued support for Hussein, such as Fallujah and Ramadi.

U.S. commanders have blamed the violence on a combination of Hussein loyalists, Islamic guerrillas and foreign fighters, but the structure and operations of the insurgency have been the subject of speculation and debate. The commanders say the detailed picture that they now have of the Iraqi campaign is the result of months of sleuthing, including raids targeting suspected Hussein loyalists in the Tikrit area.

The interrogations and documents uncovered in the raids, coupled with electronic and other intelligence, repeatedly revealed the involvement of the same extended families and marked the way toward the inner circle.

"Our principal focus was to go after the mid- to low-level enemy leaders: the operations, financiers and weapons guys," said Col. James Hickey, whose 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division captured Hussein in the nearby village of Dawr on Dec. 13. "As we learned about the enemy and how he organized himself, eventually it led to some former members of the senior regime."

The Inner Circle


A trusted lieutenant of Hussein, who ultimately pointed U.S. interrogators to the former president`s hide-out, was one of at least five brothers in Hussein`s inner circle, Army officers said. Though U.S. officials have not released the informant`s name, they described him as a senior officer in Hussein`s elite Special Security Organization with roots in the village of Abu Ajeel, just north of Tikrit.

A longtime confidant, this senior security official emerged as Hussein`s "right arm" after U.S. forces captured Hussein`s personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud Tikriti, in June, a U.S. military officer said. Tikriti was not replaced, and his duties as Hussein`s de facto chief of staff were divided among those in the inner circle, in particular the senior security official and his brothers. The official served as a direct liaison between Hussein and the broader resistance organization.

Hussein himself was a rallying symbol, an irreplaceable "icon," according to Hickey. But U.S. commanders said they had no evidence that the former president, who moved from one safe house to another and rarely stayed longer than a week in one place, played a role in directing the insurgency.

The loyalists with access to Hussein numbered no more than 40, including those who cooked for him and the drivers who transported him between his estimated 30 hideaways in aging taxis, pickups and riverboats, according to U.S. intelligence.

These inner-circle loyalists, largely middle-aged men referred to by U.S. officers as the "42-inch waistband guys," usually insulate themselves from capture by keeping their distance from attacks on U.S. and allied troops. To avoid detection, they rarely travel with weapons or large amounts of money, slipping to clandestine meetings at modest farmhouses and nondescript cafes.

Their underlings are trusted members of their own families, which can number in the hundreds because men in this region of Iraq frequently take more than one wife and may father more than a dozen children.

Below the top tier are the mid-level operatives who organize specific attacks on U.S. and allied forces, providing arms and arranging financing. At the lowest level are the fighters, who U.S. officials said carry out the ambushes, prepare bombs and fire mortars in return for payments of $250 to $1,000, getting bonuses when they succeed in causing casualties.

U.S. commanders said the resistance sometimes seems to be a nationwide network, with mid-level operatives and low-level fighters from one part of the country surfacing in other regions. A recent rocket attack on Tikrit, for instance, appeared to be carried out by guerrillas from Fallujah, located nearly 90 miles away on the Euphrates River west of Baghdad.

Within the past several months, U.S. officers have also noticed two or three waves of attacks that extended across the country, indicating an attempt at nationwide coordination, Hickey said. But he added that those efforts had failed to gain momentum.

At other times, commanders say, the resistance seems mostly decentralized, with mid-level operatives choosing targets locally and supplying weapons kept close at hand.

Family Ties


The first glimpse of the inner circle came in July with the arrest of Adnan Abdullah Abid Musslit, a key Hussein bodyguard seized during a series of raids in late July, Russell said. These sweeps also uncovered photographs of Hussein posing with various people, some previously overlooked by U.S. forces. The photographs provided new clues to those closest to the former president. "We had the makings of a phone book on Saddam," Russell said.

The effort accelerated as U.S. interrogators and analysts came to understand the significance of Arab names in this region. Most men carry not only their own name but also the names of their father, grandfather and tribe -- a confusing jumble of identities for the uninformed but a powerful map to family relations.

Many of the inner-circle names uncovered were previously unknown to U.S. forces. Even some of the most senior figures did not appear in the deck of cards distributed in the spring by U.S. officials as a guide to Iraq`s most-wanted fugitives.

The new representation of Hussein`s clandestine movement is an easel-sized, multi-colored organizational chart developed by military intelligence officers at the 4th Infantry Division. Nicknamed the Mongo Link, the secret chart has Hussein`s photograph in the center, surrounded by the names and descriptions of more than 250 top- and mid-level activists connected in a web of family and functional ties.

Each family is color-coded, with greens and yellows dominating parts of the chart while blues, purples and whites predominate elsewhere. The names of individuals who have been captured and killed are written in red.

Hickey said a couple of the families have now been "decimated" because many of their men have been caught or killed, while others have fled the country. The informant`s family has been deeply compromised. Key members are now in U.S. custody and the remainder have been discredited in the eyes of other Hussein loyalists, U.S. officers said.

A few families, however, remain active, and their members are the target of U.S. operations in the Tikrit area.

"There are a handful that we`re really interested in getting our hands on," Hickey said. "We know their names and have an idea whenever they`re coming or going. We know where their properties are, and we know who the members of their family are, so we can go to them for information."

Among those most highly sought is Izzat Ibrahim, Hussein`s deputy and a native of Dawr, who also uses his clan`s name, Douri. U.S. military officers said that they have conflicting information about Ibrahim`s role in the resistance, including reports that he is little more than an infirm lackey rather than a key operational figure.

"He`s worth detaining. . . . We should assume he`s up to something," Hickey said.

U.S. commanders said they dealt the insurgents a major blow when they decided Oct. 30 to isolate Auja, surrounding it with fence and razor wire so the sole exit was past a U.S. military checkpoint. Russell said this move severed the insurgency`s intelligence and communications hub from the outside campaign.

Fearful that their conversations might be intercepted, resistance leaders are now reluctant to communicate by telephone or radio and rely instead on passing messages by word of mouth, often depending on younger members of the five inner-circle families, military officers said. But U.S. troops now monitor anyone leaving the village.

They acknowledge, however, that resistance leaders may still be operating from other safe houses in the area, in particular in Abu Ajeel, Qadassiyah, Dawr and downtown Tikrit, where the inner-circle families maintain second homes and farms.

Front Companies


U.S. commanders said they have also learned more about how the insurgency is financed, discovering that resistance leaders have used legal businesses to move money to local cells.

While each of the five families has extensive resources, in some cases plundered from the national treasury, their stores of dollars, Iraqi dinars, counterfeit bills, gold and jewelry are often stashed away, making it difficult to provide payments for specific guerrilla attacks, U.S. military officers said.

The families have sought to disperse the money around the country to make it available for local operations. U.S. forces discovered that Hussein loyalists had set up a network of front companies, in particular construction businesses and produce-sellers, to move the cash.

Raids have uncovered caches of millions of dollars, officers said. A series of strikes early this month proved especially successful in netting key financiers and revealing front companies. "When we take out pockets of inner-circle families, we also take out the money that we find," Russell said.

Now, U.S. officers said they suspect the resistance may be running low on funds because Hussein partisans have recently been selling off some of their properties, even hawking household items. At the same time, some local guerrillas are demanding higher pay, military officers said.

Hickey said the ambush last month of two U.S. convoys bringing new Iraqi currency to Samarra was carried out by insurgents badly in need of cash. The subsequent firefight left 54 guerrillas dead, according to U.S. military officials.

Hickey added he has detected very little movement of cash around his area. But he and other officers have reported efforts to smuggle munitions into the Tikrit area, an indication that U.S. raids on local weapons caches may have depleted the insurgency`s stores. Most of the arms discovered during recent raids, such as rusting, decrepit Kalashnikov rifles, have been of poorer quality than the newer, more sophisticated weapons found during the summer, he said.



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washingtonpost.com
Head and Heart, Competing in Iraq


By David Ignatius

Friday, December 26, 2003; Page A35


Looking back on this turbulent year, how should Americans make sense of the war in Iraq and the foreign-policy traumas that surrounded it? What went right, what went wrong -- and why?

Historians will be pondering these questions for years. One can already imagine a long queue of books that will dissect this year of Iraq in the way David Halberstam`s "The Best and the Brightest" helped us understand the people and ideas that produced Vietnam.

Some tentative answers to these big questions can be found in a remarkable essay by Dimitri K. Simes that appears in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs. Titled "America`s Imperial Dilemma," it`s the best brief analysis I`ve yet seen on where we are at the end of 2003 and how we got here.

Simes`s basic thesis is that American foreign policy has become decoupled from its traditional framework, which was a careful calculation of U.S. national interests. The new values-based approach culminated in President Bush`s war against Iraq, whose clearest justification was in the moral imperative to oust Saddam Hussein, rather than in controlling Iraqi oil, disarming the country of weapons of mass destruction or other pragmatic goals.

What`s intriguing about Simes`s argument is that he finds the stirrings of this moralistic foreign policy in Bill Clinton`s nation-building crusades in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. Perhaps this is Simes`s unkindest cut of all for the Bush administration -- the suggestion that its foreign policy is in some respects Clintonian.

Simes speaks for what has come to be called the "realist" school of conservative foreign-policy analysts. He`s president of the Nixon Center in Washington, and he`s appropriately Nixonian (if that can now be used as a term of approval) in evoking the hardheaded pragmatism of the old, pre-Reagan Republican establishment.

One obvious target of Simes`s critique is the neoconservatives -- a loosely defined group that is often identified by its most articulate members, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle. Though Simes doesn`t really define their strategic view, I would argue that the neocons share a belief in transformation -- that is, they believe America is now powerful enough to transform threatening nations and regions rather than tinker with a flawed status quo.

This neoconservatism merged with the moralism of President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. They spoke of foreign policy largely in the language of right and wrong -- as a struggle between the forces of freedom, meaning the United States, and what Bush described as "evildoers," such as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

This alliance of moralism and transformational strategy gave rise to the Iraq War. The Nixonian tradition in the Middle East had been classically status quo -- playing off Israelis and Arabs, making dubious deals with corrupt dictators, stressing the national interest in having secure oil supplies. But after Sept. 11, Bush and his advisers concluded that this status quo was deadly. They believed that by toppling Hussein, they would begin to transform the Arab world in ways that would make it freer, more democratic and less threatening.

Though described at the time in the sober language of national security, it was really a gambler`s choice.

"American foreign policy moved away from its generally high-minded but interest-based roots to espouse a form of global social engineering," argues Simes. "In this environment, a new utopian vision was born, the notion that the United States is both entitled and obliged to promote democracy wherever it can -- by force if necessary."

The value of Simes`s essay is that he poses the question clearly and starkly: Is America prepared, politically or culturally, to play the imperial role that the transformationalists want?

Simes argues the realist case: "It is time for a hardheaded assessment of American interests to play a greater role in Washington`s foreign policy calculus."

But what does President Bush think? He has many advisers with roots in the realist world of his father, who epitomized the old, "wouldn`t-be-prudent" Republican establishment. As the Iraq war began to turn dark last August, George W. seemed to be tilting toward the realist camp, whose emerging champion may be Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer. But at the same time, he increased his rhetorical commitment to the agenda of Arab political transformation espoused by the neocons.

Listening to Bush speak a week ago about his personal conviction that America has a mission to spread freedom in the world, you could not doubt that he is a moralist at heart. That is the most eloquent and compelling side of Bush, but if Simes is correct, it is also the most dangerous.

One senses that head and heart are in conflict within the administration at year`s end. That`s a healthy tension.


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SPIEGEL ONLINE - 26. Dezember 2003, 13:15
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,278961,00.html
Irak-Wiederaufbau

"Zur Kolonie degradiert"

Von Carsten Matthäus

Die US-Regierung verspricht ein "Wirtschaftswunder zwischen Euphrat und Tigris" und setzt dabei auf ein klassisches neoliberales Konzept: Radikalprivatisierung. Konzernen aus den USA, Großbritannien und den übrigen Staaten der Kriegskoalition bieten sich im Irak fortan unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten.

Als Paul Bremer vor knapp zwei Wochen die Festnahme Saddam Husseins verkündete, versprach er zugleich rosige Zeiten für die irakische Volkswirtschaft. Direkt nach den vielfach zitierten Worten "Der Tyrann ist ein Gefangener", sagte der Zivilverwalter: "Die Wirtschaft kommt voran." Mahnend rief er allen Iraker zu, nun sei die Zeit gekommen, einen wohlhabenden und demokratischen Irak aufzubauen.

Ähnlich erwartungsvoll äußerte sich Michael Fleisher, Ökonom der Bush-Regierung in Washington. Die Wirtschaftsreformen Bremers und seiner provisorischen Regierung, der Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), würden für ein "Wirtschaftswunder an Euphrat und Tigris" sorgen, prophezeite er bei einem Pressegespräch.

Solcher Optimismus sollte nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen: Der Irak hat noch immensen Nachholbedarf und ist von akzeptablen Lebensverhältnissen bedrückend weit entfernt. Nach einer Analyse der Vereinten Nationen lebten vergangenes Jahr rund 80 Prozent aller Iraker in Armut. Kriege, staatliche Misswirtschaft unter Saddam Hussein und die Folgen der Uno-Sanktionen führten dazu, dass die Wirtschaftskraft des Landes trotz riesiger Ölreserven immer geringer wurde. Lag das Bruttoinlandsprodukt 1980 nach Uno-Angaben noch bei über 3300 Dollar pro Kopf, war es kurz vor dem Irak-Krieg auf rund 1200 Dollar gefallen. Zum Vergleich: In Deutschland lag das BIP pro Einwohner 2002 umgerechnet bei 26.600 Dollar.

Zusammenbruch des Arbeitsmarktes

Diese desolate Lage hat sich seit dem Kriegende nicht verbessert, sondern weiter verschlechtert. Das gilt zum Beispiel für den Arbeitsmarkt. Genaue Berechnungen dazu gibt es noch nicht, die Arbeitslosenquote wird aber irgendwo zwischen 50 und 75 Prozent vermutet. Eine Ursache dafür war Bremers Entscheidung, die Baath-Partei, die irakische Armee und die staatlichen Sicherheitskräfte aufzulösen. Allein dadurch verloren rund 500.000 Soldaten und Angestellte von einem auf den anderen Tag ihren Job. Schäden durch Plünderungen sorgten zudem dafür, dass viele ohnehin schon marode Staatsbetriebe ihre Produktion aufgeben oder zurückfahren mussten. So ist das Pro-Kopf-BIP 2003 nach Schätzungen der Weltbank 2003 abermals gesunken und liegt nun zwischen 450 und 610 Dollar.
Nach Ansicht von Nouri Jafer, einem Berater des irakischen Arbeitsministeriums, ist die hohe Arbeitslosigkeit mittlerweile ein Sicherheitsproblem. Wer ohne Beschäftigung sei, suche nach illegalen Möglichkeiten, an Geld zu kommen, so Jafer gegenüber dem "Chicago Tribune": "Unsere große Sorge ist, wie wir das unter Kontrolle bringen und dafür eine Lösung finden sollen." Die schnelle Verringerung der Arbeitslosigkeit ist auch nach Ansicht der Uno und der Weltbank von entscheidender Bedeutung: "Die große Zahl der Arbeitslosen kann eine Quelle großer Instabilität werden, wenn das Problem bestehen bleibt", hieß es in einem im Oktober veröffentlichten Bericht.

Diese Instabilität bekommen US-Soldaten und amerikanisches Zivilpersonal fast täglich zu spüren. In den größeren Städten gibt es immer wieder wütende Proteste, weil die Arbeitsplätze, die seit Monaten versprochen werden, nicht zu finden sind. In Mossul versuchte eine aufgebrachte Menschenmenge Anfang Oktober, das Arbeitsamt zu stürmen. Nach Angaben der "Los Angeles Times" ist die hohe Erwerbslosigkeit neben den Folgen jahrelanger anti-westlicher Propaganda eine Ursache für die ständigen Anschläge auf US-Truppen. Die Köpfe der Widerstandsbewegung machen sich die materielle Not offenbar zu Nutze. Laut "L.A. Times" zahlen bestimmte Guerilla-Gruppen 100 Dollar "Belohnung" für Schüsse auf einen US-Konvoi und bis zu 10.000 Dollar für einen toten Soldaten.

Abhängig von staatlichen Hilfen

Zu allem Übel deutet momentan nichts darauf hin, dass bald Arbeitsplätze in nennenswerter Zahl geschaffen werden. Die Privatwirtschaft liegt weiter danieder. Der Großteil der Bevölkerung hängt am Tropf staatlicher Hilfen. Knapp 500.000 Mitarbeiter von Staatsbetrieben bekommen ihren Lohn auch dann von der Bremer-Verwaltung bezahlt, wenn sie für die Produktion eigentlich nicht mehr gebraucht werden. In ihrem Budget-Entwurf für 2004 hat sie allein für diesen Bereich umgerechnet 500 Millionen Dollar eingeplant.

Viel Geld wird auch für Staatsdiener locker gemacht. Wer Pensionsansprüche geltend machen kann oder einen der wenigen begehrten Jobs in den neuen Behörden ergattert hat, bekommt jetzt bis zu 40mal so viel wie vor dem Krieg. Die Kosten hierfür werden im kommenden Jahr auf rund 1,2 Milliarden Dollar geschätzt. Noch teurer kommen die Nahrungsmittel-Rationen, die bis November im Rahmen des Lebensmittel-für-Öl-Programms verteilt wurden und nun direkt von der Bremers CPA ausgegeben werden. Rund 60 Prozent der irakischen Bevölkerung können ihren Lebensunterhalt nach Schätzungen des World Food Programms nur mit dieser Unterstützung bestreiten. Die Rationen weiterhin zu verteilen, wird den irakischen Haushalt 2004 mit 3,5 Milliarden Dollar belasten. Diese Subventionskultur lindert zwar das schlimmste Elend. Mit der versprochenen Marktwirtschaft aber hat sie wenig zu tun.

Während Bremer einerseits noch den Versorgungsstaat alter Schule fortführt, setzt er an anderer Stelle auf Radikalprivatisierungen. Mit einem "Gesetz zur Regelung für Auslandsinvestitionen" hat er ausländischen Interessenten einen fast schrankenlosen Zugriff auf irakische Unternehmen ermöglicht. Investoren können die Firmen zu 100 Prozent der Anteile übernehmen und sämtliche Gewinne außer Landes schaffen. Ihre Aktivitäten sollen ab 2004 überdies vollständig von Steuern und Zöllen befreit werden. Nach Einschätzung des irakische Ökonomen Kamil Mahdi wird das Land mit diesem Gesetz zur Kolonie degradiert. "Die Amerikaner", so schrieb er im britischen "Guardian", sollten die Privatisierung sein lassen, bis Normalität eingekehrt ist und eine verfassungsmäßige Regierung eingesetzt wurde." Die Mitarbeiter mehrerer Staatsbetriebe haben schon angekündigt, ihre Arbeitgeber notfalls mit Waffengewalt gegen ausländische Übernahmen zu verteidigen.

So wird die irakische Volkswirtschaft wohl bis auf weiteres am Tropf der Subventionen und einer einzigen Branche hängen: der Ölwirtschaft. Immerhin die ist nach anfänglichen Problemen schneller in Gang gekommen als in Bremers Prognosen angenommen. Bereits in den vergangenen Monaten ist die Ölförderung auf rund zwei Millionen Barrel pro Tag angewachsen. In der Etatplanung für 2004 ging die CPA noch von 1,6 Millionen Barrel pro Tag aus. Sollte die Fördermenge auf ihrem heutigen Niveau bleiben und nicht durch weitere Sabotage-Akte eingeschränkt werden - dann könnte die wichtigste Geldquelle dem Land 2004 rund 20 Milliarden Dollar einbringen. Bremers CPA, der die gesamten Öleinnahmen zufließen, hätte dann einen Haushaltsüberschuss von rund sieben Milliarden Dollar. Viel Geld, um unzufriedene Iraker mit weiteren Staatshilfen ruhig zu stellen.

Das feindselige Klima und die höchst problematische Sicherheitslage werden aber nach Ansicht der Weltbank dafür sorgen, dass ausländisches Kapital nur langsam ins Land fließt. Die Experten schätzen, dass für den Wiederaufbau bis 2007 rund 36 Milliarden Dollar nötig sind. 2004 werden die Investitionen schätzungsweise jedoch nur rund fünf Milliarden Dollar betragen.




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Pox Americana
Games and deception: The war-year in review
BY BARRY CRIMMINS
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/talking_po…

IT WAS THE worst of times, and it was the worst of times. The 12 months labeled, stored, and referenced as "2003" will be forever remembered as a "war year." And wars are the worst of things upon which to waste years.

In January, the nation passed the halfway mark of the court-appointed Bush administration. A hardy lot, Americans had survived two years and a day of excruciating corruption, skullduggery, and embarrassment. It was about to get worse. All the best halftime shows took place at peace rallies. The media’s electronic war drumbeat was providing George W. Bush with the kind of cacophonous distraction he needed to defy logic, decency, public opinion, and constitutional law.

All winter, Bush considered exactly zero outside opinions as he stuck his head in the sand about his war in the desert. No matter how much bottled water it took, he was hell-bent on quagmire. On January 15, the littlest prez said, in full cowboy bluster, "Time is running out on Saddam Hussein — he must disarm. I’m sick and tired of games and deception."

Driven by distractions

Saddam was a lightweight compared to Bush when it came to deceptive gamesmanship. Each alleged Iraqi smoking gun turned into licorice. So many intelligence documents were fudged that Cuba feared it would be invaded next, if only for its sugar. Supposed proof of Iraq/Al Qaeda connections screamed on the front page one day, only to be refuted on page 38 the following week. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (a term Bush expanded to include anything more lethal than a whoopee cushion) were everywhere, but, remarkably, nowhere. Niger nukes, anyone? Whenever any of the administration’s "misspeaks" were exposed, Fatherland Security czar Tom Rigid would take to the air and publicly change the Colorform on the Alibi for Authoritarianism Rainbow to a bolder shade.

Duct and cover

Much of the cost of Bush’s latest war was to be tacked on in addition to the already obscene $400 billion Pentagon budget. Nevertheless, during one of the Fatherland Security briefings, we were advised to go out and buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect our homes. Four-hundred-billion-dollars-plus per year for alleged defense plus the cost of a gargantuan homeland-security apparatus, and we were supposed to run down to True Value to buy duct tape to ensure our safety? Unfortunately, a very effective countermeasure to duct tape and plastic sheeting is a box cutter, bringing us back to square one via a quite expensive route.

The people’s voice

Dubyahoo responded to millions of anti-war protesters by saying that to allow them to influence him would be akin to "saying I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group." Focus groups, no! Special-interest groups, yes!

In time, Bush’s relentless croaks for a "regime change" seemed likely to happen — in Britain, where Tony Blair’s refusal to listen to the will of his people lowered his approval ratings to the point where his next job might entail asking, "You want Freedom Fries with that?"

Pay pals

Bush tried to make it seem as if most of the world supported his war by bribing several nations to nominally endorse his efforts. The Dubster called this collection of nations the Coalition of the Willing. Considering how much fiscal inducement was employed to gain signatories, Coalition of the Billing was more like it. Some of the fixes didn’t even remain "in." Turkey was supposed to welcome US troops, but its legislature rejected the idea. A gigantic bribe for the Turks remained in a brown paper body bag at the State Department.

Con-scripted

In a memorable performance, White House prevarication chief Ari Fleischer criticized Saddam Hussein’s lying. It was an E.F. Hutton moment. When Fleischer left his press-secretary job in the summer of ’03, it was an indication that not even he could handle the massive task of keeping all Bush’s stories straight.

Another big-time joke was W.’s scripted press conference before the embedded White House press corps just before the war. Bush looked as if someone had loosed a clip from an automatic tranquilizer gun into his torso. The court-appointed prez had all the questions and answers in advance, but that didn’t stop Republican flacks and most corporate media analysts from discussing his performance as if it were a nimble tour de force. He mentioned 9/11 roughly 911 times. Aaron Copland appeared at less-orchestrated events.

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s second show-and-tell at the UN, in which he supposedly presented "devastating evidence" of why the time for inspections had passed, was equally laughable. It turns out that the evidence that wasn’t made up of whole cloth was plagiarized from the graduate-school equivalent of Homework.com. At a time when the court-appointed Bush administration was claiming Iraqi spies were everywhere, Powell walked into the UN and sat with CIA chief George Tenet, who corroborated the veracity of all Powell’s claims. Oh yeah, nothing placates the doubts of the international community like the soothing presence of the CIA chief.

Media blitzed

Finally, George W. Bush did as we all knew he would and discarded reason, world opinion, and the growing awareness that if truth is the first casualty of war, we had already sustained massive losses. He began his attack with what was called a "decapitation strike" on Baghdad on Tuesday, March 20. It was a so-called strategic strike meant to kill Saddam Hussein. Leave it to the Pentagon to use "decapitation" as a sanitized term.

Immediately, the corporate media grew giddy over their fluency in military hardware. CNN actually went so far as to create video "baseball cards" of the various tools of death. "This is a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, it can carry enough soldiers, munitions, and firepower to destroy a midsize urban neighborhood!" Their idolatry of these horrific devices was almost sexual. The anchors regularly chimed in with breathless remarks, gasping in awe at the weapons, which inevitably exhibited lethally phallic projections from every angle.

Even worse was how the corporate media seized upon each new story as proof positive that this unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation had been vindicated.

One of the most consistently sickening elements of the month-long GWII media blitz was watching decommissioned brass hold court in little on-air war rooms while civilian anchors and reporters competed to see who could crawl the furthest up the retired officers’ asses. At times CNN’s Paula Zahn would have been completely off-camera had she not been wearing high heels.

Among the first soldiers killed was Marine Staff Sergeant Kendall Waters-Bey, 29, of Baltimore, who died in a helicopter crash. He left behind a devastated family, including his wife, 10-year-old son, four sisters, and father.

Waters-Bey’s father, Michael, held up a photo of his deceased child before a video crew and said, "I want President Bush to get a good look at this, [a] really good look here. This is the only son I had, only son." He then walked away in tears, with his family behind him. I didn’t catch any follow-up interviews with them.

Quiet down, now

As soon as the assault on Iraq began, many people made calls for temperance — from the peace movement! Most of these clowns prefaced their remarks by discussing how devoted they were to our sacred right to protest, but "now that our troops are in battle, dissent is no longer appropriate." We were supposed to forget that the same reactionary elements promoting this bunk weren’t exactly up for awards from the ACLU for their unswerving support of protesters’ rights during the months leading up to the war. Truth told, these people would use any excuse to quash dissent. "With potatoes unharvested in both Idaho and Maine, it seems to me that this is a very dangerous time to allow anti-war protest..."

Lynch party

The most expensive commodity required to fuel the war machine — blood — was heavily infused with salt of the earth not commonly found running through the veins of network executives or political spin-doctors. The majority of casualties suffered by Bush’s so-called coalition were inflicted upon poor and middle-class kids. Private Jessica Lynch wasn’t particularly heroic in Iraq, but her refusal to corroborate propaganda about her war experiences demonstrated she was quite capable of heroism. Lynch and her military comrades will live with this war long after the rest of us think it has ended. It’s not Bechtel execs or Heritage Foundation fellows who have to man lonely checkpoints in the desert, where, if they guess wrong, a suicide bomber will take them out, or they will mistakenly exterminate entire carloads of innocent people and then have to live with their horrible blunder. These kids will know the true horror of war firsthand. Their families and friends will receive secondary exposure.

Killing with kindness

During the invasion, the American command made much of how many civilians it spared through its use of precision bombing. In fairness, the death toll reached nowhere near the hundreds of thousands of fatalities many of us feared might occur during a US-led invasion. The Pentagon’s sudden concern for innocent life may have had a little something to do with the peace activists who repeatedly spoke out against any military action that claimed unoffending souls. Nevertheless, the restraint was noticeable, although anything but completely successful. Errant (at least we hope they were errant) warheads massacred many people. Malicious or simply panicked troops chopped down dozens more. As the war became an occupation, this situation only worsened.

A child named Ali Ismail Abbas put a tortured and very human face on the horror of this war. A piece excised from World Link TV’s Middle East news digest Mosaic showed the starkest possible footage of the boy, who lost his arms and was severely burned in an American missile attack. If you saw only the video of the child that turned up on the American networks, you have no idea of the ghastly extent of his injuries. Little Ali said, "A mountain couldn’t withstand my pain." One look at his armless, skinless, charred, and eviscerated torso substantiated his statement. He lost his family in the attack as well.

Those who speak of "the price of war" rarely mention that children too often foot the bill. Everyone who ever uses the term collateral damage should be forced to watch footage of this child again and again. Were he to survive and grow up to become a terrorist, who would dare ask "why?"

Just loot me

Baghdad fell and fell hard. The United States had plenty of troops to protect every oil well in the country, along with the offices of the oil ministry and information ministry (secret police), with enough left over to handle other high-priority tasks such as establishing US military hegemony over the nation’s many statues and murals depicting Saddam Hussein.

Unfortunately, an urgent plea for the United States to safeguard priceless antiquities in the former Mesopotamia, made to the court-appointed Bush administration in January by a committee of scholars, must have gotten lost under a stack of doctored documents. While the corporate media focused quite happily on the looting of government buildings and Saddam’s and his collaborators’ swanky homes, a two-day pillaging of the Iraq National Museum went undetected.

When questioned about the looting, an impatient Doomsday Don Rumsfeld asked rhetorically, "My goodness, were there that many vases?" Items looted from museums on the banks of the Tigris River are understandably of little interest to Rummy, since the only history he respects is Genghis Khan’s foreign policy.

Rumsfeld deepened the pit by summarizing the anarchy thusly, "It’s untidy. And freedom’s untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." With this remark he unintentionally disclosed that some of the freest people in the world are now occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Unwelcome wagon

The free Iraqis soon began to take to the streets to protest deplorable conditions exacerbated by the war, as well as civilian casualties and the absolute absence of public safety. They also had some religious scores to settle and clearly didn’t appreciate the presence of troops supremely commanded by a born-again Christian. They will be even less happy when the several thousand missionaries authorized by Bush arrive to save their pagan souls. People who drop death from above really should be careful about implying that salvation emanates from the same point of origin. The power was out, water was scarce, looted hospitals were unable to provide care, and Western devils were everywhere. On two consecutive days, Americans opened fire on protesters outside an Iraqi school where the soldiers were holed up. Considering all the National Guard troops the US had over there, Qent State was bound to happen sooner or later.

Disarmed and dangerous

The central premise for Bush’s war was the weapons of mass destruction he assured us Saddam had and would use unless he was stopped. Well, Dubyahoo got his war, but there wasn’t a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon to be found. Four More Years — Because W. Needs the Time To Find the WMD! Saddam had such weapons in the past, and the US knew it and condoned it. The Reagan administration had helped facilitate their use in Iraq’s war with Iran. Like Osama bin Laden, Hussein was just another little monster the US helped bolt together. Two months after the US invaded Iraq, the world knew that Hussein had been disarmed — before the invasion.

Leadership vacuum

Once the US-led coalition "won" the war with Iraq (the military equivalent of the Los Angeles Lakers defeating a CYO team), its first move to bring democracy to the area was to name Retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner the head honcho of efforts to transmogrify Iraqi oil into obscene amounts of lucre for the corporate riffraff in line to profiteer from the devastated nation. In an April 2003 interview with the New York Times, Garner said, "If President Bush had been president [during Vietnam], we would have won." Why Garner thought a drunken, drug-abusing, MOOA (Missing Out of Action) National Guardsman would have made a good president back then remains unclear.

Garner’s ineptitude once more demonstrated the court-appointed Bush administration’s lack of preparedness for any Iraqi eventuality that did not involve oil. It was a weak move even by Bush’s feeble standards to select the inept Garner to enter Iraq’s political vacuum. Garner did next to nothing to stabilize the country during his brief rule. Seeing an opportunity, Henry Kissinger managed to place one of his lackeys, L. Paul Bremer III, the former managing director of Kissinger & Associates (and the man in charge of counterterrorism in the Reagan White House), in the void widened by Garner.

The vast crusade

Few people, including those in the Middle East, lament the demise of Saddam Hussein, but to the Arab culture, this war was not seen as an invasion of Saddam’s Iraq — it was viewed as an attack upon the Islamic world. It won’t soon be forgotten. These folks are still emotional about the Crusades. In Vietnam, people have put America’s assault upon their country behind them as best they could. But 30 years from now, you won’t find anyone in the Middle East burning incense for enemy souls lost in this war — embassies maybe, but incense, no.

Wars are easy to start but very difficult to end. Just because Americans have been told this is over and it’s time to flip to another show, doesn’t make it so. They’ll hold the Republican Convention in Paris before Gulf War II hatred for the USA even begins to subside in the Middle East. As the Bushists work toward the neocon dream of Pox Americana, the Islamic fundamentalists will work just as hard to make sure that a Jihad rain is gonna fall.

Stammering about in blissful ignorance on the day after he replaced Garner, and just hours after a series of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, Bush was in Indiana explaining why the best tool in the war on terrorism was a $550 billion tax cut for fat cats. After all, what good would it have been to conquer Iraq and profit obscenely from its rebuilding if the profiteers just had to turn around and pay taxes on their booty?

Rove-ing reporter

Bush has been sold to us by Karl Rove, politics’ answer to Ron Popeil. Rove is a low-blow boxing champ who knows how to serve us shit and get us to pay extra for it by calling it freedom filets. After the conventional portion of GWII was over and before it began to look too much like a war of occupation, Rove, the mother of all photo-opportunists, decided to have Junior Bush dress up like a pilot and land on the deck of the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in a fighter jet. If Bush pulled this off, Rove promised him a horsy ride next.

Wrapped tightly in the flag, this ersatz patriot took to the deck of the Lincoln as if he were Jefferson. The deserter in drag as a war hero gave a predictably jingoistic speech. Bush stood there, wielding power derived from stolen office, as Rove backlit him in red, white, and blue political glory. It didn’t matter that he lied. These days veracity doesn’t matter if the video is slick. And this slick video had Bush standing under a gigantic banner that announced: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Rove has a smaller sign in his White House office that says: MISSION ACCOMPLICE!

Last summer, when W. was asked about the obvious upsurge of insurgent activity in Iraq, he responded, "Bring ’em on!" His machismo is boundless when others are at risk, but if his ass is even within shouting distance of the proverbial line, the lights go off, the lies become more brazen, and not even Queen Elizabeth’s quarters are up to security snuff. ("Psst ... Hail the conquering hero. Pass it on.")

Rove’s imaginary president capped the year with a heroic secret mission to serve plastic turkey to troops at the Baghdad airport on Thanksgiving. One thing was certain: Bush was comfortable traveling with the lights out, something he has been doing for years.

Spider-hole man

The war-year’s anticlimactic climax came on December 14, when 600 US troops removed the elusive Saddam Hussein from a spider hole (as opposed to a mite hole, where Bush stores his ethics) just outside the former dictator’s hometown of Tikrit. The pit was insulated, one presumes, with the minutes of Dick Cheney’s energy meetings. Once in custody, Hussein received something of which millions of Americans can only dream — a medical examination.

Saddam was apprehended in ignominious circumstances, his ultimate cowardice on worldwide display. Everybody knows real men hide in the darkness of Air Force One.

You don’t have to be an actuary to understand why Hussein was brought in so far in advance of a potential 2004 October Surprise. Had his homelessness continued, the haggard 66-year-old wasn’t a good bet to live long enough to stand trial, much less before an executioner. Saddam’s biggest mistake was trying to blend in in Iraq. Had he realized how invisible disheveled homeless men are in America, he’d have taken up residence in Washington, DC, and lived unobserved for years. I’d lay odds that Osama bin Laden is in either Detroit or Buffalo right now.

The US corporate media responded by showing us close shots of huge crowds of people supposedly celebrating in the streets of Baghdad. In a country where the unemployment rate is now 80 percent, the streets are already pretty crowded with those left homeless, jobless, and powerless by Bush’s alleged liberation.

The media jubilation provoked a chorus of "All hail Bush!", as if capturing this defrocked piece of crap would make everything suddenly okay. Unfortunately, snagging an impotent old viper did nothing to solve the problems of the three million Americans who have lost their jobs since Bush literally took office. No matter how they try to spin it, we know that imprisoning Saddam will not bring a single slain "Coalition" soldier back to life, or make their deaths retroactively glorious. Nor will it resurrect any of the thousands of dead Iraqis. Not one freshly minted paraplegic arose from a wheelchair upon hearing the news that Hussein had been caught.

Even as the news broke, insurgent attacks continued apace, and US officials warned us to expect a "brief upsurge of violence." They also said there was still "a big job to do." Yes, large portions of the federal treasury had yet to be transferred to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton pension fund. And indeed, there are a lot more foreign-devil haters than Baath loyalists in the Middle East. It’s still much too easy to envision this cradle of civilization becoming the graveyard of humanity.

If the war is an issue next fall, it will be a bad issue for W. It says here that the captured Saddam Hussein will soon be nothing more than a hood ornament on a blood-red Humvee of war.

THIS ISN’T going to end soon: Congress has authorized another $87 billion allegedly for rebuilding Iraq. Those tax dollars, stolen from the pockets of working people whose children are nothing more than cannon fodder to fat-cat war profiteers, are much more likely to end up refurbishing mansions in Houston and bank accounts on Grand Cayman Island than the boulevards of Baghdad.

The only way to extricate ourselves from the Iraqi Quagmire is to use the exits. Take half the dough earmarked for rebuilding and give it to the UN. Then, as John Kerry might say, get the fuck out. There’s no other sane choice. Too many people who hate Bush’s America already live there. Thousands more are making the commute. In November 2003, 79 American families were notified that their soldier parents, offspring, spouses, or siblings would never again celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

Unless we make George W. Bush nothing more than an asterisk in the roll call of history (who was the only unelected man to serve four years — and only four years — as president?), he will have no problem harvesting our children for more senseless wars, serving up the last remnants of the middle class as hors d’oeuvres at the country-club cotillion, and blatantly robbing the elderly of their health, security, and dignity.

To employ the football terminology so favored by the patriarchs who are stomping their metaphorical cleats upon our very way of life, we are approaching the fourth quarter of the George W. Bush era — at least we had better be — because if the gun that goes off next November only signals halftime, we are in for a stomping from which we may never recover enough to field a competitive team.

This year’s news wrap-up rightfully ignored the Democrats. It’s up to you to make them the main story next year. Remember, Christmas 2004 either comes in early November, or it doesn’t come at all.

Barry Crimmins is a political satirist, radio commentator, rouser of Web rabble (www.barrycrimmins.com) and author. This essay is in part excerpted from his upcoming book, Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal, due in the fall of 2004 from Seven Stories Press.

[Joerver]

`Ownership Society` Das neue Schlagwort.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kuttner…
COMMENTARY



`Ownership Society` Another Sleight of Hand
Bush`s idea for U.S. workers is one more of his trademark illusions -- an inspiring theme with no useful tools.
By Robert Kuttner

December 26, 2003

In President Bush`s upcoming State of the Union address, we are going to hear a lot about something called an "ownership society." The idea is that American workers aspire to be owners — owners of stock for their retirement, owners of homes, owners of businesses, owners of good health insurance and owners of the skills they need to navigate multiple changes of jobs and careers.

It sounds just great.

Take a closer look, however, and you will recognize the trademarked Bush combination of inspiring themes coupled with a complete absence of useful tools. In other words, "bait and switch."

Other recent examples include the No Child Left Behind education reform law (millions were), the Medicare drug bill (covers less than you`d think and mainly subsidizes drug companies) and three rounds of huge tax breaks that went mostly to the wealthy.

But I digress.

How does Bush propose to create this "ownership society"? Mainly through … more tax credits. If people lack reliable health care, there will be tax-favored savings accounts to buy health insurance. If we need more secure retirement, there are new tax incentives to set aside savings. If jobs are precarious, there are tax credits to purchase retraining when your job moves to China.

What`s wrong with this approach?

For starters, the very people who lack the decent health insurance, retraining and secure nest eggs are short of adequate earnings from which to take out savings. So most of the tax breaks, as in the rest of the Bush program, will go to people who don`t need them, whereas those who rely on genuine help will come up short.

One hallmark of the Bush era has been rising incomes at the top and stagnant wages for the rest. The increased national income in the economic recovery has gone mostly to corporate profits and a record-low proportion has gone to wages.

If we want an "ownership society" based heavily on increased individual savings, let us start with decent incomes for workers so that ordinary people can afford to save.

But individual savings alone aren`t enough. Look at how the United States became a society of broad middle-class ownership in the years after World War II.

Wages went up (thanks in part to unions), so that it became possible for working people to imagine buying cars, homes and the other material trappings of the good life. Corporations started paying decent pensions and health insurance benefits.

Radical conservatives think that government help undermines individual initiative. But federal programs such as the GI Bill, FHA loans, Pell Grants and aid to community colleges and public schools allowed individual hard work to pay off. Social Security institutionalized the custom of retirement, which stimulated supplemental retirement plans. Another Bush hallmark has been gutting social investment.

Decent wages and benefits and real government help are the part that Bush`s ownership society leaves out. To Bush, ownership means the lone individual is made the sole owner of the problem.

Corporation canceled your pension? Better sock away more savings. Laid off? Better get yourself some new skills. Company health insurance plan raising premiums and your co-pays? Congratulations — you`re an owner!

This ownership society walks away from the social investments of the last six decades that made this nation a society in which most people could reasonably aspire to be owners. It leaves people on their own with a fistful of tax credits that most people can`t even afford to use.

Interestingly, there is a very different version of an ownership society that does work, called asset development. In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair has already made a start on this approach by giving every child a subsidized savings account, at birth, which grows and compounds and then can be used in adulthood to subsidize everything from education to first-time homeownership and ultimately to supplement retirement.

In the United States, Al Gore proposed a variant of this. Larry Brown, one of the pioneers of this approach, at the Asset Development Institute at Brandeis University, proposes an even bolder version, as does Yale`s Bruce Ackerman.

The difference is that asset development programs give people real opportunities, using real public outlays, the way the GI Bill did. Bush`s approach relies mainly on the funny money of tax credits, which are often useless to the people who need them most.

An ownership society is a wonderful idea. Liberals have been expanding it ever since the New Deal. So, when you hear about Bush`s ownership society, read the fine print and keep your hand on your wallet.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the American Prospect.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

Das ist Lehrmaterial der NYTimes für US-Schulen, ob es was hilft?
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1224.h…

[Joerver]

Achtung zum mitmachen. alleine das Lesen oder Anschauen lohnt sich. Mitmachen

Stellt Eure Favoriten doch einfach in den Thread. Siehe unten ein Beispiel.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldotcomedy2003.htm#…

2003 Political Dot-Comedy Awards

Cast Your Votes Today


We are proud to announce the nominees for About.com`s 4th annual awards competition saluting the best political humor on the Web. Please cast your ballots in the following categories:

Overall Humor | Web Cartoons
Satirical News | Parody | Bush Humor
Left-Wing News | Right-Wing News
Comic Strip | Late-Night TV Comedy

Winners will be announced on Jan. 7 in the new weekly Political Humor Newsletter, so feel free to sign up if you are not already subscribed.

And the Nominees Are…

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldotcomedy2003.htm#…

Mein Favorit für die erste Kategorie: Al Qowda

MAD COW LINKED TO AL-QOWDA

Ridge Raises Alert Level to ‘Well Done’

Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge revealed today that the U.S. had “credible evidence” linking the recent mad cow disease scare in Washington State to a little known terror group called al-Qowda.

“Little is known about al-Qowda, but we do know this: they hate America, and they really hate America’s cows,” Mr. Ridge said at a press briefing this afternoon.

While details about al-Qowda’s leadership remain sketchy at best, Mr. Ridge said that the leader of the terror group may have had what he termed “a bad experience with an American steak sandwich, possibly at Arby’s.”

In light of increased chatter from sources linked to al-Qowda, Ridge announced that the Homeland Security Department was raising the nation’s beef-alert level from pink, or “rare,” to brown, or “well done.”

Moments after Mr. Ridge’s speech, over twenty thousand suspicious hamburgers were detained by the CIA and held for questioning.

In an effort to clarify the heightened beef-alert level, Mr. Ridge said that Americans should “go about their business and consume all the beef they normally do,” but that they should be “careful not to enjoy it.”

In other news, Mr. Ridge announced that the Borowitz Report has been nominated for
two 2003 Political Dot-Comedy awards.

IT’S TRUE! AND YOU CAN VOTE FOR THE BOROWITZ REPORT TODAY!

The Borowitz Report has been nominated for Best Overall Humor and Best Satirical News. Vote for the site in both categories by going to:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldotcomedy2003.htm

Remember, loyal readers and subscribers: The Borowitz Report is a 100% free service, with no ads, no pop-ups, and no facts. Show your support by voting today!

[Joerver]

Hier noch ein Kandidat zur Auswahl:

Bush and Blair`s `Endless Love`

Video Page

Click image to view video: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/bushblair…

Bush and Blair`s `Endless Love`
Guide Rating -

George W. Bush and Tony Blair express their true feelings for each other as they sing a stirring rendition of "Endless Love." (Video may take awhile to load.)


Review
This amusing video casts the Iraq war alliance between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in a whole new light. Created by Johan Söderberg for a Swedish television program called `Kobra,` this parody synchs up images of Bush and Blair singing Diana Ross and Lionel Richie`s breathless ballad "Endless Love." Their international coalition may be crumbling, but their hearts still beat as one.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/bushblair…

[Joerver]

Iraq through the American looking glass

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

26 December 2003 : (The Independent) Something very unpleasant is being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company commander in the US 1st Infantry Division in the north of the country admitted that, in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops, it was necessary to "instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi interpreter working for the Americans had just taken an old lady from her home to frighten her daughters and grand-daughters into believing that she was being arrested.

A battalion commander in the same area put the point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," he said. He was speaking from a village that his men had surrounded with barbed wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."

Try to explain that this treatment - and these words - offend the very basic humanity of the people whom the Americans claimed they came to "liberate" and you are met in Baghdad with the same explanation: that a very small "remnant" of "diehards" - loyal to the now-captured Saddam Hussein, etc, etc - have to be separated from the civilians whom they are "intimidating".

To point out that the intimidation is largely coming from the American occupation force - to the horror of the British in southern Iraq who fear, understandably, that Iraqi revenge will be visited upon them as it was on the Italians and the Spanish - is useless.

Instead, we are told that American troops are winning those famous hearts and minds with the spirit of Christmas. There was a grim example of this - and the inherent racism that pervades even reporting of such events - on the Associated Press wire agency just this week.

Describing how an American soldier in a Santa Claus hat was giving out stuffed animals to children, reporter Jason Keyser wrote that one 11-year- old child "looked puzzled, then smiled" as the soldier gave him a small, stuffed goat. Then the report continued: "Others in the crowd of mostly Muslims grabbed greedily at the box," adding the soldier`s remark that: "They don`t know how to handle generosity."

I don`t doubt the soldier`s wish to do good. But what is one to make of the "mostly Muslims" who "grabbed greedily" at the gifts? Or the soldier`s insensitive remarks about generosity? Iraqi newspapers have been front--paging a Christmas card produced by US troops in Baghdad: "1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Wishes you a very Merry Christmas!" it says.

But the illustration is of Saddam Hussein in his scruffy beard just after his capture, with a Santa hat superimposed on top of his head. Funny enough for us, no doubt - I can`t personally think of a better fall-guy for St Nicholas - but a clear insult to Sunni Arabs who, however much they may loathe the beast of Baghdad, will see in this card a deliberate attempt to humiliate Muslim Iraqis. It is for Iraqis to demean their ex-president - not their American occupiers.

It`s almost as if the occupying powers want to look through Alice`s looking glass. This week, we had the odd statement by British General Graeme Lamb that Saddam could be compared to the Emperor Caligula. Now the good general was probably relying on Suetonius`s Twelve Caesars for his views on Caligula. But if anything, the Roman was a good deal more insane than Saddam and even more heedless of human life.

The crazy Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, might have been a more appropriate parallel. But what was all this supposed to achieve? A serious war crimes trial - preferably outside Iraq and far from the country`s contaminated judiciary - is the way to define the nature of Saddam`s repulsive regime.

All references to the ex-dictator as Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun or Caligula - like all suggestions that Tony Blair or George Bush are Winston Churchill - are infantile. And again, they will appear insulting to the Sunni Muslims of Iraq, the one community which the Americans should be desperate to placate, since it is the Sunnis who are primarily resisting the occupation.

But the looking-glass effect seems to have taken hold of US pro-consul Paul Bremer`s entire authority. Like President George Bush, Bremer has now taken to repeating the absurdity that the greater the West`s success in Iraq, the more frequent will be the attacks on American troops.

"I personally feel that we`ll actually have more violence in the next six months," he said a couple of week ago, "and the violence will be precisely because of the fact that we`re building momentum toward success." In other words, the better things become, the worse they`re going to get. And the greater the violence, the better we`re doing in Iraq.

I wouldn`t worry about this nonsense so much if it wasn`t mirrored on the ground in Iraq. Take the US claim - now regarded as an absurdity - that they killed "54 insurgents" in Samara a month ago. The truth is that they killed at least eight civilians and there`s not a smidgen of evidence that they killed anyone else. But still they insist on sticking to the story of their great victory.

Last week, they pushed out a similar version of the same story. This time there were 11 dead "insurgents" in Samara. But when The Independent investigated, it could only find records of four dead civilians and a lot of wounded. None of the wounded - presumably "insurgents" if the Americans believe their own story - had been visited in hospital by US forces who might, if they didn`t question them, at least have apologised.

An even more peculiar habit has now manifest itself among spokesmen for the occupation authorities. When a tank drove over a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City three weeks ago, they claimed this was a "traffic accident", as if driving an M1A1 Abrams tank over a car and a robed prelate is the kind of thing that can happen on any downtown street.

A few days later, after a truck-bomber crashed into a car and killed 17 civilians, the occupation lads churned out the same rubbish again. It was, they said, a "traffic accident" involving a petrol tanker. But there was no tanker attached to the lorry.

The first American troops on the scene found the grenades intended to detonate the bomb and the victims were all blasted to bits - not burned, as they would have been if the petrol tanker had simply caught fire. Those of us who reached the scene shortly after the slaughter could still smell the explosives. But it was a "traffic accident".

Only yesterday we had an equally bizarre event. Jets, C-130 aircraft mounted with chain guns, and heavy artillery were all reported to be striking "guerrilla bases" in Operation Iron Hammer south of Baghdad. But investigation proved that the targets were empty fields and that some of the heavy guns were firing blank rounds as part of an artillery maintenance routine.

So let`s get this right. Insurgents are civilians. Truck bombs and tanks that crush civilians are traffic accidents. And the "liberated" civilians who live in villages surrounded by razor wire should endure "a heavy dose of fear and violence" to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Somewhere along the way, they will probably be told about democracy as well.

Copyright: The Independent

[Joerver]

Deaths mount on both sides on Christmas Day in Iraq

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

26 December 2003 : (The Independent) How the artillery thundered. How the jets roared. How the machine-gun fire vibrated in the night. If the Americans were playing Santa to children on the streets of Baghdad yesterday, they were playing "Operation Iron Hammer" much more seriously.

"We cannot comment on ongoing military operations," an American military spokeswoman said. Even the operation kept changing its name ­ from "Iron Grip" to "Iron Justice", nowIron Hammer.

Much more obvious was the insurgents` own little operation in the centre of the capital. First they fired rockets into the palace from which the United States proconsul, Paul Bremer, and his officials rule Iraq. Then gunmen fired mortars at the Sheraton hotel, the prestigious, Baathist-constructed pile in which American businessmen, journalists and occupation authorities like to sleep.

In the 24 hours up to midday on Christmas Day, four more American soldiers were killed, three by a roadside bomb near Samarra, which US forces hoped they had pacified after a series of aggressive raids last week, and another by a bomb in Baghdad. Four Iraqis, including a 13-year-old girl, were killed by a suicide bomber in his car who detonated explosives outside a Kurdish office in Arbil, while another two civilians were killed in Baghdad by a bomb apparently intended for an American patrol.

At the Baghdad city mortuary, the medical director, Dr Faik Amin Bakr, told me that up to 20 dead, all of them Iraqis and most of them victims of violence, had been received on Christmas Day morning.

The occupying powers here only keep a daily count of westerners who have been killed. Strangely none of the bodies at the Baghdad morgue yesterday were brought in from the area of Khor Rajab, the Rajab Marshes, which were supposed to have been the centre of America`s overnight anti-guerrilla raids. A drive through the slums and dirt fields along Highway 8 south of the city showed why.

Highway 8 from Baghdad to Hillah is a dangerous dual carriageway, scene of the murder of Spanish intelligence officers, Red Cross personnel and other westerners. It`s also been the location of several attacks on US bases south of the capital. But yesterday afternoon, there was little to be seen of the overnight battle save some churned up fields and a fortress where US troops were firing blank shells from heavy artillery pieces. "The Americans were attacked twice from the fields," a tea-vendor said at his shack beside the highway. "They shot the place up later but didn`t kill a soul. The men with the mortars had left long before."

A group of trainees in the new Iraqi army, walking home from boot camp across the fields of Khor Rajab, confirmed that US forces were firing blank rounds. "It sounds good, doesn`t it?" one of them said. So much then, it seems, for "Operation Iron Grip/Justice/Hammer".

The phantoms of earlier military combatants might have been present in the old British garrison church of St George as members of Iraq`s Christian community, at most 5 per cent of the population, gathered at dusk to sing carols. An Iraqi child with giant angels` wings sang "Jingle Bells" and adults ­ including three tall and balding Americans, the church guard and my hotel cook ­ led the congregation in "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in Arabic.

On the wall of the church nave still stood a memorial "to the Glory of God and to the Memory of One Million Dead of the British Empire who fell in the Great War 1914-1918. They died in every quarter of the earth and ..." Here the memorial broke off in gashed paint and plaster. The British Army occupied Baghdad in 1917 but a more recent assault on the capital had sent shrapnel smashing into the old plaque. Underneath, you could just make out the words "in honour for ever".

Copyright: The Independent.

[Joerver]

Siehe auch #16392 im Inferno Thread.

Christmas in Baghdad

Articles / Iraq related stories
Date: Dec 25, 2003 - 02:00 PM
At approximately 6:20am, the glass in the windows of my hotel room rattles as several large explosions erupt from the direction of the Sheraton Hotel. Rattling Kalishnikov firing cracks from the same direction, along with several periods of heavy machine gun fire, which I presume to be American.

The deep thumping of howitzers and bombs had continued through the night from the same area in south Baghdad that the Americans were hitting the previous night, as part of ‘Operation Iron Grip’. The assault on the resistance fighters continues, while at the same time the attacks against the Americans continue to increase. I am wondering if the Americans will figure out that, perhaps, they have an ‘Iron Grip’ on a hornets nest?

Another US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad last night, and gunfire continued through the night, and has into this Christian holiday.



This morning I walk over to the Sheraton/Palestine hotel compound. You can see in the attached photo where the top floor of the Sheraton was hit, as the missile last night has left a grey blast scar just beneath the ‘t’ and ‘o’ on the sign.

I walk around and enter the compound, and learn that the hotel was hit again this morning near the sixth floor, on the opposite side from where last nights attack originated. An Iraqi security guard at the hotel tells me that no casualties have been reported.

He tells me, “I want the Americans to leave. Before they turned this hotel into a compound with their tanks and razor wire, we were never a target. Now, we are getting hit. I have to have this job, how else can I feed my family? What else can I do?”

He points me over to a nearby apartment complex which was also hit. From here I can tell where the attack was staged…for the apartment has a missile hole on a wall facing away from the hotels, and just to the left of this wall I see the clear path all the way to the sixth floor of the Sheraton, where the glass is knocked out by the missile’s entrance. The shot into the apartment was obviously a mistake. I’ve seen some press reports stating that this is an apartment complex used by westerners. While there may be a few staying here, it is obviously very predominantly used by Iraqi families, as groups of Iraqi men are standing about the parking area talking, and a large throng of boys come out and begin asking me questions.

One of the little boys watching me take photos says,

“Where are the Americans? None of them came here to see if we were alright. They go to the hotel for the westerners, but they don’t care about us? Why did they not come here? People here were injured, and no one at the hotel was even hurt.”

With this second attack on the Sheraton barely 10 hours after the first, the resistance fighters are showing that there is no protection from their strikes, even in one of the most heavily protected areas in Baghdad. The CPA was pounded by explosions last night as well.



A little further down the street there is a demonstration in a square, with men holding banners and chanting “Mujahadi Khalk Iran!” These are supporters of the group for which they chant, who support the Iranian resistance against the government of Iran. The IGC (Iraqi Governing Council) recently voted to have them kicked out of Iraq. The men are angry, yelling to cameramen and photographers that they have done nothing wrong and they oppose the IGC’s decision.

The small demonstration takes place with the men yelling and thrusting their fists into the air directly in front of a huge American tank, the cannon pointing directly at them from inside the Sheriton/Palestine hotel compound. The demonstrators ignore it.

This group also supports Saddam Hussein because he stood against the Americans. As they dance in front of the cannon of a nearby US tank, they chant,

“In our blood, in our soul, we will sacrifice for you Saddam!”

Gunfire erupts nearby. The men look around, but chant louder, and begin to march down a side street towards a building nearby that the Mujahadi Khalk Iran group occupies. Men in the building are shooting, as they have decided to resist being thrown out of Iraq for their beliefs. Many policemen are shooting Kalashnikov’s in the air, the cracking gunfire echoing off the surrounding buildings. They run down the street towards the building, from which gunfire is erupting.

I watch a group of policemen waving to the building, trying to get the shooting to stop. It pauses, then commences with more police arriving.

More gunfire erupts, and two US Humvees arrive to assist the police. A man is chased by several police down another side street back across Sa’adoun Street, one of the main streets through Baghdad. He weaves through the slow moving cars as gunfire passes over his head. A pudgy policeman sprays bullets with his Kalashnikov from side to side over the man’s head as he races down a road and escapes on foot.



Meanwhile, on the other side of Sa’adoun Street the Americans have tied plastic handcuffs around the hands of two men, and are kneeling on their backs, pressing their faces into the sidewalk.

Ahmed and I are filming this, as we are told they are from the Mujahadi Khalk group; it is US policy now to detain anyone in support of Saddam. If they were simple thieves, most likely they would have been left for the IP’s (Iraqi Police) to handle in their usual form of street justice, as I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion the IP’s beating a man senseless, then leaving him bleeding and crumpled on the street as they drive off.

As I take photos, and Ahmed films the men being detained, a soda can bounces off the concrete near Ahmed, (as he is between me and the Humvees), and at the same time I hear a US soldier yell in a very angry voice,

“Get the FUCK out of here!”

I look up to see him holding his gun at us, even though our press badges are visible and other press are around. I wonder if he has targeted Ahmed with his rage, simply because he is obviously Iraqi.

We slowly back away, and I hear another soldier call down the man who yelled at us,

“They are press. You can not talk to them that way. Knock it off!”

Ahmed continues filming the scene.

Gunfire is in the background throughout the day today. Rumbling helicopters criss-cross Baghdad, flying low above the buildings. The roar of their blades closely resembles thunder as they buzz overhead.

Chaos reigns in the streets of Baghdad, between the shooting, the desperate security situation, and the continuation of the crumbling economy. Last night I heard a crash outside in the street. Looking out I see that a car has hit a man as he attempted to cross the street. The car had been taking advantage of ‘the new freedom’ and was driving down the wrong side of the street. There have been three accidents just in front of my hotel in the last 24 hours alone.

The thumping explosions off in south Baghdad continue, as does periodic gunfire from the streets. The low ‘wumps’ of the American bombs bring a sick feeling to my stomach every time, as there are now rumors that cluster bombs are once again being used. As resistance fighters don’t have bases or any organization, your guess is as good as mine as to where these huge explosions I’m hearing as I type this are taking place.

Since it is Christmas, if this truly is the season of giving, I encourage people to take a little time to find some small way to assist the people of Iraq today as they struggle through this desperate situation.



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Friday, December 26, 2003
War News for December 25 and 26. 2003

Wie immer jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Two US soldiers killed, four wounded in mortar attack near Baquba.

Bring `em on: Multiple mortar and rocket attacks reported in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed, one wounded in roadside bomb ambush near Baquba.

Bring `em on: Two Polish soldiers wounded in roadside bomb ambush near Mahwil.

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed attempting to defuse roadside bomb near Baquba.

Bring `em on: Three US soldiers wounded in convoy ambush near Mosul.

Bring `em on: CENTCOM reports one US soldiers killed by IED in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Tribal leader assassinated near Mosul.

Bring `em on: Mortar attacks continue on CPA compound in central Baghdad.

CENTCOM reports one US soldier electrocuted in accident near Kirkuk.

Illinois Guardsmen mobbed in Iraq. "`They had our convey caught in this lane. Must have been 500 people out there, cutting the fuel lines on our trucks taking anything they could. Then the Iraqi police came out and started shooting up into the air, that moved the crowd pretty good,` said specialist Sean Walsh, Illinois National Guard."

Casualty Reports

Local story: South Dakota soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: South Dakota DoD civilian wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Wisconsin soldier killed in Iraq.






# posted by yankeedoodle : 7:54 AM

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Friday, December 26th, 2003
An Hour With Noam Chomsky on Iraq, War Profiteers & The Media

|| Show Watch 256k stream: http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2003/dec/256/d…

-----------------------------------------------------------http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/26/1451251---------------------
In a recent speech at Columbia University, Noam Chomsky strongly criticizes the Bush Administration`s war against Iraq. He speaks against the power investors have over world affairs, the media`s capitulation to them and much more.
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Today we spend the hour hearing a speech by famed linguist and political activist: Professor Noam Chomsky.
This past November he delivered a speech entitled "After the War" to a packed theater at Columbia University. The event was dedicated to the memory of renowned scholar, activist and intellectual, Professor Edward Said. He passed away earlier this year after a decade long battle with leukemia.

In his speech, Chomsky strongly criticizes the Bush Administration`s war against Iraq. He speaks against the power investors have over world affairs, the media`s capitulation to them and much more.

Noam Chomsky is an institute professor and professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest For Global Dominance, 9-11, Power and Terror and many other books. He spoke at Miller Theater on November 20th, 2003.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 [phone].

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Bush`s Christmas Terror Alert
by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca 24 December 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO312D.html


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This calculated decision of the military-intelligence apparatus was taken at a time when families and friends, with small children and the elderly meet and rejoice.

Christmas, celebrated around the World by both Christians and Non-Christians, is the coming of peace between fellow human beings. It is the pursuit of peace and tolerance.

Bush`s Christmas terror alert strikes with unreserved cynicism at the very heart of the "Spirit of Christmas".



As people around the World prepare to celebrate Christmas, in a a spirit of peace and communion, the Bush Administration has put America on high risk terror alert.

On December 21st, four days before Christmas, the Homeland Security Department, raised "the national threat level from an elevated to high risk of terrorist attack". ( http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp )

In his pre-Christmas Press Conference, Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge confirmed that

"the U.S. intelligence community has received a substantial increase in the volume of threat-related intelligence reports".

According to Tom Ridge, these "credible [intelligence] sources" raise "the possibility of attacks against the homeland, around the holiday season..." (For complete statement of Secretary Tom Ridge, 21 December 2003, http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/ )

Needless to say an atmosphere of collective fear and confusion has been created across America, which goes against the very "Spirit of Christmas". According to the media reports, the high-level terror alert is to "hang over the holidays and usher in the new year".

"Terrorists still threaten our country and we remain engaged in a dangerous - to be sure - difficult war and it will not be over soon," warned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "They can attack at any time and at any place."

"With America on high terror alert for the Christmas holiday season, intelligence officials fear al-Qaeda is eager to stage a spectacular attack - possibly hijacking a foreign airliner or cargo jet and crashing it into a high-profile target inside the United States." ( Boston Globe, 24 December 2003)

The official Christmas announcement by the Homeland Security Department dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

"the risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001;"

It also warned Americans, in no uncertain terms, but without supporting evidence, that there are:

"indications that [the] near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks".

"And it`s pretty clear that the nation`s capital and New York city would be on any list..."

Following Secretary Ridge`s announcement, anti-aircraft missile batteries were set up in Washington:

. "And the Pentagon said today, more combat air patrols will now be flying over select cities and facilities, with some airbases placed on higher alert." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "You ask, `Is it serious?` Yes, you bet your life. People don`t do that unless it`s a serious situation." (ABC News, 23 December 2003)

According to an official statement (quoted by ABC News, 23 December):

"intelligence indicates that Al Qaeda-trained pilots may be working for overseas airlines and ready to carry out suicide attacks."

On Christmas eve 24th of December, several flights out of Paris were cancelled in response to "credible threats" that Al Qaeda operatives may be boarding the planes.

Background
This is the fifth time the Bush Administration has put the country on Orange Code terror alert since September 11, 2001.

Orange Code Alert was ordered on 7 February 2003, one day after Colin Powell`s flopped presentation on Iraq`s alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN Security Council.

Powell`s intelligence dossier had been politely dismissed. The rebuttal came from UN Inspector Hans Blix, who showed that the intelligence used as a pretext to wage war on Iraq had been blatantly fabricated.

Colin Powell addressed the Security council on the 6th. On the 7th, the Bush administration declared an ‘Orange Code’ Terror Alert. This "save face operation" contributed to appeasing an impending scandal, while also upholding the Pentagon`s planned invasion of Iraq.

Media attention was immediately shifted from Colin Powell`s blunders at the UN Security Council to an (alleged) impending terrorist attack on America.

The United States raised its terrorist threat alert to the second-highest level -- code orange -- based on significant intelligence reports warning of a "high risk" of a terrorist attack from the international terrorist group al-Qaeda, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on February 7.

"After conferring this morning with the Homeland Security Council, the decision has been made to increase the threat condition designation, currently classified at `elevated` risk,... to the `high` risk category," Ashcroft said. "This decision for an increased threat condition designation is based on specific intelligence received and analyzed by the full intelligence community. This information has been corroborated by multiple intelligence sources."

(...)

"The call that we`ve made today, which Americans have certainly heard before, is based on our knowledge and our conviction that heightened awareness and readiness deters terrorism and saves lives," Ridge said. (State Department Dispatch, 7 February 2003)

Following this February 7 Orange Code announcement, anti-aircraft missiles were immediately deployed around Washington. The media became inundated with stories on Iraqi support to an impending Al Qaeda attack.

The objective was to present Iraq as the aggressor. According to the New York Post, (11 February 2003):

‘The nation is now on Orange Alert because intelligence intercepts and simple logic both suggest that our Islamic enemies know the best way to strike at us is through terrorism on U.S. soil.‘

Another story allegedly emanating from the CIA on so-called ‘radioactive dirty bombs’ had been planted in the news chain (ABC News, 13 Feb 2003). Secretary Powell warned that "it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … ‘How likely it is, I can`t say... But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American people know of this possibility.’"(ABC News, 9 Feb. 2003).

Meanwhile, network TV warned that "American hotels, shopping malls or apartment buildings could be al Qaeda`s targets as soon as next week…".

The hidden agenda in the weeks leading up to the war was not only to link Baghdad to Al Qaeda, the intent was to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, which would muster unbending support for President Bush and weaken the anti-war protest movement. Following the announcement, tens of thousands of Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas-masks.

It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated by the CIA, in all likelihood in consultation with the upper echelons of the State Department (ABC News, 13 Feb. 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CRG302A.html ).

The FBI, for the first time had pointed its finger at the CIA.

This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant.

(...)

According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was "not familiar with the scenario," but did not think it was accurate. (Ibid)

While tacitly acknowledging that the alert was a fake, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge decided to maintain the ‘Orange Code’ alert:

"Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted." ((Ibid)

A few days later, in another failed propaganda initiative, a mysterious Osama bin Laden audio tape was presented by Sec. Colin Powell to the US Congress as ‘evidence’ that the Islamic terrorists "are making common cause with a brutal dictator". (US official quoted in The Toronto Star, 12 Feb. 2003). Curiously, the audio tape was in Colin Powell`s possession prior to its broadcast by the Al Jazeera TV Network. (Ibid.) ,

"Copy and Paste": Déjà Vu
Is the Bush administration telling the truth regarding the risk of a terror attack during the Christmas holiday?

While the circumstances and timing are different, Secretary Tom Ridge`s December 21 statement has all the appearances of a "copy and paste" (Déjà Vu) version of his February 7 announcement, which according to the FBI was a hoax.

Al Qaeda is once again identified in the December 21st statement as "the Outside Enemy", without of course mentioning that Osama bin Laden`s Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA and is an "intelligence asset" controlled by the US. (See Selected References at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/11SEPT309A.html

In other words, what is "the credibility" of an Administration which, according to the FBI is on record for having (in February 2003), deliberately fabricated a terror alert in violation of US laws?

What is disturbing in the December 21 statement is the fact that an "actual" or "attempted" Al Qaeda terrorist attack seems already to be in the official pipeline.

The Central Role of "a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event"
In October, former CENTCOM Commander, General Tommy Franks, hinted that an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack could in fact lead to the suspension of democracy in America.

Franks was alluding to a so-called "Pearl Harbor type event" which would be used as a justification for declaring a State of emergency, leading to the establishment of a military government:

"a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event."

The "terrorist massive casualty-producing event" is presented by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis and social turmoil are intended to facilitate a major shift in US political, social and institutional structures.

In the words of David Rockefeller:

"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."

A similar statement was made by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Grand Chessboard:

"As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

The NeoCons` Project for the New American Century (PNAC), published in September 2000, barely two months before the presidential elections, called for:

"some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

(See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NAC304A.html )

Needless to say, the statement of the NeoCons in the PNAC is consistent with that of Secretary Tom Ridge.

The day following Secretary Ridge`s announcement (December 21st), President Bush was briefed by his "top anti-terror advisors" in closed door sessions at the White House. Later in the day, the Homeland Security Council (HSC) met, also at the White House. The executive body of the HSC, the so-called Principals Committee (HSC/PC), headed by Secretary Tom Ridge. includes Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft , FBI Director Robert Mueller and Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary, Emergency Preparedness and Response, who overseas the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In the wake of the HSC meeting held on 22 December, Secretary Ridge confirmed that:

"we reviewed the specific plans and the specific action we have taken and will continue to take"

According to the official statement, which must be taken seriously, an "actual terrorist attack" in the near future on American soil would lead to a Red Code Alert. The latter in turn, would create conditions for the (temporary) suspension of the normal functions of civilian government, as foreseen by General Tommy Franks. This scenario was envisaged by Secretary Tom Ridge in a CBS News Interview on December 22, 2003:

"If we simply go to red ... it basically shuts down the country," meaning that civilian government bodies would be closed down and taken over by and Emergency Administration. The scenario is presented in detail at the Homeland department`s Ready.Gov website at http://www.ready.gov/

Moreover, in recent months (May 2003) the Homeland department has conducted an "anti-terrorist exercise" entitled TOPOFF 2. The latter is described as "the largest and most comprehensive terrorism response and homeland security exercise ever conducted in the United States.

In a Strangelovian logic, this "national response capability" translated into a military style exercise by federal, State and local level governments, including Canadian participants, establishes various "scenarios" under a Red Code Alert. In essence, it was conducted on the same assumption as military exercises in anticipation of an actual theater war, examining various WMD attack scenarios and the institutional response of State and local governments:

"It assessed how responders, leaders, and other authorities would react to the simulated release of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in two U. S. cities, Seattle, WA and Chicago, IL. The exercise scenario depicted a fictitious, foreign terrorist organization that detonated a simulated radiological dispersal device (RDD or dirty bomb) in Seattle and released the pneumonic plague in several Chicago metropolitan area locations. There was also significant pre-exercise intelligence play, a cyber-attack, and credible terrorism threats against other locations." (For full text see, Department of Homeland Security, Summary Conclusions From National Exercise, Office of the Press Secretary, December 19, 2003, http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=2693 )

What will happen under Code Orange terror alert during the Christmas holiday, remains to be seen.

The Administration has already simulated the Orange Code and Red Code scenarios, of an actual terror attack. The perspective, and assumptions, however, have changed markedly since the February 7 Orange Alert.

We are no longer strictly dealing with a fear and disinformation campaign. "Mass casualty producing events" --or "Pearl Harbor type events" to use the PNAC`s expression-- constitute the basic premise and driving force behind the Homeland Emergency response system, including its Ready.Gov instructions to citizens, its "anti-terrorist" legal framework under the Second Patriot Act, etc. According to Frank Morales:

"Homeland defense", as we experience it today, has been percolating in the bowels of the Pentagon and corporate think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations, along with their Congressional counterparts, for nearly a decade. What it required was an emergency situation. The "homeland security" apparatus presently being constructed is modeled roughly after the military`s "combatant command structure" and is --in the wake of 9/11– set within the context of the "laws and customs of war", hence the introduction of military courts and the shifting of jurisdictions for so-called "crimes associated with terrorism". The Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, whose job as of October 1st is to patrol America, will head up this homeland defense "command structure".

In short, what we are dealing with is "the Roadmap to a Police State".

This Administration has chosen the Christmas holiday to wage a campaign of fear and intimidation. Its ultimate objective consists in manipulating Americans into accepting a de facto military government, as a means to "protect their civil liberties".

This calculated decision of the military-intelligence apparatus was taken at a time when families and friends, with small children and the elderly meet and rejoice.

Christmas, celebrated around the World by both Christians and Non-Christians, is the coming of peace between fellow human beings. It is the pursuit of peace and tolerance.

Bush`s Christmas terror alert strikes with unreserved cynicism at the very heart of the "Spirit of Christmas".

24 December, 2003


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To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global Research`s News and Discussion Forum , at http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/index.php

The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original CRG articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text and title of the article are not modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca . The active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article and the author`s copyright note must be clearly displayed. (For articles from other news sources, check with the original copyright holder, where applicable.) For publication of CRG articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [e-mail] .

© Copyright M chossudovsky, CRG, 2003

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Von Vicco aus dem Thread:Warum ein US-Rückzug für den Irak eine Katastrophe wäre

Krieg ohne Kampf:
Die Zerstörung des Irak vor zehn Jahren
Teil 1)
Von Ramsey Clark
In der Nacht vom 16. zum 17. Januar schienen die Sterne über dem Irak, kaum anders als 4000 Jahre zuvor, als Hammurabi in Babylon am Euphrat König war. Zur Erinnerung des Irak gehörte die große Bibliothek Ashurbanipals in Ninive am Tigris mit ihrer Sammlung aller existieren- der Schriften aus allen bekannten Sprachen und der legendäre »Palast Ohnegleichen«, den es vor 3000 Jahren einmal gab. Die Träume Alexander des Großen starben mit ihm in Babylon, als er vor über 2000 Jahren versuchte, die Welt zu erobern. 1258 verwüstete Kublai Khans Bruder Hulegu Bagdad und ließ den Kalifen hinrichten; innerhalb zweier Generationen war das Reich der Khans wieder verschwunden. Und die Menschen bestellten weiter die Felder, bevölkerten die Städte und nahmen die Bruchstücke vieler Kulturen und Ethnien, die mit dieser Region in Berührung gekommen waren, in sich auf.

In der Dunkelheit dieser frühen Stunde strömten der Euphrat und der Tigris ruhig dem Golf entgegen. Dieselben Sterne wurden zu stummen Zeugen eines weiteren, seiner Natur und seiner Intensität nach noch nie dagewesenen Ausbruchs menschlicher Gewalt. Der Wind wehte mild durch die Palmenblätter. In verdunkelten Städten, Ortschaften und Bauernhöfen versuchten Männer, Frauen und Kinder zu schlafen, obwohl sie nicht wußten, was die Nacht für sie bereithielt. In Kuwait warteten die noch verbliebene Bevölkerung und die durch Hundert- tausende weiterer Soldaten im Südirak gedeckten irakischen Besatzungs- truppen auf den Krieg. Südlich davon waren 540.000 US-Soldaten und 150.000 Soldaten aus weiteren Ländern in Alarmbereitschaft und fragten sich besorgt, was mit ihnen geschehen würde. Man hatte ihnen gesagt, sie würden direkt gegen einen gefährlichen und mächtigen Feind zu kämpfen haben.

110.000 Luftangriffe, 88.500 Tonnen Bomben

Am 17. Januar 1991, morgens um 2.30 Uhr, fielen die ersten Bomben, und zweiundvierzig Tage lang flogen US-Flugzeuge durchschnittlich alle 30 Sekunden Angriffe auf den Irak. Durch den Einsatz von US-Technologie wurde die Wiege der Zivilisation zerstört, und US-Präsident George Bush sen. bezeichnete diesen Vorgang als Befreiung.

Ohne auch nur einen Fuß auf irakischen Boden zu setzen oder in Kampfhandlungen mit irakischen Truppen einzutreten, zerstörte die US-Armee durch Luftangriffe und Raketen innerhalb von sechs Wochen systematisch Leben und lebenswichtige Infrastruktur im Irak. Inner- halb der ersten 24 Stunden wurden 2.000 Angriffe geflogen. Schon nach wenigen Stunden war die Stromversorgung des Irak zu 90 Prozent beschädigt oder zerstört. Wenige Tage später »floß kein einziges Elektron mehr«. Bis in die letzten Tage des Krieges hinein nahmen viele Millionen Dollar teure Raketen Kraftwerke ins Visier, damit das Land weiter ohne Stromversorgung bleiben würde, während die Wirtschaftssanktionen die Kraft der Überlebenden schwächten. Nach weniger als drei Wochen berichtete die US-Presse über militärische Berechnungen, nach denen die Explosivkraft der zu diesem Zeitpunkt abgeworfenen Bombenlast bereits die der gesamten alliierten Luft- offensive während des Zweiten Weltkriegs überstieg.

Insgesamt waren während des Luftkriegs gegen den Irak bei 110.000 Luftangriffen 88.500 Tonnen Bomben abgeworfen worden, das sieben- einhalbfache Äquivalent der Atombombe, die seinerzeit Hiroshima zerstörte. Es wurden landungsfreie Einsätze aus Entfernungen geflogen, die bis zur Barksdale-Luftwaffenbasis in Louisiana und zur Insel Diego Garcia im Indischen Ozean reichten - nur um zu zeigen, daß das möglich war. Von Schiffen und Unterseebooten im Indischen Ozean, im Golf und im Mittelmeer wurden Tausende von Raketen abgefeuert. Bei mehr als 93 Prozent der Bomben handelte es sich nicht um Lenkwaffen, und auch viele der lasergesteuerten Bomben und Raketen trafen nicht ihr Ziel. Unter den Waffen befanden sich auch fünf Tonnen schwere Benzin-Luft-Brandbomben, die eine Druckwelle annähernd der von Atomwaffen geringerer Stärke erzeugen. Über Basra und den von Autos verstopften Nationalstraßen wurden Fächerbomben mit 250 Minibomben abgeworfen, die über eine Fläche von einem halben Hektar 500.000 rasiermesserscharfe Hochgeschwindig- keitsschrapnelle ausstoßen können. Napalmbomben wurden gegen Menschen und dazu eingesetzt, Bohrlöcher in Brand zu setzen.

Kein Wasser, kein Strom, kein Telefon

Schon nach drei Tagen gab es im Irak kein fließendes Wasser mehr. Viele Wochen lang holten sich die Menschen in Bagdad - ohne daß Fernsehen, Radio oder Zeitungen sie hätten warnen können - ihr Trinkwasser mit Eimern aus dem Tigris. Die irakische Nachrichten- agentur und der Sender von Bagdad verloren sechs Funkstationen, zwölf Fernsehstationen und fünf Radiostationen.

Das Telefonnetz des Irak wurde schon in den ersten Kriegstagen zerstört. Laut Bericht der Untersuchungsmission der Internationalen Union für Telekommunikation (ITU), die von Juni bis Juli 1991 im Irak bereiste, waren 400.000 der 900.000 Telefonverbindungen des Irak zerstört worden. Vierzehn zentrale Verbindungsstationen waren irreparabel zerstört und dreizehn weitere auf unbestimmte Zeit funktionsunfähig gemacht.

Fehlende Kommunikationsmittel waren das größte Hindernis für die Aufrechterhaltung organisierter sozialer Aktivitäten der Versorgung der Kranken und Verwundeten. Die Zerstörung der Transportverbindungen verschärfte das Problem noch. In einem Land, das sich um zwei Flüsse herum gruppiert, wurden 139 Auto- und Eisenbahnbrücken beschädigt oder zerstört, 26 davon allein in der Provinz Basra. Ferner wurden Nationalstraßen und andere Straßen getroffen, was das Reisen auf ihnen zum Alptraum macht. Straßenwachten wurden bombardiert, um die Reparatur der Straßen zu verhindern. Alle Arten von zivilen Fahrzeugen, Lastwagen, Busse und sogar Taxis entlang der großen Straßen des Irak, wurden angegriffen.

Angriffe auf alles, was lebenswichtig ist

Die acht jeweils mehreren Zwecken dienenden großen Dämme des Irak wurden wiederholt von Bomben getroffen und schwer beschädigt. Damit wurden Überflutungskontrolle, städtische und industrielle Wasserversorgung, Bewässerung und Wasserkraftgewinnung simultan außer Funktion gesetzt. Vier der sieben Wasserpumpstationen des Irak wurden zerstört. Bomben und Raketen trafen 31 örtliche Wasser- und Abwasserwerke. Abwasser lief in den Tigris und in die Straßen Bagdads, wodurch zu den sonstigen Todesursachen noch durch Wasser übertragene Krankheiten hinzutraten. In Basra brach das Abwasser- system vollständig zusammen. Die Filteranlagen zur Reinigung des Wassers wurden landesweit in einen unbrauchbaren Zustand versetzt.

Das Lager und Transportsystem des Irak für landwirtschaftliche Produkte und Nahrungsmittel wurde direkt und systematisch angegriffen. Bis dahin stammte die Hälfte der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion des Irak von bewässertem Land, und sämtliche Bewässerungssysteme für dieses Land - samt aller Vorratsbecken, Staudämme, Pumpstationen und Drainageprojekte - wurden angegriffen. Die Bauern konnten das Land nicht mehr be- und entwässern, wodurch die Nahrungsproduktion auf die Hälfte sank. In großen Teilen der Provinz Basra drang Salzwasser in den Boden. In der Provinz Bagdad wurden mindestens drei, in der Provinz Asra sieben Warenlager mit Nahrungsmitteln getroffen, und in der Provinz Al-Quadissiya wurden sämtliche Warenlager der Allgemeinen Gesellschaft für Nahrungsmittel des Irak zerstört, ebenso wichtige Lager für Pestizide. Ferner wurden drei verschiedene Einrichtungen der Irakischen Datengesellschaft beschädigt. Die Viehherden wurden dezimiert - bis Sommer 1991 gingen von insgesamt zehn Millionen dreieinhalb Millionen Schafe, außerdem zwei Millionen Rinder vor allem wegen Futtermangel verloren. Die Geflügelproduktion des Landes wurde zu 90 Prozent vernichtet.

Im ganzen Land wurden methodisch Getreidesilos attackiert und Hunderte Bauernhöfe und Farmgebäude angegriffen. Die einzige Traktorenfabrik und die wichtigste Düngemittelfabrik des Landes wurden bei Bombenan- griffen zerstört, bei denen sechzehn Menschen ums Leben kamen.

Im Juni 1992, mehr als ein Jahr, nachdem der Irak aus Kuwait vertrieben worden war, ohne daß deshalb die Sanktionen aufgehoben worden wären, ließen die Vereinigten Staaten im Norden des Irak in der Nähe von Mosul Korn- und Weizenfelder mittels Brandbomben in Flammen aufgehen.

Durch die US-Bombardements wurden 28 zivile Krankenhäuser und 52 örtliche Gesundheitszentren getroffen. Das Zubair-Krankenhaus in der Provinz Basra stürzte unter dem Bombardement vollständig ein. Im Psychiatrischen Krankenhaus Ibn Rashid südöstlich von Bagdad brachen die Decken auf die Betten der Patienten herunter. Im Ulwiyya-Entbindungshospital wurden Säuglinge und Mütter von Schrapnell- und Glassplittern getroffen. Die Ausbildungsklinik und Krankenpflegeschule in Hilla wurde bombardiert. Fünf medizinische Militäreinrichtungen des Irak wurden ebenfalls beschädigt.

Die Bomben der Alliierten beschädigten 676 Schulen, 38 davon wurden völlig zerstört. Acht der getroffenen Schulen waren Teil von Universitäten. Selbst Moscheen, sonstige religiöse Gebäude sowie historische Stätten wurden von den Angriffen der USA nicht verschont, obwohl das Pentagon insistierte, sie hätten nicht zu den Zielen gehört. Nach amtlichen Berichten des Irak wurden allein in Bagdad 25 Moscheen getroffen; weiteren Berichten zufolge wurden darüber hinaus im Rest des Landes 31 Moscheen beschädigt. Während der ersten Februarwoche 1991 sah ich in Basra zwei Moscheen, die völlig zerstört waren, sechs schwer beschädigte Moscheen und drei beschädigte christliche Kirchen. Die 900 Jahre alte Kirche des Heiligen Thomas - die sich mehr als 1.500 Kilometer von Kuwait entfernt, nämlich in Mosul befindet - wurde angegriffen, ebenso wie die Mutansiriya- Schule, eine der ältesten Islamschulen im Irak.

Ferner wurden viele Fabriken von Bomben getroffen. Sieben Textilfa- briken wurden beschädigt, ebenso wie fünf technische Fabriken, fünf Baubetriebe, vier Autofabriken, drei Chlorfabriken, eine große Fabrik zur Produktion von Ammonium für den Export und 16 chemische, petro- chemische und Phosphatfabriken. Eine große Fabrik für Subkutans- pritzen in Hilla wurde von lasergesteuerten Raketen getroffen.

Alle drei großen Zementfabriken des Irak wurden bombardiert. Zwölf große Baugesellschaften berichteten über ausgedehnte Beschädigungen ihrer Einrichtungen. Die Bagdader Fabriken der Al-Sa`ad-Gesellschaft, die Al-Balsam-Kosmetikgesellschaft, die Bagdader Gesellschaft für Rasierwaren, die Akad-Kleiderfabrik und die Muwaffak J. Janna-Fabrik wurden alle völlig zerstört.

Die Ölindustrie des Irak war eines der wichtigsten Ziele. US-Flugzeuge trafen elf Ölraffinerien, fünf Pipeline- und Ölproduktionsanlagen sowie Pipelines für den Ölexport und zahlreiche Tanks zur Öllagerung. Drei Öltanker wurden versenkt und drei weitere in Brand gesetzt.

Der Internationale Saddam-Flughafen und der Al-Muthana-Flughafen wurden angegriffen, ebenso die dort stehenden Passagier- und Frachtflugzeuge. Bahnhöfe und Eisenbahnumschlagplätze,Transport- zentren, Busstationen und Fahrzeugabstellplätze wurden überall im Land systematisch attackiert.

»Höllischer Alptraum aus Feuer und Rauch«

Gleichzeitig mit dem Bombardement der Infrastruktur und der lebenswichtigen Einrichtungen des Landes wurden Tausende irakische Zivilisten getötet. Die Angriffe auf die lebenswichtigen infra- strukturellen Einrichtungen stellten sicher, daß viele weitere tausend Menschen sterben würden, die sich nicht einmal in der Nähe des Feuers der Gefechte befanden.

Dr. Q. M. Ismail, der Direktor des Zentralen Saddam-Kinderkranken- hauses in Bagdad, hatte in der Nacht, als die Bomben zu fallen begannen, Dienst. 40 Säuglinge lagen in der Nähe ihrer Mütter in ihren Brutkästen. Als der Strom ausfiel, hörten die Brutkästen zu arbeiten auf. Inmitten des Kriegsdonners rings um sie herum rissen die verzweifelten Mütter ihre Kinder an sich und eilten in den Keller. Sechs Stunden später waren 20 der Kinder tot. »Diese 40 Mütter wurden beinahe wahnsinnig«, erinnerte sich Dr. Ismail. »Ich werde den Anblick dieser Frauen nie vergessen.«

Am 11. Februar berichtete die US-Presse auf Basis der Mitteilungen General Richard Neals über die Bombardierung Basras, Basra sei »eine Stadt von militärischer Bedeutung«. (Wie Norfolk, Oceanside, Omaha, San Antonio, San Diego, Watertown und viele, viele andere amerika- nische Städte?) Während der dritten Woche des Krieges war Basra »ein höllischer Alptraum aus Feuer und einem Rauch, der so dicht war, daß Zeugen sagten, über mehrere Tage hinweg sei die Sonne kaum zu erkennen gewesen. ... [Das Bombardement] hat ganze Straßenzüge dem Erdboden gleichgemacht ... [und es gibt] Bombenkrater von der Größe eines Fußballfelds sowie eine enorm hohe Zahl von Opfern.« (Paul Walker, Direktor des Institute for Peace and International Security am MIT, zitiert in Los Angeles Times, 5. Februar 1991)

Die Großregion Bagdad wurde täglich bombardiert. Am 12. Februar berichteten Journalisten in Bagdad über mehr als 25 Explosionen in der Zentralregion der Stadt. Sechs Tage später führten die Alliierten ein heftiges, zwei Stunden währendes Bombardement durch, das um 23 Uhr begann. Ein Journalist schrieb über diesen Angriff: »Raketen begannen, an den Fenstern des al-Rashid-Hotels vorbeizufliegen. Vor dem Röhren hoch fliegender Flugzeuge im Hintergrund konnte man etwa alle zehn Minuten das Summen einer Lenkrakete hören, das von einer furchtbaren Explosion, die das gesamte Hotel erschütterte, gefolgt wurde.« (The Guardian, 20. Februar 1991)

Zu den »harten Zielen« in Bagdad gehörte auch der Bombenbunker von Amariyah, der in den Morgenstunden des 13. Februar von zwei Raketen getroffen wurde, wobei Hunderte Zivilisten, hauptsächlich Frauen und Kinder, starben.

Zwei Tage vor dem Waffenstillstand, am 27. Februar um 1.35 Uhr morgens, verkündete der Irak seinen Rückzug aus Kuwait. Offenbar als Antwort darauf wurde Bagdad ein weiteres Mal Ziel eines heftigen Angriffs, der von einem Bewohner als »schlaflose Nacht des Schreckens« beschrieben wurde.

Tote des Feindes interessierten nicht

Der Angriff auf das Militär des Irak, das kaum minder wehrlos war als die Zivilbevölkerung, war von unbarmherziger Härte. Auf das Militär wurden mehr als 40.000 Tonnen Bomben abgeworfen, oft in der Nähe der Zivilbevölkerung. B-52-Bomber bombardierten militärische Aufmarschgebiete aus extrem großer Höhe. Schätzungen über die Zahl der irakischen Soldaten, die bis zum Ende des Bombardements getötet wurden, beliefen sich damals auf 100.000 bis 200.000. Am 22. März 1991 schätzte die Defense Intelligence Agency die militärischen Opfer des Irak auf 100.000.

Kurz vor Ende des Bombardements, während die US-Truppen ihren Vormarsch auf Kuwait City und den Irak planten, meinte der US-General Kelly über die irakischen Streitkräfte: »Es wird nicht mehr viel von ihnen übrig sein.« Auf die Frage nach einer Schätzung der Zahl getöteter irakischer Soldaten und Zivilisten antwortete General Colin Powell: »Das interes- siert mich nun wirklich nicht besonders.« General Schwartzkopf verfolgte eine strikte Politik, nach der die Toten unter der irakischen Bevöl- kerung nicht gezählt werden sollten. Beide Generäle verletzten mit ihren Praktiken internationales Recht, das die Achtung vor den Toten des Feindes, ihre Identifizierung, die Benachrichtigung ihrer Familien und das ihnen zustehende religiöse Begräbnis verlangt. Die Amerikaner wissen ja schließlich, wie sie in bezug auf ihre in Vietnam und in früheren Kriegen vermißten Soldaten empfinden.
Die USA behaupten, bei den Angriffen seien 4.300 Panzer und 1.856 Panzerfahrzeuge zerstört worden. Das Pentagon behauptet, allein die F-111-Flugzeuge hätten 1.500 Panzer zerstört, was durch Videoaufnahmen bestätigt sei. Nahezu alle diese Flugzeuge verwendeten lasergesteuerte Raketen mit abgereichertem Uran und hinterließen über den gesamten Irak verstreut 900 Tonnen radioaktiven Abfalls, ohne sich in irgend- einer Weise um die Konsequenzen für das zukünftige Leben dort zu kümmern. Die Verbreitung von Tumoren, Krebs, Leukämie und anderen tödlichen Krankheiten hat in den letzten Jahren im Irak in alarmieren- der Weise zugenommen. Ärzte vertreten die Meinung, daß die Verstrah- lung eine Hauptursache dieser Erscheinungen ist.

In der Endphase der Bombenkampagne wurden Zehntausende irakische Soldaten schlicht und einfach ermordet. Im April 1991 wurde dem Europäischen Parlament folgende Beschreibung vorgetragen: »Hunderte, vielleicht Tausende irakische Soldaten begannen, unbewaffnet mit erhobenen Händen auf die US-Stellung zuzugehen und versuchten sich zu ergeben. Die betreffende Einheit hatte jedoch die Anweisung, keine Gefangenen zu machen. ... Die Kommandeure der Einheit eröffneten das Feuer, indem sie eine Anti-Panzer-Rakete durch einen der irakischen Soldaten schossen. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Rakete, die für die Zerstörung von Panzern gebaut wurde, aber hier wurde sie gegen diesen einen Mann eingesetzt. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt begannen alle in der Einheit zu schießen. Es war ganz einfach eine Schlächterei.« (Mike Erlich vom Military Counseling Network, Aussage bei den Anhörungen vor dem Europäischen Parlament, März/April 1991)

»Im Dunkeln zerfetzt«

Der »Toronto Globe and Mail« brachte eine frühe Reuters-Meldung über den Bodenkrieg unter dem Titel »Im Dunkeln zerfetzt«: »Das erste Hightech-Video über die Bodenkämpfe im Krieg am Persischen Golf zeigt terrorisierte irakische Infanteristen, die von US-Kampfhubschraubern im Dunkeln in Fetzen geschossen werden. Einer nach dem andern wurde in Angst und Schrecken vor einem unsichtbaren Feind niedergemetzelt. Einige der Soldaten wurden durch explodierende, aus Kanonen abgefeuerte Granaten in Stücke gerissen. Andere flohen aus dem Schlaf gerissen in einem Feuersturm in ihre Bunker. Das Band wurde durch die Nachtsicht- geräte der Apache AH-64-Kampfhubschrauber aufgenommen, die die dunkelste Nacht in ein gespenstisches Tageslicht verwandeln. Nicht nur Journalisten, sondern auch abgehärtete Soldaten hielten den Atem an, als das erste Video in einem Konferenzzelt des 18. Luftwaffenkorps gezeigt wurde, desselben Korps, dessen Hubschrauberbesatzungen den Krieg als erste direkt zu den Irakis gebracht hatten ... Die Piloten der 6. Kavallerie sonnen sich in ihrer Tüchtigkeit. `Mir war einfach nicht klar gewesen, wie es sein würde, da hochzufliegen und sie im Dunkeln total zu erledigen, und dabei wußten sie nicht mal, woher verdammt noch mal das ganze Feuer kam`, sagte ein Soldat namens Balak aus Beemer, Nebraska. `Rechts fliegt ein Lastwagen in die Luft, links neben dir explodiert der Boden. Sie hatten keine Ahnung, wo wir waren und wovon sie getroffen wurden`, sagte er. `Als ich zurückkam, saß ich da auf dem Flügel und lachte. Ich lachte nicht über die Irakis. Ich dachte an die Ausbildung, an die Erwartungen. ... Wahrscheinlich lachte ich über mich selbst ..., wie ich mich da hoch gestohlen und alles mögliche in die Luft gejagt hatte. Ein Typ kam zu mir rüber gelaufen, und wir klopften uns auf die Schulter und so, und er sagte: Mensch, ich hatte das Gefühl, als hätten wir mitten in einen verdammten Bauernhof geballert. Es sah aus, als hätte jemand den Schafstall aufge- macht.`« (Globe and Mail, 25. Februar 1991)

Der Reuters-Bericht bestätigte demnach nicht nur, daß die irakischen Soldaten ihren Gegner überhaupt nicht sehen konnten, sondern auch, daß dies den US-Soldaten sehr schnell klar wurde. Es war, als würde man im Pferch gefangene Tiere schlachten. Ein Bericht von William Branigin in der »Washington Post« beschrieb, auf welches Bild die Erste Kavalleriedivision beim Einrücken in den Irak stieß: »Am Rand einer Pistenstraße in der Wüste im Südosten des Irak stand ein Last- wagen, der zur Elitetruppe von Präsident Hussein, der Republikanischen Garde, gehört hatte. In ihm und um ihn herum lagen die Leichen von acht irakischen Soldaten. Das Areal um die Szenerie war mit Bändern abgesperrt wie der Tatort eines Verbrechens. Die kopflose Leiche eines der Soldaten lag unweit des Lastwagens auf dem Rücken. Ein anderer Körper war im Motorraum festgeklemmt. Zwei weitere Leichen lagen mit dem Gesicht nach oben im Bett des Fahrzeugs, und ihre Füße schauten grotesk über den Rand heraus.

Das war das grausige Gesicht des Krieges am Persischen Golf, eine Facette des Konflikts, die viele der jungen amerikanischen Soldaten, die an der alliierten Bodenoffensive gegen den Irak diese Woche teilnahmen, bis dahin noch nicht gekannt hatten. Nach Wochen eines weitgehend aus der Luft geführten Hightech-Krieges kamen die Schrecken des Bodenkriegs für einen Teil der Soldaten völlig überraschend.

... Schon jetzt haben Einheiten der Ersten Kavalleriedivision, die auf ihrem von Widerstand ungehinderten Weg durch den Südirak keinerlei Opfer zu beklagen hatten, erleben müssen, daß einige ihrer Soldaten durch Bomben oder Minen in dem Gebiet, das sie jetzt besetzt halten, getötet oder verwundet wurden ...

Einige Meilen von diesem Fahrzeug entfernt wurde ein großer Streifen Wüste, der offenbar der Republikanischen Garde als Trainingsgebiet gedient hatte, durch ein Bombardement aus der Luft verwüstet, bevor die US-Panzereinheiten hindurchfuhren. ... Das gesamte Gebiet war von Munitionsfragmenten übersät, darunter auch Hunderte von nicht explodierten gelben, aus Fächerbomben stammenden Einzelbomben, die im Sand steckten.« (Washington Post, 3. März 1991)

»Truthahnschießen«

Die Berichte in der US-Presse mußten, obwohl sie vom Pentagon zen- siert wurden und der Billigungspflicht durch das Militär unterlagen, unvermeidlich doch die gegen die Streitkräfte des Irak begangenen Kriegsverbrechen enthüllen. Die »New York Newsday« veröffentlichte am 31. März 1991 eine eindrückliche und umfangreiche Zusammenfassung über den Bodenkrieg. Dort wurde der Angriff auf eine völlig kampf- unwillige Armee beschrieben. Der Artikel berichtete über »einseitiges Grauen«, Fahrzeuge mit weißen Kapitulationsfahnen, die zerstört wurden, und »konsternierte und ausgehungerte irakische Wehrpflichtige an der Front, die froh und glücklich waren, sich zu Tausenden zu ergeben«. Er beschrieb, wie US-Piloten die Angriffe als »Truthahnschießen« bezeichneten und Ladeeinheiten hastig Bombenflugzeuge neu beluden, damit die Bomber die Irakis »wie Fische in einem Fischteich« ab- schießen konnten.

Die »New York Newsday« berichtete noch über eine weitere Metzelei an irakischen Soldaten, die von General Schwartzkopf zwei Tage nach dem Waffenstillstand genehmigt wurde. US-Militärsprechern zufolge war es die umfangreichste Kampfhandlung während der Bodenkampagne des Golfkriegs, aber dennoch gab es keine amerikanischen Opfer.

»Die Schlacht ereignete sich am 2. März, nachdem Soldaten aus der 7.000 Mann starken irakischen Einheit auf eine Patrouille der 24. Panzergrenadierdivision feuerten. ... `Wir haben es ihnen wirklich besorgt`, sagte einer der amerikanischen Kommandeure der Operation Wüstensturm, der ungenannt bleiben wollte ...

Obwohl die Zahl der getöteten irakischen Soldaten immer noch unbekannt ist, hat New York Newsday Armeeaufnahmen der Kämpfe erhalten können, auf denen etliche offenbar getötete oder verwundete Elitesoldaten des irakischen Präsidenten Saddam Hussein zu sehen waren, während [amerikanische] Apache-Hubschrauber die Hammurabi- Division der Republikanischen Garde unablässig mit lasergesteuerten Hellfire-Raketen angriffen. `Grüßt Allah von mir`, sagte ein Amerikaner auf einer dieser Aufnahmen, Augenblicke, bevor ein Hellfire-Hubschrauber eines der 102 von den Apaches in Flammen gesetzten Fahrzeuge vernichtete.

... Obwohl McCaffreys Division über Hubschrauber mit Lautsprechern verfügte, wurden die Lautsprecher nie zur Verbreitung der Nachricht vom Waffenstillstand eingesetzt. `Es war keine Zeit mehr, die Lautsprecher zu benutzen`, sagt Lamar. Statt dessen massierte McCaffrey nach dem Angriff der Iraker um 6.30 Uhr Kampfhubschrauber, Panzer, Kampffahrzeuge und Artillerie für den amerikanischen Angriff, der um 8.15 Uhr begann. Laut Lamar war der Angriff kurz nach 12 Uhr zu Ende, und die Trümmer waren meilenweit über Straße 8, die wichtigste im Tal des Euphrat verlaufende Straße nach Bagdad, verstreut.

Ein hoher Kommandeur der Operation Wüstensturm meinte, die Einzelheiten über den nach dem Waffenstillstand erfolgten Angriff seien seinerzeit zurückgehalten worden, obwohl Beamte in Riyad und Washington schon kurz nach Ende der Schlacht über das Ausmaß von Tod und Zerstörung Bescheid wußten. ... `Wir waren genau [über die Zerstörung] informiert, aber so direkt nach dem Waffenstillstand machte das keinen guten Eindruck`, sagte der Wüstensturm-Offizier. ... Die Kampfaufnahmen vom Angriff am 2. März zeigen, wie die Apaches Fahrzeuge zerstörten, um eine Straßen- sperre zu schaffen, so daß die Hammurabi-Division nicht auf der Nationalstraße entkommen konnte, die über den nahegelegenen Haw-al- Hammar-Sumpf verläuft. `Ye-HAH`, sagte eine Stimme. An einer Stelle der Aufnahme rennt ein irakischer Soldat genau in dem Augenblick vor einem Panzer her, in dem die Hellfire-Rakete explodiert und den Soldaten zusammen mit zerfetzten Metallstücken in die Luft schleudert.« (Patricl Sloyan, »Buried Alive«, Newsday, 12. September 1991)

Lebendig begraben

Das Pentagon verfügt über dokumentarisches Material einschließlich mehrerer Stunden von Videobändern über diesen tödlichen Angriff auf eine praktisch wehrlose irakische Einheit.

Monate später berichtete Newsday über den vielleicht furchtbarsten Vorfall von allen. Während der ersten beiden Tage der Bodenoffensive waren Tausende irakische Soldaten lebendig begraben worden.

»Nach Auskunft von Sprechern der US-Armee setzt die US-Division, die die vorgeschobenen Verteidigungslinien Saddam Husseins durchbrach, auf Panzer montierte Pflüge und kriegstaugliche Erdbewegungsgeräte ein, um über eine Front von mehr als hundert Kilometern Tausende von irakischen Soldaten - von denen einige noch lebten und ihre Waffen abfeuerten - in ihren Schützengräben zu begraben. In den ersten beiden Tagen der Bodenkämpfe der Operation Wüstensturm machten drei Brigaden der Ersten Panzergrenadierdivision - der `Großen Roten` - von dieser grausigen Neuerung Gebrauch, um Schützengräben und Bunker zu zerstören, die nach Schätzungen von Armeesprechern mit mehr als 8.000 irakischen Soldaten bemannt waren. Während sich etwa 2.000 der Soldaten ergaben, wurden die irakischen Toten und Verwundeten zusammen mit den Soldaten, die Widerstand leisteten und immer noch ihre Waffen abfeuerten, nach Aussage von Teilnehmern dieses sorgfältig geplanten und geübten Angriffs unter Tonnen von Sand begraben.

`Als wir uns das Ganze ansahen, war außer denen, die sich ergeben hatten, niemand mehr übrig`, sagte Captain Bennie Williams, dem für seine Rolle bei diesem Angriff der Silver Star verliehen wurde. Diese beispiellose Kampfmethode wurde bisher nicht öffentlich gemacht. ...

`Nach allem, was mir bekannt ist, könnten wir Tausende getötet haben`, sagte Oberst Anthony Moreno, der Kommandeur der Zweiten Brigade, die den Angriff auf die schwersten Befestigungen führte.« (Newsday, 12. September 1991)

Weiter hieß es in dem Artikel, nachdem die erste Welle der Bulldozer die irakischen Verteidiger außer Gefecht gesetzt habe, habe eine zweite Welle die Schützengräben mit Sand gefüllt, um sicherzustellen, daß keiner der Verwundeten überleben würde.

Viele der Menschen, die während ihrer Flucht aus Kuwait massakriert wurden, waren gar keine irakischen Soldaten, sondern Palästinenser, Sudanesen, Ägypter, Filipinos und sonstige Gastarbeiter. Sie versuch- ten zu fliehen, um ihr Leben zu retten. Über die »Straße des Todes« zwischen Kuwait und Basra berichtete Newsday: »Bei den Fahrzeugen auf den Fotos handelte es sich in großer Mehrheit um Autos, Busse sowie militärische und zivile Lastwagen, die neben einigen Zivilisten offenbar irakische Soldaten samt ihrer Gewehre und großer Mengen in Kuwait geplünderter Güter transportierten. Journalisten beschrieben einen Abschnitt der Nationalstraße als eine beinahe ununterbrochene Mauer aus zerstörten und feuergeschwärzten Fahrzeugen, die sich in einem Chaos aus zertrümmertem, verbogenen Metall aufeinander türmten; da lagen zermalmte Sammeltaxis, unter Bussen platt gewalzte Autos und andere Wagen, die sich überschlagen hatten.

Panzerrohre zeigten bizarr in den Himmel, während der Rest des Panzers umgestürzt auf der Seite lag. In einem der fotografierten Straßenab- schnitte waren weniger als ein Zehntel der Fahrzeuge Panzer, Truppen- transporter oder Artilleriegeschütze. ...« (Knute Royce und Timothy Phelps, »Pullback a Bloody Mismatch«, Newsday, 31. März 1991)

Der aus North Carolina stammende GI Mike Ange beschrieb, was er gesehen hatte, folgendermaßen: »Ich ging also hin und sah mir zwei Autos aus der Nähe an, in denen wahrscheinlich Flüchtlinge versucht hatten, aus dem Kampfgebiet zu kommen. Das eine war ein Toyota- Kleinlaster, der auf der gesamten Ladefläche mit Möbeln und Koffern und Teppichen und der Katze und ähnlichem Kram vollgeladen war, und kleine Laster wie diesen blies es ebenso weg wie die Militärfahrzeuge.« (Bill Moyers, PBS- Sonderbericht: Nach dem Krieg, Frühling 1991)

Kaum Verluste der USA

Die Bombardierung des Irak kostete unmittelbar mehr als 150.000 Menschenleben und ließ ein gebrochenes, am Boden liegendes Land zurück. Die Bomben töteten wahllos, zum größten Teil Irakis, aber auch Angehörige anderer Nationen. Unter den Toten befanden sich Muslime und Christen, Kurden und Assyrer, Junge und Alte, Männer, Frauen, Kinder und Säuglinge.

Während 110.000 Lufteinsätzen verloren die USA 38 Flugzeuge, und diese wahrscheinlich allesamt durch Maschinenversagen, Fehler der Piloten und Unfälle. Diese Verlustrate war niedriger als bei Manövern, wo keine scharfe Munition verwendet wird. Keine einzige der B-52, die den Irak mit einem Bombenteppich von 27.500 Bomben eindeckten, ging verloren. Bei den großen Bombenangriffen auf Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg betrugen die Verluste bis zu 25 Prozent der beteilig- ten Flugzeuge. Die Gesamtzahl der US-Verluste einschließlich der 37 Soldaten, die laut offiziellem Eingeständnis durch »freundliches Feuer« ums Leben kamen, lag laut Pentagon bei 148 Toten.

Die USA haben ihre Angriffe auf den Irak seitdem weiter fortgesetzt, wobei sie ihre Luftwaffe, die den Himmel über dem Land Tag und Nacht kontrolliert, sowie die Lenkraketen einsetzen, die von der enormen Anzahl von US-Militärpositionen in der Region, zu denen auch die größte Flottenmassierung seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg gehört, abgefeuert werden.

Während die USA den Irak weiterhin als gefährlich und als Bedrohung für den Frieden hinstellen, unterhalten sie ihrerseits ein Kernwaf- fenarsenal, das weit größer ist als das sämtlicher anderer Länder zusammen. Im Steuerjahr 1996 betrugen ihre Militärausgaben 264 Milliarden Dollar; die Vergleichszahlen für die Russische Föderation und die Volksrepublik China liegen bei 47 Milliarden bzw. 32 Milliarden Dollar. Das Bruttosozialprodukt des Irak, mit dem dieser sämtliche Bedürfnisse seiner Bevölkerung befriedigen muß, lag dagegen bei 11,5 Milliarden Dollar - weniger als fünf Prozent der Militärausgaben der USA.

Mit einer Arroganz, die ihrer Gewalttätigkeit das Wasser reichen konnte, forderten die USA dann eine Untersuchung der vom Irak an US-Soldaten und Bürgern Kuwaits begangenen Verbrechen durch den UN-Sicherheitsrat. Dies war ein Vorläufer späterer Forderungen der USA nach strafrecht- lichen UN-Anklagen gegen Serben, Hutus, Pol Pot sowie - nach dessen Tod - noch lebende Mitglieder der Roten Khmer, Saddam Hussein und andere, während sie sich gleichzeitig einem unabhängigen Internationalen Strafgerichtshof, der allen gleichen Schutz unter dem Gesetz bieten könnte, widersetzten.

In Wirklichkeit gab es keinen Krieg. Keinen Kampf. Es gab lediglich einen planvollen, systematischen Völkermord an einer wehrlosen Bevölkerung, wobei die Täter kaum einen Fuß auf irakischen Boden setzen mußten. Als Dr. Martin Luther King 1967 kommentierte, »der größte Anstifter zur Gewalt auf der Welt« sei »meine eigene Regierung«, konnte er sich nicht einmal in seinen schlimmsten Alpträumen vor- stellen, was die USA später dem Irak antun würden.

(Übersetzung: Michael Schiffmann)
aus: junge Welt, v. 28. 02. 2001

* Ramsay Clark war unter Lyndon B. Johnson Justizminister der USA, wurde danach zum scharfen Kritiker der US-Politik im Innern und Äußeren und gründete 1993 zusammen mit anderen politischen Aktivisten das International Action Center (http//www.iacenter.org).

Vorabdruck aus dem im April 2001 bei PapyRossa erscheinenden Buch: Der Irak - ein belagertes Land. Die tödlichen Auswirkungen von Krieg und Embargo. Hg.: Rüdiger Göbel, Joachim Guilliard, Michael Schiffmann

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Second updated edition of The Fire This Time

This new edition of the groundbreaking work by Ramsey Clark tells the truth about U.S. war crimes against the Iraqi people in the 1991 war. With a special new introduction: After September 11th, an assessment of the U.S./Iraq conflict.

The Fire This Time, an invaluable resource for those organizing opposition to a new U.S. war against Iraq. It’s an important book to be in the hands of anti-war activists, students, and readers worldwide.
Zu # 10872

International Action Center:
New York:
39 West 14th St.,
#206;
New York, N.Y. 10011
212-633-6646
Founded by Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General
Information, Activism, and Resistance to U.S.
Militarism, War, and Corporate Greed,
Linking with Struggles Against Racism and Oppression
within the United States
http://www.iacenter.org/

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So was it all worth it?
For Tony Blair, it was the year everything began to turn sour. The feeling grew that the nation had been duped into war, the Hutton inquiry was a potential time bomb, his most trusted lieutenants bailed out, top-up fees rankled and that lipstick moment at No 10 backfired. Then, on a winter evening, at a farm near Tikrit, his luck changed. Zoe Williams reviews the trajectory of the prime minister, war and other events of 2003

Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian

The war against Iraq lasted only 27 days. Deaths are still occurring, on both sides, but actual combat lasted barely a month, a month that defined the year. 2003 will not be remembered as the year Gordon Brown launched a kind-of challenge to Tony Blair. It will not go down as a year in which anything remotely memorable happened with the euro. It certainly won`t be the year in which Iain Duncan Smith became the first Tory leader to be ejected without having fought an election since Austin Chamberlain. It will be the year we went to war.

The probability of the attack on Iraq increased by imperceptible increments. Having made so much the previous November of resolution 1441, it seemed unthinkable that Blair would then go on to defy the will of the UN as one half of a bold new US-UK axis (also known as the Axis Of Always Being In Complete Agreement). But by February 15, UN opposition notwithstanding, the war seemed real and present enough to raise more than a million people for a demonstration, making it the largest public protest ever. For the record, it was also the first march that, if you hadn`t attended, you had to pretend you had, or at least make up an excuse. It was extremely gratifying that it dwarfed the Countryside Alliance march of the previous September but, with hindsight, reaching the end of a year when the war has been and not gone, and fox-hunting has still not made it into the Queen`s speech, you have to conclude that, well, size isn`t everything.

In February, there was still the prospect of a parliamentary rebellion, although no one was surprised when just 121 MPs voted for an anti-war amendment at the end of the month. Two weeks later, Robin Cook resigned on principle. Clare Short didn`t. She left it until May, when she resigned on the principle that, if she didn`t, she`d be chased from the building by dogs. Cook was applauded with enormous vigour and a lot of standing up in the House of Commons as he delivered his case that "history will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations" that led us to war. He was treated with such warmth and apparent accord, in fact, that it makes you wonder whether these ovating MPs had either a) forgotten how they had voted a fortnight ago; or b) there were just 120 of them clapping very loudly.

Mind you, there was a lot of inconsistency going on at the time. Many people who objected to the war on the strongest possible grounds still remembered how funny it was to call the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". In fairness, this was partly a tribute to the Simpsons, from which the phrase derived and which celebrated its 300th episode in March, making it the longest-running cartoon ever. On the eve of war, French president Jacques Chirac called an attack on Iraq "illegitimate and dangerous", which the rest of the UN thought was a bit rich considering at least half of it could be said of half his children. On March 20, when the attack began, Blair said with pained sincerity to the people of Iraq, "Our enemy is not you but your barbarous rulers." I wonder why the people of Iraq didn`t rise as one and say, "Well, kill them then!" By day five, there had been more allied deaths in helicopter crashes than from enemy fire. The extraordinary peril of this mode of transport raised the possibility that, one day, the developed world will have invented so many dangerous war-related items that it will be able to organise satisfying combat without any other countries needing to get involved.

The war had its human faces: Jessica Lynch, the 19-year-old supply clerk whose "rescue" from an unguarded Nassiriya hospital dominated the US bulletins and resulted in a $1m book deal (the death in the same attack of Lynch`s friend Lori Piestewa, a native American mother of two, received a fraction of the coverage); David Williams and Ronald Young, the two American PoWs shown on Iraqi television, rescued two days before the war ended; Ali Abbas, orphaned and maimed in a bomb attack, who arrived in Britain on August 8. Six weeks later, he was pictured with Sven-Goran Eriksson, in a photo-op designed, one assumes, to show how well he was adjusting to his new life without arms or parents.

By the end of April, two weeks after the end of the war, there had been 164 allied casualties, 2,320 Iraqi military casualties, and between 1,252 and 2,325 Iraqi civilian casualties (the first estimate from Iraq, the second from the Iraq Body Count Organisation). These figures continue to rise. In August, the UN headquarters in Baghdad were bombed, killing 24, which raised the spectre of terrorist organisations whose targets were basically random, rather than governed by anti-Americanism. The year`s terrorist attacks in Riyadh, Casablanca, Jakarta and Istanbul have sharpened this troubling picture. By September, 38 of America`s 55 Most Wanted had been captured or killed. By the middle of this month, they`d found their Ace Of Spades in a spider hole.

The original dossier brouhaha was about the February 2003 document. Iraq - Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation (or, according to Jack Straw, "a complete Horlicks") had been filched from a 12-year-old PhD thesis in a groundbreaking incidence of someone actually reading a 12-year-old PhD thesis. In fact, the real broadside was to come from the dossier of the September before, Iraq`s Weapons Of Mass Destruction: The Assessment Of The British Government, in which the original 45-minutes-from-attack claim was made. Early on May 29, Andrew Gilligan reported on Radio 4`s Today programme that the dossier had been made "sexier"; he repeated this in the Mail On Sunday two days later, adding that it was Alastair Campbell who had inserted the 45-minute claim. In a post-Hutton internal inquiry at the BBC, it was decided that the corporation`s higher-profile reporters should not write for newspapers, since that was how the trouble always started.

But the row with the BBC was all a sideshow to a sideshow: the drip-by-drip exposure of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly. Geoff Hoon overruled the advice of his top civil servant in bringing Kelly before the Foreign Affairs Committee, where the scientist insisted that he was "most unlikely" to have been Gilligan`s source for the story. Campbell wrote a very pompous, bullet-pointed letter to the BBC, haranguing it for its shoddy journalism in allowing a reporter to use only one source. The BBC stood by Gilligan for the time being, although he was later reprimanded for his "loose use of language". What they should have said was, "Well, come on, at least we actually spoke to a proper scientist and didn`t plagiarise a bleeding student."

Dr Kelly killed himself on July 17, but even this didn`t put a stop to the government`s shambling insensitivity. Downing Street spokesman Tom Kelly made his "Walter Mitty" comment before the funeral had even taken place, while Hoon missed it to go on holiday, leaving John Prescott to take his place. By the end of the Hutton inquiry, Gilligan had admitted that describing Dr Kelly as an intelligence source was a "slip of the tongue"; Blair had admitted that, whatever had happened, the responsibility was ultimately his; Campbell had resigned arguing bizarrely that it had "nothing to do with the Gilligan affair"; and Hoon had resolutely stuck to the position that, whatever had happened, it wasn`t his fault. He`d been in the room, but distracted by a bee. The focus was by now entirely on who was responsible for the sad death of Dr Kelly; the crucial question - were deliberate lies told to strengthen the case for war? - weighed in at a distant second.

And so the war began and ended not just with the wrong answers, but with the wrong questions. The capture of Saddam Hussein brought a mood of demented triumphalism, with Blair and Bush looking as if all their Christmases had come at once. Public support for the war hit an all-time high - 47% approval rating, according to a Guardian/ICM poll - just before Bush`s visit to the UK in November. And yet surely the capture of Saddam is not enough to justify the war. He was effectively finished the minute the war was lost: whether or not he is brought to trial or left to live out the rest of his life in a hole is relevant only in the retributive sense. At the time of writing, we still have no weapons of mass destruction; ergo, we have apparently been lied to by a government or, in the best case scenario, are being governed by a person of poor judgment. This doesn`t seem to be doing Blair much harm, amid the curious frisson of seeing a dictator with a torch in his mouth.

Meanwhile, the year has brought Israel and Palestine no closer to any kind of peace agreement, with 177 Israeli deaths and 630 Palestinian. What optimism followed the appointment of Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas came at least partly unstuck when he resigned in September. He was replaced by Ahmed Qureia, who faces many of the problems his predecessor did, viz, everyone thinks he`s in the other guy`s pocket. Besides making regular incursions into Palestinian territory, resulting in the deaths of both Hamas operatives and civilians, and the death of one ISM volunteer, American Rachel Corrie, Israel`s most inflammatory move of the year was the construction of its "security fence".

At the Labour party conference in October, it was widely agreed that Blair had weathered the Iraq storm. He was warmly received, and there was nothing like the rebellious bad feeling that some had anticipated: the surge of public support for the war, which reached a 63% approval rating by the time it ended, seemed to be mirrored within the ranks of party itself. Gordon Brown`s challenge - "This Labour party [is] best when we are boldest, best when we are united, best when we are Labour" - was well received but swiftly bettered.

Last month`s Bush visit, despite the protests, passed off well and a Guardian/ICM poll found a 62% majority of Labour voters in favour of the trip, believing the US to be "a force for good, not evil, in the world". Until they found Saddam, the prime minister`s year had not been a good one. Top-up fees and foundation hospitals shored up the accusations that he`s basically a Tory in, erm, Tory clothing. His own health problems put a dent in his self-styled image of the young invincible. And then the pictures in Marie Claire magazine, featuring Cherie and Carole Caplin in a teen lipstick-fest on the edge of a bed, made the whole damn lot of them look weird.

But if you`re in the business of feeling a generous, seasonal sympathy for whole families, then save it for the Windsors. I bet the Queen is kicking herself that she blew her famous "annus horribilis" judgment on the year that Windsor castle burned. How to describe a year in which every weasel who`d ever met Diana came out with some new and often crazy revelation about her? What to say about the Prince Charles allegations, which can be discussed only on the famously discreet internet, except that, at the very least, it makes the palace look like an extremely bad employer? How to name the ignominy of not even being the richest woman in England anymore, having been outstripped by JK Rowling? Annus disgustingus? The speculation about Prince Charles in particular is a terrible blow to the dignity of the family, considering that the worst disrespect accorded them last year was Peter Sissons`s burgundy tie on the occasion of the death of the Queen Mother.

This isn`t to say there wasn`t happy news. There was a birth, which is always nice, and there was an Africa-themed 21st birthday party for William, which was a bit postcolonial, a bit "look at the natives and their colourful accessories!", but which cheered the place up, the intervention of comedy terrorist Aaron Barschak notwithstanding. Prince Harry caused an amount of ill-feeling when he decided to go to a rugby match instead of a Remembrance Day service. But then we won the final so, although no poll was conducted, I think it`s safe to say that the nation now respects his decision, considering how we have a Remembrance Day every year and win the rugby union World Cup about once in a never.

Jonny Wilkinson is the undisputed hero of the year. He is so heroic that now everyone wants a really thick neck and a ruddy complexion. The lap of honour on December 8 mustered 750,000 people, who didn`t get into any fights and were in no way arrested. They are an inspiration to us all. They showed football fans what happens when you`re resolutely middle-class, and demonstrators what happens when you`re in a good mood and not moaning about anything - the police really like you.

The other prince of sport, David Beckham, had a mixed year: the flying boot episode with Sir Alex Ferguson was followed by almost-instant success with his new club Real Madrid, though there were rumours, denied every other week, of marital trouble. The Spanish press took against Vics because she never smiled, little realising that she never smiles over here either, so it was nothing personal. Football generally has had an atrocious time, with the Premiership acting out drugs and sex fantasies that sound like the product of some diseased fascist imagination, trying to scare everyone into locking up their daughters in turrets. Not even the daunting perfection of Thierry Henry - as a player, but mainly in the va-va-voom advert ("ees ze rabbit of course!") - can lift the fortunes of this sport. And nobody likes it any more, anyway, having switched to rugby. Paula Radcliffe broke the world record in the London marathon. She is a difficult athlete to hero-worship, being so modest and workmanlike, but she`s still a heroine. Or, at least, an extremely fast runner.

Her achievement was especially timely considering the ongoing climate change, which suggests that soon the marathon will have to be discontinued because we`ll all be way too hot. The evidence of our own senses told us something funny was going on from June through August, as each new day was more beautiful than the last, and England`s beaches showed scenes of such warmth and comfort that it was as if we`d all achieved a perfect, hassle-free emigration to Australia. Papers were full of animals in sunglasses and children leaping gleefully into the sea. We started to wonder whether we might be able to cultivate some wine-growing regions, along with bananas and figs and tropical birds. Little marred the goodwill until France released its August death figures, which showed 15,000 excess fatalities on previous years. They were predominantly in the 75-94 age range, and were unambiguously put down to night-time temperatures so high they left people no chance to recover from the excessively hot days. Attention turned to finding a solution, of which there is only one - air-conditioning, the widespread use of which will exacerbate global warming and make everything that much worse.

Figures released at the close of the year show the warmest summer since records began in 1721, across western and central Europe. Scientists are increasingly reluctant to put this down to normal climate change; the director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Professor Phil Jones, said, "The final degree of it is likely to be due to global warming, caused by human action." And sure, people have been saying that for years, but meteorologists almost never do. We seem to have taken this in our stride, however - the grimmest predictions so far are about the adverse effects on the truffle industry (too hot for both truffles and pigs), and what we can expect in the way of skiing conditions (not very much snow).

The plucky defender of the environment was Ken Livingstone with his congestion charge, launched in February to a chorus of angry car drivers who threatened great things in the way of protest, but in the event didn`t get round to it because they wouldn`t get out of their sodding cars. Underestimating the tightness of the average Londoner, Livingstone thought this would spin a lot more money than it actually does. But on the plus side, the roads are lovely and clear, pretty much, and many buses now have a bendy bit in the middle, which is great fun to stand on while going around a corner. When you`re 12.

Scientists also discovered this year that fish can feel pain. So we can all stop that dumb argument with people who call themselves vegetarians but still eat tuna. And Sars, which looked so potently dangerous in February, when the first five fatalities occurred in China, petered out in June, although the World Health Organisation still has fears it may recur. Over the year, Sars killed nearly 800 people, across 25 countries. At one point, the WHO was warning travellers off Toronto, which enraged the Canadian prime minister who contended that his country was far too posh to suffer such a stigma.

Gay Christians saw victory in America, defeat in the UK, as Canon Gene Robinson became the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church, in New Hampshire. Over here, Canon Jeffrey John was forced to refuse his appointment to the Reading bishopric, lest he cause a schism. Rowan Williams managed to sound regretful and at the same time rather neutral about the business, which is a skill of his, although I suspect that, in the long run, the festering resentments within our Anglican church will turn out to be more damaging than the more violent wounds inflicted on the American institution.

Culturally (well, TV-wise), this has been the year of the poll. First we were asked for our favourite book. A lot of people said Catch 22, sparking a national debate about whether or not they were only saying that to sound cool. Other people said children`s books, which are enjoying a resurgence among adult readers thanks to the film adaptations of Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings - the latter came out top in the BBC`s the Big Read.

We were also asked for our least favourite Briton (Tony Blair came in at number one; Jordan at number two. Strange, no? Oh, and by the way, she did have sex with Gareth, after all). We were asked for our favourite old building that needed renovating, and there were whispers of a "political idol", whereby a parliamentary candidate would be chosen in the manner of Will Young. At the moment, it`s in the foothills of discussion about whether or not it perverts the electoral process. Look forward to that one for next summer, then. There was a surge in hidden-camera programmes, where regular people are asked daft questions by comedians, with differing results (Three Non-Blondes, hilarious; Little Friends, woeful).

Two dramas - State Of Play and The Deal - made politics (and journalism) look far more glamorous than they are, and the hellmouth was shut down once and for all in the last ever episode of Buffy. Eagerly awaited novels from Martin Amis and Helen Fielding met a mixed response, especially Amis`s, which elicited praise and derision in equal measure. Fielding`s reviews weren`t that mixed, in fact: Olivia Joules And The Overactive Imagination was met with a fairly unanimous "it`s no Bridget Jones".

Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Award, Radiohead released All Hail To The Thief, and Will Champion, the drummer from Coldplay, tried to sue his next-door neighbour for accidentally getting into his minicab. Twit. Girls Aloud spent the whole of January at No 1, but were badly let down when Cheryl Tweedy punched a nightclub toilet assistant in the face; she was convicted of the attack, but cleared of racially aggravated assault. Vinnie Jones was convicted of slapping a fellow passenger in an air rage incident. David Blaine and Derren Brown both attempted to do themselves in - Blaine with starvation, Brown with a gun - and both failed (I think it was just a bid for attention). Michael Jackson had a bad year, topped with the Martin Bashir treatment and tailed with his arrest for child molesting.

The film year kicked off very literarily, with Soderbergh`s remake of Tarkovsky`s Solaris, and a number of very thoughtful films featuring women with orange hair (Julianne Moore, mainly, in The Hours and Far From Heaven, although Nicole Kidman is clearly a ginger as well, and Meryl Streep looked a little coppery). Ang Lee remade The Hulk, which was proper scary, and Quentin Tarantino returned with Kill Bill, to the delight of the whole world, even though it was like a really long pop video with extra death. Bookies are still laying odds on Love Actually being the highest grossing British movie ever. It is so very charmingly British, with its prime minister, and its tea-lady, and its snow, and Christmas, and class structure, and plentiful tea. It makes you want to go, "Really? This century? Are you sure?" But it`s been an unsettling year, full of half-truths and conflict, lurching debate, nebulous threats and palpable violence, impassioned but never quite credible rhetoric. And a Berlin courtroom watched a video of a cannibal frying up a penis, then reading a Star Trek book while his castrato had a warm bath. Some years are just crying out to be rounded off with 18 deluded Curtis characters, nobbing each other.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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A year of thwarted ambition
War in Iraq revealed the likely limits to American imperial power

Martin Jacques
Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian

Saddam Hussein`s arrest provided a long overdue, and desperately needed, morale-booster for the American and British governments. The fact that they had succeeded in finding neither Saddam nor Osama bin Laden had lent an air of ridicule to American military grandiloquence. The failure to capture Saddam spoke eloquently of an occupation that had veered far off course from the confident predictions that had been made at the time of the invasion.

We will have to wait and see what the longer-term effect of Saddam`s arrest proves to be. Combined with Libya`s new contrition, it should, for a period at least, ease some of the domestic pressure on Bush and perhaps even Blair. But it seems unlikely that it will change much, especially where it matters most, on the ground in Iraq.

It is salutary to reflect on how the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent course of the occupation have tempered the ambitions and expectations of the Bush administration. We may now live in the era of American hyperpower and a new kind of American imperial ambition, but Iraq has served to demonstrate some of the likely limits to that power.

First, American unilateralism has come at a price. Far from commanding more or less universal acquiescence in its power and message - as happened with the first Gulf war - the invasion has provoked a reaction which has resulted in the appearance of new global fault lines. The most dramatic of these has been the schism between France and Germany on the one hand and the US on the other, a divide which calls into question the purpose and durability of the western alliance. Few would have thought that France and Germany would have had the courage or independence of mind and spirit to oppose the US, but that is exactly what they did.

Opposition, moreover, was not confined to the European powers. Russia was of similar mind, notwithstanding the fact that ever since the days of Boris Yeltsin, a man of ignominious and tainted memory, it had chosen to side with the US on issues of major import. China trod the same course, wearing Hush Puppies, desperate not to be noticed, because while there could be no doubt where China`s true sentiments lay, the world`s next superpower is playing a very long game, one of the longest history has ever known, subordinating temptation and instinct to its strategic desire not to alienate the US in the course of its breathless economic transformation.

Nor should we forget the manner in which the invasion has polarised public opinion in the vast majority of the countries of the world - including those nations like Italy, Spain, Japan and South Korea, whose governments supported the coalition partners - against the US, such that it is now more unpopular than it has ever been in the theatre of global opinion.

Second, the military opposition to the American occupation has confounded all expectations: no sooner had President Bush declared the war over and Iraq subdued than the real war seemed to start. The full repertoire of imperial responses to rebellion by a local population has been rehearsed: that these were the remnants of Saddam`s regime, or criminals, or al-Qaida sympathisers who had slipped over the border. As with Eoka, the Mau Mau, the Vietcong, the IRA, and countless others before, there has never been any admission that the guerrilla forces, motley, primitive and disorganised as they may be, enjoy popular support, bear the imprimatur of legitimacy invested in those nationalist forces who resist invading powers.

As time has passed, and the intensity of the opposition has grown, it has become clear that the opposition is far more diffuse and homegrown than has been admitted, enjoying widespread support, especially in central and northern Iraq. Saddam`s capture is unlikely to make much difference to this.

And who should be surprised? The second half of the last century was the era of successful anti-colonial struggles, culminating in the Vietnamese liberation movement. People do not like being occupied from afar by countries of different cultures and races, though the new American imperial hubris - like many before - convinced the Bush administration and our own prime minister that the coalition troops would be greeted like a liberating army, that the people of Iraq yearned for our values and our way of life.

Iraq has already demonstrated that American public opinion does not have the stomach for a prolonged occupation, that the Bush administration cannot afford the body bags, and that therefore their Iraqi appointees will have to assume, sooner rather than later, many of the frontline responsibilities. The occupation of Iraq has taught the US, not to mention the world, that overweening military power is not invincible, but on the contrary, is as vulnerable as ever when it tries to occupy another people`s country. Such was, and remains, the lesson of anti-colonial struggle.

Third, it seems possible, even probable, that further American imperial ambitions - as encapsulated in the so-called "axis of evil" - have been laid to rest, at least for the time being, in the streets of Baghdad, Samarra, Tikrit and neighbouring towns. There was much speculation in the early part of this year about which country would be next - Iran or North Korea. With the occupation of Afghanistan looking increasingly fragile - and more and more vulnerable - and the Iraqi guerrilla opposition obliging an imminent American retreat, at least of a kind, it is difficult to imagine the Americans taking on either of these regimes in the near future. Indeed, there has already been a marked shift in the mood music from the days of Rumsfeld`s high noon, with the Americans increasingly looking to China to assist with North Korea, and a clutch of other countries to defuse Iran`s nuclear ambitions.

Fourth, as with all imperial endeavours, there has been much moralising about democracy, human rights and justice. It was ever so, but no more so than now. Yet these values have, as in the past, been the first casualties of imperial ambition. There are countless stories of the way in which American troops shoot first and ask questions later. The Americans don`t even bother to count the number of Iraqi dead. When Bush and Blair insist that the Iraqis should determine Saddam`s fate, by Iraqis they mean their own quisling Iraqi regime. The Guantanamo camp is an affront to human rights worldwide. Civil rights have been rolled back in the US in the name of the fight against terror. And, of course, there are no weapons of mass destruction: truth is the first casualty of war - and imperial ambition. It is difficult to imagine the US and Britain ever enjoying the same kind of respect again in their claim to be the mantle of democracy and human rights.

None of this is to suggest that we do not live in the age of the American imperium. Following 9/11, we have witnessed the birth of a new American unilateralism and self-interest to which every country in the world has been, and is being, obliged to respond and relate. Iraq is the first true test of that American imperial ambition and it has already served to suggest some of the limits to that power.

· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asian Research Centre

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US towns gather in their wounded
Returnees shunned by national media win warm local welcome

Gary Younge in Greenfield, Missouri
Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian

As the honorary grand marshall of Greenfield`s Christmas parade, Derick Hurt waved with his right hand as he led the other vehicles in a lap of the main square on Saturday.

His left hand is still not functional since he bailed out of his Humvee in Mosul, Iraq, and landed on it, breaking his wrist. Every now and then he would stop saluting locals holding "Welcome Home Derick" posters and tap the spot where his lower leg used to be, to ease the throbbing.

Behind him, local dignitaries, church groups, and the kings and queens of the high school threw sweets to children from the boats and floats on which they were towed. Ahead of him was a lifetime of disability as an amputee, with a body flecked with shrapnel.

"It`s a big thing for me," said Mr Hurt, 26, of the reception he has received in the week since he arrived home. In a town of around 1,500 nestled in the rural midwest, an area of big skies and small creeks, his injury and homecoming have been a big event. Local people raised thousands of dollars to help his family travel to see him at the Walter Reed military hospital in Virginia. Cameras from the local networks met him when he arrived at the airport in Springfield. When he got to Greenfield, the town was waiting in the square.

Around 2,657 soldiers have been injured in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But while the death toll influences political debate and prompts public discomfort, the swelling legions of the wounded - around 10 a day - have failed to make any impact on a national level.

With the exception of Jessica Lynch, whose capture, rescue and return has already produced two books, one film and a national myth, little has been heard until recently about those who came back to start a new life in wheelchairs and on crutches.

And little that has been heard has been good. There were the wounded who had to wait for weeks for medical treatment in Fort Stewart Georgia, where they complained of filthy conditions. There was Shoshana Johnson, a black woman who was shot in both legs and held prisoner for 22 days, who says racism is the only explanation for why she receives $700 (£500) less each month than Ms Lynch. Then came was the scandal of wounded soldiers being forced to pay $8.10 a day for their hospital meals, until the rule was repealed by Congress.

When Mr Hurt was at Walter Reed hospital, a cast of stars visited to boost morale, including Bruce Willis, Shania Twain and Cher.

After Cher`s visit, in late October, she called a television phone-in program to ask: "Why aren`t Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer, the president - why aren`t they taking pictures with these guys? I don`t understand why these guys are so hidden, why there are no pictures of them."

To some, this is more evidence that George Bush - who has yet to attend the funeral of any soldier killed in the war and refers to the casualties only in general terms - is trying to distance himself.

But last week, Mr Bush was to be seen on television visiting the Walter Reed hospital.

"We put a lot of fine troops in harm`s way to make this country more secure and the world more free and the world more peaceful," he said.

"We ask them to face great dangers to meet a national need."

When Mr Hurt joined the army in 2000, he had little sense of great danger. "It was peaceful at the time," he said. "I never imagined I would fight."

Then came September 11. Mr Hurt was sent to Jordan. It was his first time abroad.

The second was when he went to Kuwait in February, in preparation for the invasion of Iraq. On September 13, he drove a Humvee through the city`s empty streets. The night before, he had written to his father saying all was quiet in town.

Suddenly there was a flash, and then another one. "I was in shock," he said. "The engine had died and I knew I had to get out of the car. I used my bodyweight to lever myself out of the window, which is probably when I broke my wrist."

He lay face-down on the kerb amid the smoke and the gunfire. "I thought, this is it. I`m going to die right here, just like a vegetable on the ground."

Then he heard one of his fellow soldiers shout his name as his comrades came to his aid. He screamed in pain as one tied a tourniquet around one of his injured legs.

"One of them was just hanging on by a thread and the other one was all battered up," he said.

His father received a phone call at 1.30 the next morning. "I knew it was the military, and I knew that since they called me he must still be alive, because they come around in person if they`re dead," he said. "So I thought, `So long as he`s still alive I can deal with the rest.`"

Mr Hurt was in hospital in Germany for five days before he was flown to Walter Reed, where he stayed for three months. "I was thinking, `This is it. It`s not going to get any better. What kind of job can I get now?`"

Still, he does not regret joining the army - "These things happen for a reason," he says.

Mr Hurt cannot fault the veterans` administration, which is advising him on benefits. He misses sport, but is driving already, and living with his father until he returns to Walter Reed for treatment next month. After that, he is thinking of going back to his former job as a machinist, where the workshops are wheelchair friendly.

"I`ve been very impressed," said his father. "It took me six months to get a job when I got back from Vietnam, and they gave me nothing."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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December 27, 2003
Tongass Travesty

The Bush administration has pulled another thread from the intricate legal tapestry shielding the national forests from excessive logging. On Tuesday, it announced that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska would be denied protections provided by the so-called roadless rule, a federal regulation prohibiting the building of roads — and by definition most commercial activity — on 58.5 million acres of national forests.

The administration presents the new policy as a necessary tonic for southeast Alaska`s depressed economy, and as a necessary response to a state lawsuit that it says it could never have won. The reality is otherwise. This is essentially a holiday gift to Senator Ted Stevens and Gov. Frank Murkowski, both of whom have lobbied for the resumption of the clear-cutting that has already stripped the nation`s only temperate rain forest of a half million acres of old-growth trees.

The announcement came wrapped in the same deceptive packaging that has camouflaged much of this administration`s forest policy. The most egregious example was the Forest Service`s disingenuous assertion that the new policy would allow logging on only 300,000 acres of the Tongass, or about 3 percent of the 9.6 million roadless acres that are earmarked for protection.

Though that is technically true, the actual ecological impact would be far greater. For one thing, those 300,000 acres include many of the forest`s oldest trees and most valuable watersheds, as well as an extraordinary collection of wildlife. It is no exaggeration to say that these acres constitute the forest`s biological heart. And because these acres are not all in one place, but are distributed among 50 different logging projects, the new roads required to reach them will inevitably violate even more of the forest.

The administration`s action is prelude to what is most likely to be an even broader assault on the roadless rule, which has been challenged in the courts by timber interests and six other states where logging is big business. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the rule; the 10th Circuit is reviewing a lower court`s decision rejecting the rule. But rather than wait for a resolution, the administration has indicated that it will move administratively to give individual governors the right to ignore the rule. That would seem to pre-empt the judicial process. It would also give a handful of state officials power over federal lands, which belong to all Americans.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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washingtonpost.com
U.S. Decisions On Iraq Spending Made in Private


By Jackie Spinner and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 27, 2003; Page A01


Iraqis spooked by rumors of a fuel shortage were hoarding the precious commodity, inadvertently causing exactly what they feared. Officials in charge of oil for the U.S.-led occupation government in Baghdad were worried that there would be riots if they didn`t do something to improve the situation fast. And so on Nov. 29, they went to Saddam Hussein`s former presidential palace and sought help.

By nightfall, they had received an emergency allotment of $425 million to import fuel from neighboring countries. Although it didn`t solve what appears to be a chronic fuel shortage, it did help avert a crisis.

The spending was approved by the 11-member Program Review Board, a mini-Congress of sorts for the occupation government in its power to allocate money. The board -- comprising mostly Americans, Britons and Australians -- was appointed by L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority. It uses Iraqi money that includes oil revenue and seized assets from the Hussein era to pay for projects not anticipated by the country`s budget. So far the board has approved more than $4 billion in such spending.

During its twice-weekly afternoon meetings, the board has approved more than 500 projects, including $120 million for printing and distributing currency, $36 million for renovating police stations, $15 million for a national microcredit program and $4 million for creating a radio system for the railroad network. It also has signed off on scores of smaller projects, including $3,500 to start a Baghdad theater festival, $50,000 to pay two zookeepers and $79,245 to reestablish the Baghdad stock exchange.

As the skeleton of an Iraqi government has been formed, the board has begun to hand off more of the responsibility for handling specific projects to the ministries. But the board still handles the overall allocations.

Of the billions of dollars appropriated or promised for the largest nation-building project since World War II, the Iraqi money doled out by Bremer and the Program Review Board is the least visible. Spending of the $18.6 billion the U.S. Congress approved this fall for Iraqi reconstruction will be overseen by an office run by a retired U.S. admiral. The $13 billion pledged from other countries will be monitored by an Iraqi-run oversight board.

Despite detailed regulations and pronouncements about "transparency," the Coalition Provisional Authority`s process for spending Iraq`s money has little of the openness, debate and paper trails that define such groups in democratic nations. Though the interim government has extensive information on its Web site, it doesn`t include, for example, when contracts have been awarded. Citing security concerns, it also doesn`t say what companies won them.

An international monitoring board, set up when the United Nations transferred money from the oil-for-food program to the occupation authority, is supposed to audit the Program Review Board`s work. But its formation was delayed for months and it is still being organized. It held its second meeting Monday. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has yet to appoint an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority, as Congress mandated.

The occupation authority`s legal standing has led to some confusion. For example, the General Accounting Office, which reviews federal contract disputes, said that because the CPA isn`t a federal agency it wasn`t sure it had the authority to review a protest lodged by a company that lost a bid for a reconstruction contract. The Pentagon inspector general, looking at the same issue, dropped it for the same reason.

"Our allies clearly expect there to be transparency in the process," said Christopher R. Yukins, a contracting expert and associate professor of government contract law at George Washington University Law School.

Meetings of the review board aren`t public and there are no transcripts. Abbreviated minutes of meetings since August have been posted on the Internet, but they do not include information on more than 200 projects approved from May to mid-August.

There`s no description of the discussions leading to a decision. There`s no explanation, for example, of why the board decided to spend $35,000 to remove the four busts of Hussein`s head at the presidential palace headquarters of the interim government or why it approved $194,370 for the Resalla High School but nothing for the Tigris Primary School next door or why it felt a $1.4 million allocation to support women`s centers would be beneficial to the Iraqi people.

Some contracts, mostly small ones, aren`t publicized and the only way to know one has been approved is through personal relationships with people who work in the occupation authority`s offices. The names of winning contractors are kept secret. And the limited amount of information available, how much money was allocated and for what general purpose, is available only in English, though the CPA says it is translating the minutes into Arabic.

Frederick D. Barton, a former official of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations, said it was essential for the occupation authority to start spending money as quickly as possible. "That money did not have the usual slow-me-down quality of U.S. government money," he said. "A lot of things got done. Obviously, there`s always an opportunity to question how that money got out. But if you spend time doing all your normal procedures, you`ll get people killed."

Officials also defend the review board`s procedures, noting that an independent auditor is being hired to review all transactions.

A Pentagon spokesman said the coalition can track the Iraqi money. "We`ve got accountability for it," said Maj. Joseph M. Yoswa. "It`s not like we`re letting it disappear."

CPA officials declined numerous requests for an on-the-record interview with someone who could talk about the process. In written answers to questions, the CPA said it "goes a long way beyond its legal requirements and is far more conscientious than many democratic governments in ensuring real transparency in its contracting and spending decisions."

The statement noted that in October, the board issued 52 contracts for a total of $57.4 million to Iraqi companies, 41 contracts for a total of $66.4 million to U.S. firms, and $86.2 million worth of contracts to companies in 19 other countries.

"Government" money is a complicated thing in the new Iraq. The Program Review Board is supposed to coordinate payments from all three major sources of money for reconstruction -- that appropriated by the U.S. Congress, the Iraqi money and foreign government pledges -- to make sure priorities are correct and that efforts aren`t duplicated. But it really controls only the Iraqi money.

The spending of U.S. money has been plagued by controversy. The Pentagon this month said a draft audit had found that a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. that is importing fuel may have overcharged the U.S. government by $61 million. But the use of money appropriated by Congress is restricted by regulations for competitive bidding and disclosure.

There are fewer controls over how the Iraqi money is spent.

For some "micro-purchases," contracts may be awarded without competition. For contracts from $5,000.01 to $25,000, bids can be taken orally.

The Program Review Board is chaired by Rodney G. Bent, a deputy from the Office of Management and Budget, but its membership has changed over time.

It has included Walter B. Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense; Olin L. Wethington, a former assistant secretary of Treasury; and Sherri Kraham, an assistant to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton and a former Iraq desk officer in the Clinton administration.

There is only one Iraqi member, Finance Minister Kamil Mubdir Gailani. According to minutes from 20 meetings from Aug. 12 to Nov. 8, he attended just one session. The CPA said it is working "to better accommodate everyone`s schedule."

Attendance at the meetings varies widely. On Nov. 29, when the board approved more than $440 million in contracts, eight of the 11 members were present. The next week, when the board allocated $1.2 million for oil field security, only five members were present and two more voted electronically. Only two people showed up for both meetings.

The CPA said "we endeavor to have a quorum" of voting members at each meeting.

Getting an audience before the Program Review Board often requires a confluence of good luck and good connections. There are thousands of proposals floating around, but only a few of them are seen by the board.

Some ideas come from local advisory councils. Others originate with the coalition military forces, the CPA staff or the various Iraqi ministries.

Program Review Board staff members vet the proposals presented during meetings, which last from five minutes to several hours. Sometimes there are one or two proposals to review, on other occasions there are eight or more.

Bremer has veto power over the allocations. On Nov. 15, for example, the board approved the use of $5.8 million to buy equipment and uniforms and to pay salaries for the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, but Bremer knocked it down to $1.7 million. More often than not, however, Bremer approves the board`s decisions.

Cha reported from Baghdad.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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U.S. troops secure the scene of a suicide car bombing in Baghdad Friday that killed only the attacker. Three soldiers were killed in incidents elsewhere.

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washingtonpost.com
Confessions of a Retrosexual


By Richard Cohen

Saturday, December 27, 2003; Page A25


Am I a metrosexual?

I`ve been asking everyone that question ever since I apparently became the last person in the world to discover the term. This happened last week when I came across the word seemingly a dozen times in various newspapers and wondered, if you`ll pardon my English, what the hell it meant. As an old Washington hand, I was doubly perplexed since Metro is what the subway is called in the nation`s capital. Is a metrosexual someone who has sex on the subway?

Somehow I knew this could not be the case -- you can`t even eat on the Washington Metro -- but knowing what it could not be still left me wondering what it is. Having spent the weekend with some young people, I asked them all and they all said they were not sure. It seemed that a metrosexual was a heterosexual man with certain homosexual characteristics -- such as cleanliness, I was told, or neatness, I was told, or a compulsion toward good grooming.

I then plunged into a computer database and discovered that the word "metrosexual" has appeared in print more than 1,000 times in the past year -- where was I when all this was happening? -- and that, true enough, it has something to do with going to the gym and having facials and caring about things that real men are not supposed to care about, like their appearance.

By now I was confused. It is true enough that I care about my appearance and that I pay a king`s ransom for a haircut and that I have my shoes shined almost compulsively and that I go to the gym, not every day, but often enough so that with any luck I will live forever. In all those ways, plus the narcissistic self-regard that is essential and common to all columnists, I am definitely and maybe even highly metrosexual.

On the other hand, I have never had a facial. It is simply out of the question and most definitely not why my grandfather came to this country. I also have never had a manicure, and while I feel less strongly about that than I do the facial, I don`t see it happening in the near future. I have had a massage -- but just once and then only because I was injured and in quite a bit of pain. Not that I complained, mind you.

If these are the qualities of a metrosexual, then my late Uncle Joe, a full partner in a very important accounting firm, was maybe the first. He had manicures and massages galore. He minded his appearance and had plenty of fine suits. He cared about food and knew how to tip waiters and captains and maitre d`hotels, which is as lost an art as tying a bow tie, another thing he could do. Yet he was an immigrant from Russia who never even went to college. Today maybe he would be called a metrosexual, but he, I`m sure, would just call himself a man.

Howard Dean pronounced himself a metrosexual and then characteristically said he wasn`t sure what that was -- but whatever it was, he wasn`t. Among politicians, Arnold Schwarzenegger may be the most metrosexual of them all, since no man ever paid more attention to his body -- except maybe Richard Simmons, another category altogether. Ronald Reagan is a metrosexual and so was Kemal Ataturk, a regular clotheshorse and ladies` man who single-handedly modernized Turkey.

Saddam Hussein, a dapper dictator in his salad days, was a metrosexual but emerged from his hole a pure heterosexual. Tim Russert is not a metrosexual, George Stephanopoulos is, Bill Clinton is an omnisexual, Ann Coulter is a psychosexual and Strom Thurmond was just a pig.

As for myself, I am still perplexed. I am a fervid fan of the late Cary Grant, who was the best-dressed actor ever to appear on the screen. (Just watch how his trouser pleats don`t open when he crouches on a rooftop in "To Catch a Thief.") All Italians are metrosexuals and some French are, but not the British, because, among other things, they can`t keep their socks up. For vacations, I prefer the Metrosexual Belt.

Still, what this makes me I cannot say. In going around and asking people, I got various answers until one young woman flat out told me that I am too old to be a metrosexual. That makes me a seniorsexual, I suppose -- a metrosexual on Lipitor -- and explains why I never got a facial.

I forgot.


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© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Eine Meinung aus Japan.

POINT OF VIEW/ Kaname Saruya: `American empire` may be on road to decline
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The United States has perennially subscribed to its pet concept of the ``good war.`` World War II, for example, was the epitome of the good and just cause to most Americans, pitting the courageous forces of democracy against the evils of fascism and totalitarianism. Simply stated, the American public tends to view conflicts that are plainly noble and correct as ``good wars.``

The Vietnam War failed to fit this pattern, with the ``righteous cause`` waxing more and more vague and suspicious as the fighting and dying wore on. This ambiguity prompted the rise of anti-war sentiment and grass-roots protests, with the United States ultimately withdrawing from the Southeast Asian nation in virtual defeat.

Three decades later, Robert S. McNamara, former U.S. secretary of defense and a key figure in the Vietnam War effort, published his memoirs of that era. McNamara candidly acknowledges the mistakes made by the U.S. government in Vietnam, in a book that offers a contrite and revisionist view of that controversial episode in American history.

We wonder how things would stand now if the current administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had truly taken to heart the lessons put into print so eloquently by McNamara. Would it have still plunged into the Iraq war with a passion and willingness to acutely estrange itself from the United Nations? As the months drag on, has not the noble cause for which this campaign was first waged grown progressively murky?

The United States is clearly the world`s only remaining superpower, boasting premier economic and military strength. As testimony to this might, America now accounts for 40 percent of global-wide defense-related spending.

Yet such dominance is also a prescription for arrogance, and the Bush administration has responded in kind. Since its inception, the words and deeds of this government have grown increasingly self-centered and perverse.

Under Bush, America has rapidly projected an attitude that causes even its closest allies and friends to shake their heads. Their egotism has prevented U.S. leaders from grasping the true scale of the anti-American emotion now spreading around the world.

In particular, anti-Americanism among the Arab countries has reached a level that simply cannot be ignored. The capture of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has failed to quell this hostility, and in fact harbors the danger of escalating the resistance to greater heights.

The ultimate fates of past world empires are grim at best. Rome, Britain and former superpowers that rose to global dominance eventually allowed their actions to squander the love and respect of all other countries, and gradually slid into decline.

For its part, the United States has excessively meddled in the affairs of numerous countries over the years. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 in 2001, former President Jimmy Carter noted that the strikes woke up many Americans to the reality that the United States has come to be widely despised by many people around the world.

America was once the shining source of respect and adoration from the people of the world. It is very sad, therefore, that today the United States seems resolved to becoming the world`s most reviled nation.

The United States is experiencing unprecedented change internally as well. In the national census of 2000, it was found that Mexicans and other Hispanics made up 12.5 percent of the entire population, African-Americans 12.3 percent and Asians 3.6 percent. Adding in other minority groups, the results indicate that minorities comprise close to 30 percent of the American public.

Forecasts are that this minority share will continue to rise from here on, with the makeup of the American populace as a whole clearly changing. At present it is tough to predict what inner transformations this shift will prompt, and in which direction American society will move.

I fear, however, that the current arrogant self-righteousness of the United States, which is increasingly causing the superpower to swerve from the path of international collaboration, will undermine the nation`s foundation if left unchecked. There is an ominous sensation that America is taking the first arrogant step down the road to decline, following in the footsteps of so many past global empires.

* * *

The author is a professor emeritus at Tokyo Women`s Christian University, specializing in U.S. history. He contributed this comment to The Asahi Shimbun.(IHT/Asahi: December 26,2003) (12/26)

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Four Bulgarian Soldiers Dead, Many Wounded in Iraq
Sat December 27, 2003 07:34 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four Bulgarian soldiers were killed and many other people were wounded in several bomb attacks on a military base and government buildings in southern Iraq, Polish defense officials said on Saturday.
"We know that in Kerbala...there were multiple attacks, (positions of) two coalition forces were attacked, also the university, city hall and the police station," a spokesman for Polish-led troops in the region said.

"Among coalition forces we have about 20 casualties but we don`t know the nationalities, or how many dead or wounded," he told Reuters. "We know nothing about civilian casualties."

Earlier, a defense ministry spokesman in Warsaw said that four Bulgarian soldiers had been killed in a mortar attack on their base in Kerbala.

"Information is still coming in, and so far all we know is that four Bulgarian soldiers were killed and many people have been wounded in the attack," said Colonel Adam Stasinski.

The area, home to several shrines holy to Iraqi Shi`ite Muslims, is under the control of a multi-national force that includes Bulgarian soldiers under Polish command.

Italian troops in the southern city of Nassiriyia last month were hit by a car bombing that killed 19 soldiers, the deadliest attack to date on countries that have answered a U.S. call to send troops to the country it invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.

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Published on Friday, December 26, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
From Baghdad: A Better World
by Kathy Kelly

BAGHDAD - December 25 - When I was in high school, I participated in a public speaking contest and was asked to present a humorous reading. I chose a passage from the book, The Joyous Season in which a young boy describes how his father dreads the Christmas season with the attendant demands to shop and socialize. I still remember the opening line: “Daddy always said that the best place to spend Christmas is in a Moslem country.”

Now, having spent several Christmases in Iraq, I`m amazed at how easily one can step into the drama of a light shining in the darkness which the darkness shall not overcome. Several days ago, next door to our home in Baghdad`s Karrada neighborhood, baby Noor was born. Her dark, damp, chilly home resembles a stable. Baby Noor’s grandmother begged us for a blanket in which to wrap the newborn. Her aunt, ten year old Eman, has no socks and no coat. She smiles as she shivers. Yet Abu Noor and Umm Noor, the proud young parents, are beaming with gratitude and pride as they hold up their newborn. Leaving their home, I realize that they are slightly better off than the family across the street. At least they have a roof overhead.

Our neighbors on the other side of the street are living in a junkyard, sheltered by flimsy construction. Looking out of our second floor window, Cynthia and I wept with chagrin during this morning`s downpour as we watched two young women navigate their way through garbage and mud puddles to collect clothing that had been hung outside. We call our home “the fridge” because with only 2-3 hours of electricity during most of the past four days our electric heaters don’t work. It’s a sheer act of will to wriggle out of a sleeping bag, cast aside blankets, and face a chilly bathroom and kitchen. Imagine the hardship for those living in tents and shanties.

Whether comfortable or forlorn, military or civilian, everyone in Baghdad is afflicted by the ongoing war. A Kenyan woman, Sylvia, has been emailing me encouraging messages for the past several months. Today she expressed distress over news of mayhem and bombing in Baghdad at Christmastime. "Even in World Wars, Christmas was a time when armies called for a ceasefire," wrote Sylvia. "I wonder if that only applied when both sides were Christian?" The sad irony here is that people in every neighborhood of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities braced themselves for the onset of Christmas and New Year holidays, expecting violence to rise.

As I write, mortar blasts and bombings have been going on for the past hour and now a wailing siren issues a warning for the Coalition Provisional Authority personnel. I can’t imagine where they or anyone else could go for shelter. As our friend Umm Heyder said, in Chicago, when we asked her thoughts about the capture of Saddam Hussein, “…the whole city is captured.”

Koranic and New Testament stories celebrate the journey three kings made, bearing gifts for the newborn Prince of Peace. Better for the rulers of today`s world and every merchant of death who serves them to stay away from the children.

Yes, the Christmas traditions, ranging from the shepherd`s generosity to Herod`s persecution, come alive here in Baghdad. The stories, if embraced, could teach us a better way. Peter Maurin, who helped found the Catholic Worker movement, wrote in one of his delightful "easy essays" that "the world would be better off if people would stop trying to become better off."

I am sure that many people worldwide share my friend Sylvia`s deep regret. I hope they are thinking of ways to stop paying for war. Most governments today do not want our bodies on the front lines of combat. They want our assent and our money. I hope millions are marking their calendars for March 20, 2004 and helping to plan demonstrations against the inconclusive war that began on March 20, 2003. And I hope all will feel the warmth and goodness of that light which shines bravely in Umm Noor`s shining eyes, as she stands barefoot on a cold, cement floor, joyfully cradling her newborn babe.

Kathy Kelly a co-coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness who is part of a Voices team visiting Iraq. [e-mail]
www.vitw.org / www.electroniciraq.net

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2003 Political Dot-Comedy Awards

Cast Your Votes Today
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldotcomedy2003.htm



We are proud to announce the nominees for About.com`s 4th annual awards competition saluting the best political humor on the Web. Please cast your ballots in the following categories:

Overall Humor | Web Cartoons
Satirical News | Parody | Bush Humor
Left-Wing News | Right-Wing News
Comic Strip | Late-Night TV Comedy

Winners will be announced on Jan. 7 in the new weekly Political Humor Newsletter, so feel free to sign up if you are not already subscribed.

And the Nominees Are…

Nochmals der Hinweis auf den Award und eine Probe von den Kandidaten:

Saturday, December 27, 2003
Joe Lieberman Admits To Being Part Muppet
12/9/2003 - Marni Malarkey

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Democratic leadership candidate Joseph Lieberman has admitted, after much rumour and innuendo, that he is part Muppet. "My mother left the Children`s Workshop when she was a teenager to try and make it in the human world. There she met my father and they fell in love."

Lieberman says he has been secretive in the past about his heritage because of the discrimination he faced as a child. "People can be very intolerant of Muppets, and I got into the habit of lying about it. But now, it`s time to be open, for my heritage is nothing to be ashamed of."

One of Lieberman`s rivals in the Democratic race, General Wesley Clark, told Chris Matthews on the MSNBC panel show "Hardball" that Lieberman`s comments were "a load of hooey." Clark was quick to say he had "nothing against" Muppets, and felt discrimination against them was "unacceptable and un-American" and that some of his "favourite Pentagon officials" were Muppets, but that it was clear to him Lieberman has been influenced throughout his career "by the powerful Muppet lobby in Washington."

Clark pointed out that Lieberman had voted for the "cookies-and-milk-Thursday" bill in 1998, which made it obligatory for the House and Senate to take a fifteen minute break every Thursday morning to have cookies and milk. He also reminded Matthews that Donald Rumsfeld and Lieberman had worked together "on a program to introduce singalongs to the people of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban" and that on the campaign trail Lieberman can often be heard humming "Which of these things does not belong."

It won`t be long, asserted Clark, before "a President Lieberman would be taking orders directly from Oscar the Grouch`s garbage bin."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-spangli…
COLUMN ONE
Die Latinos sind schon der zweitgrößte Teil der Bevölkerung noch vor den Schwarzen und sind weiter auf dem Vomarsch.


A Hybrid Tongue or Slanguage?
Spanglish, a mix of Spanish and English, is hip lingo to some -- including marketers -- but a mangling of two languages to others.
By Daniel Hernandez
Times Staff Writer

December 27, 2003

On a muggy Sunday afternoon at the Dueñas home in South Gate, mariachi music bumped from a boombox on the concrete in the driveway. The roasted smells of carne asada lingered over a folding picnic table, like the easy banter between cousins.

"Le robaron la troca con everything. Los tires, los rines," a visiting cousin said.

Translation: "They robbed the truck with everything. The tires, the rims."

"¿Quieres watermelon?" offered Francisco Dueñas, a 26-year-old housing counselor, holding a jug filled with sweet water and watermelon bits.



"Tal vez tiene some of the little tierrita at the bottom."

Translation: "Want watermelon? It might have some of the little dirt at the bottom."

When the Dueñas family gathers for weekend barbecues, there are no pauses between jokes and gossip, spoken in English and Spanish. They`ve been mixing the languages effortlessly, sometimes clumsily, for years, so much so that the back-and-forth is not even noticed.

Spanglish, the fluid vernacular that crosses between English and Spanish, has been a staple in Latino life in California since English-speaking settlers arrived in the 19th century. And for much of that time, it has been dismissed and derided by language purists — "neither good, nor bad, but abominable," as Mexican writer Octavio Paz famously put it.

But the criticism has done little to reduce the prevalence of Spanglish, which today is a bigger part of bilingual life than ever before.

Now it`s rapidly moving from Latino neighborhoods into the mainstream. Spanglish is showing up in television and films, with writers using it to bring authenticity to their scripts and to get racy language past network executives. Marketers use it to sell everything from bank accounts to soft drinks. Hallmark now sells Spanglish greeting cards. And McDonald`s is rolling out Spanglish TV spots that will air on both Spanish- and English-language networks.

In academia, once a bastion of anti-Spanglish sentiment, the vernacular is now studied in courses with names like "Spanish Phonetics" and "Crossing Borders." Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans published a Spanglish dictionary with hundreds of entries — from gaseteria (which means "gas station") to chaqueta (for "jacket," instead of the Spanish word "saco"). Stavans said new Spanglish words are being created all the time, altering traditional notions of language purity that remained strong just a generation ago.

Growing up, "I was told in school that you shouldn`t mix the languages," said Stavans, whose college plans to hold the first Conference of Spanglish in April. "There used to be this approach that if you use a broken tongue, you have a broken tongue. It`s not about broken tongues; it`s about different tongues, and they are legitimate. I think you`re going to see a lot more of that."

The rise of Spanglish says a lot about the demographic shifts in California and other states with large Latino populations.

Migration movements are traditionally accompanied by the mixing of the native language with the newly acquired one. Within a generation or two, the Old Country tongue — whether Polish, Chinese or Italian — usually recedes.

But unlike immigrants from Europe and Asia, Latinos are separated from their cultural homeland, not by vast oceans, but by the border with Mexico and the 90 miles between Cuba and the Florida Keys.

The Latino immigrant population is constantly replenishing itself. Meanwhile, Spanish-language media, such as industry giants Telemundo and Univision, continue to grow, which means that the immigrants` original language remains a force in the community.

Today, Spanglish is especially popular among young urban Latinos who are U.S.-born — people like Francisco Dueñas, who was raised in South Gate, lives in Echo Park and works in an office in South Los Angeles. Spanglish, he said, allows him to bridge two cultures: the largely Spanish-speaking world of his parents and the English-language world of work and friends.

"I think this Spanglish, being to go back and forth, it`s a way of saying, `Look, I can do both,` " Dueñas said. "And I think here in Los Angeles particularmente, it`s not necessary to speak just Spanish or English. No puedes describir la vida aquí [you can`t describe life here] without speaking both."

As Spanglish spreads, academics and marketers are finding that it`s much more complicated than simply forming sentences with both Spanish and English words.

The most basic part of Spanglish is "code-switching," in which someone inserts or substitutes words from one language into another. For instance, Spanglish might sound like "Vamos a la store para comprar milk." Translation: "Let`s go to the store to buy milk."

A more complicated form of Spanglish involves making up words — essentially switching languages within a word itself. It can happen when a word or phrase is translated literally, like perro caliente for "hot dog." In other instances, Spanglish is created when an English word is Hispanicized, such as troca or troque for "truck." Speakers might also add the -ear suffix to an English word to make it an improper Spanish verb: parquear, for "to park," for example.

Major regional differences have emerged. In Miami`s Little Havana, a Spanglish word for "traitor" is "Kenedito," a reference to exiles` hard feelings over President Kennedy`s failed Bay of Pigs invasion. In New York, Puerto Ricans refer to their home on the Lower East Side as "La Loisaida." In some parts of the Southwest, Spanglish speakers say "Ay te watcho" to bid someone farewell.

Just where the sudden popularity of code-switching will end is a matter of debate. Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First, a lobbying group opposed to bilingual education, which has railed against Spanglish, thinks the boom is a fleeting trend. He and other critics see Spanglish as a form of slang, not a new language.

"There`s always been some form of that," he said. "At one point, it was Yiddish, then the black urban slang, and now Spanglish is the new `in` thing."

But while academics try to break down Spanglish to understand how it is used, others say it`s a code so spontaneous that it`s impossible to fully unravel.

It`s "a state of mind," said San Diego cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, whose nationally syndicated strip "La Cucaracha" includes code-switching. "It`s the schizophrenia of trying to deal with two worlds in one."

That conflict has set off a debate among Latinos over whether the rise of Spanglish is a good thing.

Patrick Osio Jr., editor of the public affairs website HispanicVista.com, said Spanglish hinders, rather than helps, Latinos` upward mobility.

"A dialectical mixture of the two is not going to get you much anywhere," Osio said. "It may allow you to trade a few barbs with your neighbors and friends, but outside of that, you`re doomed."

Indeed, some parents fear their children are too barraged with both languages to adequately learn either.

Veronica Padilla, a 30-year-old mother of two, speaks English with her husband, Spanish with her mother and a mix of both with her children. Freely code-switching herself, Padilla said the results in her children`s speech, at least culturally speaking, are appalling.

For instance, her children can`t properly name basic Mexican foods.

"A las tortillas les dicen `tacos,` [they call tortillas `tacos`] can you believe it? Tacos!" Padilla said while shopping at Latino Factory, a specialty shop, at the Stonewood Shopping Center in Downey.

She shrugged. "That`s just the way we talk."

There is perhaps no better place to see how Spanglish is used — and marketed — today than the studios of KJLA-TV, a music programming network that bills itself as the first truly bilingual space on broadcast television for young Latinos.

LATV, as the station is known, broadcasts celebrity interviews as completely bilingual affairs. On a recent show, the hosts asked pop singer Juanes questions in English, and he responded in Spanish. The code-switching at times was fast and furious.

The programming director, Flavio Morales, said the use of Spanglish is purely spontaneous — the way the young people who watch the show actually talk. Morales simply assumes his audience can follow along. And among the 20-something employees at LATV, Spanglish is the norm.

"Hey, welcome back to Mex 2 the Max, ¿Que pasa calabasa?" Morales tells the audience during a music video program. "Check us out at LATV-punto-com, where we have a cool … cuarto de chat [chat room]."

Evelyn Casillas, a 19-year-old intern at LATV, said the station`s use of two languages reflects the upbringing of both the employees and the studio audiences, which are full of Latino teenagers from all over Los Angeles.

"My parents didn`t speak English so a fuerzas aprendí español," Casillas said without skipping a beat, explaining how she had been forced to learn Spanish growing up in her Mexican immigrant parents` home in Brea. "My mind just works that way."

"Like the word ansiosa," she added, wringing her hands together. "How can you explain that in English?"

Casillas could translate it as "anxious," but like other Spanglish speakers, she said that sometimes Spanish words just sound better — part of the fun of code-switching.

The bilingual banter has generated interest from advertisers who want to use Spanglish — and the perceived street authenticity that comes with it — to sell their products.

"The advertisers kept saying, `We want youth, we want Hispanic youth,` " said Yolanda Foster, vice president for marketing of mun2, a Miami-based bilingual music channel similar in format to LATV. The dialogue is mostly English with a Spanish twist — the way she believes many Latino teens speak among themselves.

"They speak English, but they flavor it, or season it, with Spanish terms," Foster said. "Everywhere I go, it`s like, `My God, finally, finally there`s something like this.` "

First-generation Latinos roughly between the ages of 14 and 28 represent the fastest-growing youth demographic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And an October study by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., found that most second-generation Latinos live in cities and tend to speak both Spanish and English.

"I see it more as a convergence of massive urban youth — it`s really an urban youth enchilada," said Tito Zamalloa, a multicultural marketing director at PepsiCo Inc., which recently led a marketing blitz for its Mountain Dew soft drink with the phrase "Toma this!" Toma translates to "drink" or "take."

A new TV advertisement for McDonald`s features young and attractive brown-skinned urbanites salivating over Big Macs while a rapper in the background rhymes, "As a matter of fact, te va encantar!" Translation: "You`ll love it!"

McDonald`s director of U.S. marketing, Max Gallegos, said the ad reflects a shift in the way the company markets itself to Latinos. For years, it produced Spanish-language ads aimed at young Latinos. But because of shifts in demographics, the fast-food giant is focusing more on acculturation with ads that mix references to two cultures.

"It`s a big difference … embracing the two cultures; that`s creating a mind-set of its own," Gallegos said.

And it`s not just advertisers who are turning to Spanglish to lend authenticity.

In "Kingpin," an NBC miniseries about a Mexican American drug cartel, the mostly bilingual actors were encouraged to improvise dialogue in some scenes presented entirely in Spanish. David Mills, the show`s creator, said the mix of English and Spanish dialogue matched the speaking patterns of the people the characters were based on — giving the program a realistic feel.

On Nickelodeon`s popular "Dora the Explorer" cartoon, Dora greets toddler viewers with a cheery "Hola" at the start of each episode and introduces Spanish words throughout the show.

Spanglish — used famously by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he said, "Hasta la vista, baby" in "Terminator 2" — is now showing up in more sustained dialogue in movies like "Real Women Have Curves" and the "Spy Kids" trilogy.

Director James L. Brooks is now filming his next romantic comedy, about a Mexican woman who arrives in Los Angeles looking for love and money. The title: "Spanglish."

Susana Chavez-Silverman, who teaches Spanglish texts in courses at Pomona College and whose memoir about speaking Spanglish during a stay in Argentina will be published next year, said the spread of Spanglish is more than just a linguistic lark.

"This never would`ve happened 20 years ago, when the idea of multiculturalism wasn`t in, the idea of cultural ambiguity wasn`t in," she said. "Now it is, and a certain acceptance of Spanglish is a symptom of that."

It`s an acceptance that is echoed, more or less, back at the Dueñas home, where matriarch Petra Dueñas, 63, said the way her family speaks simply shows that the younger ones were raised in an English-speaking world by Spanish-speaking parents. "Since they were little, we taught them Spanish and in school they learned English," she said in Spanish.

Petra Dueñas proudly said she didn`t mix languages. She has spent decades in Los Angeles, learning some English, but she insisted most of her daily life happens exclusively in Spanish.

But as she explained what her husband does for a living, the reach of Spanglish became clear. Her husband, she said, operates "un troque que arregla los trailers cuando se ponchan en los freeways."

Translation: "A truck that fixes trailers when they break down on freeways."

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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What a Tangled Web the Neocons Weave
by Jim Lobe
December 23, 2003


While most of the world is still trying to come to terms with the neo-imperial ambitions of the post-Sept. 11 Bush administration, U.S. political analysts, particularly those on the libertarian right and the left, have been trying to map out the various forces behind the administration`s hawks in order to better understand and counteract them.

Most analysts have identified three main components to the coalition behind Bush`s aggressive foreign policy: right-wing militarists, of whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is the exemplar; neo-conservatives, led by former Defense Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard Perle, whose worldview is similar to that of Israel`s Likud Party; and Christian Right forces whose leaders are influential with Bush`s political guru, Karl Rove.

While these forces are often depicted in the abstract, they constitute a network of flesh-and-blood people who have worked together closely and openly – both in and out of government – for more than 30 years in some cases.

Over that period, they built up what analyst Tom Barry of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) has called an "infrastructure of the (right-wing) counter-establishment," of key individuals, institutions, think tanks and publications that has emerged as the dominant power in the Republican Party – and not only with respect to foreign policy.

Two of the structure`s most remarkable characteristics are how few people it includes and how adept they have been in creating new institutions and front groups that act as a vast echo chamber for each other and for the media, particularly in media-obsessed Washington.

In this, the neo-conservatives, who lack any grassroots constituency, have been especially effective.

In fact, the network consists of a very small elite, much smaller for example than the post-World War II internationalist "establishment" that includes such institutions as the Council on Foreign Relations, the foreign service and the Wall Street lawyers, financiers and business executives who have long dominated US foreign policy.

To understand its dimensions and the way it works, Barry and the IRC (for which this author has written articles for compensation) compare it to a spider`s web – hence the name of their latest Internet website, Right Web,http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ probably the most comprehensive and integrated effort yet to link the various connections and relationships that have given the ”Right” its power and influence.

The site, which is still being developed, covers some 175 individuals and dozens of organizations that have constituted the network over the past quarter century. Even a brief meander through the site demonstrates both just how small and incestuous this network has been and how ambitious are its goals, both in foreign and domestic policy.

Chances are, for example, that you have never heard of the Foundation for Community, Faith-Centered Enterprise, an innocent-sounding initiative that suggests church-based community organizing or perhaps a philanthropic group that awards grants to church-related business initiatives.

In fact, the foundation and its sister group, Americans for Community and Faith-Centered Enterprise, were founded in mid-2001 by Michael Joyce, a right-wing king pin who helped turn the Bradley Foundation into the rainmaker of an ever-growing network of institutes, publications and think tanks.

Joyce told the Washington Post in June 2001 that he launched the two groups at the behest of Rove, who was looking for ways to bolster public support for Bush`s efforts to fund religious organizations that provide social services.

If you look more closely at the group`s profile on the website, you`ll get a better idea of how this two-year-old organization fits into the larger network of the US right.

Its associates include William Kristol, the editor of Rupert Murdoch`s Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and another neo-conservative, former education secretary William Bennett, for whom Kristol once worked.

Midge Decter, another prominent neo-conservative who co-headed (with Rumsfeld) the Committee for the Free World during the Reagan administration, currently serves on the foundation`s board of visitors, while Jeffrey Bell, former president of another neo-conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute, serves as the group`s Washington lobbyist.

You will find further that all of these individuals have supported the work of PNAC, which played a key role in pushing Bush to war in Iraq, and whose founding statement in 1997 was signed by Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and more than half a dozen other top Bush foreign-policy figures, all identified as key hawks.

If you click on a different group, say Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT), you might expect to find a different cast of characters. But this group is headed by Bennett, and among its associates and advisers are L. Paul Bremer, currently the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq; Center for Security Policy (CSP) Director Frank Gaffney; real estate baron Lawrence Kadish; and former CIA director James Woolsey.

If you click on each of these names, you will find that they all have supported PNAC, and when you read Gaffney`s profile you will see that he, like Perle, once worked for Washington State Senator Henry Jackson and, indeed, for Perle himself, when the "Dark Prince" toiled at the Pentagon under Reagan.

If you then click on CSP`s name, you will soon discover that it is one of the country`s most hard-line foreign-policy groups, and has consistently opposed arms control treaties; favored the retention and expansion of Washington`s nuclear arsenal; warned of a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal; and served as a major backer of Likud`s policies in the Middle East.

You will also find an astonishing overlap between its board of advisers, PNAC associates and top Bush national-security officials – and that it is funded heavily by big defense contractors.

If, on the other hand, you opt for Woolsey, a frequent guest on Murdoch-owned Fox News, you will find that the former CIA chief is currently a member with Perle of the DPB, works for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, has supported PNAC, acts as CSP`s honorary co-chair and served on the Rumsfeld Commission on the ballistic-missile threat.

Woolsey also worked with the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), whose bland name disguises a band of nuclear-weapons zealots that has long advocated developing new nukes, smaller nukes, bunker-busting nukes and Star Wars.

As depicted by the site, Woolsey also served on the Advisory Board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group set up 13 months ago in much the same way that Americans for Community, Faith-Centered Enterprise was – to support Bush`s drive to war.

Besides Woolsey, other directors included several other DPB members, including Perle, Eliot Cohen, General Wayne Downing and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as well as Kristol and about a dozen people also associated with PNAC.

If you click on Perle, whose principal perch is the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), along with Gingrich and former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, you are likely to find yourself occupied for some time. Ditto for Kristol, whose offices are located just five floors below AEI, close to 17th and L Streets in Washington.

Despite the centrality of both Perle and Kristol, however, the genius of the right`s network, as noted by Barry, is its improvisational "architecture."

"Rather than operating from a single blueprint, they constantly renovate and commission additions in the form of new institutes, front groups, media outlets and political projects," he says. "It`s a postmodern structure with no central office or main lobby, no fixed foundation, no elevator that takes you to different levels."

Compared to its vitality and breadth, according to Barry, its ideological foes on the left, or even in the middle, "resemble aging cobwebs."

(Inter Press Service)


Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe122303.html

[Joerver]

Tonight on Fox: The Saddam Show

By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org
December 26, 2003

Editor`s Note: The following essay is intended as a satire. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.


One of my CIA interrogators (I call him the good cop, inshallah) was very kind to agree to get this message to you. As you know, I have now been moved from one lair to another. They, of course, want me to speak, and speak I will. But as you and I know, in this world, nothing is free anymore, especially speech.


I still remember with pleasure the many "considerations" that your Fox News Channel provided our Ministry of Information. You got visas. You got access. I even let Geraldo in against my better judgment. (I drew the line at O`Reilly!) And I don`t think we disappointed you. Fox is "Number One," thanks to the war in Iraq and the role I played in making it appear to have been a real conflict. A "Showdown with Saddam" (smile, smile, wink, wink)!


How many of your viewers did I scare straight to their TV sets? Plenty. How many switched the channel? Very few. I was pleased to read that Fox was again "Number One" in the coverage of my "capture." Did you like the beard? The stuck-in-the-hole thing? I thought you would.


So I have a proposal that will benefit us both. What good am I to your viewers dead? Having me around will keep them coming back. And why stop at news coverage? You showed that even a convicted felon like Oliver North could be rehabilitated with a TV slot. Why not me?


I am sure you know that the man you called "comical Ali," my Minister of Information Al-Sahhaf (I loved the beret. Picked it out myself), now has his own talk show on Abu Dhabi TV. And, praised be the One I praise, it is doing great across all demographics. He lost one job and gained another. He is famous for being famous.


I am sure, inshallah, I could do even better for Fox.


The Saddam Show would send your ratings through the roof. Imagine the calls, the hype, and the publicity for a show with the man everyone loves to hate. Think of the promos: "He`s Bad and He`s Back!" Dun, dun, dun. If the show works, we might discuss devoting an entire channel to me. The Pentagon considered the last one I had so powerful that they had to blow our TV station up to tune us out. It drew big numbers then, and it can again.


Please share this proposal with Mr. Murdoch. Give me a year`s guaranteed contract in prime time and I will continue to make TV history for you. You and I both know that bad guys do better. I tried to raise this idea of a TV special starring Bush and me when I spoke with Dan Rather before the war, but he just didn`t get it. What do liberals know? CNN was never grateful for all we did for them either. They made a fortune thanks to the first Gulf War.


Now it is your turn. I know you, and you alone, have the "contacts" to get me out of here.


Don Rumsfeld will hate the idea to begin with, but, henny penny, he can be brought around. Chalabi could become my Fred McMann. I`ve already talked to him.


Alas, I have no agent at the moment, but I will be happy to become yours. No price is too low. And as you know I passed my last health check: the world knows I have no bugs in my hair or WMD in my mouth. You are beating CNN in America. With me in the line up, you can do the same all around the world.


Sorry, but I have to go now. The sodium pentothal is ready.


All praises to thy name. Foxes are always Number One!


Saddam.


PS: Save the signature. You can always auction it off on E-Bay.


Danny Schechter writes a daily blog for MediaChannel.org. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception – how the media failed to cover the war on Iraq. (Prometheus)

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Iraq

Reconstruction`s Bottom Line

by Herbert Docena; Asia Times Online; December 26, 2003

Nine months after the invasion, deteriorating living conditions marked by constant lack of electricity, a severe gasoline shortage, and massive unemployment highlight the failure of the US-led reconstruction of Iraq. While insecurity and incompetence are partly to blame, the problems could be more adequately explained by the US and its contractors` determination to hang on to as big a portion of the post-war bounty as possible.

BAGHDAD Even if the occcupation were working perfectly well, it would still be wrong. This has become trite commentary among Iraqis who bitterly want the occupation to fail but, at the same time, also earnestly hope that the reconstruction of their country succeeds. Still, no matter how successful the occupiers try to make the reconstruction go right, the US and its corporations still have no right staying here.

What seems to be exasperating Iraqis more, however, is that they`re not even trying.

NO LIGHTS, NO GAS, NO PAYCHECKS

At night, most of downtown Baghdad is still clad in darkness, with only the blue and red police sirens lighting the streets and the only the sound of intermittent gunfire puncturing the silence definitely not a picture of a festive newly liberated capital. With most of Iraq suffering from power interruptions lasting an average of 16 hours daily, it`s a little hard to party in the dark. How many US soldiers does it take to change a light bulb?
About 130,000 so far but don`t hold your breath.

South of the city, a double-columned queue of cars stretched up to three kilometers in length snake around street blocks, and cross a bridge over the Tigris, before finally terminating at a barb-wired gasoline station protected by a Humvee and an armored tank. Come closing time, so as not to abandon the queue and line up all over again the following day, most of the car owners decide to leave their vehicles parked overnight a nightly vigil for gasoline in a country with the world`s second largest reserves of oil.

During the day, some of Iraq`s 12 million unemployed hang out in front of Checkpoint 3 of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The chances of an American coming out of their version of Saddam`s spider hole and handing resumes is next to nil but they come every day anyway. Others try their luck loitering at the hotel lobbies, besieging journalists or NGO workers in need of drivers and translators.

With many unemployed former university professors, engineers, and civil servants choosing to become cab drivers instead, Baghdad probably has the most educated taxi drivers per square kilometer in the world today. Strike up a conversation and the cabbies will most likely tell you what seems to have become the conventional wisdom today: not even Saddam could have screwed up this badly.

FRUSTRATED BEYOND BELIEF

Not that they want him back but neither could they have expected the occupation forces to completely bungle up such simple tasks as switching back the light. The lack of power is most Iraqis number one gripe but the list is long: uninstalled phone lines, shoddily repaired schools, clogged roads, uncollected garbage, defective sewage, a nonexistent bureaucracy, mass unemployment and widespread poverty the general unexpected chaos that Iraq still is today.

Iraqis are in broad agreement that life is deteriorating rather than improving. The prevailing sentiment is a complex mix of resentment and resignation, frustration and incredulity. On the one hand, Iraqis feel bitter about being occupied and yet many are resigned to entrusting their day-to-day survival at the hands of the Americans. On the other hand, they could not quite believe how despite all the time and money the world`s sole superpower can`t make the reconstruction process go right.

For it`s part, the US says the Iraqis are expecting too much too soon. `The bottleneck is sheer time,` explained Ted Morse, the CPA`s coordinator for the Baghdad region. `Wherever you have had a true conflict situation, there is an impatience in that people think it can be done immediately. It cannot.`

But Iraqis themselves have showed that it can. In 1991, after the first Gulf War and despite the UN-imposed sanctions, it took Iraq`s bureaucrats and engineers only three months to restore electricity back to pre-war capacity, boasted Janan Behman, manager of Baghdad`s Daura power station. Now after almost nine months and despite the involvement of Bechtel, builders of the Hoover Dam and some of the world`s biggest engineering works Iraq`s power sector is still only producing less than 20% or 3,600 MW out of the 20,000 MW required. A daily power interruption of two to three hours would be acceptable after nine months, but 16 hours?

IT`S THE STUPIDITY, STUPID

The occupation forces would not admit this, of course, but much of the problem could be attributed to the successful efforts of the resistance to ensure that nothing works as long as an illegal occupation stays in place.

The resistance has kept the authorities too busy dodging bombs to spare time for such trifling matters as providing Iraqis with jobs. With the resistance targeting not just combatants but also those profiting from the occupation, it`s a little too much to expect contractors to go out of their tightly guarded bubbles and move around.

Bechtel employees, for example, only travel in military helicopters or armed convoys with at least one designated `shooter` in every vehicle.[1] Now unless they find a way of transporting the power plants to the trailer camps where Bechtel employees live averse as they are from going to the plants themselves, nothing much would really get done.

A lot of the mess could also be attributed to the sheer incompetence and lack of experience of the people running Iraq. Much has been said about how the administrators housed in the Green Zone have little or no experience whatsoever in public administration. There have also been various reports about the confusion and lack of coordination among the different agencies involved. Moreover, as in previous colonial administrations, it is often difficult to entice the best and the brightest to pack up, leave everything behind, relocate to some far-flung hardship post only to be welcomed with guns.

HIDING THE MOON

But insecurity and incompetence while part of the complete and complex picture do not go far enough in explaining why the reconstruction effort has so far been an evident failure.

First, while only 1% of those surveyed in a recent Gallup poll buy the line that the US came to establish democracy, majority of the Iraqis are not actively fighting the occupation. While the resistance is growing, this is not an intifida yet. While a mere 6% of those surveyed believed the US are here to help [2], Iraqis who are in the position to assist in the reconstruction effort actually want to make it work not so much to prop up the occupying forces, they say, but to ensure that oil and electricity are kept available. Iraqis may not necessarily like the Americans but they would sure like some hot water in the morning this winter.

`If this is the system, then I have to follow,` said Dathar al-Khshab, general director of the Daura oil refinery said. It`s the only way to keep things moving then so be it, he said, echoing other utilities managers. Rank and file oil industry workers are likewise hesitant to shut down the refineries as a bargaining chip for negotiations and as a tactic to undermine the occupation. On the one hand, they know that this could paralyze the Americans. On the other, they are afraid of its effect on the Iraqi people. But asked whether they support the coalition forces, Hassan Jum`a, leader of the Southern Oil Compamy union, was firm: `You can`t hide the moon. Every honest Iraqi should refuse the occupation.`

LIKE DOGS

The charge of incompetence is not completely convincing either because, for all the allegations of unfair competition and shadowy connections, it would be difficult to accuse Bechtel or Halliburton of not knowing what it is doing.

With projects scattered all over the globe, Bechtel is one of the world`s biggest construction firms and it has achieved some of history`s most awesome engineering feats. Halliburton, on the other hand, has been repairing oil wells and refineries around the world for decades. Even Iraqi officials readily acknowledge that, technically speaking, they should be in good hands with these American contractors. As the grudging respect gradually gives way to disappointment, Iraqis are even more baffled as to how these corporations could fail their expectations.

Another popular explanation making the rounds alleges that sabotaging the reconstruction is a conscious and deliberate effort on the part of the occupation forces to make the Iraqis completely dependent and subservient.

Keeping a dog hungry not only keeps it from barking, it also makes the dog follow its master anywhere.

The problem with this theory is that due to the relatively decentralized reconstruction process involving dozens of contractors and subcontractors, an explicit order for deliberate failure would have been almost impossible to secretly enforce. Moreover, faced with a mounting resistance, this tactic could be extremely risky because it undermines the effort to `win hearts and minds.` Keeping a dog hungry could also turn it desperate and rabid.

The answer to the mystery of why the reconstruction has so far been botched up could be less sinister in that it is not a deliberate tactic and more charitable in that it does not assume that the occupying forces are that stupid.

MADE IN THE USA

A clue lies at the Najibiya power station in Basrah, Iraq`s second largest city located south of Baghdad. Sitting uninstalled between two decrepit turbines were massive brand new air-conditioning units shipped all the way from York Corporation in Oklahoma. Pasted on one side of each unit was a glittering sticker proudly displaying the `Made in USA` sign complete with the stars and stripes.

It`s just what the Iraqis don`t need at this time. Since May, Yaarub Jasim, general director for the southern region of Iraq`s electricity ministry, has been pleading with Bechtel to deliver urgently needed spare parts for their antiquated turbines. `We asked Bechtel many times to please help us because the demand for power is very high and we should cover this demand,` Jasim said. `We asked many times, many times.`

Two weeks ago, Bechtel finally came. Before it could deliver any of Jasim`s request, however, Bechtel transported the air-conditioners useless until the start of summer six months from now.

But even if the air-con units become eventually useful, stressed plant manager Hamad Salem, other spare parts would have been much more important.

The air-conditioners, Salem pointed out, were not even in the list of the equipment and machine components that they submitted to Bechtel.

NO STARS AND STRIPES

Ideally, said Jasim, it would be best to get the spare parts from the companies that originally built the turbines because they would be more readily available and more suitable for their technology. Unfortunately, Jasim pointed out, Iraq`s generators happened to have been provided by companies from France, Russia, and Germany the very countries banned last week by the Pentagon from getting contracts in Iraq as well as Japan. Upon inspection, it was clear that the turbines don`t carry the stars and stripes logo. The dilapidated turbines in Najibiya, for example, still proudly wore `Made in USSR` plates.

Why then have the required components not been delivered? Jasim replied dismissively, as though the answer was self-evident: `Because no other company has been allowed by the US government, only Bechtel.`

Unlike those of the other banned corporations, Bechtel carries the requisite brand. Since its founding, Bechtel`s officials have had a long and very cozy relationship with and within the state now disbursing the billion-dollar contracts. For example, Bechtel board member George Schultz was former Treasury Secretary to Nixon, State Secretary to Reagan, and coincidentally enough chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Also once included in Bechtel`s payroll were former Central Intelligence Agency chief John McCone, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Jack Sheehan.

GRAND BUSINESS PLANS

Awaiting urgent rehabilitation, Iraq`s French, Russian, German, and Japanese-made power infrastructure is slowly disintegrating. At the station, workers are trying to make full use of the turbines by cooking pots of rice on the surface of the rusting hot pipes. If the stations are not rehabilitated any time soon, repairs will no longer be enough to keep them running, warned Jasim.

To finally end Iraq`s crippling power shortage and to ensure that the turbines are not completely degraded, Bechtel should either quickly manufacture the required spare parts itself a very long and very costly process, buy the spare parts from the Russian company directly, or hire the Russian firm as a subcontractor. That or they just allow the crumbling turbines to turn completely useless. Then, they bid for building new billion-dollar power generators themselves.

Incidentally, part of Bechtel`s contract includes making "roadmaps for future longer term needs and investments." In other words, Bechtel is currently being paid to determine what the Iraqis will `need` to buy in the future using the Iraqis and the US taxpayers` money. According to independent estimates, Bechtel stands to get up to $20 billion worth of reconstruction contracts in the next few years. [3]

If Bechtel has grander plans for Iraq`s power sector, however, they`re not telling the Iraqis. The utilities managers interviewed said they are not being consulted at all regarding Iraq`s strategic energy plans. Bechtel officials don`t even bother to explain what`s taking them so long to deliver the parts they need. `They just collect papers,` said Jasim.

AN INCENTIVE TO FAIL

Iraq`s power sector problem is illustrative of the bigger pattern.

Iraqis spend up to five hours lining up for gasoline not only because of the sabotage of pipelines but also because there`s limited electricity to run oil refineries that are crying for quicker action from Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR), the Halliburton subsidiary and contractor for rehabilitating the oil infrastructure. According to workers from the South Oil Company in Basrah, which KBR is obliged to rehabilitate, they are not aware of any repairs KBR has actually undertaken.

With Iraq`s oil refineries still awaiting rehabilitation, Iraq cannot refine enough crude oil to meet domestic consumption. The US is instead exporting Iraq`s crude oil and employing KBR under a no-bid cost-plus-fixed fee contract to import gasoline from neighboring Turkey and Kuwait.

Last week, an official Pentagon investigation revealed that KBR is charging the US government more than twice what others are paying for imported gasoline. What was left unsaid, however, is the conflict of interest inherent in hiring KBR for both the oil infrastructure reconstruction and the oil importation. If Iraq`s pipelines and refineries were suddenly fully functional and Iraq is able to produce all the oil it needs, it would be the end of KBR`s lucrative oil-importing business.

There has been no evidence that KBR is deliberately delaying the repair the refineries, only that there is an obvious disincentive to speed things up.
There is a serious but overlooked clash of incentives when the same company tasked to revive the oil industry is simultaneously making money from a condition in which that industry stays in tatters.

NO MONEY AT ALL?

Just outside the CPA headquarters, a small unorganized group of employees of the former regime gathered and unfurled their banner: `We Need our Salaries Now.` They were demanding 10 months worth of back-wages. `We thank you because you saved our lives from Saddam. But we want to live so you should help us,` their unofficial spokesperson, Karim Hassin, said indignantly, addressing the unresponsive 10-foot high wall protecting the compound. `Paul Bremer promised us salaries. We heard it with our own ears. What happened to these promises?`

A day after that the Pentagon`s investigation on KBR was publicized, 300 soldiers walked out of the US-created 700-member New Iraqi Army decrying unreasonably low wages. Most of the deserters were recruited from Saddam`s former army but for only $50 a month, they had decided to transfer their allegiance to the occupation forces. Trained by the military contractor Vinnell Corporation, their only demand from their new masters was a raise in pay to $120 a month. That would have amounted to a mere monthly increase in spending of only $49,000 small change put beside the US` $4 billion monthly military spending in Iraq and a miniscule amount compared to the $61 million in overcharges by KBR.

Hearing about all these developments, it would appear as though the occupation forces have come to liberate Iraq on a really tight budget. The common refrain of the Iraqis who have chosen to work with the US-installed bureaucracy, is that there is no quid. Pressed to explain the failure of his ministry to significantly increase power, for example, Iraq`s electricity chief, Ayhem Al-Samaraie, grudgingly admitted: `I have no money in my ministry at all.`

Indeed, a quick visual survey of Baghdad from the unkempt streets, the aging machines, the raging workers to the unbelievably long lines for gasoline makes this explanation for Iraq`s reconstruction problems sound almost convincing. That the reconstruction effort is in shambles because there is no money almost seems plausible.

NONE FOR IRAQ, BILLIONS FOR BECHTEL

But it isn`t. Last November, the US Congress eventually passed Bush`s $87 billion request for Iraq with nary a fuss. Before that, the US had already spent $79 billion for both Iraq and Afghanistan. On top of this, the US also has complete control of the UN-authorized Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) which contains all of the former government`s assets as well as past and future revenues from Iraq`s oil exports, including leftover from the UN Oil for Food Program.

By the end of the year, the DFI would have given the occupation forces access to a total of $10 billion in disposable funds.[4] Though control would be less direct, the occupation forces can also tap a few more billions from the estimated $13 billion grants and loans raised during the Madrid donors` conference on Iraq last October.

On paper, the amount that will be paid to contractors like Bechtel will come from US taxpayers` money. In practice, however, all that is being spent on Iraq`s reconstruction is mixed in a pot containing the US` and other coalition-member countries` grants plus the Iraqis` own funds.

So there`s money; it`s just not going around. And here perhaps lies the solution to the mystery of how the world`s superpower and the world`s biggest corporations can`t even begin to put Iraq together again after almost nine months: The reconstruction is less about reconstruction than about making the most money possible.

Firms like Raytheon, Boeing, and Northrop Gruman will get their fair share of the $4 billion that the US is spending monthly on military expenses in Iraq; but there will not be an extra dime for the New Iraqi Army recruits.

Bechtel`s useless Oklahoma-made air-conditioners will be paid under the $680 million no-bid contract; but there will be no money for the direly needed Russian-made components for Najibiya`s turbines. Halliburton and its subcontractors creamed off $61 million dollars importing oil from Kuwait; but there will be no pay-raise for Iraq`s oil refinery workers.

While the US finds it increasingly harder to raise funds for the occupation, there is still enough money for the most critical aspects of the reconstruction. Those profiting from it, however, are determined to keep the biggest share possible to themselves. The bottom-line of the reconstruction mess is the bottom-line: little gets done because contractors could not see beyond the dollar sign.

THE BUSINESS OF MAKING MONEY

`The profit motive is what brings companies to dangerous locations. But that is what capitalism is all about,` Richard Dowling, spokesperson of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that contracted KBR, explained. `If it takes profit to motivate an organization to take on a tough job, we can live with that. Yes, there`s a profit motive but the result is the job gets done.`

The problem is, as evidenced most clearly by the case of Bechtel and KBR, the job is not even getting half-done. Profit-maximization has not resulted in the most efficient restoration of power and oil production possible. On the contrary, it gets in the way of doing things right. The power plants will eventually be built and the oil refineries will run again, but not after unnecessary deprivation on the part of Iraqis and not after Bechtel has made the most of the opportunity.

This war to liberate Iraq was never about liberating the Iraqis.

Unsurprisingly then, the reconstruction effort is also not about reconstruction. In this occupation, the US and its allies` primary goal is not to rebuild what they have destroyed; it`s to make a fast buck.

Contractors like Bechtel and KBR are assured of getting paid no matter what; that the power plants will eventually be constructed is just incidental. They will be built in order to justify the pretext for the profit-making: that a war had to be waged and that everything that was destroyed have to be rebuilt.

As Stephen Bechtel, the company`s founder, once made clear, `We are not in the construction and engineering business. We are in the business of making money.` Billed as the biggest rebuilding effort since World War II, the reconstruction of Iraq is expected to cost $100 billion some even say $200 billion -- depending on how long they stay. For the post-war contractors, this is not a reconstruction business; it is a hundred-billion-dollar bonanza.

NOT EVEN TRYING

The US and its contractors are not even trying for a simple reason: it`s not the point. To assume that they are striving but are merely failing because of factors beyond their control is to presuppose that there is an earnest effort to succeed. There isn`t. If there were, there should have been a coherent plan and process in which the welfare of the Iraqis and not of the corporations actually comes first. Instead, the Iraqis` need for electricity comes after Bechtel`s need for billion-dollar projects. The Iraqis need for decent living wages becomes relevant only after Halliburton has maximized its profits.

Indeed, if there were a sincere attempt to succeed, the US as responsible occupying powers should have had no qualms giving Iraqis what many empathically say they need to finally make thing`s work: the authority and the resources. `If only the money and spare parts were provided,` Jasim said, `we could do a surgical operation.` `If I`m going to do it without KBR, I can do it,` said Al-Khshab. `We have been doing this for the past thirty years without KBR. Give me the money and give me the proper authority and I`ll do it.` But the US won`t because who knows what the Iraqis would do. Ask the Russians to repair their power plants? Actually succeed in reconstructing their country without the involvement of Bechtel and Halliburton?

The US taxpayers are not parting with billions of dollars of their hard-earned pay to give away to some lucky Russian firm. US and coalitions soldiers are not sacrificing their lives to protect the wussy French. The US did not liberate Iraq in order to let the long disempowered Iraqis rebuild their own country.

As the reconstruction process continues to disillusion Iraqis, the myth that the US is here to help is also steadily collapsing. With no light, no gasoline, and no paychecks, more and more Iraqis are no longer just cursing the darkness. `If you want to live in peace, Americans, give us our salary,` warned Hassim, the Iraqi protesting at the gates of the CPA. `If you do not, next time we`ll come back with weapons.`

(Herbert Docena (herbert at focusweb.org <mailto:[e-mail]> ) is with Focus on the Global South and the Iraq International Occupation Watch Center (www.occupationwatch.org.)

NOTES:
[1] Steve Schifferes, `The challenge of rebuilding Iraq,` BBC News Oct 21,
2003
[2] Walter Pincus, `Skepticism About U.S. Deep, Iraq Poll Shows,` Washington Post, November 12, 2003 [3] Elizabeth Becker, `Companies From All Over Seek a Piece of Action Rebuilding Iraq,` New York Times, May 21, 2003 [4]Christian Aid, `Iraq: The Missing Billions: Transition and Transparency in Post-War Iraq` Briefing Paper for the Madrid Donor`s Conference, October 23-24, 2003

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [e-mail] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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ABC (Australia) Radio Interviews Gore Vidal
Wednesday 24 December 2003

Given his extremely dark interpretation of America`s foreign policy, how does Gore Vidal see America itself?

Gore Vidal einer der großen alten Männer der USA, Schriftsteller, kritischer Denker und Kritiker der Bush-Clique, hat auch selbst mal für den Senat kandidiert, Al Gore ist sein Großneffe.
Er ist vor kurzem wieder voll in die USA zurückgekehrt, hatte lange Zeit in Ravello(Italien) gelebt:

CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200312/r13704_33111.asx

Transcript: PM - Wednesday, 24 December , 2003 18:10:00
Reporter: Monica Attard
HAMISH ROBERTSON: As part of the ABC summer season, we present a Current Affairs Special.

Gore Vidal, once described as the United States` last small-r Republican, found himself in the lead-up to the war with Iraq railing against what he calls the Bush-Cheney junta. America, he said, had made meddling in the affairs of other nations its "reason for being."

He went further, maintaining that without a constant perception of threat, the world`s last super-power can`t function. It is, he said, a law of nature that there`s no action without reaction and the United States had September 11th coming!

Gore Vidal even went so far as to suggest that the attacks may well have been a gift to the Bush administration - a gift which allowed the United States to go after Osama bin Laden and after Saddam Hussein, the two men it perceived as obstacles to the super power`s imperial ambition.

So, given his extremely dark interpretation of America`s foreign policy, how does Gore Vidal see America itself?

If you believe him, it`s a truly unappealing place where the State is constantly waging war not only against foreign nations, but against its own citizens, where the police run wild abusing civil liberties, and where the Bill of Rights is a fading memories of what could have been.

Earlier in the year, Gore Vidal spoke to Monica Attard on Sunday Profile.

GORE VIDAL: We have never had an administration that set out deliberately to rid us of the Bill of Rights. With USA Patriot Act Number One, which passed 45 days after 9/11, and now there`s a current sequel to it, which has not yet been given to Congress, but it`s been leaked, you can be arrested without a charge, put before a military tribunal without recourse to due process of law to a lawyer, you can be deprived of your citizenship and you can be deported, this is a born American, and there`s some lovely language in it, you can be deported to a region or a country that has no government.

I mean it is a dictatorship.

MONICA ATTARD: Now, Mr Vidal, this dictatorship, as you call it, did it have September 11 coming?

GORE VIDAL: Well, yes, it activated a lot of things that had been in the works.

Example, after the bombing in Oklahoma City the country was duly shocked by what McVeigh and a group of what they call themselves patriots may or may not have done, we still don`t know much about it, nothing was ever really investigated, but suddenly Oklahoma City they blew up a public building. Immediately, Clinton assigns a terrorist act bill, which really goes out to many of the rights of due process of law and so on, habeas corpus, which we expect under our system. They were, if not annulled, they were nudged toward obedience on the part of the citizens.

Then comes 9/11, and a few weeks afterwards there`s a 342-page USA Patriot Act, which is enormous detail. Well, it certainly wasn`t thought up in 30 days since 9/11, as a response to a terrorist attack. It had been prepared and it was sent to Congress. Congress was then so overwhelmed by the media and the horror that had befallen us by wicked Arabs or whoever it was who did it, they passed it without reading it.

Now we`re stuck with the damn thing. Congress, at last, are sitting down and realising what they wrought, and they`re reviewing some of the aspects of it, which are violently anti-democratic, if one can use that phrase.

MONICA ATTARD: Mr Vidal, do you think that the United States brought the devastation of September 11 upon itself though? Do you think it was as simple as a payback?

GORE VIDAL: Well, nothing is, of that nature, is ever terribly simple. No nation ever begins anything in a state of innocence. Nations have pasts. They`ve done good things and bad things and have acquired enemies, allies, indifference. There are many things we could have done, should have done, did not do, and there were many things that we did in other parts of the world which caused resentment.

The President is a born again Christian. That means he`s a Protestant from the south and believes in rapture and wants to be a sunbeam for Jesus. Well, he`s going to let in, so Washington says, I can`t believe that he`ll do it, but he will let in, in theory anyway, Christian evangelicals into the Muslim world.

I don`t know if you`ve ever seen an American Christian evangelical but run, no matter what you yourself may be in the way of religion, I mean these are very, very primitive people and they`re absolutist and they know that God has chosen them to convert everyone else. To have a bunch of them loose in the Middle East, I say, is asking for even more trouble than what we`ve got.

MONICA ATTARD: But given the United States` reaction to September 11, the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq, the rolling back of American civil liberties, who in your view represents the more dangerous evil? Is it Osama bin Laden or George W. Bush?

GORE VIDAL: Well, it`s Bush we have to deal with. Bin Laden is a gangster that should have been treated not as like a war with the country. Osama bin Laden is not a country. He is something like the mafia. He`s head of a bunch of religious zealots. He`s a thug. He`s a terrorist indeed.

Now, how do you handle that normally in a normal country? What you do is you call out the police, you get to Interpol if he`s international, you turn to other countries to help you find him and his allies, and you might even go to the United Nations if you were not eager to supersede it yourself. That`s what should have been done. Instead Bush pretends it`s a war. Well you can`t have a war without a country. Terrorism – you can`t have a war against terrorism. It`s an abstract noun. You can`t fight an abstract noun.

MONICA ATTARD: But you`d have to argue, wouldn`t you Mr Vidal, that attempts had been made to flush him out, particularly under the Clinton administration, and yet all of those attempts have failed. He`s a very elusive character.

GORE VIDAL: Well, he`s, literally elusive, they can`t find him, but then again, we don`t know if they`re looking for him. When our generals first arrived in Afghanistan, a country which had nothing to do with 9/11, the Taliban as such had nothing to do with it, they were a bunch of chaotic people that we had put in charge of the country at the time of the wars with the Soviets and they were becoming crazier and crazier but, in the interests of establishing a pipeline to get oil from the Caspian Sea down to Karachi in Pakistan, we decided to go in there and replace the Taliban, and using Osama bin Laden, who had been in and out of Afghanistan, as an excuse. As soon as our general on the spot got there, he gave an interview, I`m sure he got into a lot of trouble, somebody said `well, when do you think you`re going to get Osama bin Laden?` He said `we`re not looking for him, that`s not what this is about`, and then he had to come back with a statement like `we`re against al-Qaeda`, and then he had to explain what that was. But what it was really about was UNOCAL, Union Oil of California, which had a contract to put a pipeline from Turkmenistan down through Afghanistan, down through Pakistan to the port of Karachi, where the oil would then be sold to China. We`d already made a deal.

MONICA ATTARD: So is it possible then that September 11 was potentially pre-emptive strike in response to what the Arab world might have interpreted, correctly or otherwise, to have been a possible US threat to Afghani strategic interests, oil interests?

GORE VIDAL: I think that it is now fact, one doesn`t know in a world of so much rumour and this and that, but Osama bin Laden got word that in October, Clinton had a plan to hit his camps up in the hills in the eastern part of Afghanistan and to attack Afghanistan maybe with a full invasion. This was Clinton, who was our kindly Liberal President.

Osama bin Laden gets wind of that and the next thing we know we`ve got 9/11, which is a pre-emptive strike against us. That, I think, is current wisdom around Washington, not in certain circles obviously, where he must be forever a mad demon, I`m sure he is a mad demon, but if he knew an attack was coming in October and he hit in September, one sort of sees the logic of that.

MONICA ATTARD: Now, you also talk of the United States` need to always manufacture an enemy. If it`s not terrorists it`s its own people, paedophiles, drug lords, etcetera. Do you believe that it was necessary for the United States to have one individual to focus anger upon after September 11, that is, Osama bin Laden?

GORE VIDAL: We`ve always done it. We personalise everything because that is the style of the country, that`s the style of the media. But you immediately focus on an individual of great good and beauty, or of great evil and ugliness, and you just go on and on about them and you never go on about what the battle`s really about, because we want to talk about good and evil, which gets back to President Bush`s deep religiosity.

He keeps talking in theological terms about good and evil. Politicians ought not to do that, particularly politicians for the United States – a country in which we built, what I thought, was a big solid wall between the Church and the State, between religion and politics, and he`s been breaking that wall down too. I mean, there`s a good deal to object to.

MONICA ATTARD: Do you think that the United States, Britain and Australia had any justification for what they`ve done in Iraq?

GORE VIDAL: Not really, no. I think it could have been done quite differently.

First of all, Saddam Hussein was of no danger to the United States or England or Australia. He might be of danger to a next-door neighbour, but he didn`t even show much sign of that.

The last war we had with him was 1991. Well he hadn`t done anything between `91 and now.

MONICA ATTARD: But do you accept that the people of Iraq would never have risen up themselves, that they weren`t capable of such an uprising?

GORE VIDAL: Don`t you think that`s their problem? That`s not your problem and that`s not my problem. There are many bad regimes on Earth, we can list several hundred. At the moment I would put the Bush regime as one of them, but I don`t want anybody to attack the United States and send Bush back to Texas.

MONICA ATTARD: Can you not conceive of any good, planned or coincidental, to come from this military campaign?

GORE VIDAL: Well, the first law of physics is there is no action without reaction. So for all I know they will discover a cure for cancer because of what they did in the desert. That, we can say, is a good result.

What we have done is we have torn up the old blueprint that came into being around 1950, in which we were in command of Germany and Japan and we were restoring them to their former glory really, and we had established NATO to help Europe, we had the United Nations to arbitrate, we had Bretton Woods, which was going to take care of the world finances, in our favour, but it was favourable for just about everybody.

That world has been totally destroyed in the last two years. There is nothing left of it. We don`t honour any of our arrangements with the Kyoto accords or the environment. We tried to kill the United Nations several times by not paying our dues, by ignoring its orders. We have changed the world`s balance and I am amazed that you people – "you people" is a generic word for everybody else on Earth – haven`t done anything about it, and haven`t brought it to attention. This is radical. This is the most radical regime since the `30s.

MONICA ATTARD: You mentioned that the United States has, essentially, usurped the United Nations, or is attempting to. Another casualty of the war is the relationship between Europe and the United States, always tense, but now it appears to be irretrievably damaged. Is that how you see it? You lived in Europe, you still live in Europe for part of the time, what do you make of that relationship?

GORE VIDAL: I don`t think it`s irretrievable. This administration will vanish without a trace one day. I just don`t want it to vanish in a nuclear cloud of some suicide bomber, because I see that they`re making all kinds of trouble for themselves that they don`t understand the extent of it. I don`t want war and I don`t want anything violent to happen.

MONICA ATTARD: But what do you make of the descriptions of…

GORE VIDAL: Europe has moved onto another sphere and there are those, I know, rather good economists who maintain that with the creation of the euro, that removes the power of the dollar, and it`s only the power of the dollar that we`ve been able to build up this vast military because we could print as many as we want and it`s a sovereign currency and it`s considered safe. So any time there`s war being threatened, they buy American securities, American Treasury buy them, so that`s how we finance our nuclear weapons and so on.

Well, Saddam Hussein threatened, it was his first threat that, I think, got to us, that he was going to shift over to the euro and not the dollar, which meant that people with euros could buy Iraqi oil, which they can`t do much of now and then, but they will one day, and that would destroy the power of the dollar to determine world values, particularly the value of oil, and this was enough to give our people a great headache.

MONICA ATTARD: So do you think then, if that scenario`s correct, that France and Germany would have had just as much incentive to indulge in decision making for the wrong reasons as Washington?

GORE VIDAL: Well, they would, they did, they embraced the euro. They don`t love the United States. I think that should be quite clear. Nor is there any reason why one country should love another anyway.

President Washington, who was a great statesman, has said that nations should not have special friends or special enemies, nations should only have interests and that to me is good statesmanship.

MONICA ATTARD: But that`s precisely what Washington`s doing isn`t it, acting on its interests?

GORE VIDAL: It isn`t. It`s invented interests that it doesn`t have. It pretends that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and he was going to do it again if we didn`t go in and smash him. He had no plans and we went in and smashed him anyway. Why? Because he has the second largest oil reserves on Earth.

MONICA ATTARD: Mr Vidal, if we look at the so-called Coalition forces, you`ve got George Bush, you`ve got John Howard of Australia, they appear at least to have behaved as expected, that is to say we`re not really surprised by their actions. When you look at Tony Blair, a British Labour leader steadfastly supporting George Bush on this issue of Iraq, what do you make of that? Why do you think he did it?

GORE VIDAL: I think there`s something very creepy going on, and I`m giving you an opinion.

Bush was an alcoholic, and he became AA, and part of AA is you find Jesus or God or something, and that helps you find the strength to cease to be an alcoholic, which he did. He found God, a very primitive sort of fundamental Protestantism – believes in Armageddon, believes in the end of the world, believes that this world is nothing and only the next matters.

Tony Blair is equally religious, obviously in a more sophisticated way, but he`s in a funny position. He`s Prime Minister of England. He is responsible, in a sense, for the Church of England. He appoints bishops for the sovereigns to install. Well, it is said that he`s become Roman Catholic.

Now, the two boys can see themselves as crusaders fighting for Jesus against the infidel, against the heathen, against Muslims. This, to me, is perfectly loony. It is nothing that you would do or I would do, or most people would do, since this kind of religious zeal went out of the western world quite some time ago. It did not go out of the Middle Eastern world but we could live with that. It isn`t going to hurt us unless we make them very angry.

So I think they see themselves as two Christian crusaders.

MONICA ATTARD: Do you think that Tony Blair`s zeal will eventually see him falling in behind Washington if Washington makes a decision to extend this war and go after Syria? He says he won`t, but do you think that`s possible?

GORE VIDAL: Well, I`m sure he says that, but what he will do is a different thing. I think he`s got himself in pretty deep and I don`t think he`s worked out enough of an exit to get out of it because they are going to go into Syria.

MONICA ATTARD: You believe that?

GORE VIDAL: I know that, and also Iran has been marked too. I hope it isn`t going to happen, I hope that the American people will wake up and stop the junta.

MONICA ATTARD: How do you know that they`re going to go into Syria or Iran? Why do you say you know that?

GORE VIDAL: I have connections in Washington and I know that this is a decision that has been made. Things do go wrong and things don`t happen.

MONICA ATTARD: So, but you don`t think that Washington is just sabre-rattling? Isn`t it possible that having just demonstrated having this capacity and willingness to act in terms of Iraq, that the Bush administration can actually achieve its aims through fear and threat?

GORE VIDAL: It has no aims other than more oil and gas because Cheney had a study done about a year ago, that by the year 2020 the entire world would be practically out of fossil fuels. They`re going to grab all of it and the biggest supply is in the Caspian area and all those countries whose names end in `stan`. That`s what our eye is on.

MONICA ATTARD: You describe a three-stage process that you observed the US Government employing against its enemies, abroad and at home. First there`s harassment, then there`s demonisation, then there`s attack. Is Syria now at the harassment stage?

GORE VIDAL: You should read the New York Times this morning. There were four major stories about the crimes of Syria, how it was really in with they found the terrorists there, and so it means that Iraq had been supporting terrorism and this and that, mostly stories are made up or totally distorted. But the New York Times is a voice of the regime and a voice with really a sort of desire for war and expansion in that part of the world.

MONICA ATTARD: And so on your account then, the terrorist link would just be extended add infinitum, and all of this on the back of one event, September 11, which looks, on this account, as though it might have been a gift for Bush – a truly massive, widely-perceived direct external threat needed in order to secure American global and oil interests.

GORE VIDAL: That is one way of looking at it.

MONICA ATTARD: You believe there`s no plan to deliver democracy via regime change throughout the Middle East?

GORE VIDAL: I don`t believe it`s our business to make the regime changes in the Middle East, particularly when we`re under no threat from anybody.

MONICA ATTARD: But is there a plan? Is the American administration interested at all in delivering democracy to the Middle East?

GORE VIDAL: Are you crazy? We don`t have it here, for God`s sake. Why would we export it? We talk a lot about it.

Our founding fathers feared two things – one was majority rule, or democracy, and the other is tyranny, which they called monarchy in those days, that`s all.

MONICA ATTARD: In relation to this idea that the United States is not, you know, the slightest bit interested in delivering democracy to the Middle East. Clearly much of the Arab world is deeply sceptical about what the United States is actually up to, but Saudi Arabia seems to stand apart from the rest. Why are they so taken by Washington?

GORE VIDAL: Well, first of all they`re occupied by American troops which were brought in at the time of Iraq one, and then didn`t go home. Secondly, deals were made that they are there to protect the Royal Family, which is generally in cahoots with our oil companies, and to protect them from the people if the people should suddenly turn ugly in a country like that. They`re in an awful position. I would not like to be one of them for anything, but we are there.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Gore Vidal, speaking to Monica Attard on Sunday Profile, earlier in the year. You`ve been listening to a Current Affairs Special.

[Joerver]

Richard Reeves
http://www.uexpress.com/richardreeves/

GEORGE BUSH: MAN OF THE DECADE

DALLAS -- With all due respect to two great institutions, the U.S. military and Time magazine, the latter got it wrong when it picked the former as its "Person of the Year" for 2003. President George W. Bush was the person of the year, perhaps of the decade and more.
That man in the White House, the commander in chief of the 1.4 million American soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, changed the world for better or worse when he sent American troops into action in Iraq. Time calls our military "the bright sharp instrument of a blunt policy." But the policy is the story. The president decided to roll the dice, and we are the dice -- the men and women in uniform more than the rest of us.

The president is a bold, decisive and overconfident crusader, a self-righteous leader, a dangerous man. He changed the rules, ignoring the post-World War II history of alliances, multilateral institutions and containment. His rationale for the invasion of Iraq is called "pre-emptive war" in the White House and "preventive war" in other capitals. But, in fact, it is more than that.

Saddam Hussein`s Iraq was not a nice place, but we did not go there to pre-empt or prevent anything. We went there to change the regime and make a new country in our own image. If Iraq were truly a threat -- to us or its neighbors -- it would have become the pre-emptive target of its neighbors, tough guys like Turkey, Israel or Iran. Remember: In 1981, Israeli jets destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor because it may or may not have been capable of being used in the development of nuclear weapons.

The American "forward strategy," as the president sometimes calls it, was not about threat. It is a crusade strategy, not so much to stop terrorism as to change the culture of the place, to promote freedom, democracy, free-market capitalism and the American Way, with absolute confidence that the American Way is superior to all others.

For a long time, U.S. military strategy had been to position our great military power to deter upheaval and war in parts of the world we considered essential to our own national security. Bush, with practically no strategic background, was frustrated by that approach and considered the terror at home on Sept. 11, 2001, an indication that containment and alliances were no longer adequate to combat new threats to our tranquility and prosperity. The military, he concluded, was not there as a deterrent; it was there to use, bluntly. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan on media, the military is the message. The military is the strategy.

Will it work? I think not. It is based on a cherished American assumption that everyone in the world wants to be us. They don`t. They sure would like to have many of the things we have, but there are just as many American things they don`t want, beginning with education for women. Watching events evolve (or unravel) in Iraq, I sometimes try to draw analogies. What would we do, for instance, if a fundamentalist Muslim force, say the Taliban, were able to conquer part of the United States and took American women out of schools and forced them into a kind of house arrest? And what would we do if they told us how lucky we were to live that way, because their values or their God was better than ours? Would we fight? Would we resist? I hope so.

That is not going to happen -- and a big reason we are safe is the sharpness of our military. But the Bush crusades have sent our troops into the deserts and the holy places of people we don`t know or understand. And they are going to hate us, as we will more and more come to hate them. Our bright military will be tied down. What will they be doing? Protecting themselves against locals; "force protection," in military terms.

This is the crusade our leader wanted. George W. Bush is the man of this year of living dangerously. His assumptions and strategy should be the issues of the election in 2004. One reason Howard Dean has done so well so far as the election season began is that he recognized that single fact: Bush and his bold record are the issue. When and where does this crusade end?

It is sobering and then some to think about what George W. Bush would do in a second term.

COPYRIGHT 2003 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

[Joerver]

Howard Dean



December 28, 2003
CHALLENGING BUSH
From Patrician Roots, Dean Set Path of Prickly Independence
By RICK LYMAN

The Park Avenue building where Howard Dean grew up has a neurologist`s office on the ground floor and a church just behind. His mother, Andree Maitland Dean, is eager to emphasize that the family`s three-bedroom apartment there is not luxurious.

"Look around," Mrs. Dean said in a recent interview, gesturing at the quarters where her boys grew up. "Howard didn`t have the least bit of a glamorous upbringing."

Explaining that every time she had a baby, the dining room would serve as a bedroom for the newborn and his nurse, she concluded, "I don`t think we could even keep up with the Bushes."

Like her son, Mrs. Dean chafes at the notion that the family lived the kind of privileged existence that many associate with America`s current first family — despite the striking similarities between the two families that even a cursory look reveals.

George Walker Bush and Howard Brush Dean III are from opposite sides of the nation`s political fault line. Yet it may be their similarities and the inroads Dr. Dean might make among swing voters that worry some Republicans, especially when Dr. Dean`s current image as a Vermont liberal is leavened with details of the fiscally conservative way he governed Vermont for 11 years.

The two are sons of established blueblood families dominated by powerful fathers. They attended top prep schools and Yale. And they settled far from traditional power enclaves, reinventing themselves as archetypes of their chosen new homes, President Bush in swaggering Texas and Dr. Dean in outdoorsy Vermont.

They were known for hard-partying, hard-drinking in their youths, but those days ended when they simply gave up alcohol as adults. Each man`s character was shaped by the loss of a sibling: for the president, a sister who died of leukemia at age 3; for Dr. Dean, a younger brother who disappeared in 1974 in Laos while on an around-the-world trip.

And although each has a distinct political style, as governors they developed reputations for carefully bridging the political divide between liberals and conservatives, a skill that has thus far eluded them on the national stage.

Other, deeper similarities are apparent only to those who have spent significant time with each man: temperaments prone to irritation; political skills that play better in small groups than on television; rock-solid confidence in their own decisions.

In addition, each man is seen as being his own worst enemy on the campaign trail, President Bush for mangling his English and fumbling answers, Dr. Dean for creating unnecessary crises by speaking his mind too swiftly.

Too much can be made of these similarities, of course. Certainly Dr. Dean, 55, and his family feel it is misleading to tag them as Bushlike bluebloods, despite the fact that they own a Park Avenue apartment and an East Hampton country house.

"I don`t hide who I am," Dr. Dean said. "I am not in the least bit embarrassed about how I grew up. But, now, it wasn`t quite as opulent as everybody might think."

Even so, the comparison is instructive — and not only for the likenesses it reveals. Significantly, the two men`s paths diverged in the fractious, culture-shaking heart of the 1960`s.

After a post-high-school year in England in 1966, Mr. Dean shrugged off many trappings of his background, including the Republicanism that his father preached at home. He grew his hair long, experimented with marijuana, played guitar and harmonica, switched from khaki to denim, cut his hair short again and emerged liberal, antiwar and resolutely Democratic.

His life also took a critical turn away from the Wall Street career that his father had desired for him. In deciding to study medicine, he was inspired by a zeal to help others that grew out of the political ferment of the era and was fueled by the mysterious disappearance of his brother Charlie in the jungles of Laos.

Hays Rockwell, a former Episcopal bishop of St. Louis who was Mr. Dean`s wrestling coach at St. George`s prep school in Rhode Island, attributed his shift toward liberalism and medicine mainly to the times, saying, "It was just what was going on in the 60`s."

Ralph Dawson, a roommate at Yale, echoed that opinion, saying: "Howard was moving leftward and rebelling. We were all rebelling from the straitjacket that society had us in in those days."

Dr. Dean`s brother Jim senses the added influence of losing Charlie. "We didn`t talk about it," Mr. Dean said, "but I think that after that, he understood better than I did that life is not infinite."

Two Different Images

The image that has formed of Dr. Dean since he exploded onto the national scene last spring is of a passionate bulldog, an antiwar liberal who has almost magically tapped into the angry heart of a Democratic Party tired of feeling disenfranchised.

The truth is more complicated.

Dr. Dean opposed the war in Iraq, but he had otherwise been quite supportive of President Bush`s antiterrorism initiatives. And his liberal credentials are belied by a long-standing predilection for political moderation and fiscal conservatism in Vermont.

The image of Dr. Dean as a Park Avenue patrician is also unlike his image in Vermont as an unpretentious, penny-pinching homebody. But there is little doubt that his family`s wealth and position have played a significant role in his life.

All told, for instance, Dr. Dean`s parents have given him and his family nearly $1 million in cash gifts over the last two decades, including a single gift of $200,000 in the early 1980`s. And his wife`s parents gave the couple $60,000 in 1985 to help them pay $161,700 in cash for the family`s house on Burlington`s south side, freeing the couple from monthly mortgage payments.

The Deans have amassed a nest egg of about $4 million, not including the value of their house, despite an annual income that has never exceeded $170,000. Some of it is in land — nearly $700,000 worth, plus the Burlington residence — but the remaining $3.24 million is in cash, bonds and a handful of conservative stocks.

His blunt style, which has endeared him to legions of supporters eager for a Democratic version of the Washington-bashing anti-politician who has proved so successful for Republicans, can be misread as a lack of political sophistication.

"He`s very matter-of-fact," said Peter Welch, a Vermont state senator and longtime ally. " He`s very unadorned, very quick. He`s not particularly reflective, so he comes across as less studied than he is. But he has great political instincts, good at sizing up people and situations. Howard was always two or three moves ahead on the chessboard."

No question, Dr. Dean`s blueblood credentials are impeccable. But even in prep school he struck classmates as unpretentious and not materialistic. "He was not the least bit snobby," said Rick Kessler, a scholarship student at St. George`s who said he became quite attuned to the tone of condescension from rich classmates.

Mrs. Dean sees her son`s unpretentiousness as something he learned at home, pointing out that her own parents taught her to treat people in an egalitarian way.

"When I was growing up," she said, "we didn`t even treat the servants like servants."

Her husband — also Howard B. Dean — rented their Upper East Side apartment for $200 a month after World War II. He eventually bought it, she said, for $9,500.

On his death in 2001, he left his widow an estate of around $7 million.

For the most part, Mrs. Dean said, her four boys — Howard, Charlie, Jim and Bill — lived most of their childhoods in the Hamptons. The boys rode bikes. They played with a model train set. They built elaborate underground forts.

While his parents were active in the exclusive Maidstone Club, an East Hampton institution that for decades refused to admit blacks or Jews, the Dean boys shunned that life. "I had plenty of friends at Maidstone, and they were people I liked," Dr. Dean said. "But it wasn`t what I wanted to do. It wasn`t that interesting."

For high school, Mr. Dean went off to St. George`s, a boarding school near Newport, R.I., affiliated with the Episcopal Church.

In the yearbook, he described himself as "a solid conservative defending the powers of the Student Council and lashing out at cynics and opponents." Anyone wanting to know him, he said, needed to be "the curious type who can put up with a temper."

A Life Changing Trip

Mr. Dean`s transformation from a bright, somewhat feckless son of privilege into a goal-driven family man began, his mother believes, in the year he spent in England after graduation from St. George`s.

Dr. Dean says his mother may be right, though he remembers the biggest change coming after he entered the politically charged atmosphere of Yale in 1967.

His brother Jim also noticed the change after England. "His hair was hanging down over the top of his ears," said Mr. Dean, a former marketing executive now volunteering full time on the campaign. "He had on those boots, you know, like the Beatles used to wear, and wire-rim glasses. He wasn`t a hippie, but it was definitely a new look and a different feel."

Of course it was a transforming experience, Dr. Dean said. He was 17, far from home and on his own for the first time. Mr. Dean made new friends at the Felstead School, which he attended in England, including an emir`s son from northern Nigeria. He and some other students hitchhiked around Europe, spent Christmas break in Tunisia, slept on the floor of the Gare du Nord in Paris and, in a particularly memorable episode, drove overland to Turkey, passing through the Iron Curtain twice.

Mr. Rockwell, who was spending the year as a chaplain at Oxford, had dinner one evening with Mr. Dean, who was surprised by the anti-American sentiments he had encountered in England, especially concerning the Vietnam War. "Nobody in Howard`s life had ever said anything critical of the United States," Mr. Rockwell said.

When he entered Yale in the fall of 1967, Dr. Dean asked to be paired with black roommates. One of them, Mr. Dawson, was a scholarship student from South Carolina. He says he remembers a very organized, nice guy, but saw no hint of a budding politician. "At some point, I forget how, we found out about his background," Mr. Dawson said. "We`d work him over a little bit about it."

Dr. Dean said there was never any discussion at home about his having requested black roommates. "My perception was that my parents didn`t care," he said. "Yes, there was sort of this casual racism, in terms of the racist expressions that were used by that generation. But in all, I think my family was pretty open-minded about different kinds of people."

Years later, he remembers, his parents were immediately accepting of his decision to marry Judith Steinberg, even though it was highly unusual for someone from his family background to marry a Jew.

In fact, his mother said, she and his father discussed Ms. Steinberg`s heritage, but decided they really liked her and felt she would have a calming effect on their determined but sometimes scattered son.

"We decided, well, he was never going to belong to the Maidstone Club, anyway."

Told later of his mother`s comment, Dr. Dean took a moment to soak it in. "She said that?" he finally asked, barking out a hearty laugh. "She`s like me. She says whatever comes into her head."

At Yale, social activities dominated his life, at least the first two years.

"I was a little wild," Dr. Dean said. "You know, you say things that are inappropriate and you wish you hadn`t said them. I do that enough without drinking, so I didn`t need the help."

In a 1974 letter recommending Mr. Dean for pre-med classes, a Yale professor, Peter Brooks, tried to explain what had happened to the clearly bright young man in his first years at the university.

"I judge that these years were for him a time of somewhat undirected personal experimentation," Mr. Brooks wrote. "The trying out of various commitments and ways of life with the generosity and energy that characterize him, but without much sense of what it all meant."

After Yale, having received a medical deferment from the Vietnam draft because of a long-standing back condition, Mr. Dean meandered and resisted Wall Street`s pull. He spent 10 months skiing and working odd jobs in Aspen, Colo. When the spring snows melted in 1972, he returned to New York.

"People used to follow their fathers onto Wall Street," Mrs. Dean said. "That`s the way it was done."

He began as a stockbroker`s assistant and, two years later, was helping manage a small mutual fund. "He was damn good at it," Mrs. Dean said. "But I don`t think it ever gave him any satisfaction."

Mr. Dean decided to become a doctor after working at a Denver hospital and then volunteering in the emergency room at St. Vincent`s in New York. His disappointed father took the news well.

For one thing, Mrs. Dean said, she and her husband were amazed by the straight A`s Mr. Dean got in the classes he was taking to qualify for medical school. He was studying, falling in love — he met Ms. Steinberg at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, where they attended medical school — and finding direction.

"Howard is a very solid resident, a good teacher, intellectual in his approach, who performed well in his third year," said the doctor who evaluated him in 1981. "His major problem continues to be one of impulsiveness."

Dr. Dean and Dr. Steinberg opened their joint practice in an old creamery in Shelburne, which is just south of Burlington. They had two children: Annie, who is now at Yale; and Paul, who is in his senior year of public high school.

Always a Few Steps Ahead

Still in the midst of his residency at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, Dr. Dean was spotted by a local Democratic leader, Esther Sorrell, and brought into the fringes of the party.

In 1980, he worked on Jimmy Carter`s re-election campaign. Soon afterward, he wandered into a presentation by a University of Vermont professor, Thomas Hudspeth, about revitalizing Burlington`s waterfront with a bicycle path.

"Howard came up after the presentation and said, `O.K., let`s do it,` " said Rick Sharp, a lawyer.

The three men formed the Citizens Waterfront Group, to secure a nine-mile stretch of land along Lake Champlain for the path.

"I remember Howard at the time was very good at sizing up people," Mr. Hudspeth said. "He`d cut to the chase, every time. He`d say, `Let`s don`t bother with that guy, he`s too contentious, we`ll never convince him.` Instead, we worked on some other guy. Howard was always a few steps ahead."

Ms. Sorrell persuaded him to become the party`s county chairman. In 1983, Dr. Dean was elected to the state legislature.

Even Republicans in Vermont acknowledge that on many issues — certainly fiscal ones — the Howard Dean of recent national fame is not the political animal they remember from his 11 years as governor.

"Mostly, voters here saw Howard as in the center of his party, perhaps even somewhere between his party and the Republican Party," said John Bloomer, a Republican and the minority leader in the Vermont Senate.

Dr. Dean is sometimes portrayed as an almost accidental politician. He did not give up his medical practice until 1991, when he became governor upon the death of Gov. Richard Snelling. Dr. Dean had been lieutenant governor, a part-time position he had held for nearly six years. But those closest to him said they had detected his growing political ambition long before then.

His reputation as governor — not unlike George W. Bush`s — was as a bridge between the state`s political wings. In style, though, he was quite different from the Texas governor, who constantly preached political tolerance and made regular genuflections to Democratic power brokers in the legislature. Governor Dean was blunt and outspoken. He frequently upset his top aides by lashing out at aggressive reporters or snapping at political opponents.

The crisis that nearly cost Dr. Dean his governor`s seat in 2000 — an uprising by conservatives and independents over his signing of a law legalizing gay civil unions — sorely tested his political skills.

"In a no-nonsense way, he made the tough decision," said Bob Rogan, who was Dr. Dean`s deputy chief of staff at the time and now a top official in his presidential campaign. "And he didn`t look back."

When conservative Democrats seemed as if they might drift into Republican ranks, Dr. Dean set up a series of meetings with them, dispassionately explaining his decision to sign the civil unions bill. He then let the crowd rail at him.

Then there are the questions about whether a man whose chief political experience has been running a governor`s office has the skills to run the federal government.

"A C.E.O.`s skills are essentially the same, no matter the size of the company," Dr. Dean said. "Clearly, with the presidency, you`ve also got to deal with defense. But otherwise, the basic problems are the same and the difference is the number of zeroes in the budget."

That may be understating the difference, even close supporters believe.

"The governor`s staff was maybe five or six people, plus clerical help, and only two or three of those are really close to you," said Dick Mazza, a veteran Vermont senator and an ally. "You have, what, one state police officer assigned to you? It`s a lot different from being president of the United States."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php? id=521_0_1_0_C

By Robert Parry | 12.26.03
Iraq: Quicksand & Blood
George W. Bush and his top advisers learned little from the Vietnam debacle of the ‘60s, since most avoided service in the war. But many top Bush aides played key roles in the repression of leftist peasant uprisings in Central America in the ‘80s, a set of lessons the Bush administration is now trying to apply to the violent resistance in Iraq.

The key counterinsurgency lesson from Central America was that the U.S. government can defeat guerrilla movements if it is willing to back a local power structure, no matter how repulsive, and if Washington is ready to tolerate gross human rights abuses. In Central America in the ‘80s, those tactics included genocide against hundreds of Mayan villages in Guatemala’s highlands and the torture, rape and murder of thousands of young political activists throughout the region. (More on this below)

The body dumps that have been unearthed across Central America are thus little different from the mass graves blamed on Saddam Hussein in Iraq, except in Central America they represented the dark side of U.S. foreign policy and received far less U.S. press scrutiny. Another lesson learned from the ‘80s was the importance of shielding the American people from the ugly realities of a U.S.-backed “dirty war” by using P.R. techniques, which became known inside the Reagan administration as “perception management.”

The temptation to recycle these counterinsurgency strategies from Central America to Iraq is explained by the number of Reagan-era officials now back in prominent roles in George W. Bush’s administration.

They include Elliot Abrams, who served as assistant secretary of state for Latin America in the ‘80s and is a National Security Council adviser to Bush on the Middle East; John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the ‘80s and now Bush’s U.N. Ambassador; Paul Bremer a counter-terrorism specialist in the ‘80s and Iraq’s civilian administrator today; Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was the senior military adviser to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the ‘80s; and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a Republican foreign-policy stalwart in Congress two decades ago.



Proxy Army

One important difference between Iraq and Central America, however, is that to date, the Bush administration has had trouble finding, arming and unleashing an Iraqi proxy force that compares to the paramilitary killers who butchered suspected leftists in Central America. In El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, well-established “security forces” already existed. Plus, in Nicaragua, Ronald Reagan could turn to the remnants of ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard to fashion a contra rebel force.

In Iraq, however, U.S. policymakers chose to disband—rather than redirect—Saddam Hussein’s army and intelligence services, leaving the burden of counterinsurgency heavily on U.S. occupying troops who are unfamiliar with Iraq’s language, history and terrain.

Now, with U.S. casualties mounting, the Bush administration is scrambling to build an Iraqi paramilitary force to serve under the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council’s interior minister. The core of this force would be drawn from the security and intelligence wings of five political organizations, including Ahmad Chalabi’s formerly exile-based Iraqi National Congress.

Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on November 10 that the administration’s No. 1 strategy in Iraq is to build an Iraqi security force, which she claims already numbers about 118,000 people, roughly the size of the U.S. military contingent in Iraq. Many of these Iraqis have received speeded-up training with the goal of using them to pacify the so-called Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad.

Earlier, some U.S. officials, including civilian administrator Bremer, balked at a paramilitary force out of fear it would become a tool of repression. “The unit that the Governing Council wants to create would be the most powerful domestic security force in Iraq, fueling concern among some U.S. officials that it could be used for undemocratic purposes, such as stifling political dissent, as such forces do in other Arab nations,” the Washington Post wrote.

But faced with the rising U.S. death toll, Bremer no longer has “any objection in principle” to this concept, a senior U.S. official told the Post. (Washington Post, November 5, 2003) With all the missteps that have plagued the U.S. occupation, Bremer appears to understand that the Iraqi security situation needs to be bolstered—and quickly.

In much of the Sunni Triangle, U.S. control now is intermittent at best, existing only during heavily armed U.S. forays into resistance strongholds. “American troops patrol less frequently, townspeople openly threaten Iraqi security personnel who cooperate with U.S. forces, and the night belongs to the guerrillas,” the Washington Post reported from Thuluiya about 60 miles north of Baghdad. (November. 8, 2003).

One U.S. senator who has visited the region told me that the struggle for Iraq may take 30 years before a new generation accepts the American presence. But even taking the long view does not guarantee success. Israel has been battling to break the back of Palestinian resistance for more than three decades with no sign that younger Palestinians are less hostile to the Israeli occupation. The Iraqi insurgency already has spread too far and penetrated too deeply to be easily uprooted, military experts say.


Central American Lessons

Having lurched into this Iraqi quicksand, the Bush administration is now searching for lessons that can be gleaned from the most recent U.S. counterinsurgency experience, the region-wide wars in Central America that began as uprisings against ruling oligarchies and their military henchmen but came to be viewed by the Reagan administration as an all-too-close front in the Cold War.

Though U.S.-backed armies and paramilitary forces eventually quelled the leftist peasant rebellions, the cost in blood was staggering. The death toll in El Salvador was estimated at about 70,000 people. In Guatemala, the number of dead reached about 200,000, including what a truth commission concluded was a genocide against the Mayan populations in Guatemala’s highlands.

The muted press coverage that the U.S. news media has given these atrocities as they have come to light over the years also showed the residual strength of the “perception management” employed by the Reagan administration. For instance, even when the atrocities of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt are mentioned, as they were in the context of his defeat in Guatemala’s November 9 presidential elections, the history of Reagan’s warm support for Rios Montt is rarely, if ever, noted by the U.S. press.

While the slaughter of the Mayans was underway in the ‘80s, Reagan portrayed Gen. Rios Montt and the Guatemalan army as victims of disinformation spread by human rights groups and journalists. Reagan huffily discounted reports that Rios Montt’s army was eradicating hundreds of Mayan villages.

On December 4, 1982, after meeting with Rios Montt, Reagan hailed the general as “totally dedicated to democracy” and declared that Rios Montt’s government had been “getting a bum rap.” Reagan also reversed President Jimmy Carter’s policy of embargoing military equipment to Guatemala over its human rights abuses. Carter’s human rights embargoes represented one of the few times during the Cold War when Washington objected to the repression that pervaded Central American society.


Death Squad Origins

Though many U.S.-backed regimes in Latin America practiced the dark arts of “disappearances” and “death squads,” the history of Guatemala’s security operations is perhaps the best documented because the Clinton administration declassified scores of the secret U.S. documents in the late ‘90s to assist a Guatemalan truth commission. The Guatemala experience also may be the most instructive today in illuminating a possible course of the counterinsurgency in Iraq.

The original Guatemalan death squads took shape in the mid-’60s under anti-terrorist training provided by a U.S. public safety adviser named John Longon, the declassified documents show. In January 1966, Longon reported to his superiors about both overt and covert components of his anti-terrorist strategies.

On the covert side, Longon pressed for “a safe house [to] be immediately set up” for coordination of security intelligence. “A room was immediately prepared in the [Presidential] Palace for this purpose and ... Guatemalans were immediately designated to put this operation into effect,” according to Longon’s report. Longon’s operation within the presidential compound became the starting point for the infamous “Archivos” intelligence unit that evolved into a clearinghouse for Guatemala’s most notorious political assassinations.

Just two months after Longon’s report, a secret CIA cable noted the clandestine execution of several Guatemalan “communists and terrorists” on the night of March 6, 1966. By the end of the year, the Guatemalan government was bold enough to request U.S. help in establishing special kidnapping squads, according to a cable from the U.S. Southern Command that was forwarded to Washington on Dec. 3, 1966.

By 1967, the Guatemalan counterinsurgency terror had gained a fierce momentum. On October, 23, 1967, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research noted the “accumulating evidence that the [Guatemalan] counterinsurgency machine is out of control.” The report noted that Guatemalan “counter-terror” units were carrying out abductions, bombings, torture and summary executions “of real and alleged communists.”

The mounting death toll in Guatemala disturbed some American officials assigned to the country. The embassy’s deputy chief of mission, Viron Vaky, expressed his concerns in a remarkably candid report that he submitted on March 29, 1968, after returning to Washington. Vaky framed his arguments in pragmatic terms, but his moral anguish broke through. “The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated,” Vaky wrote. “In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt.”

Vaky also noted the deceptions within the U.S. government that resulted from its complicity in state-sponsored terror. “This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all — that we have not been honest with ourselves,” Vaky said. “We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalized away our qualms and uneasiness.

“This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as Communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are Communists. After all hasn’t man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people.”

Though kept secret from the American public for three decades, the Vaky memo obliterated any claim that Washington simply didn’t know the reality in Guatemala. Still, with Vaky’s memo squirreled away in State Department files, the killing went on. The repression was noted almost routinely in reports from the field.

On January 12, 1971, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Guatemalan forces had “quietly eliminated” hundreds of “terrorists and bandits” in the countryside. On February 4, 1974, a State Department cable reported resumption of “death squad” activities.

On December 17, 1974, a DIA biography of one U.S.-trained Guatemalan officer gave an insight into how U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine had imbued the Guatemalan strategies. According to the biography, Lt. Col. Elias Osmundo Ramirez Cervantes, chief of security section for Guatemala’s president, had trained at the U.S. Army School of Intelligence at Fort Holabird in Maryland. Back in Guatemala, Ramirez Cervantes was put in charge of plotting raids on suspected subversives as well as their interrogations.


The Reagan Bloodbath

As brutal as the Guatemalan security forces were in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the worst was yet to come. In the 1980s, the Guatemalan army escalated its slaughter of political dissidents and their suspected supporters to unprecedented levels.

Ronald Reagan’s election in November 1980 set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter’s human rights nagging, the region’s hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.

The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes that engaged in bloody counterinsurgency against leftist enemies. In the late ‘70s, when Carter’s human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its “dirty war”—tens of thousands of “disappearances,” tortures and murders—then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should “walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. (For more details, see Martin Edwin Andersen’s Dossier Secreto.)

After his election in 1980, Reagan pushed to overturn an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by Carter. Yet as Reagan was moving to loosen up the military aid ban, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies were confirming new Guatemalan government massacres.

In April 1981, a secret CIA cable described a massacre at Cocob, near Nebaj in the Ixil Indian territory. On April 17, 1981, government troops attacked the area believed to support leftist guerrillas, the cable said. According to a CIA source, “the social population appeared to fully support the guerrillas” and “the soldiers were forced to fire at anything that moved.” The CIA cable added that “the Guatemalan authorities admitted that ‘many civilians’ were killed in Cocob, many of whom undoubtedly were non-combatants.”

Despite the CIA account and other similar reports, Reagan permitted Guatemala’s army to buy $3.2 million in military trucks and jeeps in June 1981. To permit the sale, Reagan removed the vehicles from a list of military equipment that was covered by the human rights embargo.


No Regrets

Apparently confident of Reagan’s sympathies, the Guatemalan government continued its political repression without apology.

According to a State Department cable on October 5, 1981, Guatemalan leaders met with Reagan’s roving ambassador, retired Gen. Vernon Walters, and left no doubt about their plans. Guatemala’s military leader, Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, “made clear that his government will continue as before—that the repression will continue.”

Human rights groups saw the same picture. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission released a report on Oct. 15, 1981, blaming the Guatemalan government for “thousands of illegal executions.” (Washington Post, October 16, 1981).

But the Reagan administration was set on whitewashing the ugly scene. A State Department “white paper,” released in December 1981, blamed the violence on leftist “extremist groups” and their “terrorist methods,” inspired and supported by Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Yet, even as these rationalizations were pitched to the American people, U.S. ntelligence agencies in Guatemala continued to learn of government-sponsored massacres.

One CIA report in February 1982 described an army sweep through the so-called Ixil Triangle in central El Quiche province. “The commanding officers of the units involved have been instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [known as the EGP] and eliminate all sources of resistance,” the report stated. “Since the operation began, several villages have been burned to the ground, and a large number of guerrillas and collaborators have been killed.”

The CIA report explained the army’s modus operandi: “When an army patrol meets resistance and takes fire from a town or village, it is assumed that the entire town is hostile and it is subsequently destroyed.” When the army encountered an empty village, it was “assumed to have been supporting the EGP, and it is destroyed. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of refugees in the hills with no homes to return to. ... The well-documented belief by the army that the entire Ixil Indian population is pro-EGP has created a situation in which the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike.”


Rios Montt

In March 1982, Gen. Rios Montt seized power in a coup d’etat. An avowed fundamentalist Christian, he immediately impressed official Washington, where Reagan hailed Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity.”

By July 1982, however, Rios Montt had begun a new scorched-earth campaign called his “rifles and beans” policy. The slogan meant that pacified Indians would get “beans,” while all others could expect to be the target of army “rifles.” In October, he secretly gave carte blanche to the feared “Archivos” intelligence unit to expand “death squad” operations.

The U.S. embassy was soon hearing more accounts of the army conducting Indian massacres. On October 21, 1982, one cable described how three embassy officers tried to check out some of these reports but ran into bad weather and canceled the inspection. Still, the cable put a positive spin on the situation. Though unable to check out the massacre reports, the embassy officials did “reach the conclusion that the army is completely up front about allowing us to check alleged massacre sites and to speak with whomever we wish.”

The next day, the embassy fired off an analysis that the Guatemalan government was the victim of a communist-inspired “disinformation campaign,” a claim embraced by Reagan with his “bum rap” comment after he met with Rios Montt in December 1982.

On January 7, 1983, Reagan lifted the ban on military aid to Guatemala and authorized the sale of $6 million in military hardware. Approval covered spare parts for UH-1H helicopters and A-37 aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations. State Department spokesman John Hughes said political violence in the cities had “declined dramatically” and that rural conditions had improved too.

In February 1983, however, a secret CIA cable noted a rise in “suspect right-wing violence” with kidnappings of students and teachers. Bodies of victims were appearing in ditches and gullies. CIA sources traced these political murders to Rios Montt’s order to the “Archivos” in October to “apprehend, hold, interrogate and dispose of suspected guerrillas as they saw fit.”


Sugarcoating

Despite these grisly facts on the ground, the annual State Department human rights survey sugarcoated the facts for the American public and praised the supposedly improved human rights situation in Guatemala. “The overall conduct of the armed forces had improved by late in the year” 1982, the report stated.

A different picture—far closer to the secret information held by the U.S. government—was coming from independent human rights investigators. On March 17, 1983, Americas Watch representatives condemned the Guatemalan army for human rights atrocities against the Indian population.

New York attorney Stephen L. Kass said these findings included proof that the government carried out “virtually indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents.”

Rural women suspected of guerrilla sympathies were raped before execution, Kass said. Children were “thrown into burning homes. They are thrown in the air and speared with bayonets. We heard many, many stories of children being picked up by the ankles and swung against poles so their heads are destroyed.” (AP, March 17, 1983)

Publicly, however, senior Reagan officials continued to put on a happy face. On June 12, 1983, special envoy Richard B. Stone praised “positive changes” in Rios Montt’s government. But Rios Montt’s vengeful Christian fundamentalism was hurtling out of control, even by Guatemalan standards. In August 1983, Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores seized power in another coup.

Despite the power shift, Guatemalan security forces continued to kill those who were deemed subversives or terrorists. When three Guatemalans working for the U.S. Agency for International Development were slain in November 1983, U.S. Ambassador Frederic Chapin suspected that “Archivos” hit squads were sending a message to the United States to back off even the mild pressure for human rights improvements.

In late November, in a brief show of displeasure, the administration postponed the sale of $2 million in helicopter spare parts. The next month, however, Reagan sent the spare parts. In 1984, Reagan succeeded, too, in pressuring Congress to approve $300,000 in military training for the Guatemalan army.

By mid-1984, Chapin, who had grown bitter about the army’s stubborn brutality, was gone, replaced by a far-right political appointee named Alberto Piedra, who was all for increased military assistance to Guatemala.

In January 1985, Americas Watch issued a report observing that Reagan’s State Department “is apparently more concerned with improving Guatemala’s image than in improving its human rights.”


Death Camp

Other examples of Guatemala’s “death squad” strategy came to light later. For example, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency cable in 1994 reported that the Guatemalan military had used an air base in Retalhuleu during the mid-1980s as a center for coordinating the counterinsurgency campaign in southwest Guatemala—and for torturing and burying prisoners.

At the base, pits were filled with water to hold captured suspects. “Reportedly there were cages over the pits and the water level was such that the individuals held within them were forced to hold on to the bars in order to keep their heads above water and avoid drowning,” the DIA report stated.

The Guatemalan military used the Pacific Ocean as another dumping spot for political victims, according to the DIA report. Bodies of insurgents tortured to death and live prisoners marked for “disappearance” were loaded onto planes that flew out over the ocean where the soldiers would shove the victims into the water to drown, a tactic that had been a favorite disposal technique of the Argentine military in the ‘70s.

The history of the Retalhuleu death camp was uncovered by accident in the early ‘90s when a Guatemalan officer wanted to let soldiers cultivate their own vegetables on a corner of the base. But the officer was taken aside and told to drop the request “because the locations he had wanted to cultivate were burial sites that had been used by the D-2 [military intelligence] during the mid-eighties,” the DIA report said. (To see the Guatemalan documents, go to the National Security Archive’s Web site.)

Guatemala, of course, was not the only Central American country where Reagan and his administration supported brutal counterinsurgency operations-and-then sought to cover up the bloody facts. Deception of the American public—a strategy that the administration internally called “perception management”—was as much a part of the Central American story as the Bush administration’s lies and distortions about weapons of mass destruction were to the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

Reagan’s falsification of the historical record became a hallmark of the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua as well as Guatemala. In one case, Reagan personally lashed out at a human rights investigator named Reed Brody, a New York lawyer who had collected affidavits from more than 100 witnesses to atrocities carried out by the U.S.-supported contras in Nicaragua.

Angered by the revelations about his contra “freedom-fighters,” Reagan denounced Brody in a speech on April 15, 1985, calling him “one of dictator [Daniel] Ortega’s supporters, a sympathizer who has openly embraced Sandinismo.”

Privately, Reagan had a far more accurate understanding of the true nature of the contras. At one point in the contra war, Reagan turned to CIA official Duane Clarridge and demanded that the contras be used to destroy some Soviet-supplied helicopters that had arrived in Nicaragua. In his memoirs, Clarridge recalled that “President Reagan pulled me aside and asked, ‘Dewey, can’t you get those vandals of yours to do this job.’ “ (See Clarridge’s A Spy for All Seasons.)


‘Perception Management’

To manage U.S. perceptions of the wars in Central America, Reagan also authorized a systematic program of distorting information and intimidating American journalists. Called “public diplomacy,” the project was run by a CIA propaganda veteran, Walter Raymond Jr., who was assigned to the National Security Council staff. The project’s key operatives developed propaganda “themes,” selected “hot buttons” to excite the American people, cultivated pliable journalists who would cooperate and bullied reporters who wouldn’t go along.

The best-known attacks were directed against New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner for disclosing Salvadoran army massacres of civilians, including the slaughter of some 800 men, women and children in El Mozote in December 1981. But Bonner was not alone. Reagan’s operatives pressured scores of reporters and their editors in an ultimately successful campaign to minimize information about these human rights crimes reaching the American people. (For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.)

The tamed reporters, in turn, gave the administration a far freer hand to pursue counterinsurgency operations in Central America. Despite the tens of thousands of civilian deaths and now-corroborated accounts of massacres and genocide, not a single senior military officer in Central America was held accountable for the bloodshed.

The U.S. officials who sponsored and encouraged these war crimes not only escaped legal judgment, but remain highly respected figures in Washington. Some have returned to senior government posts under George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Reagan has been honored as few recent presidents have with major public facilities named after him, including National Airport in Washington.

On Feb. 25, 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that Reagan and his administration had aided, abetted and concealed.

The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the Guatemalan conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s. Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages. “The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan villages ... are neither perfidious allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic chapter in Guatemala’s history,” the commission concluded.

The army “completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their livestock and crops,” the report said. In the northern highlands, the report termed the slaughter a “genocide.” Besides carrying out murder and “disappearances,” the army routinely engaged in torture and rape. “The rape of women, during torture or before being murdered, was a common practice” by the military and paramilitary forces, the report found.

The report added that the “government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some [of these] state operations.” The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed “acts of genocide” against the Mayans.

“Believing that the ends justified everything, the military and the state security forces blindly pursued the anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of human morals,” said the commission chairman, Christian Tomuschat, a German jurist.

“Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people,” Tomuschat said. (For more details on the commission’s report, see the Washington Post or New York Times, Feb. 26, 1999.)

During a visit to Central America, on March 10, 1999, President Clinton apologized for the past U.S. support of right-wing regimes in Guatemala. “For the United States, it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake,” Clinton said.


Iraqi War

Less than five years later, however, the U.S. government is teetering on the edge of another brutal counterinsurgency war in Iraq.

Some supporters of Bush’s invasion of Iraq in March are now advocating an iron fist to quell the growing Iraqi resistance. In a debate in Berkeley, California, for instance, ardent Bush supporter Christopher Hitchens declared that the U.S. intervention in Iraq needed to be “more thoroughgoing, more thought-out and more, if necessary, ruthless.” (See Salon.com, Nov. 11, 2003.)

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. commander in Iraq, told a news conference in Baghdad on November 11 that U.S. forces would follow a new get-tough strategy against the Iraqi resistance. “We are taking the fight into the safe havens of the enemy, in the heartland of the country,” Sanchez said.

But U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Bush enthusiasts at home are not alone in encouraging a fierce counterinsurgency campaign to throttle the Iraqi resistance. Though many war critics say the likelihood of a difficult occupation should have been anticipated before the invasion, some now agree that the U.S. government must fight and win in Iraq or the United States will suffer a crippling loss of credibility in the Middle East and throughout the world.

Wishing for a result, however, can be far different from achieving a result. Wanting the U.S. forces to prevail and asserting that they must prevail does not mean that they will prevail. American troops could find themselves trapped in a long painful conflict against a determined enemy fighting on its home terrain.

As the United States wades deeper into this Iraqi quicksand, the lessons of the bloody counterinsurgency wars in Central America will be tempting to the veterans of the Reagan administration. Those lessons certainly are the most immediate antecedents to many of the architects of the Iraq counterinsurgency.

But the Central American lessons may have limited applicability to Iraq. For one, the Bush administration can’t turn to well-entrenched power centers with ideologically committed security forces as the Reagan administration could in Guatemala and other Central American countries. Also, the cultural divide and the physical distance between Iraq and the United States are far greater than those between Central America and the United States.

So even if the Bush administration can hastily set up an Iraqi security apparatus, it may not be as committed to a joint cause with the Americans as the Central American paramilitary forces were with the Reagan administration. Without a reliable proxy force, the responsibility for conducting a scorched-earth campaign in Iraq likely would fall to American soldiers who themselves might question the wisdom and the morality of such an undertaking.

Perhaps one of the lessons of the current dilemma is that George W. Bush may have dug such a deep hole for U.S. policy in Iraq that even Guatemalan-style brutality applied to the Sunni Triangle would only deepen the well of anti-Americanism that already exists in many parts of Iraq and across much of the Islamic world.



As a correspondent for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the stories now known as the Iran-Contra Affair. To buy his latest book, Lost History, go to Amazon.com or to the Consortiumnews.com order page.

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The year Britain invaded Iraq - and tore itself apart
War against Saddam divided friends, families, nations, and traditional alliances. And here at The Observer two of our leading writers held opposing positions in their weekly columns. In this sharp exchange of views as the year closes, David Aaronovitch and Mary Riddell tackle head-on the issues that have divided them.

David Aaronovitch and Mary Riddell
Sunday December 28, 2003
The Observer

Dear Mary

What a strange year it`s been. A war in Iraq was argued over for four months, fought for three weeks, analysed all year, and continues now - eight months later - to create bitter division. Its aftermath will be with us for decades. I have never known one event, not even 11 September, dominate public discourse and psychology to this extent.

Those arguments have taken on a dangerous polarity, with those supporting war (particularly in the United States) sometimes failing to understand why anyone might legitimately be opposed to invasion - and all too many opponents refusing, in their indignation, to allow that there always was a strong case for action.

I finally supported the war because I believed that Saddam Hussein was an almost uniquely dangerous and brutal dictator, and that it was a stain on the Western nations that, before the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, we had so long encouraged or abetted him. His brutalities don`t need to be rehearsed here; I know you recall them even if others occasionally seem to have forgotten. But what has also got lost in the wake of the war, was the relatively reasonable nature of the worry - on the part of the British and American governments in the wake of 11 September - that a tyrant in possession of anthrax might be a threat to the world.

It is fashionable now to say that we were `lied to` by our governments, but the truth surely is that they had grounds for their nightmare equation of dictator`s weapons plus terrorists equals possible catastrophe. Saddam`s long-term non-compliance with UN resolutions on inspection and declaration hardened their view, based on what might have been faulty intelligence, that there was something there. They had, after all, to be wrong once.

The result we know. A coalition, shorn of worldwide support, toppled a dictator and inherited a complex country, fearful but surprisingly open to the new freedoms which it now experiences. Terrorist attacks and infrastructural chaos go side by side with demonstrations, dozens of newspapers, real political parties, religious freedom and - finally - reopened schools, better power and water supplies, and a movement towards self-government. Democracy is, I believe, being built in Iraq, providing we have the staying power and political patience to remain there and see through what we have begun.

To me, this is the only really important question. It is far more significant than whether Mr Bush wins re-election (I think he probably will) or Tony Blair survives Hutton. If Iraq becomes a democracy, the consequences for the rest of the Middle East would be profound. If it becomes a basket case, then people like me will owe the world an apology.
David

Dear David

We`ve argued for many months now, across editorial meetings and adjacent comment pages. At the year`s end, the story of Iraq remains both astonishing and predictable. As I write this, Saddam is in custody, and Iraqis are dying violently at the rate of 10 a day.

I respect your reasons for going to war against a murderous dictator. The moral case is a good one, though I`ve never found it compelling. Liberal intervention is justifiable without a UN sanction, but only, I believe, to avert an immediate humanitarian catastrophe. Saddam`s tyranny, as you rightly say, was chronic and long-standing. There was no UN consensus or, in my view, a case under international law, despite the manipulation of two old security council resolutions and one new one. And I think you`re pretty kind, in the absence of WMD or any evidence of pre-war links with al-Qaeda, about the grounds for our leaders` `nightmare equation` of dictator`s weapons plus terrorists.

Enough looking back. History, like the Prime Minister, lacks a reverse gear, and we are where we are. I agree that many things in Iraq have improved, especially outside the Sunni triangle, though I would also point to the endless petrol queues, the lawlessness and the fear that the children who set out for school may not come home alive. And I agree totally that what matters now is building a democracy in Iraq.

But what sort of democracy? The neo-cons` quick-fix, free-market model began with the (disastrous) dismantling of the army, de-Baathification and privatisation of services such as health. The question of how you build an Iraqi democracy, based on the rule of law, is far from clear. You and I are agreed that cut-and-run would be a disaster, but I`m not sure that a US election guarantees a strategy of patience.

I don`t want to be gloomy, even if Afghanistan fails to inspire hope. I do, though, want to ask you two questions, one from the past, one for the future. You wrote, on WMD, that `if nothing is eventually found, I, as a supporter of the war, will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US, ever again?` Do you still think that? The second question is: What should happen to Saddam now, and should we condone George W. Bush`s wish for the death penalty to apply?
Mary

Dear Mary

OK. Let`s stick to your two points. I wrote, in the late winter of the year, that I was agnostic about WMD and sceptical about direct links between Saddam and bin Laden. Even so, it was the Government`s choice to go to the people and to the UN on the basis that Saddam was not only failing to comply with UN resolutions, but that he was doing this because he was almost certainly hiding existing WMD. I think the politicians believed the weapons were there - I think Tony still does.

This is obviously a problem of trust. If no anthrax, uranium, nerve agent or toxin is eventually discovered then - at best - our intelligence will be seen as a highly hit-and-miss affair, far too unreliable to trust in times of war. The alternative is that our Government lied to us.

`Eventually` hasn`t happened yet and the Iraq Survey Group is still busy surveying, but the case for a Franks-style inquiry into the run-up to the conflict is overwhelming. It could look at whether the Government acted honestly, into the question of intelligence, as well as into past government dealings with the Baathist regime.

As to Saddam, he killed - on conservative estimates - 300,000 Iraqis. The survivors unsurprisingly demand that he be tried in Baghdad and so he should. We would want the same if we had had the terrible misfortune to live under Stanley Hussein and were currently uncovering lost relatives from pits outside Aylesbury. And we`d probably also want - all but the most high-minded of us - to see him get the ultimate penalty, so let`s not be all Bushy about this.

Myself, I don`t like the death penalty, and I would seek to persuade the Iraqis that the moral high ground lies with those who won`t use it. I`d also want to see them given the best international aid and advice to make the trial as fair and meaningful as possible, given the one underlying problem. Which is that a thousand mass graves already testify to Saddam`s guilt.

And now, one for you, Mary. Don`t you think that much of the reaction to the war has, almost inadvertently, revealed a widespread anti-Americanism among the British intelligentsia? I wondered if it bothered you.
David

Dear David

I don`t think for a moment that the Government lied. I do think that Blair failed, to the point of folly, to interrogate his own intelligence. He wanted to believe and convince. Or, as David Marquand put it, his ability to mesmerise others stems from his matchless ability to mesmerise himself. I absolutely agree that we needed a Franks-style inquiry. What we got instead was Hutton.

And yes, Saddam should be tried in Iraq. Suggestions that he be sent out to the International Criminal Court in The Hague is as fanciful as proposing trial by Grimsby magistrates. The ICC, as you know but some people don`t, has no jurisdiction over events before July 2002. Plus, Iraq isn`t signed up to it, and America loathes it.

So it`s Iraq, with the hope that this time there is something other than a history of summary justice, by gun and gallows, for failed leaders. I`m not sure how, though, when the justice system has collapsed. Perhaps a tribunal along the lines of Sierra Leone, with international input and some imported judges, would be the best and fairest option. Then there`s the death penalty.

To me the 300,000 deaths is a compelling reason why Saddam shouldn`t get what even David Blunkett calls `judicial murder`. The mark of a civilised society is how its deals with its most depraved. For us to countenance a death sentence would not only be craven. It would also make a martyr of a man who should be fairly tried and jailed. But we, I fear, will have to give in to George W. Bush, who wants him dead (but not, he tells us, tortured).

Which brings us to anti-Americanism. I just don`t get the logic. I don`t hate America at all. Many of the emails I got when you and I were writing about the war came from Americans who love their country but despise a bellicose president that fewer than half of them voted for. It seems to me no problem at all to like America and loathe Bush`s war. On the (few) members of the intelligentsia who lump an anti-war stance in with a dislike of Starbucks coffee, McDonald`s, Gap cords etc, I do agree with you.

I think the more interesting line is the Robert Kagan view that we have to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a world view, or even occupy the same world. Venus and Mars. What do you think?
Mary

Dear Mary

Perhaps you are right and I am suffering from delusions about what seems to me to be an almost routine description of the US as a `rogue state`, the greatest threat to peace (aside, of course, from mighty Israel) and as the centre of an almost bovine new imperialism.

I thought Blair was right to try and bridge the gap between America and Europe following 11 September. It seems that many Europeans thought that showing a bit of sympathy with the Yanks after the World Trade Centre would be sufficient, and everything could otherwise go on as before. They utterly failed to see how the event had changed everything, by revealing just how pitiless and ruthless our new opponent was prepared to be. They also failed to see how America had changed as a result.

And I discovered something I hadn`t realised. It never occurred to me that France, in particular, still saw the EU as a sort of counterweight - a rival, almost - to the US in geopolitical terms. This is not what I want from Europe and it`s certainly not what the new countries of the East thought they had signed up to.

In that sense I profoundly disagree with Kagan. The liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic have remarkably similar interests, if they did but understand them. And similar moral outlooks, too. We learned this in the Balkans, in Rwanda and continue to learn it in the Middle East. Realpolitik used to be about supporting unsavoury regimes if they were our friends, boosting bastards providing they bought stuff from us and not the other guy, sitting back and hoping that someone else would pull our irons out of the fire. Realpolitik today should be about supporting democracy, fair trade and freedom.

Perhaps this is why I am so disappointed with the shenanigans over the European Constitution. God, I hope I`m not becoming an Atlanticist. That`s not the answer either. But from your question I wonder whether you are not inviting people to make this false choice, between New York or Old Paree? Are you?
David

Dear David

No, I`m not, and I`ll come back to that. But first, could I ask you a personal question? How did you feel (apart from livid) when, earlier in the year, you were branded a neo-conservative by a British left-wing journalist? Don`t think I`m floating that insult at you because I think it accurate in any way. You know I don`t.

My point is that to brand someone a neo-con in the mould of Wolfowitz et al is the very worst sort of insult. Such people are shockingly, frighteningly wrong-headed. They were also, for a time, very powerful. I don`t think you`re deluded either, by the way, but I wonder if you`re wrongly extrapolating a detestation of neo-con politics to take in the USA at large. Donald Rumsfeld and bovine new imperialism seem practically synonymous to me.

I have no particularly romantic ideas of Europe. As you suggest, Kagan`s idea of `a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity` doesn`t sit easily with constitutional war in Brussels. I do, however, have a starry-eyed vision of an America primed, post-1945, to dominate world politics. The aim then, in the creation of the UN and the rest, was to institutionalise a shaken order. It wasn`t about hegemony (far too troublesome), but about marshalling other states into co-operative orders while leaving the US as unburdened as possible. Now it`s Kagan`s `anarchic, Hobbesian world` and military might. Oh, and as you know very well, realpolitik is still about supporting unsavoury regimes as if they were our friends. My fear is that Blair is now locked into Bush`s future, come what may. And yes, I wish we were closer to Europe, for all its flaws (and buying Christmas presents with euros, come to that). But what next for America, and us, do you think? Where the hell does the war on terror go from here?
Mary

Dear Mary

Yes, that neo-con thing really got to me. It was suggesting that what might be called `liberal interventionism` is really just a Trojan horse for a small hubristic group in the US polity, the better to dismiss the arguments for a world in which genocides are stopped and failing states are turned around.

Ironically the worst kind of American conservatives - people like Pat Buchanan - argue exactly the same link in reverse; that the neo-cons are dupes of the leftist desire for a New World Order. Srebrenica (ask both Left and Right conservatives)? Let well alone. Congo? None of our business. Israel and Palestine? Israelis out or Palestinians out (delete where applicable), but don`t intervene.

Iraq has, I think, made people slightly bonkers. And I have come across the idea a million times that if you supported the war you were right-wing and if you opposed it you were right-on. How a few left-wingers can find themselves, as Tariq Ali has, in the position of actually praising the work of the fascist Baghdad car-bombers, is just beyond me.

Of course, I would much have preferred a fluffier, less folksy, less Republican administration to line up alongside. We wouldn`t have had all that nonsense about young and old Europe then. But if you think that a Democrat president with Joe Lieberman at number two would have baulked at eventual action against Saddam, then I believe you`re wrong. Ask Hillary; she`ll tell you.

On the war against terror I fear a descent into arbitrary government, and I also fear the popular consequences were a large-scale terrorist outrage to happen here in Britain. Do you remember how the David Copeland bombs a few years back provoked Ken Livingstone to call for the banning of far-right political parties? Can you imagine what a lorry-load of explosives in a London cinema, driven there by a Muslim from Derby, would lead to?

This means that I am torn on the question of how far civil liberties may be compromised in the battle against terror. And that`s exactly how it should be. Only stupid people have all the answers.

However - and this brings us back to liberal interventionism - limiting the conditions for terrorism must be the most important part of the so-called war. And that means intervening in failed states, promoting democracy, sorting out the Israeli-Palestinian question and - I hope - reinvigorating the United Nations. When it comes to limiting proliferation, at the end of the year we saw - in the shape of the Libyan decision (negotiated through Britain and the USA) to get rid of its remaining WMD programmes - a significant victory for interventionism.

The funny thing is that, of all the politicians I have heard speak about this, only our reviled, spinning PM seems to get it. I think maybe Gordon does too. Let`s hope so. Because, Mary (and I wonder if you agree with me on this), we in the media are determined to have Tony out this year.
David

Dear David

Some in the media are determined to have him, Blair, out this year. I`m not among them. I don`t see salvation waiting in the wings. I hope that, as an elementary world safety measure, Bush will go (though I expect to be disappointed). But why would I think, with or without a chat with Hillary, that a Democrat administration would have baulked at action against Saddam? A president who bombs an aspirin factory in Khartoum or wages war against Iraq at the height of the Lewinsky scandal sounds the most implausible Nobel peace laureate since Kissinger.

Intervening in failed states, and promoting democracy; wonderful in the promise, don`t you think, and often disastrous in the execution? Of course there are sometimes grounds for intervention, but humanitarian concerns - the best reason - come dangerously low down. As for sorting out the Israeli-Palestinian question, I see no shred of the progress that Tony Blair genuinely longs for.

It`s easy, I know, to point to doom. Sometimes it`s inescapable. The Taliban, and the warlords, are back in Afghanistan. Iraq is a million miles from the grateful secular democracy warmongers predicted, with no coherent way forward. Meanwhile, the breeding grounds of terrorism - notably Saudi Arabia - carry on largely unchallenged. The causes of disaffection, poverty among them, stay unchecked.

You mention disarmament in Libya. Those of us who worked and campaigned for unilateral nuclear disarmament (including you?) are delighted that Libya beat us to it, and that Iran, as you point out, has moved in the right direction too.

Gadaffi`s move does not wrongfoot opponents of the war. Nor is it quite the ringing endorsement you detect of Blair and Bush`s foreign policy. I don`t think it matters that Gadaffi`s nuclear bomb was unbuilt and chemicals redundant, or that he is getting older and his country poorer. Expediency makes the world safer, and ending any nuclear threat is a cause for rejoicing.

I`m drawn back to the beginning of our discussion. You talk about a dangerous polarity in the pro- and anti-war camps. Yes, in a talking shop like this. I don`t know if you have been in a war zone, or watched women and their children starve to death. We should talk about it someday. I don`t want to sounds mawkish or judgmental. All I mean is that it sounds bizarre to talk of danger in an exchange of letters between Islington and Hampstead when, in Iraq and by British and US design, innocent citizens die by the dozen and by the day.

Blair is happy to answer to his Maker for what he has done. I would prefer a more temporal regulator. Hutton? But actually Blair was mostly justified, I think, in the Kelly case. There will be no other judicial inquiry, obviously. So what now? I don`t share your total confidence in a hopeful outcome for Iraq, though - if I were religious - I would pray that you are right. I don`t share your faith in two leaders who came to office uniquely uninterested (and unqualified) in foreign policy. Bush, with fewer airmiles than any president in history, could not recall the names of the leaders of India or Pakistan. Blair was not among the Labour MPs who tabled eight motions against the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

There are some good things. The hubristic promise of more wars of pre-emption looks hollow now. The neo-cons look spent. But terrorism is unchecked, bin Laden is uncaught, men interned without charge languish in Guantanamo and Belmarsh, and the balance between civil liberties and national threat is indeed an uneasy one. The issues that divided us last year roll on into the next one. I hope they can be resolved, but I believe their settlement will take a political courage and wisdom far beyond what we have seen so far.

Happy New Year.
Mary


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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From joy to despair: Iraqis pay for Saddam`s capture

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

27 December 2003: (The Independent) Ali Salman Ali was the first victim of Saddam`s capture, but he died on Christmas Day. As his father Salman Ghazi, 71, tells it, Ali must have been among the first of Iraq`s Shia Muslims to scream his delight in the street after the former dictator emerged from his hole in the ground.

"He shouted that the Americans had come to save us and liberated us from that terrible regime," Mr Ghazi said yesterday, his sun-blasted, lined face and dark eyes staring at my notebook.

Behind me, the 12 cousins of Ali Salman Ali were heaving his cheap wooden coffin from the Baghdad mortuary on to the back of a rusting white pick-up with a cracked windscreen and a toy rabbit swinging from a chain over the mirror.

The Baghdad morgue is a grim enough place at any hour, let alone on a grey, greasy, wet Boxing Day and - though Christmas would have had no place in the family`s observances - there was a kind of weariness among the men in their damp tribal robes with frayed golden fringes standing in the mud yesterday.

It had taken Ali Salman Ali two weeks to die.

"That same afternoon, they came for him," his father said. "He had gone out shopping to Kaddamiya in his car and they were in another car that caught him and overtook him and opened fire on him with rifles." And who were "they"`, I asked? The father looked at another of his sons and then at a cousin who had muttered the word "wahabis". The Sunni Muslim "wahabi" sect in Iraq is at the centre of the anti-American insurgency; a purist, ascetic faith which was, in the last years of Saddam`s rule, allowed an existence as the "committees of the faith".

As a Shia, Ali Salman Ali was, of course, the victim of a sectarian killing - which is why his family were so uneasy about blaming the Sunnis for his murder. Then his father pointed a finger at my notebook. "We shall call his killers `the terrorists`," he said. And who was I to disagree?

As usual, there was no mention of Ali Salman Ali`s death by the occupation authorities who list only Western victims of Iraqi violence. But, for the record, he was 52 and had two wives, six boys and four girls from the first wife, two girls and a boy from the second. He was one of Mr Ghazi`s nine children. Three of them were killed as soldiers in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, along with five of Mr Ghazi`s cousins, all military men struck down in the same conflict. No wonder they hated Saddam.

All had grown up on the family farm at Najaf and it was to Najaf that the family took him for burial yesterday afternoon, not far from the shrine of the 7th-century Shia martyr Ali.

His father said I could take photographs of the coffin as it was placed crossways on the back of the pick-up and one of the cousins broke down in tears and kissed the wooden box. "Today, this place, Iraq, is filled with such carelessness," his father said. "There is no path to follow, no authority and no one to take care of the people."

In a parallel street yesterday, an American-paid Iraqi cop was guarding the crumbling brick house in which the bodies of the newly dead are washed before being taken to the morgue. Inside were two new corpses, the dead of Christmas Eve, newly arrived from the town of Beiji.

"Don`t talk to the relatives," the policeman said. "Both men were killed by the Americans. One worked in a factory and was caught in the open when the resistance fired at American soldiers. The Americans shot everyone they saw. The people are angry because you look like an American." But they all shook hands and stood in front of us with their heads bowed and asked why the tragedy of Iraq was growing worse. The cop wanted the last word. "Saddam brought us to this tragedy and the Americans used it," he said. "You want to know who is to blame? I say this: Fuck Saddam and fuck the USA."

And the men stood there, more tribal men in black robes with the same grey-gold fringes, Sunni Muslims this time but with the same look of hopelessness as the Shia family 100m away. And it rained heavily until the water splashed off their shoulders and streamed down the front of their robes and the cop took refuge in the brick house where they washed the bodies.

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Hooded Men Executing Saddam Officials

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

28 December 2003: (The Independent) General Charles de Gaulle gave the French resistance 48 hours to régler les comptes - settle accounts - after the liberation of France. But after the "liberation" of Iraq, the Baath party`s enemies have declared it open season to hunt down and murder hundreds of the former regime`s officials - with not the slightest attempt by the Anglo-American armies or their newly installed police force to end the bloodshed.

In the Shia city of Najaf, 42 ex-members of the Baath have been murdered and not a single arrest has followed. In Basra, controlled by British troops, almost 50 Baathists have been found with their hands bound behind their backs and a single bullet hole in the neck. Again, there have been no arrests. Hussam Thafer, a doctor at the Baghdad city mortuary, says that every day he receives "five or six" bodies of people who worked for the old regime.

Some of the killings may be personal revenge. The Independent on Sunday has learned of one young Shia who hunted down his former torturer in Baghdad, calmly told the man`s family that he intended to execute him, refused financial retribution for his suffering and went on to murder the man. But many of the killings are being carried out systematically - and with the same cruelty Saddam`s own henchmen once used against the regime`s opponents.

Major-General Khalaf al-Alousi, a former director of the secret police in Baghdad, was assassinated on a Sunday afternoon this month when he visited a home he was renovating in Yarmouk. His wife, Um Ali, described how two men in black hoods were waiting for them in the yard and another in the house, and how she knew they were going to kill her husband . "I shouted and begged them not to do it, for the sake of his daughters," she said. The ex-general tried to talk to his killers. "I never saw such calm before," Um Ali said later. The gunmen fired 17 bullets into their victim.

The guard on the house, Wisam Eidan, had earlier found the men in the yard. "One of them showed me an ID written in English with his picture, and he told me, `don`t argue with the CIA and keep your mouth shut`." In fact, al-Alousi`s family suspect Iranian agents were responsible. He was, they said, in contact with the American-created Governing Council. Was he just a marked man? Or did he know too much - about Saddam`s enemies, about the Iranian secret police, or about the American intelligence services which, after all, co-operated with al-Alousi and his comrades between 1978 and 1990?

In Najaf and other southern cities, Baathists have been shot down by men on motorcycles or in taxis. Sunni Muslims suspect the Badr Brigades are responsible, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) whose representatives also sit on the Governing Council. A building believed to be controlled by the Sciri was blown up in Baghdad last week, killing a Shia man who lived there with his family. Neighbours immediately blamed ex-Baathists for the attack.

Among the most savage of the recent killings came when Dhamia Abbas, a teacher walking to school with her two sons in Najaf, was sprayed with bullets from an AK-47 rifle. "I left the Baath party five years ago," she said from her hospital bed. "But they have been threatening me and following me. I was wearing a full veil when they shot me. I want to take my sons and leave Iraq." What Mrs Abbas did not know when she said this was that one of her two boys, aged four, had already died of his wounds.

Save for appeals for "solidarity" in the aftermath of Saddam`s capture, the Western authorities in Baghdad have shown no concern about the murders. It is, of course, hard to show pity for satraps of the former regime whose own victims are still being dug up in their thousands from the mass graves of southern Iraq. Mrs Abbas, for example, has been accused of choosing prisoners for execution after the 1991 Shia revolt in Najaf.

The local police admit that they have not solved a single crime against ex-Baathists, acknowledging that they will themselves become targets if they attempt to do so. The killers are supposedly receiving $250 for every Baathist they eliminate. Another of their victims was a former governor`s bodyguard who was tortured by his fellow Baathists in 1991; it did not save him.

Only yesterday, in the northern city of Mosul, gunmen in a fast-moving car shot and killed Sheikh Talal al-Khalidi and his 23-year-old son, Saad. Although a member of the new local council that works with US soldiers, al-Khalidi had been a member of the Baathist National Assembly in Baghdad under Saddam. The long arm of revenge - if that is what it truly is - therefore now stretches the length of Iraq.

Copyright: The Independent

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December 28, 2003
TODAY`S EDITORIALS
The New Republicans

The Republican Party has been in charge of the national agenda for almost three years now — Democratic majorities in Congress don`t crimp George W. Bush`s style the way they did for his father or Ronald Reagan when they were in office. We have thus had an unobstructed view of what the 21st-century version of the party looks like. It`s very clear this is not the father`s G.O.P.

The most striking thing about the new Republicanism is the way it embraces big government. The Bush administration has presided over a $400 billion expansion of Medicare entitlements. The party that once campaigned to abolish the Department of Education has produced an education plan that involves unprecedented federal involvement in local public schools. There is talk from the White House about a grandiose new moon shot. Budgetary watchdogs like the Heritage Foundation echo the Republican Senator John McCain`s complaint about "drunken sailor" spending.

All this has left Democrats spluttering over their own hijacked agenda while old-style Republican conservatives despair. "We have come loose from our moorings," Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska concluded as Congress left Washington at the end of the year. It was probably inevitable that a big central government would look a whole lot better to Republicans when they got control of it. And since this page tends to favor activist government, we have little reason to complain when the Bush administration agrees.

What has happened to the Republicans does not seem to reflect an actual shift in ideology; indeed, the philosophic center of this administration is hard to pin down. Yet whatever the reason, some formerly reliably Republican doctrines seem to have disappeared. Federalism is a case in point. After decades of extolling state governments as the best laboratory for new ideas, Republicans in Washington have been resisting state experimentation in areas ranging from pollution control to antispam legislation to prescription drugs.

Late-20th-century Republicanism was an uneasy alliance of social conservatives — who were comfortable with government intervention in citizens` lives when it came to morality issues — and libertarians who wanted as little interference as possible. That balancing act ended on 9/11. Since then, the Justice Department has enlarged the intrusive powers of government by, among other things, authorizing "sneak and peek" searches of private homes and suspending traditional civil liberties for certain defendants. The story of the military chaplain who was arrested — apparently mistakenly — as a suspected terrorist and then wound up being publicly humiliated with a public vetting of his sex life seems like a summary of a libertarian`s worst fears of an overreaching federal government.

The Republicans` newly acquired activism, however, has very clear limits. The modern party`s key allegiance is to corporate America, and its tolerance for intrusive federal government ends when big business is involved. If there is a consistent center to the domestic philosophy of the current administration, it is the idea that business is best left alone. The White House and Congress have chipped away at environmental protections that interfere with business interests on everything from clean air to use of federal lands. The administration is determined to deliver on corporate America`s goal of cutting overtime pay for white-collar workers. At the same time, it has been tepid in asserting greater federal vigilance over the developing scandal of workplace safety.

Republicans have always enjoyed their reputation as the champions of business. The difference now is that they no longer couple their business-friendly attitudes with tight-fistedness. Discretionary spending has jumped 27 percent in the last two years; budget hawks complain Congressional pork is up more than 40 percent. Some of that money has gone to buy the allegiance of wavering party members in the closely divided House and Senate, but much of it is directly tied to the demands of big business. Agriculture subsidies to corporate farms have swollen to new heights, while energy policy has been reduced to a miserable grab bag of special benefits for the oil, gas and coal companies. The last Bush energy bill, which passed the House but died in the Senate, seems likely to be remembered most for the now-famous subsidy for an energy-efficient Hooters restaurant in Louisiana.

The two halves of Republican policy no longer fit together. A political majority that believes in big government for people, and little or no government for corporations, has produced an unsustainable fiscal policy that combines spending on social programs with pork and tax cuts for the rich. Massive budget deficits have been the inevitable result. Something similar happened in the Reagan administration. But unlike Ronald Reagan, Mr. Bush has given no hint of a midcourse adjustment to repair revenue flow. In fact, his Congressional leaders talk of still more tax cuts next year to extend the $1.7 trillion already enacted. That would compound deficits, which could reach $5 trillion in the decade.

This, it appears, is what compassionate conservatism really means. The conservative part is a stern and sometimes intrusive government to regulate the citizenry, but with a hands-off attitude toward business. The compassionate end involves some large federal programs combined with unending sympathy for the demands of special interests. If only it all added up.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Wie wär es mit all unseren grenzenlosen Bush-Bewunderern, geht doch nach Polen!

December 28, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Where U.S. Translates as Freedom
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

WARSAW

I found the cure.

I found the cure to anti-Americanism: Come to Poland.

After two years of traveling almost exclusively to Western Europe and the Middle East, Poland feels like a geopolitical spa. I visited here for just three days and got two years of anti-American bruises massaged out of me. Get this: people here actually tell you they like America — without whispering. What has gotten into these people? Have all their subscriptions to Le Monde Diplomatique expired? Haven`t they gotten the word from Berlin and Paris? No, they haven`t. In fact, Poland is the antidote to European anti-Americanism. Poland is to France what Advil is to a pain in the neck. Or as Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign affairs specialist, remarked after visiting Poland: "Poland is the most pro-American country in the world — including the United States."

What`s this all about? It starts with history and geography. There`s nothing like living between Germany and Russia — which at different times have trampled Poland off the map — to make Poles the biggest advocates of a permanent U.S. military presence in Europe. Said Ewa Swiderska, 25, a Warsaw University student: "We are the small kid in school who is really happy to have the big guy be his friend — it`s a nice feeling."

Indeed, all the history and geography that Western European youth have forgotten, having grown up in a postmodern European Union, are still central to Polish consciousness — well after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. "We still remember many things," said Jan Miroslaw, 22, also a Warsaw University student. "We are more eager to cooperate with America rather than just say `no.` [The West Europeans] just don`t remember many things — like the wars. They live too-comfortable lives."

No wonder then when young Poles think of America, they think of the word "freedom." They think of generations of U.S. presidents railing against their communist oppressors. There is a huge message in this bottle. In the Arab world, because of a long history of U.S. support for Arab autocrats, who kept their people down but their oil flowing to us, America was a synonym for hypocrisy. In Poland, where we have consistently trumpeted freedom, America means freedom. We need to remember that. We are what we stand for.

Poland`s becoming a member of the E.U. will give the U.S. an important friend within that body — a counterweight to those E.U. forces that would like to use anti-Americanism as the glue to bind the expanding alliance and that would like to see the E.U. forge its identity as the great Uncola to America`s Coca-Cola.

But as powerful as Poland`s bond to America is these days, we dare not take it for granted. Poland has some 2,400 troops in Iraq. That`s the good news. The bad news is that roughly 75 percent of Poles oppose their deployment. Polish officials will tell you Poland sent troops to Iraq to help keep the Americans in Europe. But the public doesn`t make such connections, and most people don`t understand what their boys are doing there or what Poland is getting out of it. (How about a few extra visas for Poles?) If the U.S. ends up in a mess in Iraq, so will Poland. Many "old" Europeans will then laugh at Warsaw, and that would be highly corrosive for Polish-U.S. relations.

At the same time, once Poland is fully ensconced in the E.U., its young people will grow up in that postmodern E.U. nirvana, where anti-Americanism is in the drinking water. Sadly, many education and public diplomacy programs the U.S. directed at Eastern Europe after the fall of communism have been cut or redirected to the Muslim world. Bad timing.

There is now a competition between the United States of America and the United States of Europe for the next generation of Poles — who don`t all have their parents` emotional ties to the U.S. — "and the U.S. is losing this competition," says a Polish foreign policy expert, Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas. "The new generation in Poland likes American pop culture, but it has less contact with American high culture — like education. It is so much easier for young Poles to go to university in Germany or France."

Given Poland`s geography and history, there`s a limit to how far it will drift from America. Poland will never be France. But we shouldn`t assume it will remain the Poland of 1989 forever, either, and if it doesn`t, that could have real consequences for America`s standing in Europe.


Maureen Dowd is on vacation.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Politikwende?

washingtonpost.com
Attacks Force Retreat From Wide-Ranging Plans for Iraq


By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 -- The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq`s economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.

Plans to privatize state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.

With the administration`s plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.

"There`s no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq`s reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, everyone`s attention is focused [on] doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer."

The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule."

"The Americans are coming to understand that they cannot change everything they want to change in Iraq," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a senior leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite Muslim political party that is cooperating with the U.S. occupation authority. "They need to let the Iraqi people decide the big issues."

Bremer`s plan for Iraqis to write a constitution before he departed had been intended to prevent extremists from dominating the drafting process. U.S. officials acknowledge that risk exists, but said it had been outweighed by the need to end the civil occupation by the summer. The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq will go on longer, military officials have said.

With goodwill toward Americans ebbing fast, Bremer and his lieutenants have also concluded that it does not make sense to cause new social disruptions or antagonize Iraqis allied with the United States. Selling off state-owned factories would lead to thousands of layoffs, which could prompt labor unrest in a country where 60 percent of the population is already unemployed.

Food Rationing System


An unwillingness to assume other risks has also scuttled, at least temporarily, plans to overhaul a national food rationing program that was a cornerstone of Hussein`s welfare state. Several senior officials want to replace monthly handouts of flour, cooking oil, beans and other staples -- received by more than 90 percent of Iraqis -- with a cash payment of about $15. Although the proposal has the enthusiastic support of economic conservatives in the occupation authority, concerns about the logistics have put the effort on hold.

"It`s a great idea that the academics thought up, but it wasn`t in tune with the political realities," said a U.S. official familiar with discussions of the issue. "We have to look at what we gain versus what we risk. Right now, we don`t need to be adding any more challenges to those we already have."

A similar philosophy extends to the disarmament of various militias backed by political groups. Although the occupation authority wanted to quickly disband the Kurdish pesh merga militias by moving members into the new army and police force, U.S. officials have not pressed the issue with Kurdish leaders, who remain strong supporters of the American occupation. U.S. officials are also taking a measured approach toward a Shiite militia whose sponsoring party is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

At the same time, the occupation authority has substantially decreased the number of new recruits it intends to put through a three-month boot camp designed to build an improved, professionally trained army. Instead, the occupation authority is increasing the ranks of police officers and civil defense troops, who can be deployed faster but receive far less training and screening than the soldiers.

Bremer also recently allowed the creation of a new force, comprising former members of five political party militias, to pursue insurgents with American training and support.

"The Americans promised to limit our security forces to a professional army and a professional police," said Ghazi Yawar, a member of Iraq`s U.S.-appointed Governing Council. "They should not tolerate these militias. They should be dissolving them."

Yawar and his fellow Sunni Muslims, a minority that had long ruled Iraq, are concerned that Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of the population, and Kurds, who have lived autonomously for 12 years, will have little incentive to demobilize their militias after the occupation.

"The Americans have to deal with this issue," he said. "It would be irresponsible to leave it up to the Iraqis."

Across Iraq, efforts are underway to rebuild after years of war, economic sanctions and gross mismanagement by Hussein`s government. Hundreds of schools have been refurbished with funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Extensive rehabilitation and expansion of the country`s electrical, water and sewage systems are slated to begin next year, paid for by an $18 billion U.S. aid package. "We are going to see a massive reconstruction program that will further demonstrate the depth of American commitment to Iraq," Bremer said in a recent interview.

But there has also been a noticeable dampening of some early ambitions to remake Iraq. In June, as he returned to Baghdad aboard a U.S. military transport plane after speaking at an international economic conference, Bremer discussed the need to privatize government-run factories with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold. "We have to move forward quickly with this effort," he said. "Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands is essential for Iraq`s economic recovery."

Asked recently about privatization, he said it was an issue "for a sovereign Iraqi government to address."

The administration`s decision to shift privatization and the drafting of a constitution to the provisional government has been generally well received by Iraqi political leaders, who want to deal with those subjects themselves. But a small, quiet minority of political figures, including a few members of the Governing Council, contend that aggressive market-oriented policies must be enacted by the occupation authority. The provisional government, they fear, will not be willing to assume the risk of revamping the ration system or shutting down a factory with thousands of workers.

"The Americans are the only ones who can implement these changes," one of the council`s 25 members said. "If they leave it up to Iraqis, it will never get done."

Bremer and his aides voiced similar concerns until Nov. 15, when he agreed to abandon his insistence that a constitution be written before a transfer of sovereignty. A few weeks before the new arrangement was announced, a top American official here stated that requiring the drafting of a "constitution before sovereignty is the only way to guarantee we`ll get a constitution."

By handing over sovereignty first, the administration has ceded veto power over the final document and is forcing Iraqis to confront a raft of contentious issues, from Kurdish demands for autonomy to Shiite demands for Islamic law, without a referee. In September, Bremer warned that electing a government without a constitution "invites confusion and eventual abuse."

Under the Nov. 15 agreement, Iraqi political leaders are to draft a "basic law" that will serve as an interim constitution until a permanent one is written. Bremer has said that the basic law will include a bill of rights, recognition of an independent judiciary and other "guarantees that were not in Saddam`s constitution." His aides contend that discussions about federalism and the relationship between religion and government that will occur during the writing of the basic law will ease the process of drafting a permanent constitution, but other American officials are more skeptical.

"We`re requiring a country that lacks a democratic tradition and the institutions of civil society, but has plenty of ethnic and religious tension, to sort out a lot of very challenging things," the senior American official said. "It`s not ideal, but what choice do we have? Nobody wants us to extend our stay here."

Privatization, the official said, illustrates the dilemma well: It is a step that needs to be taken -- and that Bremer wanted to take -- but it has been deemed too difficult and dangerous to accomplish now.

Reversal on Oil Factory


With a bloated workforce, decrepit factories and goods that cannot compete with imports, the State Company for Vegetable Oils is the sort of government-run business that economists working for the occupation authority had wanted to shove into the private sector as soon as possible.

One of 48 companies owned by the Ministry of Industry, the enterprise was a flagship of Hussein`s socialist economy. Its six factories produced consumer goods -- from partially hydrogenated cooking oil to shampoo and detergent -- that filled the domestic market and were cheaper than imported products.

Although the company posted impressive profits, they were illusory. The government subsidized imports of raw materials, charging the company only $1 for each $6,000 worth of materials brought in.

American experts who examined the company over the summer believed it would be foolish for Iraq`s new government to continue the subsidies. What was needed, they concluded, was a private owner who would buy raw materials and sell finished products at market prices. In exchange for investing in new manufacturing equipment and modernizing the product line to better compete with imports, they decided the new owner should have the right to shut down older factories and reduce the number of employees to bring costs under control.

In late June, Bremer outlined his vision for a free-market Iraq before hundreds of business executives attending a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan.

"Markets allocate resources much more efficiently than politicians," Bremer said. "So our strategic goal in the months ahead is to set in motion policies which will have the effect of reallocating people and resources from state enterprises to more productive private firms."

The vegetable oil company`s director at the time, Faez Ghani Aziz, agreed with Bremer. "We need outside investors," he said shortly after the speech. "We cannot continue like this."

Bremer`s chief economic adviser over the summer, Peter McPherson, advocated a speedy move toward privatization, citing studies of the economic transformations in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. "This needs to be done quickly," McPherson, president of Michigan State University, said in July. "Experience shows us that the faster you do it, the more beneficial it is for the economy."

But as resistance attacks grew more intense, security worries quickly trumped economic ambitions in Bremer`s office. No one wanted to do anything that would increase the number of jobless Iraqis who might be recruited to fight the occupation. Practical concerns also surfaced: The closure of Baghdad`s airport to commercial flights meant few investors could travel to Iraq.

Iraqi officials expressed further doubts about fast privatization. They argued that waiting for a year or two for Iraq to stabilize would increase the prices at which the government could sell factories. They also raised fears that former Baathists would use ill-gotten money to buy up state firms.

In late July, the debate took a grim turn. After refusing to rehire dozens of workers who had been dismissed before the war, Aziz, the director of the vegetable oil company, was gunned down on his way to work. His killing sent a wave of panic through the Ministry of Industry. All of a sudden, no one wanted to talk about privatization.

Faced with growing reluctance among officials at the ministry and on the Governing Council, Bremer and his advisers stopped advocating a fast sell-off of state firms. "It`s just disappeared from the agenda," an official with the occupation authority said. "It was just too risky."

The Ministry of Industry recently decided to lease 35 factories to Iraqi and foreign investors on the condition that they not fire a single employee. "The Americans first thought with the easy change of regime in Iraq there should be parallel drastic decisions on the economic front," said Mehdi Hafedh, Iraq`s interim minister of planning. "But now they realize they cannot be too aggressive."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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In Iraq, Pace of U.S. Casualties Has Accelerated


By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page A01


The number of U.S. service members killed and wounded in Iraq has more than doubled in the past four months compared with the four months preceding them, according to Pentagon statistics.

From Sept. 1 through Friday, 145 service members were killed in action in Iraq, compared with 65 from May 1 to Aug. 30. The two four-month intervals cover counterinsurgency operations, far costlier than major combat operations, which President Bush declared over on May 1.

Increases in those wounded in action have been equally dramatic this fall. Since Sept. 1, 1,209 soldiers have received battlefield wounds, more than twice the 574 wounded in action from May 1 through Aug. 30.

Nor have casualties tapered off since the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13. Through Friday, 12 service members were killed in action and 105 were wounded with Hussein in custody.

After a summer in which U.S. military commanders believed they were about to turn a corner and see a significant decline in casualties, attacks on American forces increased dramatically in October and early November, prompting a U.S. counteroffensive that culminated in Hussein`s capture near Tikrit.

"The rate of casualties over the last four months is an indication that the insurgents are getting better organized," said retired Lt. Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. "The insurgents have been encouraged by the fact that they have had some success."

But casualties are far from "mission-threatening," Krepinevich said, adding that the real key to success depends upon "the will of the American people to continue to accept this level of casualties, which -- by the way -- is far lower than anything we experienced in the Vietnam War."

"It would take years at this casualty rate to arrive at the number killed in an hour at the World Trade Center," he added.

Growing Impatience


Nevertheless, Americans are clearly growing weary of casualties. Washington Post-ABC News polling data from late March, during major combat operations, showed that 58 percent of Americans interviewed said they thought the number of casualties in Iraq was acceptable, with 34 percent saying the number was unacceptable.

The latest results, based on interviews conducted Dec. 18-21 with 1,001 randomly selected adults nationwide, indicate that those percentages have flipped, with only 33 percent saying the number of casualties is acceptable and 64 percent saying it is unacceptable.

Yet support for the war remained solid. Asked whether the war in Iraq was worth fighting, considering the costs and the benefits to the United States, 59 percent said it was.

"Despite the myth that the American public is casualty-averse, the nation has traditionally accepted casualties if the public thinks that the cause is just and there is a definable end state," said retired Marine Col. Gary W. Anderson, a consultant to the Pentagon on Iraqi security issues.

But support for the war could erode dramatically, defense analysts and public opinion experts said, if casualties continue at a relatively high rate next year and start to have the effect of undermining public confidence in the mission.

A Coming `Tipping Point`?


Since the war began on March 19, a total of 470 service members have died in Iraq: 325 were killed in action, and 145 died in non-hostile circumstances involving accidents and suicides. The number killed in action in the war`s counterinsurgency phase, 210, is nearly twice the 115 battlefield fatalities during major combat operations.

The number of soldiers wounded in action totaled 2,333, with an additional 370 injured in non-hostile circumstances. The total wounded in action in counterinsurgency operations, 1,783, is now more than three times the 550 wounded in action during major combat operations.

Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University and an expert on war and public opinion, said continued casualties could reach a "tipping point" at which the Bush administration loses the most important element in public support for the war: a belief that success is likely.

Although Hussein`s capture earlier this month helped bolster that belief, Feaver said, the steady "drip-drip-drip of casualties" and criticism of the war by Democratic candidates in next year`s presidential election is likely to bring support for the war back down again.

A single event that causes a large number of U.S. casualties, such as the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, could push the public toward the tipping point, said retired Marine Lt. Col. Gary D. Solis, the Marine Corps` chief of oral history.

"We`ve never been as casualty-averse as either the politicians said or the military thought," Solis said, speaking for himself, not the Marine Corps. "But that can change in an instant."

Feaver said he is not surprised by the lack of public outcry thus far about casualties in Iraq. "The public has responded to the casualties in a way that is contrary to the conventional Beltway wisdom but perfectly in keeping with the academic scholarship on the issue," he said. "The Beltway wisdom is that public support collapses in the face of casualties, and by casualties I mean fatalities. But the academic research shows that public support is far more robust," as long as people feel the stakes are important and believe success is likely.

`Enemies of Freedom`


Letters and e-mails coming into the 82nd Airborne Division`s headquarters in Iraq suggest that "many Americans understand, in the wake of 9/11, that there is a very real enemy that will attempt to kill Americans at whatever cost wherever found," said Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the division`s commander. "These Americans also understand that these determined, unscrupulous enemies of freedom must be stopped in spite of the tragic cost."

Eliot Cohen, a professor of national security studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that 3,173 service members "is, indeed, a lot of casualties." But the effect, he said, is being mitigated by a number of factors, including improved medical care and body armor, that are keeping far more troops alive, and an almost total ban on news coverage of the wounded as they return to the United States at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. While stories have been written and broadcast about individual casualties recuperating from wounds received in Iraq, there has been almost no coverage in the media of large aircraft arriving almost nightly at Andrews carrying war wounded from the battlefield. Similarly, media coverage of bodies arriving at the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware has been prohibited.

Cohen also said that the "political impact of casualties" is very different now, with an all-volunteer military, than it was during the Vietnam War, when many of the 58,000 soldiers killed were draftees.

"The families are more stoical, as are the troops themselves," Cohen said.

But at the same time, a considerable number of casualties in Iraq have been from the Army Reserve and the National Guard, meaning that while they, too, volunteered to serve, they went to war directly from their homes in communities across America.

"The deaths of Guardsmen and reservists is likely to start hitting home in the near future," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department analyst with ties to U.S. military`s Special Forces. "The deaths of comrades hit them harder and have a more damaging effect on unit morale."




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Seitdem Bush Präsident ist und nicht mehr sein Unwesen in Texas treibt, fallen die Zahlen der vollstreckten Todesurteile.

washingtonpost.com
2003: The Year in Death


Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page B06


STARTING IN 2000, the number of executions in this country took a two-year nosedive. After climbing to a peak of 98 in 1999, executions fell by nearly a third by 2001. Over the past two years, however, this decline has flattened out. After executing 85 people in 2000 and 66 people in 2001, states and the federal government put 71 people to death last year and 65 this year, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center. This flattening makes it look as if the decline in capital punishment has been arrested, but the story is more complicated. Beneath these numbers, an important recent trend in capital punishment appears to be sharpening: The death penalty is growing ever more regional.

In 2002, 65 percent of executions took place in only three states -- Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. This year Texas alone accounted for 24 executions. The top three states -- Texas, Oklahoma (which killed 14) and North Carolina (seven) -- together carried out 69 percent of the executions nationally. Add in Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Alabama, each of which killed three, and 88 percent of the executions have been accounted for. Only 11 states -- along with the federal government -- carried out executions, the lowest number since 1993. In other words, even as the number of executions holds relatively steady, fewer states are doing more of the dirty work.

This is good news for those who believe, as we do, that capital punishment ought to be abolished. Right now the political consensus in most states does not exist to get rid of it. Politicians are committed to the death penalty, and solid majorities of the public support it as well. The best prospect for long-term change lies in the ongoing demonstration that the death penalty isn`t necessary or effective and carries great dangers. States with moribund death penalties can evolve over time into states without death penalties with no great disruption to their criminal justice systems or to the expectations of their electorates. The fewer states that execute people regularly, the more exceptional become those like Texas and Oklahoma -- which insist on using capital punishment as a routine instrument of justice.

This year also saw some significant breakthroughs in efforts to reform the death penalty, a movement that has been driven by the flood of wrongly convicted people freed from death row. (Ten more people this year were freed because of serious innocence questions.) Most dramatic was the mass clemency granted last January by outgoing Illinois governor George Ryan, who has since been indicted on corruption charges. Mr. Ryan pardoned or commuted the sentences of every one of the state`s 171 death row inmates, on the theory that the system in his state had been so gravely flawed that no capital sentence should be carried out. The legislature followed up with serious reforms, and the new governor, Rod Blagojevich, has kept a moratorium on executions in place.

Congress, meanwhile, has also begun taking serious steps. A bipartisan compromise broke the logjam over the Innocence Protection Act, an important bill that Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) has been pushing to facilitate DNA testing and to improve the quality of capital defense lawyering. This raises the prospect that the bill, which the House passed in November as part of the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act 2003, could become law in 2004. Capital punishment in America will not disappear all of a sudden. But if serious reform efforts continue and the penalty becomes ever more regional in its application, it could begin to fade away.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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NEWS ANALYSIS



The Iraq Dilemma: Do it Right or Quick?
By Doyle McManus and Sonni Efron
Times Staff Writers

December 28, 2003

WASHINGTON — President Bush has proclaimed two highly ambitious goals for the U.S. occupation of Iraq in the next six months: to crush the anti-American insurgency and then, on June 30, to transfer sovereignty to a still-unformed Iraqi government.

To do so, Bush and his right-hand man in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, must make a series of crucial decisions that may determine whether the U.S. invasion is remembered as a triumph or as the overreach of an arrogant superpower.

Underlying almost every choice is a basic dilemma: Is it more important to do Iraq "right" — to make sure stability and democracy take firm root — or to do it "quick," before the majority of both Iraqis and American voters decide that the occupation has become too great a burden?

Both options require maintaining a large contingent of troops in Iraq to establish the groundwork for the fledgling government and then protect it. Bush has even left himself the option of temporarily increasing the number of troops if necessary.

"The president wants to do it right," Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in an interview last week. "And that`s why … he`s talking in terms of one or two years, and the military commanders are also talking about one or two years, in terms of the troops` staying there."

However, others inside and outside the administration worry that in an election year, pressure will mount to draw down troops more quickly.

Some in the administration "want to get Iraq right, and that group [needs] a longer time frame," said Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security advisor to former President George H.W. Bush. "At the other extreme, there are some whose goal is to get Iraq off the front pages by August."

By any standard, the election-year timetable for Iraqi sovereignty is brisk.

By Feb. 28, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council is supposed to produce a temporary constitution, the "Fundamental Law." A month after that, the council and the U.S. military are scheduled to conclude an agreement allowing American troops to remain in the country long-term.

Meanwhile, caucuses in Iraq`s 18 provinces are slated to choose members of a new transitional legislative assembly by May 31. The assembly is supposed to meet in June, appoint a new prime minister and, on June 30, officially assume sovereignty as the interim government of Iraq.

Can all that be done in six months? Even some top officials acknowledge that there will be loose ends, and that the new Iraqi government`s sovereignty still will rest on a foundation of U.S. military force and money.

"We realize that all the t`s are not going to be crossed and the i`s dotted by 30 June," said a senior U.S. official. That is why, he said, the administration is determined to reach an agreement with the Iraqis on allowing U.S. troops to remain.

Some American experts say that if a credible government cannot be formed by the deadline, the U.S. should extend the time frame, rather than install a government without Iraqi or international support.

"It`s not written in stone that anything must happen on June 30," said Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University who has been an advisor to both Bremer and leading Iraqi figures. "If there`s no credible legitimate transitional government ready to assume power on June 30, we should not hand power to a noncredible body as the second best."

If the plan doesn`t work, skeptics say, the U.S. occupation authority on June 30 may just change its name to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and the unelected Iraqi Governing Council might seek to cling to power.

A failure to make the deadline or the continuation of an unelected government would be a setback for the Bush administration, and not merely in terms of its election-year image. It probably would deter the United Nations from becoming more active in Iraq and would fuel suspicion in the Arab world that the U.S. is reluctant to cede power.

Meanwhile, the most pressing problem for both the United States and Iraqis who support the interim government is security. The cumbersome processes of even an interim, partial democracy will be difficult to carry out if anti-American forces increase their attacks on both U.S. forces and on cooperating Iraqis.

Some of the main challenges:

• Ending the insurgency:

Despite the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, it is not yet clear whether the anti-American insurgency will soon run out of steam. As the year ends, U.S. officials have been hopeful. During the last two weeks, U.S. forces in Iraq`s "Central Sector" — the Pentagon`s new nonsectarian name for what used to be called the "Sunni Triangle" — have captured dozens of key figures in the insurgency`s clandestine leadership. And the Pentagon says that attacks on U.S. targets have diminished to about 15 a day, down from about 50 a day in mid-September.

However, in Karbala on Saturday, the slowdown ended with a fierce attack on U.S. allies, as insurgents, including suicide bombers in four vehicles, killed 13 people and wounded more than 170 others.

Some critics say that the Pentagon is trying to fight the war with too few troops, stretching the Army and Marine Corps and giving insurgents false hope of an early withdrawal. "I`d put more troops in now, in a hurry," Scowcroft said. "The more troops you have, the quicker you can change the climate."

• Making a deal with the Shiites:

A major stumbling block has been Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the nation`s most influential Shiite leader. Sistani has rejected the plan to hold caucuses to select the new government. He has insisted that only a government chosen by direct elections will be legitimate. The U.S. and its allies are adamant that there isn`t enough time before the June 30 handover to conduct a census, register voters and organize political parties, without which a legitimate election cannot be held.

The stalemate, if not resolved quickly, puts the United States in the awkward position of trying to force a political process that is not entirely democratic, possibly further hurting its image in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Behind the scenes, Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is trying to arrange a compromise acceptable not just to Sistani but also to the Governing Council and other Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders.

"It can`t be just cutting a deal with Sistani," a senior State Department official said last week. "He may represent a very significant political force among the major groups, but it won`t hold Iraq together if we just cut a deal with him."

Still, the mechanics of the 18 caucuses slated to select the new government haven`t been worked out either.

"It has to be seen as legitimate not only in the eyes of the world, but especially in the eyes of the Iraqis," the official said. "It has to be a government they`re willing to invest in."

• Including the Sunnis:

To create a legitimate government, Bremer also will have to involve the alienated, angry and fearful Sunni population.

The minority Sunnis, who were dominant under Saddam Hussein`s rule, are now most identified in American minds as the inhabitants of the hostile Sunni Triangle. And because so many middle-class Sunnis joined the Baath Party under Hussein — a necessity for career enhancement — a large portion of the Sunni elite is now ineligible to participate in politics under a coalition decree barring ex-Baathists from public office.

The ban was imposed with the support of the Iraqi exiles on the Governing Council. But it is opposed by many Iraqis who say Sunnis are needed to rebuild Iraq. They argue that Iraqis can and must distinguish between senior Baathists guilty of crimes in the old regime and low-level technocrats.

Experts have been warning for some months that failure to include the Sunnis in the new Iraq is a recipe for civil war as soon as U.S. forces leave. Some say even those sympathetic to the anti-U.S. insurgency must be included, lest they be left behind as spoilers.

Bush administration officials see the leadership vacuum among the Sunnis as a danger — but so far, there appear to be no specific plans to remedy it.

"Our job ... is to reach out to Sunni tribal leaders, make it very clear in word and in deed that they do have a future in the political system of the new Iraq," Armitage said this month. "This is a very time-consuming and arduous process, but it is a most worthy one."

• Drafting a constitution:

The U.S. timetable calls on the Governing Council to write a temporary constitution — Fundamental Law — by the end of February, but that job could be just as complex and controversial as writing a permanent charter. The Fundamental Law is supposed to set out a schedule for electing delegates to the constitutional convention, a federal system to divide power between Baghdad and the country`s 18 provinces, and a bill of rights.

The U.S. wants to include the rights of free speech, assembly and religion, guarantees of due process and a statement of equal rights for all Iraqis regardless of gender, religion or ethnic origin.

But many of those provisions may generate controversy among Iraqis. U.S. officials acknowledge, for example, that a guarantee of equal rights for women could meet with resistance from Islamic conservatives, although the Governing Council already has agreed to the principle in an earlier document.

In addition, Ayatollah Sistani is demanding a clause that says that nothing in the constitution can contradict the laws of Islam; and some think he may get it.

• Playing chicken with the Governing Council:

Much as the U.S. wants to ensure that the appointed Iraqi Governing Council is dissolved on June 30, there are fears that some council members are maneuvering to hold onto power — and to win lucrative reconstruction contracts in the meantime.

"[Iraqis] are worried that power is being concentrated in the hands of a very few who are getting contracts and lining their pockets," said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq-watcher at the National Defense University in Washington.

To persuade the Governing Council and other Iraqi groups to work together to establish a new government, the administration has employed a variety of arguments, including warning that the U.S.-led occupation authority will not be around to protect them if they don`t.

Bremer`s strategy, one U.S. official said, is to "just keep telling people, `We`re going to be gone by June 30 and although you are enthused about that idea, just think about what you`re going to do on July 1.`

"We want to get out of there, yes, and we have an interest in doing so, but you`ve got to hope the Iraqis themselves want to get this done by June 30, too," said the official, who asked not to be named.

The U.S. also is counting on using aid to move the council. Asked what leverage the U.S. has over the council, a senior official said: "I would say $18.6 billion for openers matters, and where you put those contracts and in what order matters."

With so many issues to resolve, the planned transfer of political power on June 30 — if it takes place — may be considerably less polished than the administration would hope.

Pessimists fear that Bremer could leave behind 100,000 U.S. troops charged with keeping an unpopular, unrepresentative, vulnerable Iraqi government in office. The nightmare outcome, in the words of one expert: a "Lebanon in Vietnam."

But realists say that the U.S. should settle for a modest goal of setting the new Iraqi government, however imperfect, on the long march toward democracy, with the promise of elections in the near future.

Said one person close to the process: "If we have something that vaguely looks like a government, and we don`t have Americans dying every day, that would be a wild success."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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ANTI-SEMITISM




A Minor Problem, Overblown
Criticism of Israel--and its Jewish supporters--is not anti-Semitism.
By Michael Neumann
Michael Neumann teaches philosophy at Trent University in Canada.

December 28, 2003

TORONTO — Jewish and non-Jewish commentators alike have deplored a recent upsurge in anti-Semitism. In Europe, journalist Andrew Sullivan says, "Not since the 1930s has such blithe hatred of Jews gained this much respectability in world opinion."

Yet, Jews like myself and the Israeli journalist Ran HaCohen feel quite differently. He writes: "It is high time to say it out loud: In the entire course of Jewish history, since the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC, there has never been an era blessed with less anti-Semitism than ours. There has never been a better time for Jews to live in than our own."

Why would a Jew say such a thing? What is anti-Semitism, and how much of a danger is it in the world today?

If both sides agree on anything, it`s that the definition of "anti-Semitism" has been manipulated for political ends. Leftists accuse ardent Zionists of inflating the definition to include — and discredit — critics of Israel. Zionists accuse the left of deflating the definition to apologize for covert prejudice against Jews.

It`s a sterile dispute. Even in this age of intellectual property, no one owns the word. But the definitional sparring does have its missteps and dangers.

The first tells against deflationists who claim that anti-Semitism is really hatred of Semites (including Arabs), not just Jews. This confuses etymology with meaning. You might as well say that, in reality, lesbians are simply those who live on the Greek island of Lesbos.

On the other hand, to inflate the definition by including critics of Israel is, if not exactly incorrect, self-defeating and dangerous. No one can stop you from proclaiming all criticism of Israel anti-Semitic. But that makes anti-Semites out of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, not to mention tens of thousands of Jews.

What then prevents someone from concluding that anti-Semitism must be, at least in some cases, justifiable, courageous, highly moral? Is this a message any prudent Jew or anti-racist would want to encourage?

Similar worries arise when Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, tells us: "The classic canards of `Jews control,` `Jews are responsible` and `Jews are not loyal` continue to be peddled in America. While anti-Semites have usually been on the fringes of our society, today we find they and their views have made it into the mainstream."

Well, it might be anti-Semitic to hold Jews responsible for everything, but it would be bizarre to claim anti-Semitism whenever Jews are held responsible for anything. In a survey conducted by Steven M. Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 87% of American Jews said that Jews "have a responsibility to work on behalf of the poor, the oppressed and minority groups"; 92% said that Jews are obliged to help other Jews who are "needy or oppressed." What Foxman calls an anti-Semitic canard is deeply rooted in traditional and contemporary Jewish thought. A Web search will find dozens of rabbis attributing to Jews, generally, not just responsibilities but collective responsibility.

We hold groups responsible for things, good and bad, all the time: The Germans started World War II, the French opposed us in Iraq, the British supported us. The strongly pro-Israel columnist Jonathan Rosenblum states, "The Jews have built an advanced, industrial state, while the Palestinians have built nothing."

Clearly, it is not just anti-Semites who attribute responsibility to the Jews. And just as clearly, this is neither racist nor to be taken literally. Rosenblum does not mean that every last Jew, including children and the mentally disabled, built that state. He means that most adult Jews made some contribution to it.

If so, should definitional inflation be allowed to make anti-Semites out of all those who hold Jews responsible for Israel`s actions and character? My childhood, in largely Jewish suburbs of New York and Boston, was full of Israel bond drives and calls to support Israel. Can`t Rosenblum say that "the Jews," meaning a substantial majority of adult Jews, have some responsibility for what Israel has become? And can`t Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch say that Israel has committed war crimes and violated human rights?

One might justly call it dangerous to conclude that Jews, generally, had some responsibility for war crimes and human rights violations. But to call it anti-Semitic seems just as dangerous, because in some loose, though not unreasonable, sense, the conclusion is hard to escape. That`s why there are whole Jewish organizations, like Not in My Name, that exist to enable Jews to dissociate themselves from Israel`s actions.

In short, you can`t have it both ways. You can, if you like, inflate the definition of "anti-Semitism" to capture even Jewish political opponents of Israel. But you can`t do this and keep "anti-Semitism" as a term of intense moral condemnation. Nor will the inflationary gambit successfully isolate the truly reprehensible anti-Semites.

The best way to reserve "anti-Semitism" as a term of condemnation is to define it as hatred of Jews, not for what they do but for what they are. It is to hate them just because they belong to a certain ethnic group. Foxman is right to suggest that you can be an anti-Semite without expressing any racist sentiments: Many anti-Semites confine themselves to expounding false claims about Jewish control. But you can also, without harboring anti-Semitic hate, criticize Israel and even the Jewish community for its failures. To suppose otherwise would be to suppose an inexplicable wave of anti-Semitism among both American and Israeli Jews, both of whom figure prominently among the critics.

But the touchiest question is not what anti-Semitism is, or whether it has increased. It is whether Jews are in significant danger. Isn`t that what matters?

To put it personally: Anti-Semitism may be important to me, but is it important, period? The answer cannot be dictated by "Jewish sensibilities."

My background certainly predisposes me to regard anti-Semitic incidents with alarm. But time passes. Concentration camp survivors still alive deserve sympathy and justice, but they are few. Myself, I`d feel a bit embarrassed saying to a homeless person on the streets of Toronto, much less to the inhabitants of a Philippine garbage dump: "Oh yeah? You think you know suffering? My grandmother died in a concentration camp!"

We should indeed guard against a resurgence of European fascism, and Jewish organizations are oddly lax about this. The ADL, for instance, did not comment on last month`s electoral gains of Croatian nationalists who trace their lineage directly back to some of Adolf Hitler`s most savage and willing executioners. But we Jews live not in the past but in a brutal present that forces us to reassess our moral priorities.

An appropriately stark reassessment might involve counting up the dead and wounded in the ADL`s list of anti-Semitic incidents in 2002 and 2003. Its surveys include two Al Qaeda attacks. This is questionable: Al Qaeda`s war on the United States, Israel, the West and pretty much everyone else seems independent of sentiment in the countries in which the attacks occurred. Include these attacks and the number of Jews killed in that period seems to be nine. Exclude them, and it falls to one, in Morocco. Jews hospitalized or incurring serious injuries falls to about a dozen.

On March 14, the BBC reported that the Honduran government would investigate the killings of 1,569 street children in the last five years. The killers may well be "police or army personnel," according to Amnesty International, and there have been virtually no prosecutions. Not even the alternative left-wing press gave the story any coverage. In the Congo, 3 million have died in 4 1/2 years. Perhaps anti-Semitism is not, after all, a high priority.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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ANTI-SEMITISM

Achtung #10911 und #10912 sind zwei verschiedene Standpunkte, die zusammen gehören.


Jews Face a Widening Web of Hate
By Abraham H. Foxman
Abraham H. Foxman is national director of the Anti-Defamation League and author of "Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism."

December 28, 2003

NEW YORK — Throughout the 1990s and even after Sept. 11, 2001, discussions about anti-Semitism often included the view that Jew hatred had diminished and was no longer a real threat. Such complacency is dangerous. Anti-Semitism is not a relic of history but a current event. Its resurgence is stronger and more widespread than even the most pessimistic among us predicted. And the threat is growing. Indeed, the contemporary rise of this oldest hatred in the world is by far the greatest since the 1930s, sharing some characteristics of that most terrible time for Jews. But it also has new forms and modes of transmission.

In one weekend in November, two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, were attacked simultaneously by suicide bombers, and a Jewish school outside Paris was destroyed by arson. These attacks occurred about a month after the Malaysian prime minister, in his swan song to the leaders of 57 Islamic nations, issued a call to a holy war against the Jews "who rule this world by proxy." Mahathir Mohamad proclaimed that Jews were not just the enemy of Muslims but of all peoples and nations. Whether the suicide bombers in Turkey were moved by his message is a question that will probably go unanswered. But one thing is clear: Their acts were motivated by a deep-seated anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a Holocaust museum in Terre Haute, Ind., was leveled by arson. The attacker left behind the words "Remember Timmy McVeigh," which were spray-painted on an exterior wall. Acts of vandalism and intimidation and anti-Semitic graffiti have hit other Jewish communities across the country as well.

Where does this hatred come from? Why is it growing today?

Historically, anti-Semitism shares many characteristics with such forms of prejudice as racism and xenophobia. What makes it different — and what lies at the core of the disease — is the notion that Jews may appear to be people like you and me but are, in fact, alien, conspiratorial, all-powerful evil beings.

That premise underlies the medieval charge of blood libel against Jews and of the poisoning of wells as an explanation for the Black Plague. Even today, Jews are accused of using Christian blood in their rituals.

That premise underlies the belief that the forged document known as "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," created by the czarist police in 1903, was a real Jewish plan to take over the world.

That premise allowed Adolf Hitler to convince huge numbers of Germans that they were the victims of the insidious Jew and that they had to do anything to protect themselves from this all-powerful foe.

Today, nearly 60 years after the slaughter of 6 million Jews in Europe, this core of anti-Semitism is finding new life, not merely on the margins where it always had followers but among the mainstream in too many societies, though mostly in the Islamic world.

Anti-Jewishness has always been part of the refusal by Arabs and the Islamic world to recognize Israel`s legitimacy as a state. But that attitude has taken on a far more ominous tone than the political, nationalistic hostility of earlier times. One example of how the idea of the all-powerful alien Jew has entered the mainstream is the theory, believed by tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims, that Israel and Jews — not Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists — were the "real" perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The mere fact that so many believe this fantastic, ugly lie is testament to the dispersion of anti-Semitic stereotypes. In today`s global village, the Internet and satellite communications allow the anti-Semitism spewed in mosques, newspapers, television, governments and intellectual circles to crisscross the globe instantaneously and to enter homes uninvited.

The results of this kind of poison are immediate and long-term. For now, it helps recruitment of Middle East suicide bombers who see the Jew as victimizer. In Europe, it caused hundreds of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions over the last three years. The hesitation of European governments to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators, most of whom are Muslims, is disturbing, as is their unwillingness to acknowledge that one-sided condemnation of Israeli policies creates a climate in which anti-Semitism flourishes. If you doubt that excessive criticism of Israel fans hostility and hatred that feeds anti-Semitism, consider a recent European Union poll. When asked which nation poses the greatest threat to world peace, a majority of respondents answered: Israel. In its frequency and tone, EU criticism of Israeli policies has tainted the entire state of Israel.

As bad as the new anti-Semitism has been, however, it could become far worse unless good people begin to stand up. The combination of Jew hatred and the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction by hostile governments makes the threat of this anti-Semitism the greatest since the Holocaust.

What is needed now — unlike what happened in the 1930s when the world stood by until it was too late to save the Jews of Europe — is a united and vigorous stand by free nations and free peoples against anti-Semitism. This is necessary not only because it is the moral thing to do but also because it is a matter of self-interest. The idea that anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine — the first warning against an insidious danger — has never been more relevant. It will only start with the Jew; it will not stop there.

That is why efforts by some to blame the surge of anti-Semitism on the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are not only wrong but highly damaging. Certainly, one can be critical of Israel and its policies and not be anti-Semitic. We daily read such legitimate criticism in the Israeli and American press. But it is indisputable that the criticism of some is fueled by anti-Semitism.

How to distinguish the two? When the United Nations repeatedly accuses Israel — and only Israel — of human rights violations, or when the U.N. General Assembly votes, as it did, to raise the issue of Israel`s security fence with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel is judged by a different standard than the rest of the world. That is anti-Semitism. When Zionism — the nationalistic aspiration of the Jewish people to have a homeland, a culture, a common society and capital — is harshly criticized but other nationalistic movements are spared such antipathy, that`s anti-Semitism. The Jew hatred at the core of such selective treatment of Israel has far, far more to do with scapegoating Jews for all the ills in the world — in this case mostly in the Islamic world — than any one event involving Israel and the Palestinians.

History teaches that we must not be complacent, that anti-Semitism has a life of its own, that it has little to do with the behavior of Jews but with using Jews as the ultimate scapegoat. Democratic leaders and good people must stand up — for their own sake as well as for the sake of Jewish communities — so that the theme of "never again" will be a living reality.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-…
IRAQ



Shiites Are Emerging From Fear
By Juan Cole and Shahin Cole
Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, is author of "Sacred Space and Holy War." Shahin Cole is an independent scholar.

December 28, 2003

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Few religious groups in Iraq were as brutally and lethally repressed by Saddam Hussein`s regime as the Shiites. Although Shiites constitute about 65% of Iraq`s population, the largely Sunni Arab Baath Party had marginalized them politically. The massacres that followed the Shiite rebellion in the spring of 1991 after the Persian Gulf War remain burned in the Shiite`s collective memory. It was not surprising, then, that the capture of Hussein had great emotional resonance among Iraq`s Shiites.

It will take time before Hussein stops haunting Shiite dreams. But if his absence emboldens the Shiite majority, U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer III could face new difficulties as he moves toward the selection of a new Iraqi transitional government. For example, Bremer disregarded the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani`s call for one-person, one-vote elections, but with Hussein in captivity and the fear of reprisal gone, Sistani may not back down. There are other indications that Shiites may more aggressively push their agenda.

Good sectarian relations are crucial for Iraq`s future, which is why the difference in the reactions to Hussein`s capture in various parts of the country was worrisome. The Shiites were joyous. In the Kurdish city of Kirkuk, celebrating residents fired rifles with such abandon that they accidentally killed eight bystanders. But the Sunni Arab heartland generally greeted the news sullenly or defiantly. Hundreds of students in Mosul, Tikrit and other towns took to the streets to chant such pro-Hussein slogans as "Bush, Bush, have you noted? It`s to Saddam we are devoted!" Hussein supporters stormed city halls in Ramadi and Tikrit. These kinds of demonstrations may plant the seeds of sectarian warfare in the country, since it is hard to imagine Shiites forgiving this behavior.

Shiites are torn between a desire for revenge and justice. Reports out of the shrine city of Karbala indicate that some citizens favor putting Hussein in a cage and carrying him around the country so that ordinary Iraqis could torture him for the rest of his life. Abdul Aziz Hakim, the Shiite cleric who served as president of the interim Governing Council in December, demanded that Hussein be tried by a tribunal in Iraq. The former Iraqi president killed 63 of Hakim`s relatives.

Although there have been fewer Shiite reprisals against Sunnis than some observers feared before the war, militant Shiites have taken over many Sunni religious properties. The Baghdad coroner`s office told a London newspaper that some 50 former Baath officials were assassinated in mid-to-late December. Many of the dead were known to have killed or repressed Shiites. Others have received threatening notes from a shadowy "Revenge Committee." The day after Hussein`s capture became public in Baghdad, Shiites from Kazimiya crossed the bridge over the Tigris to gloat in the streets of the largely Sunni Azamiya neighborhood, with which they have an old rivalry. A riot with the Sunnis ensued in which at least 13 were killed. In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, several former Baath officials were killed by gunmen after Hussein`s capture.

Before Hussein`s capture, most Shiites cooperated, if sometimes reluctantly, with the American occupiers. They were said to be fearful that a U.S. military withdrawal might lead to the return of Hussein. With Hussein out of the picture, Shiites who dislike U.S. policies may become more vocal in their opposition.

Shiite-American relations are clouded by the memory of early 1991, when President George H.W. Bush called on Shiites to rise up against Hussein, then stood aside while Hussein`s helicopter gunships slaughtered them. There is substantial discontent with the U.S. occupation in Shiite areas. On Dec. 10, crowds marched in Najaf and Karbala carrying placards calling for an immediate turnover of authority to Iraqis. Although Najaf and Karbala have been relatively moderate politically, Shiites there are increasingly weary of U.S. rule.

Other Shiite currents are virulently anti-American. The firebrand cleric Muqtada Sadr and his vast network of radical mosque preachers in the slums of East Baghdad and elsewhere have repeatedly called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal. They have accused American soldiers of blasphemy and of spreading pornography. They demand an Islamic republic on the Iran model, with clerical rule.

The Sadrists have held many rallies in downtown Baghdad and Basra but have been able to mobilize only 5,000 to 10,000 demonstrators, at most, because many Shiites sympathetic with Muqtada`s cause had stayed away out of fear of Hussein`s return. Muqtada`s reaction to Hussein`s capture was, on the surface at least, conciliatory; he also has moderated his vehemence in recent weeks in response to severe U.S. pressure. He suggested that Dec. 13, when Hussein was captured, be "a day for national reconciliation and to rise up with a free, democratic, independent and unified Iraq." He added, "It is a shining dawn without Saddam." Few think Muqtada is really a democrat, but if he again takes his criticism to the streets, it`s likely the ranks of his supporters will swell now that Hussein is in U.S. custody.

Shortly after his capture, Hussein met with four members of the interim Governing Council. He reportedly gestured to Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni, and asked him why he was associating with Shiites. That insult explains why many Shiites are grateful to the U.S. for overthrowing the tyrant. Now that he`s in captivity, they hope the U.S. will lay the groundwork for a Shiite-majority government. If the U.S. disappoints them, it could face a newly assertive Shiite political majority unafraid to engage in mass protests and other forms of resistance.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Marsh Arabs row traditional canoes called mashufs through the restored wetlands outside Nasiriya.

IRAQ: STRUGGLE TO REBUILD
Life flows to dying wetlands
Postwar water aids Iraq`s Marsh Arabs
Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/28/MNGLH3VG3V1.DTL



Nasiriya, Iraq -- This city is known to most Americans only as a place of death, where the convoy carrying Pfc. Jessica Lynch and other GIs was ambushed and where a squad of Italian carabinieri was destroyed by a car bomb.

But just outside Nasiriya, new life surges in a place where Iraqis have taken it upon themselves to begin reversing what many feel is one of the most brutal crimes of Saddam Hussein`s regime.

They are bringing the marshes back to life.

The marshes of southern Iraq once covered an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 square miles, a watery paradise bigger than the Florida Everglades that sustained fish, birds, rice, water buffalo and the world`s earliest civilizations.

Thousands of years after those civilizations lived and died, people remain who live in much the same way as their ancestors, subsisting on nature`s bounty in homes built of reeds.

The marsh dwellers, living links to the people of ancient Sumer and Babylon, were nearly wiped out by Hussein, who believed they were hiding Iranian guerrillas and Shiite insurgents in the swamps.

The marshes have served as shelter for fugitives since at least the eighth century, when a group of escaped slaves called the Zanj took refuge in them from the early Islamic empire. The area is too wet to permit the entry of large numbers of troops or, in modern times, tanks, and the reeds grow high enough for guerrillas to elude aerial surveillance.

But when Hussein became convinced, following the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, that he was the latest ruler to face an insurrection from within the marshes, he set out to solve the problem permanently.

Window to the past

Ali Shahin Brisam, general director of irrigation for Nasiriya, swept his hand across a blue swath on the map that occupies one of the dusty walls on his office, which is undergoing reconstruction after postwar looting.

"This is an aerial photo taken in 1988," he said. "As of 1991, the Saddam regime dried up all this marsh. People living in the area - 200,000 people - went to another area."

The process was simple, Brisam said: build a dam upstream here, close flow regulators in existing dams there, and dig a new river - the Um-Al-Maarik, or Mother of All Battles river, commemorating the 1991 Persian Gulf War - from the marshes to the gulf.

The new river served no agricultural purpose and was dug to destroy the marshes and the people who lived there, Brisam said.

The Nasiriya native, who remembers well the marshes in their prime, agrees with environmentalists and human rights activists around the world that the draining was a social, economic and ecological disaster.

The loss of fish, reeds for roofs and fences, wood for traditional canoes and other marsh products devastated Nasiriya`s economy. Endangered species were driven into extinction. Summers grew hotter with the wetlands removed.

Those hit hardest, Brisam said, were the so-called Marsh Arabs, wetlands inhabitants who were forced to find menial jobs in the cities or face starvation.

"They just live on water, so when there is no water they cannot stay," he said. "They belong here. Their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers lived here."

Reversing course

In April, when his irrigation department was freed from the control of the old regime, Brisam took matters into his own hands, ordering the demolition of one dam, the opening of regulators in others and the virtual shutdown of the Um-Al-Maarik. The marshes quickly began to grow again, rebounding in just eight months from perhaps 7 percent of their original size to about 16 percent.

"Now, 10,000 people have come back. They`ve started to rebuild their old houses," he said proudly. "They say right now there are only small fish ... but hopefully it will get better."

The reclamation was not without cost: Hundreds of homes, built on the dry land after Hussein`s government made it available for residential use, were flooded. One house collapsed on a group of children, who had to be hospitalized, residents say.

But even those who have now been forced to buy boats to take their children to school and are seeking compensation from the regional government for their lost homes say they don`t begrudge the marsh dwellers their rebirth.

Deeper into the marshlands, areas that were recently desiccated are now lush and blooming. Date palms bow over green waters that serve as pathways for marsh dwellers in their mashufs, or canoes.

The Marsh Arabs are mostly Shiite, pious and proud and with sun-blasted skin and hands like leather. They are people like Juad Kadem al Juber, 52, and his brother, Hassan, 50, who returned to the marshes recently after enduring exile to elsewhere in Iraq.

"The old regime paid for its supporters to have machines so they could irrigate their land. But they didn`t give me anything," Juad said. "I never wanted to leave. But I have family, kids, so I left. ... As soon as I heard water had come back, I ran back from the city."

Anything for the marshes

The brothers hated Hussein and distrust the United States because of its ties to Israel. But they are willing to accept the changes if they mean bringing the marshes back for good.

"It`s still the beginning. We still want to see more water so we can grow rice," Hassan said, standing on a bridge overlooking his farm, its date palms leaning over his brother`s adjoining land.

"You will never imagine how nice this was. Even better than American life. Nature supplied the people. Water was here. Fish. Birds. Dates. Rice. Everything was cheap.

"And then during Saddam`s time it was all dead," he added. "He wanted to steal this beautiful life for the people of his tribe in the north.

"The source of life is water. Without water, life is dead. We can`t live without the marshes or without the water. We belong to this. So you can imagine our feelings when the water came back."

It`s not all back -- not by a long shot. Brisam estimated that 3 billion cubic meters of water are needed to restore the marshes entirely. Water of that volume doesn`t exist in Iraq. There are reservoirs upstream on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Syria and Turkey, but water policy experts doubt either will rush to release enough of the precious liquid to do the job.

Regional effort needed

The United States and the international community could help by brokering a regional water policy, according to experts in international resource management such as Frederick Lorenz, who teaches a Water and Security in the Middle East course at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

"In my opinion, Turkey is not likely to release more water for a specific project in Iraq such as marsh restoration," Lorenz said in an e-mail interview. "And making a determination of how much and for how long would be a difficult task.

"The key will be to get Turkey to participate in a transboundary commission that looks at the overall needs and requirements of Syria and Iraq in the years ahead."

The international community is already involved in other ways, from agricultural stimulus packages being prepared by the Coalition Provisional Authority to the U.S. Agency for International Development`s $4 million Marshlands Initiative, which includes a soil and water lab for Iraq`s Ministry of Water Resources, pilot projects for waste management and drinking water, and programs to help marsh residents cultivate fish and water buffalo.

People are owed

But while Brisam hopes the international community will help with the difficult task of restoring basic services to the Marsh Arabs, he said he believes Iraqis can clean up Hussein`s mess themselves, given time. It`s something he feels the water dwellers are owed.

"The most outrageous tortures of the old regime were on the people who live in the marshes. The people who celebrated the freedom the most after the war were the people who live in the marshes," he said.

"Maybe people who live elsewhere in Iraq don`t feel the freedom ... but the people of the marshes do."

E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at [e-mail].

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

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Dec. 28, 2003. 01:00 AM

Bush is author of dark chapter for America


HAROON SIDDIQUI

CONOOR, India—Up here in the tea estates of Nilgiri Hills, where teak-floored bungalows with vast verandas offer spectacular vistas, one feels grateful for the distance from the ubiquitous American media and for the time and tranquility to think and reflect.

As the year of the war on Iraq draws to a close, the larger perspective that emerges is clear: George W. Bush, a small man in a big job, has dragged America into one of its darkest chapters.

He commands unprecedented military power, but his word carries little or no weight in much of the world.

This odd equation remains unaltered by Saddam Hussein`s capture, hyped in America but seen elsewhere as inevitable, given that Iraq is not an Afghanistan of a million caves. If anything, the video of his captivity exposed the Bush administration`s desperate need to display a trophy catch.

Bush`s next declared mission, that of toppling Yasser Arafat, only reinforces the image of the president as a king who knows not the boundaries of his kingdom, nor the limits of his power. Or, as a captive of pro-Israeli hawks hell-bent on remaking the Middle East to Likud designs.

While the president struts and smirks for the cameras in contrived situations — landing on an aircraft carrier to prematurely declare victory in Iraq or serving Thanksgiving turkey to soldiers in Baghdad — terrorism has increased under his watch. Not unlike the record rise in suicide bombings in Israel under Ariel Sharon.

Bush`s use of fear as a key tool of governing has turned the world`s most powerful nation into its most paranoid, despite two invasions and an expenditure of nearly $200 billion (U.S.).

The administration, invoking 9/11 and the murder of 2,900 innocents as its licence to wage unilateral wars, has so far killed about 10,000 innocents in Afghanistan and Iraq. That`s a guesstimate, since America does not count the Afghans and Iraqis it kills in the process of "liberating" them.

The gap between Bush`s words and deeds gets bigger by the day, as does the disparity between his illusions and reality.

His war on Iraq was waged on a pack of lies, shoving aside the United Nations when it refused to play its part in the sham exercise of rubberstamping a predetermined course.

Just as he manipulated intelligence to tie Iraq to terrorism and portray its non-existent nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as a threat to America, Bush ignored the State Department`s warnings of post-war troubles. He spoke instead of flowers greeting the U.S. liberators and oil revenues paying for the war and rebuilding of Iraq.

He invoked democracy but ignored its expression abroad and suspended its principles at home.

His war was universally opposed, even by the electorates of the governments that joined his "coalition of the willing" — Britain, Spain, Italy and Australia. His most enthusiastic allies were dictators and oppressors, the worst violators of human rights, who used the war on terrorism to stifle dissidents and kill secessionists.

He keeps delaying direct elections in Iraq for fear that the majority Shiites would win and won`t be the puppet he wants installed in his subject kingdom.

His administration`s violations of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Constitution are not explained away by the need to cut corners to get at terrorists. Besides not catching any, his policies alienated the very groups whose help was crucial and also sapped the moral strength of his rhetoric and America`s $240 million public-relations campaign in Muslim nations.

American courts are reasserting, as they always do, albeit slowly, the rule of law.

But the human and political damage is already done.

Bush promised to avoid a clash of civilizations, but that`s what he is widely perceived as presiding over. The anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic discourse — often unapologetically racist — is supplied by Christian fundamentalists and pro-Israeli neo-conservatives, two key constituencies Bush dares not alienate.

The mollycoddled Sharon is thus set to blithely ignore Bush`s road map and steamroll over Palestinian lands and Palestinians` human rights in hopes of imposing his version of Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

But this will no more bring peace than his previous policies did.

So long as the Israeli-Palestinian issue festers, anti-Americanism and, presumably, terrorism will keep growing. The link has been unmistakable.

Surveying these geopolitical ruins, it is politically incorrect to blame the American public. But its gullibility is alarming. Even now, a majority believes that Saddam had a hand in 9/11. The Bush crowd knows only too well the usefulness of Saddam, a former ally now a demon.

All of the above is self-evident, except to a majority of Americans and their apologists, including, sadly, some Canadians.

The latter are still whining over Canada`s decision to sit out the Iraq war, which history will record as Jean Chrétien`s finest hour — something Paul Marin would do well to always remember.

What of the future?

Saddam`s trial should be conducted, not as Bush wants, by the Iraqis he controls, but by the International Criminal Court.

Saddam should be charged with crimes against humanity as well as war crimes — hundreds of thousands of Iraqis tortured, raped, mutilated, murdered; groups brutalized in Stalinesque campaigns: Kurds, Marsh Arabs and Shiites; neighbours Iran and Kuwait invaded, their civilians and properties destroyed.

Iraq should be turned over to the United Nations.

But since that`s not likely, the United States should let the world body play as great a role as possible while keeping military control in American hands.

That would help improve security for Iraqis and American soldiers alike. It would attract international help, especially from those, like France, Germany, Turkey, Pakistan and India, who do not want to be caught dead cavorting with Bush.

Iraqi sovereignty belongs to Iraqis. They need to write their own constitution, elect their own leaders and make their own mistakes.

They could not possibly do any worse than their occupiers, who have been lurching from crisis to crisis for the last eight months in a haze of incompetence and ignorance.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star`s editorial page editor emeritus. His column usually appears Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail: [e-mail]

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Sunday, December 28, 2003
War News for December 28, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed, five wounded by roadside bomb ambush in Baghdad.

Comprehensive after-action report of yesterday`s carnage in Karbala. Two Thai soldiers, four Bulgarian soldiers, seven Iraqi police officers killed, thirty-seven soldiers, including five Americans wounded, in a very skillfully executed attack.

Iraqi insurgency having significant impact on CPA and military planning. Long WaPo article well worth reading. It seems that many of the "senior officials" are conveniently blaming the insurgency for the failure of their unrealistic plans such as wholesale privatization and an unworkable scheme to end food rationing. Now read the next article from the LA Times.

Do the Bushies even have a realistic plan? The administration`s only objectives are to get the bad news from Iraq off the TV before the elections and prevent a total collapse of the CPA until January 2005. "A failure to make the deadline or the continuation of an unelected government would be a setback for the Bush administration, and not merely in terms of its election-year image. It probably would deter the United Nations from becoming more active in Iraq and would fuel suspicion in the Arab world that the U.S. is reluctant to cede power." Read this article and decide if they are planning for anything else.

US casualties in Iraq. "The number of US service members killed and wounded in Iraq has more than doubled in the past four months compared with the four months preceding them, according to Pentagon statistics… `The rate of casualties over the last four months is an indication that the insurgents are getting better organized,` said retired Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. `The insurgents have been encouraged by the fact that they have had some success.`"

CPA puts $1 million bounties on each of the 12 last remaining Baathists, and $10 million on al-Douri. What makes Bremer so confident capturing these people will end the insurgency? Or is this another public-relations stunt to show the US audience that the CPA is making progress?

Pop music in Iraq. "Hashim is part of a new and growing group of Iraqi singers whose anti-Western lyrics are raw with hate. In one number in his latest collection, Hashim urges listeners to: `Carry your weapons and kick the heretic people out of your land. The people of Fallujah are like wolves when they attack the enemy.`"

Revenge killings in Iraq.

AP votes Bush`s War as top story of 2003. The obvious question is why isn`t the US media covering this war if it`s such a top story? The media barely covers the breaking news items, such as the daily mayhem inflicted on US troops and Iraqi civilians, and devotes almost no coverage to the administration`s repeated policy failures. We`ve seen three distinct, major insurgent offensives since the beginning of the occupation, and the US media continues to parrot the Bushie line that "dead-enders" and "foreign fighters" are the sole cause of the insurgency. If I could nominate a top story for 2003, I`d name the death of the American press in the obituary catagory.

Iowa town hosts pancake breakfast to help pay for two local soldiers` airfare home from Iraq. "The $600 raised will help defray Stutenberg’s and Christner’s traveling expenses while on a 15-day leave. They enlisted in the National Guard while attending Pleasant Valley High School. They could be home by late January or February depending on when their leaves are approved."

Iraq is a bonanza for private security companies. "Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has sunk into what the United States has characterised as `low intensity warfare` carried out by `desperate` former regime loyalists and `foreign terrorists`. Private security firms jumped in, turning the country into a magnet for veterans of guerrilla wars in Africa, Latin America and Northern Ireland and cops who worked America`s meanest streets. And all of them are mainly motivated by cold hard cash."

Commentary

Opinion: Out the Door in `04. "I have been convinced for a long time that George Bush, as did his father, will do himself out of a second term. He is considerably worse as president than his father was. He doesn`t have sense enough to stop his war, unlike his father, who stopped his in plenty of time for the voters to think of other reasons to vote against him. I see no signs of W`s serious interest in stopping anything about it except TV cameras filming the unloading of the body bags."

Casualty Reports

Local story: Oregon soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Wisconsin soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Two Michigan soldiers killed, one wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Montana soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Alabama soldier killed in Iraq.








# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:03 AM
Comments (8)

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Tombstone, Dogde City in einem, nur kein Wyatt Earp.

Iraq turns into bonanza for private security firms

By Sam Dagher in Baghdad
Sunday, 28 December , 2003, 20:56



His steely blue eyes scan the lobby of one of Baghdad`s fortress-like hotels, his speech is fast and agitated, peppered with words like "discipline" and "assessment" and he has nothing but contempt for his Iraqi counterparts.

He is a member of a burgeoning and shadowy army of western private security advisors and guards charged with protecting civilian coalition members, private contractors, Iraq`s interim Governing Council elite and the country`s vital oil infrastructure.

"Clients are looking for the maturity of soldiers that have been in intense security situations and are not going to jump out and start shooting right away," said the British security advisor on condition of anonymity.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has sunk into what the United States has characterised as "low intensity warfare" carried out by "desperate" former regime loyalists and "foreign terrorists".

Private security firms jumped in, turning the country into a magnet for veterans of guerrilla wars in Africa, Latin America and Northern Ireland and cops who worked America`s meanest streets. And all of them are mainly motivated by cold hard cash.

"It is about finances first and foremost," said the British advisor, refusing to disclose details of his own remuneration. But he said that the starting monthly salary for security advisors in Iraq was about 10,000 dollars, more than double the going rate in Britain, and not counting expenses and extras.

An advertisement posted on the Internet by DynCorp International, which was hired by the US State Department to train Iraqi police, offers senior advisors 153,600 dollars for a one-year stint in Iraq. All applicants must have at least five years experience as civilian law enforcement or corrections officers.

The security firm, which boasts "virtually every US agency and department" as clients, says it plans to hire up to 1,000 officers for its police training program in Iraq. But DynCorp`s involvement in the war-torn country does not stop here.

"They have a lot of irons in the fire," said a Dyncorp security guard posted outside the barricaded Baghdad Hotel, where some members of Iraq`s Governing Council are known to stay. The hotel was the site of a suicide car bombing that killed seven Iraqis October 12.

Coming to grips with the number of security firms operating throughout Iraq and the exact nature of their missions is next to impossible. The biggest players in Iraq`s security bonanza are US firms ArmorGroup and Haart and the British Control Risks Group (CR), and Erinys and Olive.

That is without mentioning the private armies employed by the likes of oil firm Halliburton and its unit Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), Bechtel and power giant General Electric, who are the biggest beneficiaries of Iraq`s multi-billion dollar rebuilding contracts.

ArmorGroup which bills itself on its website as "Iraq`s minder" says it has a staff of 650 in Iraq, guarding "key government personnel" and Bechtel staff. The company said it expects business in Iraq to account for 30 percent of its forecast revenues of 100 million dollars in 2003. Olive and CR have a combined staff of about 500 in Iraq, made up exclusively of former British Army special forces, according to the British advisor, adding that Iraq has turned into the biggest reunion ever for these ex-commandos.

Erinys was awarded a contract this summer to deploy 6,500 mostly Iraqi security force to guard the country`s oil pipelines and facilities, which have come under frequent attacks and sabotage by insurgents since Saddam`s fall, prompting the closing of the vital northern export pipeline.

But many foreign security experts do not believe Iraqis are up to the task in the short-term of providing security work despite their militant history and gun culture.

This, combined with US military belief that violence will increase in Iraq as the country moves towards self-governance, will only increase the need for private security. The British advisor says Iraqi security guards "would not stay around too long" if they are attacked, quickly abandoning their posts or those they have been charged to protect.

"They are not disciplined, you train them then the following week they go to `Inshallah` because they have no white eye looking over at them," he added.



"© 2003 sify.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."

[Joerver]

Posted on Sun, Dec. 28, 2003



Revenge killings on the rise in Iraq

By Margaret Coker
COX NEWS SERVICE

BAGHDAD - Bassem Khoreshi remembers the interminable wait -- 245 days to the day -- until his obsession to avenge three years of torture and abuse in prison at last was satisfied.

For eight months, he searched the Iraqi capital, a city of 5 million, looking for the Iraqi security agent he believed was responsible for the trumped-up political charges that had landed him in jail. His hunt finally bore fruit last Saturday, when he chanced upon the man at a local farmers market.

"He was walking away from me, his back towards me, but I knew him right away. I yelled to him. He pulled his gun, but I was faster," said the 33-year-old father of three. "Revenge from God came through me."

Khoreshi now sits in another jail, not for political prisoners but for common criminals, waiting to be tried for murder.

He is just one of hundreds of Iraqis in the capital who have killed former officials of Saddam Hussein`s security and Baath Party apparatus.

Such revenge killings are the fastest growing crime in Baghdad and in other major Iraqi cities, according to police working for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

It is a worrying trend, which Iraq`s overworked and understaffed police say they can`t control due to lack of security in the country and the single-minded passion that inspires the killings.

"Mostly they are highly organized operations. They come. They shoot. They don`t leave a scrap of evidence," said Maj. Abbas Abed Ali from Baghdad`s Baya district police station.

"We don`t have much luck finding the killers. Their families sympathize with them, and their victims` families flee."

Saddam`s government was remarkable for its cruelty, and since his fall from power in April, many analysts have feared blood-letting by the country`s majority Shiites and minority Kurds who suffered most under his iron-fisted rule.

Indeed, revenge killings appear to be taking place most frequently in the districts where Saddam`s agents hit the hardest, specifically Shiite-dominated towns and neighborhoods.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, police last week reported 40 revenge killings since June, including one last week in which a mother, a former Baath Party official, was shot while walking her two sons home from school.

Her 11-year-old son died in the hail of bullets fired by masked gunmen on marked motorcycles.

Police don`t condone revenge killings, but many in Iraqi society do. According to tribal codes of justice that have always existed alongside the written criminal code, such killings are permissible under certain circumstances.

Under tribal codes, family disputes ranging from breaches of honor -- for instance, a boy from one family kissing a girl from another when they are not engaged -- to stealing and murder are often adjudicated by tribes, not government courts. Punishments can range from financial remuneration to exile or even death.

Most reprisals are drive-by shootings carried out in the dead of night, when the city`s electricity is shut off and even U.S. forces don`t patrol the streets.

Residents in both Baghdad neighborhoods report that former security agents and Baath Party members have moved out of their homes in droves, apparently trying to stay one step ahead of vigilante justice.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2003 Contra Costa Times and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.bayarea.com

[Joerver]

Military Fatalities:

*US**UK**Other**Total

477**53***40*****570
Zum Vergleich die Zahlen vom 24.12.03 22:00 Uhr:
468**53***33*****554

The Wounded:

Hostile**Non Hostile**Total

**2332******370********2702

Latest Military Fatality Date: 12/28/2003

Total Fatalities since December 13th: 29
(Saddam Hussein is captured)

* Other - Polish: 2

* Other - Danish: 1

* Other - Spanish: 10
8 Coalition Soldiers, 2 Military Diplomats
* Other - Italian: 17

* Other - Ukrainian: 3

* Other - Bulgarian: 5

* Other - Thai: 2

12/28/03 Centcom: 1 Killed 3 Wounded in IED Attack
One 82nd Airborne Division soldier was killed and three others were wounded at approximately 1 p.m. when their convoy was attacked by an improvised explosive device (IED) northeast of Fallujah.
12/28/03 Novinite: Another Bulgarian Soldier Dies in Iraq
One more soldier from the Bulgarian battalion in Iraq has died. This was announced by Deputy Defense Minister Ilko Dimitrov
12/28/03 Reuters: Bomb kills U.S. soldier and two children
A powerful roadside bomb blast in a central Baghdad shopping street has killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqi children, a day after attacks in the holy city of Kerbala killed six foreign troops and 12 Iraqis.
12/27/03 DOD Identifies IED Attack Death From 26th
Spc. Charles G. Haight, 23, of Jacksonville, Ala., was killed on Dec. 26, 2003, in Iraq. Haight was in a convoy vehicle which struck an improvised explosive device.
12/27/03 DOD Identifies Both Deaths From 25th
The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. The soldiers were killed on Dec. 25 in Baquba, Iraq, when their living area came under mortar attack.
12/27/03 Nation (Thai): 2 Thai Soldiers Killed, 1 Injured
Two Thai soldiers were killed instantly and one injured yesterday when a truck bomb exploded in front of the gate of their military camp in this southern city, according to Thai and foreign officials.
12/27/03 Reuters: 6 Coalition Troop Deaths in Karbala
At least six foreign soldiers have been killed and 27 injured in a string of attacks on U.S.-allied forces and Iraqi targets in the southern city of Kerbala.
12/27/03 Sofia: Bulgarian Officials Confirm 4 Troop Deaths
Bulgarian Defense Ministry confirmed information about the four Bulgarian soldiers killed in attacks in the Iraqi city of Karbala earlier on Saturday.
12/27/03 KFTV.com: 2 of Dead in Karbala May Be Thai Troops
A senior Thai army official says two of the dead troops were from Thailand, marking the country`s first casualties in Iraq.
12/27/03 CENTCOM Confirms U.S. Death in Vehicle Accident
A CJTF-7 soldier died of injuries received in a single military vehicle traffic accident at approximately 8 p.m. Dec. 26 in the Baghdad area.
12/27/03 ABC: 4 Coalition Troops Killed in Iraq Attacks
4 Coalition Troops Killed As Rebels Launch Attacks in Southern Iraq; 5 Americans Among 25 Hurt
12/27/03 Yahoo: Rebel Bombs Injure 6 U.S. Troops in Iraq
Four U.S. troops were killed in bomb blasts and a mortar attack Thursday and Friday, and another died in a traffic accident, bringing the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq this week to 11.
12/27/03 Novinite: 4 Bulgarian Soldiers Killed in Karbala
Four Bulgarian soldiers were killed in one of the several attacks that hit the Iraqi city of Karbala on Saturday, Reuters news agency reported, citing officials at Poland`s Defense Ministry.
12/27/03 Reuters: Some 20 Foreign Troops Killed in Iraq
About 20 foreign soldiers were killed or wounded when blasts hit their bases and several government buildings in the Iraqi city of Kerbala on Saturday, a spokesman for Polish-led troops in the region said.
12/26/03 DOD Identifies Electrocution Death
Sgt. Michael E. Yashinski, 24, of Monument, Colo., died on Dec. 24, 2003, in Kirkuk, Iraq. Yashinski died of injuries sustained while running a communication wire.
12/26/03 CENTCOM Confirms 2nd U.S. Death on 26th
A Task Force Ironhorse soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) near Baqubah the morning of Dec. 26.
12/26/03 DOD Identifies IED Death from Baghdad on 24th
Command Sergeant Major Eric F. Cooke was killed on the 24th when his convoy vehicle struck an IED in Baghdad.
12/26/03 DOD Identifies 3 IED Deaths From 24th near Samarra
A major, a captain and a sergeant were identified today, all killed when an IED struck their convoy near Samarra.
12/26/03 CENTCOM Confirms 1st U.S. Death on 26th
One Task Force Ironhorse soldier was killed and one was wounded during an improvised explosive device attack southwest of Ad Duluiyah in the morning of Dec. 26.
12/26/03 CENTCOM Confirms 2 U.S. Deaths on 25th
Two Task Force Ironhorse soldiers were killed during a mortar attack on Forward Operating Base Gabe near Baqubah at 6:15 p.m. on Dec. 25.
12/26/03 CENTCOM Confirms 5th U.S. Death on 24th
One Task Force Ironhorse soldier died from injuries sustained after he was apparently electrocuted in Kirkuk at 4:40 p.m. Dec. 24.
12/26/03 CENTCOM Confirms 4th U.S. Death on 24th
A Task Force 1st Armored Division soldier was killed by in an improvised explosive device in Baghdad Dec. 24.
12/26/03 ABC News: Iraqi Tribal Sheik Shot Dead
The assassins opened fire from a car at Sheikh Talal Salim al-Khalidi, head of the Khalidiya tribe, as he left prayers at a local mosque, said Captain Jalal Ezzeddin Kassem.
12/26/03 Yahoo: 1 U.S. Soldier Killed Near Balad
The guerrillas used that tactic Friday in Balad, north of Baghdad, setting off a bomb that killed one soldier, the U.S. military in the capital said.
12/26/03 Reuters: 3 U.S. Troops Wounded in Mosul
In the northern city of Mosul, an army spokesman said three U.S. troops were wounded Friday in an ambush on their patrol.
12/26/03 Reuters: 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed by Bombs
Two U.S. soldiers were killed by bombs in two separate incidents in Iraq on Friday, a U.S. military spokesman said.
12/26/03 Reuters: 2 Polish Soldiers Wounded in Ambush
A Polish-led division of multinational troops said the Polish troops were attacked Thursday night with bombs and small arms fire near Mahawil, about 50 miles south of the capital.
12/26/03 Reuters: 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed, Mortar Attack
Two U.S. soldiers were killed and four were wounded during a mortar attack on a U.S. base north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesperson said Friday.

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

The Iraq Page

Remembering Those who Lost Their Lives
in the Iraq War of 2003
http://www.pigstye.net/iraq/wd.php

[Joerver]

"Minister Rumsfeld hat erneut bewiesen, dass er alles, was hinkt, für einen Vergleich hält."

(CSU-Abgeordneter Peter Gauweiler über den Vergleich der Einnahme Bagdads mit dem Fall der Mauer)


Aus Spiegel-Online. Zum Mitmachen, Zitatensammlung von Politikern

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,279976,00.h…

[Joerver]

Das gibt einige unangenehme Fragen an Mr. Blair und auch an Lord Hutton, weil sie im Untersuchungsausschß püber den Tod von Mr. Kelly ausgesagt haben, es habe keine Beeinflußung durch den Geheimdienst stattgefunden.
Jetzt muß der MI6 bestätigen, dass sie eine Abteilung organisiert haben, um Kampagnen in der Presse zu lanzieren, dass die Massenvernichtungswaffen Saddams vorhanden und einsatzfähig sind.
Aus der London Times.

Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war

Nicholas Rufford

12/28/03: (The Times) THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert.

A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam’s development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. “There were things about Saddam’s regime and his weapons that the public needed to know,” said the official.

The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.

“The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was,” Ritter said last week.

He said there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. “Stories ran in the media about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction),” said Ritter. “They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage.”

Kelly, himself a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Ritter, might also have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. “Kelly was a known and government-approved conduit with the media,” said Ritter.

Hutton’s report is expected to deliver a verdict next month on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war. Hutton heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the “Rockingham cell”, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence.

Blair justified his backing for sanctions and for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The use of MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs.

A key figure in Operation Mass Appeal was Sir Derek Plumbly, then director of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office and now Britain’s ambassador to Egypt. Plumbly worked closely with MI6 to help to promote Britain’s Middle East policy.

The campaign was judged to be having a successful effect on public opinion. MI6 passed on intelligence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and rebuilding its arsenal.

Poland, India and South Africa were initially chosen as targets for the campaign because they were non-aligned UN countries not supporting the British and US position on sanctions. At the time, in 1997, Poland was also a member of the UN security council.

Ritter was a willing accomplice to the alleged propaganda effort when first approached by MI6’s station chief in New York. He obtained approval to co-operate from Richard Butler, then executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq Disarmament.

Ritter met MI6 to discuss Operation Mass Appeal at a lunch in London in June 1998 at which two men and a woman from MI6 were present. The Sunday Times is prevented by the Official Secrets Act from publishing their names.

Ritter had previously met the MI6 officer at Vauxhall Cross, the service’s London headquarters. He asked Ritter for information on Iraq that could be planted in newspapers in India, Poland and South Africa from where it would “feed back” to Britain and America.

Ritter opposed the Iraq war but this is the first time that he has named members of British intelligence as being involved in a propaganda campaign. He said he had decided to “name names” because he was frustrated at “an official cover-up” and the “misuse of intelligence”.

“What MI6 was determined to do by the selective use of intelligence was to give the impression that Saddam still had WMDs or was making them and thereby legitimise sanctions and military action against Iraq,” he said.

Recent reports suggest America has all but abandoned hopes of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has resigned earlier than expected, frustrated that his resources have been diverted to tracking down insurgents.

Copyright: The Times. UK.

[Joerver]

At Least 13 Die In Iraq Suicide Bombings

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

28 December 2003: ( The Independent) In a carefully planned attack that was clearly intended to take the lives of dozens of occupation troops, Iraqi insurgents yesterday assaulted Polish-led forces in the holy Shia Muslim city of Karbala. At least six foreign soldiers - four Bulgarians and two Thais - as well as seven Iraqis were killed, and nearly 40 were wounded.

Suicide bombers drove three car bombs towards Western military bases within seconds of each other, supported by guerrillas firing rifles and mortars.

It is the first time that an attack on this scale has been launched against occupation forces in Karbala - site of the tomb of the seventh-century Shia martyr Hussein, one of the most important Muslim shrines in Iraq - but its significance goes far beyond yesterday`s deaths.

The Poles have been attacked almost nightly around Hillah; the Spanish lost eight intelligence officers in an ambush in November and Italiancarabinieri suffered 18 deaths in Nasiriyah. How soon will the bombers strike at the large British contingent in Basra? This will be the question on the mind of every British soldier in Iraq.

Only the remarkably sharp reaction of Polish and Bulgarian troops appeared to have prevented a massacre at Karbala - the drivers of all four cars were apparently shot dead by guards before they could crash into army bases at the city`s university and at the mayor`s office. Major-General Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, the head of the multinational force that covers Karbala but who is based in Hillah, ancient Babylon, called the bombings "a co-ordinated, massive attack ... intended to do much harm".

One of the bombs exploded at the mayor`s office, setting the building on fire and wounding local policemen outside. Bulgarian soldiers were the principal victims, although a mortar aimed at the Bulgarian contingent missed its target and wounded civilians on the university campus. A defence ministry spokesman in Warsaw said that no Poles were among the dead.

Most of the resistance to the occupation of Iraq has come from Islamists within the Sunni Muslim community. If the Shias, who represent 60 per cent of the population, were to join the insurgency, then the occupation would be almost impossible to maintain.

Guerrillas from the same Wahhabi-Sunni-influenced force that has killed more than 200 American soldiers since George Bush claimed that "major combat operations" were over may well be responsible for the Karbala attack yesterday - and may hope that the Poles and Bulgarians will over-react by killing civilians, as the Americans have done, provoking the Shias to respond.

The Poles sent their "rapid reaction force", backed by 10 helicopters, into the Karbala area yesterday afternoon, but there were no reports of civilian casualties in any house raids or arrests.

Copyright: The Independent

[Joerver]

Die DU Munition ist ein Problem scheinbar im gesamten Irak. Führte schon nach dem 1. Golfkrieg zu Erkrankungen bei Soldaten und Zivilisten.
Und da nachweislich auch diesmal DU-Munition eingesetzt wurde, werden auch wieder Folgeschäden zu erwarten sein.


Dutch troops find depleted uranium ammunition in Iraq
Date: 27 December 2003
Topic: Iraq
http://www.risq.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=232

Author: RISQ

Finding points at more DU sources in the area

Dutch troops stationed in the province of Al Muthanna in Southern Iraq have found a 30 mm round of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition. This has been announced by the Ministry of Defence today. According to RISQ Associate Maarten H.J. van den Berg, the finding points at the presence of more sources of DU in the area.

The shell was found on the 10th of December in a so-called ‘demolition pit’ in the town of As Samawah. According to a spokesperson of the Dutch Ministry of Defence, the health of those involved in the finding were not put at risk as the round was not destroyed and no DU dust released.
Given the reported calibre, the shell is probably of US origin. According to Mr. van den Berg, 30 mm DU ammunition has only been used in Iraq by American Apache helicopters and A-10 ‘Warthog’ jets of the US Air Force. As a RISQ Report on the issue published earlier this year demonstrated, A-10 aircraft have been engaged in strikes over As Samawah during operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’. Consequently, “it is more than likely that there are many more rounds of DU ammunition to be found in the area”, Mr. Van den Berg concludes.

Already, unions of Dutch army personnel have raised concern about the incident. “Last week we talked to officials of the Ministry of Defence but they did not mention the incident”, says ACOM chairman J. Kleian. His colleague of the VBM, pointing at prior agreements with the Ministry on information-sharing, stated that “this is not something that should have been kept from the public”. A spokesperson of another union, the AFMP, observed that apparently the Ministry of Defence has again resorted to a ‘navel-staring’ approach.

Sources: ANP, RISQ

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Iraker zahlen den Preis für Saddams Festnahme
von Robert Fisk
Independent / ZNet 27.12.2003

Ali Salman Ali war das erste Opfer der Festnahme Saddams. Allerdings, gestorben ist er erst am 1. Weihnachtsfeiertag. Sein Vater, Salman Ghazi, 71, erzählt, dass Ali seine Freude über das Auftauchen des Ex-Diktators aus dem Erdloch auf offener Straße hinausgeschrien hat - als einer der ersten irakischen Schiiten. “Er rief, die Amerikaner sind gekommen, uns von diesem furchtbaren Regime zu erretten und zu befreien”, erzählt mir Herr Ghazi gestern. Sein Gesicht ist furchig und sonnengegerbt. Mit dunklen Augen starrt er auf meinen Notizblock. Hinter mir die 12 Vettern Ali Salman Alis. Sie hieven den billigen Holzsarg aus der Bagdader Leichenhalle auf die Ladefläche eines rostigen weißen Pickups mit kaputter Windschutzscheibe. Ein Spielzeughase baumelt an einer Kette über dem Spiegel. Die Bagdader Leichenhalle - zu jeder Stunde ein grimmer Ort, besonders aber an einem grauen, schmierig-nassen 2. Weihnachtsfeiertag. Zwar hätte diese Familie keinen Gedanken an Weihnachten verschwendet, aber wie sie gestern so dastanden im Schlamm, diese Männer in ihrer durchnässten Stammeskleidung mit ausgefransten Goldborten, umgab sie eine Art Müdigkeit.

Es dauerte zwei Wochen, bis Ali Salman Ali starb.

“Noch am selben Nachmittag haben sie ihn sich geschnappt”, erzählt der Vater. “Er war mit seinem Auto zum einkaufen nach Kaddamiya gefahren. Sie waren in einem andern Auto, das hat ihn abgepasst und überholt, dann eröffneten sie mit Gewehren das Feuer auf ihn.” Wer sind “sie”?” - frage ich. Der Vater schaut auf einen seiner Söhne, dann auf den Vetter, der das Wort “Wahabis” murmelt. Die sunnitisch-islamische “Wahabi”-Sekte steht im Zentrum des Aufstands gegen die Amerikaner im Irak, eine puristisch- asketische Glaubensrichtung. In den letzten Jahren der Saddam-Herrschaft war sie als die ‘Glaubenskomitees’ geduldet worden. Der Shiit Ali Salman Ali also Opfer eines Sektenmords. Daher tat sich seine Familie nun auch so schwer, die Sunniten für seinen Tod verantwortlich zu machen. Dann deutet der Vater mit dem Finger auf meinen Notizblock: “Wir werden sagen, seine Mörder sind die “Terroristen””. Kann ich ihm widersprechen? Wie üblich haben die Besatzungsbehörden den Toten, Ali Salman Ali, mit keinem Wort erwähnt. Sie zählen nur die westlichen Opfer der Gewalt im Irak. Hier für die Akten: Ali Salman Ali wurde 52. Er hatte zwei Frauen. Von seiner ersten Frau hatte er 6 Jungen und 4 Mädchen, von der zweiten zwei Mädchen und einen Jungen. Ali war eines der 9 Kinder von Mr. Ghazi. 3 starben als Soldaten im iranisch-irakischen Krieg 1980-88. Auch 5 Vettern Ghazis starben - alle in Uniform und im gleichen Konflikt. Was wunders, dass die Familie Saddam so hasst. Aufgewachsen sind sie alle auf dem Hof der Familie in Najaf. Und nach Najaf brachte die Familie am gestrigen Nachmittag auch Ali, zu seiner Beerdigung - nicht weit vom Schrein des Schiiten-Märtyrers Ali (7. Jahrhundert) entfernt. Der Vater gab mir die Erlaubnis zu fotografieren, während der Sarg quer auf die Ladefläche des Pickup gestellt wurde. Einer der Vettern brach in Tränen aus und küsste die Holzkiste. “Heutzutage ist der Irak ein Ort voller Gleichgültigkeit”, sagt der Vater. “Es gibt keinen vorgezeichneten Weg mehr, keine Autorität und keinen, der sich um die Leute kümmert”.

Ebenfalls gestern, in einer Parallelstraße. Ein von Amerika bezahlter irakischer Polizist steht da und bewacht ein verfallendes Ziegelsteingebäude. Hier werden die neuen Leichen gewaschen, bevor man sie in die Leichenhalle bringt. Im Innern zwei neue Leichen: die Heiligabend-Toten - soeben aus der Kleinstadt Beiji eingetroffen. “Nicht mit den Angehörigen sprechen”, sagt der Polizist. “Beide Männer wurden von den Amerikanern getötet. Einer hat in einer Fabrik gearbeitet, es hat ihn draußen erwischt, als die Widerständler auf amerikanische Soldaten schossen. Die Amerikaner schossen auf jeden, den sie sahen. Die Leute sind sehr wütend, weil Sie wie ein Amerikaner aussehen”. Aber alle schüttelten mir die Hand. Mit gesenkten Häuptern standen sie vor uns und fragten, warum die irakische Tragödie immer noch schlimmere Ausmaße annimmt. Der Polizist will das letzte Wort haben: “Saddam hat uns diese Tragödie eingebrockt, und die Amerikaner haben sie benutzt”, sagt er. “Ihr wollt wissen, wen die Schuld trifft? Ich sage: Fuck Saddam, und fuck die USA”. Die Männer stehen da - auch sie sind Stammesleute in schwarzen Gewändern mit denselben grau-goldenen Säumen. Sie sind sunnitische Muslime, aber in ihren Augen liegt die gleiche Hoffnungslosigkeit wie bei der schiitischen Familie 100m nebenan. Es regnet jetzt stark - der Regen prasselt von ihren Schultern und strömt die Vorderseite ihrer Gewänder hinab. Der Polizist sucht Schutz in dem Ziegelsteingebäude, in dem man die Toten wäscht.





[ Übersetzt von: Tony Kofoet | Orginalartikel: "Iraqis pay for Saddam`s Capture" ]

[Joerver]

Aufständische sind Zivilisten
von Robert Fisk
Independent / ZNet 26.12.2003

Im Irak wird momentan etwas sehr Unangenehmes in Gang gesetzt. Gerade in der letzten Woche gab ein Kompaniechef der US 1st Infantry Division im Norden des Landes zu, es sei notwendig, bei den Dorfbewohnern "Angst zu erzeugen", um ihnen Informationen über die Guerillakämpfer, die US-Soldaten töteten, zu entlocken. Ein irakischer Dolmetscher, der für die Amerikaner arbeitet, hatte gerade eine alte Frau aus ihrem Haus geholt, um ihre Töchter und Enkelinnen Angst einzuflößen in dem Glauben, sie würde verhaftet.

Ein Bataillonskommandant in der gleichen Gegend brachte es etwas unverblümter auf den Punkt: "Mit einer gehörigen Portion Angst und Gewalt und einer Menge Geld für Projekte können wir, meiner Meinung nach, diese Leute davon überzeugen, dass wir hier sind, um ihnen zu helfen," sagte er. Er sprach aus einem Dorf, dass seine Leute mit Stacheldraht umzäunt hatten, an dem ein Schild angebracht war mit der Inschrift: "Dieser Zaun hier dient ihrem Schutz. Nähern sie sich ihm nicht oder steigen sie nicht hinüber, ansonsten werden Sie erschossen."

Versuchen Sie einmal zu erklären, dass diese Behandlung und diese Worte die elementarste Menschlichkeit der Leute, zu denen die Amerikaner, wie sie behaupten, gekommen sind, um sie zu "befreien", verletzen und ihnen wird in Bagdad mit der gleichen Erklärung geantwortet: dass ein kleiner "Rest" von "Ewiggestrigen" - treue Anhänger des verhafteten Saddam Hussein etc., etc. - von den Zivilisten, die sie "einschüchterten", getrennt werden müssten.

Es ist nutzlos darauf hinzuweisen, dass die Einschüchterung zum größten Teil von den US-Besatzungstruppen ausgeht - zum Leidwesen der britischen Truppen im Süden des Irak, die verständlicherweise fürchten, dass sie von der irakischen Rache genauso heimgesucht werden wie die Italiener und Spanier.

Stattdessen erzählt man uns, die US-Truppen seien im Begriff diese berühmten Herzen und Köpfe mit der weihnachtlichen Stimmung zu gewinnen. Davon gab es ein grausames Beispiel, das gerade diese Woche über die Newsticker von Associated Press lief - einschließlich des ihm innewohnenden Rassismus, der Berichte von solchen Ereignissen durchdringt.

Der Reporter Jason Keyser beschrieb, wie ein US-Soldat mit einer Nikolausmütze Stofftiere an Kinder verteilte und dass ein elfjähriges Kind "zuerst erstaunt aussah und dann lächelte", als der Soldat ihm eine kleine Stoffziege gab. Im Bericht hieß es weiter: "Andere in der Menge, überwiegend Muslime, griffen gierig in die Kiste", und Keyser fügte die folgende Bemerkung des Soldaten hinzu: "Sie wissen nicht, wie man mit Wohltaten umgeht."

Ich bezweifle nicht, dass der Soldat etwas Gutes tun wollte. Aber was soll man von der Bemerkung "überwiegend Muslime", die "gierig" nach den Geschenken "griffen" halten? Oder die gefühllosen Bemerkungen des Soldaten über Wohltaten? Auf den Titelseiten irakischer Zeitungen fand sich eine Weihnachtskarte, die von US-Truppen in Bagdad hergestellt worden war und lautete: "Das 1. Bataillon, 22. Infanterieregiment wünscht Ihnen Frohe Weihnachten!"

Aber auf der Karte befindet sich die Abbildung Saddam Husseins mit seinem ungepflegten Bart und einer Nikolausmütze auf dem Kopf. Zweifellos lustig für uns - und ich persönlich kann mir keinen besseren Prügelknaben als Heiligen Nikolaus vorstellen - aber eine klare Beleidigung sunnitischer Araber, die das Biest von Bagdad, wie stark auch immer, verabscheuen und darin einen beabsichtigten Versuch der Demütigung irakischer Muslime sehen. Es ist die Aufgabe der Iraker, ihren Ex-Präsidenten zu erniedrigen, nicht die der amerikanischen Besatzer.

Es scheint so, als ob die Besatzungsmächte durch Alices Spiegel schauen wollten. Diese Woche ließ der britische General Graeme Lamb die seltsame Bemerkung los, Saddam könne mit dem Imperator Caligula verglichen werden. Dabei verließ sich der gute General wahrscheinlich bei seiner Meinung über Caligula auf Suetonius` "Die zwölf Cäsaren". Wenn überhaupt, dann war der Römer wesentlich verrückter als Saddam und dem menschlichen Leben gegenüber noch achtloser.

Der verrückte Uday Hussein, Saddams Sohn, könnte ein angemessener Vergleich sein. Aber was will man damit erreichen? Ein ernsthaftes Kriegsverbrechertribunal – wünschenswerterweise außerhalb des Irak und weit weg von der verseuchten Justiz des Landes – ist der richtige Weg, die Natur von Saddams scheußlichem Regime zu bestimmen.

Alle Vergleiche des Diktators mit Hitler, Stalin, Attila dem Hunnen oder Caligula sind – wie alle Andeutungen, dass Tony Blair oder George Bush Winston Churchill sind - infantil. Und sie werden sich wiederum als Beleidigung der sunnitischen Muslims im Irak erweisen, die einzige Gemeinschaft, gegenüber die sich die Amerikaner dringend besänftigen sollten, sind es doch die Sunniten, die in erster Linie gegen die Besatzung Widerstand leisten.

Aber der Spiegeleffekt scheint die gesamte Autorität des US-Prokonsuls Paul Bremer in Beschlag genommen zu haben. Wie Präsident George hat Bremer jetzt mehrfach die Absurdität wiederholt, dass je größer der Erfolg der westlichen Truppen im Irak sei, desto häufiger würde es zu Angriffen auf amerikanische Truppen kommen.

"Ich persönlich fühle, dass wir in den nächsten sechs Monaten tatsächlich mehr Gewalt erleben werden," sagte er vor ein paar Wochen, "und diese Gewalt hat genau ihre Ursache darin, dass wir auf dem Weg zum Erfolg in Schwung kommen." Mit anderen Worten, je besser die Dinge werden, desto schlimmer werden sie. Und je größer die Gewalt, desto besser kommen wir im Irak voran.

Ich würde mir um diesen Unsinn keine Sorgen machen, wenn er sich nicht auf irakischem Boden widerspiegelte. Nehmen wir die Behauptung der Amerikaner – die mittlerweile als Absurdität betrachtet wird – sie hätten vor einem Monat "54 Aufständische" in Samara getötet. In Wahrheit töteten sie mindestens acht Zivilisten und es gibt nicht den Hauch eines Beweises, dass sie zusätzlich noch jemanden umbrachten. Aber trotzdem beharren sie auf der Geschichte ihres großen Sieges.

In der letzten Woche brachten sie eine ähnliche Version derselben Geschichte heraus. Dieses Mal gab es elf tote "Aufständische" in Samara. Als aber "The Independent" Nachforschungen betrieb, konnte sie nur Listen finden, auf denen vier tote Zivilisten und viele Verwundete verzeichnet waren. Die US-Streitkräfte haben keinen der Verwundeten – vermutlich "Aufständische", wenn die Amerikaner ihre eigene Geschichte glauben – im Krankenhaus besucht und sie, wenn schon nicht befragt, so doch sich zumindest bei ihnen entschuldigt.

Eine noch eigenartigere Angewohnheit zeigt sich bei den Sprechern der Besatzungsbehörden. Als ein Panzer vor drei Wochen einen prominenten schiitischen Geistlichen in der Bagdader Vorstadt Sadr City überfuhr, deklarierten sie das als "Verkehrsunfall", als wenn es etwas Alltägliches ist, dass ein M1A1-Abrams-Panzer über ein Auto und einen in einer Amtstracht gekleideten Geistlichen fährt, was in jeder Großstadtstraße passieren könnte.

Einige Tage später, als ein mit Bomben beladener LKW mit einem Auto zusammenstieß und 17 Zivilisten tötete, verbreiteten die Jungs von der Besatzungsarmee wiederum den gleichen Unsinn. Sie behaupteten, es sei ein "Verkehrsunfall" gewesen, an dem ein Tanklastwagen beteiligt gewesen sei. Aber der Lkw zog keinen Tankwagen.

Die ersten US-Truppen, die zur Stelle waren, fanden die Granaten, die zur Detonation der Bomben gedacht waren und die Opfer waren alle in Stücke zerrissen - nicht verbrannt, wie sie es gewesen wären, wenn der Tanklaster einfach nur in Brand geraten wäre. Diejenigen von uns, die kurz nach dem Gemetzel den Ort des Geschehens erreichten, konnten noch den Sprengstoff riechen. Aber es war ein "Verkehrsunfall".

Gerade gestern passierte etwas ähnlich Bizarres. Mit Kettengewehren und schwerer Artillerie bestückte C-130-Flugzeuge sollten bei der Operation Iron Hammer "Guerillastützpunkte" südlich von Bagdad angreifen. Aber Nachforschungen ergaben, dass freie Felder das Ziel waren und einige der schweren Geschütze nur Übungsmunition als Teil einer Wartungsroutine der Artillerie abschossen.

Deshalb können wir Folgendes feststellen: Aufständische sind Zivilisten. Mit Bomben beladene LKWs und Panzer, die Zivilisten zu Tode quetschen sind Verkehrsunfälle. Und "befreite" Zivilisten, die in Dörfern leben, die mit Stacheldraht umzäunt sind, sollten "eine gehörige Portion Angst und Gewalt" aushalten, damit sie nicht auf die schiefe Bahn geraten.

Irgendwo und irgendwann einmal wird man ihnen auch etwas über Demokratie erzählen.





[ Übersetzt von: Tony Kofoet | Orginalartikel: "Insurgents are Civilians" ]

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Dahr Jamail kommt aus Alaska und hat über Weihnachten aus Baghdad berichtet.

United in opposition to the occupation

Why is Al-Adamiyah Targeted by the Americans?

Part 1 of this report : US Military using Brutality, Fear, Intimidation in Al-Adamiyah:

Dahr Jamail

12/28/03: (ICH) Baghdad: -Why has Al-Adamiyah been the target of so much American brutality, collective punishment and so many of its residents detained?

Some insight into the history, culture and traditions of the people in this section of Baghdad helps answer this question. Even more importantly is the fact that the people here are strongly opposed to the occupation of their country.

For starters, the Abu Hanifa Mosque here is a very special mosque in Iraq. The nick-name of the mosque is Al-Imam Al-A`dham, which means `The Greatest Imam`, from which the name Al-Adamiyah is derived, which means `The Greatest`.

Today it stands marred with bullet holes by American guns.

In Baghdad, Al-Adamiyah stands as the symbol of the Sunni. But even more importantly, the area stands as the symbol of `Kholmi`, the idea and hope for one united great Arab Nation. The area has always been known as `The Mother of the Revolution`, even during the reign of Saddam Hussein, due to the belief of the
people here in Kholmi.

What better symbolic target is there in Baghdad for the Americans to use in order to strike fear in the hearts of those who might resist their Imperialism?

These proud people stand united in their opposition to the occupation; similar to the people of Falluja, Ramadi, Tikrit, Samarra, Baquba, Mosul and countless smaller villages in Iraq. They simply cannot and will not accept an occupier in their home.

Of course the CPA continues to attempt to paint the people who are resisting the illegal occupation of their own country as `Baathists`, or `thugs`. Would they ever consider calling people in America who fought against anyone who attempted to occupy their homeland a `Republican` or a `thug`?

While not all in Baghdad share the belief as strongly as those in Al-Adamiyah, they nevertheless respect their traditions and the passion of their beliefs.

Al-Adamiyah is known throughout Iraq for the traditions and customs the people here practice.

The birthday of Mohammed has always been celebrated here in a special way. People come from many cities of Iraq to two mosques in Baghdad during this time, yet the most popular is the Abu Hanifa Mosque. During this time people sit in the streets singing, praying, and serving one another delicious meals. Gifts are exchanged with strangers, as well as food served to those sitting beside them.

Abu Hanifa is buried in the mosque here, an additional symbol drawing people here to pray.

Ramadan is also celebrated in a special way here as well. It is another time of sharing food with people. A time when no person will eat the food they prepare, only that prepared by others.

The tradition of painting the bride and grooms hands with henna the night before the wedding ceremony is alive and well in Al-Adamiyah. This tradition has died out in many other parts of Iraq, but not here.

All of this adds up to form the basis of an extremely united, tight-knit community of people who all know one another, and all look out for one another.

Many people of Al-Adamiyah don`t even consider themselves as part of Baghdad, for when they need to go out of their area, they say, `I am going to the city`, referencing any area of the surrounding sprawl of greater Baghdad.

A man named Faisal told me he feels that the air is different outside of Al-Adamiyah.

"The air in other areas, I can`t breath it. Al-Adamiyah means everything for us. We have our own people, our own traditions, and our pride. We know anyone strange who comes in here, and we have to ask him where he is from. But even people who move in here from other places love it here, and can`t leave. Everybody here is like this. And other people want to live here."

The people live like one big family. They have a saying, "If you die in your home, nobody knows you have died. But in Al-Adamiyah, if you die, everyone knows."

The pride and unity of the area is palpable as I walk down the streets.

Also palpable is the anger, a direct result of the suffering inflicted upon the people of Al-Adamiyah by the Americans. The area has been a prime target of the Americans both during and since the Anglo-American Invasion. As it stood as the last part of Baghdad to fall, the fighting here was the fiercest. Thus, when Al-Adamiyah fell, Baghdad fell.

Many people here believe the Americans knew the importance and the symbolism of Al-Adamiyah long before the invasion and had sent in spies with the Red Crescent to learn more about how to crack the unity of the people here.

Perhaps the Americans are acting on the belief that if they can break the will of the stronger communities in Iraq, the rest of the country will fall in line with the desires of the Americans.

Everyone I speak with in Al-Adamiyah shares a determined resistance to what they see the Americans trying to do here.

I talk with an older man, Kassim Radi, selling clothing on the sidewalk on this chilly, grey day in Baghdad. He prefers I don`t use his last name.

He tells me he believes the Americans are feeding the fire with how they treat the people here.

"If they will treat people well, I think they will get a good result. But when they treat people terrible, of course they get bad results."

A man named Kassim says that if nobody immediately opens the door knocked upon by Americans while they are conducting home raids, if they knock, they promptly smash it in. This is directly against Muslim and Arab traditions.

"If they keep doing this, they will keep getting bad reactions from the people. Particularly when the Americans continue to detain and harm innocent people."

While the heavy handed policy of the US military has afforded many arrests of resistance fighters, as well as arms, it has also resulted in the detention of just as many innocent residents, and many people killed for demonstrating.

One of the main reasons the Americans have used such heavy handed tactics in Al-Adamiyah is because the people here fight back ferociously against the occupiers of their country.

Kassim feels that the people here were better off before the Americans came, and are now fighting to end the occupation in order to have a better life.

"We can`t even afford petrol anymore. Our lives have been made miserable by the Americans. For this reason we will resist. We will resist more and more. They have done nothing good for us here."

Faisal Al Adham owns a small grocery store on a street corner. He tells of how the Americans are not only detaining members of the resistance, but even people who have no association with it.

"If they continue to treat us like this, we will become stronger and stronger. Even the person not with the resistance, he will join!"

On Friday, December 26th, there was a demonstration in front of the mosque after praying time for the people detained from Al-Adamiyah. The people here are very angry about being targeted incessantly by the Americans and are tired of it.

Faisal says, "The Americans say only one soldier has been killed here. But so many have been killed. I`ve seen them. If they let the cameraman film this, you can get the truth. But the Americans seal the area and don`t let press in here."

He speaks with a calm determination with which he firmly opposes the occupation.

"This resistance you are seeing will spread around Baghdad and to more cities in Iraq. Other people are seeing what the Americans are doing to innocent people in Al-Adamiyah and are joining the resistance because of it."

Faisal points out that this is what we are already seeing in the cities and villages north of Baghdad, and now more recently in the south.

"We are not ignorant. We see what they are trying to do here. We do not need this occupation." Slapping his hands together as if dusting them off, he says, "We will kick them from here."

He tells me that no American patrol has ever passed through Al-Adamiyah without being attacked. Even today there was a Humvee attacked here, and shortly thereafter many more people were detained.

Faisal, and older man, shares his worry about the possibility of his sons being detained.

"If they detain my sons, what should I do? I am an old man; I cannot do anything without them."

He tries to explain that they do not want to fight, but their culture, respect, and traditions are being violated.

"We welcome anyone into our home. But when someone uses force, we never accept such things as this. No person in Al-Adamiyah will accept something that is wrong. And what the Americans are doing here is all wrong."

Later I am in a money exchange office, and begin speaking with a man named Ali. While we are talking several other men join in the discussion.

Ali tells me,

"They destroyed our country. We don`t resist them only for our country. We resist for our country and for our religion. This is worse than an occupation here."

I ask him if he worries that Iraq will be like Palestine.

"We will show that Iraqis are very strong people. We will resist. This will be very different than Palestine. It will not take long. We will kick the Americans from here. Just watch."

I`ve heard of so many people being detained from this area, I ask the small group what they estimate the number to be from the beginning of the occupation until now. "500. At least that many," replies one of the men, while the others nod in agreement.

While it is impossible to obtain any figures on this from the CPA, through several interviews of people who have had their homes raided by many journalists in Baghdad, it becomes clear that 500 could be too low of an estimate when the numbers of innocent people detained is growing daily.

The horrible result of the heavy handed approach by the Americans in Al-Adamiyah causes the resistance to strike back even harder. Thus, the terrible cycle of violence continues as each side strikes back more viciously each time the wheel turns.

The fighting in Al-Adamiyah has been some of the fiercest faced by the Americans.

One of the men, Ali, tells me that he saw seven Humvees totally burned during the fighting on December 14th. He claims that all of the soldiers inside were killed.

"When this happened they surrounded the area with razor wire and didn`t let any press people near to see it. Two American tanks were hit here that day too, but you never hear about it."

While the US military in Baghdad has failed to report any such attack, and seven being quite possibly an exaggerated figure, the day after this battle I saw two large black scars from explosions on the concrete in this particular area of Al-Adamiyah. These were surrounded by pools of blood, with variou9:58 AM 12/28/03s US military gear strewn about.

Ali looks me calmly in the eye and politely asks me if he may ask me a personal question.

I tell him, "Of course."

After pausing, he takes a deep breath and asks, "If someone invades your house, kills some of your relatives while taking the rest to jail, steals your things, remains in your home and then threatens you and tries to tell you what to do in your own home, what would you do? Would you welcome him with flowers? What would you do if this happened to you in your home?"

As I drive out of Al-Adamiyah my taxi passes 10 US soldiers walking down muddy sidewalks under a dark sky on a foot patrol. Similar tactics are being used in Tikrit, Ramadi, Samarra and Falluja for intimidation and psychological warfare. Each of the soldiers looks very afraid, walking quickly with their eyes straight ahead, as if in a forced death march.

The residents of the neighborhood who are outside glare at them as they walk past.

Dahr Jamail, is an independent American journalist reporting from Iraq

Copyright: Dahr Jamail <[e-mail]>

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Posted on Sun, Dec. 28, 2003



Resistance songs urge Iraqis to rise up against occupiers

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Knight Ridder Newspapers


FALLUJAH, Iraq - At the Sound of the Revolution music shop, lots of Arab pop stars look down from wall posters, but the hottest local one - resistance singer Sabah Hashim - needs no promotion.


Hashim is part of a new and growing group of Iraqi singers whose anti-Western lyrics are raw with hate. In one number in his latest collection, Hashim urges listeners to: "Carry your weapons and kick the heretic people out of your land. The people of Fallujah are like wolves when they attack the enemy."


Such sentiments are especially popular in cities like Fallujah, where resistance to U.S. troops has been heavy, and across the so-called Sunni Triangle, the arc of territory that thrived under Saddam Hussein`s rule. Especially for Sunnis who now feel dispossessed and threatened by Iraq`s Shiite Muslim majority, the music expresses - and maybe nourishes - rejection of the nine-month U.S. occupation.


"When I hear this music, it provokes me to help the resistance," said Nudher Aboud, 36, a jobless father who bought "The Anger" recently at the Sound of Revolution.


The store, whose name dates from its opening shortly after the Iraqi Baath Socialist party came to power in 1969, sells about 75 copies a week of "The Anger," said Ehab Thaya, 20, whose family owns the store.


"This shows that people still love Saddam," said Thaya.


Across town at another music store, Noori Hashim, 30, also reports brisk sales, mostly to young men but occasionally to women.


He pulls out a video CD version of "The Anger," whose cover shows Hashim in an Arabic headdress.


He sings against a backdrop of provocative images: an F-16 firing at a target followed by huge, orange explosions; Iraq women mourning their dead sons; American soldiers arresting Iraqis. In one scene, a group of Iraqis celebrates around a destroyed U.S. tank.


Many resistance songs use heavily amped drums and guitars to generate a pulsating rhythm that sounds like modern Arab pop. Some is more religious. The music is rarely heard on local radio stations or in restaurants, but often played at weddings and other celebrations in the Sunni Triangle.


Many singers hail from Fallujah and Mosul - predominantly Sunni Muslim towns hostile towards the U.S. presence as well as frustrated over the lack of security, electricity and municipal services. In recent weeks, more American soldiers have been killed in Mosul than in any other town in Iraq.


"We will face death. We will never give up our land," sings Qassim al Sultan, a singer from Mosul. "We will remove America from the map."




Other songs play to Arab nationalism, and call on Arabs throughout the Middle East to rally and expel the U.S.-led occupiers.


"Baghdad calls Arabs for militancy and martyrdom," sings Adnan Faisal. "From Mosul to Hillah, we are Arabs and we refuse to be insulted. We are ready for death."




It`s unclear what influence this music is having on Iraqi resistance to western occupiers.




A senior corpsman at the Fallujah headquarters of the Iraqi Civil Defense Forces, a U.S.-trained Iraqi security group, said he thought there were two kinds of listeners.


"Some people who listen to them care more about the problems in their own lives, so they won`t join the resistance," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he fears retaliation if it becomes widely known that he`s working with Americans.


"For others, the cassettes provoke nationalist feelings against the Americans," he continued. "They`re the ones who will fight."


---


(c) 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

© 2003 KR Washington Bureau and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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Why Democrats must not abandon the old stronghold
The party needs to reach out to poor southern voters - black and white

Gary Younge
Monday December 29, 2003
The Guardian

In his hypocrisy, the late senator Strom Thurmond was a typical old-school southern gentleman. In public, he espoused the separation of the races. Standing as a segregationist for the presidency in 1948, he insisted: "On the question of social intermingling of the races, our people draw the line." In private, he practised the sexual intermingling of the races. "His people" did indeed draw a line. But it was neither straight nor true. Thurmond slept with his family`s black maid. Earlier this month Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old black woman from Los Angeles, came forward to say that she was Thurmond`s daughter.

"It makes perfect sense," said Edmund Ball, author of Slaves in the Family. "The typical case is that the son of a master`s family tested out his sexuality on a vulnerable young woman in the master`s house. That is exactly what Strom did." But if there was method in the madness of his personal life, there was no less logic in the contradictions of his political career.

Thurmond started as a Democrat, left in an attempt to use race as a wedge to open up the two-party system, and when he failed joined the Republicans, in whose arms he died in June. As Thurmond went, so went the South. Once the stronghold of the Democrats, the states of the former Confederacy are now the Republicans` most reliable base. When Thurmond first stood for office in 1928, three-quarters of the states won by the Democratic presidential contender were in the South. When he retired in January, the Republicans had won every southern state (with the arguable exception of Florida).

This dramatic realignment has been reshaping the US political landscape for the past 40 years. Next year`s presidential election could well complete the process. The Democratic party is now thinking what would once have been unthinkable. Regardless of who is the candidate, they plan to give up altogether on seriously contesting the South.

To imagine just how much of a radical step this represents, both in policy and political geography, you would have to imagine the Labour party abandoning Scotland, completely, to the Tories by 2044. Not just losing there, but feeling that their chances were so slim that it wasn`t worth their while to fight.

The immediate electoral arithmetic makes sense. The American election is decided not by popular vote but an electoral college where candidates effectively compete to win each individual state, which holds votes proportionate to its population. Even though Al Gore won no southern states, he lost the last election by just four votes in the electoral college. So if whoever wins the Democratic nomination can hold the same states that Gore did - a big but not unreasonable if - the issue will be where to pick up the remaining four votes. Those who advocate withdrawal from the South argue that rather than pouring financial and political resources into fighting for Florida`s 25 votes - the only southern state where Gore even came close - why not go for New Hampshire`s four, or the 21 in Ohio.

It`s not just a question of resources. On almost every issue from gay rights to labour laws, the South is more conservative than any other part of the country. Why, given the potential north of the Mason-Dixon line, should the Democrats go foraging for votes in the rightwing swamps of Florida, when they could remain truer to their message in the liberal north-east and union-strong industrial midwest?

As far as crude numbers go, the appeal of avoiding the South is clear. The problem is that they do not go nearly as far as some claim. The strategy would arguably also suit the Republicans. With the South in the bag, they could also concentrate their resources elsewhere. Making less effort to entice white southerners would allow them to foster a national message that might win over voters in swing states they narrowly lost last time.

If the short-term prospects for abandoning the South are debatable, the long-term effects for the political culture of the nation and the region, not to mention the Democratic party, could be disastrous. Democrats lost the South for the same reason they lost Strom Thurmond - race and racism. The New Deal followed by the civil rights movement transformed their most loyal base from white, racist southerners to African-Americans. Integration of the races heralded the segregation of the parties; with few exceptions in the South, whites vote Republican, blacks vote Democrat.

The Democrats` failure in the South has been due to their inability to capture the votes of a sufficient number of poor whites, by convincing them that whatever privilege they get from their race is more than offset by the disadvantage experienced by their class. Being white has not saved many of them from having no healthcare, poor education and low pay. The South may be the most conservative region in the country, but it is also the most impoverished.

Failing to connect with poor whites and enthuse poor blacks is the Democrats` national problem, not a regional one. Of the 10 non-southern states with the highest rates of poverty, the Republicans won seven in 2000. Meanwhile, black Americans are the Democrats` most loyal base, yet among the most reluctant to turn out. For the Democrats to turn their backs on the poorest, blackest region in the country is unlikely to be the solution. As a short-term electoral tactic it might just work, but as a long-term approach it reflects not a means to an end but a mindset.

Uniting white and black southerners on grounds of class, rather than race, has long been considered a pipe-dream for the American left. But as Essie Mae Washington-Williams and the Thurmond family reminded us earlier this month, white and black southerners are bound together more closely than most are prepared to admit.

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Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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US offers $1m each for dozen most wanted
Washington throws more cash into the battle against Iraq`s increasingly successful resistance fighters

Luke Harding in Baghdad and Suzanne Goldenberg
Monday December 29, 2003
The Guardian

The US sought to regain the initiative in its battle with the increasingly well-organised Iraqi resistance last night by announcing $1m (£560,000) rewards for 12 of Saddam Hussein`s closest allies still on the run.

Officials of the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad said the money would be paid to anybody who gave information that led to their death or capture.

This tactic has worked for the Americans before: Saddam`s two sons Uday and Qusay were killed when troops surrounded the house in which they were staying. Information on their whereabouts had been provided by an associate who was tempted by the reward.

The US has already offered a $10m reward for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the 13th remaining fugitive and Iraq`s most wanted man after Saddam`s arrest in a hole near Tikrit more than a fortnight ago.

Mr Douri was Saddam`s Ba`ath party deputy, and a close confidante.

Some officials believe he is coordinating the revolt against the occupation. American troops have captured or killed 42 people on the original list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis shown on the "pack of cards" compiled by American intelligence agencies before the war.

"Now that we`ve captured Saddam Hussein we want to capitalise on this to clear up the last remnants of the former regime," Charles Heatly, the British spokesman for the coalition`s administrator, Paul Bremer, said at the weekend.

He added: "We are now focused on capturing the final dozen or so of their oppressors who remain from the deck of 55, as well as other ringleaders."

But the capture of more than two-thirds of Saddam`s closest aides has made little difference to the insurgency, which, if anything, appears to be getting worse.

Twice as many American soldiers have been killed or wounded in action in the past four months as in the previous four, despite their commanders` claim to have made significant gains against the resistance.

Between September 1 and yesterday 215 were killed, compared with the 65 who died in action in the four months from May 1, when President George Bush declared an end to major operations.

The dramatic rise suggests that Iraqi resistance fighters have become better organised and more highly skilled.

In the figures available on the Pentagon website those of the US personnel wounded are also telling: 1,380 in the past four months, compared with 574 from May 1 to September 1.

The growing toll has yet to alter the prevailing sense among Americans that it was right to go to war on Iraq: 59% said the war was worth fighting, according to a Washington Post-ABC television poll earlier this month.

Nevertheless, they are growing weary of casualties, with 64% saying the war had exacted too heavy a toll.

Yesterday a US soldier and two Iraqi children were killed by a roadside bomb in a crowded Baghdad shopping district soon after 10am.

Five other US soldiers and nine Iraqis - an interpreter and eight members of the civil defence corps - were wounded.

Another soldier was killed and three wounded near Falluja.

The explosion in Baghdad came after a big assault by the Iraqi resistance in the city of Kerbala on Saturday, which killed two Thai and four Bulgarian soldiers, and 12 Iraqis.

The guerrillas attacked with mortars, machine guns and cars packed with explosives.

Three suicide bombers were shot dead before they could blow themselves up, but a fourth managed to ram into a Bulgarian military base, a spokesman for the Polish-led multinational force in the city said.

The attack was apparently meant to demoralise the smaller countries that have sent troops to Iraq.

But Thailand said yesterday that it had no plans to pull its troops out, despite the deaths of two of its soldiers, the first Thai troops killed in combat since the Vietnam war.

Another Bulgarian soldier severely wounded in Saturday`s attack died yesterday in hospital.

The Thai and Bulgarian troops form part of the multinational force of 9,500 soldiers, led by Poland, which controls south-central Iraq.

Ranks in the pack of cards

· Izzat Ibrahim (6) Saddam`s No 2 in the Ba`ath party, and deputy leader of its Revolutionary Command Council

· Hani`Abd al-Latif Tilfah (7) Saddam`s cousin and special security forces deputy leader

· Sayf al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha al-Rawi (14) Chief of staff of the Republican Guard

· Rafi Abd al-Latif Tilfah (15) Director of general security

· Tahir Jalil Haboush (16) Chief of intelligence service

· Rukan Razuki Abd al-Ghafar Sulayman al-Majid(21) Head of tribal affairs office

· Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan (36) Presidential adviser, Saddam`s half-brother

· Abdel Baqi Abdel Karim Abdallah al-Sadun (40) Ba`ath party regional command chairman

· Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq (41) Ba`ath party regional commander

· Yahya Abdellah al-Aboudi (44) Ba`ath party regional commander

· Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji (48) Ba`ath party regional commander

· Rashid Taan Kazim (49) Ba`ath party regional commander

· Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad (54) Ba`ath party regional commander


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

US relations with Tehran begin to thaw in the aftermath of disaster
By David Usborne in New York
29 December 2003


The United States this weekend loosened the ice that has frozen its relations with Iran for decades, joining the worldwide effort to speed emergency supplies and personnel to the devastating earthquake in Bam. Yesterday, two American cargo planes landed in Kerman, the provincial capital, the first US flights to land in Iran in more than 10 years.

Washington is sending 150,000 tons of medical supplies and 200 emergency workers and disaster experts, a show of humanitarian diplomacy that has necessitated a level of formal contact between American and Iranian officials barely seen since 1979. That year, when Jimmy Carter was President, students overran the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

There have been no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries since the hostage crisis. Nearly two years ago, President George Bush declared that Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, belonged to an "axis of evil" that was fostering terrorism in the world.

Yet on Friday, when the full extent of the catastrophe was becoming apparent, Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State, phoned the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Zarif, and personally offered American condolences and aid. Such direct contact with the Iranians is rare. Normally, Washington resorts to communicating with Iran through the Swiss government. And it drew a warm response. "We greatly welcome any assistance from the United States," Akbar Alavi, the governor of Kerman, said.

But the US has been at pains to insist that the resumption of dialogue is driven by only compassion and not by any fundamental change of diplomatic position. Points of tension between Iran and Washington range from the country`s nuclear weapons ambitions as well as terrorism.

"There is no political angle," a State Department spokes-man, Lou Fintor, said. "There is a human catastrophe in Iran and our only mission is to alleviate the human suffering. These efforts will not alter the tone or intensity of our dialogue with the Iranians on other matters of grave concern."

But some experts suggest the crisis may be used by those in the State Department who have long chafed at Mr Bush`s isolationist stance on Iran and other countries. Those who favour more engagement with such countries may include the Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

"I think what we`re seeing is the State Department, Powell and Armitage in particular, trying to take advantage of the situation to try to open the door to Iran a little bit," Daniel Brumberg, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, said. "The question is whether the neo-conservatives will slam the door shut."

Perhaps more important is deciphering whether the American aid will soften attitudes inside Iran toward the US. Because American teams will be working through umbrella aid organisations, including the International Red Cross, the fact of America helping may be lost on ordinary Iranians.

"It`s certainly not going to change the opinion of the anti-American crowd," Gregory Gause, director of Middle East Studies at the University of Vermont, said. Iran has made it clear that aid from everywhere would be accepted, except from its sworn enemy, Israel.
29 December 2003 10:06


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Checkpoints Prove Useless Against Suicide Bombers in Iraq

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

29 December 2003: (The Independent) A severed arm with a hand still attached to it lay a few metres from the broken gates of the mayor`s office in Karbala yesterday, a piece of humanity every bit as bloody as the story of the seventh-century Shia martyr Hussein, the golden dome of whose shrine could be seen through the smog to the east.

They said the arm belonged to a police major - one of 11 cops killed in the four ferocious attacks on Saturday in this most holy of cities - but others claimed it belonged to the man who drove the truck-bomb right up to the gates.

In the parking lot outside, stunned Polish and Bulgarian troops, many of them in the clapped-out Russian vehicles that Saddam`s own army used until its demise eight months ago, looked at the scene with a strange mixture of awe and contempt. Four Bulgarians were killed a mile away when another man drove an oil tanker right up to their camouflaged headquarters.

When I approached one Bulgarian officer a few metres from the 20-foot hole that the bomb had blasted in the road, he turned away in tears.

In all, 19 men were killed in the Karbala massacre: 11 policemen, five Bulgarian soldiers, two Thai soldiers and a civilian - one of the highest death tolls for suicide bombings in Iraq since the country was "liberated" last April. The government of Bulgaria - part of the "New Europe" of the United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld - was one of President George Bush`s most enthusiastic supporters during the invasion.

Beside Karbala University, where the Bulgarians maintained a battalion headquarters, the scene was of equal devastation. The tanker had been driven across a playing field towards the three-storey building and the soldiers on guard had opened fire before he reached the inside perimeter wire.

Bushra Jaafar, 19, was in biology class on the campus at 12.30pm when she heard the first shots being fired at the truck. "Professor Hussein told us all to get away from the windows because he guessed what was happening," she said at her slum home yesterday. "Then there was a huge explosion and all the glass came in."

Part of the tanker was blasted half a mile from the attack, high into the air, to land in Bushra`s own backyard. Her father, Nuri, a 54-year old veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, said the other explosions followed within minutes. This was exemplary timing - four separate suicide attacks in only minutes - and the defenders were woefully unprepared.

The Bulgarians had smothered their headquarters in camouflage netting, just as the Soviet army had once taught them to do, but had not secured the football pitch. The bomber had reached the barbed wire at the main gate when he blew up his truck and part of the outer walls had come cascading into the forecourt.

Bulgarian troops, under Polish command in this central sector of Iraq`s occupation force, could be seen wandering along the broken roof and through the piles of rubble outside, kicking the wire that had proved so useless, clambering over the new collapsed mobile phone tower whose iron supports had been sheered away by the blast.

Students in the university had been cut by thousands of splinters of glass - altogether, 126 were wounded and one civilian was killed - but members of Iraq`s new American-paid police force were, as usual, the principal victims.

Imad Naghim, a 30-year old police recruit, had been sitting opposite the mayor`s office in a car with four of his comrades when the bomber arrived. He had spent almost 24 hours in surgery and was in the emergency recovery room at the Hussein Hospital yesterday when he opened his eyes in front of us and waved with a bloody hand and mouthed the words Salaam Aleikum - peace be upon you - at us. His forehead, jaw, body and thighs were encased in plaster and his face was pitted with dozens of tiny red impact points.

"One of his comrades in the car also survived," his uncle Adnan told us quietly. "The other two men in the car were killed instantly. He was very lucky." Imad did not know how lucky he was. Two of his friends were already buried. But how come the truck had reached the gate of the mayor`s office? There are concrete chicanes and a roadblock outside manned by American troops of the 101st Airborne Division and more Iraqi policemen.

A senior police officer, senior enough to wear a black leather jacket and jeans rather than a uniform, emerged to tell us that the bomber had followed a convoy into the street outside, had simply "tailed" the rear vehicle past the American-Iraqi checkpoint and reached the gate where he immolated himself in a clap of sound and brown smoke that blasted police and civilian cars around the parking lot like toys. An Iraqi police colonel was in the convoy. So how had the bomber known the convoy was coming?

No one in Karbala yesterday mentioned what so many Western security men in Baghdad have long suspected: that the insurgents, the rebels fighting the occupation armies and their Iraqi security men, must have their spies inside the new police force. How else did the bomber know that he had to wait for the convoy to arrive? There was to be an address by the colonel, the head of the traffic police department in Karbala, and every cop must have known of the meeting. The other three suicide-bombers had presumably been instructed to stage their attacks at the same moment. That is planning beyond what we have previously imagined in Iraq.

Bushra Jaafar and her college friends had been worried ever since the soldiers set up their base next to the university campus. "We knew they would be a target - the teachers all knew, which was why Professor Hussein understood what the shooting meant." Yet Bushra - a symbol of the best kind of "New Iraq" - was angry when she was told there would be no more classes for a week. "I am ready to go back to my university now," she said.

Across Karbala yesterday, the Bulgarians mounted some half-hearted checkpoints around the city, as if those who had sent the bombers to their targets would cruise the streets 24 hours later. In the great shrine of Hussein, the martyr cut to pieces in 686AD, thousands of pilgrims, most of them Iranian, poured through the golden doors as if the Iraqi insurgency was in another century. Almost every major Iraqi city has now been assaulted by suicide bombers. Only Basra has been spared - so far.

And the British are in Basra.

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK).

[Joerver]

December 29, 2003
Halliburton Contracts in Iraq: The Struggle to Manage Costs
By JEFF GERTH and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — The Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in southern Iraq is crucial to keeping the oil flowing from the region`s petroleum-rich fields. So when American engineers found the antiquated plant barely operating earlier this year, there was no question that repairing it was important to the rebuilding of Iraq. Setting the price for the repairs was another matter.

In July, the Halliburton Company estimated that the overhaul would cost $75.7 million, according to confidential documents that the company submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers. But in early September, the Bush administration asked Congress for $125 million to do the job — a 40 percent price increase in just six weeks.

The initial price was based on "drive-by estimating," said Richard V. Dowling, a spokesman for the corps, which oversees the contract. The second was a result of a more complete assessment. "The best I can lamely fall back on is to say that estimates change," said Mr. Dowling, who is based in Baghdad. "This is not business as usual."

The rebuilding of Iraq`s oil industry has been characterized in the months since by increasing costs and scant public explanation. An examination of what has grown into a multibillion-dollar contract to restore Iraq`s oil infrastructure shows no evidence of profiteering by Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services company, but it does demonstrate a struggle between price controls and the uncertainties of war, with price controls frequently losing.

The Pentagon`s contract with a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, conceived in secrecy before the war and signed in March, was meant as a stopgap deal to last no more than a few months. But it has been in effect since then and has grown to more than $2 billion.

The scope of the contract includes myriad tasks from importing fuels to repairing pipelines, and the costs have increased through task orders and subcontracts, some of which are carried out with limited documentation or disclosure.

The reconstruction of Iraq has taken on "a Wild West atmosphere," said Gordon Adams, a military procurement expert at George Washington University. "Wartime creates an urgent need, and under an urgent need, contractors will deliver and take a price. There`s a premium for getting it done fast."

Earlier this month, Pentagon auditors questioned the $2.64 per gallon that Halliburton was charging to truck fuel from Kuwait to Iraq, and sought to recover $61 million. In response, company officials said they had actually saved the government money and had put the fuel supply subcontract up for competitive bidding. But there was little paperwork to show that any bidding had taken place, according to government officials familiar with the audit.

"Most of it was done on an emergency basis, very quickly, over the phone, and Halliburton has struggled to prove this was competitively bid," said one government official.

Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said bids were solicited by telephone in May because the corps needed fuel imported into Iraq within 24 hours. But she said a more formal bidding process was done several days later, and that KBR has provided Pentagon auditors with documentation on the bids.

"KBR followed government-approved procedures in responding to this significant, challenging and dangerous mission," she said.

Minimal Halliburton Profits

The estimated price of another KBR project, the replacement of damaged pipelines over the Tigris River, also grew significantly over the course of a few weeks. In July, KBR estimated that the cost would be $29.8 million for the job, included in a list of 220 tasks to be completed in Iraq. But by fall, the cost had more than doubled, to $70 million.

Both Mr. Dowling, the spokesman for the corps, and Ms. Hall said the price grew because the scope of the project and the method of repair had changed. Ms. Hall said the company had tried to get the lowest price from its subcontractors. In addition, Halliburton and government officials note that the violence in Iraq increases the cost of security and adds to the cost of all reconstruction contracts.

So far this year, Halliburton`s profits from Iraq have been minimal. The company`s latest report to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows $1.3 billion in revenues from work in Iraq and $46 million in pretax profits for the first nine months of 2003. But its profit may grow once the Pentagon completes a formal evaluation of the work. If the government is satisfied, Halliburton is entitled to a performance fee of up to 5 percent of the contract`s entire value, which could mean additional payments of $100 million or more.

The nonpublic way in which KBR was selected for the job in Iraq remains a political flashpoint, especially among Democratic presidential contenders, in part because Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton`s chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000.

The contract to fix Iraq`s oil industry was granted to KBR by a secret Bush administration task force formed in September 2002 to plan for Iraq`s oil industry in the event of war. The task force, led by an aide to Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, quickly concluded that the government alone could not meet the oil needs, members of the group said. "There were only a handful of companies, and KBR was always one of those mentioned," said one Pentagon official.

Almost immediately, an alarm went off among members of the group. "I immediately understood there would be an issue raised about the vice president`s former relationship with KBR," the official said, "so we took it up to the highest levels of the administration, and the answer we got was, `Do what was best for the mission and we`ll worry about the political` " fallout.

An Absence of Competition

Halliburton, a large energy services, engineering and construction firm, works for governments all over the world. A crucial factor in KBR`s selection, members of the planning group said, was an existing Army contract it secured to provide logistical support around the world. It won that contract in a bidding process in December 2001. The Pentagon has cited that competition to deflect criticism about KBR`s no-bid contract in Iraq.

In awarding the logistics contract, the Army acknowledged last year, it failed to consider that the company was under criminal investigation for a previous Pentagon contract, even though that inquiry was disclosed in Halliburton`s annual report.

The absence of competition in the selection of KBR for Iraqi oil work was meant to be remedied shortly after the war ended. "Everyone realized the selection of KBR was going to look bad, so the idea was to compete it out as quickly as possible," said another task force member.

But those competitively bid contracts have yet to be awarded, and the amount of Halliburton`s work in Iraq has grown steadily.

The process began in November 2002 with a request for the company — then operating under the Army logistical contract — to plan the management of Iraq`s postwar oil industry. "In the worst case scenario," said Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, "there would be massive international oil spills and pollution resulting from the fires, extensive damage to associated infrastructure, including gas-oil separators, pipelines, pumping stations, refineries and import facilities."

KBR designed a plan for such an eventuality, and on March 8, as war loomed, the corps awarded Halliburton a no-bid contract to carry out the plan, officials said.

The contract is labeled IDIQ, meaning indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity.

On March 24, a few days after the American-led invasion, the Pentagon and Halliburton announced the new contract. The Pentagon press release was titled, "Army Named Executive Agent for Combating Iraq Oil Fires." Halliburton`s own press release carried this headline: "KBR Implements Plan for Extinguishing Oil Well Fires in Iraq."

Inviting Other Bids

Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is a vocal critic of the Halliburton contract, wrote to Bush administration officials on March 26 asking why the contract was awarded without competition. Administration officials responded that the contract could be worth as much as $7 billion to Halliburton, but General Flowers said the bulk of the work would be open to competition from other contractors "at the earliest opportunity."

In April, Brig. Gen. Robert Crear of the Army Corps of Engineers described it as a "bridging contract, which would tide us over until we could have a fair competition."

"This contract is not going to be the kind of megabillion-dollar deal many have been thinking," General Crear told Bloomberg News.

During the war`s first days, soldiers discovered only a few oil fires, but as the war wound down, more work came KBR`s way, mostly because of acts of sabotage on pipelines and Iraq`s oil facilities. When security problems made the production of fuel inside Iraq even more difficult — leading to shortages — the government asked Halliburton to import fuel. It bought the fuel from Turkey and Kuwait.

Halliburton`s subcontractor in Kuwait was paid $2.27 a gallon to import fuel, almost twice what it cost to bring in fuel from Turkey. Halliburton charged an additional 36 cents a gallon. Pentagon auditors have said the price for the fuel from Kuwait was excessive.

Government officials have said the Kuwaiti subcontractor was called Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company, but Halliburton has refused to identify its subcontractors, which is a point of contention with critics of the contract.

Ms. Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman, said subcontractors were kept confidential "in order to ensure subcontractor safety" in Iraq. By contrast, Bechtel, the other large government contractor involved in the reconstruction effort, lists its subcontractors on its Web site.

Little Public Disclosure

There has been little public disclosure of how prices are set. Mr. Dowling, the spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said it is difficult to figure estimates in Iraq. A KBR task list of 220 reconstruction projects obtained by The New York Times gives some indication of the early estimates and how they quickly increased.

The most expensive project on the list was the repair of the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant, which pumps water into underground oil reservoirs, allowing oil to be extracted. By the time the Bush administration had submitted its budget request for Iraqi reconstruction in early September, the water-plant repair job had grown to $125 million from 75.7 million. The higher amount was what Congress eventually appropriated.

Mr. Dowling said that the first estimate was based on a "rough matrix" of pricing and that the final price was the product of "more refined data."

"There is nothing sinister or underhanded about construction estimates that change as the work is planned," he said. "It`s the quality of the work that counts." Halliburton officials referred questions about estimates to corps officials.

Criticism that the contracting is kept secret and favors Halliburton has been leveled not just by Democrats, but also by some business executives. Although the Pentagon and KBR deny any favoritism, some executives cited a closed Pentagon workshop on Iraq`s oil infrastructure that was held in August at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Fla.

The three-day conference included officials from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the corps and other government agencies as well as executives from KBR. The companies that attended, according to David C. Farlow, a spokesman for the United States Central Command, included only "commercial contractors currently working in Iraq."


Jeff Gerth reported from Washington for this article and Don Van Natta Jr. from London.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Soldiers relax in a tent at Forward Operating Base Pacesetter with the basics of their austere life around them: sleeping bags, high-laced desert boots, rucksacks, body armor and semiautomatic assault rifles.

December 29, 2003
PACESETTER JOURNAL
At Home in the Mud With a G.I. Platoon
By ERIC SCHMITT

FORWARD OPERATING BASE PACESETTER, Iraq, Dec. 24 — The mud sticks to everything here. Combat boots. Tire treads. The floor of second platoon`s tent.

Most of the 130,000 American troops in Iraq have been here long enough for the Army to house them in relative comfort, using buildings that include some of Saddam Hussein`s ornate palaces and converted Iraqi military barracks. They have hot showers, weight rooms and free Internet cafes open 24 hours.

But some soldiers, including many of the 5,000 troops of the Third Brigade, Second Infantry Division, conducting raids and patrols in Samarra, a hotbed of Hussein loyalists about 20 miles west of here, are still spending many nights at austere camps sleeping in their vehicles or under the stars, weather permitting.

So when the second platoon of Company C, Fifth Battalion, can roll in from the field to the tent city that has sprouted here this month to house the first of the Army`s new Stryker Brigades, from Fort Lewis, Wash., the platoon`s 35 soldiers relish small comforts and reminders of home.

To lift up the white canvas flap and duck into one of the platoon`s tents is to glimpse the muddy-boots lives of Army infantrymen at rest and at battle`s ready. Each tent is about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, supported by three mustard-colored poles that run down the center and by ropes outside lashed to concrete blocks.

A handwritten cardboard sign hanging on the tent flap welcomes a visitor to the Reapers, the platoon`s nickname. Inside, two fluorescent floor lamps cast a harsh light that dissolves into murky corners. There are two rows of cots, 18 swaths of green canvas stretched taut across aluminum frames. A space heater glowing orange sits at either end.

A soldier`s world is heaped on and around his cot: sleeping bag, high-laced desert boots, rucksack, body armor, care packages from home brimming with magazines, cookies, and Grandma`s fudge. Candy wrappers, empty plastic water bottles and, of course, caked mud litter the damp asphalt floor.

Black-steel M-4 or M-16 semiautomatic assault rifles lie at the foot of each cot. Makeshift clotheslines crisscross the tent, holding T-shirts, socks and towels that never seem to dry in the dank air. Latrines are outside. Soldiers know to bring their own toilet paper, a precious commodity here.

When it rains hard, the tent floods. When gale-force winds strike, some tents blow over. A few nights ago, insurgents launched eight rockets into this base, a former Iraqi airfield, forcing soldiers to dive into sandbagged foxholes in front of the tents.

Company C`s predawn mission on Tuesday was to raid a suspected insurgent recruiting den. The second platoon and its two sister platoons would leave about 1 a.m. under a moonless drizzle. But there were things to do before then. After dinner at 5:30 p.m. — well-done hamburger patties, scalloped potatoes and baked beans served on cardboard trays from a mobile kitchen 300 yards down the line — soldiers caught a few hours of sleep, read quietly or wrote letters. An empty rations carton marked "U.S. Mail Box" served the purpose. Postage is free for soldiers. Mail from the States takes about three weeks to reach here.

By 12:30 a.m., naps were over and the tent was bustling. Soldiers suited up: desert-camouflage fatigues, boots, body armor, knee and elbow pads (soldiers on raids and patrols spend a lot of time kneeling and crouching), and Kevlar helmets with night-vision goggles hooked on like a miner`s lamp.

There was a loose, cocky atmosphere. Soldiers ribbed each other in sentences punctuated by the squirt of chewing tobacco and the insertion of profanity as adjectives. Specialist Corey Reeves, of Tacoma, Wash., cranked up an old Michael Jackson CD, and then the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, and soon other soldiers were singing along and showing off their moves.

"Let`s go! Let`s get on the trucks!" barked Sgt. First Class Max McLaughlin, 39, a 19-year Army veteran who is the platoon sergeant. Asked if he had any preraid rituals, Sergeant McLaughlin squinted hard and looked as if he had just been hexed. "That`s bad juju," he murmurred.

Soldiers piled into their personnel carriers and rumbled into the night. Six hours later, they rolled back into base, and tromped back through the mud to their tents. The mission was disappointing. Intelligence had indicated there would be computers, cellphones, caches of documents, and gunmen at two target houses. Instead, the soldiers found only a few World War II-era rifles, some ammunition and a sheaf of papers. A local sheik was detained.

Many soldiers grumbled about the risk of alienating the Iraqi civilians by bursting into their homes at night, separating men from women and children, and rifling through their belongings in a seemingly fruitless search. "A lot of the intelligence we`ve been getting lately is pretty poopy," said Sgt. Billy Parker, 23, a squad leader from Clemson, S.C.

But now it was time to unwind. The showers here have only cold water, so some soldiers drifted off to get breakfast. Others stretched out in their sleeping bags. A few walked over to the battalion command post to make short telephone calls home. An 18-inch-high plastic Christmas tree inside the tent flap was the only reminder in this drab, olive green and brown world of the holiday.

Outside the tent, a grader slowly scraped away a top level of mud on an open field and spread stones where muck once reigned. Generators — the camp`s power source — filled the gray morning with a ceaseless hum. Black Hawk and Kiowa helicopters dipped low over the base, beating the air with their whop-whop-whopping.

Inside the tent, it was quiet. In less than 12 hours, the platoon would be out on a new mission.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

December 28, 2003
Kurds throw up new hurdle to Iraq sovereignty
By Peter Spiegel in Baghdad and David Pilling in Tokyo

Kurdish members of Iraq`s governing council are insisting the country`s transitional law include wide-ranging sovereignty rights for the northern Kurdish areas - including control of their natural resources and veto powers over Iraqi military movements in the region.

The Kurdish demands are throwing up another hurdle to completing the statute by the proposed deadline of February 28 even though they appear highly unlikely to be adopted in full.

But more encouraging news is expected on Monday with an offer by Japan to write off a substantial amount of the roughly $7bn owed by Iraq in sovereign debt and interest. The move is likely to be seen as a break with past Japanese policies on debt forgiveness.

When James Baker, US special envoy on Iraqi debt, visits Tokyo, Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, will tell him that Japan "intends to address the issue proactively", according to one government official.

Kurdish parties have proposed a semi-autonomous governing body, called the Council of Kurdish Ministers, which must approve all administrative actions from Baghdad, in a draft version of the transitional law submitted to the governing council earlier this month and obtained by the Financial Times.

Officials close to last week`s governing council debates said the Kurdish proposal had suddenly become one of the thorniest issues under discussion. Other sticking points were the selection process for members of the new transitional national assembly, which had been complicated by calls from Shia religious leaders for direct elections, and the future of the governing council itself, which is scheduled to be dissolved once sovereignty is handed to the assembly.

Despite Kurdish insistence that the devolved powers be detailed in the transitional law, coalition officials said they believed the proposal was a non-starter. The Kurdish provisions are opposed by most Arab governing council members, and any decision on Iraq`s federal structure is expected to be postponed until a constitutional convention in 2005.

Even so, Kurdish officials on Sunday were insisting special federal treatment for Kurdistan be included in the transitional law, warning that pressure for an independence referendum would grow if the governing council failed to grant concessions.

"A majority of the people, they say if the Arabs refuse our proposal we will choose the referendum," said Adel Murad, spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by governing council member Jalal Talabani.

Kurdish officials said they were prepared to negotiate about the proposals, a tacit acceptance that they were unlikely to be adopted in full. Despite this, the Kurdish proposal is a further indication that Iraq`s various groups are increasingly attempting to include parochial demands in the transitional law. Shia clerics, particularly grand ayatollah Ali Sistani, have already succeeded in influencing the political process.

The Kurdish draft contains other contentious proposals. While it falls short of demanding immediate geographical changes in what constitutes the Kurdish areas, it does call for the provinces of Kirkuk and Irbil to be redrawn to borders before Saddam Hussein came to power in 1968. The draft also calls for the return of all Kurdish assets seized during Ba`athist rule.



© Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2003.
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of The Financial Times

[Joerver]

December 29, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
In Search of the Swing Voter
By CHUCK TODD

WASHINGTON — With Election Day less than a year away, the search is on for swing voters. First there were Reagan Democrats, then Soccer Moms; in 2002, a political consultant actually got a reporter to buy into a new demographic called Waitress Moms. Already in the 2004 campaign there have been sightings of Nascar Dads, Office-Park Dads and Security Moms (Soccer Moms who are worried about terrorism).

It is a time-honored tradition in campaigns, this quest for the swing voter. But ask yourself: do you know anyone who really vacillates between the two political parties with each election? It`s not common. The vast majority of people always vote the same party — when they vote.

That three-word phrase — "when they vote" — is the key to understanding swing voters. The most accurate definition of a swing voter is a person who swings between voting and not voting. No matter how defined, however, swing voters remain the most coveted, and most influential, demographic in American politics. And this year`s swing voter could very well be . . . Young People. A more catchy name will have to await the legions of political consultants and media pundits.

Of course, the idea of appealing to the young voter is older than most young voters themselves. But the involvement of a new group, the New Voters Project, combined with a surge in civic involvement after 9/11, may make 2004 the year young voters finally get their swing.

The importance of swing voters is beyond argument, as the 2002 Senate election in North Carolina shows. In that race Elizabeth Dole, the Republican nominee, won by 200,000 votes over Erskine Bowles, the Democratic candidate. Mr. Bowles lost despite winning 20,000 more votes than the Democratic nominee in the 1998 Senate election, John Edwards. Yet Mr. Edwards won that race and, as some voters (at least in Iowa and New Hampshire) are aware, is now running for president.

Mr. Bowles lost even though he followed perhaps the most basic rule of politics — maximizing the turnout of your base. He lost because Mrs. Dole did an even better job of finding Republican swing voters. Her vote total was more than 300,000 higher than that of her party`s nominee for the Senate four years earlier, Lauch Faircloth.

These new Republican voters were not "Dole Democrats," crossing party lines for a particular candidate. They were sometimes-voting Republicans: people who didn`t vote in 1998 but voted for President Bush in 2000. The Dole campaign made a concentrated effort to reach these voters in 2002.

The demographic group that may fit this swing voter profile better than any Nascar fan or soccer parent is people under the age of 25. Many of these people didn`t vote in 2000 because they weren`t old enough or, worse, were disenchanted with the national political discourse.

Four years later, the average 24-year-old has a far more serious set of concerns. Her seminal political memory is no longer Monica Lewinsky, it is 9/11. Like Pearl Harbor for an earlier generation, 9/11 is the kind of memory that re-emphasizes the need for civic duty — and it`s likely that young folks are going to hear this call.

Political strategists for both parties have long paid lip service to the importance of young voters, even as they roll their eyes at the prospects of actually mobilizing them. There will be people who just don`t believe the investment in young voters is worth it. They will say it`s just too hard to track down young voters, who change jobs and addresses more frequently. Better to stick with older, more established voters, millions of whom both parties have already identified.

But before writing off this idea, they should think about that seminal political memory seared into the minds of the 18-to-24 set. Then they should juxtapose that with the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority of the soldiers on the front lines of the war on terror and the war in Iraq are under 25 years old.

The war is going to hit very close to home to this voting bloc. Their passion on this issue may actually be deeper than that of other voters. From antiwar college campuses to patriotic rural America, young people are engaged or involved in the war on terrorism.

The only question, really, is how to find these new swing voters. Howard Dean`s presidential campaign regularly trumpets its ability to get young people involved. The Republican National Committee also says it`s seeing a surge in participation in the College Republicans.

But what`s the evidence? Young voters almost never show up in polls because researchers focus on likely voters — and in the mind of a political strategist, someone between the ages of 18 and 24 is hardly considered a likely voter. (In addition, many people under 30 have only a cellphone, keeping themselves off phone lists pollsters use.)

The Dean campaign may be a leading indicator of young-voter power. If Dr. Dean`s vote totals in the early primary and caucus states are 5 to 10 percentage points higher than predicted in polls, then it may be a sign that this year is different. The involvement of the New Voters Project, which is organizing voter-registration drives in six swing states (Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin) could also make a difference.

Whether these efforts succeed remains to be seen. But if early returns show that young people are voting in larger numbers, then the game will be afoot. For strategists of both parties, the contest for the new swing voter will begin.


Chuck Todd is editor in chief of The Hotline, a newsletter about politics.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 29, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The White-Collar Blues
By BOB HERBERT

I am surprised at how passive American workers have become.

A couple of million factory positions have disappeared in the short time since we raised our glasses to toast the incoming century. And now the white-collar jobs are following the blue-collar jobs overseas.

Americans are working harder and have become ever more productive — astonishingly productive — but are not sharing in the benefits of their increased effort. If you think in terms of wages, benefits and the creation of good jobs, the employment landscape is grim.

The economy is going great guns, we`re told, but nearly nine million Americans are officially unemployed, and the real tally of the jobless is much higher. Even as the Bush administration and the media celebrate the blossoming of statistics that supposedly show how well we`re doing, the lines at food banks and soup kitchens are lengthening. They`re swollen in many cases by the children of men and women who are working but not making enough to house and feed their families.

I.B.M. has crafted plans to send thousands of upscale jobs from the U.S. to lower-paid workers in China, India and elsewhere. Anyone who doesn`t believe this is the wave of the future should listen to comments made last spring by an I.B.M. executive named Harry Newman:

"I think probably the biggest impact to employee relations and to the H.R. field is this concept of globalization. It is rapidly accelerating, and it means shifting a lot of jobs, opening a lot of locations in places we had never dreamt of before, going where there`s low-cost labor, low-cost competition, shifting jobs offshore."

An executive at Microsoft, the ultimate American success story, told his department heads last year to "Think India," and to "pick something to move offshore today."

These matters should be among the hottest topics of our national conversation. We`ve already witnessed the carnage in manufacturing jobs. Now, with white-collar jobs at stake, we`ve got executives at I.B.M. and Microsoft exchanging high-fives at the prospect of getting "two heads for the price of one" in India.

It might be a good idea to throw a brighter spotlight on some of these trends and explore the implications for the long-term economy and the American standard of living.

"If you take this to its logical extreme, the implications for the entire middle-class wage structure in the United States are terrifying," said Thea Lee, an economist with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. "Now is the time to start thinking about policy solutions."

But that`s exactly what we`re not thinking about. Government policy at the moment is focused primarily on what`s best for the corporations. From that perspective, job destruction and wage compression are good things — as long as they don`t get too much high-profile attention.

"This is a significant problem, much greater than we believed it was even a year ago," said Marcus Courtney, president of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, an affiliate of the Communication Workers of America.

Accurate data on the number of jobs already lost are all but impossible to come by. But there is no disputing the direction of the trend, or the fact that it is accelerating. Allowing this movement to continue unchecked will eventually mean economic suicide for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American families.

Globalization may be a fact of life. But that does not mean that its destructive impact on American families can`t be mitigated. The best thing workers can do, including white-collar and professional workers, is to organize. At the same time, the exportation of jobs and the effect that is having on the standard of living here should be relentlessly monitored by the government, the civic sector and the media. The public has a right to know what`s really going on.

Trade agreements and tax policies should be examined and updated to encourage the creation of employment that enhances the quality of life here at home. Corporate leaders may not feel an obligation to contribute to the long-term well-being of local communities or the nation as a whole, but that shouldn`t be the case with the rest of us.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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A U.S. soldier stands guard at a police station hit by a bomb in Karbala, where attacks on Saturday killed 19 people.
washingtonpost.com
Army Stops Many Soldiers From Quitting
Orders Extend Enlistments to Curtail Troop Shortages

By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 29, 2003; Page A01


Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle, an expert on enemy targeting, served 20 years in the military -- 10 years of active duty in the Air Force, another 10 in the West Virginia National Guard. Then he decided enough was enough. He owned a promising new aircraft-maintenance business, and it needed his attention. His retirement date was set for last February.

Staff Sgt. Justin Fontaine, a generator mechanic, enrolled in the Massachusetts National Guard out of high school and served nearly nine years. In preparation for his exit date last March, he turned in his field gear -- his rucksack and web belt, his uniforms and canteen.

Staff Sgt. Peter G. Costas, an interrogator in an intelligence unit, joined the Army Reserve in 1991, extended his enlistment in 1999 and then re-upped for three years in 2000. Costas, a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Texas, was due to retire from the reserves in last May.

According to their contracts, expectations and desires, all three soldiers should have been civilians by now. But Fontaine and Costas are currently serving in Iraq, and Eagle has just been deployed. On their Army paychecks, the expiration date of their military service is now listed sometime after 2030 -- the payroll computer`s way of saying, "Who knows?"

The three are among thousands of soldiers forbidden to leave military service under the Army`s "stop-loss" orders, intended to stanch the seepage of troops, through retirement and discharge, from a military stretched thin by its burgeoning overseas missions.

"It reflects the fact that the military is too small, which nobody wants to admit," said Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, a leading military sociologist.

To the Pentagon, stop-loss orders are a finger in the dike -- a tool to halt the hemorrhage of personnel, and maximize cohesion and experience, for units in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year. Hundreds more in the Air Force, Navy and Marines were briefly blocked from retiring or departing the military at some point this year.

By prohibiting soldiers and officers from leaving the service at retirement or the expiration of their contracts, military leaders have breached the Army`s manpower limit of 480,000 troops, a ceiling set by Congress. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, disclosed that the number of active-duty soldiers has crept over the congressionally authorized maximum by 20,000 and now registered 500,000 as a result of stop-loss orders. Several lawmakers questioned the legality of exceeding the limit by so much.

"Our goal is, we want to have units that are stabilized all the way down from the lowest squad up through the headquarters elements," said Brig. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, director of enlisted personnel management in the Army`s Human Resources Command. "Stop-loss allows us to do that. When a unit deploys, it deploys, trains and does its missions with the same soldiers."

In a recent profile of an Army infantry battalion deployed in Kuwait and on its way to Iraq, the commander, Lt. Col. Karl Reed, told the Army Times he could have lost a quarter of his unit in the coming year had it not been for the stop-loss order. "And that means a new 25 percent," Reed told the Army Times. "I would have had to train them and prepare them to go on the line. Given where we are, it will be a 24-hour combat operation; therefore it`s very difficult to bring new folks in and integrate them."

To many of the soldiers whose retirements and departures are on ice, however, stop-loss is an inconvenience, a hardship and, in some cases, a personal disaster. Some are resigned to fulfilling what they consider their patriotic duty. Others are livid, insisting they have fallen victim to a policy that amounts to an unannounced, unheralded draft.

"I`m furious. I`m aggravated. I feel violated. I feel used," said Eagle, 42, the targeting officer, who has just shipped to Iraq with his field artillery unit for what is likely to be a yearlong tour of duty. He had voluntarily postponed his retirement at his commander`s request early this year and then suddenly found himself stuck in the service under a stop-loss order this fall. Eagle said he fears his fledgling business in West Virginia may not survive his lengthy absence. His unexpected extension in the Army will slash his annual income by about $45,000, he said. And some members of his family, including his recently widowed sister, whose three teenage sons are close to Eagle, are bitterly opposed to his leaving.

"An enlistment contract has two parties, yet only the government is allowed to violate the contract; I am not," said Costas, 42, who signed an e-mail from Iraq this month "Chained in Iraq," an allusion to the fact that he and his fellow reservists remained in Baghdad after the active-duty unit into which they were transferred last spring went home. He has now been told that he will be home late next June, more than a year after his contractual departure date. "Unfair. I would not say it`s a draft per se, but it`s clearly a breach of contract. I will not reenlist."

Other soldiers retained by the Army under stop-loss are more resigned than irate, but no less demoralized by what some have come to regard as their involuntary servitude.

"Unfortunately, I signed the dotted line saying I`m going to serve my country," said Fontaine, 27, the mechanic, who said he spent "20 or 30 days" fruitlessly researching legal ways that he could quit the Army when his contractual departure date came up in February. "All I can do is suck it up and take it till I can get out."

The military`s interest in halting the depletion of its ranks predates the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. American GIs in World War II were under orders to serve until the fighting was finished, plus six months.

Congress approved the authority for what became known as stop-loss orders after the Vietnam War, responding to concerns that the military had been hamstrung by the out-rotations of seasoned combat soldiers in Indochina. But the authority was not used until the buildup to the Persian Gulf War in 1990 when Richard B. Cheney, then the secretary of defense, allowed the military services to bar most retirements and prolong enlistments indefinitely.

A flurry of stop-loss orders was issued after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, intensifying as the nation prepared for war in Iraq early this year. Some of the orders have applied to soldiers, sailors and airmen in specific skill categories -- military police, for example, and ordnance control specialists, have been in particular demand in Iraq.

Other edicts have been more sweeping, such as the Army`s most recent stop-loss order, issued Nov. 13, covering thousands of active-duty soldiers whose units are scheduled for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months. Because the stop-loss order begins 90 days before deployment and lasts for 90 days after a return home, those troops will be prohibited from retiring or leaving the Army at the expiration of their contracts until the spring of 2005, at the earliest.

The proliferation of stop-loss orders has bred confusion and resentment even as it has helped preserve what the military calls "unit cohesion." In the past two years, the Army alone has announced 11 stop-loss orders -- an average of one every nine or 10 weeks.

Often in the past year, the Army has allowed active-duty soldiers to retire and depart but not Guard and reserve troops, many of whom have chafed at the disparity in policies. Some Guard troops and reservists complain their release dates have been extended several times and they no longer know when they will be allowed to leave.

"We don`t ever trust anything we`re told," said Chris Walsh of Southington, Conn., whose wife, Jessica, an eighth-grade English teacher, is a military police officer in a National Guard unit in Baghdad. She may end up serving nearly two years beyond her original exit date of July 2002, Chris Walsh said. "We`ve been disappointed too many times."

For many soldiers who had planned on leaving the military, the sudden change of plans has been jarring.

Jim Montgomery`s story is typical. Montgomery, an air-conditioning repairman in western Massachusetts, did a three-year hitch in the Army in the `90s and then signed up for a five-year stint in the National Guard. His exit date was July 31, 2003, after which he planned to devote himself to getting his electrician`s license -- and to the baby he and his wife, Donna, expected in November, their first.

"I felt like I`d honored my contract," said Montgomery, 35, a beefy, affable man who holds the rank of specialist E4 in the Guard. "The military had given me some good things -- friendships and the opportunity to take some college courses -- and that`s where I wanted to leave it."

The Army had other plans. In March, Montgomery`s maintenance unit was sent for training to Fort Drum, N.Y. In April it deployed to Kuwait, and since May it has been stationed in southern Iraq. With each move, it became clearer to Montgomery that his July exit date from the Guard would not materialize. The latest he has heard is that the unit may be coming home in April, but even that is uncertain, he said.

Last month Montgomery rushed home on a medical emergency when Donna had complications in childbirth. She and the baby are fine now, but Montgomery is frustrated by his cloudy future.

"Some guys who are Vietnam vets are with us," he said in an interview at his home in Holland, Mass., shortly before he was to return to his unit in Iraq. "They said even in Vietnam, as difficult as it was there, you knew from the time you hit the ground to the time you returned it was one year -- whereas with this it`s really up in the air."

Some military officials have acknowledged that stop-loss is a necessary evil. When the Air Force announced it was imposing a stop-loss rule last spring, an official news bulletin from Air Force Print News noted: "Both the secretary [James G. Roche] and the chief of staff [Gen. John P. Jumper] are acutely aware that the Air Force is an all-volunteer force and that this action, while essential to meeting the service`s worldwide obligations, is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of voluntary service."

More frequently, the military response to griping about stop-loss is bluntly unsympathetic. "We`re all soldiers. We go where were told," said Maj. Steve Stover, an Army spokesman. "Fair has nothing to do with it."

Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
When International Justice Works


By Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin Jr.

Monday, December 29, 2003; Page A17


The United States has opposed both the new International Criminal Court and efforts by Belgium and other countries to use theories of "universal jurisdiction" to prosecute violations of international humanitarian law, partly because these mechanisms are too easily abused for the purpose of settling political scores. Many in Europe and elsewhere have claimed that this guarantees "impunity" for such offenses.

But there is an alternative. Every state has the right, and obligation, to enforce international law and to prosecute offenses properly within its jurisdiction. This is exactly what the United States has now chosen to do in a case that presents a classic violation of international law -- the deliberate and premeditated murder of civilians.

The case is pending in the Miami federal court. Three Cuban military officers are charged with the 1996 destruction of two American civil aircraft and the deaths of the four men aboard. It grew out of Cuban president Fidel Castro`s determination to "send a message" to Cuban Americans in South Florida. Since 1991, a Miami-based organization named "Brothers to the Rescue" has sponsored small-aircraft flights over the Florida Straits to rescue people fleeing Cuba in unsafe boats and rafts.

In January 1996 the group also dropped leaflets, reprinting portions of the U.N.`s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, over Cuba itself. It was after this incident that the Cuban government, which already had infiltrated the group, acted. Its agents were ordered not to join any Brothers flights between Feb. 24 and Feb. 27. On the afternoon of the 26th, as two of the group`s planes flew over international waters, Cuban MIGs launched air-to-air missiles. The Cessnas were destroyed and their crews, three U.S. citizens and one U.S. national, killed.

Neither plane could have threatened Cuban security, and the aircraft were heading back toward the United States at the time they were destroyed. Cuban authorities clearly understood this, and they knew to a certainty that the planes were unarmed and staffed by civilians. The destruction of these small aircraft was cold-blooded murder -- and it was murder planned and approved at the highest levels of Cuba`s government. A later report by the International Civil Aviation Organization revealed that the Cuban pilots, both experienced officers, had radioed for instructions and were duly authorized by their superiors to consummate the attack.

Moreover, during a Sept. 3, 1996, interview with CBS News anchor Dan Rather, Fidel Castro himself openly acknowledged his own standing orders -- given weeks before -- that the organization`s aircraft were to be destroyed.

Castro was not, however, named in the indictment, which was limited to the responsible pilots and the general who communicated the orders to destroy the planes. This cautious approach is both justified and commendable. However guilty Castro may be, he is a head of state, and international law continues to provide a level of immunity from prosecution to the highest-ranking officials.

The Cuban indictment is based on firm international legal ground. The United States has not claimed "universal" jurisdiction over any Cuban official. Rather, it is proceeding under accepted theories of territorial jurisdiction (as U.S. civil aircraft are part of the "special territorial jurisdiction" of the United States), as well as the right to prosecute individuals for offenses against U.S. nationals committed in -- or over -- international waters. By contrast, efforts in Belgium to punish U.S. officials for actions in Iraq did not involve such attacks against Belgian nationals.

Neither can these prosecutions be used as a precedent to support the overseas trials of U.S. military personnel. Frivolous or politically motivated charges against U.S. forces remain a serious and continuing concern. But the destruction of the Brothers to the Rescue planes was no accident or instance of "collateral damage" in which civilians were killed unintentionally. It was deliberate murder. The purpose, pure and simple, was terror -- to dissuade the group from further embarrassing efforts to assist Cuban refugees, or to distribute such "subversive" materials as the International Declaration of Human Rights to the Cuban population.

The case can be readily distinguished from, say, the tragic circumstances surrounding the 1988 destruction, by the USS Vincennes, of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf. In that case, U.S. personnel believed they were under attack and made a split-second decision that turned out to be wrong. Here, the Cuban pilots were sent to find what they knew to be unarmed Cessna aircraft, took aim and called home for instructions before pulling the trigger. It has long been accepted under the laws of war that obviously illegal orders must be refused.

The indictment of these three Cuban officers is both well-justified on its own merits and the harbinger of things to come. Moreover, it was done in a manner consistent with international law, and that protects the United States` overarching legal and policy interests.

The writers, both Washington lawyers, served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Limits for Bush
12/28/2003

AMERICA HAS always thought of itself as a nation of laws and not men, but that comforting assumption is under challenge from President George W. Bush. In a series of recent reversals, Bush has been forced to back off of several of his key initiatives in both foreign and domestic arenas because they violated the US Constitution, federal law, or international agreements. The pattern is even more troubling than the individual cases, suggesting a belligerent disregard for the law until brave judges call the administration to account.

Just last week, a Bush plan to allow polluting power companies to make major changes to their plants without making them cleaner was halted by a three-judge panel of the federal Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. Bush`s Environmental Protection Agency was about to gift the industry with a regulation retreat so great it violates the Clean Air Act.

The week before, the federal Appeals Court in New York ruled that the administration had denied basic rights to US citizen Jose Padilla by detaining him as an enemy combatant without specific charge.

At nearly the same time, the federal Appeals Court in San Francisco scolded Bush for holding some 650 people at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without trial as undemocratic and likely a violation of international law.

Earlier, another federal judge overturned Interior Department plans to open Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks to hundreds of snowmobilers, saying the move would violate the "primary mandates, regulations, and policies of the National Park Service."

These cases followed shortly after Bush finally surrendered to national and international pressure by rescinding steel import tariffs that were clearly a violation of international trade agreements from the start, and never should have been implemented.

So in the month of December alone, Bush was rebuffed by three separate federal appeals courts, another federal judge, and the World Trade Organization.

Unfortunately, these cases are not isolated. Potentially unconstitutional infringements on individual rights were pursued by John Poindexter when he was in the Pentagon, and others are still being advanced by Attorney General John Ashcroft under the Patriot Act.

The San Francisco Appeals Court said it well: "It is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike."

Bush, like any president, should uphold the law and not advance vigilante policies that attempt to get away with as much as they can before being caught.

The second lesson for Americans is to treasure and support an independent judiciary that will uphold fundamental rights.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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DEC. 26, 2003 - JAN. 1, 2004
The List 2003
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/05/the-ehrenreich.php

Top Ten Bush Administration Outrages
by Ben Ehrenreich

1 The War. At last count: 530 coalition soldiers dead, between 8,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed and many more uncounted Iraqi military casualties, all of these dead shamelessly defamed by Bush administration lies, from the fictional Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda ties which provided the pretext for the war to the staged spectacles of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad and Jessica Lynch’s “rescue,” to the daily press-briefing play-acting about how it’s all going Just Fine. The president continues to debase the dead with bottomlessly hypocritical macho posturing — his clownish May 1 flight-suit stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln; his brave “Bring ’em on” challenge to Iraqi insurgents; his braver Thanksgiving oath to the troops, during his 140-minute tour of duty in Iraq, that “We will stay until the job is done.” And guess who still hasn’t attended a single soldier’s funeral for fear he might be associated with the rising Iraqi death toll?

2 The Occupation. From the beginning — allowing the plundering of museums and hospitals while taking pains to secure the oil ministry, handing Dick Cheney’s friends at Halliburton a $1.7 billion no-bid contract while refusing local contractors, firing on unarmed protesters — the paternalistic pretexts for the occupation have been difficult to swallow. Now, with a more “aggressive stance” against the insurgency, including Israeli-loaned tactics such as bulldozing homes and razor-wiring off whole villages, and mafia-loaned tactics like imprisoning the families of your enemies, it’s getting hard not to choke on it all.

3 The Abandonment of Afghanistan. Despite all his grand promises, Bush did not include a single penny for Afghan reconstruction in his 2003 budget request. Most of the money that has since been allocated for Afghanistan will go toward U.S. military goals, not to rebuilding the ravaged country. There is perhaps no better symbol of the effect of the U.S. military’s efforts than the damage done by two recent air strikes, one on a Friday night in Gardez, the other the next day in Ghazni province, which between the two of them left 15 children dead. Three adults were also killed, but the targets of the strikes, suspected Taliban, were not among them.

4 The Detainees. With a tongue-out, pants-down, spittle-soaked fuck-you to international law, the Bush administration continues to detain over 600 uncharged prisoners at a hastily constructed prison camp in the naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Nearly 30 have attempted suicide so far. The military admitted in April that a “handful” of the detainees are children between the ages of 13 and 15. A Pentagon spokesman insisted that, “despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people.”

5 The Other Detainees. Following its recent decision to grant U.S. citizen and “enemy combatant” Yaser Esam Hamdi access to legal counsel, the Bush administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court asserting its right not to do so, basically insisting that the executive branch trumps the judiciary until it decides the war without end has ended. The Defense Department has for the last year and a half denied Jose Padilla, another citizen held incommunicado and in solitary confinement in the same South Carolina brig as Hamdi, access to his lawyer on the grounds that it would disrupt the “trust and dependency . . . essential to effective interrogation,” as if the possibility of that disruption were not the very purpose of the Fifth Amendment.

6 Balls. There are few tidier examples of the Bush administration’s continuing effort to give the phrase “imperial arrogance” new currency than its request, prior to Bush’s visit to London, that the British government grant Secret Service sharpshooters immunity from prosecution should they carelessly take out a bystander or six. Tony Blair briefly sprouted a pair, and refused.

7 Rogue States. Funny behavior for someone who claims such grave distaste for weapons of mass destruction, but after sneaking the repeal of a ban (signed by his father!) on their development into his $400 billion military appropriations bill, Bush approved $13.5 million for research into developing “bunker-busting” and low-yield nuclear weapons and another $25 million to ready a site in Nevada for testing.

8 The Simple Life. In the midst of it all, another tax cut, marketed as a gift to the middle class, but which will have a net effect of transferring billions (an “itty bitty” $350 billion, to borrow the president’s locution) straight into the pockets of the rich.

9 The Secure Homeland. It wasn’t hard to see this one coming: the use of anti-terrorism laws to quell domestic dissent, from charges against protesters in Vieques to L.A.’s own Sherman Austin, who was sentenced to a year in federal prison in August.

10 And Counting. The quiet butchering of the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and clean water regulations, the gutting of the Labor Department’s regulations on overtime pay and of FCC media consolidation rules, the proposed expansion of the Patriot Act, and and and . . .

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Und dann erzählt er, er liest keine Zeitungen.

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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Hape Kerkeling?

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BUSH: SADDAM STILL CAPTURED

Approval Ratings Re-surge on Re-announcement

In a nationally televised address, President George W. Bush announced on Sunday that former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was “still captured.”

“Saddam Hussein remains very much in U.S. custody, as he has been for the last two weeks,” President Bush said. “To Mr. Saddam Hussein, our message is clear: you aren’t going anywhere, Mr. Saddam Hussein.”

The President said that he chose to re-announce the capture of the Iraqi madman on Sunday because that day marked the two-week anniversary of Saddam’s arrest in Tikrit.

“Today is a day for all Americans to remember that great and special day that occurred two weeks ago,” Mr. Bush reiterated.

President Bush’s approval ratings, which had leveled off somewhat over the past week, re-surged after the re-announcement of Saddam’s capture.

Those political dividends suggest that the White House may carry through on a controversial plan devised by chief political strategist Karl Rove to re-announce the capture of Saddam Hussein every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

But political scientist David McCrory of the University of Minnesota warned that re-announcing the capture of the former Iraqi dictator on such a regular basis carries with it certain risks.

“Worst case scenario, people start tuning Mr. Bush out, like they do with Tom Ridge,” he said.

Another proposal put forward by Mr. Rove is the so-called “catch and release” plan, in which Saddam Hussein would be released every few days, allowed to run away about fifteen yards and then re-captured by U.S. troops once more.

In other political news, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) raised a much-needed $8.3 million for his presidential campaign by selling his hair to Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del).


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A Guide to U.S. Newspapers

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don`t really understand the Washington Post. They do, however like the smog statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn`t mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn`t have to leave L.A. to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren`t too sure who`s running the country, and don`t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don`t care who`s running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren`t sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority, feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

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Newspaper Headlines in the Year 2035

Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions inthe seventh largest country in the world, California.

White minorities still trying to have English recognized as the California`s third language.

Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops & livestock.

Baby conceived naturally.... Scientists stumped.

Authentic year 2000 "chad" sells at Sotheby`s for $4.6 million.

Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria,and Lebanon.)

Iraq still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least ten more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.

35 year study: diet and exercise is the key to weight loss.

Texas executes last remaining citizen.

Upcoming NFL draft likely to focus on use of mutants.

Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.

Microsoft announces it has perfected its newest version of Windows so it crashes BEFORE installation is completed.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screw-drivers and baseball bats must be registered by January 2036.

[Joerver]

Show and Tell

Little David was in his 5th grade class when the teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up -- fireman, policeman, salesman, doctor, lawyer, etc. David was being uncharacteristically quiet and so he teacher asked him about his father. "My father`s an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes, if the offer`s really good, he`ll go out to the alley with some guy and make love with him for money." The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some exercises and took little David aside to ask him, "Is that really true about your father?" "No," said David, "He works for the Bush administration, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids."

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-whither29…
THE WORLD



Iraqi Council Flexes Muscles
The U.S.-appointed body is increasingly defying the coalition and pushing its own vision of a free and self-governing Iraq.
By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer

December 29, 2003

BAGHDAD — Seen by a distrustful public as a tool of the occupying powers, Iraq`s Governing Council is coming of age on the job as it tries to define a leadership to take over from the United States and its allies.

But as the 25-member body steers Iraq toward sovereignty, promised in a mere six months, it is acting like a defiant adolescent, challenging the authority and wisdom of those who gave it life. And its bargaining position has been strengthened by the Bush administration`s apparent eagerness to declare its mission accomplished before the U.S. presidential election.

No longer the passive instrument that U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III used to carve the contours of a new Iraq, the council has become increasingly assertive, demanding control of the reconstruction purse strings and the authority to supplant Bremer`s vision with its own.

Council members complained that fledgling Iraqi security forces were not given the financial support or authority needed to combat insurgents. They prevailed in getting U.S. assurances that war crimes suspects — jailed former leader Saddam Hussein first among them — will be handed over to Iraqis for prosecution, despite pressure from some American circles to try them in an international forum.

On Monday, the council signed three mobile telephone service licenses, ignoring a Pentagon probe into allegations of corruption made by U.S. and Turkish companies that had been unsuccessful bidders.

The council began flexing its muscles last month when it undertook a review of Bremer`s gubernatorial appointments to each of Iraq`s 18 provinces. It deemed four of the governors unfit for office, firing one and starting procedures to replace the others. Council members are challenging such regional appointments by Bremer, insisting they are better acquainted with the needs and values of Iraqis than an American making personnel choices under deadline pressure.

Bremer wants the council to knuckle down to the task of drafting a Fundamental Law that will guide the country through 2005, by which time a constitution should have been drafted and ratified in a referendum and direct national elections scheduled to let Iraqis choose their new leaders. The council has only until Feb. 28 to deliver the complex law that will lay out electoral and governing procedures for the Transitional Assembly that will assume power from the coalition.

Instead, the council has delved into staffing the provincial governments. "The Americans can`t give the right judgments about our governors. We have to get that from the people in the street," said Ahmad Shyaa Barak, a Shiite lawyer on the council.

"The provincial councils will play a big role in selecting the next leaders. It is not acceptable that they were appointed," Barak said.

"We must make the necessary changes. It`s too important, regardless of the objections of the" U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Bremer initially overruled the council`s November firing of Babylon Gov. Iskandar Jawad Witwit on grounds of corruption. But Bremer let stand a second council edict on Dec. 9 dismissing Witwit for membership in the outlawed Baath Party.

The coalition apparently calculated that to oppose the council would contradict the aims of the "de-Baathification" process as well as reinforce an impression among many Iraqis that the council is a puppet of the occupying powers. However, instead of placating the council, the battle emboldened it to insist on replacing other officials.

"Some of those appointed are not working out. They were bad choices," argued Mahmoud Othman, a Sunni Kurd and a political independent. "After the war, things were done in a hurry. We have to make corrections before the next elections."

Coalition officials are reluctant to publicly discuss what remains a behind-the-scenes clash over the appointments. One said only that probing regional councils would be time-consuming, and in the absence of reliable public opinion research, it would be difficult to accurately gauge any interim governor`s real standing with constituents.

Some council members suspect the coalition authority is protecting a few malleable governors so they can place figures in the next executive who otherwise might be unable to garner local support. For example, the Pentagon`s favorite ally on the council, Ahmad Chalabi, lived outside Iraq for 35 years and has no support base in the country.

Initially in lock step with Bremer on the shape of a future Iraq, the council has increasingly asserted its autonomy on financial and judicial affairs as well as appointments.

The council has won assurances that Hussein will be turned over to Iraqi custody to face trial here on war crimes. Council members have also dismissed allegations that the U.S. occupiers will wield a heavy hand in shaping the newly created Iraqi war crimes tribunal.

"The justices will be appointed by the Governing Council, not the CPA," said Dara Noureddine, a former judge on the council who was jailed by Hussein for refusing to overturn a ruling against the regime.

Other council members have become resentful, at least in private, over Washington`s hurry-up campaign to extract itself from Iraq while refusing to relinquish power to the new Iraqi institutions.

"We feel very strongly that it is unfair to expect a process that needs two to three years to be done properly to be squeezed into six months," one council member said. "But we have to agree to this. It`s a little `thank you,` the least we are expected to do for a man who liberated 25 million people."

While the council appears ready to accept Bremer`s conclusion that direct elections for the next leadership bodies are impossible due to time constraints, the proposed caucus system continues to be looked at askance by Iraq`s most powerful religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. His threat to denounce the caucus method as illegitimate would probably dissuade many Shiites, who constitute more than 60% of the Iraqi population, from participating in the process.

Mouwafak Rabii, a Shiite council member and British-educated physician, insists that the leadership body taking over from the council in six months will have more credibility because it will be selected in a broadly representative forum.

Like most council members, Rabii believes the current leaders are not only eligible to run for the new positions but their experience with the initial phase of self-rule uniquely qualifies them for the next transitional team.

"They should play a pivotal role in the next leadership. They have expertise and experience," Rabii said of his fellow council members. "You need continuity. We can`t have this idiotic American system of dumping everyone from their positions when a new president wins election."

He agrees that the council has become more assertive as it evolves and predicts that Bremer and the Pentagon architects of the emerging Iraq will have to give way to Iraqis` own vision.

"We started off wobbly," Rabii said. "It was a new experience for us. We didn`t understand the concept of trading off. Compromise is a dirty word in Arabic."

He bridles under criticism aired by Bremer in Washington last month that the council has been too slow to work through the tasks assigned it: appointing Cabinet ministers, ratifying budgets for 2003 and 2004, representing Iraq abroad, building up Iraqi security forces and starting work on a new constitution.

"We`ve done all of that. Where are the shortcomings?" the former exile said. "And we have done all this under occupation, when the CPA has ultimate authority, not us. If anybody has failed, it is the occupational authority."

Nasir Chaderchi, a Sunni member of the council, warns that poor investment in Iraqi security forces could delay the hand-over of sovereignty and departure of U.S. forces.

"The Americans have done nothing to give the Iraqi institutions more authority," said Chaderchi, the head of the National Democratic Party. "The Interior Ministry can`t hire one single policeman now because of an alleged lack of funds."

Meanwhile, negotiations are underway between the Pentagon and the council on the number of troops that will stay on after July 1 and the powers they will have, council member Adnan Pachachi said.

"What is important is that they will then be here with our approval and under conditions on which we`ve agreed," said Pachachi, who at 80 is the oldest and most respected member of the council. "We will no longer have occupational forces."

Iraqis want a minimal foreign presence but fear they will be vulnerable to tribal and sectarian rivalries and attacks by foreign forces unless they have in place a well-trained police force, civil defense corps, border guards and standing army.

All those forces are being built up now, but their numbers remain a fraction of what both the occupiers and the occupied said would be needed.

In Baghdad, for instance, 7,500 police have been hired while the capital`s population needs 20,000.

"If the Americans want to leave, they have to first build up our security forces," said Chaderchi, one of the few council members with no plans to run for parliamentary or executive office in the upcoming caucuses.

"For the time being we are too weak. Foreign terrorists can easily make Iraq their base. But all these problems could be resolved quickly if our coalition partners would remove the roadblocks."

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-jobs29d…
THE NATION




Jobless Count Skips Millions
The rate hits 9.7% when the underemployed and those who have quit looking are added.
By David Streitfeld
Times Staff Writer

December 29, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO — Lisa Gluskin has had a tough three years. She works almost as hard as she did during the dot-com boom, for about 20% of the income.

When Gluskin`s writing and editing business cratered in 2001, she slashed her rates, began studying for a graduate degree and started teaching part time at a Lake Tahoe community college for a meager wage.

It`s been a fragmented, hand-to-mouth life, one that she sees mirrored by friends and colleagues who are waiting tables or delivering packages. In the late `90s, the 35-year-old Gluskin says, "we had careers. We had trajectories. Now we have complicated lives. We`re not unemployed, but we`re underemployed."

The nation`s official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.

To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.

There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn`t look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year.

Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago.

No wonder the Democratic presidential candidates have seized on jobs as a potentially powerful weapon.

Howard Dean criticized President Bush for "the worst job creation record in over 60 years." Richard Gephardt said that "I have three goals for my presidency: jobs, jobs, jobs." John Kerry said "the first thing" he`d do as president would be to fight his "heart out" to bring back the jobs that have disappeared in recent years.

Bush, meanwhile, is quick to seize credit where he can. When the unemployment rate for November fell one-tenth of a point, he went out immediately to give a speech at a Home Depot in Maryland.

"More workers are going to work, over 380,000 have joined the workforce in the last couple of months," Bush said. "We`ve overcome a lot."

A number of economists say it`s a mistake to evaluate the job market solely by talking about the official unemployment rate. It`s a blunt instrument for assessing a condition that is growing ever more vague.

"There`s certainly an arbitrariness to the official rate," says Princeton University economics professor Alan Krueger. "It irks me that it`s not put in proper perspective."

On Jan. 9, when the rate for December is announced, both Republicans and Democrats will assuredly again maneuver for advantage — precisely because the number isn`t expected to change much.

"At this point, where we don`t know which way it`s going but it isn`t likely to be going far, both sides will try to use it," says Michael Lewis-Beck, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

In every election since 1960, the party in the White House lost when the unemployment rate deteriorated during the first half of the year. If the rate improved, the party in the White House won.

That`s not a coincidence, says Lewis-Beck, who has edited several volumes on how economic conditions determine elections. "People see the president as the chief executive of the economy," he says. "They punish him if things are deteriorating and reward him if things are improving."

By any normal standard, things should have been improving on the employment front long before this point. More than 2 million jobs have been lost in the last three years, a period that encompassed a brief, nasty recession and a recovery that was anemic until recently. Even in the best-case scenario, Bush will end this term with a net job loss. That hasn`t happened to a president since Herbert Hoover at the beginning of the Depression.

Many economists are mystified about why a suddenly booming economy is producing so few jobs.

"We`re all sitting there and saying, `When are they going to return?` " says Richard B. Freeman, director of the labor studies program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "It`s looking a little better, but we don`t understand why it isn`t looking a lot better. Why shouldn`t Bush be sitting there saying, `Man, I`m sitting pretty. This is a great boom`?"

One statistic proving particularly perplexing is the percentage of the adult population that is employed. This number rises during good times, as people are lured into the workforce, and falls during recessions as companies falter.

True to form, the percentage of adult Americans with jobs dropped from a high of 64.8% in April 2000, just as the stock market was cresting, to 62% in September — the lowest level in a decade. If past recessions are any guide, those 5 million people who found themselves jobless should have driven the unemployment rate up to about 8%.

Instead, the rate never went much above 6%.

"More than half of the additional people who would have reported themselves as unemployed in a previous big recessionary period … aren`t," a puzzled UC Berkeley economist, Brad DeLong, wrote on his website. "They`re reporting themselves as out of the labor force instead."

"Out of the labor force" means you`re not working for even one hour a week and don`t want to, either. It`s the traditional category for students, married women with young children, flush retirees and idle millionaires.

A new way that people seem to be joining this category is by getting themselves declared disabled. This designation makes them eligible for government payments while removing them from the unemployment rolls.

From 1983 to 2000, economists David Autor and Mark Duggan wrote in a recent study, the number of non-elderly adults receiving government disability payments doubled from 3.8 million to 7.7 million.

The scholars present a case that the sharp increase isn`t because the workplace suddenly became more dangerous. Instead, it has been prompted by liberalized screening policies, which make it possible to claim disabled status for, say, several small impairments as opposed to one big injury. Government examinations also have been downplayed in favor of the disabled`s own medical records and the pain he or she claims to be experiencing.

At the same time, benefits have been sweetened. As a result, millions of individuals who lost jobs now have an attractive — and permanent — alternative to searching for work.

Autor and Duggan concluded that if disability payments weren`t so appealing, many more people would be unemployed, boosting the jobless rate two-thirds of a point.

Another way in which people forgo an appearance on the unemployment rolls is if they decide to go into business for themselves. There are 9.6 million people who say they are self-employed full time, a number that rose 118,000 last month. Without the recent increase in self-employed, the jobless number would look much worse.

Many others may be working for themselves part time, temporarily, as a way to get food on the table in the absence of better options.

Take Steve Fahringer, who until recently was working for a Bay Area marketing agency that cut 20% of its employees and trimmed the wages of the remainder by 20%. Fahringer didn`t particularly like his job. Because the recession supposedly was history, he thought he could find a new position. The 34-year-old didn`t think it would be easy, but he thought it possible. So he quit.

"I left July 1," he says. "I haven`t found a new job yet."

It`s a common problem. The segment of the labor force that has been jobless for more than 15 weeks has risen nearly 150% since 2000. The current level is the highest since the recession of the early 1990s. Nearly one-quarter of the jobless have been unemployed for longer than six months.

In Fahringer`s case, he spent some time aggressively looking for a job, which made him part of the official July unemployment rate of 6.2%. Then he stopped looking, which meant that he was one small reason the rate started going down.

Instead of unemployed, Fahringer was classified as "discouraged." A little more than 8% of the people who want a job in the Bay Area are estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be discouraged, slightly higher than Los Angeles/Long Beach but lower than the battered technology center of San Jose.



Discouraged workers have never been included in unemployment rates, although they came close the last time a commission met to reform the system, a quarter of a century ago. "It was a very hot issue," remembers Glen Cain, a retired economist who was a commission member. He says the conservatives on the panel, who felt that anyone who really wanted a job should be out there hustling no matter what, prevailed.

Fahringer found an alternative way to earn a bit of money. He did some acrylic paintings, which he sold for a total of $1,000. He calls himself "a hobbyist," which means for a while he moved out of the labor force entirely.

Now he`s a temp, assigned by his agency to a nonprofit office. For the first time in six months, he`s working 40 hours a week. By the government`s accounting, he has once again joined the ranks of the employed. But from the standpoint of his wallet, Fahringer is worse off: He`s earning less money, with no paid holidays, no sick leave, no pension plan, no health insurance, no future.

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, says Fahringer`s situation is in many ways typical. The industries that were expanding in the late `90s, including computer and professional services, paid well.

Those industries are in retreat. So is manufacturing, a traditional source of high wages. On the rise, meanwhile, are lower-paying service jobs.

During the boom, it was easy to trade up. Now it`s just as easy to trade down.

Fahringer`s solution: Opt out.

"I`m thinking of going back to school," he says. "I`d take out a loan." That would put him out of the labor force again.

In some eyes, a nation of burger flippers, temps and Wal-Mart clerks isn`t the worst scenario for the economy. The worst is that companies continue to eliminate jobs faster than they create them, setting up a game of musical chairs for the labor force.

That prospect alarms Erica Groshen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "If you plot job losses versus gains on a chart, it`s shocking," she says.

Losses are running at about the same rate they were in 1997 and 1998, two good years for the economy. But job creation in the first quarter of 2003 — the most recent period available — was only 7.4 million, the lowest since 1993.

"If this goes on too long, you`d have to worry there`s something fundamentally wrong," Groshen says. Although the economy has picked up since March, "so far I haven`t seen anything that suggests job creation is picking up."

That bodes poorly for Ian Golder. His last full-time job was with a start-up publication that wrote about venture capital.

Two years ago, Golder was laid off. It was the first time since he graduated from UC Berkeley 14 years earlier that he didn`t have steady work.

Golder looked for a while, gave up for a while, then landed a contracting gig with no benefits proofreading for a chip maker. When that ran out, he worked 20 hours a month on a financial services newsletter.

His wife, Heather, a recent graduate in English from UC Davis, also was without a job. They thought about selling their house in Sacramento and moving, but prospects didn`t look any better anywhere else. To make ends meet, they took in two boarders.

At the beginning of December, things seemed to improve a bit. Golder got a job in the document-control department of a medical devices company. The department, he was told, used to have 20 full-time people. Now it has five, plus four temps.

The job will last two months. After that, who knows?

"Optimists say things will be better then," Golder says. "But a full-time position with benefits seems pretty remote."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

Bible Belt missionaries set out on a `war for souls` in Iraq
(Filed: 27/12/2003)


US Christian evangelists want to "save Muslim souls" in Iraq, writes David Rennie in Cleveland


American Christian missionaries have declared a "war for souls" in Iraq, telling supporters that the formal end of the US-led occupation next June will close an historic "window of opportunity".

Organising in secrecy, and emphasising their humanitarian aid work, Christian groups are pouring into the country, which is 97 per cent Muslim, bearing Arabic Bibles, videos and religious tracts designed to "save" Muslims from their "false" religion.


Mission from god: Jon Hanna and Jackie Cone after they visited Iraq
The International Mission Board, the missionary arm of the Southern Baptists, is one of those leading the charge.

John Brady, the IMB`s head for the Middle East and North Africa, this month appealed to the 16 million members of his church, the largest Protestant denomination in America.

"Southern Baptists have prayed for years that Iraq would somehow be opened to the gospel," his appeal began. That "open door" for Christians may soon close.

"Southern Baptists must understand that there is a war for souls under way in Iraq," his bulletin added, listing Islamic leaders and "pseudo-Christian" groups also flooding Iraq as his chief rivals.

The missionaries are mainly evangelicals who reject talk of Muslims and Christians worshipping the same God.

Jerry Vines, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, has described the Prophet Mohammed as a "demon-obsessed paedophile". Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and the head of Samaritan`s Purse, a big donor to Iraq, has described Islam as a "very evil and wicked religion".

The missionaries pose a dilemma for President George W Bush. He has reached out to Muslims since September 11, shrugging off criticism from evangelicals to describe Islam as "peaceful". But Christian conservatives are also a key Bush constituency: Franklin Graham delivered the invocation prayer at his presidential inauguration.

The US Agency for International Development has said that the government cannot rein in private charities. "Imagine what the US Congress would say to us," said a spokesman in April.

Jon Hanna, an evangelical from Ohio who has recently returned from Iraq, applied for a new passport to travel there, describing himself as a humanitarian worker. "I was worried the US authorities might try to stop us, might be worried we were going to start a riot with our Bibles."

In Baghdad last month Mr Hanna met two other American missionary teams. One, from Indiana, had shipped in 1.3 million Christian tracts. "A US passport is all you need to get in, until the new Iraqi government takes over. What we thought was a two-year window, originally, has narrowed down to a six month window," said Mr Hanna, an evangelical minister and editor of Connection Magazine, a Christian newspaper in Ohio.

He describes Islam as "false". He cited St John`s Gospel, saying: "Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist."

Mr Hanna concluded: "The Muslim religion is an antichrist religion." Later Mr Hanna asked to retract that choice of words. "Without the reader hearing my voice and looking into my eyes as I made that statement, it would be easy for certain readers to feel personally attacked and be offended," Mr Hanna wrote by email. "That would be unfruitful."

He rejected the suggestion that aid work was a "cover" for missionary work, preferring to call it a "conduit for sharing the gospel of Jesus. Christians are commanded to minister to the hungry, but also to the hunger of the spirit. It can`t be separated," he said.

In public, the largest groups put the emphasis on their delivery of food parcels and their medical work. However, their internal fund-raising materials emphasise mission work. One IMB bulletin reported aid workers handing out copies of the New Testament and praying with Muslim recipients. Another bulletin said Iraqis understood "who was bringing the food . . . it was the Christians from America."

Southern Baptists from North Carolina visited Iraq in October to help hand out 45,000 boxes of donated food. One of the team, Jim Walker, told IMB`s Urgent News bulletin that he met village children "starved of attention and I could tell some of them have not eaten well. But their biggest need is to know the love of Christ."

Mr Hanna said he encountered friendly curiosity, with noisy crowds gathering to take his group`s tracts. "Maybe 10 per cent were hostile." He was one of 21 on his mission including Jackie Cone, 72, a Pentecostalist grandmother from Ohio who said God had told her to join a second mission planned for next year. "I sensed Him telling me to come back in January," she said.

Mrs Cone is confident she made converts in Baghdad. In her hotel she met a Muslim woman on crutches with a leg operation due that day. Mrs Cone knelt on the lobby floor and prayed that surgery would not be required.

"I saw her that evening and she said God had healed her, and she hadn`t needed the surgery. She didn`t say Allah, she pointed to Heaven and gave God the glory," she said.

Mrs Cone led the Kurdish woman and her brother in prayer, asking Jesus into their hearts. "I`d given them a Bible and a Jesus video in Arabic. I think they think of themselves as Christians now," she said. "They have the Bible and I hope they will grow in grace."

Muslims are hard converts, American missionaries admit. The large organisations have experts trained in refuting Muslim teachings that Jesus is just another prophet.

Before going to Iraq, Mr Hanna studied Christian training manuals and attended a seminar for missionaries to the Arab world.

Mr Hanna concedes his new Iraqi friends were possibly drawn by the novelty of meeting Americans. "But you don`t discount that, you use it as an opportunity to tell them about Jesus. Last time we only took 8,000 Arabic Bibles to Iraq. In future missions the goal is one million."

[Joerver]

From AxisofLogic.com
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_4212.shtml
Critical Analysis
Exclusive! The Exploitation of the American Soldier: Part I of II: Of Caste Drafts and Society`s Complicity, Manuel Valenzuela
By Manuel Valenzuela
Dec 27, 2003, 13:03


The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government… The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few to ride them.



– Thomas Jefferson



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Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

– Frederick Douglass



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We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people …The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. … Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

--John F.Kennedy



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The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn`t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

– Mark Twain




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The story of the American Soldier is much more than a propaganda-laced cover in Time magazine, designed to sell copies, make profits by exploiting patriotism, create acquiescence in BushCo’s preemptive warmongering and empire building policies and in fostering approval and support of a most ambiguous war campaign. The story of the American Solider is much more than a picture of three soldiers posing in full battle gear, M-16’s in hand, ready to invade a “rogue nation,” destroy its infrastructure and kill its citizens. (Perhaps three soldiers dressed in military dress uniform, without machine guns, protective helmets and Kevlar vests would have been more appropriate and in better taste, given the deep resentment and animosity our little pre-emptive wars are creating throughout the world. In Indymedia Jakarta, for example, an anonymous poster labeled the US “psychopaths in pure culture” after he/she saw the cover of Time. Patriotic propaganda at home, terrible portrayal represented abroad.)



Hidden behind the illusory fantasy the corporate media portrays of noble fighting in tumultuous wars, lies a world of death, suffering and lifelong sacrifice, a world of psychological trauma and physical torture, a world of Veteran abandonment by the same government that has sent millions to kill and be killed, a world where America’s finest, along with their families, are swept underneath the rug of indifference and a world in which ethnicity, class structure and society’s deadly ills mix in a noxious concoction to form that most clandestine of military drafts that is based on poverty, lack of education and the caste one is born into.



Our soldiers have become mercenaries to the elite few, neither defending the illusions of freedom or democracy abroad, instead fighting, killing and destroying for the sake of the oligarchy, a small band of miscreant chickenhawks in both government and business enriching themselves through the collective exploitation of low and working class men and women. Expendable cannon fodder our troops have become, invading, occupying and policing those regions of the world the oligarchs want to conquer and subjugate. The corporate Leviathan’s personal army is unleashed, sent to secure its hegemony, economic prowess and resource-rich feudal estates.



Throughout history, the lower and working class structure has been created and purposefully oppressed and exploited – through insurmountable obstacles designed to make almost impossible an escape from the caste one has been permanently placed into – to defend and protect the elite’s interests. The American army is but another instrument to achieve the oligarchy’s powermongering aspirations. Through Bush, the American Soldier is being used to enrich the military-industrial complex, the oil-energy cartel and the corporate Leviathan oligarchy that controls both business and government.



It is hard to believe that we are securing our own freedoms and liberties by invading and taking away those same principles from other peoples and nations that had nothing to do with 9/11. Do not be fooled by this propaganda hallucination; the truth of the matter is that our sons and daughters are fighting to secure and expand the interests of the few; to enrich their bank accounts and increase their insatiable thirst for power and control. We are invading nations, becoming an offensive fighting machine. Our troops are not defending our lands, we are not being invaded, our freedoms, liberties and democratic principles are not being threatened by an alien enemy but rather by our own government. Warmongers we have become, offensively decimating and pilfering other peoples’ resources, nations and rights for no righteous intentions. This is not the America of old, and, thanks to a few at the top, our soldiers fight battles without just cause and moral standing.



The American Soldier is being used and abused, like so many others before, for cynical purposes. Expendable they are to the oligarchy, both in mind and body. Burned, scarred, brain damaged, amputated and torn open by hot molten shrapnel our soldiers return, dead or wounded, becoming invisible symbols of the horrors of war and of the exploitation a few lunatics at the top subject them to. Mentally stressed, exhausted, damaged and psychologically shredded our men and women become, unable to heal the perpetual scars of battle that will linger in their minds the rest of their lives.



For many, the stresses of what they have seen, breathed, tasted and touched will be a part of their daily lives, ingrained in everything they do, present inside them like a demon attached to their torso by a macabre chain of trepidation. Over time the demon will devour them from inside, altering their personalities and their way of life. This is the sacrifice they are expected to assume, one that changes them forever – if they are lucky enough to survive. They sacrifice their remaining existence, the remaining years of their lives. This is the story of the American Soldier, forced to sacrifice life, mind and limb while the few chickenhawks who send them enjoy their million dollar fundraising dinners, basking in their million dollar homes paid by million dollar bank accounts.



The ultimate sacrifice is being paid for reasons that few comprehend, in circumstances that yearn to be understood and for a reality that is hard to believe and accept. The excuses have been many, and many have been impeachable lies and shams. Freedom and democracy are but the latest, found at the bottom of the barrel by Bush, in a last act of desperation, being the hardest to implement, therefore the hardest to prove wrong and question. Now our soldiers are made to believe these audacious deceits, when in fact they die and suffer for much more sinister motives.



For these reasons, like Time, I agree that our heroic men and women, in overcoming so much with so little and in spite of everything the elite few have done to endanger their lives and futures, should be named 2003’s Person of the Year. The reasons, however, are altogether different. Like so many, I am for our soldiers, against the war, and this article is dedicated to all those who through no fault of their own find themselves caught inside the most frightful nightmare they will ever be forced to endure. We can only hope these moments of madness instituted by those at the top will soon end and we can devote ourselves to fighting much more important battles at home.



Everyday Guerilla War in Iraq



Away for months now from the safe confines of this country’s faraway shores, the American Soldier in Iraq has had to endure the constant stresses of a continuous and unrelenting guerilla war. It was a war those at the top, where the buck is supposed to stop, had undoubtedly expected before the launching of the massive invasion of Iraq. Dozens of national security analysts, armed forces brass, intelligence personnel and Presidential advisors had in most likelihood foreseen the prolonged street to street violence and resistance our men and women would have to face during the “keeping the peace” phase of the occupation. To not have expected it would have simply been a complete failure in intelligence and leadership. In cost-benefit analysis, however, a few thousand American casualties outweighed the perceived benefits soon to be reaped.



Tens of thousands of men and women trained for and expecting open desert combat were thrust into a guerilla war very few were ready or prepared to fight in. Their training in instruments of war having been deemed useless in guerilla urban warfare, many have struggled to understand an enemy that sees in the American Soldier invasion, occupation, exploitation and humiliation. As a result, more than 455 have died and more than 10,000 have been evacuated due to various injuries and maladies. These brave soldiers were inserted into poorly trained urban policing roles, -- far removed from their particular niche training – into environments they did not understand, a culture alien to most and a language unlike anything they had ever seen. Trained in the traditional roles of war, our soldiers have instead had to adapt, evolve and learn as they go, in a war none of them asked for, for a purpose that has nothing to do with defending our freedom and liberty. Daily they are shot, maimed and scorned at, unable to discern friend from foe, welcomed not with roses but with RPGs and roadside bombs. Securing the peace has meant street warfare and Iraqi dehumanization, death and destruction, alienation and growing hatred. Gaining hearts and minds has been a failure, instead being turned by Bush into into saving face and covering one’s ass.



The Hummers that transport our troops are without bomb resistant armor. Kevlar vests are in short supply – more than 40,000 are needed for soldiers patrolling cities and towns. Parents back home have had to buy these vests out of their own pockets to protect their sons and daughters. Many soldiers are dehydrated, safe drinking water is scarce. Many have traded their M-16 for enemy AK-47s because of the former’s tendency to jam on a consistent basis. Prolonged tours of duty have been extended to troops whose time to return home has arrived and gone. The “leaders” at the top, in order to fulfill self-defeating ideologies, and in order to not be looked on as fools, refused to increase troop strength when military officers knew it would be necessary to help secure the peace. As a result, fewer troops mean less security and more mistakes. But when the reputation of those at the top is at stake, when they refuse to acknowledge mistakes, cannon fodder troops are but insignificant statistics that are seen as lifeless drones, without wives, husbands, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and friends. They are expendable entities.



This is what life is like for our sons and daughters in Iraq. As a result, moral is low, AWOLs are numerous and suicides increasing. The reality is that most troops do not know what it is they are fighting for, and the only discernable objective seen is the pursuit of black blood, American hegemony and strategic base allocation. Protecting the numerous Bush crony war profiteers, those reaping billions in reconstruction money, is also a central command given to our soldiers. Destruction of a nation, after all, is an extremely profitable business venture, especially to friends of the administration.



We have destroyed a nation only to rebuild it once again, granting it and the profiteers the many funds desperately needed to reconstruct the fabric of our own nation. Our social fabric rots, its funds disappearing away like footprints on a wet beach, sacrificed to the war profiteers, leaving us all behind as waves of greed return to the Leviathan. Pilfering our wages and our soldiers for their own fraudulent purposes, and we dare raise not our voices. The systemic larceny of both Iraqi and our country’s financial and resource assets continues unabated, and the exploitation of our greatest assets – our men and women – has become a national travesty.



The ceaseless campaign to make corporate mercenaries of our soldiers, basically a slave army designed to enrich the Leviathan with each forward step taken by its collective boots, is resulting in the death and injury to hundreds and thousands, respectively. All for the love of the almighty dollar, the greed of a few and the unquenchable addiction for power and control of the nation’s oligarchs. Our men and women are dying in vain, but when the army is an assembly of citizens from ghettos, urban reservations and rural communities, mostly from low and working caste families, perhaps those where the buck is supposed to stop care not in sending young lives to die and suffer for the greater wealth of a few contributors and friends.



Caste Drafts and Society’s Role in the Making of a Soldier



Out of the worst neighborhoods and rural outposts they are from, living both in concrete jungles and desolate fields of dried up crops. Today’s United States armed forces are an amalgam of rural and urban, black, white and Hispanic, all sharing low and working class backgrounds, coming from the worst educational districts in the nation. This is the American Soldier, not upper middle class or elite boys and girls, not the sons and daughters of the oligarchy. The armed forces are composed of those less fortunate, those with little or no opportunity and future, those whose educational systems are in shambles and those the system throws away into its bins of refuse.



Children in urban areas, mostly black and Hispanic, find themselves encaged by the invisible walls of the ghetto, unable to escape, by reason of income and parental lack of education and opportunity, their modern day reservation. These centers of indigence and ingrained ignorance, fed by a system that helps exacerbate rather than alleviate both, are a living, breathing, vicious cycle in which escape is near impossible, where individuals remain stuck inside for their entire lives, passing on the same destiny to their children. Thus, without jobs, without a decent income, with a lack of education and opportunity and fighting against a system that maintains the status quo, a caste system emerges, trapping generations of urban people in a perpetual state of oppression.



The system feeds off of those less fortunate, indeed, depends on them for its exploitable needs. The caste system needs low wage slaves to work those jobs necessary to keep the economic engine running. Capitalist elites need to subjugate entire segments of the population in order to exploit workers with low wages and long hours. Keeping millions in shackles, through incarceration in ghettos, robbing children of a decent education and denying upward mobility through lack of opportunity, guarantees the continued prolongation of the perpetual caste system.



As future fighting machines grow up, they must survive the concrete jungles, full of dangers lurking around, either in confronting street pressures, gangs or drug zones, in bad households and in worse school systems. Learning little, development being purposefully impeded, resources being almost nonexistent, the future soldier begins to see at an early age that unless he or she escapes the iron grip of the urban reservation, life will be the same or worse than parents and grandparents. Seeing that exodus is virtually impossible thanks to the numerous obstacles placed at one’s feet, the future soldier sees in the armed forces the only viable alternative.



The educational system in these areas is a disaster, ill-preparing students for higher education and for those jobs that offer upward mobility. The armed forces know exactly what goes on in urban areas and their corresponding school districts. It is for this reason that they flood high schools, in some cases primary and junior high schools as well, with recruiters who immediately begin selling the “benefits” of the armed forces to the still young and naïve students seeking a way out of their confined existence. These schools force upon their students an annual standardized test that is given by the armed forces to better determine future prospects. Recruiters are given personal information about students and the harassment begins, oftentimes with phone calls to a student’s home and forced meetings at school. Recruiters may seek out potential grunts at homes. Counselors begin recruiting as well, pushing student’s towards joining the armed forces.



These heavy tactics are repeated over and over, year in and year out, until quotas are met. Young men and women, still innocent and easily manipulated, seeing the bleak prospects at home, are in essence pushed to join the military and become future killing machines. Promises of solid wages, better and higher education, an escape from the prison called the ghetto, an opportunity to be released from the chains of the caste, all are reasons for joining, all become part of the caste draft that is thrust upon urban students.



This nation prides itself on the voluntary aspects of today’s military. In reality, upon careful inspection, it can be seen that when one is living in a reservation, without viable opportunity to excel or a meaningful future to look forward to, the freedom to chose becomes a choice to survive, and in that sense there is nothing voluntary about joining the armed forces. When given a choice to either remain in a perpetual caste or escape onto new horizons, the decision is simple. In the world’s richest nation the choices presented to the urban citizen should not be so profound.



However, when the system encourages and indeed fosters the caste system in order to have a large number of easily exploitable subjects that become either soldiers or low wage slaves, the choices become not voluntary in the normal sense of the word but rather compulsory decisions made to better one’s life. The system’s diseases make joining the military the only option in order to live a better life, and, in the real world, the system drafts these men and women thanks to the widespread levels of oppression it creates.



This makes the belief in an all volunteer army nothing but a mirage. People are basically forced to join, preferring to risk going to war than to dying living a life of hardship in an invisibly enclosed Bantustan that offers little of anything. The caste draft therefore selects the downtrodden, the less affluent, the less educated and the ones that, were they to stay near home, would have but a very uninviting future.



This is manifested in the aggressive recruiting campaign targeting Hispanics. The goal stated by the military is to increase this minority representation from its present 10 percent representation to 22 percent in the next few years. This exponentially growing group, usually low income with very few educational or employment prospects, has been targeted as the next wave of impoverished minorities that will act as tomorrow’s cannon fodder in wars. Economically vulnerable citizens are always a huge recruiting segment for the armed forces. It is these people that provide the means by which to carry out future wars. Sent to the front lines, Hispanics will fight and die, and the reason therefore exists to have the system work to keep this minority at the margins of society.



Similar recruiting circumstances also apply to rural America, where instead of concrete jungles there exist farms of monotony, destitution and lack of opportunity. Education in these regions, while not as bad as in urban centers, still lags far behind those of richer suburban districts. Opportunities in rural zones are limited, jobs are few, wages low, chances for higher education minimal. For these same reasons a large portion of the armed forces are comprised of white rural men and women looking for an escape and a chance to better their lives. Again the caste system is at work, pulling rural youth in the direction of the armed forces. Replace the words ghetto, reservation, urban and Bantustan, and the same forces that push minorities into the military is prevalent, though to a lesser degree, in rural areas. It is from these districts that most of the military recruits come from. Low, working caste men and women, less fortunate, less well educated and less likely to escape the caste they have been born into than their suburban counterparts, seek escape from barren rural towns and farms that do not offer a prosperous future.



Thus recruiting and aggressive marketing is used to lure these young men and women into the military. The government is not stupid, and it knows exactly where it will be able to meet its quotas. Again, we might think the choice is voluntary, but is it really when one wishes for nothing more than to escape the environment and the caste that cannot be escaped? When government does nothing in its power to better the lives of millions, in reality making a student’s decision obvious, pushing indigence and lack of opportunities in order to garner recruits, is the choice really voluntary? Today’s young men and women simply want to live a life worth living, a betterment to their present predicament, an escape from their homes, and, when the only opportunity to achieve this is by joining the military, then the voluntary charade we are made to believe in does not exist, and the finger can then be pointed to the caste draft that has through the system’s failings introduced millions to the armed forces.



Sure, many join out of patriotism and manipulation or out of hereditary tradition, but these soldiers are few and far between. Volunteering for them is indeed a part of their decision making process. (More will be said on this subject in Part II.)



History Once More Repeated



In the not so long history of human civilization the continued exploitation of the working classes continues to be manifested. This can easily be seen in the government’s – and corporate Leviathan’s – abuse of America’s brave soldiers. As has been the case throughout history, the poor are exploited for the benefit of the elite, and today we see an entire army fighting, suffering horrendous physical and mental injuries and dying for the interests of our feudal lords. Serfs and slaves, low, working and middle class, the differences are minute, the similarities eerie. Time continues on its journey, as does the human caste system that creates so much inequality, injustice and human devastation. To be born in misery and deprivation is not one’s fault; to create and foster it is insidious.



Through a system that purposefully creates and furthers lack of opportunity through the continued preservation of blatantly destitute educational institutions thanks to unjust and nefarious tax schemes the caste system remains intact, a solidly invisible concrete wall that acts as an obstacle to millions who through birth are destined to become exploitable and expendable beings. Those living in areas devoid of growth and job prospects, making low wages and suffering through numerous hard working hours without benefits thanks to the influence and money of elite capitalists are trapped in a vicious circle that helps maintain the caste system to what it is today.



This caste, much like India’s, is almost impossible to escape. It ensnarls millions. People are born into it through no fault of their own; they live and die in it, unable to escape its grip thanks to the numerous barriers purposefully placed there by the system. Today the American dream of upward mobility is but a façade, another illusion ingrained into our minds to whitewash the reality that has become the United States. Our soldiers are not the first to be exploited, nor will they be the last. Unfortunately it is a part of humanity, from our cave days until today, and only a united citizenry can decide whether it continues into the future or suffers a most painful death in the present.



Until then, our sons and daughters will continue to die, suffer and undergo mental anguish, sacrificing their futures for the continued accumulation of wealth and power from the few oligarch’s that sent them to war. In the coming war of perpetuity, a most unfortunate end will come to so many of our loved ones, dead not from fighting for freedom or liberty or to protect our democracy but for trying to better their lives, escape their urban and rural reservations, find happiness and to flee that most debilitating and inescapable caste the system run by the powerful refuses to relinquish. History’s pages continue to be turned by the black abyss of ignorance that makes blind bats of us all.



© Copyright 2003 by AxisofLogic.com



Manuel Valenzuela is social critic and commentator, activist, writer and author of Echoes in the Wind, a novel to be published in 2004. His articles appear bi-weekly on axisoflogic.com. He welcomes comments and can be reached at [e-mail] .



Other articles by Manuel Valenzuela:



U.S. News/Comment
Exclusive! Fear Factor Orange: Mind and Behavior Control in America, Manuel Valenzuela, Christmas, 2003

U.S. News/Comment
Exclusive! The Evisceration of Democracy: The Corporate Leviathan and the Emergence of the Fascist State, Manuel Valenzuela, December 19, 2003


Media Critiques
Axis of Logic Exclusive: The Stupefication of a Nation: Corporate Media Propaganda and its Weapons of Mass Distraction, submitted by Author, Manuel Valenzuela, December 11, 2003

Critical Analysis
Axis of Logic Exclusive - The Enemy Within: The NeoCon Hijacking of America, Manuel Valenzuela, December 15, 2003

Iraq/US Policy
The Hidden and Unseen: The Reality of Bush’s Iraq, Manuel Valenzuela

Palestine/Apartheid Wall
Another exclusive from Manuel Valenzuela - The Walls that Divide Us, December 12, 2003

U.S. News/Comment
Perpetual War, Perpetual Terror, submitted to Axis of Logic by author, Manuel Valenzuela, December 11, 2003

World News/Comment
Automatons and Slaves: The Corporate Leviathan`s "Global Realization", Manuel Valenzuela, Dissident Voice, December 4, 2003

World News/Comment
Exclusive: Mission Accomplished: Bush Triumphs at Alienating World, December 15, 2003

Autumn Leaves and the Failed Iraq Experiment





© Copyright 2003 by YourSITE.com

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Monday, December 29, 2003
War News for December 29, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed by roadside bomb ambush in Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: Assassination attempt in Arbil wounds one, kills three Kurds.

Bring `em on: Two US soldiers wounded, three Iraqis killed in Mosul firefight.

Bring `em on: US troops under RPG fire in Mosul; roadside bomb defused.

Karbala transformed by latest insurgent offensive. “Iraqi policemen stand watch in 24-hour shifts at government buildings and carry AK-47`s when attending the funerals of their colleagues. The Polish military has imposed a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Bulgarian soldiers have set up roadblocks and checkpoints around the city.”

Report from Mosul.

The US detention system in Iraq. “Every day, hundreds of Iraqis crowd U.S. centres and the offices of human rights groups desperately looking for clues to the whereabouts of missing relatives…U.S. army officers blame much of the problem on bad communication and the difficulty of transliterating Arabic names. ‘Every time you put a different spelling in the computer, there`s a mix-up,’ said Maj. Hector Flores, who deals with prisoners` issues.” With $87 billion available, you’d think the CPA could find the resources necessary to un-fuck this kind of problem. Aside from the Iraqi public opinion dividends this would reap, how the hell does the CPA keep records and resolve identified security risks within the detention system?

An accurate account of life in the field at the infantry platoon level. “A soldier`s world is heaped on and around his cot: sleeping bag, high-laced desert boots, rucksack, body armor, care packages from home brimming with magazines, cookies, and Grandma`s fudge. Candy wrappers, empty plastic water bottles and, of course, caked mud litter the damp asphalt floor. Black-steel M-4 or M-16 semiautomatic assault rifles lie at the foot of each cot. Makeshift clotheslines crisscross the tent, holding T-shirts, socks and towels that never seem to dry in the dank air. Latrines are outside. Soldiers know to bring their own toilet paper, a precious commodity here.”

Poll of military personnel says Army is stretched too thin. If anybody knows where I can find the full text of the article from Military Times, please let me know.

Stop-Loss Policy: "Other edicts have been more sweeping, such as the Army`s most recent stop-loss order, issued Nov. 13, covering thousands of active-duty soldiers whose units are scheduled for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months. Because the stop-loss order begins 90 days before deployment and lasts for 90 days after a return home, those troops will be prohibited from retiring or leaving the Army at the expiration of their contracts until the spring of 2005, at the earliest. The proliferation of stop-loss orders has bred confusion and resentment even as it has helped preserve what the military calls `unit cohesion.` In the past two years, the Army alone has announced 11 stop-loss orders -- an average of one every nine or 10 weeks."

No soldiers are left behind. Lieutenant AWOL just doesn`t want anybody to see them come home.

Iraqi trade ministry investigates corruption in Bremer’s CPA. “Mr Allawi says he has discovered that a $US80 million contract for wooden doors has been manipulated, and up to one-third of the money has been stolen.”

No oversight on contracts, spending at Bremer’s CPA.

Mona Charen supports the troops. "Time magazine has chosen the American soldier as its Person of the Year. Ha! Meaning no disrespect at all to the world`s finest fighting force, I have a feeling that the excellence of our men at arms had little to do with this decision." Mona wants to emphasize that she will "bow to no one in my admiration for the U.S. military" except when shamelessly kissing the ass of an AWOL lieutenant and exploiting American soldiers to score political points. Last week I posted Kathleen Parker`s contemptible hatchet job on PFC Lynch. Parker had her panties in a twist, hysterically questioning both PFC Lynch`s personal courage and soldierly fitness. "What the hell was Jessica Lynch doing in the U.S. Army?" Parker shrieked. Let me remind Ms. Parker - since she seems to have missed it the first time - that PFC Lynch served her country honorably in wartime, fought and was wounded in battle. Serving honorably was something Parker`s beloved but booze-sodden Lieutenant AWOL couldn`t accomplish even in peacetime. The point behind posting both of these right-wing screeds is to warn that conservatives really have no respect for either soldiers or veterans except when they want to score political points. Had PFC Lynch played ball with the Republican propagandists who tried to exploit her service, you can bet Ms. Parker would be singing a different tune. As Lieutenant AWOL and his bungling minions mismanage the Iraq War into disaster, you can fully expect more hysteria from the prissy Monas and Kathleens as they blame the soldiers who served rather than the conservative chickenhawks they hold so dear.

Don`t call me Osama.

Break out your Kleenex as you read this Halliburton apology piece by noted NYT fiction author Jeff Gerth.

Commentary

Editorial: The Thinning of the Army: “This is the clearest warning yet that the Bush administration is pushing America`s peacetime armed forces toward their limits. Washington will not be able to sustain the mismatch between unrealistic White House ambitions and finite Pentagon means much longer without long-term damage to our military strength. The only solution is for the Bush administration to return to foreign policy sanity, starting with a more cooperative, less vindictive approach to European allies who could help share America`s military burdens.” The Bush administration has clearly demonstrated that it is ideologically incapable of a cooperative foreign policy, wholly committed to the destruction of internationalist institutions, and cherishes vindictiveness as both personal virtue and public policy. The only solution for America is to throw Lieutenant AWOL and his entire gang of bungling ideologues out of office in November, and it’s high time the NYT editorial board realized that painful reality.

Reader Navy Wife sounds off: "As far as asking returning soldiers to pick up very expensive last minute tickets to fly across the country, what more would anyone expect from this administration? They don`t have the courtesy to meet any `transfer tubes` returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, they expect reservists to do 18 month tours (starting when boots hit ground) and then don`t let their families enroll in TriCare (military health care plan), try to limit combat pay, spend 9 months bickering about who gets awarded the Global War on Terrorism ("GWOT") Expeditionary and Service Medals and then question why service members need medals or ribbons anyways, and tell military families that the DoD is studying shutting down all of the DoD schools on American and foreign bases, and for good measure, some of the commissaries and exchanges, too." From yesterday`s Comments.

Opinion: Recognition for the US soldier. "To those we owe so much we pay so little that the spouses and children of volunteer enlisted soldiers sometimes have no choice but to seek public welfare. They exist in shabby trailer parks on the outskirts of places like Ft. Hood and Ft. Riley and Ft. Stewart while their loved ones soldier in some foreign country for months, if not years. We should be ashamed." Eat my crusty GI skivvies, Mona Charon.

Editorial: " Time decided to pay tribute to the character, history and bravery of the men and women who make up our armed forces. It`s a well-deserved honor, regardless of how a person stands on the war in Iraq."

Casualty Reports

Local story: California soldier dies in Iraq.

Local story: Kentucky soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Vermont soldier wounded in Iraq.

Awards and Decorations

Local story: Ohio sailor decorated for valor.

Local story: Tennessee soldier posthumously decorated for valor.






# posted by yankeedoodle : 2:29 AM
Comments (5)

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Ten Reasons to Fire President George W. Bush :: Satire ::
by William Hughes
(Sunday 21 December 2003)

With a tip of the hat to David Letterman, host of the CBS TV program that bears his name, here is my list of the top ten reasons President George W. Bush should be fired:

1. He thinks the office of the presidency is a Christmas gift from “Daddy Bush.”

2. He believes Halliburton is a cod fish caught off the coast of Maine.

3. He thinks Sen. Tom Daschle is one of Santa Claus’ reindeers.

4. He lets the “Mother of All Neocons,” the odious Richard Perle, secretly write all his warmongering, Arab-bashing speeches.

5. He has started signing all official documents as “George II.”

6. He hides the fact that V.P. Dick Cheney is a twin of Sen. Joe Lieberman.

7. He requested Attorney General John Ashcroft’s confidential files on the entire cast of the John Waters’ inspired Broadway show, “Hair Spray.”

8. He thinks Israel’s Ariel “Bloody” Sharon is as innocent a character as the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

9. He wants to move the Nation’s capital to Crawford, Texas.

And, finally, the No. 10 reason, President George W. Bush should be fired is:

Every few months, he lets his dog Barney run the country!

----------------------------------------------------------

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (Iuniverse, Inc.), which is avaiable at Amazon.com.

Siehe auch #10961

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Where are our human rights?

Dahr Jamail

29 December 2003: (ICH) So far, every single journalist I`ve spoken with here has told me that they had followed the news closely prior to their arrival. But after being here even just a day, they have been astonished at how terrible the situation truly is.

It has now been over 9 months since the `war` ended. The country of Iraq remains in chaos, and the lack of consistent basic services such as petrol, security, electricity, and running water continue to afflict Iraqis.

So many times I`ve heard people discuss that even though Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator, he still managed to get the electricity, water, and communications systems back up and running three months after the Gulf War. For the record, several engineers I`ve spoken with have stated that these portions of the infrastructure suffered far greater damage then, than during the more recent Anglo-American Invasion.

Each day I walk by a communications building that was bombed last March. While the building remains inshambles, a metal tower has been erected, and every other day a new dish appears on it. Several times whenI`ve walked by it I see that the machine gun toting security guards near the `entrance` of what is left of the building are wearing Bechtel security badges.

Meanwhile, in other parts of Baghdad there are no land lines, and I`ve yet to see one of the communicationcenters being rebuilt.

The lesson seems to be that if repairing/rebuilding something in Iraq isn`t necessary to serve US and British interests, it is left as it is. Most Iraqis I speak with continue to wonder just when, exactly will the rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure begin.

A micro-example of the aforementioned is that the owner of Pizzeria Napoli on Karrada Marium Street carries one of the highly sought after MCI cell phones. Generally these are only available to certain NGO`s in Baghdad, some CPA members, and a select few relief agencies that are bold enough to stay here.

So why does the owner of a pizza shop near the `Green Zone` have one of these while United Nations Development Program emergency doctors go without? So that westerners and their puppets in the IGC can have their pizza orders phoned in ahead of time?

Meanwhile, the US military pushes further down the road towards liberating the people of Iraq using military operations currently in progress with names such as: Iron Hammer, Iron Grip, Iron Justice, Desert Scorpion, Ivy Serpent, Ivy Needle, Ivy Cyclone (I and II), and Operation Bulldog Mammoth. And we musn`t forget Operation Rifles Fury.

No, I am not making these names up.

With fighter jets flying over Baghdad the last several nights, helicopters constantly rumbling overhead, Bradleys and Humvees roaming the streets, thumping explosions and random gunfire all over Baghdad, I`ve yet to talk with an Iraqi in the five weeks I have been here who has told me they are enjoying their newfound freedoms, democracy, or liberation.

Of course the constant attacks by the resistance fighters that so often kill Iraqi civilians along with the targeted US soldiers don`t help them feel any more liberated either.

Gunmen wearing face masks, supported by the CPA, are visible around Baghdad. Men with automatic machine guns inside bunkers guard the banks. Bradley fighting vehicles loom in front of many of the petrol stations. Razor wire is visible on every other block.

Check points abound, yet the disparity is glaringly apparent, whether they are IP (Iraqi Police) checkpoints, or run by the US military. Most times we are waved through, so much for searching cars for bombs, weapons, or insurgents.

Today found me and some fellow journalists in Samarra. Our mini-van is slowed by having to follow a patrol right up the main street to the Golden Mosque. It is comprised of three Humvees, a truck full of IP`s, and several soldiers walking with IP`s walking between them and the people on the sidewalks.

We conducted several sidewalk interviews to get an idea of how the climate is in the city, which has been suffering home raids both day and night and home demolitions by the military.

Rahud, at a tea stall tells me there is a 9pm curfew now, and anyone out after that is detained, no questions asked.

Another man tells me he knows of several people picked up for being out too late, and nobody knows where they have been taken.

He raises his voice and says, "We have electricity for five minutes, then it is cut. Then five more minutes, then cut. It is always like this here now. I know some people who were detained 8 months ago, and still none of us know where they are. There is no civilization here now. All of Iraq wants the US out now."

The usual crowd gathers during the interview, and men begin to chime in with their anti-American comments,

"America no good! Americans outside of Iraq! Down Down Bush!"

A man named Kamel Rashid Abrahim tells of how the gate to his home was bombed, injuring some of his family. His home was searched, then the just soldiers left.

Another man grabs my arm and points to his foot as he stomps the ground, "America no good! America under my foot!"

The crowd continues to grow in size and noise, so it is time to leave. While walking to the mini-van a man says to me, "If anyone hits the US in the streets here, they arrest everyone around. No questions asked. How can we live like this? Where are our human rights?"

We ask if it is possible to see a home that has been demolished, the new form of collective punishment the Americans are now practicing here in Iraq.

Weaving our way to the outskirts of Samarra Abu Mohammed brings us to his brothers home, which is now a heap of broken concrete pushed into piles with twisted metal bars chaotically reaching towards the sky.

Many neighbors gather around as we survey they damage, and pieces of the story of what happened begin to fall in place.

The men tell us that in the early afternoon of 18 December, a large military convoy the was passing the home when an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) exploded on a Stryker vehicle, it rolled another 10 meters, then sat burning.

There is a large black scar of scorched earth where they point, 10 meters away from where they show us the IED blew up.

The soldiers then opened fire at several of the surrounding homes.

Bullet pock marks are pointed out in several walls of nearby homes, and particularly the home directly across the road from where the Stryker vehicle was hit.

The old man takes us into this home, pointing out bullet holes in the walls, a television destroyed with a bullet hole in the wall behind it.

He says, "We were having lunch, and laid on the ground as our home was shot. There was nothing else we could do."

He told us that soldiers raided the home, searched it, then occupied it until nightfall.

"They just stayed here to scare us, there is not other reason. I am afraid of them. They demanded information that we do not have," he says.

The troops left at nightfall.

Four days later tanks and bulldozers arrived, with the tanks sealing off the area, and the bulldozers demolished the home near the IED which was under construction.

The neighbors asked them why they were doing this to an empty home. The soldiers told them, "We are just following orders."

Another home a little ways down the road was demolished as well by the bulldozer, after the family was forced outside, carrying the few valuables they could.

We leave this area, and shortly thereafter come upon a large group of Stryker vehicles. They have sealed off a section of town, and we saw troops walking down several of the streets.

The soldiers were helpful when we asked for information, in that they were cordial and brought us inside a perimeter of Strykers while we awaited the commander who was said to be on his way to answer our questions.

One of the soldiers talking to us is looking around nervously, sometimes not finishing his sentences. He does go on to tell us that two Stryker vehicles have been destroyed here in the last few weeks, and they were a freshly deployed group, having only arrived in the first week of December.

He somberly tells us that they had already lost five soldiers from their brigade here.

He is asked how they can tell the enemy from the civilians. His face hardens somewhat, and he says, "We can`t. All I can do is stay sharp and hope for the best. I just want to complete my mission and get out of here."

Two helicopters constantly circle us, apparently giving air support to this operation in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, I look around and watch soldiers constantly scanning the distance and the cars that slowly pass by. I try to put myself in their shoes, guessing which vehicle could be a suicide bomber-and I have no idea how to tell the difference from all of the beat up cars, or any of the men walking past wearing Kifirs.

I ask him when he will get to go home.

"I don`t have any idea. I just get through today, and maybe think about the next few days, but that`s it. I try not to think about it too much."

I ask him, "Do you get any days off? How many hours a day do you do this?"

"We got a few hours off on Christmas. We`re always on the move," he replies.

A woman soldier, along with a man from Oakland ask us what is going on in the world, as they have no email or phone access. They have no idea what is going on anywhere in Iraq, or outside of Iraq. Only what they are doing in Samarra.

One of them asks what Baghdad is like.

The commander who was to answer our questions never shows up, so we drive away.

Leaving Samarra as the sun sets finds us passing walls along the side of the road with graffiti that says,

"All the spies will die!"

"Fall down America!"

"God will protect the Mujahideen."

Dahr Jamail, is an independent American journalist reporting from Iraq
Copyright: Dahr Jamail <[e-mail]>

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Saddam `spills the beans` on hidden millions
Luke Harding in Baghdad and Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Tuesday December 30, 2003
The Guardian

Saddam Hussein has started "cooperating" with his American interrogators and has admitted hiding millions of dollars in secret international bank accounts, a senior member of Iraq`s governing council said last night.

After more than two weeks in US custody, the former dictator has told investigators the names of people who know where the money is, according to Iyad Alawi, the head of the Iraqi National Accord, one of the country`s political parties.

"Saddam has started to give information on money that has been looted from Iraq and deposited abroad," Mr Alawi told the London-based Arab newspapers al-Hayat and Asharq al-Awsat. "Investigation is now concentrated on his relationship with terrorist organisations and on the money paid to elements outside Iraq."

The US-appointed council believes the former president accumulated as much as $40bn (£22.5bn) during his years in power, which he hid in accounts in Switzerland, Japan, Germany and other countries.

According to Mr Alawi, Saddam has also given information on the whereabouts of arms and ammunition depots supplying the resistance.

Last night Mr Alawi`s spokesman said the former leader had revealed "many secrets".

"Saddam is cooperating with his investigators," Ali Abdul Amir told the Guardian. "He has given many important details. They include links between his regime and foreign politicians."

The ex-president had so far refused to talk about weapons of mass destruction, he added. Asked how he knew all this, he replied: "We have our sources." He went on: "These are not only American. We also have good links with the British."

The governing council has asked international lawyers to try to track down the missing millions, Mr Alawi says.

The claim came after Japan agreed yesterday to forgive the "vast majority" of Iraqi debt following a visit to Tokyo by the US special envoy, James Baker. Mr Baker completed the final leg of an unexpectedly successful tour to persuade creditor countries to waive Iraq`s huge debts and help to rebuild its economy.

Japan is owed $4.1bn, making it the biggest creditor. In the past it suggested it would insist on Iraq repaying in full with earnings from oil revenues. No figures were mentioned yesterday, but the country said it was willing to offer substantial debt relief as part of an agreement among members of the Paris Club, an informal group of 19 creditor states that are owed $40bn.

Iraq also owes $80bn to other countries and individuals.

"Japan is committed to provide substantial debt reduction for Iraq in the Paris Club in 2004," the Japanese foreign ministry said in a statement issued after Mr Baker met the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. "Japan would be prepared to eliminate the vast majority of its Iraqi debt if other Paris Club creditors are prepared to do so."

It is not clear whether the relief will include interest arrears and penalties, which would bring the total debt to around $7.7bn.

The US administration welcomed the decision. "This very forthcoming position is further evidence of Mr Koizumi`s and Japan`s global leadership on Iraqi reconstruction," a White House spokesman said.

Japanese officials said Mr Koizumi had expressed concern at the size of Iraq`s debts but believed priority should be placed on reconstruction.

Despite opposition within his administration, the Japanese leader, a staunch supporter of US policy in Iraq, appears to have been swayed by other creditor countries` positive responses to US overtures.

Mr Baker, who described the meeting with Mr Koizumi as "exceedingly good", immediately flew to Beijing for talks with the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. According to the Xinhua news agency, Mr Wen told the envoy that China would consider reducing the debts owed to it by Iraq "out of humanitarian concern".

Beijing says Saddam`s regime owed it $1.1 bn before the first Gulf war in 1991, but there is uncertainty over the current figure.

This month Mr Baker reached agreements on debt relief with several European countries, including France and Germany, both opponents of the war who were angry after the US froze them out of bidding for Iraqi construction contracts worth $18bn.

A few days later the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, told Mr Baker he was willing to start negotiations to relieve Iraq`s $3.5bn debt to Moscow.

But Mr Baker cancelled a visit to South Korea after it indicated that it would be unwilling to write off Iraq`s $1.9bn debt, including $1.1m owed to the construction and engineering firm Hyundai.

There were fears, too, that the US envoy, a close friend of President George Bush, would be greeted by embarrassing demonstrations by opponents of the Iraq war.

Iraq debt deals

Britain Debt is $2bn. The UK has agreed the need to reduce Iraq`s debt.

China Debt estimated at $1.1bn in 1990. Considering forgiving part of it.

France About $3bn owed. France agrees to unspecified amount being written off.

Germany The German chancellor said he was open to forgive part of Iraq`s debt, which totals $5.4bn.

Italy Owed $1.73bn (excluding interest). Backs plan to relieve Iraq`s debt.

Japan Tokyo is owed around $7bn and promises to forgive "vast majority" of debt if other Paris Club countries do the same.

Russia Ready to write off 65% or $5.2bn of the $8bn Baghdad owes it.

Luc Torres


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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December 30, 2003
HARVESTING POVERTY
The Unkept Promise

There is a deceiving sense of timelessness to the stillness of rural life. The jungles of Mindanao offer few clues as to whether it`s the early 20th century, or the early 21st. Nor do the highlands of Guatemala, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam or the cotton-rich plains of the Sahel in West Africa. But these disparate regions are very much of the present, stitched into the quilt of global commerce. World trade links us to them, as surely as it links London, Tokyo and New York.

In an effort to understand that relationship, we visited some of the poorest nations in the world in the last six months. We listened to 12-year-old Arnel Mamac`s parents on Mindanao, the Philippine island besieged by an Islamist terrorist group, tearfully say they often don`t let him walk to school because they fear he may not have the energy to make it on an empty stomach. In a cotton-growing village in Burkina Faso we saw a school with two rooms, but because of a lack of funds, only one classroom was finished. Most unsettling, to an American, is the realization that our nation`s agricultural policies — its protectionist trade barriers and the billions in subsidies doled out to its own farmers — contribute mightily to the hardships felt by poor farmers in the developing world.

The club of rich nations that wrote the rules of global trade has been aggressive in dismantling barriers when it comes to industrial goods and services, in which they hold a comparative advantage. But they refuse to do the same when it comes to agriculture. Politically powerful farm lobbies in Japan, Europe and the United States are not willing to face global competition on fair terms. So agriculture remains the hypocritical asterisk to our fervent free-trade and free-enterprise creed.

It`s bad enough that a country like Japan, which became wildly prosperous thanks to the willingness of the outside world to buy its exports, maintains 500 percent tariffs on imported rice. Or that the American Congress would overrule science to decree that the catfish from Vietnam, which found popularity among American consumers, is not a catfish after all and cannot be marketed as such.

Worse, the developed world funnels nearly $1 billion a day in subsidies to its own farmers, encouraging overproduction, which drives down commodity prices. Poor nations` farmers find they cannot compete with subsidized products, even within their own countries. In recent years, American farmers have been able to dump cotton, wheat, rice, corn and other products on world markets at prices that do not begin to cover their cost of production, all courtesy of the taxpayers.

The rigged trade game is not only harvesting poverty around the world, but plenty of resentment as well. In the Philippines, a former American colony, our agricultural trade policy is seen as a plot to perpetuate imperialism. In Vietnam, a nation that was able to start reducing rural poverty only when it deviated from its Marxist orthodoxy and allowed entrepreneurs to have access to global markets, an exasperated seafood exporter told us, "We are made to wonder if you wish us ill, as much in the present as you did in the past."

In Burkina Faso, we heard a cotton farmer tell colleagues that America`s bizarre cotton program can be explained only by the fact that President Bush is a cotton farmer. He was wrong. It is some leading members of Congress responsible for the $180 billion 2002 farm bill who are cotton farmers, or who blindly follow the dictates of the so-called King Cotton lobby.

The idea that our agricultural protectionism harms poor nations is hardly a fanciful one held only by aggrieved third world farmers. Just about any multilateral economic or development agency you can think of has issued reports railing against rich nations` farm subsidies. The World Bank estimates that an end to trade-distorting farm subsidies and tariffs could expand global wealth by as much as a half-trillion dollars and lift 150 million people out of poverty by 2015.

The urgent need to address globalization`s imbalances, and restore the credibility of the free-trade system, has never been as apparent as it was in the raw weeks and months immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That November, at Doha, Qatar, the members of the World Trade Organization committed themselves to a new round of trade talks focused on the elimination of farm subsidies that are so harmful to the developing world.

The year 2003 was to be crucial in this endeavor. A deadline of last March was set for the 146 W.T.O. members to agree on a framework to proceed on the subsidy question, with substantive agreements expected by a September meeting in Cancún, Mexico. Neither happened.

The March deadline came and went with no accord. Even more disappointing, on the eve of the Cancún gathering, American negotiators switched sides. Despite Congressional support for gargantuan agricultural subsidies, Robert Zoellick, the United States trade representative, had taken an aggressive position on the need for reform. But suddenly, Mr. Zoellick and his team joined hands with the more recalcitrant Europeans against much of the rest of the world.

There was a time when the European Union and the United States could jointly dictate terms to the rest of the World Trade Organization, but not any more. Washington`s betrayal of its free-trading principles outraged not only the poorest countries, but also some food-exporting allies such as Australia. The developing world lashed back. At Cancún, Brazil, India and China created a formidable bloc of 22 nations that rightly opposed proceeding on anything else until some of the more outrageous farm subsidies had been addressed.

Hence the current stalemate. Negotiations meant to inject fairness into global trade are on life-support, thanks mainly to the appalling absence of American leadership. The Bush administration could have joined forces with the likes of Australia and Brazil at Cancún. Our trade representatives could have worked to overcome both the narrowest interests of the American farm lobby and the developing world`s own self-defeating protectionism. Instead, the United States meekly aligned itself with a group of countries scared of fair competition.

For all the hand-wringing about a trans-Atlantic rift over Iraq this past year, President Bush stood shoulder to shoulder with Jacques Chirac of France on a matter that is far more pressing to the billion or so people on earth trying to get by on $1 a day. Together, they formed a veritable coalition of the unwilling. Despite their post-9/11 promises, the United States and the European Union defiantly refused to give up their economic weapons of mass destruction: their trade-distorting farm subsidies.

More rational agricultural trade policies would actually be a boon to many American farmers because their high-tech equipment and large, fertile acreage would make them winners in a more open competition. But there would be losers both here and abroad, and we visited some of them as well, to understand all sides of the story. Ronnie Hopper in Texas, Hubert Duez in France and Koushi Seiwa in northern Japan were all smart, gracious, hard-working farmers. But as appealing as they are as individuals, they have been given an unfair advantage by nostalgia-driven policies that are indefensible on economic, and even moral, grounds.

In a rational global marketplace that conformed to our stated values and commitments to the rest of the world, consumers would forgo Mr. Hopper`s cotton, Mr. Seiwa`s rice and Mr. Duez`s sugar, and buy from others who are now being shut out of the global economy.

This does not mean that rich nations ought to halt their rural development programs. But farmers must be weaned from payments that merely reward them for overproducing crops on which they would otherwise lose money. Such madness is no longer sustainable. Besides proving so costly for taxpayers and for the developing world, there is too glaring a gap separating American and European agricultural policies from the entire logic of the global trade system. Now the developing world is demanding consistency, a fairer playing field.

The Bush administration, which has been so proudly proactive in Iraq, could jump-start reform with a sweeping unilateral gesture. The ideal starting point would be the dismantling of the most wrongheaded market distortions, our astronomical cotton subsidies and our sugar quota system, which props up domestic sugar prices by restricting imports. But instead of moving in that direction, the president, ostensibly a free-trading Republican, signed the most trade-distorting farm bill in history.

The dutiful Mr. Zoellick may travel the world saying all the right things, but his boss does not seem to appreciate the degree to which trade is integral to broader economic and foreign policy, and to the projection of American power around the globe. Does President Bush sit down with Mr. Zoellick, Condoleezza Rice and his top cabinet officials for far-ranging discussions on farm subsidies and the Doha round of trade negotiations. He should.

Next year`s election offers little hope on this score. Democratic lawmakers were among the strongest supporters of the 2002 farm bill, and most of the candidates vying for the Democratic Party`s presidential nomination seem to have turned against the Clinton administration`s belief that freer trade is a win-win proposition for rich and poor nations alike.

Trade frictions may grow worse, therefore, before we stop harvesting poverty around the world with our farm programs. It could take a threatened collapse of the global rules-based trading system for the political balance of power from Washington to Tokyo to shift decisively against the coddled farm lobbies. But until we start chiseling away at our farm subsidies, the promise of trade will remain a promise unkept for many of the world`s poor.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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December 30, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Our So-Called Boom
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It was a merry Christmas for Sharper Image and Neiman Marcus, which reported big sales increases over last year`s holiday season. It was considerably less cheery at Wal-Mart and other low-priced chains. We don`t know the final sales figures yet, but it`s clear that high-end stores did very well, while stores catering to middle- and low-income families achieved only modest gains.

Based on these reports, you may be tempted to speculate that the economic recovery is an exclusive party, and most people weren`t invited. You`d be right.

Commerce Department figures reveal a startling disconnect between overall economic growth, which has been impressive since last spring, and the incomes of a great majority of Americans. In the third quarter of 2003, as everyone knows, real G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 8.2 percent. But wage and salary income, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of only 0.8 percent. More recent data don`t change the picture: in the six months that ended in November, income from wages rose only 0.65 percent after inflation.

Why aren`t workers sharing in the so-called boom? Start with jobs.

Payroll employment began rising in August, but the pace of job growth remains modest, averaging less than 90,000 per month. That`s well short of the 225,000 jobs added per month during the Clinton years; it`s even below the roughly 150,000 jobs needed to keep up with a growing working-age population.

But if the number of jobs isn`t rising much, aren`t workers at least earning more? You may have thought so. After all, companies have been able to increase output without hiring more workers, thanks to the rapidly rising output per worker. (Yes, that`s a tautology.) Historically, higher productivity has translated into rising wages. But not this time: thanks to a weak labor market, employers have felt no pressure to share productivity gains. Calculations by the Economic Policy Institute show real wages for most workers flat or falling even as the economy expands.

An aside: how weak is the labor market? The measured unemployment rate of 5.9 percent isn`t that high by historical standards, but there`s something funny about that number. An unusually large number of people have given up looking for work, so they are no longer counted as unemployed, and many of those who say they have jobs seem to be only marginally employed. Such measures as the length of time it takes laid-off workers to get new jobs continue to indicate the worst job market in 20 years.

So if jobs are scarce and wages are flat, who`s benefiting from the economy`s expansion? The direct gains are going largely to corporate profits, which rose at an annual rate of more than 40 percent in the third quarter. Indirectly, that means that gains are going to stockholders, who are the ultimate owners of corporate profits. (That is, if the gains don`t go to self-dealing executives, but let`s save that topic for another day.)

Well, so what? Aren`t we well on our way toward becoming what the administration and its reliable defenders call an "ownership society," in which everyone shares in stock market gains? Um, no. It`s true that slightly more than half of American families participate in the stock market, either directly or through investment accounts. But most families own at most a few thousand dollars` worth of stocks.

A good indicator of the share of increased profits that goes to different income groups is the Congressional Budget Office`s estimate of the share of the corporate profits tax that falls, indirectly, on those groups. According to the most recent estimate, only 8 percent of corporate taxes were paid by the poorest 60 percent of families, while 67 percent were paid by the richest 5 percent, and 49 percent by the richest 1 percent. ("Class warfare!" the right shouts.) So a recovery that boosts profits but not wages delivers the bulk of its benefits to a small, affluent minority.

The bottom line, then, is that for most Americans, current economic growth is a form of reality TV, something interesting that is, however, happening to other people. This may change if serious job creation ever kicks in, but it hasn`t so far.

The big question is whether a recovery that does so little for most Americans can really be sustained. Can an economy thrive on sales of luxury goods alone? We may soon find out.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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washingtonpost.com
Flaws Showing in New Iraqi Forces
Pace of Police Recruiting Leads to Shortcuts

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 30, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD -- The interview for aspiring police officers lasts two minutes and goes something like this: Col. Hussein Mehdi, the dean of the training academy, scans the candidate from head to toe for signs that he is shifty. He asks a question to verify his résumé. If the applicant says he studied electrical engineering, for instance, Mehdi inquires about the properties of a light bulb.

Then he gets to the heart of his probe: How do you feel about the "liberation war"?

"We want them to understand that the coalition forces are saviors, not occupiers," said Mehdi, 45. If a candidate has a different opinion, Mehdi said, he will be rejected.

As the U.S.-led governing authority in Iraq attempts to build a security force of 220,000 in the next few months, the competing priorities of speed and thoroughness have prompted shortcuts in the recruiting and training process. The consequences are starting to become apparent.

According to investigations over the past four months by a newly formed internal affairs unit at the Interior Ministry, more than 200 Iraqi policemen in Baghdad have been dismissed and dozens of others have had their pay slashed for crimes ranging from pawning government equipment to extortion and kidnapping.

In addition, roughly 2,500 people on the payroll of the Facilities Protection Service, which guards government buildings, either do not exist or have not been showing up to work, investigators say. And a number of Border Patrol officers have been disciplined for accepting bribes in exchange for allowing people without proper identification to enter Iraq.

Steve Casteel, the Coalition Provisional Authority`s senior adviser to the Interior Ministry, said safeguards were built into the hiring and training process, such as checks of two computer databases to determine whether candidates served in the Iraqi security forces when Saddam Hussein was president or if they were among the thousands of convicts Hussein released from Iraqi prisons shortly before the war.

But criminal records compiled by Hussein`s Baath Party apparatus, which much of the world considered criminal in its own right, are inherently ambiguous. Security and language issues, as well as resource and time constraints, make background investigations difficult. And with Iraq in transition among three governments -- a foreign-run occupation authority, an appointed Iraqi council and, if all goes according to plan, an elected Iraqi government -- defining "right" loyalties can be tricky.

In the end, those responsible for hiring the new protection forces have had little choice but to rely mostly on recruits` assurances and, as Casteel put it, an interviewer`s "gut sense."

"It`s a weak system," Casteel acknowledged, "but it`s the best we got."

U.S. Army Capt. Jason Brandt, who assists with recruiting and vetting for Iraqi police, acknowledged: "There are probably some people on the police force who shouldn`t be there."

A Lead Role for Police


The occupation authority is spending hundreds of millions of dollars from Iraqi oil production and seized assets and $3.3 billion of U.S. taxpayers` money to create five security organizations -- the police, an army, the Civil Defense Corps, the Border Patrol and the Facilities Protection Service -- plus court and prison systems. The U.S. military oversees the army, civil defense and border agencies while a new Iraqi entity, a kind of defense ministry, is created. The Iraqi Interior Ministry runs the police and shares jurisdiction over the Border Patrol with U.S. forces; other ministries individually employ the Facilities Protection Service to guard their buildings.

In the authority`s plan to stabilize Iraq, the key is the police force, which is projected to number 85,000 by next year. The police already have taken a lead role in trying to secure the country, providing tips to occupation officials about planned terrorist attacks and investigating such common crimes as robberies and assaults.

"It`s as simple as, when have you ever seen the police lead a coup?" Casteel explained. "If you build a strong police force, you have a republic. If you build a strong military, you have a banana republic."

In U.S. jurisdictions, police candidates typically undergo several rounds of long interviews; a written exam; background investigations that include checks of electronic records and visits with neighbors and former employers; fitness, medical and psychological evaluations; and, sometimes, polygraph tests.

In the largest U.S. cities, about 1 applicant in 100 makes it through the process. In Baghdad, about one-third of applicants are being accepted.

Casteel said the occupation authority is taking steps to minimize potential problems. While the recruiting and training process was abbreviated, new hires will be put through a four-stage probationary period designed to gradually shift them from being watched "minute by minute" to operating semiautonomously -- all over a period of 32 weeks.

At the same time, the Interior Ministry has established its first internal affairs unit. Formed in late July, after many complaints about the conduct of the police, the unit now has 183 investigators.

The first officers hired for the new police force came from the old police force. The occupation authority`s policy of ridding Iraqi institutions of anyone who might have been loyal to Hussein or belonged to his Baath Party resulted in the firing or demotion of Baghdad`s police chief and central police administrators. But there was no time to check up on the rank and file, who were allowed to remain in their posts as the vetting process caught up with them.

In the past few weeks, four Baghdad district chiefs and their staffs have been fired for corruption or for ties to Hussein`s government. Two more will be dismissed in the coming weeks, said Muhammad Husam Din, the Interior Ministry`s chief of internal affairs. He declined to provide more details.

The next question was what to do about those who were enrolled at the police training academy when the war began and Hussein was still in power. Many high-ranking Baathists used their connections to get their sons accepted, but some officials argued that barring the sons of Baathists from the academy would be akin to punishing sons for the sins of their fathers -- and that there would be practically no one left.

In the end, the academy took nearly all 1,500 students back. They are now in training, and the first batch will be deployed in February.

`It`s Just a Job`


Solicitations for recruits began one evening in mid-November when U.S. military commanders showed up at district council meetings around Baghdad and asked for recommendations. Candidates had to be Iraqi citizens, at least 18 years old, have a high school degree and be able to read and write.

When do you need the names? one Iraqi representative asked. The answer: the next morning.

By dawn, word had trickled out and more than 100 men were lined up at one recruiting site, Camp War Eagle in Baghdad`s Ninth of April district. Only a few had been recommended by the council members, but initially there was no way to tell who they were.

So the military interviewers treated everyone the same.

Those who showed up at War Eagle were a mostly scraggly bunch -- many with sandals, oversize coveralls and dirty faces. As the prospective recruits waited in line, more than a few talked openly about how they were not really interested in the police force but really needed a job, any job. With salaries of $154 a month -- after a hazard raise last week because of the recent bombings of police stations -- the force assures a comfortable living.

One man, who sells cigarettes from a box hung around his neck, grumbled about how he did not like the Americans. But after being out of work for months, he said, he had no choice. Another bragged about how he had been in the Iraqi army and had part of his ear cut off for running away.

"It`s just a job. I will take anything," said Khudair Abbas, 19, a day laborer who said he had become bored with spending his days playing soccer and watching television.

The recruits went through a basic medical check -- eyes, ears, throat, blood pressure, pulse. Then U.S. military officers conducted interviews, meticulously going down a list of standard questions, such as "Were you/are you a member of/contributed to/been associated with any military/paramilitary group, police, special police, terrorist group or intelligence unit?" and "Are you, even remotely, potentially susceptible or vulnerable to pressure, coercion, or blackmail by any government organized group or individual?"

Everyone answered no to both.

Army Capt. John A. Womack and his unit at War Eagle had not been told about the recruiting session until the evening before and had not been able to properly schedule personnel. By about 3 p.m., Womack and the others had moved on to other duties, and the interviews were being conducted by three Iraqi interpreters, supervised by U.S. soldiers walking in and out of the room. Any candidate who was not underage, did not have a fake ID and would sign a form disavowing any ties to the Baath Party passed the test.

Within two days, the unit had screened 230 people and passed 90. The officers congratulated those who had made it and told them to pack up for training.

Occupation authorities, however, had not told the officers at War Eagle that there was a second round of interviews, which took place one day in early December at the police academy headquarters. Invitations were sent to 200 people, but only 118 showed up.

The recruits were asked to bring documentation verifying their education and to fill out forms that would be forwarded to their local police stations for comment and for checking against the criminal and military databases.

Next was a basic physical fitness test (20 sit-ups, 10 push-ups, 5 pull-ups, a 1,500-meter run and a 100-meter dash). Many had dressed in their best collared shirts and loafers for their interview, and had to strip down to boxers and bare feet for the test, which took place on a muddy field. About 90 percent passed.

Last were the two-minute-or-so interviews with Mehdi, who was head of student affairs at the police college before the Americans selected him to oversee training.

The first candidate was Allah Abbas, 22.

"What do you think of human rights?" Mehdi asked.

"It`s good and helps humans," Abbas answered.

"What do you think of the other sex?"

"They are half or so of society and help men serve the community."

Mehdi nodded and scribbled some notes in the young man`s file. Abbas was in.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen in New York contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Mr. Smith Leaves Washington




Tuesday, December 30, 2003; Page A18


THAT SOMETHING UGLY happened to Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) on the long night of the House Medicare vote last month seems beyond dispute. With his party lacking the votes to muscle the prescription drug bill through, Mr. Smith was subjected to intense -- and quite possibly criminal -- pressure to induce him to abandon his opposition. As Mr. Smith related it the next day, "members and groups" offered financial and political support for his son, Brad, who is running for his father`s seat, if only he would vote for the bill.

"The first offer was to give him $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsement by national [GOP] leadership," Mr. Smith elaborated a few days later. When he refused, he said, he was threatened, "Well, if you don`t change your vote . . . then some of us are going to work to make sure your son doesn`t get into Congress."

Mr. Smith has since recanted, rather unconvincingly. He said he "was told that my vote could result in interested groups giving substantial and aggressive campaign `support` and `endorsements,` " but that "no specific reference was made to money." But a report by The Post`s R. Jeffrey Smith -- quoting Republican lawmakers present at a stiffen-your-backbone dinner of GOP opponents of the bill before the Medicare vote -- reinforces Mr. Smith`s original assertion that money was indeed mentioned, and makes clear that members of the Republican leadership were involved. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) recalled Mr. Smith`s saying that "someone had said his son . . . would be the beneficiary if he would vote for the bill, up to the tune of about $100,000."

One response to all this has been to suggest that what happened to Mr. Smith was no more than hardball-as-usual on a close and important vote. True, lawmakers understand full well when they cast a critical vote that it is apt to affect their ability to obtain campaign contributions from the affected industries or interest groups. Yet there is a distinction between an implicit understanding of the likely financial consequences of an important vote and an explicit quid pro quo of campaign cash for a vote the desired way. The federal bribery statute makes it a crime to offer "anything of value" to a public official "with intent to influence any official act."

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was among those importuning Mr. Smith in the final hours of the Medicare vote, though Mr. Smith has said he was not referring to Mr. Hastert. But Mr. Hastert has been resolutely incurious about -- and seemingly unperturbed by -- what has been reported to have occurred on his watch, and by the reported activities of his lieutenants. "Well, they looked and there was nothing of substance there," Mr. Hastert said, referring to an inquiry by his own staff.

The Justice Department should fully investigate this matter. If Justice declines to proceed, the House ethics committee must step up to the plate. It may be -- though only an investigation will determine it -- that what happened with Mr. Smith falls short of a prosecutable criminal case. But that doesn`t make it ethical -- no matter what Mr. Smith now says. To bludgeon a lawmaker to switch his vote in exchange for campaign cash, to threaten retribution against the lawmaker`s son if he votes his conscience -- this is well beyond the line of acceptable arm-twisting. House ethics rules require lawmakers to act "in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives." Does the House leadership think that standard was met in the case of Mr. Smith?



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. . . Or a Rational Response?


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003; Page A19


Every action, said the political pundit Sir Isaac Newton, produces an equal and opposite reaction.

The year 2003 will be remembered as the time when Democrats decided to fight back against George W. Bush after coddling and even embracing him in 2002. This whiplash will mean some surprising things for 2004.

It`s hard to think of any other president who has gone so quickly from being so unifying to being so divisive. There was hardly a soul this side of Noam Chomsky who didn`t support Bush for some time after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and didn`t support the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Even Democrats who never conceded that Bush had legitimately won the 2000 election wanted to give Bush a chance to lead the country out of crisis.

So what went wrong? Unrequited bipartisanship. Implicitly, the Democrats expected that the new situation would produce a new Bush, less partisan and less ideological. For a few months after the attacks, that was the Bush who showed up to work every day. He and the Democrats did a lot of business together, and the country seemed happy.

It could not last, because Bush didn`t want to be Dwight D. Eisenhower, a nonpartisan leader who unified the country without being much help to his party. Ticket splitting began in a big way during the 1950s when millions of Democrats went for Ike but stuck with their party on the rest of the ballot. Bush wanted to realign the country and create a Republican majority for bold conservative policies at home and abroad.

And so, even as he was shoveling money out the door for national defense and new engagements abroad, Bush went for more tax cuts for the wealthy. He moved from Afghanistan to Iraq and ridiculed Democrats who held off on full endorsement of the war against Saddam Hussein pending strong United Nations support. In September 2002, shortly before the midterm elections, Bush mocked such Democrats as saying, according to Bush: "Oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I`m going to wait for somebody else to act."

And just before the elections, Bush went after Democrats for their stand on the homeland security bill, turning the very ground on which bipartisanship had been built into an electoral battlefield.

Republicans won in 2002, but Bush lost most Democrats forever. Conservative critics of "Bush hatred" like to argue that opposition to the president is a weird psychological affliction. It is nothing of the sort. It is a rational response to getting burned. They are, as a friend once put it, biting the hand that slapped them in the face.

No one understood this sense of betrayal better or earlier than Howard Dean. Dean`s candidacy took off because many in the Democratic rank and file were furious that Washington Democrats allowed themselves to be taken to the cleaners. Many of Dean`s current loyalists had been just as supportive of Bush after Sept. 11 because they, too, felt that doing so was patriotic. So Dean also spoke to their personal sense of grievance.

Here`s what`s interesting for 2004: The conventional wisdom, fed by shrewd Republican operatives and commentators, is that Democrats, so out there in their antipathy for Bush, will push their party into an extremist wonderland and lose white men, security moms and anybody else who does not share their desire for revenge.

The opposite is true. Democrats will not have to spend inordinate amounts of time or money in this election year "uniting their base." Opposition to Bush has already done that.

In the 2000 election, Bush had an advantage over Al Gore because Republican rank-and-filers so hated Bill Clinton -- and so wanted to win -- that they gave Bush ample room to sound as moderate as John Breaux or Olympia Snowe. Bush`s 2000 Republican National Convention hid the base behind the appealing face of inclusiveness and outreach. Gore, in the meantime, had to claw back the votes of liberals and lefties who had strayed to Ralph Nader.

This time the Democrats will have most of the election year to appeal to swing voters. Democrats are so hungry to beat Bush that they will let their nominee do just about anything, even be pragmatic and shrewd.

That`s why 2004 will be very different from 2003. Democrats who loved Dean`s attacks on Bush this year now want Dean to prove he can beat him. Dean`s opponents know this, which is why their core case is that Dean can`t win. And watch for the appearance of the new, pragmatic Howard Dean, the doctor with an unerring sense of his party`s pulse.

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Bush-Hatred: Fearful Loathing . . .


By Robert J. Samuelson

Tuesday, December 30, 2003; Page A19


The political story of 2003 was, in some ways, the fashionableness of "hate." It became respectable not simply to disagree with George W. Bush or to dislike him and criticize him -- but to go further and declare your everlasting hate for the man. People bragged about how much they hated Bush. This loathing of Bush from the left does not, as yet, seem any more vicious (and perhaps less so) than the loathing of Bill Clinton from the right. But what is different is the willingness to call it "hatred" and to have the label blessed by much of the press, which has concluded that Bush is different from other modern presidents.

Consider a recent Time cover story. Bush is the "Love Him, Hate Him President" who has "cleaved the nation into two tenaciously opposed camps even more than his predecessors. He is the man about whom Americans feel little ambivalence." Sounds convincing. But it doesn`t seem to be true.

Of course, many Americans oppose Bush on everything from taxes to Iraq. They feel that he sold the war dishonestly and find his personal mannerisms -- his brittle language, his strutting -- deeply offensive. Jonathan Chait, justifying Bush hatred in the New Republic, put it this way: "Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the very rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest."

But just because lots of people feel passionately about Bush doesn`t mean the country is split into Bush lovers and haters. Many Americans are ambivalent, as they often are. Some like Bush and not his policies -- or the reverse. Consider a Los Angeles Times survey in November (before Saddam Hussein`s capture improved Bush`s ratings): 40 percent liked the president and his policies; 6 percent liked his policies and disliked him; 28 percent liked him and disliked his policies; and 20 percent disliked him and his policies. Almost three-quarters liked the president or his policies. Interestingly, at the end of their presidencies, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton enjoyed either personal or policy approval from about three-quarters of voters.

Nor is it unusual for presidents to be vilified. Lyndon Johnson was detested for the Vietnam War. Even before Watergate, Richard Nixon was seen as a dishonest schemer ("Tricky Dick"). Jimmy Carter was ridiculed as an incompetent who mismanaged the economy and foreign policy. Reagan was depicted as a far-right fanatic intent on dismantling the New Deal. To their detractors, all these presidents promoted national ruin. But none inspired the "H- word."

Indeed, among most Americans, Bush doesn`t either. Because surveys didn`t ask, we don`t know how many Americans hated past presidents. But now the question is being asked, and the answers show that only a small minority -- millions, to be sure -- claim to hate Bush. One poll in December found that 3 percent did. The hating may have been slightly higher in the Clinton presidency, because the same poll asked respondents whether they now hate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and 5 percent said they did. But the central conclusion is striking: Most Americans don`t see themselves as haters.

If "hate" were used loosely (as in, say, "kids hate spinach"), the word choice would be harmless. But people who claim to hate really mean it, and that`s serious. It signifies that you`ve gone beyond discussion, compromise or even (to some extent) coexistence. The differences are too basic to be bridged. Genuine political hatred is usually reserved for true tyrants, whose unspeakable acts of brutality justify nothing less.

More than the language is butchered. Once disagreement turns into self-proclaimed hate, it becomes blinding. You can see only one all-encompassing truth, which is your villain`s deceit, stupidity, selfishness or evil. This was true of Clinton haters, and it`s increasingly true of Bush haters. A small army of pundits and talking heads has now devoted itself to one story: the sins of Bush, Cheney and their supporters. They ruined the economy with massive tax cuts and budget deficits; the Iraq war was an excuse for corporate profiteering; their arrogance alienated foreign allies.

All ambiguity vanishes. For example: The economy is recovering, stimulated in part by huge budget deficits; and many traditional allies of the United States like having Bush as a political foil to excuse them from costly and unpopular commitments.

In the end, Bush hating says more about the haters than the hated -- and here, too, the parallels with Clinton are strong. This hatred embodies much fear and insecurity. The anti-Clinton fanatics hated him not simply because he occasionally lied, committed adultery or exhibited an air of intellectual superiority. What really infuriated them was that he kept succeeding -- he won reelection, his approval ratings stayed high -- and that diminished their standing. If Clinton was approved, they must be disapproved.

Ditto for Bush. If he succeeded less, he`d be hated less. His fiercest detractors don`t loathe him merely because they think he`s mediocre, hypocritical and simplistic. What they truly resent is that his popularity suggests that the country might be more like him than it is like them. They fear he`s exiling them politically. On one level, their embrace of hatred aims to make others share their outrage; but on another level, it`s a self-indulgent declaration of moral superiority -- something that makes them feel better about themselves. Either way, it represents another dreary chapter in the continuing coarsening of public discourse.



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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraqarms3…
THE WEAPONS FILES



Banned Arms Flowed Into Iraq Through Syrian Firm
Files found in Baghdad describe deals violating U.N. sanctions and offer a glimpse into the murky world of weapons smuggling and the ties between `rogue states.`
By Bob Drogin and Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writers

December 30, 2003

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show.

The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria`s autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of Assad`s Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria`s government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq`s military, the Iraqi documents indicate, and Western intelligence reports allege that senior Syrian officials were involved in other illicit transfers.

Iraqi records show that SES signed more than 50 contracts to supply tens of millions of dollars` worth of arms and equipment to Iraq`s military shortly before the U.S.-led invasion in March. They reveal Iraq`s increasingly desperate search in at least a dozen countries for ballistic missiles, antiaircraft missiles, artillery, spare parts for MIG fighter jets and battle tanks, gunpowder, radar systems, nerve agent antidotes and more.

The Bush administration accused Damascus in March of sending night-vision goggles and other military equipment into Iraq, but U.S. officials now say the White House was unaware of the extent of the illicit weapons traffic.

Other gaps in Washington`s efforts to stem the flow of black-market weapons and missile technology to outlaw states emerged this month when Libya revealed that it had procured medium-range missiles and prohibited nuclear technology despite U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry did not respond to numerous faxes and telephone calls asking for clarification of SES`s activities. SES also has not responded to requests by The Times for an interview. In an e-mail Monday, the company termed "false" any suggestion that it was involved in illicit trade but did not address any of the specific cases.

The White House previously has accused Syria of sheltering fugitives from the ousted Iraqi regime, of letting Islamic militants cross into Iraq to attack coalition forces, and of refusing to release at least $250 million that Hussein`s regime stashed in Syrian banks.

Files from the Baghdad office of Al Bashair Trading Co., the largest of Iraq`s military procurement offices, provide no new evidence about chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Iraq. And not every contract for conventional weapons was filled.

But the successful deals — such as the delivery of 1,000 heavy machine guns and up to 20 million bullets for assault rifles — helped Baghdad`s ill-equipped army grow stronger before the war began in March. Some supplies may now be aiding the insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation.

And the files reviewed by The Times — about 800 pages of signed contracts, shipping manifests, export documents, bank deposits, minutes of meetings and more — offer a rare glimpse into the murky world of international arms smuggling and the ties between countries such as Syria and North Korea, which the administration calls "rogue states," and the ousted Iraqi regime. The documents illustrate the clandestine networks and complex deceptions Iraq used to evade U.N. sanctions and scrutiny by U.S. intelligence. Those include extensive use of front companies, sham contracts, phony export licenses, kickbacks and money laundering schemes.

A three-month investigation by The Times has found:

• A Polish company, Evax, signed four contracts with Iraq and successfully shipped up to 380 surface-to-air Volga/SA-2 missile engines to Baghdad through Syria. The last batch was delivered in December 2002, a month after the U.N. Security Council warned Iraq that it faced "serious consequences" if it continued to violate U.N. resolutions.

• South Korea`s Armitel Co. Ltd. shipped $8 million worth of sophisticated telecommunications equipment for what Iraqi documents said was "air defense." The company is now submitting bids to the U.S.-led occupation authority for contracts to improve telephone and Internet service from Baghdad to Basra.

• Russia`s Millenium Company Ltd. signed an $8.8-million contract in September 2002 to supply mostly American-made communications and surveillance gear to Iraq`s intelligence service. The company`s general manager in Moscow later wrote to suggest "the preparation of a sham contract" to deceive U.N. weapons inspectors, documents show.

• Slovenia`s STO Ravne company, then a state-owned entity, shipped 20 large battle tank barrels identified as "steel tubes" to SES in February 2002. The next month, Slovenia`s Defense Ministry blocked the company from exporting 50 more tank barrels to Syria. Overall, STO Ravne`s secret contract called for delivering 175 tank barrels to Iraq.

• Two North Korean officials met the head of Al Bashair at SES offices in Damascus a month before the war to discuss Iraq`s payment of $10 million for "major components" for ballistic missiles. U.S. intelligence agencies were unaware of the deal at the time, or of a meeting 10 months earlier in which Iraqi officials authorized a $1.9-million down payment to Pyongyang through SES.

• Massachusetts-based Cambridge Technology Inc. sold four optical scanners, which can be adapted to help divert laser-guided missiles, to a student in Canada. He had the equipment shipped to Amman, Jordan, and told the company he was donating it to a university whose name he now says he cannot remember. Without the U.S. company`s knowledge, the real buyer was the Iraqi military.

Iraq`s Al Bashair Trading Co. handled all those deals and scores of others. Its English-speaking director-general, Munir A. Awad, fled to Syria during the war and now is living there "under government protection," according to an intelligence report in Washington.

Filling an entire floor of a dingy downtown Baghdad office building, Al Bashair was the largest of 13 known companies, including an Iraqi intelligence operation called M-19, that Hussein`s military used to evade the U.N. arms embargo and other sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report on Iraq`s procurement networks.

Al Bashair had special status, however. Hussein personally ordered the company to deal directly with foreign brokers and suppliers, the U.N. report notes. It estimated the value of Al Bashair`s sanctions-busting deals at between $30 million and $1 billion a year in the 1990s. Al Bashair also served another key role: It helped launder and hide vast sums of cash for the Iraqi dictator and his closest aides.

Three Al Bashair contracts from 1993 to 1995, for example, indicated that Iraq had purchased $410 million, $500 million and $1.2 billion worth of sugar. U.N. inspectors found that most of the money was diverted to banks in Panama, the Bahamas and Monaco.

"The deals for sugar were a way to get money out of Iraq," said a former U.N. inspector who studied the scam. "They would pay $10,000 to a trade company for $100 of sugar. And the rest of the money went into offshore accounts."

The U.N. Security Council imposed comprehensive sanctions after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. They included a full arms embargo, a trade ban and a freeze on Iraq`s assets and financial dealings abroad. As a result, Iraq`s regime became increasingly dependent on smuggling — and arms smugglers became increasingly creative at evading the sanctions.

When they returned to Iraq in late November 2002 after four years` absence, U.N. weapons inspectors thus focused on smuggling in their search for evidence of proscribed missiles and chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

"We went one by one to every single [military] company we knew of in Iraq," said a senior U.N. inspector, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Al Bashair was target No. 1 on that list."

On March 2, 30 inspectors from the U.N.`s International Atomic Energy Agency arrived without notice to check reports that Al Bashair had put public tenders out on the Internet to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The CIA had insisted the tubes could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

IAEA experts, customs experts, computer specialists and others locked the doors, unplugged phones and grilled Munir, the company`s director, in his office. Before leaving, they copied 4,000 documents and downloaded data from office computers. They found no signs of nuclear-related procurement.

Five days later, a team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, the chief U.N. weapons hunting group, launched another surprise raid to check intelligence that Al Bashair had helped Hussein acquire mobile biological laboratories to churn out germ weapons. Again, they found no evidence.

The war began less than two weeks later. Days after U.S. troops entered Baghdad in April, Christoph Reuter, an investigative reporter for the German newsmagazine Stern, removed selected files from the abandoned Al Bashair office. He later provided the records and cooperated with The Times, which had the documents translated from Arabic and verified their contents with interviews in more than a dozen countries.

The Iraqi weapons files provide the first public evidence of Syria`s extensive arms trade with Hussein`s regime.

Most of Iraq`s known arms smuggling schemes in the 1990s went through Jordan. Many involved "one man, one fax" offices set up by Iraqi agents or local businessmen for a specific deal. By 1998, U.N. inspectors had identified 146 Jordanian companies operating as fronts for Iraq.

Heavy pressure from Washington and other capitals finally forced Jordan`s government to crack down.

Neighboring Syria, in contrast, had fought with the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and had no known role supporting Iraq in the 1990s. Neither SES nor any other Syrian company is listed in confidential U.N. records that identify more than 350 companies from 43 nations that U.N. inspectors suspect helped supply prohibited unconventional weapons materiel to Iraq prior to 1998.

But the crippling of Iraq`s smuggling rings in Jordan coincided with a dramatic change in Syria. The country`s strongman, Hafez Assad, had been a bitter rival of Hussein for most of his three-decade reign. But the Damascus dictator died in June 2000 and his son, Bashar Assad, assumed power. Syria`s long-frozen relations with Iraq soon began to thaw.

In November 2000, a newly repaired pipeline from Basra in southern Iraq began carrying 150,000 to 200,000 barrels a day of discounted oil to Syria. Another pipeline to Syria from northern Iraq opened in 2002 to carry another 60,000 barrels a day.

The flow was outside the U.N.-run "oil for food" program, which allowed Iraq to export oil to buy food, medicine and humanitarian items. Experts say Syria kept the contraband Iraqi oil for domestic use, sold its own oil at higher prices on world markets and pocketed profits of up to $1 billion a year.

In return, diplomats and intelligence experts say, Baghdad got easy access to weapons and so many smuggled goods that it opened a trade office in Tartus, Syria`s chief port. Baghdad also got access to the outside world: Iraqi officials, often holding counterfeit passports, increasingly used the airport in Damascus to fly abroad.

"Syria became the most important ally for Iraq in the region, and helped it come out of its global isolation," said a Washington-based diplomat. "Damascus became the gateway for Iraq."

Experts say money may have mattered more than politics in the new alliance.

"It was purely a matter of opportunity" for Syria, said an intelligence official in the region. "I don`t think empathy for Iraq came into it. It was like, `This is going to make me lots of money and I don`t mind if it hurts the Americans a little bit either.` "

Among those who prospered was SES International Corp., a conglomerate of nine aviation, construction, oil, car and other divisions based in an industrial area on the northeast outskirts of Damascus.

SES was founded in 1980. According to company documents, it has about $80 million in annual revenue and 5,000 employees. It is run by a small group of businessmen and other powerful figures with family or clan ties to the Assad regime.

Prominent among them is the president`s cousin Asef Isa Shaleesh, the general manager of SES. He is the son of the late dictator`s half sister. Another relative, Maj. Gen. Dhu Himma Shaleesh, heads the elite security corps that protects the president. He recently told Western diplomats that he had sold his stake in SES, but they were unable to confirm his claim.

Records reviewed by The Times show Asef Isa Shaleesh, the SES manager, made at least four trips to the Al Bashair offices in Baghdad between September 2001 and August 2002 to sign or update more than 50 SES contracts to supply Iraq`s military.

Contract #23/A/2001, for example, was for SES delivery to Iraq of Russian-designed heavy machine guns.

"The Iraqis have confirmed their reception of 1,000 pieces, according to the contract," meeting notes from Nov. 11, 2001 read. "The Iraqi side is in the process of paying the Syrians for a second delivery of 500 pieces of Machines Gun BKC."

Syria`s Foreign Ministry helped SES at least once, according to minutes of meetings between Asef Isa Shaleesh and Munir, the Al Bashair director, on April 7-8, 2002.

Four precision metal lathes from HMT Machines International Ltd. in Bangalore, India, had "arrived in Baghdad," the notes said, but customs officials in Malta had seized others destined for Iraq. Documents show that Syria was listed as the final destination, and do not indicate that HMT knew the lathes were headed for Iraq`s military. It`s unclear what Syria`s government knew.

But meeting notes said SES contacted the Syrian Ministry of Industry to intervene with Maltese authorities to release the lathes. "The reply was given by the Foreign Ministry of Syria to authorities in Malta saying the machines belonged to the Syrian company SES," the notes said.

The Syrian regime came up again later in the same set of meetings. "The Iraqi side requests the Syrian side to accelerate getting the approval for the visit of two Iraq experts to enter Syria for the purpose of learning about Kornet antitank missiles from Russia, which are available with the Syrian Ministry of Defense," the notes read.

The documents do not indicate whether Syria approved the request. But a Russian company, KBP Tula, had sold 1,000 portable, laser-guided Kornet missiles to Syria.

The Clinton administration imposed sanctions against the company in 1999 under a statute that bars weapons sales to Syria and other nations that the State Department lists as state sponsors of terrorism.

"Russia`s foreign minister called the grounds for imposing the sanctions farfetched back then," said Leonid B. Roshal, deputy director of KBP Tula, in an interview in Moscow. "I was never taught these diplomatic niceties, so I was much more straightforward and said, `The dog may bark, but the caravan will proceed.` "

Reached by telephone, Asef Isa Shaleesh, the general manager of SES, initially invited a Times reporter visiting Damascus to his office for an interview the next day. But an aide said the next day that Shaleesh "had unexpectedly gone to Romania" and later went to Russia. He has not replied since to numerous telephone calls, e-mails and faxes.

Western intelligence had traced some of the SES deals by mid-2002, two years after they began, With reports indicating illicit transfers into Iraq, the U.S. Embassy complained to the government in Damascus that summer. Assad replied that Syria would not violate U.N. sanctions.

"The president said, `If you know of any cases, tell us,` " a Western official recalled. When evidence was provided, he added, "the Syrians would allege that that`s been stopped."

No evidence has surfaced to show that Assad approved the SES deals with Iraq. But "sanctions-busting at this level would have been hard to keep from the president," a Western intelligence official said. An official from another government agreed. "We think it very unlikely that Bashar was not aware of this," he said.

He noted that two North Koreans flew to SES headquarters in Damascus in February 2003, a month before the war, to meet Munir, the director of Al Bashair.

"A North Korean is not a tourist," the official said. "Either Syria gave direct approval. Or it turned a blind eye."

IAEA inspectors reconstructed a report of the meeting from an erased computer hard drive that they had downloaded at Al Bashair in March. The sit-down at SES apparently focused on Pyongyang`s inability to deliver $10 million of sophisticated ballistic missile technology — and its flat refusal to return the $10 million.

"The North Koreans said, `It`s too hot to refund your money,` " an official familiar with the report said.

The Times also reviewed a report on another meeting with the North Koreans ten months earlier. On April 8, 2002, Al Bashair approved payment of $1,975,517 to SES "as down payment in favor of the North Korean side. Ten percent of the sum is deducted for the Syrian side."

U.S. intelligence was unaware until this fall of North Korea`s deal with Iraq. In the end, Iraq got neither the missiles nor its refund.

Western intelligence reports allege that several Syrian officials or their adult children were involved in shipments of tank engines, treads for armored personnel carriers, fuel pumps for missiles and other military equipment to Iraq.

One Syrian named in an intelligence report as a "key player" is Firas Tlass, head of MAS Economic Group, a business conglomerate based in Damascus. In an interview, Tlass said his companies had shipped textiles, computers and steel bars to Iraq since the late 1990s. But he said Israeli intelligence had spread false reports that he also sold weapons.

"I`m the son of the Syrian defense minister and we`re Israel`s enemy and they want to discredit the Syrian government and my father," Tlass said. "The only offer my company ever made to the Iraqi military was camouflage field jackets and they turned us down."

Syria`s arms trade hit the headlines in March this year when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld publicly accused Damascus of smuggling night-vision goggles and other military supplies to Iraq. He said Washington viewed "such trafficking as hostile acts and would hold the Syrian government accountable."

Syria`s foreign minister called the charge "unfounded" and "an attempt to cover up what his forces have been committing against civilians in Iraq."

Damascus has sought to repair relations. Washington has praised Syria`s assistance in rounding up suspected members of Al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks. But President Bush signed a bill Dec. 12 barring export of military and dual-use items — equipment that could have civilian and military uses — to Syria until the White House certifies that Damascus has withdrawn troops from Lebanon, has cut support for Hamas and other terrorist groups, has stopped proscribed missile and chemical and biological weapons programs, and has acted to prevent militants from entering Iraq to attack coalition forces.

In contrast, the companies that knew the weapons and other sensitive supplies they sold to SES actually were destined for Iraq — a clear violation of U.N. sanctions — have faced little pressure. South Korea`s Armitel Co. Ltd. is an example.

A 1998 spinoff from giant Samsung Electronics, Armitel develops and manufactures digital microwave systems for wireless communications. It is based in a high-tech industrial complex south of Seoul.

Armitel had signed contracts in 2001 and 2002 with SES totaling $23,431,487, the Iraqi files said.

On April 7, 2002, for example, Armitel`s chairman inked a $1,859,862.18 contract with SES for "optical transmission, channel bank and auxiliary items."

But records labeled "secret" in the Al Bashair files show the Armitel equipment was "connected with the supply of air defense" and that the real buyer was the Salahaddin Co., based in northern Iraq, which was trying to develop a radar system to detect U.S. stealth bombers.

In an interview, Lee Dae Young, the 50-year-old chairman of Armitel, said he knew his equipment was headed to Iraq despite U.N. sanctions. But he said he thought he was helping Baghdad upgrade telephone and Internet service.

"We sold Iraq an optical cable system," Lee said. "Actually, now that this is over, I can tell you. We sold it to Syrians and they took it to Iraq."

Armitel had sent $8 million worth of equipment to Syria when U.S. intelligence got wind of the shipments in mid-2002. After the U.S. Embassy in Seoul complained, South Korea`s Ministry of Commerce ordered Armitel to stop further shipments. An investigation was begun but Armitel was not charged. The company recently submitted proposals to the U.S.-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad for contracts to build a telecommunications network from Baghdad to Basra.

Another supplier to Iraq`s military was Slovenia`s RTO Ravne. The state-owned company, then an arms manufacturer, agreed in the fall of 2001 to supply 175 tank barrels — called "steel tubes" in the documents — to the Saddam Co. near Fallouja, one of Iraq`s largest producers of artillery, armored vehicles and other heavy military equipment. The $6.3-million deal had a twist. On paper, the "tubes" went to the Al Heeti Co. in Jordan. In reality, SES handled the deal.

On March 7, 2002, the fourth shipment of five tank barrels arrived at Tartus from Slovenia aboard the Diane A, an Italian ship. Munir, the Al Bashair chief in Baghdad, immediately sent an urgent letter to SES, asking the Syrian company to "take the necessary steps to take over the container and forward it to us as soon as possible."

Later that month, Slovenia`s Ministry of Defense announced it had blocked the export by RTO Ravne of 50 smoothbore barrels for the Syrian army`s T-72 main battle tanks.

RTO Ravne has since been broken up and privatized. It`s unclear how many of the tank barrels ultimately got through to Iraq. Dusan Pahor, the STO Ravne quality control manager whose signature appears on the specification documents, declined to comment on the deal. His supervisor, who identified himself as Mr. Studancik, confirmed the contracts for "tubes" were a sham. "Yeah, yeah, it was tank barrels," he said. "That is correct."

Two Russian companies also had clandestine deals with SES as the war approached. Moscow-based Millenium Co. Ltd. signed an $8.8-million contract on Sept. 14, 2002 to provide radio frequency equipment, transmitters, mobile eavesdropping systems and other surveillance gear to SES. The contract specified that Millenium would supply equipment from such U.S. companies as Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems and MITEQ, as well companies in Germany, Canada, France and Japan.

Al Bashair records show, however, that the Millenium representative in Baghdad had met on July 25 with two "representatives of the Intelligence Service" in order to "come to agreement on concluding the contract."

On Sept. 29, the general director of Millenium, an Iraqi exile named Hasam Khalidi, signed a letter advising Al Bashair of the need to "consider the preparation of a sham contract" to conceal the deal "in case other authorities, including United Nations inspectors, want to see a copy of the contract…. The services and materials to be delivered should look as for civilian use so they will not attract attention of those authorities."

In an interview, Khalidi denied writing the letter, denied dealing with SES, and denied that his company had done anything to evade or violate U.N. sanctions. Khalidi argued instead that he had a legitimate business deal to sell bugging equipment to Iraq`s Interior Ministry.

"I didn`t see anything immoral in it," he said.

"Someone in Iraq is going to be surprised about a monitoring system? I could have stood up and said, `Aren`t you ashamed!` "

In the end, he said the war intervened and the deal collapsed. "Nothing ever happened," he said. "It`s a pity."

Al Bashair records also show that a Russian company called TsNIIM-Invest, an offshoot of a state-run science center, signed several agreements with SES between August and December 2001 to supply $1.7 million worth of large "tubes" suitable for artillery and an "electro-chemical workshop" to the Saddam Co. near Fallouja.

Valentin Petrovich Kuznetsov, the technical director of TsNIIM-Invest in Moscow, declined an interview request.

"As for the tubes, I can tell you that this thing never materialized," he said. "It just didn`t happen. There was a lot of fuss about it. But nothing was proven. That is all I can tell you now."

Iraqi officials also made 15 visits before the war to a Russian company called Aviakonversiya. The Moscow-based company specializes in producing GPS jammers, portable units that distort signals used by satellite-based navigation systems. During the war, U.S. aircraft struck several sites where the jammers` radio frequency was detected.

But Oleg Antonov, general director of Aviakonversiya, said the jammers weren`t his because the Iraqi delegations looked but never bought.

"Frankly, I would have had no qualms selling this stuff to Iraq," Antonov said. "We wouldn`t have sold this to them directly. We would have done it the way everybody was doing it. We would have sold it to some third country."

Antonov added that he would be "happy and proud" if he "knew for sure that our equipment was used in Iraq and was a success there…. It would be the best advertisement for our production."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff writers Alan C. Miller in Washington, Barbara Demick in Seoul and Kim Murphy, Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov in Moscow, and researcher Robin Cochran in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-diary30de…
THE WEAPONS FILES
siehe auch #10978



The Private Record of an Arms Buyer
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer

December 30, 2003

HAMBURG, Germany — They are the scribbled words of a man who knows war is coming.

They speak of antitank weapons and air defense systems. They describe secret money transfers, things hidden in diplomatic pouches, clandestine meetings with brokers and middlemen. The writing is tight, pared of adjectives. The narrative moves in a ticktock pace toward what the writer — one of Iraq`s leading arms merchants — describes as "the mother of battles."

When U.S. cruise missiles struck on March 20, Siham Addin Khairi, director of the state-owned Armos Trading Co., had already vanished, leaving his day planner on his desk. A German journalist found it in Baghdad, brought it to Hamburg and eventually showed it to The Times.

The entries reveal how Khairi searched the globe for illicit weapons until the brink of war to satisfy his client, Saddam Hussein`s Military Industrialization Commission. There are contract descriptions, financial calculations, telephone numbers and question marks scattered throughout.

The pages also offer a glimpse into the mind of a man who operated in the shadows and methodically went about saving himself, his money and his staff.

Jan. 7: "Minimization of crisis…. Urgent actions necessary to prepare a comprehensive evacuation plan that enables us to save materials and souls of men as our main objective."

Jan. 8: "The towers, fences and doors to be fortified. Calling in the young. The calling should be mandatory, hence in case of emergency, they should join immediately."

Jan. 9: "Issuing order on money to be used. The rest is deposited in a safe place…. The parking of the bus is the gathering point."

Jan. 10: "Each firm based on the emergency plan should be provided for the whole week with bread, dates, lentils, tea, sugar and oil."

Jan. 11: "Money should not be left to the groups. Revolutionary steadfastness is required in any situation. The position should be strengthened, however simple the signal may be, especially toward the outside [world]."

The day planner is streaked with such inspirational musings. They drive Khairi`s broader quest of amassing, despite Iraq`s isolation and weak finances, weapons and defense systems to fend off the coming invasion. It seems that few schemes were too outlandish for consideration.

Feb. 1: Khairi writes of a meeting with a Czech-German engineer. The two explore the design of a "dust cannon" that would hurl explosives at the ground, kicking up a gritty haze from the desert floor to disrupt the guidance systems of U.S. missiles. Khairi draws a diagram of the cannon — two tubes at 45-degree angles — adding the comment: "Explanation of idea. Discuss technical details."

Feb. 2: In crude block letters, Khairi lists two chemical compounds, diethylenetriamine (DETA) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH). The chemicals are used in the production of storable liquid rocket fuels. UDMH was developed in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s.

Khairi leaves for Moscow in early February to meet Russian businessmen, politicians and arms smugglers. The meetings are crucial for Khairi, with tens of millions of dollars at stake.

Adding to the pressure, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5 to make Washington`s case for war. The showdown intensifies, and tension mounts on Khairi`s pages.

Feb. 12: "Needs discussed…. Air defense. Antitank weapons. Night sight equipment and devices…. Businessmen want profit. The Russians` fear?… Subjects of debts."

Feb. 13: Khairi meets with the Iraqi ambassador to Moscow and the director of an unidentified Russian company. The firm is concerned that its dealings with Iraq are becoming too sensitive. "International conditions draw attention to the company," writes Khairi, who quotes the Russians as being informed about "what is needed by Iraq, and we wonder how best to get it." He adds: "The official way is not helpful. Alternatives must be found. Who does not want to act finds excuses. Who does act finds solutions. We hope to get an idea of your needs in Moscow and we can give you some goods."

Feb. 17: "Materials Institute, Leningrad…. Materials were shipped. Transport of materials from Moscow to Syria and from Syria to Iraq."

Khairi lists the names of three Russian suppliers — Alexy S. Kharlonov, Valentin P. Kuznetsov and Lev. S. Krivoshev. Beside the names he writes, "Granting entrance visas [to Iraq] for the purpose of the mother of battles."

Feb. 18: Ukrainian businessmen agree to visit Baghdad. "Financial claims will be settled immediately," Khairi writes. "The financial issue will be resolved."

Feb. 19: Khairi writes of a "SiltMash Contract" and the need for Russian specialists to visit Iraq. "The specialists will come on March 3, 2003…. Two welding machines are sent. After one week, a truck will be sent with two grinding machines."

Whether the specialists or machines made it into Iraq is not known. The day planner entries dwindle. War comes on March 20.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

Nach dem Beben bei SLO wartet man weiter in Kalifornien auf den `Big one`. Und da scheint das südliche Ca wohl der gefährdeste Teil zu sein.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-andreas…



`Pregnant` San Andreas Could Be Ready to Deliver
Other faults have set off recent large quakes, but Coachella Valley is ripe for disaster, experts say.
By Paul Pringle
Times Staff Writer

December 30, 2003

Scary beauty surrounds Cameron Barrows. He works in lush groves of fan palms that erupt like mirages from moonscape terrain. Hot springs bubble beneath them. Sand dunes drift nearby.

"It`s an amazing place," said Barrows, director of the Coachella Valley Preserve east of Palm Springs. The 20,000-acre sanctuary owes its splendors to the San Andreas fault, the frightening part of the bargain.

Many scientists say the Coachella Valley is where the 750-mile San Andreas seems most prone for an epic earthquake, a monster that would be enormously more powerful than the recent temblors in San Simeon, Calif., and Bam, Iran.

"There`s not a lot we can do about that," Barrows said with a resigned smile. He was outside the preserve`s visitors center, a 1930s log cabin that sits directly above the fault. "I`m not a worrying type person."

As the possible generator of the feared Big One, the San Andreas once dominated the quake worries of Californians. But that was before "subsidiary faults" in locales such as Loma Prieta and, especially, Northridge reordered popular anxieties. They flattened buildings and buckled interstates while the San Andreas remained relatively quiet, as it has since the great San Francisco quake of 1906.

Now, with the 10th anniversary of the Northridge temblor approaching, and after much study of those second-tier faults, scientists again are highlighting the San Andreas as the rupture without rival — a slumbering beast napping on borrowed time.

"The primary fault in California — the big dog — is the San Andreas, and it`s important for people to remember that," said Doug Yule, a geologist at Cal State Northridge, which was badly damaged in the Jan. 17, 1994, disaster. "The San Andreas will produce the largest earthquakes."

Yule and his colleagues have dug trenches along the southern section of the fault to carbon-date its buried fissures in hopes of determining just how "pregnant" it is. Their best guess: The San Andreas, from the Salton Sea to San Bernardino, is at term.

Two hundred fifty miles to the north — and 35 miles from the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 San Simeon quake Dec. 22 — investigators in Parkfield are preparing to drill a $20.5-million hole into the San Andreas.

The idea behind the 2.4-mile-deep probe, the first of its kind, is to capture a live quake on a battery of monitors — and perhaps advance the balky business of quake predictions.

The San Andreas also is a principal subject of the new Plate Boundary Observatory, a $100-million array of global positioning stations, strain meters and ground-motion detectors.

The unfolding project will chart inching shifts in the landscape that result from the grinding collision of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, the crash that created the fault.

All those efforts have returned the San Andreas to the pages of science journals, quake probability reports, even travel publications — as a foreboding curiosity that helped shape California in more ways than one.

"The tourists play golf, then they come out here to see the San Andreas," Barrows said.

He was walking through the preserve`s Thousand Palms Oasis, in the jungle shadows of 70-foot trees. Wooden planks cover the path and 80-degree springs gurgle underfoot. The water nurtures the fans, California`s only native palm.

The springs are propelled upward by the San Andreas, which is otherwise undiscernible to the untrained eye.

"People are always disappointed it isn`t this huge chasm in the ground," Barrows said.

Instead, the San Andreas reveals itself in geological magic tricks: gullies that turn gravity-defying corners, and abrupt changes in the desert floor, with uplifted bedrock yielding to gravels that are blown into Arabian-style dunes.

Every one of the phenomena is a sign of looming calamity, said Sally McGill, a geologist at Cal State San Bernardino. Her classrooms are within a mile of the San Andreas.

"This is as close at it gets to a heavily populated area in Southern California," McGill said.

She was setting out on a short hike to the fault, whose presence is marked by an unlikely picket of trees thriving along arid foothills. "I do worry about it. This is a dangerous place."

The San Andreas last slipped in the region 191 years ago. That is 40 years beyond the average interval for the southern segment, based on estimates that stretch back 12 centuries.

Geologists arrived at the calculations through paleoseismology, a fairly new technique that dates prehistoric quakes. Scientists dig into the fault to look for layers of peat and sand.

The strata time-stamp cracks — give or take 50 years — that quakes opened to the sunlight and that flood sediments filled later.

It is one of the disciplines that has made strides since Northridge, although the fault responsible for that quake resists paleo-detective work because it never broke the surface. The San Andreas is a proven crust-buster.

"Over the past 10 years, we`ve put a lot of effort into the L.A. Basin," McGill said. "Now it`s time to put more attention on the San Andreas."

She was climbing a low ridge where the October wildfires burned away enough brush to leave fault impressions bare.

Her camera raised, she paused at a gully that stopped halfway down a hillside, as if it had hit an invisible wall. McGill pointed to a spot about 20 feet away where the gully reappeared. Its lower leg had been shunted to the right in shifting of the San Andreas.

"I am interested in those other faults, but the San Andreas is the only one capable of producing a magnitude 8 earthquake," said McGill, who stashes bottled water under her desk, just in case. "I would expect a 7 here, or a 7.5. A 7.9 is possible."

A 7.9 would release about 65 times the energy of the 6.7 Northridge quake, which killed 57 people and caused $40 billion in damage.

That doesn`t mean a 7.9 would be 65 times more destructive. Magnitude is a deceptive measurement. It denotes the physical length of a quake: The more miles of splintering on the fault, the higher the magnitude.

The Northridge quake struck along a 10-mile fault. The San Andreas can break for 200-plus miles, as it did in the 1906 quake, a 7.8 that devastated San Francisco.

In a given location, the shaking near the epicenter of a moderate quake can be as severe as that unleashed by a huge fault slip farther away.

But a giant quake on the San Andreas would thunder over a broader area and last longer, pounding repeatedly into buildings, dams and bridges.

There is "good news" about the fault, experts like to say. Most of the San Andreas is remote from major cities in Southern and Central California.

And scientists generally believe the 1906 cataclysm vented enough stress to spare fault-straddling San Francisco another mammoth quake for decades to come.

Then again, the San Andreas runs through the fast-growing Inland Empire and Antelope Valley, which last felt the fault`s fury in 1812 and 1857. This is the bad news.

"Here`s an 8.0 on the San Andreas," said Bob Tincher, a San Bernardino water engineer who was poring over a quake-hazard map on his desk.

He tapped a finger on red-colored sectors of high groundwater. They spread across much of the city, including downtown.

"Red is high risk," he said.

In a magnitude 8 temblor, streets in the red could be rendered quicksand by liquefaction as the quake briefly scrambled saturated soils. Buildings could come crashing down.

San Bernardino is trying to head off the peril. Tincher drove from his office to a shopping center. In the parking lot, behind a barbed wire-tipped fence, a pump as big as a pickup truck was pulling water from the ground and sending it through pipes and storm drains to the Santa Ana River.

The pump and others like it are lowering the water table to keep San Bernardino on solid moorings (Orange County is buying the excess water).

The city is halfway toward its quake-ready goal of siphoning out 25,000 acre-feet of water annually, the amount used by 50,000 households.

"It`s kind of a unique problem," Tincher said.

Also unique is the drilling planned for Parkfield, a tiny Monterey County town where visiting fault sleuths sometimes outnumber the population.

Lately, 350 scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Stanford University and other institutions have been gearing up to drive a seismometer-lined shaft into and across the San Andreas.

A 1.4-mile pilot hole already has been sunk close to the fault to test equipment. Its seismometers found that the San Simeon quake had moved the fault one-twenty-fifth of an inch or less. The San Andreas typically slides 1 inch a year in the Parkfield area.

"There`s a little chance the San Simeon quake is going to have a significant impact on the San Andreas," said Steve Hickman, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist and a designer of the Parkfield project. "But we`ll keep an eye on it."

Digging of the main "well" in Parkfield — the geologists are borrowing oil technology — will begin this summer. The probe will target the "creeping section" of the San Andreas, which has delivered the most regular pattern of moderate quakes on the fault: six in the magnitude 6 range since 1857, the last in 1966.

That record of punctuality led seismic forecasters in the 1980s to predict another quake within several years. It has yet to strike, but scientists remain convinced that Parkfield has secrets to spill.

"We`re going to be able to instrument a fault right where a quake is happening," said Andy Snyder, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist.

He had spent the afternoon checking on the multiplying numbers of geo-gizmos planted in the blond pastures and oak-canopied hills around Parkfield: strain and creep meters, global positioning stations and magnetometers.

Nowhere else on the planet is a fault so intently watched.

"This is where you could capture an earthquake," Snyder said.

He was standing in a weedy field beside the pilot hole`s wellhead, a green hunk of metal that resembles a large fire hydrant. A nearby shed shelters banks of computers that clock every shudder in the hole.

In the 2.4-mile-deep shaft, the coin-size seismometers will track shaking and tilting while devices called transducers gauge fluid pressures. Geologists theorize that increases in day-to-day fault deformations and changes in subterranean fluids precede a quake.

"It`s the information you need to go to the next step," Snyder said.

Tom Taylor, a geophysics scholar from Duke University, emerged from the shed and talked more about the next step: reliable quake predictions.

"Right now it`s a voodoo science," he said. "I want to find out if you can predict them."

So does Robert Uhrhammer, a researcher at UC Berkeley`s seismological laboratory.

He is working on the Plate Boundary Observatory, part of the National Science Foundation`s EarthScope program, which includes the Parkfield experiments.

"In the last 10 years, there have been considerable advances in paleoseismic studies and global position systems," he said. "Earthquake probabilities are much more formal now and much more reasonable."

The observatory — it`s a widely cast installation of sensors, not a building — will collect data from points along the San Andreas and through the Cascadia subduction zone to Canada.

The subduction zone is where the North American and Juan de Fuca plates meet. Subduction quakes are vastly more violent — magnitude 9s are possible — but far less frequent than those on the San Andreas.

Such events occur in subduction zones once or twice every 1,000 years; the most recent on the Cascadia was in 1700.

Uhrhammer said the observatory would help scientists determine where the San Andreas might be lurching toward a 1906-strength quake.

He doesn`t expect a repeat in the Bay Area anytime soon.

On the northern San Andreas, "it could well be another century or so before you get another 1906 event," Uhrhammer said.

The outlook is not as reassuring down south.

Yule, the Cal State Northridge geologist, has found evidence in his paleoseismic trench that a massive quake could be in store for the Coachella Valley — and north into San Bernardino and beyond.

But like all fault excavators, he notes, "We just don`t know."

Yule and two of his students were tip-toeing along a ledge of the terraced trench, a gash cut by backhoe, 12 feet deep by 150 feet long in the San Gorgonio Pass.

Rumblings on the San Andreas carved out the pass. Southern California`s highest peaks — San Gorgonio and San Jacinto — struggle for supremacy across the ever-windy plain. The fault and its strands are forcing two mountain ranges into each other.

The walls of Yule`s trench show scars of the battle. Lines and swirls of peat demark ancient quakes. They sketch a calendar of 4,000 years, but Yule is zeroing in on a shorter period.

Sediment veins in his trench indicate that the valley has not experienced a momentous quake since 1800 or 1700. Either date would mean the San Andreas here is past its average rest.

"If a quake happened right now, we`d be `faulted,` " Yule said as he eyed the cleaved rock and soil. "It`d be pretty exciting."

He wasn`t smiling.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer3…
COMMENTARY
a d v e r t i s e m e n t




The U.S. Winked at Hussein`s Evil
Robert Scheer

December 30, 2003

Sometimes democracy works. Though the wheels of accountability often grind slowly, they also can grind fine, if lubricated by the hard work of free-thinking citizens. The latest example: the release of official documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that detail how the U.S. government under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush nurtured and supported Saddam Hussein despite his repeated use of chemical weapons.

The work of the National Security Archive, a dogged organization fighting for government transparency, has cast light on the trove of documents that depict in damning detail how the United States, working with U.S. corporations including Bechtel, cynically and secretly allied itself with Hussein`s dictatorship. The evidence undermines the unctuous moral superiority with which the current American president, media and public now judge Hussein, a monster the U.S. actively helped create.

The documents make it clear that were the trial of Hussein to be held by an impartial world court, it would prove an embarrassing two-edged sword for the White House, calling into question the motives of U.S. foreign policy. If there were a complete investigation into those who aided and abetted Hussein`s crimes against humanity, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State George Shultz would probably end up as material witnesses.

It was Rumsfeld and Shultz who told Hussein and his emissaries that U.S. statements generally condemning the use of chemical weapons would not interfere with relations between secular Iraq and the Reagan administration, which took Iraq off the terrorist-nations list and embraced Hussein as a bulwark against fundamentalist Iran. Ironically, the U.S supported Iraq when it possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and invaded it when it didn`t.

It was 20 years ago when Shultz dropped in on a State Department meeting between his top aide and a high-ranking Hussein emissary. Back then the Iraqis, who were fighting a war with Iran, were our new best friends in the Mideast. Shultz wanted to make it crystal clear that U.S. criticism of the use of chemical weapons was just pablum for public consumption, meant as a restatement of a "long-standing policy, and not as a pro-Iranian/anti-Iraqi gesture," as State`s Lawrence S. Eagleburger told Hussein`s emissary. "Our desire and our actions to prevent an Iranian victory and to continue the progress of our bilateral relations remain undiminished," Eagleburger continued, according to the then highly classified transcript of the meeting.

The Shultz/Eagleburger meeting took place between two crucial visits by Rumsfeld, acting as a Reagan emissary, to Hussein to offer unconditional support for the Iraqi leader in his war with Iran. In the first meeting, in December 1983, Rumsfeld told Hussein that the United States would assist in building an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba, Jordan. He made no mention of chemical weapons, even though U.S. intelligence only months earlier had confirmed that Iraq was using such illegal weapons almost daily against Iranians and Kurds.

That administration`s eye was not on the carnage from chemical weapons but rather the profit to be obtained from the flow of oil. In a later meeting with an Iraqi representative, as recorded in the minutes, "Eagleburger explained that because of the participation of Bechtel in the Aqaba pipeline, the Secretary of State [Shultz] is keeping completely isolated from the issue. Iraq should understand that this does not imply a lack of high-level [U.S. government] interest." (Shultz had been chief executive of Bechtel before joining the Reagan administration and is currently a director of the company, which is signing contracts for work in Iraq as fast as U.S. taxes can be allocated.)

Minutes of that meeting and others in which the United States ignored Hussein`s use of banned weapons while extending support to the dictator mock the moral high ground assumed by George W. Bush in defense of his invasion. If, as Bush II says, Hussein acted as a "Hitler" while "gassing his own people," during the 1980s, we were fully aware and implicitly approving, via economic and military aid, of his most nefarious deeds.

Hussein`s crimes were committed on our watch, when he was a U.S. ally, and we knowingly looked the other way. But don`t take my word for it; check out http://www.nsarchive.org .

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched from San Francisco`s Justin Herman Plaza to the Civic Center to protest the possibility of war with Iraq.

Füe alle, die Fotos dieses Jahres suchen:

http://www.sfgate.com/gallery/archive/
http://www.sfgate.com/gallery/

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

With the Olympic Mountains and a Coast Guard ship providing the dramatic backdrop, Adam Vance of Seattle flies high above Puget Sound while kite surfing near Meadow Point. (December 29, 2003)

Helen Thomas ist der (die) Nestor der US-Presse.
Sie ist vergleichbar mit der verstorbenen Gräfin Döhnhoff, ist über 80 Jahre alt, hat schon von Kennedy Pressekonferenzen berichtet.
Wurde bei den seltenen Pressekonferenzen von Bush geschnitten und da bei seinen Pressekonferenzen die Fragen immer vorher eingereicht werden müssen, sind ihre FRagen einfach nicht angenommen worden.
Sie hat sich gerächt mit dem Ausspruch `the worst president ever`, dieser wird bei jeder Gelegenheit von den Bushgegnern zitiert.
Das Zitat:
May 30, 2003
the worst president ever..."
"Bush [the second] is the worst president ever... He is the worst president in all of American history." -- Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspaper Reporter who covered eight US presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to George Bush II.
I was curious to find out if this person is another one of many would be liberal reporters (writers)...it turns out that she is no less than:
The First Lady of the Press, former White House Bureau Chief .




SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/154440_thomas30.html

Some words better left unuttered
Tuesday, December 30, 2003

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Some of the words uttered by very important people in Washington in 2003 are best forgotten.

On the other hand, as we enter an election year, maybe they should be remembered. Many of the official statements were made about the war in Iraq, and the so-called imminent threat Iraqi weapons posed for the United States:


On March 17, three days before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said in an address to the nation: "There is no question we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical."

On May 1, he delivered a war-ending speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California with a banner across the ship reading: "Mission accomplished."

But the death toll approached 470 GIs on Friday and is unlikely to stop climbing anytime soon. The number of combat wounded is 2,679.


In an interview on Dec. 16, television anchorwoman Diane Sawyer pressed Bush on the fact that no unconventional weapons had been found in Iraq some nine months after the search had begun.

Bush kept interjecting: "Yet."

Sawyer persisted, asking about the administration`s flat statements that Saddam had such weapons versus the mere possibility that he could acquire them.

An exasperated Bush replied: "So, what`s the difference?"

Do we really have to explain?


On Oct. 17, Bush gave an interview to Fox News, saying he does not read newspapers.

"The best way to get the news is from objective sources," Bush said. "And the most objective sources I have are the people on my staff who tell me what`s happening in the world."

Objective? Hardly. Protective? Absolutely.


On Dec. 15, after attending more than 30 fund-raisers in recent months to rally the GOP troops, Bush told a news conference: "There is plenty of time ahead for politics. Now is not the time."

Who is he kidding?


Last June, during one of his many church speeches, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin said George W. Bush became president "because God put him there." He also said Islamic extremists hate us "because we are a Christian nation."

Boykin went on to claim that a Muslim warlord in Somalia had been defeated because "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol."

His zealotry smacks of the extremism he hates.


On Jan. 22, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ruffled diplomatic feathers when he referred to France and Germany as the "old Europe" and the former communist nations now in NATO as the "new Europe."

This is the same "old Europe" that stood by us in the Cold War and is now heading up security operations and civil enforcement operations in Afghanistan.


On March 7, Secretary of State Colin Powell 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."

Isn`t it time for Powell to recant?


On Jan. 9, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, "We know for a fact there are weapons (of mass destruction) there."

Any regrets, Ari?


On Dec. 17, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the Bush administration gave a classified intelligence briefing to members of Congress in October 2002 saying Iraq not only had the weapons "but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities." The briefing was held before the vote authorizing the use of force to attack Iraq.

So why the congressional silence -- throughout 2003 -- after being misled into voting for war?


On May 28, in a Vanity Fair interview, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraqi war, told of the administration plotting to sell the war to the American public.

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue -- weapons of mass destruction because it was one reason everyone could agree on."

Honest but appalling.


After a trip to Iraq in late July to check on how the U.S. occupation was going, Wolfowitz warned: "Foreigners should stay out of Iraq."

A little too late, isn`t it?


For credibility, I`ll take former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix. He reminded us on Dec. 23 that there are only two justifications for pre-emptive war: the presence of a threat of armed action credibly documented, and an urgency that does not tolerate delay.

The U.S. action against Iraq met neither test.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Joerver]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/economy/economies.html
Ich wundere mich öfters wieviel anders D vom Ausland aus gesehen wird.

BASF, BMW, Other German Companies Predict Faster Global Growth Next Year
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- BASF AG, the world`s largest chemical producer, carmaker Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Deutsche Post AG are among German companies forecasting a global recovery next year that will help outweigh the effect of a stronger euro.

Nineteen of 21 companies that responded to an annual Bloomberg News questionnaire expect a faster pace of global expansion next year. Fifteen mentioned the U.S. as a driver of growth and 10 named China. The companies have combined annual sales of about 400 billion euros ($500 billion).

``In the U.S., we see that production and demand are rising,`` said Hero Brahms, chief financial officer of Linde AG, Europe`s largest maker of forklifts, in a written response to the survey. ``Increasing demand in Southeast Asia, especially in China, is particularly pleasing.``

The responses show the biggest companies in Germany, Europe`s largest economy, are more optimistic about the outlook for world trade, even as the euro`s 19 percent appreciation against the dollar this year makes their goods more expensive on overseas markets. Seven companies, including Siemens AG and Dresdner Bank AG, said the euro may appreciate further in 2004.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reckons that its 30 member countries, which include the U.S., Japan, Germany, Mexico and South Korea, will grow an average of 3 percent in 2004, up from about 2 percent this year. The U.S. economy expanded an annualized 8.2 percent in the third quarter, and growth in China rose 9.1 percent in the period.

DAX Rebounds

Germany`s recovery from a recession in the first half of the year was dependent on exports, which account for a third of the nation`s gross domestic product. Demand from abroad and cost cuts helped almost two-thirds of the companies on the benchmark DAX 30 index boost earnings in the three months through September.

The DAX, Europe`s worst performing stock benchmark in 2002, has surged 71 percent from a seven-year low reached in March. Commerzbank AG, the country`s third-largest bank, has seen its stock more than double in value this year.

Germany`s trade surplus is set to reach 135 billion euros this year, beating last year`s record, the Federal Statistics Office said today. A 10th of all exports go to the U.S and 2.2 percent to China. Companies are counting on growth from exports, even amid the euro`s rise to a high of $1.2510 yesterday.

Dresdner Bank, the Frankfurt-based banking unit of insurer Allianz AG, forecasts the euro will rise to $1.28 at the end of next year. United Internet AG, a broadband Internet service provider, estimates an exchange rate of $1.30.

Currency Shield

Eight companies said the euro may hurt sales. Linde said nine- month North America sales at its gas unit fell 8 percent when converted into euros. Taken in local currency, sales at the business rose 10 percent. Altana AG, Germany`s fifth-biggest drugmaker, expects the euro to have ``a negative effect`` on sales in 2004, after the currency cut nine-month sales by 7 percent.

Almost half of the companies said they are hedging against currency risks. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, the world`s largest maker of printing machinery, said it`s protected against exchange-rate swings through mid-2005.

``Heidelberg is to a large part hedged against a further weakening of the dollar,`` Chief Executive Officer Herbert Meyer said in the company`s reply. ``In addition, we also have production, sales and service in the U.S., so that our net currency exposure isn`t too big.``

Germany Lags

Bundesbank President Ernst Welteke on Dec. 19 said the effect of the euro`s strength on companies is ``over-estimated,`` as more than 40 percent of Germany`s trade is with the 11 other euro members. Still, third-quarter profit at Volkswagen AG, Europe`s largest carmaker, and BASF fell more than 50 percent, partly because of the euro.

The state of Germany`s economy -- three years of stagnation - - has led executives to reduce reliance on their home market. Ten companies, including retailer Metro Group, said tax and labor changes by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder`s government aren`t enough to spur spending and make the country attractive as a place for business, the survey showed.

``Germany will probably continue to suffer from the unsolved structural problems and therefore grow less strongly then the euro zone as a whole,`` said Bayer AG Chief Executive Officer Werner Wenning. Bayer is the country`s second-biggest drugmaker.

Parliament on Dec. 19 passed laws accelerating by one year tax cuts worth 8.9 billion euros, curbing jobless benefits and easing rules on firing. Retail sales may fall for a third month in five in November, the median forecast of 11 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News showed before a report next week. Unemployment was at 4.36 million that month.

Higher Rates?

The Munich-based Ifo economic institute estimates the German economy will grow 1.8 percent next year after no expansion in 2003, helped by the lowest interest rates since 1876.

Nine companies said the European Central Bank, which sets borrowing costs for the 12 euro members, will probably raise the price of money next year for the first time since October 2000, the survey also showed.

Dresdner Bank, Commerzbank AG, Depfa Bank Plc and Munich Re are among six companies that reckon a rate increase won`t come before the second half. The ECB`s main rate stands at 2 percent.

``Given the moderate outlook for the European economy and the only limited upside risk for inflation, we expect the ECB to leave benchmark rates unchanged for now,`` said Munich Re, the world`s largest reinsurer. ``In the case of a stabilization of the economic environment, a rate increase in the second half is likely.``

The ECB`s 18 policymakers, which next meet to set rates on Jan. 8, have left borrowing costs untouched since June after seven rate cuts since 2001 helped prevent a recession in Europe. At 2 percent, European interest rates are still twice the U.S. Federal Reserve`s main overnight bank lending rate.

The following companies replied to the survey: Altana AG, BASF AG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Bayer AG, Commerzbank AG, Continental AG, Degussa AG, Depfa Bank Plc, Deutsche Post AG, Dresdner Bank AG, Epcos AG, Heidelberger Druck AG, Kampa AG, Koenig & Bauer AG, Linde AG, Metro Group, MTU Aero Engines GmbH, Munich Re, Pfeiffer Vacuum AG, Siemens AG, United Internet AG.

Last Updated: December 30, 2003 03:06 EST

[Joerver]

Jetzt wird auch aus Dodge City (Kansas)zurückgeschossen.
Wie lange hält die Überzeugung, dass die Wirtschaft sich auch für die Beschäftigten und nicht Beschäftigten sich erholt.

Atcheson: Cashing in our future at the Bush pawn shop


Before America allows President Bush to take bows on the economy, let`s take a closer look at this recovery. A simple thought experiment -- the kind former President Reagan used to like to do -- will help.
Imagine for a moment that you took all your credit cards and maxed them out. Now take your mortgage and borrow the maximum on it. Cash in the kid`s college fund, your rainy day savings, your 401(k) retirement savings. While you`re at it, stop paying for your health insurance and the maintenance on your house, your car and your yard. Now take all that money and spend it. Feeling pretty flush? Sure you are. You just pumped tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars into your pocket.

But you`d never do that.

Because you know that just because you`d be living large for the time being, you wouldn`t be wealthier. In fact, you`d be getting poorer by the minute.

And yet, that`s exactly what Bush`s recovery is -- a giant borrowing binge. But he`d rather you didn`t know that. In February, the administration buried a report from its own Treasury Department that said our current fiscal policies, the ones Bush likes to claim are bringing on a "recovery," would create more than $44 trillion in chronic debt.

As the London Financial Times noted, $44 trillion is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. No wonder things seem good. We`ve cashed in everything we own at the Bush Pawn Shop, and now we`re flashing a serious wad of walkin` around money.

The Democrats like to point out that we`re still down some 2.5 million jobs since Bush took over and that, absent a miracle, Bush is likely to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have fewer jobs at the end of his administration than when he took over. But the real story is, how can we not be living even larger, after borrowing all our children`s assets and shrinking the Federal Reserve rate to the lowest level since 1958? What have we got to show for it?

An essentially jobless recovery. Bush likes to say the jobs will come. They`d better. Because right now, all he`s managed to do is spend about $350 billion of "your money" to hire 328,000 checkout clerks and greeters at the local Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, we`ve shipped some 2.6 million high-paying manufacturing jobs overseas since January 2001. Is this a success?

So if we`re cutting taxes by $350 billion a year in order to stimulate the economy and the economy is growing, but we`re only getting an anemic response in employment, what`s up? Kenneth L. Lay`s stock portfolio, for one thing. And the portfolio of those Bush pioneers we hear so much about. And, of course, Bush`s campaign contributions. As for the rest of us?

Bush seems to think people can eat gross domestic product. But a growing economy doesn`t mean a whole lot if it`s not creating jobs. Unless you happen to be Lay or one of those Bush pioneers who don`t need a job to earn money. For them, so long as the rest of us keep mortgaging our future, they can keep getting richer.

Not a surprising result, really. Look at Bush`s economic plan. He says the tax cuts were about "your money." But the truth is, if you`re like 80 percent of Americans, most of the taxes you pay from "your money" are in the form of payroll taxes. And until Bush gave it away, you got "your money" and more back in the form of Social Security, Medicare and disability income.

Lay and his friends pay most of their taxes in the form of income taxes, dividends and capital gains. Guess which ones Bush cut? Not your payroll taxes.

What`s the biggest pot of money subject to double taxation? "Your money" -- the payroll tax. What double taxation did Bush eliminate? Ken and friends` dividend tax. For some reason, Bush thought it was OK for you to be double taxed, but not all right for Ken and his CEO friends. Bottom line: Bush traded away "your money" to give his wealthiest millionaire buddies an annual tax cut of $40,000 or more each.

The Democrats seem to be trembling at the recent numbers on the economy. They shouldn`t. We can`t be a nation of Wal-Mart shoppers if we`re all employed at Wal-Mart. And that`s exactly where Bush`s plan is taking most of us. Democrats should just quit worrying and give credit -- or blame -- where it`s due.


Atcheson has held several policy positions in federal agencies.

Click here to return to story:
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/122903/opi_1229030012.shtm…

[Joerver]

Why Can’t Bubba Vote Democrat?
by Allen Snyder

OpEdNews.Com

‘Bubba’, you may recall, is the generic name for the guy Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean appealed to; the blue-collar white guy with the pick-up, Confederate Flag (if he’s a Southerner – the North has its Bubbas, too), gun rack, spit cup, NASCAR ball cap, ‘I Pledge to One Nation Under God’ bumper sticker, and big chip on his shoulder.

It’s false that people who like NASCAR, Confederate flags, and guns are Bubbas and, being a professional critical thinker, I see the gross overgeneralization involved in saying so. Instead, we’ll say ‘not all NASCAR lovin’ gun toters are Bubbas, but all Bubbas are NASCAR lovin’ gun toters’. It’s the same reasoning used in ‘not all conservatives are stupid people, but all stupid people are conservatives’ (could this be more true?).

There are rich Bubbas and poor Bubbas. Over the last few decades, poor Bubbas have dissed Democrats and elected Republican ‘regular guys’ to our highest elected offices. Now, the GOP carries Southern states routinely and the political pendulum there has swung way to the right.

At least rich Bubbas have an excuse for voting Republican. They have lotsa money and Republicans love helping rich people get richer, especially if they can get poor Bubbas and their yet-to-be-born children to foot the humungous bill, thank ‘em for it, and ask for more.

But what’s Poor Bubba’s excuse? He doesn’t have a pot to piss in. He’s living paycheck to paycheck and up to his eyeballs in debt. Meanwhile, GOP hucksters ram through labor, middle, and lower-class unfriendly legislation that screws him over both economically and politically. Rather than punishing them, poor Bubbas from Savannah to El Paso to Knoxville line up every election to vote for more Republicans.

What’s happened here? It’s trivial to say there’s one and only one cause for Bubba’s changing attitudes, but the reasons aren’t as complicated as you’d think. What attracts Bubba to the GOP is their not-so-closet intolerance, pumping testosterone, and defiant machismo.

You see, Bubba don’t like too many people. He’s got a ‘problem’ with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Asians, Europeans (especially the French), the camel jockeys, towel-heads, fags, Jews, Catholics, atheists, tree-huggers, liberals, commies, and the ACLU. But what he really hates is blacks and women, especially those with power. All Bubbas are dangerously narrow-minded and are either racists, sexists, or homophobes, a combination of these, or in extreme, but not entirely rare instances, a heady mix of all of them (think Senator Santorum – Yikes!).

Bubba tends to like other Confederate flag waving God-fearing Protestants, have a ‘nuke ‘em all to hell’ mentality, trust the government without question (unless it’s full of Goddamn bleedin’ heart liberal Democrats), hate dissenters, like his womenfolk figuratively barefoot/pregnant and literally submissive, and his blacks in their place.

He lives vicariously through military action, a testosterone-fest if ever there was one, imaginarily killing and maiming his way to world dominance.

Pacifists are pussies, the ends justify the means, if you want something – take it, and the USA is #1!

Bubba idolizes Rush and O’Reilly, and thinks Ann Coulter often ‘makes some good points’. They get it. They know him, are him, and feel his pain (they say). They fan his anger and frustration, directing it toward the evil liberals, peaceniks, and Democrats responsible for this national cultural nightmare. They willingly enable his various ‘isms’, phobias, and fears.

Bubba’s afraid he’s lost control, lost power, become a minority in his own country. He’s the victim of an evil liberal plot to de-white the country.

Everybody wants to take him down, make him pay, and the only ones who care are Republicans. ‘It’s OK to hate women, fags, and blacks’, the GOP happily says, ‘we don’t like ‘em, either – and we run the government!’

Democrats, on the other hand, are the party of Civil Rights, blacks, gays, feminism, the environment, international cooperation, and world peace – all things Bubba thinks the world would be better without. Bubba wants and needs the security of being in charge, being top dog, and BushCo’s GOP-sponsored plan for world domination through oppressive fear, bullying intimidation, and manly war neatly fits the bill.

What’s a Democrat to do? As bleak as things seem, you’d think Bubbas were forever lost to the hatemongers on the GOP right. They’re not.

Democrats have to stick to the issues; they can’t let themselves get too tangled up in taking sides in the ‘cultural war’ questions of the day. They can’t get any real mileage out of affirmative action, the pledge of allegiance, and gay marriage, ‘cause the right sings Bubba’s tune on those issues.

But what Bubba doesn’t know is how much he’s been lied to about things he actually cares about – war and the economy. Bubba’s dying in Iraq and being sucked dry at home. The left needs to do more than simply confront Bubba with BushCo’s destructive policies and their hideous consequences. They need to show Bubba how badly BushCo lies about everything and do so unceasingly.

‘Cause if there’s one thing Bubba hates more than being out of beer on game day, it’s being made a fool of.

Allen Snyder is an instructor of Philosophy and Ethics. He can be reached at [e-mail] This article is copyright by Allen Snyder and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Tuesday, December 30, 2003
War News for December 30, 2003 Draft

Jede Meldung ein Link:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring ‘em on: Explosion reported in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: US convoy ambushed in Baghdad. One Iraqi killed, two wounded, including local translator working for US troops.

Bring `em on: Ambush destroys US military vehicle near Fallujah.

Bring `em on: Second US convoy ambushed in Baghdad. One Iraqi civilian killed.

Bring `em on: US soldiers attacked in Mosul.

CENTCOM reports a US soldier died from illness near Beiji.

Analysis: Field-grade Marine officer says it`s time to change tactics in Iraq. "But for every reported military success there are also reports of Sunni Iraqis who are angered by tactics like knocking down doors of houses and shops, demolishing buildings, flattening fruit groves, firing artillery in civilian neighborhoods and isolating large segments of the population with barbed wire fences. Whatever the short-term tactical success of these techniques, they present several problems in America`s long-term effort to win support of the Iraqi people."

Defense Department suspends reconstruction contracting as corruption scandal grows.

Gasoline shortages in Iraq. “The gasoline shortage has been acute in recent weeks, producing long lines of cars at gas stations and undermining confidence in an American-led occupation that is struggling to satisfy basic fuel demands nearly nine months after Saddam Hussein`s regime was toppled.”

As of December 26, 2003, the CPA held 8,732 Iraqi detainees.

Report from Karbala.

German journalist comments on Bush’s War. “I think the window of opportunity for the creation of a new democratic culture is already closed. Now, you have tribal leaderships trying to play a role, the religious leaders and different sects are coming into the game, and everybody is trying to get a slice of the power. It now seems that Washington is not interested in genuine democracy and has abandoned plans for an early democratic programme, because it fears that most Iraqis will vote for the departure of the Americans.”

Interview with Maj. Gen. Eaton.

Weekly report from Iraqi Pipeline Watch.

Wisconsin Guardsmen at Baghdad orphanage. “Lt. Sheree Gunderson, 26, held Mustafa, who has Down syndrome, while keeping an eye on Omar as he rolled around on the carpet. ‘These two are my boys. This one is sick today, otherwise he`s so much fun,’ Gunderson said of Mustafa, who sleepily leaned his head against her neck. ‘I usually make my rounds (with other children) and spoil my two favorites.’”

Analysis: The new year for Iraq. “Having found Saddam Hussein if not his weapons of mass destruction, America will focus in the coming year on curbing the insurgency and building an Iraqi government stable and democratic enough to declare the controversial war a success.”

Powerful NYT story about a wounded soldier and his family.

Crony colonialism in action. Is this kid the best qualified candidate for the job or just the best connected?

Casualty Reports

Local story: Illinois soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Washington State soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Massachusetts soldier dies in Iraq.

Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Three Connecticut Guardsmen wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Massachusetts soldier wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Mississippi soldier injured in Iraq.




Fisher House provides plane tickets for families of wounded soldiers to visit Walter Reed AMC.





# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:20 AM
Comments (3)

[Joerver]

Pentagon freezes Iraq funds amid corruption probes
By Stephen J. Glain, Globe Staff, 12/30/2003

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has frozen new funds approved for Iraqi reconstruction amid growing allegations of corruption and cronyism associated with the rebuilding process.

Companies eager for a stake in the $18.6 billion in fresh postwar funds that Congress approved in November have been told not to expect requests for proposals from the Defense Department, the first step in the kind of ambitious redevelopment slated for the war-torn country. The freeze will almost certainly mean the United States will not issue new contracts until well after the initial Feb. 1 target date.

"We`re on hold and we`ll be on hold until we hear differently," Admiral David Nash, the director of the Pentagon`s Iraq Program Management Office, yesterday told the Engineering News-Record, a construction trade journal. He gave no further details.

The Pentagon also announced last week it would postpone until early January a conference for companies interested in rebuilding Iraq, according to Robyn Powell of the National Defense Industrial Association, which coordinates meetings between industry and the military.

"I don`t know why the conference has been canceled again," Powell told Reuters.

The Pentagon`s decision to delay Iraqi reconstruction is another setback for a process already hobbled by political insecurity and, increasingly, concerns over corruption and misconduct. The success of the US-led bid to remake Iraq politically depends largely on efforts to reverse the country`s chronic unemployment by repairing it economically. But lawmakers in Washington and businesspeople in Iraq say the bidding process lacks transparency and favors a growing class of monopolists and oligarchs that could overwhelm the country`s infant regulatory framework.

"Everyone is focusing on the capture of Saddam Hussein," said Laith Kubba, a former Iraqi dissident who divides his time between Washington, London, and Iraq. "But with Saddam gone the most important thing is the country`s political and economic transformation, and that is being held hostage by vested interests."

Bids for 26 contracts were to be submitted by Jan. 5. But that date has been postponed indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Dec. 18 that it would investigate a controversial contract for an Iraqi cellphone grid, the second such probe into Iraq-related reconstruction.

For weeks, Iraqi businesspeople and officials had been calling for an investigation into the three telephone contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars that the US-led coalition awarded in October to three Arab consortia. Work on the networks, considered crucial to the rebuilding of Iraq, should have been well underway by now and service set to be up and running by spring. Construction has not yet begun.

The cellphone probe followed by one week a Pentagon investigation into whether Brown & Root Services overcharged by $61 million for fuel it brought into Iraq from Kuwait. Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the oil giant Vice President Dick Cheney once chaired, is doing a variety of petroleum-related work in Iraq under a no-bid contract the government issued in March. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The investigations highlight the need, according to lawmakers and businesspeople, for a credible watchdog authority to keep an eye on how money for reconstruction, dominated by Halliburton and engineering giant Bechtel Group, is spent.

The Washington office of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-led organization in charge of the Iraqi occupation, did not return calls for comment.

Since it was ruled under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago, the Iraqi economy has been dominated by a dozen or so merchant families. These clans, active in everything from farming to finance, survived the Hussein regime with their fortunes more or less intact. With Iraqi business still desperate for cash, the big merchant families are bankrolling smaller companies bidding for rebuilding work in exchange for a share of profits.

"All of this is going on under the surface," attorney Timothy Mills, who was active in the rehabilitation of former east bloc economies, said in congressional testimony last month after returning from Iraq. "We don`t see it and the US government doesn`t see it. All they see is the price."

The US government and the International Finance Corp., the lending arm of the World Bank, say they have made available hundreds of millions of dollars for small to mid-sized businesses in Iraq. In addition to new sources of capital, Iraqi businesspeople say they want enhanced oversight and regulation over the subcontracting process to prevent larger players from tilting the awards in their favor.

"Otherwise, the next round of bidding is going to be more corrupt than the first," said an Iraqi consultant to US telecommunications companies with offices in Baghdad and Washington. "The clans have always done this, but now it`s a hundred times worse."

Stephen J. Glain can be reached at [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Iraq Pipeline Watch
http://www.iags.org/n122903.htm
Attacks on Iraqi pipelines, oil installations, and oil personnel:

1. June 12 — attack along the 600 mile (960km) pipeline that carries crude oil from Iraq`s northern fields near Kirkuk to Turkey`s port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea
2. June 19 — explosion in Bayji refinery complex about 125 miles (200km) north of Baghdad
3. June 22 — explosion in natural gas line near Hit, a city about 95 miles (152 km) northwest of Baghdad
4. June 23 - gas pipeline explosion outside the town of Abidiyah Gaarbiga, near the Syrian border in western Iraq
5. June 24 — explosion near Barwanah pipeline carries crude to al-Dawrah refinery in Baghdad
6. June 26 — explosion near Al-Fatha near the River Tigris
7. July 29 — attack on pipeline near Basra
8. July 31 - saboteurs blew up part of a pipeline near Bayji
9. August 12 — attack near al-Taji near Baghdad
10. August 15 - explosion near Bayji
11. August 16 - explosion near Bayji
12. September 8 — attack on pipeline from the Jabour oil field 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Kirkuk to the main pipeline that originates there
13. September 18 - attack on pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan
14. October 11 - attack on pipeline from Zab to Kirkuk
15. October 16 - pipeline explosion near the city of Hadeetha, 125 miles (200 km)northwest of Baghdad
16. October 23 - explosion near natural gas pipeline 30 miles (48 km) south of Mosul
17. October 23 - bombing attack on an oil pipeline 150 miles (240 km) north of Baghdad
18. November 1 - explosion at oil pipeline about 9 miles (15 km) north of Tikrit
19. November 4 - explosion at a pipeline plant in Zumar, 38 miles (60 km) northwest of Mosul
20. November 10 - Mohammed al-Zibari, distribution manager for the Oil Distribution Company was shot and wounded in the northern city of Mosul in what seems to be the first assassination attempt on officials from an Iraqi oil firm. Zibari`s son was killed in the attack. Zibari told Reuters, "Three people opened fire with AK-47s. My driver saw them and so did my bodyguard," adding "Definitely foreign regime loyalists are responsible for this. I have no personal enemies, no tribal or family problems, and I`m not a member of any political party."
21. November 17 - blast 1.2 miles (2 km) east of the Bayji refinery, at a pipeline taking fuel oil to the Daura refinery, in the southern suburb of Baghdad. Resulting damage on the power supply line to the 300,000 barrels per day Bayji refinery, located 156 miles (250 km) north of Baghdad, forced a 2 day electricity shutdown.
22. November 18 - explosion on oil pipeline in the region of Mashruh al-Therthar, south-west of the city of Samarra. The feeds the Daura refineries in Baghdad.
23. November 22 - Abdel Salam Qanbar, an Iraqi police colonel in charge of security for oil installations in the northern city of Mosul was shot and killed by unknown attackers in a vehicle.
24. November 22 - club inside the Iraqi Northern Oil Company compound in Kirkuk, 150 miles (240 km) north of Baghdad, was hit during the night by mortar shells wounding three foreign nationals.
25. November 23 - blast on a pipeline transporting gas from the Jambur oil field to the Bayji refinery caused fire so huge its glow at night is visible from Kirkuk, 19 miles (30 km) north of Jambur.
26. November 26 - oil pipeline linking oilfields in northern Iraq to the Bayji refinery on fire near the village of Sharqat, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Bayji.
27. December 9 - explosion on a gas pipeline that runs from Kirkuk to a bottled gas factory north of Baghdad.
28. December 10 - explosion at point 84 miles (135 km) west of Kirkuk on oil pipeline linking the Bayji and Daura refineries.
Watch video
29. December 19 - blaze on a pipeline south of Baghdad causing significant leakage.
30. December 20 - rocket-propelled grenades hit storage tanks in southern Baghdad on Saturday; resulting fires burned about 2.6 million gallons of gasoline.
31. December 20 - rocket-propelled grenades cause pipeline explosion in the al-Mashahda area 15 miles (24 km) north of Baghdad.
32. December 21 - explosion on pipeline in the al-Mashahda region, 30 miles (50 km) north Baghdad.
33. December 21 - pumping station near Bayji refinery attacked with mortars.
34. December 22 - explosion at 3:30 pm (1230 GMT) in Riad about 28 miles (45 km) west of Kirkuk, on fuel pipeline between Kirkuk`s oilfields and Iraq`s biggest refinery in Baiji, parallel to the crucial pipeline between Kirkuk and the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
35. December 22 - fire on pipeline supplying Bayji refinery with crude from the oil fields of Kirkuk at point about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of refinery.

[Joerver]

The Bush Family Fortunes
The BBC and Greg Palast, Investigate the Bush family scandals

Video:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4115.htm

‘Frauds-R-Us’
The Bush Family Saga
Part II - Part I Here
By William Bowles


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3255.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3308.htm

[Joerver]

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Skydivers Trust Homer over President

By Jane Kirby, PA News

People considering a tandem skydive would trust cartoon character Homer Simpson over US president George Bush, according to research published today.
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2354070